Jump, Savta, Jump

I’ve got jump ropes on my mind. I woke up this morning with an old elementary school primer running through my head.

"Jump, Savta, jump."
"Look, Jerry. See Savta jump."
The next line should have been:
"See Savta jump high."

In my imagination, however, the word "high" was crossed out with a thick black marker.

Let's just say that if you blinked, you probably would have missed the exact moment both of my feet were technically off the ground. 

The funny thing is, this isn't my first attempt at becoming a jump-roper.

JUMPING ROPE WHEN YOU’RE YOUNG

About ten years ago, when I was still young (I was only sixty), my granddaughters Arielli and Galya decided that I should learn to jump rope. I honestly can't remember why. Did they want me to have as much fun as they were having? Or did they already understand the importance of building bone density? (Um…no…What four- and eight-year-olds think about that?)

Really, I don't remember. I'll have to ask them.

I do remember that I occasionally succeeded in getting my feet over the rope. But apparently, I wasn't determined enough, because eventually we became interested in other things and my jump-rope career came to an end.

Fast-forward ten years.

JUMPING ROPE WHEN YOU’RE OLD

Now, at seventy, with my jumps and hops becoming more difficult (read: almost non-existent) in tap class, I decided it was time to try again.

So, I poured out my non-jumping heart to my amazing physical therapist, Dara Saker, and she looked at me and said one simple word:

"Jump."

I stared at her face with a very puzzled expression, as if she had suddenly started speaking Chinese. What? "Jump."

Who tells a seventy-year-old to jump?

"I can't jump," I told her. She looked at me confidently. "You can, and you will."
"I really don't think I can."
"Jump. Jump right now. DO YOU WANT TO JUMP IN TAP OR NOT? Jump!"

So I jumped. Thirty times. Not high. In fact, you probably couldn't slide a penny underneath my feet while I was theoretically off the floor. But I jumped.

According to Dara, that counts.

Then she hung two thick exercise bands from the chin-up bars, instructed me to hold on tightly, and told me to jump again. It was almost like jumping on a trampoline. 

Apparently, I was smiling. "You're having fun, aren't you?" she asked.

Now, everyone knows that you should never admit that anything in physical therapy is fun, because that is the last time you will be allowed to do it.

But between us...
...it was kind of fun.

On Friday, while preparing for Shabbat, I was alone in my kitchen. So I jumped. Thirty times. Still not even close to penny height. But I jumped.

And then came my next lesson in jumping.

MORE JUMPING

Today, during warm-ups at Senior Women's Dance, our teacher Judy Kizer called out slowly: 
"Jump out, hands down."
"Jump in, hands up."

A studio full of women in their sixties and seventies froze. The expressions on our faces looked exactly like those crazy-eyed WhatsApp emojis. Was she telling us to do jumping jacks? Apparently, she was.

We were awkward. We looked at one another. We laughed. But we tried. Because if Judy said we should do it, she probably believed we could.

Two times. Not twenty. Two. But we did. And that was enough.

Somewhere between Dara's "Jump!" and Judy's "Jump!" I realized something. Maybe the hardest part of jumping isn't getting your feet off the floor. Maybe it's believing that you can, or not yet believing and trying to do it anyway.

So I've made a decision. I'm buying a jump rope.

When I mentioned this to my nine-year-old granddaughter, Yumi, she immediately informed me, "Savta, you need to get a jump rope with weights."

How does a nine-year-old know about weighted jump ropes? I have no idea. But I have learned that children often know things we adults haven't figured out yet.

By family vacation, IY"H, maybe my granddaughters and I will all be jumping together. They'll soar over their ropes. I'll celebrate every glorious penny-height jump. And while they laugh and jump, I'll sing the old jump-rope song from my childhood, “On the mountain, there’s a lady. Who she is I do not know...”

They will have no idea what I'm singing about. They will probably think Savta is silly. And they will laugh.

And maybe that's what growing older gracefully is really about. Not jumping as high as you once could. Just never deciding that you are finished jumping.

See Savta jump.

The Best Seat in the House

Few events have the power to transform dignified, kind mothers and grandmothers into a tightly packed, elbow-dodging, phone-wielding, camera-ready audience quite like a preschool end-of-year performance.

I arrived early, but the other mothers and grandmothers had clearly mastered the system - they had arrived even earlier. I found myself in the last row.

