Yom Kipur Installment: Halacha and Tips

1. Fasting:

I already covered this is the chapter on all the fasts. Here are the links: https://mommyshulchanaruch.blogspot.com/2019/07/fasting-installment-1-halacha.html AND https://mommyshulchanaruch.blogspot.com/2019/07/fasting-installment-2-tips-mommys.html

For additional cool stuff re: the halacha of Yom Kipur (like what if you must eat, do you make kidush? Do you bentsch?) can be found here: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/528963/jewish/What-is-the-procedure-for-one-who-must-eat-on-Yom-Kippur.htm

2. Hiring help

Hiring help for oneself (if one is concerned she might become sick from fasting) or to help watch the baby and/or children is permitted, but one needs to adhere to the following guidelines in order not to desecrate Yom Kipur. (The following are also guidelines for Shabbos.)

Whom to Hire and How:

You need to delineate carefully which tasks the job entails, primarily if it is going to entail actual melacha or not. If you think you will require actual melacha to be performed, then it is preferable to hire a gentile. However if no melacha is required, then it doesn't matter (although Rabbi Weiner said it's better to give parnasa to a Jew). Whomever you end up hiring, it is important to meet with them in advance and instruct them before YK (or Shabbos) re: the various tasks they will be expected to perform. For tasks that do not involve melacha, bedieved (post facto) it is permitted to instruct them even on YK itself.

Payment: For this not to be considered working/getting paid for work done on YK - the caretaker must commence working for you either before Yom Kipur (or Shabbos) OR continue afterwards. The pay must be a global wage for the service; it shouldn't be by hour.

3. Davening

A woman needs to prioritize whichever Amidahs she is able to say. So in order of priority: shacharit, musaf and neilah. They are long, so whatever you get through - makes sure to pat yourself on the back AND I high-five you all the way from Ramot!!

Tips:

-Don't forget to leave the Shabbos urn on if you'll need to sterilize bottles and other baby paraphernalia.

-If you plan on serving your kids warm food, don't forget to leave the hot plate/blech on.

-Even when my kids were little, I used to read the "Seder avodah" part of musaf with them as a story, painting a picture of what Yom Kipur was (and IS SUPPOSED TO BE) like. The amount depended on their patience and attention span. We used to discuss the seder avodah, instead of mumbling it like prayer.

One for the Moms - 2 Questions Re: Older kids and the High Holidays

my Dovi davening at David HaMelech's kever :)

When I asked women to send in questions re: juggling motherhood and the High Holidays, I received 2 questions related to parenting older kids and the unique challenges that that poses.

1. Teens helping out at the expense of their own davening?!

Question: What about teens? Girls run the kids groups during shul. It’s a great help to the parents in the community. But how/when can they take care of their own need to daven? I don’t want to model to just fit it in as an afterthought; it's as important as providing childcare.

This is a great question. So I don't *know* but I can tell you what I think:

The difficult part of education is that there are very few hard and fast rules that are "one size fits all." I think here, it very much depends on the girl. Just as there are girls who derive no personal satisfaction from intellectual pursuits (yes, there are such girls and they too are normal and wonderful), there are girls for spirituality holds little-to-no fascination. As our Sages would put it, there are different types of souls, mined out of different caves.

This however doesn't let us, as parents and educators, off the hook. We cannot just say "ok, she's born that way so that means she is doomed to be that way." Every woman needs to develop her own connection with G-d and especially through davening. OT1H it's important for every girl to be pushed a little outside of her comfort zone in order to grow, but OTOH it is also important to be in tune with the girl and not try to make her something she is not.

So I think this factor is an indicator on what role the child care or davening plays in a girl's world. For example: given that my daughter is cerebral and spiritual (ah, karma), I never asked her to watch the kids so I could daven. She would offer, but I kept pushing her to go to shul, saying "now is YOUR time! Take advantage of every minute! I had my time when I was your age and I used it fully. I have no regrets."

What it comes down to is: I think it depends if the teens are doing it resentfully or not. If yes – then this is a big problem. But if they are happy to do it, and they feel personal satisfaction serving Hashem that way, then what is wrong with that? If you have a child who is contemplative and would enjoy participating in the services, then by all means that must be encouraged. 

