Talya's haircut!

Talya donated almost a foot of her hair today!! We are so proud of her and she looks fabulous. Here are some pictures from the before and after:

Shana Tova from Jerusalem!

שתהא השנה הבאה עלינו ועל כל בית ישראל

שנת ברכה, שנת חיים טובים, שנת הרווחה והצלחה, שנת עונג, שנת שלום ושלווה, שנת משא ומתן!

שנה שתמלא לנו את כל משאלות לבנו לטובה

שנה טובה ומתוקה

Ilana, Daniel, and Matan

Eva's Simchat Bat: Dana's Speech

Thank you for joining us this morning to celebrate the birth of our daughter. She is named for two remarkable women we lovingly called Grandma. Chava Leah is named for my maternal great-grandmother Eva Getzler and Joe’s paternal grandmother Betty Feldman, whose Hebrew name was Leah.
When I first sat down to write this speech I was flooded with many emotions and wonderful memories of my Grandma Eva, and it was difficult to organize and articulate my thoughts. My great grandmother was a remarkable woman, who was resilient, smart, funny, artistic and incredibly proud of her family. She was blessed with a long life, and the zchus to meet Gabe and Jack, two of her great great grandchildren. As a child, I always loved going to visit Grandma – everything in her apartment seemed fun and exciting. I loved looking out the window overlooking Central Park, playing with the metal cash register and poker chips, and having her teach me to draw flowers and people at the card table in the living room. When we wanted a drink it was served in a yartzheit glass or an old Dannon yogurt cup. I always loved wandering her apartment looking at all the sforim that belonged to my great grandfather, or the numerous sculptures and paintings she had made. As I grew older, I looked forward to sitting and talking to Grandma who always took an active interest in what was happening in my life. As Grandma grew older, those talks were moved from the living room to her bedroom. As her hearing and eyesight declined, I was always able to tell the point at which she realized I entered her room. As I got close enough for her to see or hear me, her whole face would light up, and I knew she was as happy to see me as I was to see her. Grandma always loved hearing what was happening in my life and reporting with pride what our cousins were doing. As a young child it did not seem remarkable to have Grandma in my life, but as a young adult I realized what a special gift it was. She taught by example the importance of having a good attitude and sense of humor about life’s challenges. Grandma was raised in a shtetl in Poland called Tczyn. She was educated and knew many languages because of multiple moves during World War One. In 1929, she left her young son, my Grandfather, and came to the United States and worked with her husband to raise money and bring over my Grandfather and her two sisters. The rest of their families –parents, siblings and cousins, were killed in the Holocaust. My great grandparents eventually were able to live comfortably on the Upper West Side, but Grandma always remained frugal –reusing scraps of paper, plastic containers, and repairing clothing and objects. She was a hard worker and was a modern day feminist who bought The Feminist Mystique for family and friends when it was first published. In naming my daughter after my Grandma, I hope she inherits her wisdom and wit, her love of all people, and the charm that made people love her.
Grandma Betty Feldman was the quintessential grandmother. Although she only had five grandchildren, she was called grandma by almost everyone who knew her. Grandma was constantly concerned about those around her, making sure we were dressed warmly enough and comfortable. She loved to contribute her baked goods to a family gathering and took an active interest in the lives of her grandchildren and their friends. Grandma Feldman, like her Biblical namesake Leah, took prayer very seriously. Although she did not understand Hebrew, she prayed every day. Even at the end of her life when her eyesight was very poor, Grandma’s commitment to prayer did not falter, as she sat squinting over her worn siddur, trying to make out the letters and words. Grandma loved to be with family and friends. As her hearing deteriorated and she was unable to follow a conversation, she still took pleasure in sitting with the family, watching her grandchildren and great grandchildren interact. She grew up as Elizabeth from Elizabeth to a family of Russian immigrants, and became the first woman from her family to graduate from college in 1936. She married Joe’s Grandfather Joseph Feldman in 1942, and raised her family in Elizabeth where they were very active in the JEC. Later they moved to Chicago where she became a schoolteacher. I only knew Grandma Feldman as a woman in her 90s. But I was always impressed by her resilience and energy, her rich storytelling, her pride in her work as a teacher and her delight in the accomplishments of her grandchildren.
When Joe spoke at Grandma’s funeral in February he concluded by saying he felt sadness that Grandma would no longer be around to share future smachot. We hope that by naming for Grandma, our daughter will bring Grandma’s spirit to all future smachot in the family.
I want to thank my in-laws for opening their home to host us all this morning. We are blessed to have all four of Eva’s grandparents and 2 of her great-grandmothers celebrating with us today. We thank all of you for your love and support and look forward to sharing many more smachot together ad mai’ah v’esrim shana.

