This Week: Super Kid & Fairy Princess
Finding sources of light and silliness and love.
Dear fam,
It’s Friday, which means a few things — challah at dinner, music class for Big Kid, and a more chilled out evening routine, to name a few. This week, it’s also the morning after Halloween which is, according to Bid Kid, the most important day of the year.
If you don’t have a little kid in America, you might not know that Halloween is the most important day. You might mistakenly think it’s Rosh HaShanah or Election Day or your birthday. I’m here to tell you you’re wrong — it’s Halloween. Period.
My wife and I are, to put it lightly, not Halloween people. In Jewish holiday terms, we both really don’t like Purim (when you also traditionally don costumes and have parties). We both think gore is gross. For my delicate countenance, an overbaked torte on the Great British Bake-Off is about as much horror as I can take.
When our neighbors start putting out cobwebs or skeletons or, in one case, a life-sized representation of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse we tend to get a little uncomfortable.
But Big Kid loves this shit. She truly, truly loves going around the neighborhood and finding the coolest decorations (this year, a sensor-activated growling 7-foot Frankenstein). She loves costumes, and trick-or-treating, and perfecting her witchy cackle. So, as her moms, we went for it. We bought an inflatable black cat for our front lawn, a witch costume for Big Kid (and then a superhero costume, because she changed her mind), and a heap of candy to hand out to neighborhood kids.
I’m pleased to report that she had a blast — and so did we. It’s been such an incredibly stressful time, and wandering around a neighborhood full of whimsy for a few hours was a lovely break from the actual, real-world horror I can’t stop thinking about.
Most of my time I’m thinking about:
(a) the election that looms over my rights as a queer Jewish person
(b) the expanding war in the Middle East that looms over the safety and sanity of my country and the entire region
(c) my wonderful and quirky Big Kid with her Big Feelings and how she’s doing at school, and if she made it through the day
or some combination of the three.
But yesterday, for a little while, I got to forget about all that. What a relief.
Today, I’m back at it. The stress, that is. Both children woke up with a Halloween Hangover — cranky as hell and demanding candy. When the package of m&ms ran out, Toddler cried. Honestly? Same, girl.
We somehow managed to get them to school and I said my daily prayer that Big Kid would be ok. On the way home, I read the news — which was all bad. Trump and Musk are already touting conspiracy theories about election fraud; a Halloween parade in Pennsylvania featured a woman dressed as Harris chained to a truck; the Knesset looks ready to pass a budget that effectively lowers the minimum wage, cuts benefits, and channels all the money into settlements and the war; scores of people continue to die in Gaza and Lebanon and Israel — Reuters reports the “ceasefire hopes fade” in the face of ongoing hostilities.
What does this have to do with parenting? Everything. Knowing the world we live in is full of such poison is an important part of how I show up as a parent — and as a person. It’s much, much harder to be present for my kids when I’m scared all the time. And I am.
There are transgender people who I love — so Trump’s anti-trans rhetoric scares me.
There are Israelis who I love — so Netanyahu (and his cronies’) shameless disregard for their lives scares me.
There are Palestinians and Lebanese people who I love — so the dehumanizing rhetoric and ongoing violence in Gaza and Lebanon scares me.
There are Latinos who I love — so the xenophobic threats from the Trump campaign scares me.
And so forth.
I know many parents who have stopped reading the news, because they can’t take it anymore. Fair enough. I have a no-horror-movies policy, maybe I should have a no-news policy, too. But is it better not to know? There’s a privilege there — the privilege of knowing that when shit gets real it mostly won’t affect you — you’ll still be able to access medical care, for example, and you won’t be deported in the middle of the night. You’ll have access to food and water, too, no matter who is elected or what bill is passed. Those who stand to be affected are staying on top of the happenings so they can be prepared. That’s why you better bet all the queer families I know are following this election extremely closely — and they’re not the only ones.
I’m not sure I have that privilege, as a queer, Jewish, Hebrew-speaking mama. If I do, I’m still not sure it’s responsible to close my eyes. Shouldn’t I be using my privilege to help those more vulnerable than I?
