4 | APRIL 22 • 2021 

for openers
Boisterous Kids? – Just Love Them!
W

ithin a few weeks 
of the world 
shutting down, 
my children and I had final-
ly gotten into a quarantine 
groove with 
Zoom school, 
schedules 
and routines. 
This morning, 
though, my 
eldest suggested 
that I go relax 
because he had 
“something really, really great” 
planned for his brothers. 
Trust my 6-year-old and 
have a few minutes of quiet 
productivity? Sure! Why not? 
I sat down on the sofa and, for 
the first time in days, drank 

coffee that was not yet luke-
warm. After catching up on 
some work emails and paying 
a few bills, I headed toward 
the basement to see how the 
new “teacher” was doing with 
his students. The lights were 
off. The basement was silent. 
I panicked.
“Boys? Are you OK?” 
Silence. It had only been 
a few minutes. What could 
have gone wrong?? I bolted 
down the stairs, slammed on 
the lights and heard a loud, 
“SURPRISE!” There in front 
of me, our little table was 
set with plates, drinks and 
snacks (read: all the candy we 
owned). “It’s a “WE LOVE 
MOMMY” party!” my eldest 

explained. “Because we love 
you, Mommy!” my 3-year-old 
chimed in. 
I was stunned. How amaz-
ing are my children? How am 
I the luckiest mother in the 
universe? They even hung 
a sign on the wall that read 
“HAPPY LIFE, YAY!” on the 
wall … on the wallpaper … 
the “let’s splurge on fancy 
wallpaper” wallpaper we put 
up when we moved in. 
“Wow! How did you get that 
sign to hang so beautifully on 
the wall?” I casually inquired. 
“Oh! We glued it! Glue real-
ly is so sticky.”
I took a deep breath and 
tried to calculate my response. 
Fancy wallpaper, children’s 

feelings. Fancy wallpaper, chil-
dren’s feelings. Those seconds 
felt like eternity as they looked 
toward me, awaiting my reac-
tion.
While there are count-
less parenting books on the 
market, I read one recently 
that truly spoke to my heart, 
though I don’t know that it 
was intended to be a parenting 
book. The book recounts the 
life of Rabbi Dovid Trenk z”l, 
a popular Jewish educator who 
is credited with teaching and 
inspiring tens of thousands of 
students by implementing his 
mantra, “Just Love Them.” No 
matter who the student was, 
no matter what the circum-
stances, he always found it in 

Erin Stiebel

PURELY COMMENTARY

continued on page 10

guest column
The CCAR Convention from my PJs
O

h, how I was looking 
forward to break-
fasting on beignets 
at Café du Monde in New 
Orleans, wandering the streets 
of the French Quarter and 
sampling sweet pralines and 
fiery hot sauc-
es last month 
at the Central 
Conference of 
American Rabbis’ 
(CCAR) annual 
convention. Alas, 
it was not meant 
to be.
The Reform Rabbinic con-
vention that was originally 
scheduled to be held there from 
March 14-17, like everything 
else these days, became a virtual 
one as a result of the COVID-
19 virus. But despite missing 

out on the excitement and del-
icacies that NOLA has to offer, 
this year’s CCAR convention, 
“Strengthening, Connecting, 
Reimagining,
” turned out to be 
one of the best.
Through the power of tech-
nology from large Zoom webi-
nars to smaller workshops, from 
an app called Remo, which 
allowed us to feel as though 
we were mingling in the hotel 
lobby, to gathering in breakout 
rooms, we studied together, 
connected with old and new 
friends and revitalized our-
selves — body and soul — just 
as we would have had we been 
together in person.
More than 700 Reform rab-
bis attended at least a piece 
of the program, which was a 
new record for our conference. 

Plus, we had a large Detroit 
contingent in attendance! To 
accommodate the time changes 
throughout the country (and 
the world), we started each 
day at 11 a.m. Eastern time 
and filled practically every 
hour with different sessions, 
interactive discussions, tefilah, 
business meetings and healing 
breaks. One morning, there was 
even a rabbinic Peloton ride 
and another, a JOGA session 
(Jewish Yoga and Kabbalah) led 
by our own Rabbi Paul Yedwab.
Being together with so 
many rabbis from the Reform 
movement reminded me of 
the importance of this kind of 
gathering. It helped me to rec-
ognize that we aren’t alone in 
dealing with the crises this last 
year has wrought; that we’ve all 

been struggling with many of 
the same issues, some weighty 
and some mundane, such as the 
technical difficulties we’ve all 
seen during this pandemic (why 
is it so hard to get folks to mute 
during Zoom services?); and 
how we have always supported 
each other, and must continue 
to do so, through this. That’s 
what the CCAR does, and it’s 
what we did during those four 
days. Though it’s hard to spend 
so much time on the computer, 
I left feeling renewed and rein-
vigorated.

HIGHLIGHTS OF 
THE CONVENTION
Looking back over the pro-
grams, for me, one highlight 
was the keynote address on 
Sunday afternoon by Isabel 

Rabbi Marla 
Hornsten

continued on page 8