And btw, the biggest way that we send our kids the message powerfully, that their tefila is important to us is – if we are willing to sacrifice to enable them to daven. If your daughter knows you would LOVE to be in shul, but you are watching the little ones so she can daven – think what kind of message that sends her about how much you think her tefila is worth?!

2. When your son is too old to be in the ladies section with you, but not old enough to take himself to the men's section.

Question: What should moms do when they have sons who are too young to be sent to the men's section with only older brothers for supervision but too old to be running around outside making noise... Or moms of boys who don't relate to shul but who are old enough to be expected to do *some* davening but will have to do it on their own without supervision.

You don't have to be a single mom to have this issue. This is a general question of how responsible are we for our kids religious obligations once they reach adolescence aka halachic adulthood. Just because a boy reaches bar mitzvah, that doesn't mean he automatically relates to minyan and davening. (And I'm going to throw out a dangerous, sticky point here: his attitude also depends on what he witnessed growing up in terms of his father's attitude to minyan. This is a bitter pill many women – married and divorced – have to swallow.)

As parents (this holds true for dads as well) we now enter a tricky phase of parenthood where we can no longer tell them what to do and can only encourage them. Of course there are all kinds of means of encouragement – motivational rewards, consequence motivations, etc. When I consulted with one educator, he said nothing but positive encouragement works with this generation.

Kids not going to/being "into" shul, is often due to one of two reasons:

1. Being tired/having trouble getting out of bed (teens need a lot of sleep) or

2. Not really getting the point of going to shul and/or prayer.

I won't go into #1because that's tricky. But re: #2 - sometimes being able to discuss and explain concepts in davening can help. (NOT PREACHING!!) Again, it depends on how naturally spiritual or intellectual a kid is. Basically we need to encourage and let go and let G-d.

And one important thing: We need to train ourselves to ignore nasty comments from obnoxious, self-righteous people in our community who feel they have the right to judge us and our children. I have had a well-respected rav and educator tell my husband that the right thing for one of my boys was to be playing basketball with friends, and not to force him to sit in shul. That kid's chasidishkeit is incomparable now b"H but raising him I got flack from everybody with 2 working vocal chords. And y'know what? I thank G-d that He gave me the courage to ignore them because if I listened to them instead to my instinct as a mom, I shudder to think where that child would be today…

Next installment: For real – Yom Kipur's halachic questions.

Installment #3: The King is in the field – So What?

(screenshots from the link below to the drama "Moon Embracing the Sun." what a title, right?)

I don't know how much this will resonate for anyone but I feel a need to broach this as an educator. This isn't so much for mommies as it is for anyone in this generation.

I don't know how much we are able to understand Rosh HaShana anymore. As I mentioned in the first 2 entries – the essence of Rosh Hashana is coronating Hashem to rule over us as a king. The trappings and protocol of Monarchy, as it was "once upon a time," is what stands behind many of the elements of observing this day. But that is the problem right there, because Kingship is the one concept we don't understand today. As Democracy and Communism swept the globe, both were - successfully - hellbent on eliminating Monarchy and caused that entity to barely exist and hence become unfamiliar to most of the world.

From the very structure of the Amidah to blowing the shofar – everything is meant to create an associative experience of the awesomeness of Monarchy. But if we lack the software, then clicking on the icon does nothing because it has no program to run. What I would like to do in this chapter is fill in some blanks, so that when we reach the words in the siddur or even attend the shofar blowing, the hyperlinks (yes, I'm switching metaphors) have some kind of website to open up to, even if it's under construction. 

First and foremost, a king was deified so often, due to the fact that he is equated with being the source of Life and Death. Everything associated with him had grave (quite literally!) consequences. For example: anyone caught casually glancing at the King's face – by chance or deliberately – was executed. Justice has nothing to do with it. If you saw the king's face without permission – you forfeited your life. (It's not for nothing that Hashem says to Moshe "one cannot see My face and live.") I discovered this fact from various sageuks (Korean historical dramas) but lest you think this was only a Korean tradition, check out this midrash from Beresheet Rabbah 65:10:

