CHASING THOSE ELUSIVE 10,000 STEPS

It’s 10:22 PM. My pedometer says 7,089 steps.

That’s AMAZING for me. Amazing!

Truthfully, some days it says 4,052. But tonight I’m sitting here, looking at that number and thinking, “Should I walk up and down the hallway a few more times? Maybe I can get another 500 steps in before bedtime.”

Really? Will it make a difference? All those health articles tell us seniors that we should walk. It’s good for our blood pressure, our sugar, our weight, our hearts, and just about everything else that keeps us ticking.

Well, I can’t say I’ve noticed a difference yet, but I’ve only been chasing steps for about a month. Perhaps I need to give it a little more time.

I remember when I first got my pedometer. I thought it was broken. At the end of a very long day, I looked at the little screen. It read 459. FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY-NINE!

I told my husband, “This pedometer must be broken. It says 459 steps, and it’s supposed to say something like 10,000!” He patiently explained, “You can only rack up steps by walking. Working on the computer doesn’t add any steps to your pedometer.”

A GIANT EPIPHANY!

Apparently, sitting at the computer writing, researching, answering emails, and generally keeping the world turning doesn’t count as exercise. Who knew?

So I began taking this business seriously.

I put on my pedometer the moment I woke up. I wore it to the store. I wore it to the living room, where I walked back and forth three times before picking up plastic cups from the corner cabinet. I wore it to the park with my grandchildren.

There, I watched them play while I sat on a park bench. The grandchildren got plenty of exercise. I got plenty of nachas. My pedometer got almost nothing.

I even wore it to tap dancing.

DID YOU KNOW THAT AN HOUR OF TAP DANCING ADDS ONLY ABOUT 800 STEPS? EIGHT HUNDRED!

How can that be? All that shuffling, flapping, clicking, concentrating, and trying not to fall over, and I only get 800 steps?

Turns out, a good tap class involves a lot of watching and learning before the taps get going. That’s what makes us good, but it doesn’t do much for the step count. I think my pedometer needs to take a tap class.

ONLINE WALKING

My sister suggested online walking videos and recommended Leslie Sansone. I love her! Her videos are about six years old, so technically she’s been encouraging me from the past. And does she encourage! “Great job! You’re doing it!” Nobody in my house says that. I would do the whole video just for the compliments.

Then I discovered Get Fit with Rick, who films his walking sessions on a pier in Dubai. Rick has the sea behind him. I have the linen closet behind me. (That’s the closest I’ll ever get to Dubai!)

Both promise to add about 2,000 steps to your day. Except my pedometer registered about 490.

EXCUSE ME? Where did the other 1,510 steps go? Did they get lost somewhere between Leslie’s space and mine?

I decided that perhaps I needed something a little more entertaining. I took down the skirts and tops that had been hanging on my treadmill (yes, my treadmill had become a very expensive clothes hanger) and started walking there, too.

And that’s when I made an amazing discovery.

If I walked while watching Columbo, I could rack up about 4,000 steps. Murder, She Wrote got me about 4,900. And a movie musical? MORE THAN 5,000!

Now we’re talking!

I’m beginning to think that the secret to good health is not necessarily a personal trainer. It’s finding the right television program.

And then there was THE DAY.

I honestly don’t think I will EVER get to 10,000 steps. I don’t think it’s physically possible for me. But ONE TIME, I thought I alllllllllmost made it. I looked at my pedometer and nearly jumped with joy. (I’m still trying to learn to jump.)

It said 9,519! NINE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN!

I immediately WhatsApped a picture to the kids. “Great job, Ema!” “Hooray, Savta!” “Go, Savta!”

The family was cheering me on! I sat there gazing at my pedometer, almost with tears in my eyes. I was practically Rocky Balboa at the top of the Philadelphia steps, arms in the air, waiting for the crowd to go wild.

And then... I realized something.

THE PEDOMETER WAS UPSIDE DOWN.

