Helpful Advice on Starting and Ending a Period of Mourning

By Bracha Jaffe for MyJewishLearning

Anyone who knows me even a bit also knows that I thrive on social contact and interacting with people. However, during my year of mourning (avelut) for my father, I shied away from social situations. My guideline was: turn down the volume of my social life while turning up the volume of my family life. This gave me time and space to mourn and cherish my memories of my father while pondering my own role as a mother to my four children.

As I neared the end of this long year, a close friend gave me a valuable gift. About a month before the end she said: “Bracha, it’s time to start preparing yourself to step back into life.” Jewish law sets up a designated mourning period of a year for the loss of a parent. When this year comes to a close, we do not extend it as we are instructed by the Torah: “bal tosif” (do not add). When it is time – it is time.

My friend’s wise words made me mindful of this transition and allowed me time to think about how it would feel to socialize again and jump back in to life when the time came. It felt odd and a bit artificial at the beginning, but I was ready and prepared to shed my cloak of silence.

I shared this story with my Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshivat Maharat, Rabbi Jeff Fox, and he pointed out that while the halakha helps enormously to transition into mourning, there are no set laws or customs to transition out of mourning. Indeed, without my friend’s counsel, it would have been much more jarring and difficult for me.

What Reb Jeff said made me realize the function of two beautiful customs created by women for women. These customs “bookend” the year of avelut, and help shape the transitions into and out of saying kaddish.

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As the Jewish Community Goes Gray, Synagogues Adapt To Serve Older Congregants

Baby boomers and seniors are a growing segment of the community, with specific needs for programming, rituals, and accessibility

By Adam Chandler for Tablet Magazine

The Jewish community in America is going gray—even more quickly than the rest of the country.

As baby boomers hit their 50s and 60s, the United States as a whole has gotten older, but Jews have seen an especially notable demographic shift. By the turn of the millennium, the median age of American Jews was 42—far older than the overall American median age of 35. In 2007, 18 percent of American Jews were 65 or older, compared to just 12 percent of all Americans. And thanks to factors like delayed parenting, a record-low birth rate, and the aging of baby boomers, Americans in general—and American Jews in particular—will see these trends continue for years to come.

As Jewish America gets older, synagogues have begun to adapt to serve their older members and attract new ones. The creation of age-specific social groups, senior-themed educational initiatives, and innovations to make both Jewish ritual and synagogues themselves more accessible for an older set constitute just some of the widening efforts to retain and attract an older demographic. Given the complexity and diversity of Jewish populations across the country, the changes are manifesting themselves differently in different places: Some focus on older congregants centers on boomers in their 50s or 60s, for instance, while others shuls are catering to seniors who are 65 and older. How specific communities across the country address their changing memberships may differ, but the broad contours of the shifts under way can be gleaned from looking at shuls that are reprioritizing their outreach efforts.

“Not only do our Jewish values ostensibly instill in us the importance of and responsibility for taking care of the aging in our midst,” said Rabbi Marion Lev-Cohen of Central Synagogue, a Reform congregation in New York, “it’s also an opportunity to enrich the life of the synagogue.”

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Five Secrets for Raising Healthy and Happy Children

By Arthur Rosen for jewishmag.com

Every parent wants his/her children to be happy, healthy and successful children. Many parents succeed but unfortunately there are also many parents who do not succeed and are not happy with the way their children turn out. Who can young parents turn to for good advice? There are so many people willing to give guidance how can you tell who to listen to and who to ignore?

There is no measuring stick like success. See what type of children a prospective mentor has. Do you want children like theirs? If you do then it is a good indication that this person will be a good mentor for you, but if this person's children are not what you want your children to be like, then stay away.

I have raised ten children all of whom are all happy, healthy and successful and content both with their spouses and with their social and work lives. And in addition there is a plus; the plus: they all love and respect me.

What did I do that was different than that of my lesser successful friends and relatives?

I will give you five important pointers that I followed in raising children.

One: Understanding your role as a Parent

Before you can be successful as a parent and have happy, healthy, successful children realize that you have a role to follow as a parent. Whereas many people have children by accident and many who want children and have them, really want them for their own pleasure, they want to be parents.

Being a parent means more than just enjoying the thrill of watching a baby develop into a toddler and then into a child with a personality. It means responsibility and this responsibility means guiding the child on the correct path even if that means loosing time and money. The Hebrew word for parent is horim which is almost the same as raising up harim. The words are related since a parent must raise up his children from being dependent on the parent to becoming a fully independent adult.

What is the correct path? That is a very sticky and tricky question.

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How My Mom Friends Became My Real Friends

By Jen Simon for Kveller

When you announce you’re about to have a child, the first thing everyone wants to do (after wishing you congratulations) is give you advice. And for many people, that advice is to make “mom friends.” It’s essential, I was told, to have someone to share poop and sleep and nursing horror stories with; to know someone who was going through the same challenges I was going through at the same time. It seemed to make sense, but how would I find these elusive “mom friends”?

At the time, I didn’t know anyone else in my city who had kids or was pregnant. What city? Brooklyn.

Brooklyn: Where the moms are known for being crunchy, co-sleeping, vegan-proselytizing, compost-loving and helicopter-parenting, skinny and fashionable, Type A, hyper-achievers. All the stereotypes were extreme (as stereotypes often are) and they all made me nervous. Would I get along with Brooklyn moms? What if I couldn’t make my own organic baby food? What if I didn’t lose all my baby weight in three weeks? Would I like them? Would they like me? Was I entering motherhood or middle school?

After all, the last time I made new friends was when I moved to New York nearly 10 years earlier. All that had required was being young and stupid–drinking and talking to randoms and hanging out. But since I no longer went out or drank, I had no idea how or where I’d meet people. Was it OK to approach a stranger with a baby at the grocery store? And if so, should I do it clutching a sippy cup so it at least felt familiar?

Enter the parenting message board. There are parenting message boards for most neighborhoods in Brooklyn. And, because of the population density, “neighborhood” can mean 10 blocks. And every neighborhood has hundreds of moms, expectant moms, and new moms all posting about meeting other moms. Apparently, they all got the same advice I did: make “mom friends”!

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