The Alarm

It's that really scary moment, the one where your heart starts to race and the panic sets in, the phone call in the middle of the night.

I've been having bad nights anyway, we're in Jerusalem at the moment for the Chagim but there are issues back in the UK which are preoccupying us and in addition my elderly,frail, recently widowed mother in law is staying with us for the duration and needs a lot of  TLC.

So when the phone rang at one in the morning I got the fright of my life. It was the alarm monitoring centre to report our alarm going off at home in Manchester for the second time in a week. I had to call a friends and ask him to go out and check if everything was OK. Somehow our electric garage door had opened itself and the contents of my garage were exposed for all the world to see.

Everything got sorted, I sent my friend a thank you text and tried hard to go back to sleep, but of course it wasn't so easy and I lay awake thinking about alarms.

It's Erev Yom Kippur and all our internal alarm bells are ringing at the moment alerting us to the Awesome day ahead of us and the fact that our fates will be sealed and we are thinking of all the things we can do to change what has been decided for us. It's especially poignant for me.

Last year my husband sat with his beloved father in Shul on Yom Kippur listening to the beautiful choir at the Great Synagogue singing Unetaneh Tokef. This year we are in a different Shul, in a new neighbourhood and my father in law is not here, he passed away just before Pesach. His destiny was sealed last Yom Kippur  and now we are dealing with life without him.

My alarm bells are ringing,  I've done nothing about it, I've been so preoccupied with making Shabbat, Yom Tov, caring for my mother in law, having my children and grandchildren to stay so my mother in law can spend time with them, spending precious time with my youngest son who is in the IDF, that the spiritual side of things, my Teshuva has gone by the wayside. I hope that what I have done is enough, that I am forgiven for my wrongdoings and that Hashem looks favourably on me and my loved ones this year. I also pray that Hashem gives clarity of thought  and wisdom to our leaders so they will open their eyes and see the truth of the evil that is taking over this world and to stop appeasing our enemies.

Finding Our Voices

When did women lose their voices in Shul and at the Shabbat table?

I was at a Communal Seuda Shlishit recently where the women were sitting separately from the men. I don't go to Seuda Shlishit at Shul very often but I accept that this is common practice. What I find hard to accept is that we have lost our voices when it comes to singing Zemirot and Bircat HaMazon. I understand and respect the concept of Kol Isha but surely at a communal event where no individual voices are heard, there is nothing wrong with a woman singing praises to Hashem. After all in the last weeks' Sedra Beshalach, Miriam led the women in singing after the Splitting of the Red Sea. 

The net result is because women are not encouraged or feel dissuaded to join in they say nothing, at best mutter the words under their breaths in case someone should hear them, or opt out altogether and talk. We don't have to shout or sing at the tops of our voices, but since when was singing praises and thanks to Hashem something that can be looked on as an erotic act?

We are accepting these impositions on us too easily and not questioning them enough. I understand that nobody is going to embarrass their host and hostess by singing enthusiastically if no other women are participating but it seems to me it's all part of the same mindset where women are being pushed to the back and they are being made to feel and are making themselves invisible.