The classroom had been divided neatly in two: one half for the “stage,” and one half for the audience forty mothers and grandmothers packed into a space that felt designed for about twelve people and a coat rack. I settled into my seat and quickly realized I would be spending the next hour in intimate relationship with the backs of heads, raised smartphones, and the occasional strategic elbow.

Everyone was trying to be polite (I mean, they’re each going to meet eventually at the supermarket and the fruit store). Everyone was also, very clearly, trying to see her own child. The result was a kind of gentle chaos - subtle shifting, standing, re-standing, leaning, and the occasional quiet gymnastics routine to attain the perfect angle.

The teacher, meanwhile, was performing what can only be described as a one-woman miracle. She moved through the “stage” half of the room at lightning speed - straightening braids, adjusting bright yellow hats, tying neckerchiefs, placing props, repositioning small chairs, and quietly recalibrating entire human beings before sending them back into formation.

It was impossible not to watch her in awe. She looked less like a preschool teacher and more like the stage manager of a Broadway production - except the cast members were five years old and occasionally distracted by their own shoelaces.

The music would begin, and suddenly the girls would transform: sailors, picnickers, cheerful preschoolers performing carefully rehearsed hand motions. Well… most of them. A few were clearly improvising their own artistic interpretations, while others seemed mainly interested in locating their families in the audience and confirming their existence.

And then, just as everyone began to relax into the performance, there would be a pause. A long one. The kind of pause during which every adult in the room tried very hard not to calculate how many minutes of costume change had just passed, while simultaneously pretending not to notice that everyone else was doing exactly that.

And still, nobody sat down. Because of course, the moment you sit, that’s when your child will appear.

And just when I thought I might finally catch a clear view, the mothers in front of me would rise even higher on their toes, because the children were taking their place.

Every.
Single.
Time.

At one point, I found myself peering through the crook of someone’s elbow to catch a glimpse of my granddaughter. The arm was positioned so perfectly it practically framed her face, like an accidental art installation titled “Child, Partially Visible Through Elbow.”

I even took a photo of it. Proof that I had, in fact, witnessed something - just not necessarily in the way the performance was intended.

And then … Disaster struck.

DISASTER

Not the kind of disaster you expect. No falling off the stage. No forgotten choreography. Something far more serious in a room full of mothers trying to maintain composure.

A little girl in the back row sneezed.

It was not a small sneeze. It was the kind of sneeze that carries across a classroom and immediately changes the emotional weather in the room.

Her hands flew up to her face. The singing continued, but she froze - completely still, trying to contain the situation while also remembering she was, technically, supposed to be performing.

For a split second, nobody moved.

Forty mothers and grandmothers sat in collective suspended animation, all thinking the same thing: Do we do something? Is someone handling this?

The teacher, of course, was still backstage, completely unaware that an emergency had just occurred in full view of the audience.

And then - almost as one unified organism - the mothers opened their bags. Hands rummaged. Tissues appeared as if summoned. A brief moment of silent coordination, the kind that doesn’t need planning but somehow always works.

And then a grandmother rose.

She made her way through the chairs, stepped into the performance space without hesitation, and gently took charge. One tissue. One small intervention. A nose blown. A situation resolved.

And just like that, everything continued with the little girl joining the singing, and the audience exhaling in collective relief. Because truly - it could have been anyone’s child.

And in that moment, it felt like everyone understood: the performance had not been disrupted at all. It had simply paused for something more important.

THE FINALE

Then came the grand finale.

With great pomp and circumstance, two little girls - one of them, my granddaughter - rolled a giant red and white gift box into the center of the “stage.” The music softened. The audience leaned forward in unison. Even the elbows paused for a moment of suspense.

This was it. The big reveal. The culmination of weeks of rehearsal, costume changes, braids, hats, neckerchiefs, and carefully choreographed hand motions.

What would it be? Confetti? Treasure? Something magical?

The box opened.

And out came… a balloon. One single balloon.

For a moment there was silence, as if everyone was recalibrating their expectations. And then the room erupted into applause. Because, of course! In that moment, it felt entirely right. A balloon was exactly enough.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I had given up on seeing everything properly. I had stopped trying to navigate the forest of raised phones and shifting shoulders and simply accepted my new role as part of the audience infrastructure.

WILD WAVING

Every now and then, I stood up and waved wildly toward my granddaughter like a slightly unhinged air traffic controller guiding a very small plane toward landing.

And then she saw me. Her face lit up. She grinned.