"Another thing: [why did Yitzchak become blind in his old age?] ["…and his eyes became dimmed] from seeing" - from the power of that vision during the time that our father Avraham was binding Yitzchak his son on the altar, Yitzchak lifted up his eyes on high and gazed at the Shechinah. Our Sages composed a parable to explain this, to what can this be compared? Like a king who is strolling around the entrance of his castle and he lifted up his eyes and saw his beloved friend's son peeping out the window [and he saw the king]. He said to himself "if I kill him, I will be harming my beloved friend. So instead I will decree that the windows be shut/sealed!' And so it was while our father Avraham was binding Yitzchak his son on the altar, he lifted up his eyes and gazed at the Shechinah. HaKadosh Baruch Hu said "if I kill him [Yitzchak] now, I will be harming Avraham my beloved friend, rather I will decree that his eyes be dimmed and when Yitzchak grew old his eyes dimmed..."

It doesn't need to be said that there are layers upon layers of significance embedded in this midrash, and I will not even attempt to analyze it here. But on the most basic level, notice how our Sages in the 4^th century take for granted the convention that glancing at the king mundanely - warrants automatic death. (From what I understand there is a two-fold rationale behind this ancient rule: 1. To maintain the king's aura of mystery and reverence and 2. Quite practically – to protect him from assasins. You can't kill the king if you don't know who he is.) Now imagine how much more perilous other interactions were with the king…

Now I want us to apply this to Elul and Rosh Hashana which in some way complement each other. When the Alter Rebbe (who lived under monarchical rule, not Communism) wrote that in Elul "the King is in the field and greets everyone with a smiling face," do we have any idea what that means?! How radical that is?! It means all judgements are suspended; all protocol, all the pomp and circumstance, and most importantly, the danger of death – all are lessened (I do not know if they are suspended altogether). The king lets go of all of his privilege and puts his life in danger to connect with the people.

[To get a tiny glimmer of the paradox of a mortal king going out to the people (king in the field) watch minutes 11:10-14:30 here: https://myasiantv.to/drama/the-moon-embracing-the-sun/episode-7/ The irony is that on the one hand, this is the humbled, casual procession where the King has left the palace to connect with the people of the villages, outside the capital. On the other hand, even the stripped down version is still incredibly ceremonious and opulent. Notice how even the guards do not look at him and are ready to stab anyone who lifts their head. (FTR – this very much reminded me of the way I imagined the Leviim carrying the Mishkan in the desert for 40 years.)]

And then we enter Rosh Hashana and the King starts making His way slowly back into the palace. After the King has roused the hearts of the people with his vulnerability, he returns to the palace (after Yom Kipur) and all of the former protocols of Life and Death. He signs and seals His subjects in the Royal ledgers.

What's poignant about this isn't how impressive the king is but what does this mean for us? How did the King's presence in the field affect us? That is what we are meditating upon on Rosh Hashana (and even Yom Kipur). Now we have a whole new reference point for "Avinu Malkeinu": the state of informality and closeness in Elul (Avinu) creates a love that leads to awe (Malkeinu). We want the King because He really wants us – Ani Le'Dodi Ve'Dodi Li (ELU"L). And we see that that is the focus much of the Rosh Hashana prayers ("zocher ha-brit," etc etc).

Today, concepts like submission, awe, obedience, and respect are stigmatized but they need not be. When they come from tyranny and detachment – they become empty and even destructive; but if they come from affection and choice, then they become a framework that contains and protects the love. (This is the key to parenting, marriage, etc fyi.) May our prayers for a return to (rectified and balanced) Monarchy be answered and may we merit to coronate Hashem in our hearts and Moshiach in Jerusalem, this year.

Next Installment be"H: Yom Kipur

Installment #2: Tips for Harnessing The Tired Mind

Even for Israelis, the high holiday prayers pose a huge challenge; the language is archaic and peppered with fragments of diverse Torah allusions few can catch. Not understanding what you're saying makes it even harder to say with meaning; add the exhaustion and distraction of being a mommy to the mix and it's a recipe for despair and frustration. What I have found over the years – and I have found this to be true for ruchnius and gashmius - is that it all comes down to advance preparation.

