Friday, February 11, 2011

Another Sitcom Episode

Welcome to the household where teenagers announce, "Oooh, I get to use a semi-colon."  Kindergardeners dance around naked yelling, "Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh.  I'm Tarzan who says too much."  Three year olds can write their names and leave little clay "wormans" in the carpet.  Much chaos generally ensues.

This weekend it's just me and the girls for Shabbos; Jeffrey's taking Feivel and Gilad for a cub scout camp-in (they camp in tents in the school gym), never mind that neither one is actually a cub scout, Jeffrey's the cub master.  Sachy's got yet another bar mitzvah out of our neighborhood.  At least we'll get to see Jeffrey and the boys since they'll be here at the school/shul.  Adele is okay with her father not being at the house, but she gets very confused if she goes to synagogue and he's not there.

I got really annoyed at seeing an article in the Baltimore Jewish magazine about how great the local yeshiva students are at chessed with the elderly and with special needs young adults.  Say what?  I know several young adults from Orthodox families in the area with hidden disabilities who are completely alienated from the frum community and have never been shown chessed.  When I mentioned this on Facebook, incidentally, several of my non-Orthodox friends all sympathized; not one of my friends from the Jewish community asked if there was a way they could help or if something could be done.  So yeah, this community frankly could use a real kick-in-the-tuchas chessed-wise as far as I'm concerned.  We and others spent so many years asking for, looking for, begging for not just help but just plain companionship and inclusion for some of our kids, I've given up.  There are the few popular (what we call "sexy") cases, people whose families are very popular in the community or whose disabilities are very sympathetic, who get a lot of attention, and then there is everyone else who gets completely ignored.  There was one time many years ago when one family had so many volunteers they were turning people away; when both I and the heads of the incipient Bikkur Cholim organization requested that the people not needed to help that family please contact BC about volunteering for other families, not one single person did.  They wanted to be able to say "I was the one who stayed up at family X's house last night helping with the baby," not to do actual chessed for its own sake to anyone in the community in need.  So yes, I'm beyond cynical or jaded, I'm pretty disgusted when it comes to this.

But Gilad lost his first tooth!
Now he's even cuter!
















Last, here are a couple of little projects I've been working on last week.   Most of my time has been going into working a huge lace shawl I hope to finish soon.
North Star Tam in handspun 2 ply lace weight baby llama

Simple Rikke's Hat pattern in Tonic yarn

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh. I´ve got a christian exampel of non-chessed.
A couple of very young illegal immigrants was found on a train and thrown into the swedish winter. A priest found them and gave them shelter to the horrors of the congregation... It was a massive uproar among them, but luckily the priest stood his ground.
I think it´s disgusting how people can boast about being humanitarians and then turn their backs to people in need.
But now you know it´s more of a global issue.
With best wishes to you and yours. Love your blog and your wonderful family.

Leesy said...

Oh, I know it's not just here, it's that you always want your own community to rise to high standards, or at least to the standards they claim. No community can do anything, but it is angering when one claims to exhibit a virtue to a high degree, but only does so when it gets them attention, not every time it's actually needed. But thanks for your input.