The Power of Amen - Child-Women and Brachas Parties

‘Say Amen, Mummy.’ My youngest daughter is full of enthusiasm for her brachos (blessings). As every modest mother knows, training our children to say blessings before and after food is one of the pleasures of parenting. So it came as a surprise to find women acting like children at a ‘brachos party.’ Advertised as an opportunity ‘to make some brachot, eat some food, and say amen - let's do our hishtadlut (effort) to help our fellow Jews in their time of need. All this, plus a Devar Torah at the end - all in under an hour. Make it one of the best hours you've spent, and turn up!' Well – I just couldn’t resist.

This party was held in the women’s section of a Sephardi shul in Hendon, a bustling hub of London’s Orthodox life. The basic premise of these parties is that the word ‘Amen’ has some sort of kabbalistic power to bring about good things for people in trouble. Sheets of paper with various headings were on a table: zivuggim (a partner), parnassah ( livelihood) yeshua (general help) and cholim (sick people). As the women entered the room, many of them added names to these sheets – names that would be prayed for later in the evening. The list for a suitable partner was the longest – wherever I go, I can’t get away from lists of wonderful single women in their late 30s looking for a husband. Plates of cake, biscuits, fruit, vegetables, crisps and sweets were distributed on all the tables – all in preparation for the collective flurry of Amens to be recited.

A few women, with snoods askew and chapped hands, brought large buckets of dough to the party as they wanted to use this as an opportunity to publicly say the blessing of ‘hafrashat challah’ – putting aside a small amount of dough before baking bread. Then one by one, each person took a piece of cake, said the appropriate bracha and a chorus of Amen answered. We went round the room again for all the other foods, with a running commentary on the importance of our holy endeavour and a reminder to think about those who need our prayers for good health, a good job or a marriage partner.

Eventually, the rabbi of the synagogue came to visit the women and he brought along a friend. We stood in deference and only sat down after they both did. The guest speaker made a pitch for his yeshiva: for only £5 a month, he could guarantee that one of his students would study on my behalf and bring only good things for me and my family. This bargain offer was only available if I signed up on the evening and filled in my bank details to secure payment. I declined. While the attendance of the rabbi seemed to add an air of gravitas to the evening, I wondered if it was the price the women had to pay to have the shul to themselves for most of the evening. These women had transformed the synagogue space, usually reserved for formal prayer, into a space for domestic concerns and eating. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries women wrote ‘techinot’ – prayers for women reflecting domestic concerns – are these brachos parties a 21^st century invention to claim sacred space in the synagogue as their voice cannot be heard during formal services? Are the child-women subverting the status quo right under the noses of their revered rabbis?

The rabbi’s words were troubling. He praised the women and said that by saying a bracha they were averting some terrible preordained catastrophe. Who knew women had such power? But the finale was more disconcerting: the rabbi reminded the women that even more important than saying brachot was wearing modest clothes. He chastised the women who wear beautiful sheitels (wigs) and railed against tight, short skirts. It is quite extraordinary – women have been part of the twists and turns of Jewish history for thousands of years, but in today’s world they are merely the guardians of the modest hemline.

Menu Planning: an Orthodox Woman's Foreplay

I was thinking cupcakes for dessert on first night Rosh Hashana. Topped with chemically enhanced parev whipped cream, I could decorate them with fondant apples or a marzipan shofar. Yes, my dessert will be the talk of Hendon. Philanthropists and educators will praise me for making Judaism relevant in the 21st century - combining contemporary culinary trends with a nod towards tradition. Yes, I really do deserve the moniker 'frum domestic goddess of north-West London.' Here's something you have to know: menu planning is the new foreplay for the Orthodox Jewish woman.

The spiritual challenges of the High Holiday period is the easy bit; the frisson of planning, creating and serving extraordinary meals gives me goosebumps. There's a lot of angst and mutterings about the need to impress in-laws and friends during the marathon of yom-tov meals.Often it feels like we're back in the playground. The core of the frum north-west London community went to the same primary and high schools, and I have sat through so many meals where these apparently grown-up adults replay all their hurt and frustration experienced in the playground 25 years ago. The school's asphalt is still hot, and while men will compete with words: political debate, Talmudic discourse, business machinations, women will compete with food: crash diets, body image and inspirational yom-tov desserts. I feel sorry for the interlopers - the Swiss, Belgians and Americans who married into the frum establishment - they are totally adrift in this sea of adolescent reminiscing.

