The leaves are magenta and gold, and the last extra kugel or pan of stuffed cabbage I forgot to serve on Simchas Torah and stuffed into the freezer has been consumed. Now lying in wait for me is that overwhelming “To Do After Yom Tov” list, or what the non-Jewish world calls “winter activities.”

I think I’ll bypass the ever-present “lose ten pounds, join a local exercise class, walk 10,000 steps a day,” and other ubiquitous annual goals.

Of course, I won’t ignore the spiritual growth items: Listen to a Shabbos halachah shiur online, review the weekly parshah, and maybe consider davening Maariv?

Moving on to the less esoteric items, I must change the summer clothes in the closet for winter clothes, get quotes to repaint the living room, and price new mattresses with pillow tops.

And of course, I must declutter. What’s with this continuous need to discard unused, dented, scratched, and possibly toxic pots and pans, and small appliances and gadgets like my make-your-own-yogurt machine or my super multi blade food chopper so simple to use that salads make themselves?

I have boxes and boxes of papers, pictures, art projects, report cards, scrapbooks, decorated jewelry boxes, Yom Tov projects — the time capsules of years gone by — to deal with. I always planned to implement an idea I read in a magazine and designate a box for each child’s mementos. Still, somehow the wooden jewelry box from my daughter’s first class trip to our national capital never really moved off my dresser. It sits next to the olive wood jewelry box my mother had on her dresser, made by the prisoners in Michigan’s Jackson State Penitentiary and gifted to her by my father, who was the first Jewish chaplain there. Needless to say, those items aren’t going anywhere.

Like a geological formation, there are layers and layers of sentimental strata among my clutter.

The post Sentimental Decluttering: An Oxymoron?        first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Although my sons graduated from their yeshivah several years ago and it’s been many years since my husband davened there, I opted to remain on the mailing list to “stay in the loop” that once occupied my life. I like seeing the simchahs and the events that are still happening, though often, it is the grandparents whose names I recognize on the upcoming simchah announcements. Sadly, it also keeps me aware of Tehillim updates for cholim and, chas v’shalom, levayah or shivah information.

One day, I glanced at the announcement that the Brailofsky family was sitting shivah for their father, who had served as a rebbi for many years in the elementary school.

“Wait, that name… I’ve seen it before!”

I made a beeline for my bookcase and took out the siddur I use every day for Shacharis. Yes! The inscription to my son Akiva a”h was signed by Yaacov Kopel HaLevi Brailofsky.

Akiva had been given this siddur by his rebbi in fifth grade, and he’d carried it in his tefillin bag. When Akiva was niftar, I began using the siddur for my morning davening.

This past summer, I noticed that, after all these years, it was falling apart. The original binding was broken and the pages had begun to fray. My daughter has a friend whose father takes old seforim and refurbishes and repairs them, and he transformed the siddur into a piece worthy of heirloom status. It had a brand-new deep-blue leather cover, and the pages looked new. The precious inscription remained in all its special glory on the inside cover, signed by the rebbi who had impacted my son so much that Akiva had used the siddur for the remainder of his life.

The post Remembering Earlier Chapters  first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

The text on my phone read, Hi, I’m in town for a few hours. Would love to catch up. In the coffee shop on the Avenue at about 2:00 before I leave for my 5 PM flight. Looking forward!

My school-hood friend — so nice of her to reach out! I glanced at my watch. It read 5:00. Most likely, her plane was starting down the runway. I rolled my eyes in frustration. “Why, oh why, didn’t she call me instead of texting?” I asked my daughter.

“Really, Mom, nobody calls, they just assume you’re checking your phone. You can’t possibly be insulted!”

Okay, maybe not insulted, but frustrated or bewildered? I was busy all afternoon and hadn’t checked my text messages. Was that a crime or irresponsible on my part?

There are no coincidences, and the One Above runs the world. So shortly after this “lesson” in 21st-century communication, I received an email from my editor: How about a Yom Tov theme for the next column, something related to the Yamim Noraim?

The pages of Mishpacha — and shiurim, articles, and websites — are replete with messages about this time of year. What could I add to that plethora of scholarly and erudite material?

The post Voicing Our Thoughts in the Year to Come! first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

When our vacation plans switched from the French countryside to the Catskills, I pictured a dilapidated bungalow with a rickety table and beds, sagging couch, and squeaky porch. My vision wasn’t far off, but in the end, none of that mattered. Who could care, when you were sharing a yard with the gadol hador?

