While listening to my neighbors celebrating Rosh Hashanah and wishing each other "Happy New Year!" I began thinking of Anita Diamant's excellent book, The Red Tent. It concerns several biblical characters--women, mainly--and the "mysteries of the life cycle." (Los Angeles Times) It talks of the longing for a child and how, for some women, it is an elemental, very deep need and desire.
And The Red Tent led me to this excellent article from the Milwaukee Journal (Sept. 29, 2011 by Manya A. Brachear, Tribune Reporter) which talks about how women experiencing infertility come to see that "No matter how you come by your children, it's a joyous thing."
Excerpts from the article:
As her conservative Jewish congregation at Anshe Emet in Lakeview joyfully ushered in Rosh Hashanah last year, Rebecca Gruenspan could only grieve. Shortly before the Jewish New Year, she had learned from doctors that she probably would not bear children.
Incapable of rejoicing, she was able to draw inspiration from the women throughout biblical history who shared her struggle: the dozens of infertile women in the Old Testament who lived to see their longing fulfilled, witnesses to God's miraculous power.
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"It's not just having a child. It's the legacy and the generations," said Lieberman, whose parents are both Holocaust survivors. "We are here as testimony. It's hard for women who want to bring someone into the world and are having trouble with it."
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Raised Roman Catholic, McGowan converted to Judaism alongside her son Jacob after his adoption in 1994. So moved by Hannah's story, which she learned during her conversion classes, she vowed to name her next son Samuel. Samuel McGowan Fitter celebrated his bar mitzvah last year.
"He represents to me a gift from God," McGowan said. "It didn't matter to me that I couldn't actually conceive him. I prayed to God and there he is."
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Indeed, Gruenspan recalls her prayers shifting during the High Holy Days last year and her thoughts turning toward adoption.
"I realized it didn't matter how I became a mother," she said. "The fact that I gave the child the life that he wouldn't have otherwise had … makes it feel even that much sweeter, more fulfilling."
Read the full article here:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-09-29/news/ct-met-jewish-high-holidays-infertility-20110929_1_jewish-women-congregations-jewish-new-year
September 29, 2011|By Manya A. Brachear, Tribune reporter
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