The Chanukah Steamroller

Posted by JewishMom on Dec 26, 2019 in Featured, Inspiration, Jewish Moms, Motherhood, My life | 4 comments

I woke up this morning feeling like I’d been flattened by the Chanukah steamroller. My regular life is comfortably busy, but add to that routine busyness, a week of (truly wonderful) Chanukah hosting and (I’m fine with it) cooking and (awful, bottomless) cleaning up, then all that leaves behind is one steamrollered JewishMOM.
Anyway, I want to tell you what is helping me to (at least occasionally) to keep my spirits up despite being flattened on my sticky kitchen floor like this.
Rabbi Nosson Wachtfogel asked why, according to the Talmud, the Hashmonaim have no living descendants. It’s because, he explained, the Hashmonaim eventually got full of themselves, believed they had achieved perfection. They thought they had won all their battles and could put their feet up. But life, Rabbi Wachtfogel explains, isn’t like that. Our battles are never fully won, they are ongoing.
Like the AA member who has been sober for a decade, but knows he is still a recovering alcoholic taking it one day at a time.
And that’s me too. Sometimes managing physically, emotionally and spiritually under the weight of my life as a JewishMOM. And sometimes not. Always fighting this ongoing war, battle by battle. To rise above the neverending demands on me by delegating (sending my 12-year old shopping and staying home to write this) and lowering standards (telling that son to buy sufganiyot and kugel instead of making them).
But even more importantly, by trying my best to (at least occasionally) pull myself above the mess and the Weisberg-Family tornado so I can see the big picture. Holding onto that feeling I have when sitting by the candles every night. Knowing with every cell in my body that Chanukah is so holy, it’s primordial light bright enough to illuminate the darkest corners of the world–and of my home and heart as well.

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