My kids were volunteering at the Purim carnival, helping younger kids do games and offering other support. My husband was there to help. I went home early \u201cfor a break.\u201d Meanwhile, I receive \u201chelpful\u201d warnings from Jewish websites and other moms on social media. \u201cPassover is coming!\u201d they mention with cheerful purpose. Perhaps this fills some people with glee. Mostly, I feel doom in the pit of my stomach.<\/p>\n
Following influencers who run their large observant Jewish households like a well-oiled machine actually has been useful, to some extent. Oh, if she started making chicken broth or cleaned her pantry, maybe it\u2019s time for me to do it, too? By following these tips, sometimes I feel I can manage better.<\/p>\n
Then, however, the system fails me. Many of these capable influencers live in large Jewish centres, surrounded by kosher grocery stores, take-out and supportive extended families. They also have the finances to travel with their families to Passover resort vacations. If they travel, they don\u2019t have to clean their houses or cook for the holiday. If they stay home, some use catering or even disposable plates for the whole holiday, which produces mountains of trash. My environmentally conscious household would never go for that.<\/p>\n
For those who lack a large Jewish community infrastructure, or financial and family supports, making holidays happen can feel overwhelming. We hover in between, operating in a weird middle ground that is both freeing and isolating. Our families live far away. Since public school and work don\u2019t stop for Pesach, we don\u2019t travel for this holiday. We care about keeping Pesach. I cook and clean for weeks in advance, but I can\u2019t do it all. I gave up on changing the dishes the year I gave birth to twins. While I may feel some guilt, I haven\u2019t looked back.<\/p>\n
Facing the next holiday\u2019s prep feels exhausting. Maybe that\u2019s because I just finished baking dozens of cookies (hamantashen and palmiers) for our Purim mishloach manot treat bags.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m thinking about how successful businesses and governments work. A business that runs smoothly depends on internal systems, competent managers to keep things working and other staff at various levels. A functional government also relies on an efficient bureaucracy. Right now, we\u2019re hearing of how President Trump\u2019s government is \u201ccutting bureaucracy\u201d and creating \u201cefficiency.\u201d However, what has followed is chaos.<\/p>\n
Yes, there are always cases of bloated bureaucracy or waste, but, in many contexts, efficiency can mean that only one person knows how to do something essential. If that person has an accident or falls ill or is fired? Bad things happen.<\/p>\n
I think of this while trying to keep my Jewish household on track through our holidays and the secular calendar. It takes mental energy and organizing skill to get kids through homework, afterschool extracurriculars, volunteering, and planning for summer activities in advance. Meanwhile, the dog needs grooming and her teeth brushed. Our house could use a good vacuuming.<\/p>\n
Running a home is historically a Jewish woman\u2019s domain. It\u2019s a lot of work. There are Jewish literary references to a balabusta<\/i> (Jewish housewife) and even Eishet Chayil,<\/i> a Woman of Valour, from the book of Proverbs, which is traditionally recited to some women on Shabbat.<\/p>\n
Many liberal households long ago ditched the tradition of reciting Eishet Chayil on Friday nights. Neither my childhood household nor my married one has ever\u00a0<\/span>included this. Instead, like many other Jewish households where women are professionals, in my family, women work alongside household management. So, the historic celebration of a \u201cwomen\u2019s place\u201d at home got scrapped, but the expectations increased.<\/p>\n Last night, I stayed up late after the whole household watched the movie Barbie together. Although I\u2019m no Barbie fan, I enjoyed the subversive, witty tricks of this movie\u2019s plot. Yet, I still had to place a grocery order afterwards. My husband was folding laundry. My twins changed their bedding before their bedtime, too. The exhaustion reminded me of one of the elements of a functional bureaucracy.<\/p>\n When things run smoothly, it\u2019s because everyone has jobs \u2013 and no one\u2019s job requires them to do everything. There is necessary duplication at work. More than one person knows how to do something, so that if a person goes away or gets sick, the system doesn\u2019t collapse. Overlapping work roles and slack in a system are necessary. When an emergency happens, there\u2019s extra capacity when systems overload.<\/p>\n Running a household smoothly, so that everyone\u2019s well fed, valued and has their needs met, is a complicated endeavour. In the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, pages 86-88, there\u2019s a lengthy conversation about what it means to be a \u201crebellious elder\u201d and whether there are ever times when one must be executed for teaching inappropriate information. The rabbis suggest there are three different courts of appeal for these cases. Yet, there is also an understanding that some rebellious elders teach rulings\u00a0<\/span>based on tradition, from their teachers, and, other times, they offer a reasoned argument, based on what is \u201cthe correct understanding in my eyes.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>That is, using logic, texts and real-life examples to draw conclusions.<\/p>\n Historically, women oversaw their households, that\u2019s what our texts say, but times change. Now, we also expect women to be, at least theoretically, equals in the workplace. But the research indicates that women still bear the brunt of household chores, and the mental gymnastics and emotional work related to keeping everything afloat.<\/p>\n It\u2019s time to rethink business models that preach that any duplication is redundant. If we want our homes to run smoothly, we must expect that more than one person be responsible for making Passover, or even afterschool carpools, happen. We moms cannot keep this schedule up any longer.<\/p>\n As I wrote this, one of my children rang the doorbell. He has a key but expects me to open the door for him anyway. That same child went out this afternoon to shop for Passover foods with his dad, who also picked up the weekly grocery order and did a lot of laundry today. Like Barbie\u2019s weird movie world, or the topsy turvy Purim story, we must keep turning things around or even upside down. We cannot expect even \u201cwomen of valour\u201d to do everything. It\u2019s time for everybody to learn more of the jobs to make our households function. Over here in Winnipeg, this mom is tired. It\u2019s time for everybody to pitch in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Joanne Seiff <\/b>has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including <\/i>From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner<\/a> or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My kids were volunteering at the Purim carnival, helping younger kids do games and offering other support. My husband was there to help. I went home early \u201cfor a break.\u201d Meanwhile, I receive \u201chelpful\u201d warnings from Jewish websites and other moms on social media. \u201cPassover is coming!\u201d they mention with cheerful purpose. Perhaps this fills […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3672,6412,218,400,3597,982,2231,3021],"class_list":["post-46288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-equality","tag-family-life","tag-judaism","tag-passover","tag-politics","tag-purim","tag-talmud","tag-women"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}