ISAACS FAMILY NEWSLETTER March 15, 2021

If social media is like breaking news, then Isaacs family newsletters are like those end-of-year items on TV that capture everything you already forgot that happened in the last 12 months. Newsletters offer not so much news as perspective. I should change the name to “perspective-letters”, but it’s a bit of a mouthful (as are some newsletters).  

And this I say because by now most of you already know that Orly and Chen have a beautiful baby boy, named Ram Rachamim, born 32 days ago, exactly 6 months and 1 day after granddaughter #1 Dori, daughter of Elon and Leetal. I am pleased to announce further that on motsash Ram was redeemed from a Cohen (pidyon ha’ben) and is now irrefutably 100% the property of his parents. Let’s start with the grandkids.

Dori the Delicious

Dori is the sweetest baby I have ever known, raised wonderfully by two skilled and devoted parents. She has a gorgeous, ready laugh and Elon has dozens of tricks and games that never fail to make her giggle. With her father to entertain her, for Dori, Life is like bingeing on an endless stream of Monty Python,  Not the Nine O’clock News and Mr. Bean. An extremely healthy way to start and live Life.

Dori is heavily into pre-speech, always expressing her desires and complaints with a cute sort of guttural pre-roar which Mummy Leetal knows to translate into “I am hungry”, “I am tired” or “Change the channel”. I wait impatiently for the day when we can have our first conversations. Ironic, really, how there are some people you yearn to hear speak, while there are others you pray would shut up (mainly politicians).

Ram the R… (can’t think of a word starting with R that describes him)

Ram is also the sweetest baby I have ever known with gorgeous big blue eyes, and an expression of wonder on his face at the new and strange world around him. He hardly cries (at least when I am around) without a very, very good reason, and is totally irresistible. Ram the iRresistible (second letter R).

As you may recall, Orly and Chen live in our granny flat, which means Judy and I are very available and active grandparents, especially thanks to Covid19 which has us Working From Home.  Whenever Orly needs to rest, bath the baby or even “powder her nose”, there are two quinquagenarians eager to answer the call for help. Judy takes night shifts, often tending Ram till late. I do mornings. Typically, around 8.15, as I am at shul (or rather davening in the street minyan), I get a recorded whatsapp from Orly in a pitiful, pleading voice: “Ram didn’t sleep all night. I am exhausted. Can you look after him please?” “Sure I can, I answer. Orly: “And oh, and I think he might be dirty”.

A Grandpa never shirks his duty. I gleefully change (yes “gleefully”), swaddle, sing and send Ram back to sleep in the mornings, while I zoom with my work colleagues.

I actually managed to impress Orly - for the first time in about 25 years - with my nappy-changing skills, although that brief glow in the limelight rapidly dulled when Orly discovered that the intricacies of nappy changing can be mastered in a week.

Great Grandma Boobie Barbara also gets in on the act. Fully vaccinated, she is finally emerging from her near 12-month self-isolation and taking up her great-grandmotherly responsibilities, holding the baby for hours.

With 7 months of grandparenthood under our belts, I believe that despite all the superlatives, Grandparenthood is still under-rated. It’s hard to express in words the inner sense of joy and being blessed that warms the heart of a grandparent.

And now for something completely different

My line of business has a jargon that to outsiders sounds like Chinese, with a Scottish accent. And in my world “Transformation” is a favourite buzzword. Transformations don’t always succeed, unfortunately, because successful transformations require a new mindset. And with that intro, we can start.

Several months ago, our kitchen looked like the Gorbals in the ‘50’s, after hurricane Katrina. Doors, handles and surfaces were chipped, cracked, broken, water-damaged or simply absent. Add to that, an over-zealous “cleaner” who enthusiastically scrubbed our floor with some shiny new cleaning material that turned our white tiles black. Even I, the miserly Scot, admitted a kitchen makeover was in order.

As you would expect, Judy did everything – selecting the floor tiles, cupboards, interior design, lighting, overseeing the destruction and reconstruction of our kitchen – a story that deserves a newsletter of its own. But that is not our topic. Suffice it to say that after a lot of time, effort, mileage, and - let’s face it – money, we installed a beautiful new floor and a gorgeous country-style kitchen.

The only problem is that we are not exactly a tidy family. In fact, when someone entered our house, our knee-jerk greeting was not “Hello” but “Excuse the mess”. You see, if tidiness is next to G-dliness, then our house was located in Purgatory - near the southern exit. Only the most charitable people could call our house “messy”. It was more a primordial chaos. Strewn around our downstairs on the floor and couches you would find school books, earrings, pens, tipped-over plants, earphones, smelly socks, discarded tea bags, sandals, pillows, ketchup, used tissues, anti-perspirants, tooth brushes, nail clippers and other items that simply make one ask “how the hell did this get into the lounge?”. Our kitchen counter-tops fared no better. They were hardly visible  beneath the clutter of grills (milk and meat), toasters (sandwich and pop-up), kettles (regular and shabbas kettle which stayed on the counter all week),  forgotten peanut-butter jars, half-eaten apples, cheese and yoghurt cartons (their lids typically near the TV), school report cards, hairbrushes and so on. I used to spend two hours every Friday just putting things away before starting to clean for Shabbat.

That was before the “Transformation”.

Now, today, I challenge every one of you to knock on our door, at any hour of day or night, for a surprise inspection. You will find not a crumb on the counter; not a paper out of place. Order and serenity rule. Our kitchen could be a Feng Shui showroom, with the whole downstairs brightly illuminated to show our beautiful tidy house at its best.

This Transformation was not painless. Instigated by Sergeant Major Judy it involved months of warnings and threats, and much shouting to knock us into shape. This went explicitly against our parenting philosophy which did not prescribe a messy house, but included a commitment not to make our children’s lives miserable by bawling them out the whole time. However, with only Elisheva at home full time – and she is one of the three children in the family with a tidy streak – the timing was right.

In my business, it is a common truth that while executing a transformation is tough, the day 1 results are not a reliable indicator of success. We are at about Day 80 and still the order persists. So has the mindset changed? Have we become tidy? Or is this a mere temporary phase driven by our CoviD stay-at-home life, and the mortal fear of Judy’s wrath? Will the rot set in? Who knows? Fortunately, we can look to future newsletters for the answer.

No space for a full family update this time. Pesach sameach from us all.

Judy, Michael and all the extended family, Elkana