Competition: the rest is commentary. There are still winners and losers in the playground, but now the definitions have changed. There was a time when the 'clever girls' were the winners: free spirits who went to university, got themselves a career and interesting jobs while the girls who went to seminary and got married shortly afterwards were lauded publicly but quickly became invisible as they stayed home to breed and raise their young children. Unlike the American scene, it was a rare English rose who could combine domesticity with domination in the work force. Twenty-five years and a serious case of schadenfreude later, the smugly Smeg married woman is considered the real winner. Her single, once-coveted intellectual friend in her late 30s is most definitely the loser, and if she hasn't left for Baka or the Upper West Side, the single woman (and of course, the single man) is the self-conscious odd-number guest at her old school friend's yom-tov table.

These multi-leaved tables, groaning with exotic salads, tender meats and lush desserts, are the convenient story of north-west London. But inconveniently these tables also represent the intense competition over food production and male virility: can he afford to let you buy the expensive meat? Unwittingly, these tables undermine the romantic notion we have of our own community. These sumptuous tables don't tell the story of the families who are reliant on the kindness of the 'chicken ladies' (a small group of selfless and modest women who have quietly collected money, and cut a deal with the butchers to supply chickens at cost-price to a growing number of families in Golders Green and Hendon who are finding it increasingly difficult to afford food for Shabbat and Festivals). These tables don't tell the story of the increasing number of orthodox women who have been publicly humiliated by their husbands' indiscretions. Many are now divorced, others are heading that way - their families fractured and their yom-tov table ruined. People do not always choose the circumstances they find themselves in, and our ability to empathize with their situation and offer friendship is a wonderful Rosh Hashanah gift.

Yes, I will stick with cupcakes for dessert. It's a corny metaphor, but if we can take one large cake mixture and then make individual cupcakes, each with its own flavour and decoration, all equally delicious - then surely we can take one large mixture of Jewish people and create individuals, each with his or her own flavour and decoration, all equally delicious.

Hendonistan - where the women are to blame....

In Hendonistan, there's a new message that's been circulated via email and posted on relevant notice boards inside one particular shul [synagogue] (although by the time you read this, I understand the notice will have been taken down). In a paean to Mea Shearim typography, the black and red banner in this popular Orthodox London shul requests that girls and women maintain proper halachic [according to Jewish law] standards of dress in shul. They are to refrain from 'low necklines, see-through and short-sleeve tops and short skirts.' And finally, there is the classic plea 'Please help us to preserve the Kedushat Beit Haknesset.' [sanctity of the synagogue]. Yes, all that holiness resting on the errant elbow of Hendon housewife.
In Hendonistan, formerly known as Hendon, large numbers of Muslim women wearing their jilbab and hijab share the streets with young Orthodox women in their swirling denim skirts that sweep the ground. 'At least,' think all the women in sheitels and long sleeves, 'we don't have to cover up ourselves like THEM. We're so NORMAL.' Yes, it's perfectly normal, as some rabbis have cited, to blame the tragedies of the world on the immodest dress of women. The case of the three yeshiva students in a Japanese jail for allegedly smuggling some drugs is a recent example that highlights this worldview.
In the May 1st edition of the Five Towns Jewish Times, there is an advertisement written in the name of Mrs. Goldstein, the mother of one of the boys in jail. Distressed by her son's situation, she explained that Harav Hatzadik Rabbi Yakov Meir Schechter was asked what could be done for the young men. "The tzaddik's answer was precise. A hisorrerus [awakening] - in tznius [modesty] will surely be a big z'chus for the yeshua [salvation]." The advertisement continues with emotional blackmail; "The commitment of righteous women to improve in any area of Tznius carries more weight than all efforts combined. Your contribution in the form of a personal undertaking can be the deciding factor in their fate. Who can remain idle at this time?" There is also a small outlined box for you to fill in "I, so and so, daughter of so and so, hereby, bli neder (without making a promise) undertake ... upgrade my tznius performance by ..." Three blank lines are left for you to fill in before sending the note to Mrs Goldstein in Monsey, New York. Conveniently, a few suggestions are offered in addition to the usual hem length advice:
Refrain from brisk walking as a form of exercise
Refrain from eating/drinking in public areas, especially where men are present
Shoes/heels/fitted with a rubber sole
Learning hilchos tznius (the laws of tzniut) daily.
What is a woman meant to make of this? Holding women's actions accountable for the fate of these young men serves to abrogate the personal responsibility of those who committed the crime. How is a man meant to respond? Is he really meant to believe that his mother/wife/daughter/sister is the harbinger of all bad tidings pending her fashion sense? Has thousands of years of Jewish history and our complex relationship with the Divine been reduced to a schmutter [piece of cloth]?
In Hendonistan, there is no shortage of rabbis and teachers willing to instruct women how to dress appropriately. Treating the women like children who need to be reprimanded is foolish - their only sin is perhaps too much disposable income with which to buy the latest fashions. While some women simply scoff at this modesty policing, many teenage girls are having a visceral reaction to the way that some lessons in school are hijacked to remind them of the importance of modesty. Critical and condescending teachers are not going to save the Jewish people.
However, if you are concerned about your wardrobe, there are some solutions for a modesty makeover. Try Sleevies - a sleeve extension with an elastic band at the upper arm that you pop underneath the original short sleeve. You can transform your whole wardrobe with this simple device that creates a ¾ sleeve on every top. For suspect necklines, wear a TeeNeck which is a "shirt supplement designed to wear with a lower cut top." Or if you're nifty with a needle, a new book by Rifka Glazer is all you'll need. Seams and Souls: A Dressing, Altering and Sewing Guide for the Modest Woman published by Feldheim (who else?) claims to be a 'a comprehensive guide to sewing and shopping for clothing that conforms to the proper standard of tznius. It will help you decide which clothing to buy and which to avoid or discard because they cannot be altered to meet halachic standards, plus it offers many creative solutions for tznius problems." There is a wide range of creative tips and techniques for tznius solutions for sewers at all levels and over 250 modest, easy-to-follow diagrams for altering the most problematic parts of garments.
In Hendonistan, I am afraid that sewing up the seam will lead to sewing up the soul.

