Ummmm....Is this what Baal Shem Tov meant?

Aside from attending weddings, I have not stepped foot inside a synagogue for many, many, many years.

I did attend religious school for two years when I was about 10 or 11, but even at that age I could easily tell that the congregation was more about showing off the new piece of jewlery the wife received from her husband, or the new car they bought or what they were wearing vs. a spiritual experience. In fact, even the head rabbi was openly having an affair (and this guy was supposed to be a moral example for the community?!). Overall, I was very disillusioned and disinterested in religion.

I am generally not a religious or spiritual person. To me, my religious identity as a "New York Jew" was always more about traditions - celebrating holidays, eating Chinese food every Friday, going to grandma and grandpa's on Sundays for bagels and lox, followed by a trip to the Lower East Side to shop for designer jeans (Jordache, Sassoon, etc.) and a stop at the pickle shop.


Ater my last m/c (which I took very, very hard), my Mom asked me if I would please go speak to a local rabbi because I was asking her some deep philosophical questions which she could not answer. Mostly to appease her, but also because I was not thinking straight from all the drugs, I agreed. So she reached out to her rabbi, and provided me with the e-mail address of my local reform rabbi.

The e-mail sat in my inbox for several months and one day my Mom asked me about it. I sheepishly admitted that I had not done anything with it. She explained that her rabbi really went out of his way to get in touch with my local rabbi and asked if I would please follow up because the both really went above and beyond for me. So, I did.

To make a long story short, I have started to fall in love and quickly become passionate about the rabbi's, their message, and this entire congregation. It was NOT AT ALL what I was expecting. In fact, at our first meeting the rabbi asked me if I believed in G-D and I replied, I don't know but I don't think so. He didn't even flinch and put things into a perspective that I could understand.

One of the things I have enjoyed most is a lecture series they host each Thursday at lunch to discuss current events and maybe a passage from the Torah (five books of the bible), Haftorah (writings that Jews used when they were forbidden from studying the Torah), Talmud (jewish laws), or other writings.

Several weeks ago, we talked about the Baal Shem Tov. He was a rabbi that lived during the 18th century in what is now Poland, could perform miracles and had many followers. Many of his teachings became the basis for Chassidic Judiasm . He never wrote down his knowledge, but through the years his followers did and one item attributed to Baal Shem Tov is his "Thirty-Six Aphorisms." In particular, we talked about the following one:

"Your beginning shall be small, and your end shall flourish exceedingly" (Job 8:7) - Small and inauspicious beginnings are often crucial for the person to flourish exceedingly in the end.

This really resonated with me, but I kept thinking in terms of my struggles with infertility. How can I "flourish" when I have absolutely no control over my situation?

I subsequently talked one-on-one with the rabbi about this, and his take on it was that maybe what we thought was our path isn't really our path at all. We often have a "script" or way we expect our life to go...maybe college, then graduate school, meet the love of our life, make strides in your career, buy the house with the white picket fence, aquire the two dogs, have a couple kids...you get the idea. Very often, maybe we need to step back to reevaluate and redefine these expectations.

Maybe what we thought was meant by "flourish" has a different meaning.  For example, maybe the pesant who was poorer than dirt and wished he "flourished" with money, instead ended up living a life where he was deeply loved by many in his communty and learned to live with humility.

So, why am I telling you this story?

Well, because when I went in for my u/s today, something happened that I wasn't exactly expecting...

Apparently my LO's like Lovenox and we have a fighter. The third embryo now has a heartbeat too and all three were measuring on-track and healthy. So, as I sit here today can say that I did start small and am now flourishing?

I am not worried at all - more surprised than worried. I know many things can happen in the next 3-4 weeks. Also, we have some of the top doctors in the world right here in Colorado and I know I can get excellent medical care and advice.

I made an appointment for Monday with my geneticist. I didn't realize this, but he is also a perinatalogist (and has promised to continue to work with me if I wish).  Unfortunately, he does not do deliveries anymore - otherwise there would be NO question that he would be delivering our children.

He has always been on the cutting-edge of what he does, is well-connected with every practice in town and I adore him and trust him completely. To give you an example, when I stopped by his office to request an appointment (because I work only a few blocks from the office), he said "If she's really nervous, I will clear my schedule to see her later today."

I guess in some ways I was right on target with my last post...I should have just stayed in my ignorant bliss.