email I wrote:

Hello,
Thank you for this opportunity to comment on the subject:

I am a woman who was brought up about as secular as possible, but am
now moving toward a more observant life, as I see the beauty of it and
find out more about it; this does give me more of a need for a
“cultural perspective” on things. While on a practical, subjective,
side of things I feel more self-respecting, and more like my true
self, when I dress more modestly–on the other hand, I was very
interested to research more the history of Jewish women from the more
distant past, to the times over the past few hundred years, and this
brought me to some conclusions that explain the strictness:

1) All women may have covered their hair when living in middle-eastern
countries, and so that was a “biblical” norm of modesty for the
surrounding culture as well.
2) When women were living in Eastern Europe over the past few hundred
years, and were in the shtetls and such places, the stability of the
Jewish community depended on not having conflicts with the surrounding
neighbors, and since–as in Native American cultures today on
reservations, for example–outside men would easily rape a Jewish
woman and not suffer the consequences of law, and Jewish men may not
have been able to fight back in any feasible way, since a conflict
would have put the community at risk as a whole: therefore, any act a
woman could do (i.e. especially stringent modesty, including covering
hair, and ankles, etc…) would definitely be of great worth to her
family and community!

I have come to a funny kind of understanding of Rabbinical law, that I
am not sure if what is quite held to be “Orthodox” but somehow I am
able to keep the two sides of things in my mind, in paradox, but
harmony: I feel like Rabbinical law could be objected to as not “being
required by G-d” in the sense that it has different interpretations,
and one person may argue with another as to details…but on the other
hand, when a community (especially such a large community as the
Jewish People) agrees to do things in one way, that agreement in and
of itself serves to strengthen any actions taken by any one or all of
the People. Why? It seems to me that since our job is to serve G-d as
best as possible in our role as an example and possibly light-bringers
to the world, unity must have strength. So in that case, any
“rebellion” unless for the sake of rebellion alone, does not serve
oneself or the whole.

All of this is not very well researched, or clearly thought out, but
it is the way I have been dealing with what, in modern society, can be
thought of as “superstition” or such.

Thank you again for listening.

So, for a short update–

All the children are now in Jewish schools (preschool, pre-K, 1st grade) and a great THANK YOU to our local Chabad’s in general for their help in working out the financial side of things.
I am continuously delightfully amazed at the level of trust and generousity from their part.

I thought, what to answer? I didn’t want to say something negative, but I didn’t want to confuse her after all we had been celebrating Easter two years ago, and hadn’t talked about this particular holiday.
“Well, Easter is a holiday that people who go to Christian churches celebrate. Christian people believe that Jesus died and became alive again on Easter. They believe that he was not only a good teacher who taught them about God, but also that he was God. And we are Jewish, we believe that God is everywhere. Jewish people don’t believe that a person can be God.”
“Of course,” she said, “There is one God, and God is everywhere. That would mean if God was a person that there was a split–that there were two parts. God could be two places if God was split, and then God would not be in some place but in two places. God is one, everywhere, so it can’t be that way. (sorry if this is not word for word, hers was better!)

I was impressed. She turned 6 only this summer!

Okay, I will be on my way now.

May you all have a wonderful Shabbat and continuation of your weekend–and may you all be blessed to feel the gratefulness of the beauty of life surrounding and in you.

But the wicked carried us away in captivity
Required from us a song
How can we sing King Alfa song
In a strange land
Cause the wicked carried us away in captivity
Required from us a song
How can we sing King Alfa song
In a strange land

Sing it out loud
Sing a song of freedom sister
Sing a song of freedom brother
We gotta sing and shout it
We gotta talk and shout it
Shout the song of freedom now

So let the words of our mouth
And the meditation of our heart
Be acceptable in Thy sight
Over I
So let the words of our mouth
And the meditation of our heart
Be acceptable in Thy sight
Over I

Sing it again
We’ve got to sing it together
Everyone of us together

By the rivers of Babylon…
(Original lyrics from the 1972 album sleeve of “The Harder They Come” o.s.t. ) by Don Julian

http://www.jewishanswers.org/ask-the-rabbi-1943/interfaith-couples/

I emailed the askmoses.com website to ask about covering my hair, since I’m not married officially by Halacha, and they replied that if I was already donig it I should continue…but since I had already stopped by the time I emailed–I decided not to.

Actually, I am feeling more and more comfortable with my/our level of observance in our home.

I spend a lot of our free time with kids in Jewish educational type activities (i.e. if we watch a movie, it might be on the topic–if we read a storybook, it is often a Jewish kids book, etc).
I say brachas often, and we celebrate the Sabbath, although not doing everything correctly, we do have dinner/candle lighting/kiddush etc and try to spend Saturdays in family activity including going to Shul, visiting the Rabbi’s house, etc…

That’s my update for now. Till next time…

1. graduated from a four-year Institute, receiving a BA equivalent in a foreign language, in a foreign country
2. moved to Russia and back TWO times (I am talking full out moving, not visiting); so that makes 4 international moves–3 of which I was pregnant for
3. I have gotten married (including meeting my future spouse-courtship, etc)
4. we have gone through three pregnancies, three births (ranging from medical c-section to vbac, to unassisted home birth–that last wasn’t officially planned!)
5. have been baptised in the Russian Orthodox church, then am currently in the process of returning to my birthright: Judaism
6. have lived in countless different living-spaces from apartment to garage to other places I don’t feel like sharing at the moment;
7. been a stay-at-home-mom with three toddlers, and now am working full time.

During this time I have been blonde twice, reddish-haired many times, and natural dark-brown a couple.
My children have changed childcare and schools almost every 3-6 months.

Okay? Now, where am I?

I am still married, living in a stable situation (G-d willing that such a situation should continue), returning to Judaism with my three children (G-d willing, we are all in good health), working, praying, looking for the newest way forward.

I was thinking of putting a mezuzah on our front doorway.
What do you think of that?