The Tehillim Tipping Point

Q. How many Beis Yaakov girls does it take to change a light bulb?
A. 100. One and 99 to say Tehillim.

Women scuttle to each other's homes during the week to huddle and recite Tehillim (Psalms) in an attempt to ward off illness or death or entreat God's kindness for a good shidduch or income. Women are the corrections of a community: when disasters strike, the rabbis often blame the women for gossiping or immodest dress. (Gossiping while dressed immodestly is a double whammy and even worse)
As if women don't have enough to do, now they are responsible for the spiritual well-being of a whole community and are instructed to say Tehillim as the remedy needed to avert further disaster. What was the Tehillim tipping point? How did these verses come to substitute serious learning and empowerment for women? Isn't is strange that while women's voices are accorded tremendous power to change the divinely ordained course of events, they have virtually no voice in the decision-making process of a religious community. Perhaps that is the real reason why communities start to go awry.

The Perfect Prefect

Now I know how women become secretaries: it starts at primary school when the class is asked to nominate themselves for specific prefect tasks. There are a range of options – library, sports, recycling, assembly and office administration. The teacher asked the children to write her a letter explaining which job they wanted and why they were the most suitable child in the class for the job. My daughter desperately wanted the office gig and when I asked her why, she explained that all the girls want to be the office prefect. “You get to help the people in the office to tidy up things and organise stuff for everyone else,” she sweetly said. “All the boys want to do is sports and recycling.”
While a couple of nerdy kids want to be in the library, the gender lines are so predicable - the boys want any opportunity to exert some physical energy while the girls are keen for responsible and bossy positions.
When she told me that the all the other mothers were going to help their children, I went into overdrive. I could write a better letter than all those other mothers put together. I taught her to spell exuberant, exemplary and proactive. I suggested she embellish some of her musical achievements and make a note of her good deeds to old ladies. I encouraged her to write down how confident and self-assured she is, about how she would do an excellent and professional job.
“ Mummy – no one talks about themselves like that. That’s really showing off.”
I was crestfallen. Doesn’t she realise that she will come to naught if she doesn’t promote herself? Being modest was going to get her nowhere.
She turned her back on me and scribbled a note. I stole a glance.
Please let me be the office prefect because I really, really want to and I promise to try my best.
Well, at least there was no concern that a pushy parent had written that letter for her. It was obviously the work of a mediocre 10 year old.