Welcome, Baby Girl!

From Feldman Family Blog

Welcome to the beautiful new baby girl and mazal tov to the happy parents! Refua shlema and much love all around! Look at all that hair!

With a look all her own, it's very hard to tell whose sister she is.

Gratuitous addendum:

For the record, Matan held the title of youngest Feldman cousin for all of eight weeks, eight hours, and forty minutes. It was a short-lived but glorious reign. When told he was no longer the baby of the family, Matan said, "Wha wha!" His abba consoled him by telling him that even though he now has a younger cousin, he'll always have the superior accent for Ma Nishtana :)

Mazal tov also to Baba, Saba, the Septimuses, aunts, uncles, cousins, and, of course, big brother Aaroni!

Matan Pidyon HaBen

Matan is redeemed! Pidyon Haben of Matan Aharon on a resplendent June morning in Gan Hashoshanim in Jerusalem. Pidyon starring Matan, parents, and officiating kohen Nachum Lamm. Photos, video, and dvar torah below.

Photos and Video

Matan Pidyon Haben from Daniel Feldman on Vimeo.

INK Speech for Pidyon HaBen of Matan Aharon 10.6.11

Two days ago, on Shavuot morning, Daniel and I sat in this park with Matan trying to lull him to sleep. Matan had conducted his own Tikun Leyl the night before, waking each hour to eat milk and spit up cheese in accordance with the custom to eat dairy on this chag. After a night of no sleep, I did not make it to shul that morning, so I davened in the park with Matan, sharing with him the highlights of Shacharit. Chief among them was Akdamut, the piyut recited before beginning the Torah reading, a long liturgical poem composed in the eleventh century by Rabbi Meir Yitzchak of Worms. This mystical poem moves from a description of the creation of the world to the splendors of the World to Come, and as I chanted aloud to Matan each of the ninety Aramaic stanzas, I realized how much of the piyut’s imagery was appropriate to the place where we were sitting that morning and where we are all now gathered today – beneath a trellis covered by a canopy of trees in a quiet corner of this beautiful park. The poem describes a messianic future in which all of the Tzadikim will gather in Yerushalayim, beneath a divine bridal canopy inside the Garden of Eden. There God will prepare a banquet for the righteous, and they will sit around tables of precious gems and drink their fill from overflowing goblets in a redeemed world. As we stand here today overflowing with joy, preparing to redeem our precious son and enjoy a Seudat Mitzvah on this beautiful Jerusalem morning, I cannot help but think that after joining with God in the creation of Matan, we have truly been granted a taste of the World to Come.

It seems fitting that we are celebrating Matan’s Pidyon HaBen not just two days after reciting Akdamut but also one day before reading parashat Baha’alotcha, the parsha that provides the textual underpinning for this ceremony.

כִּי לִי כָל-בְּכוֹר בִּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בָּאָדָם וּבַבְּהֵמָה בְּיוֹם הַכֹּתִי כָל-בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם הִקְדַּשְׁתִּי אֹתָם לִי. יח וָאֶקַּח אֶת-הַלְוִיִּם תַּחַת כָּל-בְּכוֹר בִּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל. יט וָאֶתְּנָה אֶת-הַלְוִיִּם נְתֻנִים לְאַהֲרֹן וּלְבָנָיו מִתּוֹךְ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לַעֲבֹד אֶת-עֲבֹדַת בְּנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד
“Every firstborn among the Israelites, man as well as beast, is Mine; I consecrated them to Myself at the time that I smote the firstborn in the land of Egypt. Now I take the Levites instead of every firstborn of the Israelites, and from among the Israelites I formally assign the Levites and Aharon and his sons, to perform the ritual service for the Israelites in Ohel Moed.” (Numbers 8:17-19).