That one grin cut straight through everything - the elbows, the phones, the chaos, the blocked view. It didn’t matter that I had barely seen the performance. I had seen her see me.

On the way home, I realized something very simple. I hadn’t really watched a performance. I had watched love in a crowded room. And somehow, that was more than enough.

Next Sunday, God willing, I’ll be back again - this time for my two-year-old granddaughter’s end-of-year performance.

I already know the rules.

I’ll arrive early. It won’t be early enough. I’ll find a seat. It won’t really be a seat. I’ll film things I can’t quite see. And I’ll wave like a maniac just to make sure she knows I’m there.

And I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Because these little classrooms are not really classrooms at all. They’re tiny theaters where the stars are very small… and the love is very big.

Hearts and Soles

For the first time in twenty years, the Dames of the Dance family stood inside one of its projects.

Some of the husbands came too.

Hopefully, the next time the dishes sit in the sink while their wives run off to dance, they'll skip the sigh. They've seen what it's all for.

Last Sunday, more than twenty dancers, choreographers, and supporters gathered at Merkaz Chossen, a therapy center dedicated to healing the emotional wounds of our chayalim and their families. We came to see the Five Senses Therapy Garden - a garden that our dancing helped build. We walked through it together, and I don't think there was a dry eye in the place. Which, considering we were standing in a garden, felt entirely appropriate.

Almost everyone, at some point, has felt the quiet frustration of wanting to make a difference but not knowing where to begin. The need is everywhere. The desire is genuine. But between the impulse and the action, there's a gap that can feel impossible to cross. Where do I start? What do I have to offer?

WHAT CAN I DO?

Dames of the Dance 1

I know that feeling well. Twenty years ago, at the age of 50, I walked into Judy Kizer's tap class as a complete beginner. Not a dancer. Not a choreographer. Just a woman who loved music and thought moving her feet to a beat counted as dancing. (Judy was very patient.)

And somewhere between the shuffles and the ball-changes, a thought took shape: if we love to dance this much, maybe our dancing could do some good in the world. It seemed almost too simple. But simple ideas, powered by heart and determination - and sensible shoes - have a way of surprising you.

Twenty years later, B"H, Dames of the Dance has raised 580,000 shekels for causes across Gush Etzion and beyond - food campaigns, trauma centers, youth at risk programs, lone soldiers, brides from Gush Katif, farms in need, children with special needs, senior citizens' programs, and now a garden dedicated to the healing of our chayalim and their families.

Five hundred and eighty thousand shekels. From a tap class and many other dance classes from Jerusalem, Bet Shemesh, Efrat and Kiryat Arba.

Most of us weren't professionals. We have simply been women of every age - beginners and veterans, young and not-so-young - who decided to take something we love and use it for good. Women who occasionally left the dishes in the sink. Women whose husbands occasionally sighed. Women who danced anyway.

DANCE AT EVERY STAGE

And here is my favorite part of the story: I am now 70 years old. My taps may be a little slower these days, but I am still out there on that stage, doing my very best to hang in there with the yungins. They are kind enough not to mention it.

Because this is what I have learned at every stage of my life - it is never too late to begin, and it is never too late to keep going.

At the Therapy Garden dedication ceremony, I tried to put it simply: Dames of the Dance has
never been just about dancing. It has always been about taking something we love and using it to help others. We do it with music. We do it with friendship. We do it with caring. We do it with our hearts.

And yes ... we do it with our soles.

The lesson of Dames is not "go take a dance class." The lesson is this: you already have what you need. A talent, a passion, a skill, a love - something that makes you come alive. The gap between wanting to help and actually helping is shorter than you think.

You just have to be willing to take the first step.

Even if that step is a tap.

GRADUATION EPILOGUE

 Life, it seems, has a sense of humor.

After writing about graduation tickets being rationed like wartime milk, and after graciously accepting my fate as a member of the Grandparent Standing-Room-Only Division, we received a phone call at 6:10 PM.

Extra tickets for the 7 PM graduation.

Not only did Sabba and I get to go, but we brought my sister and brother-in-law, as well.

We didn't sit together. That didn't matter. We were there.

We watched our granddaughter graduate from eighth grade. We watched the graduation show. Well, to be completely honest, I watched a two-hour eighth-grade show with the special superpower granted only to grandparents: the ability to feel nachas through absolutely anything.