Sports Day and Saggy Breasts (originally published in July)

Sports day next week. Followed by the end of year concert. Hot on the heels of graduation day. And they expect me to go to each event. Couldn't I just send a tired, badly dressed, breasts sagging, blow up life-sized doll that I could remotely contol to wave and cheer when one of my kids appear? It has to be a more effective use of my time than actually being there.
Fathers have it easy: they are not allowed to attend the concerts at my daugter's school due to the religious code of the school (to which we freely signed up, so I shan't moan). They cannot watch the mothers' race on sports day for fear of seeing real sagging breasts bobbing up and down across the 100 metre finishing line.
However, in a fairly new initiative, they are actively invited to attend a Sunday business skills workshop specifically for Fathers and Daughters. The message is very clear: it is much easier to deal with fathers if schools reinforce their hierarchical relationship with their daughters. They are the bearers of business knowledge, and their daughters are the passive recipients of this superior wisdom.
To be fair, the school means well and it is a nice idea to give fathers the opportunity to spend quality time with their daughters. However, increasingly, women are actively engaged in the business world and it would encourage our daughters to think more widely about their future employment possibilities if women role models were able to offer practical guidance.
Further, in a community where some women will take on the burden of supporting a family while her husband learns in a kollel (yeshiva for married men) , it is vital that young women are given exposure to a wider range of opportunities than kindergarten assistant or beauty therapist.
I was once asked what I would like for my daughters in the future. Would you choose happiness? What about a wonderful husband? Clearly, you want them to have beautiful children? Who asks these sort of questions?, I wondered to myself.
'To be able to earn a fortune,' I replied without hesitation. To borrow a Freudian concept, it was a clear case of projection.
In another clear case of projection, I was struck by news that a man in Australia put his entire life up for sale on EBay. He sold it for £192,000 which included his house, car and a few friends. I couldn't give my life away.
What sort of person can sell their life? Only someone who doesn't have to fill several lunchboxes with cheese sandwiches, breadsticks and an apple every single day of the week. Only someone who has no concept of communal obligation could even contemplate walking away. Orthodox women are not programmed to be so selfless: after all, who would supervise the mikvah, who would prepare women for their burials at the chevra kadisha and who would wash and style my shaytel? Orthodox women cannot imagine life without a community and fulfilling their responsibilities towards the community are the drivers that offer self-esteem and a chance to clock up lots of mitzvoth (good deeds).
However, it's easy to understand that when the Community, with a capital C, just gets too overwhelming, you might want to sell your life and run away. But there is an easier solution: stick a tired, badly dressed, breasts sagging, blow up life-sized doll in your front window, and take a slow boat to China.

