Life on the Upswing!

It’s Tuesday which means that I’m at the park with my grandson. We call it the Superpark because we can climb really high, ride a zip line, make music, build sand castles and spin ‘til my, (not his) stomach says no more, please!! This park even has tons of dirt piled into what in our state (flat, very flat Kansas)  passes for a hill so that if we get enough snow we can sled. 

Right now he’s on the swings. I’ve gotten bored with it, and I’m watching him from the front so that on the upswing, his Spiderman sneakers sail within inches of my nose. (This is very exciting for both of us.) On a particularly robust swing, he yells to me: “Bubbe, I’m not seven years old!”.  Quick calculation;  I know what’s coming, and sure enough, on the next swing he announces with a colossal smile, “I’m  seven and a half!!”. 

Time, like his swing, is flying and he couldn’t be more thrilled. I smile too. This is my Champion of the World, my one and only grandson, and he has his whole life ahead of him. 

The thought reminded me of a recent Chai Mitzvah session. We’d created a special curriculum for Hadassah, relating our texts to the mission and the work of that organization. The topic that day was Adult Rites of Passage, and we were marveling at the life of Hadassah’s founder, Henrietta Szold. At the age of 73, after founding and managing an internationally acclaimed organization, forwarding a feminist agenda, teaching and world travel, she accepted an uninvited, unexpected challenge. Becoming the director of Youth Aliyah, she secured visas and transportation and established an educational and support system for young people escaping Nazi Germany to live in Palestine. She was 73, we said–how could we relate to such heroism?

Then one woman described how, as a young woman, she was writing an academic book with a colleague. Her co-author became pregnant, however, and they never returned to the project. Like Henrietta, she’s now in her 70’s, and she mused about finding the manuscript and picking up where they’d left off. 

Others in the group encouraged her: if not that manuscript—the research must be outdated—then pick up a pen and write something else! We all laughed—a pen, seriously?? But we got it. Each of us began to think about opportunities we could create for ourselves, no matter where we were in the arc of life.

As I watched my little Champion fly back and forth, I thought about how that memory is why I love the Chai Mitzvah format. We don’t offer lectures and we don’t claim to be experts. Instead, we gather as co-learners, enhancing our appreciation of Jewish wisdom and, as importantly, each other. Talk about life on the upswing!

P.S. Shameless plug: if you belong to a Hadassah chapter and would like to learn more about our “Hadassah-ized” Chai Mitzvah program, feel free to email me at jill@chaimitzvah.org

P.P.S. If you’re also a grandparent, and would like fun activities to do with your grandchild, check out Chai Mitzvah’s Grandparents and Beyond program!

Do you have a story or an insight you picked up when discussing Adult Rites of Passage? We’d love to hear it! If you’d like to share it, please use the box below.