Julia’s Bat Mitzvah

Julia wrote two divrei Torah (talks about a Torah topic) for her bat mitzvah:

Saturday, March 14, 2009          Kiddush, Chabad of Silver Spring

I want to say thank you to all of my friends and my family here today to be here at my bat mitzvah celebration Kiddush.  I became bat mitzvah on Yom Kippur, but we could not have a Kiddush then because we are not allowed to eat on Yom Kippur.  Then we had a break fast.  But I wanted to have a Kiddush with all of my friends and family to celebrate.

I want to thank my father and mother for helping me learn Torah. I like the mitzva of honor your father and mother.   And I want to thank my sister Barrie for being nice to me and helping to make this day possible.   Barrie is a very good sister.  I also want to thank all my teachers.  My teachers help me learn about everything.

Being a bat mitzvah means that now I have to observe all the mitzvot in the Torah.  The Torah is from Hashem.  The mitzvot tell us what we are supposed to do and what we are not supposed to do.  The Torah is a rulebook for how we live.  Life is complicated.  It is not easy to know the right thing to do.  The Torah tells us what to do.  I am happy that Hashem gave us the Torah.  That way we know what to do and what not to do.

I like the mitzvot of Shabbat.  Shabbat is very important.  Shabbat is so important that the days of the week in Hebrew have no name.  They only have numbers that count the days towards Shabbat.

Hashem gave us Shabbat as a special gift.  The Torah teaches us that one who observes Shabbat is like he keeps the entire Torah.  Hashem commanded us to observe Shabbat because He rested on the seventh day after creating the world in six days.  Observing Shabbat reminds us that Hashem rested on the seventh day.  It reminds us that Hashem created the world.  People did not create the world.  Hashem did.  So we need to listen to Hashem.  Hashem created Shabbat for us, not for Himself.  He gave us one day to stop all our weekday activities and become kings and queens.

We are commanded to zachor – remember Shabbat, and shamor – to observe Shabbat.  Zachor teaches us to remember all the Yes commandments, all of the things that we must do on Shabbat.  Shamor teaches us all of the No commandments, the things that we are not supposed to do on Shabbat.

Shabbat is like a queen that comes to our house and puts a special taste in our food.  Shabbat is also like a bride and the Jewish people are her groom.

I like our family Shabbat where we have meals together and we learn about the parsha.

We make Shabbat holy by making Kiddush.  Daddy makes Kiddush for us.  The word Kiddush in Hebrew means holy. 

 I like to learn about Shabbat, the 39 melachot of Shabbat, what you do and what you don’t do, like we do not pull out hairs on Shabbat.  The melachot are kinds of activities. Like plowing, planting, reaping, spinning, sewing, weaving, grinding, cooking, washing, writing, burning or building.  All of these kinds of work were used to build the mishkan, the special place that G-d told the Jewish people to build ion the desert after Hashem took them out of Egypt.

On Shabbat, I like to go to shul and follow along with the Torah reading.  I also like to daven.  When you daven, you daven to Hashem.  When we try to daven, all the words go up to Hashem.   We can’t see Hashem but He can see us and hear us. 

I also like playing Memoir 44 on Shabbat with my daddy and my sister.  I also like winning.

Hashem put us in the world so we can do good things.  Hashem gave us the Torah so we can daven and do mitzvot, which are good things to do.  We can learn to daven and learn Torah so we can let Mashiach come faster.  When is Mashiach going to come?  I don’t know.  But I can help Mashiach come faster by doing more mitzvot.  When we do more mitzvot, we make the world a better place. We make the world holy. Then Mashiach can come.  If we all do more mitzvot, Mashiach can come very very soon.

Bat Mitzvah Reception Speech,  March 15, 2009    Silver Spring Jewish Center

Hello to all my family and friends.  I am so happy you are here today with me to celebrate my becoming a bat mitzvah and to celebrate my new book about Penina Moïse.  It is my dream to write a book about Penina Moïse.  It took two years for me to do my dream, to go to Charleston and write the book.  Today I can share my dream with you.

I would like to thank my daddy for driving me to Charleston, South Carolina to learn about Penina Moïse.  I would like to thank my mommy for doing the law work on my book, like asking permission to use the pictures.  I also want to thank my sister Barrie for being very patient and taking photographs and video in Charleston and of my research in the summer.  Barrie helped make this day possible.