I have three tips for drawing meaning out of the well of Rosh Hashana:

1. Prepare in advance technically

2. Pick your battles and tag team with your spouse

3. Prepare in advance mentally

Tip #1: The Map of the Machzor

To get somewhere successfully, one must first be aware of the destination. Tefila is certainly no different, for it definitely is meant to be a journey. All the tefilot were composed with a clear structure that leads the davener to the destination. So just like you would at least open Google maps in advance to plan a trip, making time in advance to flip through the machzor – even 5 minutes! – can make a difference. After all, you need to get reacquainted with something you haven't looked at in a whole year.

Here's a little X-ray, breaking down the anatomy of the Rosh Hashana davening:

The opening and the closing of the Amidah are (almost) always the same: 3 praise brachot (one praising Hashem's chesed - "magen Avraham," another blessing His gevura - "mechayeh ha-metim," and the 3^rd – His Sanctity "ha-Kel ha-Kadosh") and Gratitude at the end. The body is what changes, depending on the occasion.

On Rosh Hashana, a shift occurs: the 3^rd bracha becomes an extended coronation bracha "ha-Melech ha-Kadosh." The body then contains one bracha sanctifying the day, which signs off fittingly with "Melech al kol ha-aretz mekadesh Yisrael ve'Yom ha-Zikaron." The blessings all steer the davener's attention to Hashem's function as Supreme Monarch.

Rosh Hashana's musaf Amidah has a unique structure where the body is arranged around 3 blessings: Malchuyot (verses of Kingship), Zichronot (verses of Remembrances) and Shofarot (verses of Shofar blasts), in that specific order. The first thing we reflect upon is G-d's total kingship and sign off with "Melech al kol ha-aretz mekadesh Yisrael ve'Yom ha-zikaron." Next, we meditate upon His omniscience, as specifically expressed by His inability to forget or omit any element that binds us to Him; we seal this section with the blessing "zocher ha-brit." And lastly, Birkat Shofarot runs through the reminders of how the shofar binds us to G-d – be at Har Sinai when we pledged unwavering allegiance to Him, or from the words expressing our yearning to hear Moshiach's coronation shofar blast. We sign off with "shome'a kol teruat amo Yisrael be'rachamim." Each blessing/section is punctuated with the baal tokeia's 10 blasts before moving on to the next one.

Tip #2 & 3: Partnership and Prepping the Journey

Making time to go through the machzor also gives us 2 other advantages:

Tip #2: Partnership

-Familiarity with the text in order to choose what you want to prioritize to attend or possibly participate in shul.

There are different ways to tag team with a spouse or friend/other loved one who is willing to help.

-Sometimes one's husband can go to an earlier minyan so you can go to a later one OR

 -Vice versa. I know plenty of women who said "I was up with the baby anyway at 4am. He's fed and going to sleep for a couple of hours – I could go to vatikin."

-If that's not an option, there are ways to participate, as long as you stay focused:

Either through asking your husband to watch the kids for this one part OR

-by finding a way to go with them. I would tell an older child "we're going to go to the park but we're coming in to shul for 5 minutes for prayer X. And then we can go and play again." It taught them 2 things: 1) Ima has needs too and she is not at their beck and call 2) they are Yidden, even if they are children and this is Rosh Hashana for them too, even if they are little.

Tip #3: Mental Prep

 I want to convey this with a story. Note: I am by NO means sharing this story in order for it to be emulated but to make a point.

At some point during mommyhood, I noticed that I needed to go away by myself for a night during Elul to rest up before diving into Tishrei and my "battery charger" was Netanya. Despite truly appreciating the privilege of being a mother, there were years where I very much missed the words of the Rosh Hashana prayers and literally longed for them.

So one year, I decided to bring my Rosh Hashana machzor with me to Netanya and spend the morning saying the tefilot I would not have a chance to say in real time. I could say them slowly, without interruptions, with a rejuvenated mind, after a full night of uninterrupted sleep. I could ponder them and dig deep within myself and watch them take root. And so that is what I did one year. I was able to connect and I said the whole thing with Hashem's name and everything. And as I was davening I said in my heart "Hashem please accept everything I say today - on Rosh Hashana itself. You know that I want to say it then and You also know that I won't be able to, so please accept it then."