My granddaughter wasn't on stage most of the time. She was an MC, and then backstage, moving scenery, helping the production run smoothly, making sure everything happened when and where it was supposed to happen.

The audience saw the show. I saw her.

And when it was over, she came out from backstage, smiling and happy. We took pictures. We hugged. We celebrated.

So perhaps the lesson is this:

Sometimes we don't get the ticket. And sometimes, just when we've made peace with not getting the ticket, four extra tickets appear. Either way, the joy is the same.

Mazal tov, sweetheart. What a privilege it is to watch you grow.

Savta’s Graduation

This year, five of my grandchildren are graduating. B"H. Mazel tov. Two from high school and three from elementary school.

Naturally, everyone is focused on the graduates. There will be ceremonies, speeches, photographs, hugs, and enough cake to feed a small country — assuming, of course, you made the guest list.

(A topic for another essay: graduation tickets are apparently rationed like milk during the war. Three tickets, five tickets, never quite enough to go around. And somehow it’s always the grandparents who quietly volunteer to sit this one out. Which is fair, really. We had our turn. We sat through our own children’s graduations, performances, and several questionable haircuts in between. Let the siblings have the seats. Let them be the ones who get to stare at their brother or sister crossing that stage and think, that’s going to be me someday. We’ll be home, holding down the fort and the apple chips, perfectly content.)

I’M GRADUATING TOO

But I feel like I’m graduating too.

The high schoolers are deep in conversations about careers, national service, learning — all very serious, very adult, very forward-looking. They are gazing into the future.

I, meanwhile, am gazing into the past. Not sadly. Just with a sort of stunned “wait, when did this happen?” squint.

These are the same children who once sat on my couch eating snacks and playing board games. The same children who begged for just one more story. The same children who considered an afternoon with Savta the single greatest entertainment option available to mankind. Now they have friends. Plans. Phones. Lives.

Apparently, I am no longer the center of the social universe. I would like to formally note that I was not consulted about this decision. I assume there was a meeting.

The elementary school graduates are not much better. They’ve entered that mysterious in-between age - practicing for high school the way understudies practice for a part they haven’t been cast in yet.

Suddenly they are very busy. Very cool. Very above it all.

Rummikub with Savta now loses to hanging out with friends. A kiss in public has become a diplomatic incident requiring advance written notice. And being “shmooshed” - once a privilege, like a royal title - has been quietly revoked, no explanation given.

The children are graduating from childhood. And I am graduating from being the grandmother of little children.

BECOMING SOMEONE NEW

At first this made me sad. Then I realized something: every stage of grandparenting requires us to become somebody new. (Nobody warns you about this. There should be a pamphlet.)

First we are grandparents of babies. Then of toddlers. Then come the playgrounds, the storybooks, the sleepovers, the game nights, and the truly heroic quantities of nosh.

And then, before we’re quite ready, the job changes.

Perhaps it means fewer board games and more coffee dates. Fewer bedtime stories and more real conversations. Fewer hugs in public, more texts that simply say, “Hi.”

(In their language, that’s a big deal. It means they paused, mid-conversation, while sitting on the steps with friends laughing at who knows what, to think of me for one second. That one second means more than they could possibly know.)

Well, I’m still figuring it out. But then again, so are they. Which is a comforting thought.

GROWING UP AT EVERY AGE

Maybe growing up isn’t something that only happens to children. Maybe grandparents have to keep growing too - finding new ways to love people who no longer fit in our laps, but who will always fit in our hearts.

The good news is that I still have a few little ones around who think the couch, the swing, and the park are their happy place. So, I haven't been entirely retired. 

I’ve simply been promoted to the next stage - a stage I didn’t apply for, but am apparently very qualified for, having already survived several stages with their parents.

Because really, what greater blessing is there than watching the children you love become exactly who they were always meant to be?  

I may miss the little hands, the bedtime stories, the days when visiting Savta was a special occasion. But I would not trade the joy of watching them grow - not even for one more uninterrupted hour of “Ticket to Ride”, and not even for a graduation ticket.

So mazal tov, my dear graduates. You are beginning a new chapter. And it seems Savta is too. We’ll learn this one together.

DONKEY EPILOGUE

 

Several readers have inquired about the donkey. Really. So, I'll tell you all.

The donkey came.

She is black and white, and her name is Storm.

For the past two days, my ten-year-old grandson has been waiting patiently for her to settle into her new home. Well, perhaps "patiently" is not quite the right word. He is checking on her approximately every three minutes.

