have a large family, a normal Jewish life. Meanwhile one of the children is in trouble at school and your husband cannot help but scream at the kid,” says Tziporah. “We’re all here to maximize who we are.” Sometimes it takes a childless woman to help mothers appreciate their blessings. Zehava is a Brooklyn-based artist in her sixties, originally from the Southwest. One day, she stopped by a local pizza shop for a midday bite. She smiled as she noticed a young mother enter with her four-year-old daughter in tow. Her expression quickly changed as the mother plopped her daughter down and shoved a slice of pizza in front of her, all the while yammering on her cell phone. “The poor girl kept looking up at her mother, then nibbling at her pizza,” says Zehava. She saw another mother walk in with four children and sit at a nearby table. This mother interacted with each of her children, asking them what they wanted, telling them stories and eliciting laughter. “The other girl stared at those kids the entire time,” says Zehava, “like, ‘why can’t I have that?’ Before I left, I went over to the woman on the cell phone and said, ‘Excuse me, I couldn’t help but observe that the entire time you were here with your daughter, you didn’t say one word to her. If you don’t start paying more attention to her, she’s going to need therapy.’ I was rude to her; I was so annoyed. It’s a zechut to have children. I want to put it out there: cherish the gifts you have.” Leaving Their Mark As a ba’alat teshuvah born to Holocaust survivors, I’m baffled and saddened. Instead of reconnecting the shattered link to thousands of years of mesorah and mesirut nefesh, it all ends with me. The majority of the women I interviewed named this as the most difficult aspect of their nisayon. “There are different kinds of pain,” says Bracha. “The kind when you’re married and it doesn’t work out, when you lose a child or when you are [an older single] waiting to get married. For me, [the deepest pain] was the realization that I was the end of the line; there would be no one to carry on after me.” Arianna, in her fifties, asks, “Who will say Kaddish and Yizkor [for me]?” Although we may not see the fruits of our labors in the obvious ways that mothers do, we continue to give birth to positivity despite our seeming void. During the throes of infertility treatments, Bracha consulted with the Bostoner Rebbe. Sensing his compassion, she broke down crying. “He actually laughed,” she says. “I asked him why he was laughing. He said, ‘You have more children than you know how to count.’” His words confused her at the time. Now, she’s no longer confused. “Hashem wants me to make an impact on this world in the best way I know how,” says Bracha. “If someone does a positive act because of my example, then I had a baby. That person who received the kindness is going to take it
forward forever. Like the Rebbe said, I have more children than I know how to count.” Ultimately, after 120 years, whether we’ve had children or not, we all leave this world with only ourselves and the relationship we’ve forged with Hashem. “This journey has drawn me closer to God,” says Tziporah. “The more I trust Him and open up to His will, the less I feel like He’s angry with me and rejecting me. I know that whatever challenge I have today, that’s the one I’m supposed to meet. When I remember to turn it over to Him, the day goes beautifully.” g
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Summer 5774/2014 JEWISH ACTION 43