Another connection to this week’s parsha appears in a recent daf yomi, Menachot 86b. In speaking of the lights that were kindled in the Mishkan—which is also the subject of the opening of the parsha, B’haalotcha et HaNerot-- we are told:
צו את בני ישראל ויקחו אליך שמן זית זך כתית למאור להעלות נר תמיד

“Command the Israelite people to bring you clear oil of beaten olives for lighting, for kindling the eternal lamp.” (Leviticus 24:2). The Talmud teaches:
אמר רבי שמואל בר נחמני אליך ולא לי לא לאורה אני צריך
Shmuel bar Nachmani questions why the Torah adds the extra word Elecha, for you. The Talmud’s response is that God specifies that the oil for this light is “for you” because the Ner Tamid is lit for the sake of human beings who need to be reminded of God’s eternal presence, and not for God, who needs no such reminder. It is we human beings whose faith in God’s presence may flicker and grow dim, and it is therefore we who need the eternal lamp, which burns not for God’s sake, but for ours.

We might extend this concept to say that God does not need the Bekhorot consecrated to him, and when we redeem them back, we are not just exempting them from priestly service. Just as God does not need the light of the eternal lamp, so too does God not need Matan Aharon to engage in Temple service. It is human beings of imperfect faith who need the reminder the lamp provides, just as it is human beings in an imperfect world who look to the potential of new life to perform some act of Tikun in the world, thereby inspiring us with hope for the future. And so Daniel and I would like to think that today we are not just buying back our son from the Kohanim; we are also dedicating him to doing God’s work in a world sorely in need of repair and renewal. We offer our Matan as a gift to partner in some aspect of God’s work, and to heal some part of God’s creation.

It is in this spirit of partnering in creation that we will shortly be planting a tree in honor of Matan’s birth and in honor of the birth of Hallel Libson, daughter of our friends Ayelet and Adi. The Talmud teaches in Masechet Gittin, in the midst of the aggadot about the destruction of the Temple and the fall of Jerusalem, that there was a custom whereby whenever a baby boy was born, a cedar tree would be planted in his honor; and when a girl was born, a cypress. And when they would get married, the two trees would be cut down and used to make the poles for their chuppah. Now, we don’t want to make any assumptions about Hallel and Matan’s future romantic predilections –we cannot know whether Matan will date older women, or whether Hallel will consent to marry the boy next door—but Daniel and I do like the idea of putting down roots in the soil of Eretz Yisrael just a few years after we each made aliyah, as per the words of Shirat HaYam:
תְּבִאֵמוֹ וְתִטָּעֵמוֹ בְּהַר נַחֲלָתְךָ מָכוֹן לְשִׁבְתְּךָ פָּעַלְתָּ יְהוָה מִקְּדָשׁ אֲדֹנָי כּוֹנְנוּ יָדֶיךָ.
You, God, will bring them and plant them in Your own mountain, the place You made to dwell in, O Lord, the sanctuary O Lord. (Exodus 15:17)

The Mikdash is the province of Aharon HaKohen, Matan’s Biblical namesake, to whom many of the commandments of this week’s parsha are addressed. It is Aharon who is supposed to mount the lamps of the Menorah, and it is Aharon who supervises the Levites and prepares them to serve in Ohel Moed, the place of God’s dwelling during the Israelites’ journey to the promised land where they ultimately put down roots. More generally, Aharon is responsible for the ritual aspects of Jewish worship, whereas his brother Moshe gives them the Torah, the book of laws and teachings that we are meant to occupy ourselves with day and night, as we are reminded in Akdamut:
צבי וחמיד ורגיג דילאון בלעותא
God desires and longs and covets that Israel should toil in Torah study.

In naming our son Matan Aharon, we hope that he will embody both of these aspects of Jewish tradition – the lifelong commitment to Talmud Torah, as well as the rituals involved in divine service. We hope that our son, like his namesake, will be Ohev et HaBriot, and that his love for human beings will find expression in the teaching of Torah, so that he might be m’karvan la Torah – bringing other people closer to Torah. The root of m’karvan is also the root of korban, sacrifice. As we redeem our Matan Aharon today from the priestly responsibility for the korbanot, it is our fervent wish that he will dedicate himself to being one who is m’karvan laTorah, one who brings the light of Torah into people’s lives so that it may burn steadily and unwaveringly for all eternity.

Ayelet dvar torah

Our friend Ayelet Libson also spoke eloquently (and in Hebrew) about the significant role of trees in accompanying Jewish lives (link).

Sarah's Erev Shorashim at Pelech

We had a most meaningful evening at Sarah's school last night. Her grade organized an evening which included a full exhibit of treasured family heirlooms -our pillow case and a picture of the fan of Esther Feldman (along with a full catalogue), a complete dinner with family recipes from around the world (along with a recipe book of each one), a display of all the books each student wrote about her family, and a ceremony including speeches, songs and dance related to the theme of the evening. Sarah was selected as the student representative to speak about her aliya, and she also played the piano or violin for each of the songs. Our hearts are full with pride!