Location: Camp Staten Island, Catskill Mountains

Year: Early 1980s

Shortly after I married my math professor husband, I was delighted to learn that for academicians, the summer months were a professional collaboration opportunity. Be it a teaching position, a conference, or the chance to work one-on-one with a colleague to publish a research paper, the world was our oyster. My late husband, Dr. Eliezer (Leon) Ehrenpreis, had a standing appointment to teach at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for a minimum of one month every summer. The remaining time was open to any one of many destinations, the common denominator being the presence of other mathematicians interested in Fourier Analysis in Several Complex Variables (his first book, published in 1970), The Universality of the Radon Transform (his second, in 2003), or something in a related field.

Our first summer, we visited Japan, and the following year, I found myself pushing a stroller along the paths of Bures-sur-Yvette, a charming little town south of Paris that is home to the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, where my husband met with mathematicians from around the world to share research. Several summers found us in Paris, where my husband lectured at the Sorbonne, a division of the Université de Paris (he was fluent in French).

As our family grew, we had to make some concessions, and one summer when we couldn’t find housing that would accommodate young children in Paris, we rented a charming villa in Massy, a suburb of Paris. My husband took a train to Paris every day to lecture while I tried to figure out how to run a house in an area where very few people, including our landlady, spoke English. My children found Versailles pleasant, but my three-year-old threw a tantrum when he discovered there was no Coke machine in the Louvre Museum and we had just stood in line for an hour in the Parisian summer heat to see the picture of some lady staring at nothing in particular.

Over time, our travels became more domestic. We spent several summers in Berkeley, California, where my husband lectured at the University of California–Berkeley, and our children went to the local Chabad day camp. One of my favorite summers was in Bowdoin, Maine, where my husband ran a conference for the American Mathematical Society. We rented a house from a fisherman who took us out in his fishing boat to an island near the coast, where we saw herds of seals.

But the year that stands out most is the year my husband walked in the door after Rav Moshe Feinstein’s Sunday morning shiur, which he attended for decades, and excitedly told me he had great plans for us.

The post High Ground   first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

The bold letters in the heading on the email in my inbox read, “Harvard research suggests meaningful relationships are a prescription for better emotional, mental, and physical health and possibly more critical to longevity than exercise or diet.”

So in addition to my three cups of coffee a day, there’s another road to longevity. (Of course, there’s the weekly 250 minutes of moderate exercise. Oh well, I smile to myself, I’ll definitely focus on the friendship route to well-being.)

“Aren’t you lonely?” someone once asked me. I’ve been widowed for many years, and I know the answer is definitely a no.

“No,” I replied. I may be alone a great deal of the day (all the better to write a book, my dear) but lonely…. No. Think about it. Sometimes, aren’t you lonely even in a crowded room if there’s no one you know or no one who appears to be interested in speaking to you? That’s real loneliness!

I truly believe “No” is the answer. I’m not lonely because I have friends I can call 24/6 who genuinely care, who want to hear about the trivial, the triumphs, the frustrations, and yes, the fears. I like to think that it’s reciprocal, and they know that I, too, can provide a listening ear, can respond with a laugh to the important issues, from dieting to attempting to understand and validate the life-altering events that are also a part of everyone’s life.

The post Secrets of a Long Life first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

After my last column about “Home,” readers reached out to ask, “Who is Ahava Ehrenpreis, and when did she live in Detroit or Oak Park?” Just between us, the “me” who grew up in Detroit had different first and last names from the adult woman who today writes books and articles and lives in Brooklyn. Back then, I was Chavi Sperka.

How did that happen? Well, my maternal grandmother was Rivka, and my paternal grandmother was Leeba Chava. Why my father (Rabbi Joshua Sperka z”l), turned Leeba into its modern Hebrew variation remains a mystery, but I believe that his joy at the creation of the State of Israel motivated him to name me Ahava Rivka. (Please, no letters from Ivrit experts who question why my name isn’t Ahuva! I really don’t know, but my sister assures me that she was present at the naming and Ahava is my name.) But when I first entered Bais Yaakov, my “cool, modern, Hebrew name” morphed into my babbi’s more traditional, “Chava.”