It didn’t say 9,519. It said 6,156. SIX THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SIX.

Okay, that’s nothing to sneeze at. But somehow, it wasn’t quite the Olympic achievement I had imagined. I did not correct the family group chat. I just kept it in my heart. And for a few glorious moments, I was Rocky Balboa.

I still have one question. Why is it that after an entire day of running around, I can find myself at 10:22 PM wondering whether I should march up and down the hallway a few more times?

So tonight, I actually did. I walked up and down the bedroom hallway a few times and added another 125 steps. I am now the proud owner of 7,214 steps.

I don’t know if I’ve lowered my blood pressure, improved my sugar, or lost an ounce. But I have certainly learned that getting 10,000 steps is not as easy as those articles make it sound.

Tomorrow, IY"H, I’ll put on my pedometer again. Maybe I’ll watch a musical.

And if you happen to see a woman marching up and down her hallway at 10:30 at night, don’t worry. She’s not lost. She’s just trying to get her steps in.

All I Know, I Got from a Fifth Grader

It’s been years since I’ve watched a TV game show, but I always wondered how those contestants were so genius-y. They knew all these random details that had me scratching my head. I’d heard that game show questions were generally on a fifth- or sixth-grade level, so HOW did the rest of us manage to get through elementary school without knowing the answers?

Well, this past Shabbat, as I listened to the reading of Bereishit (Genesis), the first portion of the Torah, I suddenly found myself thinking, “Biblical Waters for 100 points!”

And popping into my head were the names of the rivers that flowed out of the Garden of Eden. Pishon. Gichon. Chidekel. Prat. I could answer those questions in my sleep.

Actually, I DID answer them in my sleep 36 years ago. My son Moshie was studying for a Second Grade Bible Quiz, and I was right there with him. How many years was Joseph in prison? Name the sons of Jacob in order of their birth. He drilled Biblical facts day and night, and so did I.

As the Torah reading continued, my mind wandered through the many things I know today, thanks to Moshie and his siblings. And I began thinking about how much I have learned over the years from my children’s elementary school education.

Lessons Learned

I may not know much about Gemara, but I do know the beginning of Bava Metzia. I can even translate the words in that familiar singsong melody used in yeshivot throughout the world. Thanks to Micha’s fifth-grade studies, I am practically an expert.

“Aileh metzios shelooo… These findings are hiiiis. V’aileh chayiv lehachris… And these he must annouuuunce.”

If anyone finds a lost item, I know exactly what he should do with it. Who needs a law degree?

Natah was a wonderful student, but what his teachers loved, and what I learned so much from, was his habit of beginning every term paper by thanking the teacher or rabbi who had assigned it. Who wouldn’t look favorably upon a paper that begins with a little appreciation? Natah may have been the student, but I was taking notes!

I can also tell you a thing or two about the laws of slave ownership, thanks to a book I read with my then-fifth-grade son Mati. It was Ithamar by Marcus Lehmann, and what a thrilling story!

A scheming slave frames his master’s son for rebelling against Rome, and the son is shipped off as a galley slave. Years later, he returns home to find his father dead and the slave in possession of everything. But the son is allowed to choose just one possession to reclaim.

He chooses the slave. And since whatever a slave owns belongs to his master, that one choice gets him everything back.

It was Mati’s and my favorite book back then, and I still think about it today. Apparently, I even came away with a little Roman history and property law along the way!

Bati’s elementary school education gave me something else entirely: a love of poetry.

Her wonderful English teacher had the children memorize classic poems, and some of those words have stayed with me for decades. I may not remember all of Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!”, but I can still recite the beginning:

“O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won.”

And Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” still lives somewhere in my head:

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

I can’t promise the rest, but I’ll recite it with great confidence.

My children have grown, B”H, but apparently my education is far from over.