Matan's Pidyon

We enjoyed celebrating with Matan, Ilana, and D at the Pidyon Haben this past Friday. It was an idyllic setting in the park. Here are a few photos from the actual ceremony and the tree planting which followed. I am sure D will send the speeches and video as well.

Matan Aharon birth & brit pics

Full album

Matan brit speech videos

Matan Aharon

BRIS SPEECH (18.5.11)

ILANA:

From the moment we found out I was pregnant, Daniel and I began counting. A pregnancy is measured in nine months or forty weeks, each of which we counted in excited anticipation. By the time we came to Pesach and sang about Tisha Yarchei Leida, we were no longer counting months or weeks, but days to my due date. And then that date passed, and we moved to counting the days past my due date. By Yom HaZikaron the baby was three days late, so we walked the entire way back from Har Herzl to our apartment in the German Colony to try to stimulate the onset of labor. Then on Yom Haatzmaut, when I was four days overdue, we went to the Jerusalem Theatre for Hidon HaTanakh, a program I watch every year on the internet, hoping that if we watched it live, then the suspense that accompanied each Biblical trivia question would intensify the contractions that had already begun. We also wanted to give our baby a chance to review all the Torah he had learned in the womb, before he came out and forgot it all. (We are confident that if only his voice could have been heard from inside my uterus, he would have been the winner this year!) The Hidon seemed to have done the trick, because by the time we got home that afternoon, we were already counting the minutes between contractions.

That night, in between contractions I remembered to count the Omer – I guess that my head was already so used to counting by that point, which is perhaps the reason that this is one of the only years that I have made it so far in the Sefira. When we count the Omer, we are of course counting up the days to Shavuot, Zman Matan Torateinu, for which our son is named. He was born during the week of Shabbat Parashat Behar Sinai, which reviews the laws given at Sinai, including the countdown to שנת השמיטה. And he was also born during the sixth perek of Masekhet Menahot in the Daf Yomi cycle, the chapter that deals with Minchat HaOmer, the barley sacrifice brought to the Temple on the sixteenth day of Nisan, the second night of Pesach. The Talmud explains that this is also the night that we begin counting the Omer, and this chapter elaborates on the details of how we count, when we count, and what happens if we miss a day in the countdown to Matan Torah.

Our own Matan, having internalized the lesson of Yom Haatzmaut, held out until he could have his own independent birthday, and so he was not born until 7am the next morning.

He was given to us after an unforgettable Tikun Leyl, a long night which I spent at home with my mother and Daniel and our wonderful doula. As the night drew on and my labor intensified, it truly felt like the heavens were opening for our child to pass through into this world. When we finally drove to the hospital at 5:30am, the sun rising in a magnificent האיר מזרח over the hills of Ein Karem, it felt a little like the delirium of early Shavuot morning davening after a night of no sleep. Like Bnei Yisrael at Har Sinai, it was with loud cries and trembling that I received from heaven the gift of our son, our Matan.

Matan means gift, and it is used to refer to the gift of Torah, which Matan learned in the womb and which Daniel and I have been teaching him since the moment he was born – today he is eight dapim old. The first letter of his name, Mem, is a remez to the first name of my mother’s father, Rabbi Mordecai Rubin, a beloved teacher of Torah with whom I had the privilege to study before he died just a year after my Bat Mitzvah. Matan’s name also contains the two letters Taf and Nun, which are the root of the Aramaic word for “teach” or “learn,” used in the Talmud to introduce an earlier teaching: Tanya, Tani, Tanu Rabbanan. Torah is passed down from generation to generation by teaching and learning, and it is our fervent wish to transmit to our son the love of Talmud Torah which is such an integral part of the lives of both of our families, and of our love for one another. Daniel, I feel so fortunate that my son has such a special father, and so blessed that you are my husband. Watching you fall in love in love with our son has made me fall in love with you all over again. I pray that God will grant us the merit to raise our son to Torah, as well as to Chuppah and Maasim Tovim, and that the gift of our Matan will teach us the lessons of gratitude and awe, so that we may forever remember to count our blessings.

