When springtime comes I begin scowling at the insides of closets and the undersides of beds. “Pesach is coming,” I mutter to myself and sigh. “Pesach is coming,” I repeat, “and I have more work than one human being could possibly do.” Then I sigh again, theatrically. I don’t even notice my son, listening, until […]

Every year around this time I begin to look at my children appraisingly. I assess them, like a census taker for gender, height, weight and coloring. Then, armed only with a pen and a pad and the workings of my agitated mind, I sit alone in a room and think. I am thinking, of course, […]

To her those candles were people. They were family. Sometimes whole families, who had worked and struggled and lived and died. Aunts and uncles. And cousins, with whom she had played and shared and fought and laughed. To her this was a sacred duty, this remembrance.On Shavuos she lit the candles. So many candles, melting […]