Shalom at Home

By the time you read this you might be:

• Elbow deep in Elmer’s Glue, putting the last touches on your child’s classroom Valentines box,

See me at 20, charging through my college campus with hand-painted signs, writing letters, following megaphones, clapping, chanting, calling for justice for fill-in-the-blank. I was full of the just fire of youth.

We live in an age of man-made miracles, and anyone who has ever ordered something online would surely agree.

Sometimes it’s hard when you feel like the only kid in town without a Christmas tree. (If you catch the Adam Sandler reference, bless you — you are officially old like me.)

If you’re attempting to measure your child’s Jewish educational progress against the masses, allow me to refer you to Pirkei Avot 5:21, the Sayings of our Fathers.

So you didn’t build a sukkah this year.

It is that time of year again, when we are called to do acts of teshuvah, of repentance and return.

As a child, the thought of Yom Kippur filled me with cold, existential dread. The day itself would find me in tears, certain of my well-deserved doom — like, tomorrow.