I’m now something of an expert on Hiroshima, thanks to one granddaughter’s term paper. I also know quite a bit about how people imagined the future back in 1951, thanks to another grandchild’s class project. Between the two, I’m now an expert on exactly six years of the twentieth century.

Reading, Writing, Arithmetic

And then there are the books! I have rediscovered, time and again, the wonderful world of children’s literature through last-minute book reports and reading projects. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Trumpet of the Swan, Charlotte’s Web… I get to revisit these classics, share them with my grandchildren, and discover all over again why they have captured the hearts of generations of children.

I’d like to report that my mathematical skills have also been sharpened to at least a sixth-grade level. Alas, I must confess that most of that knowledge has disappeared into some dark corner of my brain, never to be seen again.

So, if you ever see me on a TV game show, please don’t expect me to calculate percentages or figure out how many watermelons Johnny sold if he started with 100 and gave away four at every stop. Frankly, I’m more worried about Johnny’s business model.

But ask me about the rivers of Eden. Or the sons of Jacob. Or what to do with a lost object. Or a classic poem. Biblical Waters for 100, please. I might just surprise you... because while I thought I was helping my children with their homework all those years ago, I was getting an education of my own.

And the tuition? A whole lot of love, a few bedtime stories, a stack of schoolbooks, and the privilege of being their mother and their Savta.

Not bad for a fifth-grade education.

The Game Is Still Good. So Is the Hat.

A couple of years ago, at the start of the war, I made a board game for my grandchildren.

It was called: B"H, LIFE IS GOOD.

At the time, life didn't always feel particularly good.

We couldn't visit the grandchildren the way we normally did. Everyone was waiting, worrying, and holding phones up so we could see each other's faces. Hugs had been downgraded to screens. And since some of our kids didn't have screens at all, we just listened to the sound of their voices.

I wanted to make something for the kids I couldn't see. Something that said, in my own Savta-ish way: Yes, things are hard. But B"H, life is good.

So, I covered the dining room table in plastic, to protect it from me. I sat down in my blue hat, with a pile of markers, and made a game.

And when I say made, I mean made. I drew the board. I colored the spaces. I wrote out the cards. I cut things out. I glued things on. I arranged and rearranged the board just so.

It was not exactly Hasbro, but the kids loved it.

Fast forward two years.

Last week, we traveled to visit our far-away grandchildren, and I brought along my new game - the one I've been calling The EVERYTHING Game, because it has cards for little kids, older kids, thinking, doing, talking, laughing, and generally making a lot of noise.

We played. They loved it.

And then one of them said, "We still play B"H, LIFE IS GOOD."

Still.

The game I made at a dining room table had not been sitting in some forgotten corner collecting dust. It had been played. Repeatedly. By actual children.

I brought the old game home with me.

And that's when I made three important discoveries.

Number One: I had the dates wrong.

Originally, I was sure I'd made that game during COVID. I'd been telling it that way. Then I found the photo on my phone. It was the war. 

Apparently, in our family, the hard times have started to blur together. Unfortunately, one of them hasn't ended.

Number Two: The game is good.

Really good.

I looked at it with fresh eyes and thought, “You know what? This actually works.”

And I can make it better. Because, once a person discovers she can invent board games, she cannot stop.

I now have opinions about cards. And spaces. And dice. And how many squares are necessary before a child starts wondering whether the game will ever end.

I have become the sort of person who looks at a board game and thinks: This needs more interaction and fewer rules.

It's a slippery slope.

Number Three: Look at the photo. I was wearing the same hat.

Two years later. Same hat. Different game. Different grandchildren. Different circumstances.

Same Savta.

The hat, I'm proud to say, stayed exactly the same.

And suddenly I thought: Maybe that's the real game.

The world changes. The grandchildren get older. Some of them get taller than I am, which, frankly, is rude.

New games come along. Old games stay.

We sit around tables. We try to give our grandchildren something that will stay with them after we've gone home. And sometimes, years later, we discover that they kept it.

