This past week my daughter and I watched a movie together called Kit Kittredge. The movie itself was fine: good triumphs over evil, as it should in a movie for a 7-year-old. It takes place during the Depression in the 1930’s, and the people in the film experience loss and lowered economic status. There were some underlying, Hollywoodish type themes – for example, is Robin Hood a good guy? Is it OK to rob from the rich and give it to the poor? (the film seemed to imply yes, and I would say no – rich people should give charity, not be the victims of theft). The mother of the main character, a girl named Kit, decides to take in boarders in order to be able to keep their house. Somehow “selling eggs” becomes symbolic of stooping low, and near the end of the film the mother does acquire some chickens so they can sell eggs as well, which Kit is not happy about (but she accepts).

What bothered me in particular about this was that my paternal grandfather sold eggs in the Depression! That was how he supported his family of seven (five children). He would venture out to the egg farms in New Jersey and bring them back to Brooklyn to sell. My father said at some point he helped with the accounting; at the end of each month, my grandfather would have no money left and need to start a new. There was never any savings, but at least they had food to eat.

What was your family doing in the 1930’s?

Update: See Risa’s post about her grandfather who had a store in Brooklyn.

Last Friday RJ Flamingo (who blogs Flamingo Musings) described me (leoraw) on Twitter as: “nature-lover and WordPress maven.” I liked that description. I am in the Berkshires now on a ski vacation, and so I will be checking to see what you write on Thursday. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we will be busy skiing and then traveling home to New Jersey. I hope to post some Sky Watch pictures on Thursday; the skies are beautiful in the mountains here.

The idea is that as children we are often told to be humble (or some of us were), but as adults we need to learn the balance between tooting our own horns and being too loud about ourselves and thus arrogant. By describing your own positive attributes, you will then present your best face to the world. Or you can help someone else by describing what you see as some of their positive characteristics.

How do you find comfort? What do you do when something or someone in your life, community or in world news causes you pain? How do you get in touch with the pain and also find new ways of self-comfort?

When my children were babies, I remember learning that it was important that they learn to self-comfort. If every time a child cries, a parent or guardian rushes to the child’s side, how will the child learn to cope on his or her own? My boys, I remember, each had a blanket that was precious in the going to sleep process.

One of my friends, when times are hard, reads from the Book of Psalms (Tehilim) when she is in distress. I feel she is fortunate that she can find comfort in that manner.

Today is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, the fast day of Tisha B’Av, the Ninth of Av, the day when the Beit HaMikdash, the holy temple that was in Jerusalem, was destroyed. Other tragic events happened on this date as well. In two days we read the haftorah from the Book of Isaiah, in which he proclaims (Isaiah 40:1-2) -

Comfort, comfort my people, so says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.

“Double from sins”? – Is this referring to then or now? It seems the pain continues to this day; the warfare does not seem at an end.

And later Isaiah says (Isaiah 40:7-8) -

Indeed man is but grass: Grass withers, flowers fade – but the Word of our God is always fulfilled!

We can read all of Isaiah (especially the part from Chapter 40 and on), and some of us may find some comfort in the words. For many of us, struggling to understand the words of the ancient prophet is as far as we can get. Perhaps we are meant to know that even if we don’t understand the Big Picture, God does.

So getting back to comfort, here’s a short list from me, perhaps I can get your creative juices running, too:

• Write a blog post.
• Talk to a friend.
• Paint. Draw. Putter in the garden. Find a creative outlet.

More on comfort and Isaiah:
Comfort, Comfort (2005) by Professor Gary A. Rendsburg, chair of the department that I do work for at Rutgers, the Jewish Studies Department

More on Tisha B’Av:
Baila explains how it is hard to be a Jew, even if she is finally living in a Jewish homeland.

On the upcoming parsha (Torah portion of the week):
Ilana-Davita looks for a response to current troubles by studying Parshat Va-Etchanan.

Isaiah 1:23 -

Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards. They don’t judge the orphan, neither does the cause of the widow come to them.

SuperRaizy wrote a post called Too Nauseated to Blog on Friday (lots of bad news in the Jewish community). I didn’t really know what to say to Raizy or about Raizy’s post, but Isaiah, the prophet of over 2000 years ago, says it well. I’m hoping to write a post called “Seeking Comfort” later this week. More words of wisdom from Isaiah.

On a related or not so related note, Jientje alerted me to a Positive Day in the Blogosphere. Did the creator of this have any idea that this is the day after Tisha B’Av, the most mourning-full day of the Jewish calendar and right before Shabbat Nahamu, the Sabbath of Comfort? Just a coincidence, I am sure.