Names… a simple, straightforward topic. A child is born to parents from the One Above. They give the child a particular first name — based on whatever reasoning (familial, literary, historical, Biblical, or random) — and their family name. It seems so uncomplicated. Well… it ain’t necessarily so.

The post Names? In Different Chapters   first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

“What’s a yahrtzeit?” asked my granddaughter’s seven-year-old playmate.

“Oh,” replied my worldly granddaughter, “it’s a birthday party for someone who is dead.” From her perspective, it was a perfectly logical explanation. There’s a candle, people gather, there are speeches, perhaps refreshments or even a full meal. Yes, all the elements of an event, except that the guest of honor is not present… at least not in earthly form.

Our job is to remember and recognize the date when that special neshamah left this world. I must admit that in some small way (okay, maybe not so small) I envied my husband’s options for recognizing his parents’ yahrtzeits. The Shabbos beforehand, he’d daven from the amud. On the yahrtzeit, he would fast and daven for the tzibbur, and then we’d drive out to the beis hakevaros where his parents are interred. In the evening, he’d make a siyum at our home or at a nearby shul.

But even yahrtzeits need mazel. My parent’s kevarim are near my childhood home, outside Detroit. My father left us three days before Pesach, when trips to the Midwest are not a real possibility. My mother passed away in mid-January, when such trips are not recommended. My recognition of my parents’ yahrtzeits was therefore limited to a 24-hour candle in a little metal can that sat on our marble mantel. My husband did try to daven from the amud, but if there were men who had yahrtzeit of a parent, their chiyuv took precedence. I understood that, but I still felt that I was failing to give my parents’ neshamos adequate recognition.

I remember my father commemorating his parents’ yahrtzeits; he would take a bottle of schnapps to shul, along with some kichel or other baked goods. I assume he davened from the amud. While I knew many people hosted full-blown yahrtzeit seudos for extended family, my father felt that a yahrtzeit was a day for quiet reflection.

But one year, my mother’s yahrtzeit fell out on a Motzaei Shabbos, I decided to go with the flow and scheduled a Maleveh Malkah, inviting my many nieces and nephews. I went all out, preparing bagels, smoked salmon, fish platters, and cheesecakes.

On that Shabbos afternoon, the snow started to fall. I wasn’t initially fazed; I’m a Midwesterner. By the time we said Havdalah, news reports were warning of an imminent blizzard. Then the phone rang: My sister-in-law, the mother of many of the guests, begged me to cancel the event and keep her offspring off the highways. Reluctantly, as I gazed into my overstuffed refrigerator, I realized that the only intelligent move was to cancel the seudah. I took this as a sign from Heaven that this sort of yahrtzeit seudah was not the Heavenly ordained mode of recognition for my beloved parents.

After the passing of my husband, my daughter’s rav suggested that she learn Pirkei Avos, as they are a form of Mishnayos, which are recommended as a zechus for the neshamah. That prompted me to do more research, and my rav gave me a set of seforim discussing yahrtzeits. The author mentioned that since the prior Shabbos is connected to the yahrtzeit (thus men daven from the amud), women could have the yahrtzeit in mind when bentshing licht on that Friday night. Hmm, I thought, something to add to my repertoire. But somehow, I didn’t feel that was enough. And then it came to me. Eureka! I would do what I do by nature: write.

Thus was born “My No Cooking, No Calories, No Driving to Brooklyn, No Looking for Parking Yahrtzeit Seudah.” On the evening of the yahrtzeit, I sit at the computer and write a biographical sketch of the beautiful person whose memory we are “celebrating” that day. I then email it to the grandchildren and even to great-grandchildren, many of whom carry the names but know so very little of the very special individual for whom they are named.

The feedback has been amazing, with many family members telling me that they print out the pieces to share with their children. Over the years, I tried different formats: One year, I printed pictures from my parents’ family albums to share with everyone; another year, I scanned articles from the newspapers of the day, which spoke of my parents and their public role in building Jewish life. This year I asked the grandchildren who’d known them personally to write their memories, which I then shared with the others.

It’s not schnapps and a kichel, but I like to think that my parents would be pleased with the recognition of the day.

In memory of Saadya Yehoshua ben Eliezer a”h, whose yahrtzeit is the fourth of Iyar.

