Meeting the Knesset Member and Mom

Meeting the Knesset Member and Mom

Yesterday I traveled almost 2 hours on a bumpy bus along winding back roads to a place Israelis would call “The End of the World, and then Turn Left.” That’s where my daughter’s high school is, and when I finally got off the bus, and asked a group of soldiers by the bus stop where the high school is, one pointed with an incongruously encouraging smile towards a dark path leading up a hill.

So I walked up the dark path and then a while around a dark road, until I found the high school which was booming with other parents who had also made the shlep for last night’s parent teacher meetings. But when I looked at the list of teachers on the office door, it said my daughter’s teacher was not inside the school building, but rather in caravan 3.

A helpful student selling treats to raise money for the senior trip pointed me out the door of the high school, back (also smiling) into the darkness, back down another dark path. And there I found it, the caravan which is my daughter’s classroom, with a single chair set up for waiting parents. So I sat on it and pulled out my book and shivered in the dark night broken by only by a flourescent lightbulb above the caravan’s door.

And then, a woman and her daughter appeared. The mother looked familiar to me…Could it be? Naaah…That would be, like, too random. But then I heard the mother talking about her drive up from her home in a certain city, and I realized it WAS, it was HER.

This woman standing next to me had been a Knesset member for several years, and now she had joined me in the shivering darkness by Caravan 3.

Which got me thinking about her and her and her life’s journey, which I have heard a bit about.

As the mother of a large family, for many years she had been an idealistic stay-at-home mom, caring for her growing family and home. And as her children grew, she began volunteering for various causes in her community on the side.

And then, for several years, after most of her children were already out of the house, she spent her days in the Knesset, one of the most powerful policy-makers in the country.

And now she is back at home, miles away from the headlines, as she was for so many years before her sudden rise to the halls of power.

There was a very long wait, and so I had a very long time to see this mother and the caring, warm, devoted way she interacted with her daughter.

And I thought how for many years this woman stayed home raising her children, because she believed with all her heart that at that time, that was how she was going to serve Am Yisrael. That was what Hashem wanted from her.

And then she went to the Knesset, because at that time, that was how she was going to serve Am Yisrael. That was what Hashem wanted from her.

And now she is back home again.

In the eyes of the world, she has fallen from power, fallen from success.

But in her own eyes?

Throughout the years, in her home, and at the Knesset. In the spotlight, and far from it.

She knows that in her eyes, in Hashem’s eyes, she has always been doing the most important thing of all.

6 comments

  1. beautiful

  2. I love this.

  3. Wonder Woman 🙂

    by Bracha Goetz

    My whole life I’ve been waiting for applause,
    Neon lights, autographs, Nobel Prize.
    My whole life I’ve been waiting for applause.
    When it comes, I’ll act coy and surprised.

    Secretly I’ve waited, always wanting to believe
    That the applause would never stop after I’d achieve.
    Secretly I’ve waited, always wanting to believe
    What an elusive tapestry a mixed up mind can weave.

    I worked hard so that I could reach the top,
    A Harvard grad, with A’s on every test.
    I worked hard so that I could reach the top,
    The world would know – it would show – I was best.

    So why’d it always happen I could not convince myself?
    Awards just made a hollow sound when placed upon the shelf.
    And why’d it always happen that the praises stopped so fast?
    Isn’t there a goal to reach where my glory will last?

    Then one day I got tired of this game.
    Wonder girl, though you’ve won, what’s it worth?
    Then one day I got tired of this game.
    Craving more, is it found, here on earth?

    Well, it has not been easy putting old wishes aside.
    While washing piles of dishes, my hands burn with swallowed
    pride.
    No, it has not been easy putting old wishes aside.
    Though I have four children now, the old dreams never died.

    This afternoon it was raining very hard.
    My little ones were getting bored – nowhere to go.
    This afternoon it was raining very hard.
    I decided to put on a puppet show.

    Lining up their kiddie chairs, they sat there in a row.
    I peeked out at them a moment, and their faces were aglow.
    Lining up their kiddie chairs, they sat there in a row.
    Their eyes were full of wonder, as they watched my puppet show.

    My whole life I’ve been waiting for applause.
    Well, it came. And it’s true. It was great.
    My whole life I waited for this applause.
    Their little hands, clapping for joy, were worth the wait.

    And suddenly I realized that here within these walls,
    I did something much greater than in all the lecture halls.
    Suddenly I realized that this glory does not leave.
    Strand by strand, elusive tapestries are starting to unweave.

    Bracha Goetz is the author of 32 books to help children’s souls shine: http://www.amazon.com/author/spiritualkidsbooks-brachagoetz

  4. Thank YOU, Chana Jenny!

  5. Taking a break from the post-Pesach balagan, I am very much enjoying your posts. I came across this post from several years ago. What you wrote is so, so true. What I am doing now, today, is important in the eyes of Hashem. I will try to remember that.

    And the corollary to that is – if things don’t go MY way, it’s ok, because it’s Hashem’s way.

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