Shavuot, and how this is All. My. Fault.

Sabrina and I are home sick today. She's sick, not me. She threw up in the toilet (hooray! for the toilet part, not the throwing up part), on the rug, and then, my favorite, on the dining room table. Nothing seems to be worse for the wear, except for the poor sweetie, and the plastic covering the dining room table actually seems to be cleaner than it was before.

This is all my fault, you see.

Yesterday Sabrina didn't feel well when I picked her up at school, and she had a little bit of a fever. She rested and played a bit while the GAL was over for a visit, and then she went to bed.

Meanwhile, I was VERY STRESSED about the upcoming Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which starts tonight. I finally got all of the logistics worked out (read: I found someone who can take her to and from school on the two days of the holiday, having already found an adult--her dad--to go with her on the school field trip to the circus) but still had much cooking to do. And I started thinking--if Sabrina has to stay home because she's sick, that would be very beneficial to me.

I didn't think that was going to make her not be able to keep anything down! Really! I thought, a little extra rest, some TV, and she'd feel better. Alas, I made her sick.

However, I did make two cheesecakes, a quiche, and fish, washed all my dishes except the few for the fish, put my laundry away, and have done some work (Tuesday being my busy day), so while this was bad for Sabrina, it hasn't been all bad for me. I'm all about the self-centeredness.

Spring break

If you are like me, you have about 27 hundred foster/adoption blogs in your google reader and don't actually notice when any one individual blogger takes a day or two or eleven off. (Um, hi! I love you all, even if I don't notice when you fall off the face of the earth because your child has attempted to flush you down the toilet!)

But in case you, you know, are a better person than I am, I thought I should poke my head up for a quick hello.

Sabrina is with her dad for spring break. She comes back Tuesday afternoon; I have a friend picking her up from school since it is the last day of Passover and I am therefore unable to drive, and let me tell you, as much as Sabrina thinks it would be fun to walk home from school, she wouldn't make it the multiple miles and by the way, highway? Not so friendly for pedestrians.

I've decided I need to have guests for lunch on Tuesday so that I don't accidentally nap through Sabrina getting home, but half of my first batch of invitees have declined already. People! I have food! I want to give it to you! Oh well, their loss.

In actual foster parenting related news, I got a big envelope from the agency last week with a single sheet of paper (and we wonder why the city is having budget problems) telling me to save the date for a "Summit!" But it didn't say what the date of said Summit! is. Brilliant. (Or, for that matter, what said Summit! is.)

At least it isn't asking me for money. On Friday I got an invitation to join the local foster parent association. The one that I only know about because of my previous professional involvement with my agency. According to the invitation letter, it is a "time of great change for foster care" in our city and "it will take everyday citizens like you and I to assist in the change." The letter doesn't say what the association does, but I am welcome to pay $35 for the privilege of joining. I should send cash to the executive director who just happens to share a last name with the president. Sure, let me just get out my wallet.

Passover

All that stress about Passover--how was I going to get Sabrina to school? Was I really going to have to host seders just so she could get a full night sleep? She won't eat regular food that I feed her, so what was she going to eat for eight days? What if she came home from school with cookies in her bookbag?

I checked the school calendar this evening. It's spring break.

Stress averted.

Foster parents and Rabbis

I was fortunate to be able to spend Tikkun Leil Shavuot* at Pardes, in Jerusalem, this year. I learned at Pardes many years ago, and it was a wonderful experience. So when I knew that I was going to be in Jerusalem for Shavuot, it was an easy choice just to spend the entire night there. Little did I expect that one of the shiurim** would be relevant to foster parenting.

The shiur was entitled "Kibud Av [honoring parents] and Kibud Rav [honoring teachers/rabbis]" and was given by Rabbi Zvi Hirschfield. While I didn't think that his shiur gave enough attention to the needs of the student (foster child, in my interpretation), one of his sources gives a lot to think about. I've copied it below without too much explanation of the Jewish bits. But read it replacing the word "teacher" with the phrase "foster parent," and the subject person as a foster child, and all of a sudden, the Rabbis of olde could have been speaking to us.

Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Metzia; Page 33a***

Mishnah: If a person's lost article and his father's lost article need attention, his own takes precedence. His own and his teacher's - his own takes precedence. His father's and his teacher's - his teacher's takes precedence because his father brought him into this world and his teacher who instructed him in wisdom brings him to the future world. But if his father is a sage, his father's takes precedence. If his father and his teacher were each carrying a burden, he must first assist his teacher and then his father. If his father and his teacher are in captivity, he must first redeem his teacher and then his father, but if his father is a sage, he first redeems his father and then his teacher.

Gemarrah: From where to we know this? R. Judah said in the name of Rav: "Save that there be no poor among you." Yours takes precedence over others. But R. Judah also said in the name of Rav: He who strictly observes this will eventually be brought to poverty. Our Rabbis taught: the teacher referred to is he who instructed him in wisdom, not he who taught him Bible and Mishnah, this is R. Meir's view. R. Judah said: He from whom one has derived the greater part of his knowledge. R. Yossi said: even if he informed him of a single Mishnah only, he is his teacher. Raba said: for example, R. Sehora, who told me the meaning of zohara listron.

Shmuel rent his garment [that is, observed the mourning rituals that are obligatory on the death of a close relative] for one of the rabbis who taught him the meaning of "One was thrust into the duct as far as the armpit, and another key opened the door directly."

Ulla said: the scholars in Babylonia rise before each other [that is, provide each other with honor] and rent their garments before each other in mourning; but with respect to lost articles, when one has his father's also, he returns the scholar's first only in the case of his most central teacher.

R. Hisda asked R. Huna: What of a disciple whom his teacher needs? Hisda, Hisda, he answered: I do not need you but you need me. Forty years they bore resentment for each other and did not visit each other. R. Hisda kept forty fasts because R. Huna had felt humiliated, while R. Huna kept forty fasts for having suspected R. Hisda.

It has been taught: R. Isaac b. Yosef said in the name of R. Yochanan: The law is as R. Judah.

I really, really hope that my exposition here is clear and doesn't assume too much Jewish knowledge or experience with Jewish learning. But if I've failed, feel free to slap me around a bit in the comments. (BTW: the line about being thrust into the duct has something to do with opening doors, one was easy and the other really difficult, but I don't remember the explanation and it isn't necessary. So don't fret that it is completely boggling and unintelligible.)

The basic question, and here I will use the language of the mishnah and gemarra, but strike them through and replace them with the language of fostering, is: given mixed or conflicting allegiances, who should the student foster child honor/respect/love more, his father bio-family or his Rabbi/teacher foster family? (Interesting, that "should." It's where we get into some stickiness in the foster care arena. But halacha**** is about should/must/may/must not much more than it is about does/is. So that is the language we use here, and then celebrate that relationships in foster care are not governed by halacha.)

The mishnah teaches first that one has to look out for himself or herself first. I think that this is intuitive and fair, and echoes our experience in life. I haven't had any kiddos in my home yet, but my guess is that kids in foster care experience this even more strongly. And it's what you are supposed to do on an airplane if there's a loss of cabin pressure.

Then the mishnah teaches that a student foster child is to place the Rabbi/teacher foster parent above the father bio-family. This is troubling even in the original context. As another participant in the shiur pointed out, this text was written by the Rabbis, so of course they were looking out for themselves. But why is this? It is because, as the mishnah continues, the father bio-family "brought him into this world" and the teacher foster parent is... filling the role that the bio-family would fill if they had the ability to do so. (See: "if his father is a sage"...then the student doesn't so much need a teacher.) (It is reasonable to note here that, at least of the first-year students at Pardes, many are exploring being more observant than their parents or have already made the decision to be more observant than their parents, so this question of what does "kibbud av" really entail is a frequent topic of conversation. So it may be that Zvi was already thinking about this question from that perspective when he looked at the texts that he used as sources.)

