Embracing the New Year.

Tomorrow in synagogues all around the world we will read the stories of infertility reprieved - twice. For the past five or more years, I have chanted the story of Hannah - the barren woman who prayed with all her heart and soul to be granted a child so she could demonstrated her love of God by raising the child to serve the Divine. Her story is a parallel to the story of Sarah - wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac. Both women wanted a child to express their love and to fulfill their destinies and both had their wombs closed. Both women were tortured by the fertility of the other women in their families - Sarah by Hagar her maid and surrogate - and Hannah by Penina her cowife.

I've been thinking about whether or not there is a Hagar or Penina in my life. Certainly in the past year, many friends have gotten pregnant and given birth. And as the year moved forward and more and more women I knew were achieving their dreams while mine ended in blood and tears each month, I felt jealousy, anger, frustration with God, with my body, with myself. And yet, I was also happy for them, for the miracle of their stories and the continued proof that women my age and older were conceiving and giving birth. Certainly, I have not been actively taunted by these women as Hannah was - but then I think that perhaps it is part of the perception. Clearly the text says that Penina taunted Hannah - but we don't know the content of those taunts. Perhaps the taunt was simply that each year Penina's easy fertility felt like a taunt, a barb, a showing off to the infertile Hannah. I have had moments over the past 16 months of feeling that another's fertility - hard won or easy - was a personal affront. Rationally I knew that was not the case but Rationality is rarely present when emotions are high. Yet as the months passed the feeling of personal affront, of some kind of divine Judgement of me, eased. The personal feeling of loss that comes up each time I hear of another pregnant friend or relative hasn't dissipated completely. I'm not sure that it will until/unless I am able to conceive, carry to term and give birth to a healthy child of my own, but I am now able to separate it from the true joy I feel for others. I have taken up a practice of silently wishing good health and an easy time to every pregnant woman I see. Offering my own silent blessing to strangers and friends alike reminds me of the miracle that it is and that is available.

The stories of Sarah and Hannah are both a source of prayer, inspiration, hope and pain for me. Especially the last few years, as I come to the holiday still childless and unsure what this new year will hold for me. This year I am at the beginning of a new cycle. It feels somehow appropriate as though all my cycles, spiritual, reproductive, emotional are aligning. I realized this morning as I pushed against what felt like a huge weight just to get out of bed that I am anxious about starting this new year. That for me holiday means family and loved ones and it is a painful experience as the new families are called to the Torah that I am still just a witness.

I have worked hard over the past year to release myself from feelings that I have been abandoned by God, that my lack of a partner or a child is somehow punishment for something I had done to offend. But, I have realized that in fact, I have had a large role in creating my life as it is which means that I also have the power to create a life that is more reflective of my soul. That I can be more open to the love that is and continue to take risks - perhaps even more - that I might get what I want. Which doesn't mean I ignore the sadness - the feelings of loss that come up for me as these holidays approach and I am once again shredded by the gap between what is so and what I wish, want to be. But I think perhaps this year if I can really give myself the gift of feeling all the emotions of love, sadness, fear, hope, desire, joy, strength, weakness and inspiration then I can enter this new year more truly connect to myself, my core, my soul and thus God and everything. More connected which is something that can only be good.

Shana Tova