As usual, I don’t know the answer. For me, reading about the world has resulted in tooth-grinding and eating TUMS at unpredictable hours. I certainly understand those who prefer not to know. It’s all so, so horrible. So hateful. So violent. There’s so much I wish I could unsee.
This week’s Torah portion is Noach, the story of Noah and his ark. Much has been written about Noah — about how he was righteous among those of his generation, and how exactly he built the ark, and what happened with his son’s after. Folks much smarter and more knowledgeable than I have written about the raven, and the dove, and the olive branch. And the rainbow, of course.
I want to write about the window. Described as a tzohar (צוהר), the window in the ark is an integral part of the whole design. In Genesis 6:16, G-d tells Noah “Make an opening for daylight in the ark, and terminate it within a cubit of the top,” notably one of the only design elements specified in G-d’s description.
The word tzohar (צוהר) is notable here. It’s not the most common Hebrew word for window, that’s chalon (חלון). The word here is related to tzohorayim (צהריים) — which literally means two tzohars but is almost always the word for afternoon. Why? Because, according to the Avnion Dictionary, both are related to a light shining (zohar = shining or glowing, this became tzohar without too much trouble). The sun shines through a small opening in the ark’s roof; the sun shines doubly in the afternoon.
One midrash (explanatory commentary) on the book of Genesis posits that the tzohar wasn’t a window at all:
Rabbi Levi said: It was a [luminous] precious stone. Rabbi Pinḥas said in the name of Rabbi Levi: All twelve months that Noah was in the ark, he needed neither the light of the sun during the day nor the light of the moon at night; rather, he had a precious stone that he had suspended. When it was dim he knew that it was day, and when it shined brightly he knew that it was night. [Bereshit Rabbah 31:11]
What might this mean? I tend not to believe in some kind of magic gemstone glowing in the darkness, although that’s a cool idea. Instead, perhaps the rabbis are suggesting something kind of radical — that we can make our own light in times of unbelievable darkness?
Surely, when Noah was on the ark he thought (at times) the world was ending. He must have been scared, like I am. Had he been alive today, he’d be doom-scrolling news of the flood. I imagine him pacing the floorboards, peering out the window for days upon days.
But if he had an indicator of the passage of time, a way of knowing there was some kind of order to the madness — wouldn’t that make the chaos more bearable? We can build ourselves a tzohar, too. We can find ways of letting in the light, a little at a time.
This week, I got to go on a walk with Super Kid and the Fairy Princess. This afternoon, I’ll get to go to the park with Toddler and say hi to some ducks. We’ll light the shabbat candles, bringing more holy light into our home. We’ll make it holy with our intentions and prayers.
When I read those words — the ones I wish I could unread — I’ll try to remember the people I know who are fighting back. Who believe in human rights and decency. Who aren’t quitting. May we all find sources of illumination in the coming days.
Shabbat shalom,
Mikhal
P.S. If you’re a citizen of the United States — VOTE! Find your polling station here. Make a voting plan. VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE.
Welcome to the Chaos Palace is about coloring outside society's boring ol' lines.
More specifically, it's about ADHD, parenting, queerness, and Judaism. Subscribe to get new ideas (big and small) about how to expand the boundaries of societal rules. Paying subscribers get updates from my own Chaos Palace, as well as conversations with folks who are whistling their own quirky tune and reported essays — for just $5 a month (or $55 for the year)! I also write poems sometimes, as well as thoughts about the complexities of the place I was raised in and love — Jerusalem, Israel.
Now for some links!
wrote a beautiful ode to her dad, her Baba, and it takes place in a Costco. wrote about telling your family that your kid is neurodivergent. wrote about Melania Trump in incisive, smart ways (of course) that really gave me pause. reminds us that joy is a valid reason to eat and that chocolate cake is delicious. and his colleagues gathered testimony from Northern Gaza. Gabriel Kahane wrote a powerful Letter to a Leftist (from a Leftist)
Thank you for sharing the article, Mikhal. And finding a moment to smile right now is important. I know I am trying, too.
The word Tzohar (צוהר) IS a window but is more commonly translated as 'porthole', which, actually fits your description and explanation better, I think, than 'window'.