Ms. Sheitel 2008

News that two young Jewish women, Leah Green and Samantha Freedman are in the running for the Miss England title was apparently meant to make me feel proud. After all, Miss Green told the Jewish Chronicle, "I thought that maybe I could try to get the message out that it's not a bad thing to be voluptuous and a size 12," while Miss Freedman does the tzedaka shtick, "All the contestants have to raise money for a particular charity."
Their accidental Jewish birth hardly seems relevant. They are not being judged on answers to soul-searching questions about their Jewish identity and they are just too skinny. Neither have the zaftig [Yiddish for 'plump' or 'juicy']beauty we associate with a little too much lokshen [Yiddish for 'noodles'] in Friday night's chicken soup. Are we so insecure that we need to prove that Jewish women can also aspire and achieve the socially acceptable paradigm of Western beauty?
Advocates of the hijab have come up with the perfect counterpoint. In May 2008, Denmarks Radio's youth club, 'Skum' announced a competition entitled 'Miss Headscarf 2008'. The idea was to present 'cool Muslim women' who 'often make up a very fashion-conscious and style-confident part of the Danish street scene'.
While only the actual hijab was being judged, the rules suggested "it should not be too flashy, expensive, show class or race differences, or draw too much attention to the wearer." Muslims and non-Muslims were allowed to enter and 18-year-old Huda Falah was chosen because of the bright blue colour of her headscarf..
Here's my plan for 'cool religious Jewish women' - Miss Sheitel 2008. Send in a photo of yourself in your favourite sheitel [Yiddish for 'wig']. Whether it's the 'Jackie' with cascading curls, 'Sandee,' with luscious locks, or 'Randy' with a hint of mystery, you could be in the running for this prestigious award.
There are rules: no hair from the undernourished please. As one sheitel seller explains, "nutrition affects the quality of hair. Therefore, we do not buy hair from the poorest places in the world and we do not take advantage of people's misfortune. Rather, we buy the hair at decent price, and use only virgin, healthy and strong hair...So the hair we provide is healthy, gorgeous, bouncy, silky-soft and full of life."
Good thing the hair is full of life, because I don't want any faces full of life, otherwise I can't publish photos of the winners in the haredi newspapers where photographs of women are not allowed, or when they cannot be completely eliminated, their faces are airbrushed out.
In Golders Green, women who use George may have the competitive edge. Gorgeous George - half man, half Greek God - he has the Jewish women swooning as he snips and shapes their sheitels. With his bag of tricks, he performs trichological miracles for women behind the safety of their oak panelled doors and expensive security systems. Anyone winning this competition would have to dedicate it to George.
Bushra Noah, a young Muslim wannabe hairdresser could learn a lesson or two from George. She recently brought a case of discrimination against Sarah Desrosiers, the owner of a trendy hair salon owner who did not offer Bushra a junior position. Sarah argued that when Bushra made it clear that she would not, for religions reasons, remove her headscarf at work, Sarah felt that this young Muslim woman would not fit in with the image of the salon. Bushra was angry, appealed to the English legal system and to the public's horror, a judge actually ruled in Bushra's favour and ordered Sarah to pay £4,000 for "hurt feelings."
While Bushra might be feeling vindicated in the short- term, if she had any sense, she would learn a long- term lesson from George and others who service her sheitel wearing cousins. Here is a perfect opportunity to become THE Muslim hairdresser for Muslim women who may want their hair trimmed in the privacy of their own homes. Combine this with door-to-door hijab selling (cash only) and Bushra could be on the way to running a real yiddisher business.

Hefner, Playboy and a pencil case

It was our turn to host Charlie, the school rabbit for the weekend.
It died.
Seeking to comfort my distressed children, we went to WH Smith, a large stationary shop to buy some colored pencils.

'Imma, there's Charlie,' my little one shouted. "They've put him on the pencil case. Look he's on the folder as well.'
There, in full view, next to Minnie Mouse was the eponymous Playboy symbol plastered over a range of children's stationary.
'Can I have the pencil case?' my little one asked.
'What about Winnie-the-Pooh? It's so cute,' I replied.
'I want Charlie.'
Could Hugh Hefner ever imagined that one day, little girls would aspire to own Playboy branded stationary, blissfully unaware of its associated connotations?
'But darling, it's not Charlie. It's a different rabbit - what about Minnie?' 'Minnie is an idiot. I want the one with the rabbit.'
'But don't you understand, DARLING, you've been conned by this whole pink glittery thing. Can't you see that even your sweet young kodesh teachers, freshly minted from a year at sem, are walking around school carrying pink folders, furry pencil cases and packets of cute mini neon highlighters suggesting a permanent state of infantile sexuality. Playboy represents the exploitation of women's bodies and promotes a sexualized view of women that frankly, I find quite offensive. Don't you see that by putting this cute logo on everything, the company is seducing unwitting young children into supporting this adult brand. Parents who buy this stuff are just colluding with the sex industry.'
She's looking at me strangely. 'What?'
'Nothing. Choose something else - the rabbit is naked - it's not very tznius [modest] and your teachers won't like it in the classroom.'
I always play the modesty card when I am stuck. I am pathetic.
A newspaper cites Louise Evans, the head of media relations for WHSmith. "Playboy is probably one of the most popular ranges we've ever sold. It outsells all the other big brands in stationery. . .We offer customers choice. We're not here to act as a moral censor."
Of course not, that's my job - Moral Mother. If only I had the same courage as Reverend Tim Jones - a vicar who found his 15 minutes of fame in the national media when he initiated a petition objecting to the sale of these goods to his local store and moved all the Playboy products to an empty shelf. This could have been an excellent spot of interfaith collaboration, but a rabbi-t was nowhere to be found.
We eventually settled on Minnie Mouse. After all, when Minnie and Mickey debuted together in the film Plane Crazy, she did not agree to his request for a kiss in mid-flight. Further, when Mickey eventually forced Minnie into a kiss, she heroically parachuted out of the plane. Minnie definitely had the makings of a Beis Yakov icon. Shame her skirts were just not long enough.