Storm is taking her time getting used to her surroundings.

My grandson is counting the seconds until she will let him be her best friend. So, one of them is learning to trust. The other is learning to wait.

I think they are both going to be just fine.

The Witch of the World

For twenty-three years, I have been the most wonderful grandmother in the world. At least in my own mind.

I was the fun grandmother. The generous grandmother. The exciting grandmother. Every visit sparkled. Every outing was an adventure. Every grandchild was brilliant, adorable, hilarious, and perfect. Anything they wanted was granted. The sun rose and set on them.

Then came this past week.

Their parents went away, and suddenly I wasn't the visiting grandmother anymore. I was the one in charge. And let me tell you something. The transformation was not pretty.

A few months ago, I played the Witch of Ein Dor on stage in the musical David. This week I became the Witch of the World … and I wasn't acting.

"Don't hit him."
"Get back into bed."
"Finish your dinner."
"No, you cannot watch that."
"You took it. Eat it."

THE GRANOLA BAR AFFAIR

Take, for example, the Granola Bar Affair. "Can I have a granola bar?" "I don't think you'll like it." "Yes!! I will!" "If you take it, you have to eat it." "I want it!"

He took it. He tasted it. His face did something I have previously only seen on people taking medicine. "You took it. You eat it."

That granola bar sat on the table. For two days. A monument to poor decision-making. Every time he walked past it, I reminded him: when you choose something, you eat it.

By the second day, even I was tired of looking at it. "Okay," I said. "If you really don't like it, let's throw it out. But what's our lesson here?" "Don't take something you won't eat." "Exactly."

WHERE IS SUPER SAVTA?

Every night I went to sleep wondering what had happened to Super Savta. Where was the woman who bought ice pops and read stories and played endless games? Who was this cranky person who seemed to spend the entire day enforcing rules?

Then last night I figured it out.

For one week, I wasn't really a grandmother. I was a mother-substitute. The fun grandmother's job is simple: spoil, spoil, spoil. She gets to arrive with treats, hugs, and stories. The mother-substitute has a different job description:
Keep them safe.
Keep them fed.
Keep them clean.
Keep them healthy until their parents come home.

Somewhere during the week, I remembered that I used to be a pretty strict mother. Apparently those skills were not lost. They had simply been dormant for a few decades.

AND SHE’S BACK

Fortunately, on Shabbat with my grandchildren's help, I regained some of my Savta Mojo. We played. We lost. We won. We laughed. We read books. That felt much more familiar.

And then, just to keep things interesting, came the Donkey Saga.

I was hit with an unexpected "situation." My grandson had apparently bought a donkey - or he thought he bought a donkey or maybe he only bid on a donkey, nobody was entirely sure - and he had spent the whole day worrying that it would be delivered to the farm near his school while he wasn't there to greet it.

I could have said, "I am not chasing a possible donkey that we don’t even know is yours. Let's just go home." And honestly, that would have been a reasonable thing to say. But he was so nervous and so excited, I couldn't let him down.

So when we left my house and went back to his town today, before we even checked on his actual, currently-living-with-us dog, we drove to the farm to see if the donkey had arrived.

It hadn't. And we stood there, the two of us, looking at an empty patch of farm where a possible-donkey was not. He was disappointed, but at that moment, he knew I wanted to come through for him.

Still, I worried that the grandchildren would remember me as Strict Savta, the Witch of the World, the one who said:
"You cannot lick it and put it back."
"Do not leave your bed."
"I'm not telling you again."

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

So I decided to ask them a question. "What did you learn this week with Savta?" I expected silence. Instead, I got four answers.
"Only take what you will eat."
"Do not fight."
"Sleep is important."
"Clean up after yourself."

And just like that, I realized something. The children had not spent the week listening to my nagging. They had spent the week learning lessons. Simple lessons, perhaps. But not bad ones.

In fact, if every adult in the world followed those four rules, life would probably run much more smoothly.

So maybe Super Savta didn't disappear after all. Maybe she was simply wearing a disguise. For one week, she served as Acting Minister of Nutrition, Laundry, Conflict Resolution, and Bedtime Enforcement. And according to the children, who are as always brilliant, adorable, hilarious, and perfect, she did a pretty good job.

The truth is that love does not always look like ice cream and adventures. Sometimes it looks like, "No, you may not lick it and put it back."

And that counts too.