Not because it was perfect. Not because it was professionally manufactured. But because Savta made it for them.

I don't know how long B"H, LIFE IS GOOD will keep getting played. Maybe until the board falls apart. Maybe until the grandchildren are too old for it.

Although, judging from the teenagers who recently played my new game for three hours, I'm not putting any money on that.

But I do know this:

I made that game during a very hard time because I wanted my grandchildren to remember something: B"H, life is good.

Two years later, they reminded me.

And, by the way... the hat is still good, too.

B"H. ❤️

 

The Grapes Miss Them Too

There have been lots of cartoons flying around the internet lately showing grandmothers dancing and frolicking because their grandchildren have gone back to school.

I understand.

Many grandmothers spent the month of August helping out while their children worked and their grandchildren had nowhere to go. They ran Grandma Camps, with or without sleepovers. They took the kids on vacations and day trips. They cooked and baked and played and cleaned and hugged and bandaged and refereed fights.

After thirty days of making pizza, wacky mac and pita with chocolate spread, I suppose many grandmothers are ready for a salad and a martini.

I am not one of them.

Yes, I also had my grandchildren for August. And while I can certainly see the advantages of having my house back, I am not celebrating their return to school.

True, my house is a disaster area. My coat closet needs a complete overhaul after umpteen games of hide-and-seek. (The coat closet is a favorite hiding place.) And I am missing more teaspoons than ever. (I have a suspicion that some of them were tossed out with the half-eaten yogurts.)

But bits of our summer keep turning up anyway. My grandson's favorite green T-shirt was mixed in with my linen laundry. Plus, as I got ready for Shabbat, I found my daughter-in-law's white woven shawl and my two-year-old's Mickey Mouse hat on the dining room table.

But honestly? I miss the mess. I miss the noise. I miss the kids. I'm heartbroken to say goodbye to August.

Of course, it isn't really goodbye. I'll try to see as many of them as I can - at least once a week or every other week. But it isn't the same as having them here for days and evenings, swinging on the porch, playing game after game, reading books until the pages curl.

I loved having the sinks filled with cups and dishes, keeping the oven ready for the next pan of French fries, and constantly replenishing the cereal. I loved the noise. I even loved the bimba races around the kitchen.

Apparently, I am the grandmother who misses the chaos.

HOLDING ON TO SUMMER

So I did as many things as I could to prolong our being together.

I took the girls for our annual back-to-school shopping spree. We commandeered dressing rooms in stores all over the mall, because when one girl finds a cute top, suddenly cute tops are popping up all over the store for the other cousins. And of course, they must try everything on at the same time.

I think the women and girls waiting in line to get into the try-on rooms were watching their goings-on like an internet reality show.

(This year, two of the guys joined us, but that was an exception to our yearly adventure. Culture shock. They didn't know what hit them.)

GRAPE HARVESTS

And then there were the Friday Grape Harvests. So far, there have been two.

Some kids came over in the afternoon and picked as many grapes as they could in an hour. Then I served them pizza, we played pen-and-paper games, and eventually the ones who had to go home kissed me goodbye and hopped on the bus.

This year's grape harvest has been amazing. The kids found grapes hiding everywhere on the vines - behind my wooden bench, along the sides of the palm trees, tucked into places I never knew grapes could grow.

The big kids climbed up to reach the clusters hanging from the top of the metal trellis. I held the ladder with one hand and a bowl with the other. They tossed the grape clusters into the bowl. They didn't always hit the mark. Sometimes it was absolutely raining grapes.

And there were so many.

This year's harvest has already produced dozens of kilos of grapes, and there are more to come. I think the vines felt something was happening. I think they know the children have gone back to school.

Because somehow, after an entire summer of having grandchildren underfoot, there are still grapes hiding everywhere. Behind the bench. Along the palm trees. High up on the trellis. Just waiting to be found.

I think the grapes miss my grandchildren too.