DANIEL:

Matan’s middle name is Aharon in memory of his great-grandfather, Aharon Yizhak Levenstein, whose twenty-fourth yahrzeit was yesterday. My zaidie was an extraordinary man: a devoted husband, father, and grandfather, a noted baal tzedaka, Holocaust survivor, businessman, and ardent Zionist. But first and foremost, he was a builder in every sense of the word: he sought, after the Shoah, to lay the foundations for future generations. Like Aharon HaKohen, my zaidie suffered the devastating loss of his first children but never lost his optimism and faith in a more vibrant future. After he survived the Shoah thanks to Oskar Schindler, he reconnected with his wife, who had survived separately, and at ages 42 and 40, in an Austrian DP camp, they miraculously gave birth to my mother, an only child who in turn raised five children of her own and is now grandmother to ten, ken yirbu. We hope my zaidie is watching today with joy at the enormous success of his efforts to build the family and Jewish future which our Matan inherits.

We hope our son will combine the legacy he inherits with his own unique gifts, fulfilling a bracha in this week’s parsha:

וַאֲכַלְתֶּם יָשָׁן, נוֹשָׁן; וְיָשָׁן, מִפְּנֵי חָדָשׁ תּוֹצִיאוּ

As a sign of Hashem’s blessing, harvests will be so abundant that older crops will overlap with the newer ones that, during the times of the Beit HaMikdash, were permitted only after the Omer offering had been brought. In naming our son after both of our maternal grandfathers, we hope to mingle the old with the new. We pray that our son will embody the values of the older generation, while also coming into his own as a first-generation Israeli, which would have made all of our grandparents very proud.

As we stand here today with Matan Aharon on this seam between the Old City of Yerushalayim and the new, surrounded by all four of Matan’s grandparents and six of his many aunts and uncles, we feel the plenitude of Hashem’s bracha.

The prior generations indeed played an active role in bringing Matan into this world. We are grateful to my parents, Baba and Saba Feldman, for remaining in Israel since Pesach and for organizing this simcha. We will also forever remember the devoted role played by Matan’s Savta, Alisa Rubin Kurshan, who has been living in our second bedroom for the past two weeks and can now add to her Jewish continuity professional portfolio the title of midwife par excellence. Thank you Savta, and thank you Saba Neil Kurshan for making the trip at the last minute to join us at Matan’s brit. We know you also bring love and greetings from Matan’s great-grandparents, Phyllis and Jerry Kurshan, שיבדלו לחיים ארוכים. May we merit to celebrate all his milestones in good health together.

We also want to recognize our siblings Michael, Joe, Mindy, and Eytan who likewise made the trip to be here today. And a special thanks to Estie and Elizur, who prepared us with every conceivable baby provision except the baby himself. If our child is better dressed than we are, Estie deserves the credit. To all of you and Matan’s many uncles, aunts, and cousins, we love you much and are grateful for your support.

Finally, Ilana focused on the significance of Matan’s birth during Sefirat HaOmer, but I want to add that this transitional time has additional meaning for the two of us, as it was the period during which we fell in love. It is through the sacrifice of the Omer that the new generation, the latest offspring is celebrated and enjoyed on a festive morning when the eastern sky is illuminated. And it is during the Omer that we find the equilibrium of our love, as we move from the passionate ardor of Shir Hashirim to the more mature commitment of Rut and Boaz. So it is appropriate that it was on an unforgettable night and morning of the Omer that I found my love for you, Ilana, renewed. As I told our son immediately after he was born, he is blessed with a very special mother, which you have shown yourself to be in the first week of his life. Few mothers would begin reading to their children fifteen minutes after birth, and you are perhaps the only mother who has sung Daf Yomi to your baby each morning throughout his first week. You gave birth to Matan with a sensitivity, vulnerability, and profound strength that is authentically and wholly your own, and I am supremely privileged to share my life with you. Matan’s birth, which we celebrate today on Pesach Sheni, will forever be a midway point for us between Shir Hashirim and Megillat Rut, between passionate Ahava Raba and enduring Ahavat Olam. May we merit to shower our son with every form of affection, as we raise him in the image of our parents and grandparents to love Torah, Am Yisrael, and Eretz Yisrael, and to always seek out the tzelem elokim that is inscribed on his adorable, perfect face.

Isak receives his green belt in Capoeira

Isak enjoys his new belt at a ceremony for his Capoeira chug, a Brazilian martial arts program in Raanana!

Eitan in rare form-turning 2 next week!

Grandma

I found this cute video of Grandma from a year and a half ago. Just something to remind us of her sweet disposition.

Ice in Teaneck

For those out of the country, the ice is messy but also pretty.

Winter in Teaneck

Snow in Manhattan

Aaron's been having a lot of fun in the snow these past few days: