To the Shadchan:

I met a guy in graduate school, and we have been going out for a few months now. We have a wonderful relationship, and he is starting to bring up marriage. I think he would make a great husband. He is very nice, observant, and has a career ahead of him. And we enjoy each other’s company.

So what’s the problem? His mother. He is the youngest child in the family and is very close with his mother. In fact, at age 26, he still lives at home. I have met his mother a few times and have eaten there on Shabbos. She is a personable and intelligent woman but very overbearing and opinionated. For example, one Shabbos, her daughter and son-in-law’s family were also at the table. One of their children was misbehaving, and the mother was criticizing the way they handled it, right in front of the child. The parents of the child backed down. My impression is that she is used to everyone listening to her and doing what she says.

Also, she asks too many questions, about everything. She seems to know a lot about me – too much. She was widowed many years ago and doesn’t seem to have many friends. Her whole life has been about her children.

I grew up in a home where I was taught to be respectful to adults, and I would never say anything inappropriate. But I am worried. If I marry this man, it seems like it will be a marriage of three. I’ve seen marriages break apart over that scenario. I would be really sad to end this, yet I am afraid. Should I run while I can, or do you think this is a manageable situation? If so, how should I go about it?

Several years ago, T-shirts bearing the words “I Found the Afikomen!” were proudly worn by young children after the Seder nights. The shirt was a fad, which, like most fads, faded, but the sentiment lives on. The joy of finding the afikomen will never be lost. The customs surrounding the afikomen may be based on the Talmud’s statement, “We grab the matzot on the night of Passover, so that the children will not sleep.” Sometimes, the broken part of the middle matzah  is passed from hand to hand until the end of the meal, when whoever has it can bargain for a gift. And sometimes, the leader hides it, and the children must hunt until they find it.

Growing up in Baltimore in the late 40s and 50s, my afikomen gifts hold special memories for me. I remember Seders on Cylburn Avenue, which my Great-Aunt Cele, hosted. Although Aunt Cele never married, she was the matriarch of the family, who treated her nieces and nephews as her children.

Around her beautiful Seder table, sat my beloved mother, her niece, and my dear father. My brother and I sat across from them with Aunt Cele between us. As the aroma of simmering chicken soup wafted in from the kitchen and we listened to the words of the Haggadah, our eyelids would droop. That’s when Aunt Cele started whispering to us about when and where to search for the afikomen. She made it a mystery, an exciting game. My brother and I knew that if we found the afikomen – and every year we did! – we would get a prize.

They say the end is in the beginning and the beginning is in the end. Well, then, let’s continue the story of my education at the Talmudical Academy during its golden age. I ended the last article saying, “Yes, we were fathered.” Now I will go back even further in time to how it all started.

My parents were born in the early 1900s. Little, if any, organized chinuch was available. TA was just a thought in 1911, the year of my father’s birth. Bais Yaakov was 50 years in the future. My father learned with my Zaidy until Zaidy finished two cups of tea, after which Zaidy promptly fell asleep. My mother learned everything about Yiddishkeit from her mother. I remember my mother lighting candles, kashering meat, and preparing for the Seder. She did chesed: visiting the sick, delivering Meals on Wheels, and serving in the TA cafeteria on her day off from my parents’ grocery store on Fayette Street, downtown in West Baltimore. She called her parents every day, even emptying their basement when it flooded; that was after spending a long day in the store.

It’s always exciting when “one of our own” makes it big. By now, most of us have heard of Judge Rachel (“Ruchie”) Freier, the chasidishe super-woman. So when Rabbi Yisrael Motzen, of Ner Tamid, introduced her last month in a program in memory of longtime congregant Dr. Frank F. Schuster, it made for a fascinating evening.

Rabbi Motzen pointed out how both Judge Freier and Dr. Schuster had successfully persevered to break the status quo with what he called their “holy chutzpa.” Dr. Schuster clung to the unpopular path of Torah in the early 50s, even while facing opposition and hardship in his pursuit of a medical degree at Johns Hopkins. Similarly, Judge Freier overcame many obstacles to arrive at her present position. A “regular” wife and mother in Boro Park, she worked to support her husband’s learning. After he earned his degree in accounting, she, too, went to college and, subsequently, law school. In their shared office, she practiced real estate law, while her husband did commercial financing.

With Pesach coming, writing an article about chinuch (Jewish education) seems appropriate. The whole Yom Tov revolves around passing our heritage along to our children. We have two full nights of Seder and weeks of preparation devoted to this sacred task. How do we teach about Yetzias Mitzrayim (the exodus from Egypt) so that it is joyful and not tedious for our children and students?

Before giving any advice, I need to preface it with a disclaimer that should probably accompany every article I write: Anything I recommend works for some; it does not work for others. The Haggadah talks about four sons – all raised by the same parents – who turn out completely different. Our parenting comprises our hishtadlus (effort), but the results are not up to us. With my first child, I thought I had it all figured out. I read the books, had parenting rules to live by, and thought I had this parenting thing down pat. I did, until number two, three, etc. came along and showed me that it had nothing to do with me. My kids have their own personalities and will grow up into whomever Hashem wants them to be. I can’t take the credit – or the blame – for the results. But I am still expected to try my best.