As it then goes on in the gemarra, what happens when a student foster child has many teachers foster families? To what extent is the student foster child "obligated" to maintain feelings of honor/respect/gratitude (not sure about that last one) for the foster families that took the kiddo in for respite or for only a few weeks?

The range of answers given indicates both an ambivalence about and a desire to require expressions of respect. The ultimate answer, that respect is only required towards the teacher "from whom one has derived the greater part of his knowledge" strikes a balance. It is not necessarily the right answer for foster parents who are interacting with foster children, as the kiddos have to be the ones to discover for themselves what an individual family means to them.

But this text does shine a light on the mixed feelings that our foster children might/will have; they will feel a tug towards their bio-family that might cause them to feel conflicted if they want to be close also to us. We just need to be sure that we don't tell them that they need to place us above their bio-families.

* It is traditional on the [first] night of the holiday of Shavuot to stay up all night learning. This is called a tikkun leil Shavuot.

** Shiurim (singular: shiur) are classes. There's a special connotation to the word "shiur" as opposed to simply saying it was a class.

*** This is the citation to the source. If you're not familiar with the talmud, this won't mean much to you. "Mishnah" and "gemarra" are two types of content within the talmud.
****Halacha is the word for Jewish law.

Cautious Optimism: The Lead Saga Continues

Of course, since I only started this blog a week ago and this is only the fourth post, you don't know about the lead saga. Quick version of background: I moved into my lovely apartment last summer when friends moved out of it to move cross country for work. This apartment building is one of two with reasonable rents in this part of my Big City, meaning that a 2-bedroom apartment is approximately the same rent (or less) than 1-bedrooms nearby. Reason for the reasonable rent discovered during licensing process--lead-based hazards. No problem, just get it remediated, right? (No abatement, since that can only be done if the apartment is vacant.)

Easier said than done. And to this point, to their credit, the problem is NOT the landlord. And thus begins the saga. The problem is The Agency. The inspector comes, writes a report, I get it a month later, the inspector calls to come again, he writes a report... I talk to the Lead Person at The Agency, she says "but you passed the inspection." First of all, I didn't. I read the report and it clearly said that I failed. Second of all, if I had passed, shouldn't the licensing worker have called me? Or was I supposed to be psychic and called her to tell her? So after she looks back and discovers that "oh, you're right" she says that she will send me the report. Three weeks go by, nothing. (Yeah yeah, I know I should have followed up sooner. I'll take the blame there.) I email the Lead Person--"I haven't gotten the report yet, could you fax it or scan it and send by email?" No response. Another week goes by, "I'm coming to The Agency for a meeting this afternoon, can I stop by your desk to pick up a copy?" No response, so I decide to skip the meeting.* Another week goes by, I email the Lead Person. She calls, "You need to talk to the Licensing Worker." I call the Licensing Worker. "The Lead Person doesn't send those reports." Wha...? Me: "She said she'd mailed it to me, and it is supposed to contain the directions for my landlord." LW: "Let me call her." Finally an email: "You were supposed to give your landlord the first report. And by the way, here's the informal email from the lead inspector that says what needs to be done."

So I was nervous that the landlord wouldn't be receptive to making the repairs, since none of the paperwork went through the "official" channels that would start a clock running for legal enforceability of his responsibility to remediate the lead. But I spoke with him this morning, and while everything has to run through his boss, he sounded quite willing to get someone to come in and fix my windows. So again I am cautiously optimistic. Maybe I'll be licensed by Christmas.**


*I work for The Local Government and thus this was a meeting for work. I had other priorities that day, and my participation in the meetings isn't all that valuable. In my opinion.

**What does this post have to do with Frum Fostering, you ask? Here it is! I'm definitely inappropriately excited about decorating for Christmas. I went to my favoriate Big Box Store after Christmas and bought a bunch of decorations when they were on 75% off sale, and hope to be able to use them next year. Holidays (mine and the kids') are--and have been--an area of introspection for me as I move forward with the fostering process. Do the kids come to shul with me? Stay up late for sedarim? How to observe Easter? And so on. More to come.