Spiritual Cartwheels

I must admit, when I first got married, I was a lazy bum. I didn’t help around the house at all, not with cleaning, not with cooking, not with laundry. I even remember having a conversation with my wife-to-be, during the period of our engagement, about who would change diapers when the time came, G-d willing, that we would have a baby. “No way,” I said. “No, Ma’am. There will be no diaper changing for me. That’s the mother’s job.” As a matter of fact, when the baby did arrive, I wouldn’t even get up at night when the baby cried. “The baby’s hungry,” I would say, “and I can’t really do anything about that myself.” I did like burping the baby, though. That was fun. As for the rest, well, “I just can’t do that stuff.”

Fast forward nearly nine years and four kids later, and over the course of time I learned that the key to success and happiness in marriage (and really all things) derives from hard work and sacrifice. And now, you wouldn’t believe it, but for the last two weeks I cooked the chicken for Shabbos (in fact, two weeks ago I made two kinds of chicken), and it came out absolutely phenomenal! So what changed?

Real life involves real challenges and a real man steps up to the plate and meets the challenge. There were those times that my wife got sick, or was wiped out after an exhausting week, or maybe just plain didn’t feel like cooking that day, when I, as the dutiful husband, had to just say, “I’ll take care of it.”  The same goes for cleaning house, doing laundry, or changing stinky poopy-pants. Nowadays, I do it all, and I’m gosh-darn proud of it!

Back to cooking. You know you’re a good cook when your kids start to compliment your cooking. I hear their excitement when I cook supper. “Tati (‘Daddy’ in Yiddish) is such a good cook!” One day my daughter watched me in awe as I prepared supper.

“Tati, how do you do that?” she asked, reverently.

“Talent,” I responded, arrogantly.

She paused, thoughtfully, then retorted, “But can you do a cartwheel?”

I was simultaneously stunned and shamed into silence. Indeed, despite all my arrogance, I cannot do a cartwheel, while my six-year-old daughter can.

Normally, an adult would brush off a comment like that from a child, but I am no normal adult. (Just ask anyone who knows me.) I take what kids say seriously, because kids are very honest; they haven’t yet learned the finer points of dishones-- I mean, diplomacy. So I try to take the kernels of truth from children’s innocent statements and apply them in order to live a more truthful life.

The normal reaction to such a statement from a child would go something like this: “Cartwheel? ME?? What do cartwheels have to do with me? I’m not a cartwheel kind of guy.” And we move on, with no introspection, and thereby, no attempt or effort toward change. While this makes sense (perhaps) for something like cartwheels, I believe we too often do this in much more important areas of life. “Judaism? It’s interesting, it’s cool, I like being Jewish, I’m proud to be a Jew, but actually practicing Judaism? That’s not for me.” “Learning? Torah? That’s not my thing.” “Shabbos? I just can’t.”

But imagine if I had kept that attitude throughout my marriage. I don’t think I would have the nine wonderful years and four beautiful children I now have to show for it. Because being in a real loving relationship means giving everything you have to one another. And if you’re not willing to do that, if you’re only willing to take, something’s missing from the relationship.

We must remember that we are in a relationship with G-d; we are His children, we are His beloved. Of course an infinite G-d doesn’t need anything from us, but if there was no give-and-take between us, there would be no relationship. G-d gives us everything we have in this world (not too shabby -- sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, arms, legs, ice cream, hot dogs, rainbows, waterfalls, sunsets -- you get the point), and He asks in return a few small tokens of allegiance. Again, not for His own benefit, but for ours, so that we can connect to Him and live our lives imbued with a feeling of closeness to G-d, whenever and wherever we are, no matter what we may be going through. And, truth be told, when we analyze the actions we are “commanded” to perform by G-d (Sabbath, dietary laws, marital guidelines, etc.), we find that they very much enhance our physical pleasures and enjoyment in life. So even when G-d “takes,” He continues to give and give.

Rosh ha-Shanah, the Jewish New Year, is a time for re-inaugurating our relationship with G-d and with our fellow man (or woman). Let us reflect upon some of the things we’ve learned this past year or any year past and thought, “I would like to do that, I really should do that, but I just can’t,” and realize that we really can. It’s not easy, it requires hard work and sacrifice -- but it’s worth it! The rewards in our lives will be great, if we are willing to work to achieve it.

So just as I once said, “I can’t, it’s not for me, it’s not my thing,” to cooking, cleaning, and changing, and yet I have proudly achieved them all since, it is my hope that one day I will look back once again and be able to proudly answer my daughter and say, “Yes, I can do cartwheels.” Perhaps not a physical cartwheel, but at least one in spirit.

