Almost five years ago, our family was blessed with the engagements and the weddings of our two oldest daughters one after another. They were engaged within two weeks of each other, and married within twelve days.

Once again, we’ve been blessed with a double heaping of joy (though in a different form this time)!

I’m delighted to share with you that our youngest daughter Tzipora is engaged to Menachem Miller of Har Nof!

The l’chaim took place in Jerusalem last night; the engagement party will be in Jerusalem next week.

It’s not often when our family gets together that it feels like a small group, but that’s how it felt last night. Part of that is that our daughter is marrying into a similarly sized family to ours, but they are about ten years ahead of us so all of their children are adult size and have a strong physical presence.

The other aspect is that several of our family members were missing. Our oldest daughter and her family weren’t there, because they were in the US for a wedding. One son-in-law can only come to one of the events, and will come next week.

And lastly, our second son (who got married in August 2021) and his wife couldn’t come because….. his wife was in labor!

Less than twelve hours after our daughter became engaged, our newest granddaughter entered the world!

Knowing that a birth was imminent, we chose to stay overnight in Jerusalem rather than travel back to Yavneel as originally intended. This allowed me and four of the sons with me to see our new little beauty when she was just three hours old.

When my son called me to let me know his wife was in labor, I was so deeply grateful and thankful to be showered with so much abundance all at once. I was feeling very full of emotion and commenced driving when we finished talking. As I sat at the traffic circle immediately after finishing our call I waited for drivers to let me merge into the circle, and idly wondered if they thought my intense expression was because they weren’t letting me in!

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There’s always a sudden shift as soon as an engagement is announced, into a lot of action very quickly. Generally, the bulk of the preparations fall on the bride’s side, and I have an enormous amount of work ahead of me.

Usually I enjoy planning and preparing for events, but this time thinking about all that needs to be done feels more daunting than usual. That’s primarily due to the logistics of making arrangements for events in Jerusalem, when I live so far away and getting there is difficult for me, particularly since I have young children for whom I don’t have back-up child care options other than their siblings (who have very limited availability). It’s been almost year since our regular babysitter got married, and I haven’t had any luck finding anyone else to help out.

As a result, I’m considering outsourcing things that I usually enjoy doing myself. Of course that comes with a cost and I tend to balk at paying others to do things I can do just as well if not better, but it’s clear to me that I’m going to need help from somewhere.

Here’s what I do at times like this when feeling tension about all that needs to be done. First, I take time to sit quietly alone, and think through all the things running through my mind without the input from anyone else. It’s always before I have the time to sit with myself that I feel the stress of expectations and action items. I clarify what is most important to do right away, what can be done second, and then consciously put the other things to the side and focus on items one and two, in that order.

Sometimes, my first action is to sleep, since when you’re tired, everything feels much harder. This can feel counterintuitive, since when there’s so much to do, taking a nap or going to bed early feel wrong. But I very much believe in the principle of ‘sharpening the saw’ – you shouldn’t continue to cut down a tree with a dull saw because you are too busy to take the time to sharpen it. By seemingly taking time away from what you need to do to align your energies with the task at hand, you’ll find that everything that needs to be done flows more quickly and more easily.

This has been very helpful many times to me in moving from stressed and pressured, to focused and calm, and that’s exactly what I’m taking time for now.

Avivah