 

A Summer of Theater

I love taking my grandchildren to the theater.

Well, what would you expect? Theater is such a big part of my life. And I'm not selfish. They don't only have to watch me on stage. :-) [Although that is nice.]

I'm happy to take them to whatever age-appropriate English-language productions are around. [I wish there were even more.] And this summer, for the first time I took them to two Hebrew shows.

Fortunately, I was familiar with both. The first was Frozen on Ice. The children were enthralled. They loved the Frozen movies and knew all the songs. They watched the skating and singing and special effects with wide eyes. They kept saying, "I love this! I don't want it to end!" [Really.]

Meanwhile, I was thinking, "Okay...nice." It was nice. But the rockets didn't exactly go off in my theater heart.

A few weeks later, I took another group of grandchildren to see the Hebrew production of Annie. Now, that was different.

In more than thirty years of theater-going in Israel, I had never once seen a Hebrew production of a Broadway show. I genuinely didn't know what to expect. I have no basis for comparison, and no complaints to file - the performers were terrifically talented. Real voices. Real performances. And even though they weren't on Broadway, they did a good job and really put over their songs.

History Lesson?

I wasn't sure how the children would relate to a story set in post-Depression America. Did they need to know about the Stock Market Crash of 1929? Should I explain how suddenly-poor folks were living under the bridges of New York City, or that people sold apples on the street to earn a few pennies? 

Should I tell them who President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was? Should I mention that my father, obm, once worked in the Chrysler Building, which appeared as one of the backdrops?

I wasn't sure. I could give them a history lesson before the show. Or I could just let them watch Annie. I decided to leave out the lesson and let the music do its work. 

I had seen Annie on Broadway. Not just any Annie, either. I saw the original production in 1977, with Andrea McArdle and Dorothy Loudon. Almost fifty years ago.

And somehow, sitting in a theater in Israel in 2026, watching a Hebrew-speaking Annie onstage, my mind was playing the Broadway Annie of 1977 at the same time.

I understood almost not a word of the Hebrew. But I knew the story. I knew the songs. I knew what was happening. And then the show began with: "The sun'll come out tomorrow..." Except tonight it was something like מחר תזרח השמש.

And it was wonderful. And I cried.

I cried through most of the performance - right up until the finale, when something happened that yanked me straight out of 1977 and back into my seat: the big tap number.

I think you know that I tap, and love all things tap dancing. So, I waited through the whole show for the big tap number. And when the ensemble launched into the finale, I sat up, ready.

There were no tap dancers.

Instead, "Daddy Warbucks" seemed to be wearing little tin toe taps - the kind you clip on to keep your soles from wearing down - and he sort-of, kind-of, approximately tap danced. A shuffle here. A f-lap there. He did his best, but my tap-dancing heart let out a small, private sigh.

Nobody else in the theater noticed. Nobody else cared. Only me - disappointed about the tap number  that never came. Still, when the song ended, Annie hugged Daddy Warbucks, and I was moved anew.

Part of me was watching the little girl onstage. Part of me was watching my awe-struck grandchildren. Part of me was back in 1977, watching Andrea McArdle and Dorothy Loudon. And part of me, apparently, was still thinking about those toe taps.

When the orphans sang It's the Hard-Knock Life, I didn't understand all the Hebrew words, but I understood the feeling. And I understood something else. The children didn't need my history lesson. They didn't need to know everything I knew about 1929, or Roosevelt, or the Depression. 

The Theater Experience

They just needed the heart-warming story. And the music. And maybe, most importantly, the experience of sitting in a theater and being transported somewhere else.

When the show ended, my granddaughters sang the Hebrew version of Tomorrow all the way home. I sat in the car listening to them, part of me in 2026, part of me in 1977, and - fine - part of me still thinking about tap shoes.

I decided that I'll keep taking my grandchildren to the theater. Not because I need them to understand what theater means to me. Not because I need them to love every show that I love. And certainly not because I want them to better appreciate me on stage. :-) [Although that would be nice.]