This year, and in the years to come, may G-d grant all of us the strength to perform spiritual cartwheels, overcoming all of our self-imposed limitations, and may we merit to be inscribed in the Book of the Good Life in this world and the World to Come.

[Read more from Rafi Mollot at http://rafimollot.wordpress.com]

Sewing challenge no. 7: baby shoes

OK. I tested this pattern for baby shoes. Pictures below.

I think it is fair to say that this is not a beginners’ pattern: it involves sewing smoothly around sharp angles; and, the shape of certain pieces makes them impossible to pin in place: you have to ease them in while stitching round an oval, and hope for the best.

I have just reached the point at which the puddle of fabric takes on the shape of a garment: I can see the embryonic shoes. I can also see so many puckers that I’m laying the project aside until I can consult the dressmaker in the family.

To learn to sew, you have to have either an engineering mind, or the humility to follow rules you don't understand until you come out at the end and realize why the engineers were right. I have neither.


So, please don’t judge the pattern by my shoes. The lady who created the pattern got sweet little shoes out of it.

Here’s what I got out of her pattern instead:

1. A sound lesson in shoe engineering

2. Mussar

3. Confirmation of my suspicion that making shoes is incredibly satisfying.

There is a man by the name of Elik in an alley off Yaffo who makes beautiful leather shoes by hand. His shop was closed last time I tried to visit, with a note I didn’t quite catch on the door; please comment if you know what’s up.


I once asked the local cobbler, an elderly Russian in a shop the size of a shoebox, to teach me how to cobble;  he declined, but now whenever I go in there he bumps my shoes to the end of the line so he can show me how he fixes everyone else's.
Recently I came across this site: cordwaining for dummies.


The Midrash says that Chanoch (in Genesis) was a shoemaker who was meyached yichudim - 'unifying unities' - in making shoes. Rav Dessler says this means not that his mind was on kabbalistic matters, but that he did upright work: he focused intently on making shoes that would serve their wearers well.


Here’s what my undisciplined experiment looks like at the moment.

One shoe is farther along than t'other

A Field Guide to Jewish Disputes

This post is based on something I heard from a rabbi I shall call Rabbi St. Helens, because he is ancient, majestic, and grey, and so always reminds me of the mountain by that name.
Rabbi St. Helens learnt from Rav Elya Lopian.

Torah distinguishes between two types of disputes. There is a machlokes leshem shamayim, a dispute for the sake of Heaven. And there is a machlokes shelo leshem shamayim, a dispute not for the sake of Heaven - by default, for the sake of someone's ego.

A machlokes shelo leshem shamayim, stay away from. Do not get involved.
As for a machlokes leshem shamayim...?

Rabbi St. Helens rumbled at us:
 "Leave the machlokes leshem shamayim for someone else!"

Good advice.

I, I, I, I, I, I, cont.

Ran into this the other day in one of Emerson's letters:
"...forgive the egotism of all this letter. Say they not 'The more love the more egotism'?"

...which (if it is so - I am not convinced) I suppose is because one of the nicest things you can do for a person is to share your thoughts with him.

If I ever close this blog, I suspect it will be because I will suddenly come to a nasty realization that nothing - not even the opportunity to affect several million people - can justify the display of loving egotism where several million people can see it.

I, I, I, I, I, I

...so what I was going to say in the previous post, before Rav Hirsch distracted me, was that over Shabbos I was reading Rav Hirsch
Yay! Rav Hirsch
and he mentioned in passing -- since he was compelled to make an exception -- that it was his habit not to speak of himself in the monthly journal he edited.

And I began thinking about blogs... and how the whole attraction of the medium is that they are intensely personal. I, I, I, I, I, I. Books, too: in modern reference works, authors natter on about themselves shamelessly.
Facebook has become a great deal more popular than newspapers.
To me, all this says that people would rather get their information or news from friends than from an unknown third party.

My seventh-grade teacher taught us never to say "I think..." or "I believe..." when making an argument, because it weakens the argument.
But it adds interest. Now there is a person there, not just an argument.

A gentleman on the radio once observed that exhibits of dinosaur bones in the early 1900's were meant to awe with power; in the 50's, they were kitchy; in the 80's, the velociraptor replaced T-rex as the center of attention because it was like a sleek businessman, the hero of the era -- and nowadays, dinosaur exhibits are (as he put it) "green". The dinosaurs are grouped in cozy home settings; Mama dinosaur is minding the eggs and watching her young play. It's all about friends and family, dinosaur relationships, relating to the dinosaurs.

Is it that people never used to be particular - information was information whether or not we endeavored to relate to its source? Or is the generation is trying to make up for something?