Yiddishe Mamas (15 page)

Here are a few more fools and their frailties:

Yiddish and Yinglish are delicious—in humor and hatred. Listen …
“Er zol vaksen vi a tsibeleh, mit dem kop in drerd.”
No one would translate it for me until I was twenty-one, then solemnly,
“It means… ‘He should grow like an onion with his head in the ground.’”

Unlike English expletives that render a quick statement, the Yiddish curse, nuanced and tricky, is a juicy, literate, malediction that no mere obscene word could possibly convey. It may start with a positive wish or statement, then bite you in the tagline, inviting further debate. Indeed, the whole point of the curse is not to swear, but to … prophesize. As the proverb goes: “A curse is not a telegram: it doesn’t arrive so fast.” Like caviar, it must be savored.

• May the
  mohel
  circumcise your first son—and bless the wrong piece.
  

• May you eat chopped liver, pickled herring, gefilte fish, boiled beef, potato pancakes—and may you choke on every bite.
  

• May you turn into a blintz, and may your enemy turn into a cat, and may he eat you up and choke on you, so we can be rid of you both.
  

• May the lice in your shirt marry the bedbugs in your mattress and may their offspring set up residence in your underwear.
  

• May your blood turn to whiskey, so that one hundred bedbugs get drunk on it and dance the mazurka in your belly button.
  

• May you fall into the outhouse just as a regiment of Ukrainians is finishing a prune stew and twelve barrels of beer. OY!
  

As a college student, I was the only Jew in my dorm. By summer, the others went home to places like Picawa, Wisconsin, saying, “Oy
vey!
I can’t believe the shlepping I did!” But given
the richness, the vastness, the chutzpah of Yiddish and Yinglish, it’s not surprising that it’s “catching.”

Many Yiddish and Yinglish words today are in common use. English-speakers quickly picked up phrases, which are literal translations. Here are a few:

And many in the mountains of Montana might utter:
bubbe,
bupkes, chutzpah, cockamayme,
emmes, farklempt, feh,
gelt, kibitz, klutz, knish, kvetch, maven, megillah,
meshugge, nakhes,
nosh,
plotz,
shlemiel, shlep,
shlimazl,
shmaltz, shmear, shmooze, shnook,
shnorrer, shpiel,
shtick,
shvitz,
yenta,
yutz,
and
zaftig.

“I’ve always resembled my grandmother, from the curly hair to the ample bosom. But I never thought it possible that I would actually turn into her … once I became a mother. [My] Michaela’s thighs were henceforth known as
pulkes. …
Her nickname … was
Mama Shayna, Ziskeit,
and
Shayna Maidel.
… I wasn’t surprised that Yiddish came naturally to me; after all, I had heard it spoken all my life. But when I began to observe my friends and acquaintances whose forebearers were more American than mine, also using Yiddish with their young ones, I began to suspect a trend,” writes Gabriella Burman in her marvelous article, “Savoring Yiddish.”

“All of a sudden, I’m calling my kids
bubbeleh,
squeezing the
kishkas
out of them, and telling them to watch their
keppies
[heads],” said Amy Carson Schlussel, an attorney and mother of two, in the article.

Marc Miller, a professor of Yiddish at Emory University in Atlanta, said that he and his wife referred to their son as
sheyfel
(little sheep). “Yiddish today is so tied up with nostalgia, it comes to the surface.”

Burman reported that Devorah Pinson, a mother of two who is prone to saying
gay shlufe
(go to sleep), finds her daughter Chaya, four, addressing Mendel, seven months, in Yiddish!

“Pinson,” reports Burman, “says she hopes her children will continue speaking Yiddish into adulthood, especially when they become parents themselves. But do a few words preserve a language for eternity? My grandmother doesn’t think so. It is, however, ‘better than nothing,’ she says, giving her typical glass half-full response. Such optimism, perhaps, is the greatest Yiddish lesson of all,” ends Burman.

As long as there are Jewish mothers, Yiddish and Yinglish will prevail, I believe. After all, what other language can say “I love you,” with quite the same nostalgia—and passion?

O
bviously, to give birth, sex is (usually) involved. We are a practical people; sex, in Judaism, rather than being seen as shameful, is considered a critical responsibility in the marital relationship. And there’s much commentary on the husband’s duty to satisfy his wife (which is, no doubt, why Viagra is considered kosher by some authorities).

The minimal frequency of marital relations legislated in the Talmud was based on a man’s profession and time spent at home: “Every day for those who have no occupation (hmmm), twice a week for laborers, once a week for ass-drivers; once every thirty days for camel drivers; once every six months for sailors
(Mishna Ketubot
5:6;
Ketubot
62b).” Moreover, a husband cannot change professions without his wife’s permission, for example, from ass-driver to camel driver, if her conjugal rights will be affected.

“Men are the ones responsible for having children. Men must sire,” says Rabbi Shira Stern. “After ten years without children, the wife may seek a divorce.”

Dr. Ruth has often said that a strong element in her being a sex therapist is that in the Jewish tradition sex has never been a sin, and that it has always been an obligation of the husband: providing sexual gratification for his wife.

“During the holiday, there were special delicacies,” wrote Sam Levinson in
Meet the Folks.

