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
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
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.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Welcome, Baby Girl!
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| 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!
Monday, June 13, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, May 20, 2011
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