Yehi zichro baruch.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 894)

The post Celebrating a Yahrtzeit first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Purim 5784 is long gone. There is still one mini challah from Mrs. Levine, who lives around the corner and always sends her homemade sweet challah. I hid the pareve bittersweet chocolate bar for Shabbos, and the five mini Snapples (clearly the drink of choice or on sale this year) should be finished soon.

It’s time to look forward to the next gift from the One Above, the Yom Tov of Pesach. I will dispense with the possible negative rhetoric that sometimes accompanies that statement, and enumerate only positive and excited thoughts. I love my Pesach china, with its dark red-and-gold trim. It comes with every possible size dish, mini dessert dishes, stunning teapot, creamer, and sugar, and every size and shape of serving bowls and platters. My flatware is my grandmother’s from Europe, with oversized soup spoons that seem more appropriate as serving spoons, and, of course, it carries the memories of all the Sedorim growing up in my parents’ house. Then there are the lists — every year I’m certain I’d written it all down, recording just how much matzah I used, and how many gallons of vegetable oil I needed for the never-ending frying. I’m sure I made the list, but where did I put it? Time to take out a new shiny notebook and start my what-to-clean, when-to-clean, what-to-buy, when-to-buy, what-to-cook, and when-to-cook lists!

But wait! I’m not making the Sedorim; I have no guests this year. I’ve been invited to share the Sedorim with my children at their home. The calendar does not give my Israeli family enough time to travel back for their commitments in Israel. So why is it that I’m not relieved that no lists are required? What of the competition regarding how many pounds of potatoes, how many dozens of eggs, how many gallons of oil, how many cases of onions? I can’t even enter. I’m not sure if four kosher l’Pesach yogurts and maybe a dozen eggs for Erev Yom Tov even qualify for an entry form!

It will be very special to hear grandchildren say the Mah Nishtanah. The older ones have prepared divrei Torah and of course, I can’t wait for the seemingly never-determined discussion of how many k’zeisim are correct for real horseradish versus romaine lettuce. All will bring me much joy and nachas. But I picture the beautiful tablecloth my husband bought the year the table had to be expanded and nothing we had would fit. Then there are the milchig Corelle dishes with the blue trim and, okay, little kittens in the design. (It was on sale and is so perfect for Pesach!) No point emptying the Pesach cabinets of all the zippered plastic cases with the dishes for Erev Yom Tov and perhaps Chol Hamoed at home. Paper will be so much more practical. And the three-tier Seder plate — do I unwrap it and take it with me?

Cease and desist! Yom Tov is about simchah and light… so why am I feeling that I’m not quite there? Is it just that change marks the end of an era? Or am I suffering from a Jewish homemaker identity crisis? There will be no battle scars from splattered oil or nicked fingers from a chopping session gone awry. Is it mostly my ego that needs the yearly challenge (and opportunity to kvetch) about the number of chocolate lebens that were consumed? Do I need that dopamine high during the brief post-chometz removal, when the counters are pristine, the sinks sparkling, before the Pesach covering and lining begins. (A moment not to be repeated until eight days later, about three hours after Havdalah, when the opposite transition begins.)

I will take down a few of the special Haggados that have wine stains and precious memories on so many pages and pack them up to take with me. Of course, I will try to bring sweet Pesach treats, and I’ll add some new games or books to my very significantly shortened shopping list.

But far more important, I will relish the joy of watching new memories being created: their beautiful table, their approach to the Haggadah, and even different tunes for the reading of the Haggadah.

I will have a different kind of wonderful Yom Tov… attitude, attitude, attitude that is mine to determine. “Ivdu es Hashem b’simchah” is the commandment, and all the mitzvos that we do must be accompanied by happiness and gratitude for the brachos we do have, even if in a new setting, in a different role… in the Next Chapter.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 889)

The post Leaving the Competition     first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Shortly after I decided not to return to the halls of ivy where I taught college students with varying degrees of interest (or disinterest) in what I had to share, I met a friend on the avenue. As we spoke, she shared that she was going to sell her Jerusalem apartment to move closer to her children.

“Do you happen to know of anyone who’d be interested in my ground floor apartment in the heart of Jerusalem? It has a private entrance and garden.”

I was caught off guard.

“I’m selling it fully furnished. Actually, all the buyer needs to do is pack a suitcase of clothing. Everything else will be there.”

“I’ll try to think of someone,” I told her, and then I was off. But before I’d reached the corner, I made an abrupt U-turn and hurried back to her.

“I thought of a buyer,” I told her quickly. “Me!”

Yes, it had always been my dream to live in Yerushalayim, the Kosel minutes away, spending my days walking to shiurim, meeting friends at outdoor cafés…. The fantasy scenarios flashed nonstop as I walked, no, floated, down the street.

I sprang into action, asking friends in Israel to check out this dream apartment. (They confirmed it was everything my friend had described and even better!) I told my children.

Of course, I wasn't ready to leave my life here in America totally behind; I would juggle both, as so many others seem to do.

Okay, I guess I don’t need to keep my big house in Brooklyn; I can find a smaller abode. I wasted no time and pulled up Zillow. I didn’t want to leave my neighborhood, of course: My children are here, my shul, the neighbors who’ve been with me through thick and thin. I had certain basic requirements: large enough for my children to stay with me, a driveway (a Brooklyn necessity of perhaps greater importance than indoor plumbing), and, of course, a deck for all my flowers so I could be outside as much as possible.

Sticker shock would be an understatement. It would take all of my assets from selling my really big house to relocate to a much smaller house. Oh, the road to fulfilling dreams does not run so smooth, but I was not to be deterred. Until I spoke to my accountant (definitely to be avoided if you are working on dreams). He very kindly but firmly informed me that I was not in a position to maintain two residences with all the amenities I considered nonnegotiable. I had to choose one if I didn’t want to relegate myself to a lifetime of poverty. And all those basic requirements were already available at no cost in the house in which I already resided.

Meanwhile, here in New York, I was zocheh to be living another dream… my children and their children. You see, when I was growing up, though I was a cherished and probably spoiled bas zekunim, there was one thing my parents could not give me: grandparents.

I never was zocheh to experience what it must be like to have grandparents. But then again, very few of my friends had grandparents. We were the post-Holocaust generation. I knew I was missing out. If I was ever zocheh to be a bubby, I decided, I would be sure to be everything I imagined constituted the role.

Fast forward (not literally) but yes, Hashem granted me the sunshine that is called grandparenting. I may have fantasized about walking the streets of Yerushalayim, but I didn’t have to fantasize about the joys of siddur plays and backyard birthday parties, first grade graduations and Shabbos sleepovers, reading picture books and attending a has'chalas Gemara, and, when mommy was not available, walking a dancing first grader to the bus stop.

Yes, there are airplanes, but sharing those small moments, baking cookies with Yom Tov cookie cutters, taking a trip for ice cream after a puppet show, feeding the ducks in the local park…. Those are also dreams. It’s so hard to choose between dreams.

When I’m in Yerushalayim, enjoying the spiritual high of walking the stone pavement of that holy city, I look up at the perfectly blue sky and I think about the apartment on that beautiful street in the heart of Yerushalayim that isn’t mine and is highly unlikely ever to be. I sigh, but then I keep walking. There are gifts to be bought for little ones awaiting my return… and that’s a dream the One Above has fulfilled for me.

This column will run monthly

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 884)

The post Living the Dream… Which One? first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

“S

earching” is the theme. Aren’t we all searching for something beyond chometz or the perfect Yom Tov outfit? Aren’t so many of us searching — for our soulmate, the right lifestyle, the right occupation, the right way to raise our children? So much of life is about searching.

But what if searching moves to the esoteric? Sometimes Hashem’s plan presents us with the need to search — not to understand His reasoning, but to discover how He wishes us to implement His plan. Sometimes we find ourselves with a very different situation than we’d anticipated, one that is incomprehensible to our mortal minds.

We search when His plan seems to diminish our ability to serve Him as we might wish. Why would He choose not to allow us to find our soulmate so we could build a bayis ne’eman to bring Him glory? Why would He give us physical disabilities or ailments that make serving Him far more challenging? Why wouldn’t He doesn’t bless us with children to continue His legacy?

What if He recalls the neshamah of a spouse, a child, a sibling, a friend, a gadol who would have glorified His world? Our search then becomes the elusive “Why?” Our search is not for the “madua” of Hashem’s unfathomable ways, beyond our comprehension, but for the why of the holy, inspired lashon hakodesh, “lamah.” L’mah, for what. For what purpose have I been given these challenges?

The post For What?    first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.