Fast forward several years, and I asked Rabbi Weiner if what I did was wrong halachically. His answer was as follows: "If you are asking strictly from the dry halachic vantage point - then it is forbidden to say the blessings of the Rosh Hashana prayers and musaf on the inappropriate day because that would be a form of taking G-d's name in vain. But… there is that which is above the heavens… there, is Hashem… and there are things that stand above. And there, I do not know what Hashem thought about your prayer."

The takeaway from the story is this: that the only problem was saying it with Hashem's name. But carving out time to say the prayers and go into Rosh HaShana (and maybe even YK) feeling mentally prepared, lessens the FOMO IRT. At least I can say that for me, it did. If the King is in the field all of Elul, we should take advantage of the kids being in daycare/school and consecrate time to spend with Him.

Next installment be"H: How on earth do we, today, even relate to the concept of Monarchy?!!

Installment #1: The Challenges of the Halachic Obligations of Rosh Hashana

I had a really hard time figuring out where to start. It sounds funny when it's so obvious – duh, start with Rosh Hashana, at the very beginning. But it's not that simple.

When I sat down to start typing up the topics I need to cover halachically, I was surprised to discover how truly few there are. What's overwhelming about Rosh Hashana isn't the plethora of laws to keep track of like, like Pesach, but the intensity of the concept of the holiday. For many women the combination of motherhood and taking care of mundane physical needs feels like it collides with the holidays, instead of just intersecting with them. They feel stuck in the tension between where they want to be (in shul, immersed in introspection) versus where they are (i.e. at the park, pushing your baby and/or toddler on the swing). There's this feeling like you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The crazy thing about feelings is that they are simultaneously very real and false at the same time. Our feelings come from a very deep place but sometimes they mislead us because we misread them or have incorrect definitions that cause us to misinterpret a situation.

In terms of the dry halacha itself:

There is only one mitzvah that we have to observe to sanctify the day (other than the regular stuff like Amidah, kidush etc etc) and that is hearing the 100 blasts of the shofar. That's it. Doesn't matter if it's in the privacy of your own home or part of minyan. All the liturgy is important, but only in the sense that it is there to help one tap into the energy of Rosh Hashana, but it's not a mitzvah.

Regarding the question of the barebones halacha of davening on Rosh Hashana, one student put it so well: "When you have little kids (especially when this includes a newborn), what is a reasonable expectation/goal for davening? How to prepare for YT spiritually when we are so busy with the gashmius? Tbh a real struggle is trying to do anything at all (like davening) vs giving up and feeling resigned to the fact that it’s not happening in the first place."

I asked Rabbi Winer what women should prioritize davening on Rosh Hashana, with their limited mental resources. He answered: "kriyat shema and Amidah. If she finds more time/energy/opportunity – then musaf as well." I was surprised by his answer because women are exempt from kriyat shema. I asked him why he said that, to which he replied "you asked what a woman should prioritize on Rosh Hashana. I said Amidah because she is obligated and kriyat shema because its essence is accepting the yoke of heaven upon oneself , which is the entire essence of Rosh Hashana." It's not about "U'netaneh tokef," or bowing in Aleinu. It boils down to this: if you're going to muster the kavana for shema only one time the whole year – this is the day to do it.  

Inward or Outward bound?

Which leads me to my next point – how we define the value of spiritual things. It seems we get so distracted by superficial things that we overlook the essence. On Rosh Hashana, the essence is passing on to ourselves and our children a sense of choosing to submit before Hashem as a king. Hearing the piyutim and being part of minyan is impressive but not essential. I feel like tackling this issue is harder now than in previous generations. And it's not because of feminism or opportunity, but rather because we, as a generation, attribute more weight to the superficial than previous generations. A student was just telling me how her fiancé asked her not to post things on FB after the wedding because of how many friends they both know who live "relatively," who become unhappy because they are always comparing their sense of normalcy to 2D images they see there.

Many women may be naturally spiritually inclined, so only part of the issue is defining spiritual experience by superficial criteria such as participation in public ritual. I'll be the first to admit that it's not just that. The other part is just a question of being able to concentrate, as several students wrote in. When you're a mommy, mental energy is a rare commodity: either due to internal distractions (exhaustion etc) or external distractions (the children's needs). In the next installment I will be"H tackle tips for how to deal with this challenge. (Yes there is hope!)