The Baal Teshuva Diaries

First of all, if you haven't yet, go read  https://ishayirashashem.substack.com/p/housekeeping-motivation-12-inspirational  because she pretty much summarizes it and my posts tend to get very specific and personal. (Have you ever noticed how introverts can't shut up about themselves on the internet?  It's a real problem.  We should form a support group and then not show up, because we're too introverted to talk to people in real life)  Second, let's address this rumor.  I've heard that there are some people who actually like cleaning for Pesach.  I know a few of them.  They don't seem like pathological liars to me, but I'm forced to draw that conclusion.  If you are one of these women, please comment below. And come clean my house.  I need to do further research on your tribal customs.  * Now to get to the point. And this post is mostly a vent, so I'm sorry:   I did something crazy this Pesach, something that will have bal...

 I am up at 5 am making challah.  This is not a thing that I do regularly.  Or even often.  I made dough on Purim during the afternoon for Shabbos, with the full knowledge that if I didn't make it the one day I had off of work, we weren't getting homemade challah for Shabbos. And honestly, the store brand challah we've been using was mostly stale.  No one wants to eat that.  I fell asleep on the couch last night after putting the baby to bed (shocking!) and woke up at 4am.  Unable to go back to sleep, I popped the challah in the oven, knowing how little I will feel like cooking for Shabbos when I get back from work.  I'm currently huddling on a heating pad with a cup of coffee, because my husband turns the heat down so low overnight that   there are penguins in my basement who came here from the Antarctic to escape climate change .   What is it with husbands and heat?  Do they just hate comfort? Anyway, I figured now was the perfec...

 Hello again lovely readers. (All, from what I can tell, two of you.) My husband is at a kollel party, my baby has passed out on my lap after taking an hour-long bath, the panic of knowing I have nothing planned for my toddler students tomorrow hasn't hit me yet, and the second trimester heartburn is only moderate.  The perfect time for my Purim debrief.  One of the many things that came as a total surprise to me and my aforementioned lack of any domestic skills or inclination whatsoever, was the concept of themed Shalach Manos.  I should be clear that while shalach manos were definitely "done" in my old neighborhood and frequently quite tasty, themes were not a thing.  My inner detetective suspects this is because many people were students and while there were families with kids, the majority were childless.  What's the point of a theme if you don't have a family in themed costumes?  BH" I have a family.  We do not dress in themed costumes. ...

  I took an anthropology class in college, before I decided a better, more reliable career would be teaching.(Reliable, maybe, but ask me how that’s going…)  I learned enough to know that I am what is called a participant observer of frumkeit . * As someone who grew up fully secular and became religious in my mid-20’s before settling down and having a family, I never feel as if I know quite what’s going on.  I married a Baal Teshuva.  Really.  It’s the blind leading the blind here, people.   It gets better, though. Or worse, depending on your perspective.  When we were newlyweds we lived in a very geographically dispersed, mixed-observance community with a small, highly educated, Modern Orthodox contingent** , which, for reasons that my mother refers to as my black and white thinking, was not hashkafically my thing. I have won exactly one argument with my husband in the entire three years of our marriage and that has been the argument about ...