Sometimes I think it must be easier to be non-Jewish (Jientje is not, and she is always so upbeat). But maybe we just have to be “Happy with our lot.”

Anyway, to Raizy, you wrote well in your post. May with the wisdom of Isaiah we find a way to move forward.

Update: if you are interested in discussing the details of the current New Jersey/New York scandal and Dwek, Rafi has a post: Dweck Entrapped Them? (Note: it seems that his name is spelled “Dwek,” and Rafi misspelled it in his post).

Note: this is the first of in series of those who take my link challenge. I was going to do a more light-hearted post for the first one, but I got news that my friend Rick Black’s father died on Sunday. So this one is for G6 and Rick Black.

Remembering a father when a grandchild is born

G6 writes eloquently about how she felt when she lost her father:

I remember vividly walking home from the hospital in utter desolation after his petirah, feeling like my world was so very dark, that I would never learn another thing ever again — how would I smile and laugh again?
How I wish somebody could have come up to me at that very moment and taken me by my shoulders, looked in to my eyes and said….. “SEVEN YEARS FROM THIS VERY DAY you will be sitting at your Shabbos table, surrounded by your entire family, which will include a new son in law, a new daughter in law and you will be cradling your brand new granddaughter in your arms on her very first Shabbos, as everyone at the table sings zemiros and learns in your father’s memory. Your granddaughter will be given her Jewish name on this very day seven years from now.

Please leave comments for her on her post. So beautiful how she savors her father’s memory and connects it to her current family joy.

*petirah = death

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An interview of a son with his father

Rick Black interviewed his father over the past two years. An excerpt from those interviews is on the Jewish Writing Project blog, spoken in his father’s voice:

I was bar mitzvahed in a very small shul – the one on Lake Street. We didn’t make much of it. It was just a small bar mitzvah for our family. I davaned Saturday morning for the service, Shacharis and Musaf, and when they took the Torah out of the ark, I had to sing the “Shema” and my voice broke, and a kid from Hebrew school said, “You alright?”

Another piece of the interview, where Rick’s father befriends Max the Russian:

So, this fella’s name was Max Bregoff and I met him. He was a tough Russian. I introduced him to a lot of my friends who were members of the club and we made him a member of the club, too. We called him the mad Russian. He used to get very angry. He’d spit at them. He was a tough hombre but he found the American way and he was able to live a good life and enjoy himself. He spent a lot of time at the Jewish Center. Yes, he did find the American way and he became a friend.

Read Growing Up Jewish, an interview of David Black by his son Rick Black.

Rick, may you be comforted among the mourners of Israel; may we all know simchas (happy occasions) like the one G6 describes, of a happy, healthy family singing and enjoying together.

Additional Note: I spoke to a friend (not Jewish) here in Highland Park who asked questions about making a shiva call. Topic for another time, explaining a shiva call – do’s and don’ts, the halachot (laws) and the customs. If anyone has suggestions for explaining a shiva call, please feel free to comment. I told my friend that the mourner is supposed to do the talking; the mourner should take the lead in the topic of conversation.

Inspired by Mottel’s riddles, I decided to write one of my own, but in prose. (Here’s Mottel’s latest poetic quiz).

Someone is coming to visit me today. Someone I once interviewed for this blog. The name is in my Twitter stream.

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In other news, the jury duty I mentioned in my Twitter stream got called off. I called last night, and my number was higher than the ones that had to show up. I felt like I had won the lottery. I could write a whole post on jury duty, but I don’t think I want to commit some of ideas to writing. I feel un-American if I say I don’t like the idea of a jury. Really, it’s that I don’t like the idea of my having to serve on a jury and listen. Besides, I have too many other responsibilities to be a good jurist. I think next time I get called for a jury, I will work on the elderly father excuse. My father (finally) got a new computer; I set it up for him on Sunday, and every time he touches it he has another tech support question.

And my brand-new 75-300mm Canon Lens had to get returned to Adorama yesterday, because I was getting an “err_99.” Taking a pencil eraser and rubbing the gold points on the lens did not do the trick. This was the lens that allowed me to captured the robin and swallow in my Nature Notes this week. I hope a new lens comes, without any error messages appearing soon after I get excited about how wonderful the lens is.

•   •   •

And in yet even more news, #themethursday this week is Typography. You don’t have to have a Twitter account to benefit. Go to http://search.twitter.com and put #themethursday as your search term. Enjoy the typography links! Love well-done typography. Something I’ve always wanted to learn in greater detail.