There are still times when I find myself alone with three crying children, each one desperate for something else at the exact moment. Rav Noach Weinberg z”l, my baby’s namesake, taught that when a mother is overwhelmed with her children’s needs, she should just focus on getting through the next half hour, and the next half hour, and before you know it, the kids are distracted and calm, and everything falls into place. So, at those all too frequent times, instead of pulling my hair out and hiding in the bathroom, I repeat the mantra the ladies from Williamsburg taught me: this too shall pass.
Postscript: I wrote this article before the horrific killing of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his sons Arieh, 5, and Gabriel, 3, and Myriam Monsenego, 8, in Toulouse, France. As a Jewish mother, this tragedy shook me to the core. There is so much uncertainty and pain in this world. We should treasure the normal irritations and demands of healthy children. All too quickly, it can be wrenched away from us leaving just a void. May Mrs. Eva. Sandler and the Monsenego family be comforted amongst all the mourners of Tzion and may the neshomos of the kiddoshim have an aliyah to the highest gates of heaven.