I'll take them because I want to give them the chance to discover what happens when the lights go down, the curtain goes up, and a story comes alive in front of you.

Frozen on Ice was nice. Annie made me cry. And somewhere between the two, I realized that this summer had become a summer of theater.

A dozen kids saw Frozen on Ice. They oohed and aahed at the special effects and were thrilled to see Olaf. Others saw Annie. They discovered a story I had loved for almost fifty years, and they sang Tomorrow all the way home.

The shows were totally different, but the kids will remember the lights going down, the music filling the hall, and hopefully, sitting in a theater with Savta and experiencing the magic of a live show.

I've spent a lifetime loving theater. Now I get to give a little bit of that love away.

The Secret Society

Last week my husband held a celebration for six of my grandsons - the ones who were just Bar Mitzvah and the ones who are about to become Bar Mitzvah. It was a lovely evening.

It was also a very unusual evening for me. I was the only woman there, and that was only because someone had to take pictures. Once I had finished my photographic duties and dinner arrived, I was graciously excused. Apparently, this was a boys-only occasion.

My husband - let's call him “Sabba” - wanted the boys to have the spotlight. Just them. No womenfolk. And I think I understand why.

For the past year, Sabba and his boys have had a little secret society going. Who knows? They may even have had a secret handshake. They called themselves The Tefillin Team.

Once a month, six of my grandsons met with Sabba in the lower level of a synagogue. It was the sort of place that is usually empty except for Shabbat Kiddush, which made it the perfect headquarters for a secret society.

The boys would arrive carrying their blue-and-white striped paper bags. Inside were two books. Books about tefillin.

You see, when each of our grandsons was born, Sabba bought him a pair of tefillin. Even little Chaim David, who is three, already has his pair waiting for him, IY"H.

Sabba didn't want the boys simply to put on the tefillin one day because they had reached Bar Mitzvah age. He wanted the boys to understand them. To love them. To appreciate the mitzvah and the incredible tradition they were becoming part of. So he decided to learn with the six boys every month.

This sounds simple. It wasn't. Six boys. Three different communities. Six busy schedules. Yeshiva. Basketball. Swimming. Babysitting. Youth group. Tests. Life. Coordinating a meeting between these six boys was sometimes more complicated than a military campaign.

But Sabba was determined. He called. And called again. And called again. Eventually, they found a date that worked.

My Part in this Enterprise

And where did I fit into this very male enterprise? Well, someone had to get them there.

Sabba picked up two of the boys. I picked up the two who lived farthest away, and we all met in the middle. I became, for lack of a better term, the Tefillin Team's Uber driver.

I also became the official food-delivery service. Every month I picked up hamburgers with all the works on the side, along with two giant trays of French fries - which are called “chips” here - and delivered everything to the boys. Then I left them to learn.

While the boys studied with Sabba, I played with my granddaughters. It was a win-win arrangement.

Except for the part where I eventually had to get back into the car and drive the boys home in the dark. Have I ever mentioned that I am not a fan of driving in the dark? Night driving is not my favorite sport. (Then again, I got to see my far-away kids and share some kisses, so another win!)

Friends, for months, this was my view of the Tefillin Team.
Transportation.
Hamburgers.
French fries.
Granddaughters.
Dark roads.

And then, when I started writing this blog, I realized something rather embarrassing. I didn't actually know what happened at those meetings. I wasn't there for any of it - not the boys' questions, not the moments of real learning, not whose stomach growled loudest waiting for those hamburgers.

So I asked Sabba to tell me some stories. Had anything funny happened? Had one of the boys surprised him? Did they ever ask questions he didn't expect? Did he notice friendships developing between the six cousins? Anything. Something. Please! I wanted to bring the story to life.

He looked at me. “I can't tell you any of the stories that happened between me and the boys.”

Excuse me? I wasn't asking him to name a boy who threw a spitball! I just wanted a cute story for my blog. But apparently, I had stumbled upon the first rule of the Secret Society: What happens in The Tefillin Team stays in The Tefillin Team.

So I am left to imagine.

Six boys, ages ten to thirteen, each with his own personality, his own level of knowledge, his own sense of humor, sitting with their grandfather in a synagogue basement.
Learning ancient laws.
Asking questions.
Figuring things out.
Probably laughing.
Probably teasing each other.
Probably not always sitting perfectly still.

And, I hope, slowly realizing that they were doing something pretty special. They were learning with their grandfather. And Sabba was doing something even more special. He was passing something on.

At the celebration, he told the boys how proud he was of them and that he had learned from them, too. Then he told them about the future he hoped they would have.

He hoped that one day, when they were grandfathers themselves and bought tefillin for their grandsons, they would tell them, “When I was a boy, I learned the laws of tefillin with my grandfather, and now I am learning those same laws with you.”

Well. I was taking pictures and videoing his speech. And I started crying. Of course I did. I am a grandmother. One of the boys noticed his grandmother crying and started laughing. What can I say? Grandmothers are emotional folks.

The "Graduation" Ceremony

Each of the boys received a certificate. Then they ate falafel. And just like that, the first year of The Tefillin Team came to an end.

Except I don't really think it ended.

Because the whole point was never just the twelve meetings. It was the connection. A grandfather who loves a mitzvah. Six grandsons learning from him.

Six cousins who became, in the truest sense, a team.

And a tradition that, if Sabba gets his wish, will keep traveling down the family line.

Someday, perhaps, one of those boys will be sitting with a grandson of his own. Maybe he will take out his tefillin. Maybe he will remember a blue-and-white striped bag, a synagogue basement, a hamburger dinner, six cousins and a grandfather who cared enough to keep calling until everyone could make it.

And maybe he'll say, “When I was a boy, I learned this with my grandfather.”

Because in the end, isn't that what we want for our children and grandchildren? Not just that they know the mitzvah. But that they know they belong to something - that they're on a team.

And that, I think, is the real secret of The Tefillin Team.

 

Mix and Match Cousins

PING.

I think I may finally understand what Family Camp is really about.

It's not just the activities. It's not the chocolate factory or Color War or the Jordan River or the late nights or the prizes or the hikes or the endless games.

It's Mix and Match Cousins. Every activity we did was an opportunity to mix up the cousins.

At Color War, cousins from different families ended up on the same teams. At the De Karina Chocolate Factory, other cousin combinations slurped chocolate malteds together. One night, we stayed up until who-knows-what-o'clock with parents and kids from four different families - city folks and farm folks, each on their own path - all hanging out together.

And now, looking through the pictures, I see it everywhere. Natah's Ammi holding Moshie's baby. Google-y google-y gooing her to smile. Natah's Itai with his arm around Moshie's Binyamin. I gotcha, pal. Moshie's little Elisheva deciding that she only wants to stay with Bati's Lavi and Natah's Tali. And the older kids, well, B"H, they are really besties.

This is what I was hoping for. Because I don't think I'm only trying to give my grandchildren a magical week. I'm trying to give them one another.

The activities are the vehicle.

The silly announcements, the art, the foam, the bikes, the late nights, the Jordan River - all of them are opportunities to create something that will last much longer than the activity itself.

SHARED HISTORY

Because kids grow up. They go to different schools and different kinds of shuls. They make their own friends in yeshiva or college or work. And I know that. But I also know that right now, they love each other. Right now, they love being together.

And I wish I could freeze time.

So I shop for weeks. I plan and plan and plan, trying to think of the most fun, engaging, ridiculous and memorable things we can do. But more than anything else, I want them to have adventures together. I want them to have stories that belong to all of them.

“Remember when Savta made those announcements every morning at breakfast? The whole dining room was listening in - and laughing right along with us.”

