Blessings

This week's Torah portion will deal with blessings. Ya'akov is dying. It's not necessarily a sad thing. People die. "Mourn not a life lost but a life not lived" to paraphrase Tuck Everlasting. You can't say Ya'akov's life was a "life not lived". Heck, the man managed to squeeze enough drama into his life for 3 regular people: Sibling rivalry, greatest love story in the bible, murderous in-laws, rivaling wives, a keen business sense, teary reunions, out of control sons, lost son, found son, outrageously successful son. You name it, Ya'akov had it. 

So the "deathbed scene" is more of a rite of passage than a terrible event. And so he gathers his kids around him and doles out the blessings. And boy, oh boy, is he right on the money. Oy, the 'tsuris' Jewish kinder give their poor, long suffering parents. Oy.


For years, I have tried to have a good time on my birthday. Some years I had to work on that day. And those were the good years. If, G-d forbid, my birthday fell on a day of no school and no work, you could bet it will end up with some sort of mess.

One year I said I'd just like to spend the day in my pj's, watching tv and vegging out. Right. Try to do that with two young kids.

Fine. Another year I said all I ask for on my birthday is one day (One!!!) where no one asks me for anything. You do not want to know how that ended. Suffice it to say that I have never dared raise the issue again. 

So I tried to convey the idea that "Please, please, just treat it like any other day. Do not do anything special. Please." Unfortunately, my family seems to love me despite all my efforts to dissuade them of the notion and they refused to accept a "no frills birthday for Imma".


This year I think I have finally figured it out. 

When my birthday got closer I gathered my loved ones and blessed them. I said that for my birthday I'd like to take my oldest daughter to an afternoon tea at a nearby cafe that seems like she would love to go to, have a mani-pedi with my younger daughter and take my husband to lunch at our favorite restaurant. You see I chose things that I knew they wanted to do, assuming that was the best way to avoid tears and misery.



They were shocked. "And what about you? What do you want to do for yourself?" they worried. But I stood my ground and we did exactly that.

Lunch with hubby was wonderful as always. We laughed and talked and had great sushi.
The cafe turned out to be even better than we expected and we are soooo going back. It was pure joy to have afternoon tea with a 15 year old who thinks and talks like an adult. We talked about books and philosophy and art and life choices. And we had tiramisu.

Mani-Pedi with my sweetie pie child was so much fun. She chose dark red polish for me (I never would have but what the heck) and we shmoozed while having our nails done and laughed as we ran through the gathering darkness to the car in our paper flip-flops, freezing our poor toes, loving every minute.

We had  a nice dinner at home and I even got gifts (which I did not expect). The oldest made a power point presentation that was so funny I had a stitch in my side from laughing so hard. The youngest sang me a song. I thought she would choose some song I used to sing for her, which we consider "our" song. But no. She chose a song I did not even remember telling her about. A song from long ago, which threw me back to my innocent youth, evoking the feelings I used to have so many years ago, so very far away. And I cried and hugged her and was so grateful for all the riches in my life. For children who can be a chore and a bother and then you find out they are really a joy and a treasure. For a husband who seem incapable of changing a toilet paper roll but has been a safe harbor for my "Boat on the river" ever since the time and place where that old song first moved me to tears.

Not quite a "death bed scene", Thank G-d, but I wonder if Ya'akov, surrounded by his children and grandchildren, nearing the end of a rich and exciting life, was as happy as I was that day.

Why wait until we are almost done before we realize what we have? 


We have all kinds of things in the fridge this week. Over-shopping does that. You buy stuff thinking "Oh, there are all kinds of events this week. Surely we'll use/need this". Then you don't. And now here are the mushrooms and the goat cheese and what are we to do with them?


 We remove the stems and keep them for some future soup or vegetable stock. We use the caps of large white mushrooms (or portabellas if we have those). We make olive tapenade from the olives hubby insisted on buying in bulk (which was actually a good idea since olives sort of keep forever so why not?). We defrost  a little pesto we made this summer from the overabundance of basil in the garden (what? you threw yours away? of course we make pesto from the extra basil). We spread some pesto on the mushroom caps, then some tapenade, then a slice of goat cheese, then we bake them at 375 for 20-30 minutes until the cheese bubbles and the mushroom soften slightly. Then we serve it as dinner with the leftover champagne from New Year's Eve and feel like millionaires. 


I bet you Ya'akov did not eat better.






P.S. And what, you might ask, did my husband get me for my birthday? I'm glad you asked. My husband likes to preach high and low how he does not buy gifts for special occasions because then it would mean he does not love me on other days. This method had allowed us to be debt free since he has saved so much money on gifts over the years. However, after he finishes preaching loudly, he meekly goes out and buys me all kinds of stuff. One year he bought a washer-dryer and insisted it was a birthday gift. Everyone at Kiddush at the temple tried to convince him otherwise to no avail. Another year he bought me cookie sheets. I cook OK. I can bake a cake or two. I do not do cookies if it can be at all avoided. Still, it was a nice gesture and they did come in handy when my sister in law (of potato fame) made a cookie jar for me (I asked for a tea pot), which I felt obligated to fill with home made cookies. There may be a conspiracy there. So finally, I wised up and simply told him what to get. Whereupon he became even smarter than he usually is and started giving me surprisingly perfect gifts.
This year I got a potato ricer. Don't scoff. I wanted one. And I am very happy with it. And hubby got the joy of being the perfect husband (for a minute, at least) and giving his wife exactly what she wanted. Did your spouse manage that on your last birthday?