A Year of Kaddish

I know the blog has been quiet of late. Weekly posts instead of the earlier pace of three times a week. Part of the reason may stem from the ritual I’ve come to adopt. How much can one write about going to shul daily, morning and late afternoon or evening without repeating one’s self?

But another reason stems from how busy we’ve been over the past month. Around the same time that a new girl arrived into the Felson family, that being our niece, Ayala Pearl, the one born in Jerusalem Dec. 4, Julia and I were on our way back from an overnight trip to Rochester, N.Y., where we picked up a 14-month Wheaton Terrier named Darla. It turns out she and our six-year-old Wheaton, Sammy, have the same father, Abe, so they’re siblings. I had managed to scout out shuls before hand, and the timing worked out perfectly. Well, for me, not for Julia and our new pup, who sat in the car for too long while I said Kaddish at Congregation Beth Hakneses Hachodosh.

Then a couple weeks later, our middle-son, David, 23, arrived home, after spending the last year working in Washington, D.C. at various internships – unpaid and then paid – and at a Farmer’s Market, where he worked as market manager one day a week. Like many his age, it’s been a tough year to find full-time work. But he’s landed a job through a D.C.-based organization -– actually, a paid year-long fellowship in Bolivia of all places. He leaves this Friday.

A few days after David arrived home, our son, Ben, 20, returned home from a semester abroad, coincidentally, also in Bolivia. The story gets even more bizarre. Until Ben left for Bolivia late last summer, none of us had ever heard of the city he was studying in, Cochabamba, though it boasts a population of more than 500,000. Now it turns out David will be stationed in – yep, you guessed it – Cochabamba as well.

The same day, Ben flew into JFK from South America, our daughter, Rachel, 27, was flying East from Boulder, Colorado, where she had just completed an 18-month program to become a certified Rolfer. She came home to spend a few weeks with all of us before flying back to the Rocky Mountains. Yesterday she packed all her belongings into her Subaru wagon and embarked on the next chapter in her life: Moving to San Francisco to live and start her new Rolfing practice. [By the way, she’s still looking for a name for the practice and her soon-to-be announced website.]

Ben returned to college before New Year’s Day – he too flew back to the Rocky Mountains, as he’s a junior at Colorado College. So this past Friday night, among those sitting at our Shabbat table were Rachel and David. We sang Shalom Aleichem, chanted Kiddush over the wine, said the blessing over two loaves of home-baked challah and then dug into a lovely vegetarian meal: Moroccan Yellow Split Pea Soup, Israeli Couscous with Curried Vegetables, and Butternut Squash with Cranberries, Toasted Walnuts and Maple Syrup.

The next morning as I was walking to shul, it came to me what was missing. There’s a tradition on Shabbat Evening for the parents to bless their children. I have to admit, we usually don’t do it, not because we don’t wish them a life full of blessings, but because it’s just a tradition and ritual which with neither Julia or I grew up.

But as I was walking last Saturday in below-freezing temperatures, the sun shining on the frozen snow, I was regretting not having bestowed blessings on both of them on their latest journeys in life.

Besides saying the traditional blessing, I would have said something like: May you live this new chapter in your lives fully. May you feel the courage to do what might feel frightening. May you be open to what unfolds. May you remain curious. May you take risks, but be careful. May you feel joy. And stay in touch..