“Remember how scared Savta was to get into the Jordan River? She eeeeeked through every gush of mud between her toes. I will never forget her face.”

“Remember the chocolate factory? You drank your malted and the leftovers of everyone else's.”

“Remember when we stayed up until...”

And after 120, if I'm not around to organize Family Camp, I hope they'll still have each other.

They'll have stories nobody else quite understands. They'll have memories that belong to them. Maybe one cousin will recall something another cousin has forgotten.

Someone will say, “Remember when...?” Someone else will say, “Oh my gosh! Yessss, I remember!”

And they'll laugh. And they'll tell the story again. And that's the gift.

So I slosh through the mud of the Jordan River. I slide along the algae-covered springs of Beit She'an. I walk farther than my legs think they should have to walk. I smile along the fly-filled cow path. I stay up later than my eyes allow.

I do it because I want to be with them. I want to see them as something bigger than individual families. I want to see them as a blended family of the very best sort - a grandchild from this family with a grandchild from another family, trading their ices, their prizes, their jokes and their smiles.

They don't only share the same nose or blue eyes. They share the same heart.

I want them to look out for one another. I want them to look for one another. And I want those connections to continue for their whole lives.

Because maybe the greatest gift cousins can give one another is each other.

And maybe that's the greatest gift I can give them, too. ❤️

 

The Real Treasures

I was watching a news interview with a political expert.

Behind him were shelves lined with the books he had written. Row after row of them. Impressive.

Then I noticed something. Tucked into the corner of one of those impressive bookshelves were two plastic cups holding colorful paper flowers. 

You know the kind. The flowers children make in preschool out of construction paper, glue, and enormous amounts of love. The kind that proudly arrive home with stems that bend in impossible directions and petals that don't quite match.

I laughed. Of all the things he could have displayed behind him - awards, trophies, expensive artwork - there sat two plastic cups with paper flowers. And suddenly, those flowers became the most important things on the shelf.

Then I smiled, because I realized... I do the exact same thing.

Every Friday, I set my Shabbat table with my finest china and our sterling silver Kiddush cups. I put beautiful fresh flowers in the center - the kind you'd photograph for a magazine.

And right beside them, holding their own place of honor, are little paper flowers made by my grandchildren.

They do not match the china.
They do not match the silver.
They are not perfectly straight.

One might lean a little to the side. Another might have a petal that looks like it got into an argument with the scissors. I love them.

Nobody told my grandchildren that their flowers had to compete with the "important" things on the table. They just showed up. And I made room.

MY DIAMONDS

Maybe that is one of the gifts of getting older. We begin to understand that beauty does not always come in the form we expect.

Sometimes it comes in a little white jewelry box sitting next to the Shabbat candles.

My diamonds.

Well...not the kind you buy in a jewelry store.

Inside are dozens of rubber band bracelets, colorful plastic necklaces, and beaded creations lovingly made by my grandchildren.

Every one arrived with great ceremony. "Savta! I made this for you!" 

As far as they were concerned, they had just handed me the Crown Jewels. And I received them exactly that way.

I wear them. Not all at once. (I'm a grandmother, not a Christmas tree.)

I rotate them, because each one reminds me of the little hands that strung the beads, chose the colors, and waited for my reaction.

The funny thing is that I often wear them alongside real gold bracelets. If someone asked which bracelet is worth more, the jeweler and I might give different answers. 

Gold has value because it is rare. A rubber bracelet has value because one little person made it while thinking: "Savta will love this."

That's rarer.

Maybe that is what happens as we grow older. We stop measuring our wealth by what shines. We start measuring it by what holds love.

A chipped mug from a parent.
A faded photograph.
A paper flower.
A rubber bracelet.

To anyone else, they may just be things taking up space.

But to us... They hold voices.
They hold tiny hands.
They hold moments we never want to forget.
They are the real treasures.