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.

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.

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.

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).

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

•   •   •

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.

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

•   •   •

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.

Bittersweet: Today is Mother’s Day, and my mother is not around for me to wish her happy mother’s day. You can read the posts I wrote in the past about my mom, Elaine, z”l. My kids, however, have various plans for me, like my youngest wants to make a mom cake, and the middle one wants to bike with my husband to the kosher Chinese food restaurant in Manville, New Jersey called Lin’s. From there, they will call us so we can drive over for dinner. My eldest said, huh, wuh, Mother’s Day? And we joked how in high school they don’t have him make the little cards for mom anymore?

Therapydoc wrote a great post called You Only Have One Mother. Whenever there is a holiday, there are some people who struggle with the day, for whatever of their own personal reasons. I was always close to my mother, but the relationship did not always go smoothly. Others I know had incredibly difficult times with their moms. For them, Mother’s Day is distressing, a reminder of what they don’t have, even if they physically do have a mother.

Painful: a young man died last week. It turns out he was from my cousins’ yishuv in Israel. The yishuv (means “settlement” in Hebrew; it’s a group of families that settled in a beautiful area in the Lower Galil) has more young men buried in their tiny cemetery than people who led full lives. My sincere condolences go out to the family. Noam Adin Rechter Levy was twenty years old.

Last week I blogged about a local TweetUp, where I met a variety of people who connected via Twitter. One of the organizers of the event, Eva Abreu, asked the following question this week on Twitter (F2F = Face to Face):

If you’ve attended a Tweetup or other F2F networking event, what tip would you give someone who is going for the first time?

•  •  •

I responded with a brief tweet, part of which said “bring a smile.” Then I emailed Eva these ideas:

1. Think before the TweetUp:
What do you want to accomplish?
If you have unrealistic expectations, you may be disappointed. On the other hand, you could also plant some good networking seeds.

– You probably won’t make direct sales. You might, but you also might annoy others who are trying to promote their businesses, too.
– Make contacts with people in fields related to your own? Different from own? Be open to new ideas.
– Look at the Twitvite to see who is coming. If you know a little about each person, that will help with meeting others.

2. During the event:
Introduce yourself to as many people as possible in the room. Smile. Bring business cards. Ask them questions about their business or hobbies or what brought them to the TweetUp. Listen carefully to other conversations, and try to share something related when the conversation pauses.

3. After the TweetUp:
Follow on Twitter those that made an impression on you. If there is a hashtag for the event, such as #cnjtu, follow it using search.twitter.com or by dedicating a column in TweetDeck to a search of#cnjtu. Assuming you collected a variety of business cards, you can try emailing anyone who doesn’t appear to use Twitter much with whom you want to connect. Read others’ Tweets, and respond to some of them by asking questions or retweeting. Let the seeds grow slowly. Some people are more open to sharing ideas than others. Some may be busier at different times of the day/week and more available at others.

Try to attend another TweetUp, too, and encourage any friend who might benefit.

•  •  •

What would you suggest to someone about to attend a networking event? Have you ever been to a networking event? Or a professional event, where you don’t know any of the other people, but want to get to know them better?

Eva and Jennifer Fong, another organizer of our local Tweetup (see her latest post on social capital), will both be on blogtalkradio speaking about Twitter Tweetup Tips on Friday, March 6 at 11 am EST. Should be an interesting 15 minutes!

My daughter wants to go to theatre camp; they start them going into first grade, and she’ll already be going into second. I told her they would not have hot lunches there, and she would have to bring her own lunch. She is very excited about the idea of theatre camp. She is not at all enthusiastic about going back to the camp at her school, which I find so convenient (and they serve her a kosher hot lunch every day). But she will have to go there part of the summer, in addition to the theatre camp. Her major problem with her camp is instructional swim. Tough, I said. She needs to learn to swim.

My middle son wants to sign up for a week of Video Art: Object Animation at the Zimmerli. I took a film animation class way back when I was going into 7th grade. Boy, has the technology changed since the 1970s!

Do they offer any creative programs for kids where you live? For adults? What would you like to do creatively, if you had the time?