“Mama’s home-baked challah, which was so arranged that you didn’t have to slice it. There were bulges all around, which you just pulled out of their sockets … into nice, oily soup. The sought-after prize in the soup … was a small unhatched egg. There was one egg and eight children. What a strain on Mama’s impartiality to choose the deserving child. [It] usually went to the girls because of some folk-theory about fertility.”

Many Orthodox Jews believe God plans families; however, Jewish law clearly permits birth control in certain circumstances, for example, for nursing mothers, if a couple already has a child of each sex, or if pregnancy might be risky. Hormonal methods of birth control, such as pills, patches, injections, and implants, are generally acceptable. But, as Jewish law prohibits men from destroying or wasting seed, coitus interruptus, condoms, and vasectomy are forbidden by most Orthodox authorities. Condoms, however, may be acceptable to protect against the spread of an incurable sexually transmitted disease.

Years ago, a
“kimpertorn,”
a woman in labor, lay in a
“kimper”
to protect the expectant mother from several problems, explains Michael Wex in
Born to Kvetch.
To protect the
kimpertorn
from miscarriage, she would wear an eaglestone. Sometimes a baker’s shovel and bread loaves were hung over the bed to make the delivery as smooth as a bun slides out of an oven.

During labor, many mothers would agree there are better ways to use that baker’s shovel!

According to ancient rabbis,
(Niddah
30b), life begins with a push, hence the indentation between nose and mouth! During the nine months in the womb the baby studies the entire Torah with an angel. At the time of birth, the infant holds back, wishing to remain within the warmth of the womb. The angel presses upon the spot (between nose and mouth) to nudge the babe into the world. Once born, the child forgets all he’s learned. Our lives on earth are spent rediscovering that which we have forgotten.

When my own son was born, I felt it was not only miraculous, but a renewal. Within the few years prior to his birth, my family suffered a spate of death and grave illness. He was named for my late mother, as is custom (to name for a deceased relative). His birth was a reaffirmation of life’s circle, representing hope for the family, and for our continuing Jewish line. I was overwhelmed by his presence in a way I had never been before, or will be again. And the sheer power of that maternal love was so great, so strong, I could barely look it in the eye, for fear, much like staring at a solar eclipse, I’d be forever blinded.

While Jewish boys were traditionally welcomed into the world with a
brit milah
or circumcision ceremony on the eighth day of life, no parallel ceremony for baby girls had existed until American Jewish feminists invented them. On March 14, 1977, the
New York Times
reported that the new Reform Jewish prayer book, published in February 1977, included a ceremony for baby girls for the first time, and that Ezrat Nashim was also about to publish a booklet entitled
Blessing the Birth of a Daughter: Jewish Naming Ceremonies for Girls.
Generally called
simchat bat,
or rejoicing in a daughter, aided the process of egalitarianism for both the female child and the
women around her, as mothers and grandmothers are prominent in these ceremonies. Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, a well-known supporter of Jewish Orthodox feminism (and husband of feminist Orthodox pioneer Blu Greenberg), was supportive, expressing the feeling that Jewish feminists, rather than “turning their backs on religion, were demanding expression … within religious life.” Today, girls’ naming ceremonies are common within all branches of Judaism.

A Classic:

A
nd so the old joke goes. But most Jewish mothers would agree, during the best and worst of times, raising a child may be better termed “aggravating-ecstasy.” As we become mothers, we also become the benefactors of instant emotional comprehension. All those “wait till you have your owns” we were treated to by our own mothers suddenly turn into a frightening and joyous reality.

Is there a mother who doesn’t plan to be “perfect”? (A truly absurd goal.) Especially we “moderns” who are equipped with more self-help books than there are reruns of
The Brady Bunch.

Fortunately, the Jewish mother also comes equipped with thousands of years of tradition!

In our home, values—most of which came from Jewish thinking and sensibility—weren’t some nebulous concept to be
gleaned. Nor were they instilled exclusively in the synagogue.

Values were an intricate part of our daily lives and experience. They were discussed (OK, debated) at dinner, and raised when behavior (ours or someone else’s) came into question.

“My mom insisted on buying one-day old meat and baked goods,” says Michael Medved. “As a preteener, I was embarrassed, but she made the point that there’s nothing embarrassing about being sensible. She’d say, ‘People have better things in life to do than watch you.’” In his book,
Right Turns,
these thoughts were echoed in “Lessons: Never be Embarrassed.” “My mother was sloppy. When I was applying to college, she cleaned up the living room for my interview with Harvard. I was scrubbed, and put on a skinny tie. This guy comes in, and my dad who happened to be home, says hello … in his underwear. She shrugged. [Regarding the interviewer] My mother took the point of view, ‘Don’t worry about this shmuck.’ So I went to Yale.”

“I brought my children up with all those values—honesty and integrity,” says Zora Essman. “To me, that was part of being a Jewish mother. You have to model them.”

Grounding is a critical value to Melanie Strug. “Kerry doesn’t see herself as a star. She’s very well grounded. She graduated a straight-A student, and continues to do charity events and works with kids. She does gymnastics clinics and works for the Department of Justice in Juvenile Justice. We instilled motivation. Our oldest daughter, before she became a mom, was a marketing executive for Coca-Cola. Our son has a high position doing computer audits for the Marriott Corporation. All our children are high-achievers. I was brought up the same way—and passed it on.”