Netball and Jewish women

Recent news that the Israeli netball team found glory in Ireland brought a warm glow to my face that I almost confused with the beginnings of a hot flush. A couple of years ago, I heard about a friendly Jewish netball game in London. As I started to explain that it had been many years since I last played and that I was not in the best shape, Jenny, the team organiser, gently interrupted me: "Don't worry," she said. "Everyone says the same thing. You'll be fine." And so it happened, that after 25 years of self-imposed netball exile, I picked up a ball again. Although I felt the coach staring at me in disbelief as I struggled with the complicated and unseemly warm up exercises, I was feeling great. The bibs were distributed and I was assigned GA - goal attack.
Apparently, new-comers are always given the less-favoured positions of GA or GS (goal shooter). After five minutes of play, I understood why. I was completely exhausted and ready to go home, willing to admit defeat and delusions of grandeur. But I persevered and made it to the end of the game, feeling very proud of myself and determined to return the following week.
And I did. I have returned nearly every week, and have been upgraded to Goal Defence, the same position I had as a teenager and that allows me to run across two thirds of the court. Netball distinguishes itself from basketball by the rule that a player cannot run with the ball. In a fast paced game, the ball is barely in your hands before it has to be passed to the next person. People are running around the court in their assigned areas with speed and focus, following the ball in anticipation of its destination. No dribbling and no wimps here.
However, there is one considerable difference between the delicacy of women's netball and the sweat of men's basketball. Women say sorry when they miss a catch, ill-time a throw or snuff a goal. It's sorry, sorry, sorry. It's as if they don't even believe they're entitled to be on the court. Aside from the obvious physical benefits of running around for an hour, there are existential benefits that are harder to measure. As I play, I'll often smile to myself because of a fleeting flashback to my teenage playing years. I'll suddenly remember the embarrassing moments such as getting a period in the middle of a game or the euphoric memories of blocked goals and brilliant throws. It seems as if everyone is carrying the repercussions of their teenage years around the court. When people ask me who I play with, I usually answer that it's a bunch of 40-year-old overweight Jewish mothers. But the truth is, as usual, more complicated and I have come to see this group as a microcosm of the fractures that make-up the lives of contemporary Jewish women.
Some are much older than 40, and some are their teenage daughters. Some are devoutly religious while for others, chicken soup is as Jewish as it gets. Some have scarves tightly bound around their hair and are wearing a skirt on top of their long tracksuit bottoms, while others are in skimpy shorts and singlet tops.
Some are single professional women, others are working at home looking after their large brood. Many are struggling to juggle work and family commitments. Some are married, some are looking for marriage and a couple are happily settled in lesbian partnerships.
Some are avowed Zionists who visit Israel regularly, while others prefer Majorca. In the milli-seconds of friendly chit-chat between goals, our partners (or lack thereof), financial troubles, children and beauty anxieties are shared. This hour together is an opportunity to see each other as women, stripped of our Jewish allegiances that have so often served to separate and stereotype us. It is an hour that has spawned great friendships across these divides and if women in Israel can also use a game of netball to enable these sort of relationships, and also with Arab women in their neighbourhoods, then it's certainly a sport worthy of some funding from private and public sources.

Honey Cake Honesty: A Rosh Hashanah Reflection

Overheard at the butcher the other day.
"I really want to organise a mother and baby morning that has a bit more substance to it. Some learning or something more interesting than just baby talk.'
'That sounds great. I'd love to come. Did you have any ideas in mind.'
'I was thinking about swapping recipes. I need a really good honey cake recipe."
I have never made a honey cake. I don't bake my own challah. My children don't eat home-made cookies. And I have never served strawberries hand dipped in chocolate.
And I am proud.
The race to prove one's domesticity is endemic in Golders Green and Hendon. Highly educated housewifes who have abandoned their career aspirations are channelling those energies into producing festive treats that come to define their role within the family. I argue that we must support local businesses such as kosher bakeries if we want a sustainable community. I am also not convinced that it is cheaper to make one's own honeycake. Aside from the costs of eggs, honey, flour, electricity and water to clean up, there is the cost of a woman's time - a figure that many women don't value and never bother to calculate. In the run-up to Rosh Hashanah, we are exhorted to use our time to prepare spiritually for a new year of challenges. How did a woman's spiritual preparation get hijacked and transformed into baking the tastiest honey cake in town?