With that said, I’d like to share some ideas to help us think about how to teach Yetzias Mitzrayim, whether at the Seder or in the classroom.

Purim is a wonderful holiday full of fun and excitement and the getting and giving of goodies. However, Purim is also a time when some people feel extra sadness. This includes children who, for whatever reason, are no longer – or never were – in a frum school. Last year, nearly 50 frum Baltimore kids in public school almost didn’t receive shalach manos.

But, thank G-d – and thanks to you – they did!

Simcha’s Purim is a local initiative of parents of frum kids in public school who daven that our children feel the happiness of Purim and the sweetness of our Torah. It was created l’ilui nishmas my father, a”h, whose name was Simcha ben Yaakov.

Simcha’s Purim is not meant to be a chesed project but, rather, just a friendly gesture to great children who may be unknown or forgotten simply by virtue of not being in a mainstream school. Since our volunteers know them, and you may not, we will be your messengers to deliver your shalach manos to kids who will appreciate them.

Self-care: There’s been a lot of focus on that concept lately. In our full, busy full lives, it’s easy to overlook our own needs. But self-care is not just bubble-baths and massages – although those are quite nice, and sometimes important – let’s talk for a moment about exercise. 

Rewind three years. I went to my doctor for a routine visit just after my 35th birthday. “Do you exercise?” Well, I run a playgroup and chase around my own four kids. That counts, right? Apparently not. So I reluctantly took myself to a fitness class. And that changed my life. I immediately fell in love with a class called BodyAttack, a cardio class with high- and low-impact options. My endurance and athletic ability were very weak, and I wanted to improve, so I asked myself what I could do that would encourage a commitment to fitness.

Goals are very important, big and small. I decided to go for a huge goal. I signed myself up for a Tough Mudder, a 12-mile endurance obstacle course. Stepping totally out of my comfort zone, I approached the BodyAttack instructor and let her know my goal. She assured me that with commitment and hard work I would succeed. Over the next eight months, I took various fitness classes, including BodyPump, a strength training class that I now teach. The instructors were so supportive and encouraging, and the friends I made motivated me to keep going despite struggles along the way. Crossing that finish line at the end of the Tough Mudder was an amazing experience. It felt like a culmination of my dedication to my health. But that was just the start of my journey.

Recently, the Bobov-45 Rebbe summoned his thousands of followers in Boro Park – and the world over, via live hookups – to a gathering where he shared some unprecedented directives. The purpose of the gathering was an effort to bring down wedding costs. Among the announcements was discontinuing the traditional exchange of diamond and gold watches by the chassan and kalla to one another, which have become unaffordable for most of the Rebbe’s followers. Instead, to save each side thousands of dollars, the Bobov-45 Rebbetzin will buy each kalla a watch and, as an incentive to adhere to the Rebbe’s new guidelines, participating couples will be eligible for an extra $5,000 in hachnasas kalla funds.

Today’s chassan/kalla gift-giving traditions in the predominantly Litvish Baltimore/Silver Spring communities, while not precisely mirroring those in the chasidishe communities, seem to escalate from decade to decade. And our young local brides and grooms – or perhaps more accurately, their parents – cannot afford elaborate gifts any better than the Bobov-45 community. WWW spoke to a number of people to shed light on the changing customs and how various people view this subject.

Singing in the rain is not exactly a normal activity, right? So let me explain. There was once a movie called Singin’ in the Rain, starring the outstanding dancer, Gene Kelly. Some folks believed that Kelly’s character was a bit tsudrayt (confused) because, although it was raining “cats and dogs,” he continued to dance and sing, “I’m singing in the rain….”

He was thinking of his lady friend, of course, but to many people, Kelly was delivering another message, an even more important one, which was to celebrate life even when times are difficult. It’s not a Yiddishe song (though its lyrics were written by a Yid) but it fits our tradition. We have been instructed to worship G-d with simcha (joy) even when we encounter shvair (difficult) times. And thus, we, too, sing in the rain. (Incidentally, in Yiddish the word “shvair” also refers to a father-in-law. “So why is a shvair called a shvair?” you may ask.

With Purim approaching, we thought it might be helpful to consider the importance of speaking with your children about drinking. It’s an unpleasant topic, one that we parents might want to avoid in the midst of busy preparations for this happy day. Unfortunately, it has become necessary, just as we teach children to buckle their seatbelts in the car and wear their helmets when they ride their bikes.

As we have discussed previously in this series, teenage drinking is quite common. The most recent scientific survey across public and private high schools shows that about a quarter of eighth graders report drinking. Among high school seniors, well over half are drinking, with 43% endorsing that they were drunk at least once. Middle school and high school students report easy access to alcohol, and tend to dismiss possible harms associated with drinking.