I want to thank Mrs. Sohl for giving me the list of people to do for the project, because Penina Moïse was on the list and I picked Penina Moïse .  You were supposed to pick a person that you don’t know then write about them.  That was the whole point.  I did not know about Penina Moïse.  I tried to find books about her, but there were no books in the library.  I felt pushed inside my heart to go to Charleston, to be the first one to write a book about Penina Moïse.  That way, everyone can learn all about her amazing life. 

One of the things I admire about Penina Moïse is how she lived her life according to the Torah, even when things were very hard for her.  She lived her life according to the teachings in Pirke Avot.  Pirke Avot means the ethics of the fathers, special rules for living written down by rabbis about 2000 years ago. 

 Penina Moïse was a poet and Hebrew school teacher.  She was born in 1797 in Charleston, South Carolina.  She was the first Jewish person in America to publish a book of poetry.   Her poems help people appreciate God and the Torah.

Penina Moïse did not have an easy life.  She had to work hard.  She was the fifth of nine children.  Her father died when she was only 12 and she had to leave school to work to help her family.  This is like Chapter 1, mishna 10   in Pirke Avot. Shemaya taught that you should love work.  Penina Moïse worked very hard.  But she did not give up on her writing.

Penina Moïse published her book in 1833.  It was a book of poems called Fancy’s Sketchbook.  Penina Moïse loved to learn Torah. Torah study was very important to her.  This is like Chapter 2, mishna 19 in Pirke Avot – R’Elazar taught: Put much effort into the study of Torah. Penina Moïse worked very hard at her studying.

From 1838 to 1840, she was a nurse for her mother, who was very sick and could not leave her bed.  But Penina still wrote every day.  In 1854, she was a nurse in a yellow fever epidemic.  This is very serious, because yellow fever makes you throw up blood and die.  But Penina Moïse was a good nurse, and she helped many people. 

In 1861 Penina Moïse went blind, and stayed blind until 1880 when she died.  She memorized everything she read so that when she was blind, she could still learn, write and teach, even though she could not see.   

This is like Chapter 3, mishna 10 in Pirke Avot:  R’ Dostai bar Yannai taught that “any person who forgets a part of his Torah learning can blame only himself if bad things happen to him.”  This teaches us that we must review our Torah lessons and not forget them.  Penina Moïse memorized her Torah learning.  She kept all her Torah in her head and in her heart.  This is also like Chapter 2, mishna 5 in Pirke Avot: Hillel said, Don’t say that you will study Torah when you have free time, because maybe you will never have free time.  Penina Moïse did not have free time, but she learned Torah.

Penina Moïse was the superintendent of the Hebrew school at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston. This was only the second Hebrew school in the United States.  She wrote poems and made up games to teach the children.  She taught hundreds of Jewish children.  Later in her life, after the Civil War, Penina Moïse had a school in her house.  She taught children even when she was blind and when she was so sick with neuralgia she could not leave her house.   This is like Chapter 1 mishna 1 in Pirke Avot – Teach as many students as possible.

Penina Moïse always spoke words of Torah.  She spent most of her life teaching children and writing poems and essays about Torah.  This is like Chapter 3, Mishna 4 in Pirke Avot:  “If three people ate at one table and they did speak words of Torah, it is as if they ate from Hashem’s table.”  Now we are having my bat mitzvah reception and we are sitting at the table and speaking words of Torah so we know God is with us here today.

I learned so much from Penina Moïse.  Through her poems, her words and her whole life, she taught me to never give up.  I did not go to her school.  She lived a very long time ago.  But I feel like Penina Moïse was my teacher.  This is like Chapter 1, mishna 6 in Pirke Avot, aseh l’cha rav, accept for yourself a teacher.  This is because a teacher gives you the Torah and teaches you good things to keep you from making mistakes.  Penina Moïse teaches us that it is a mistake to give up, that we have to keep trying even when things are hard.  I would like to be like Penina Moïse and never give up.

A note from Julia’s mom:

After two years of reading, research and writing, Julia completed her book in January: Discovering Penina Moise.  If you are interested in finding out more about the book or ordering a copy, please go to www.discoveringpeninamoise.com.   We hope to update the blog soon with pictures from her upcoming bat mitzvah reception and book signing.

You can learn a lot about someone from learning about the things that they did. Penina Moise wrote poems and songs and taught other people. She made some money from her poetry. But she made most of her money to support her family from lacemaking. I wanted to learn more about lacemaking to learn more about what Penina Moise did and how she did it. I wanted to find out if she made bobbin lace or other kinds of lace. I asked Anita Moise Rosenberg, who is the great-great-niece of Penina Moise, if anyone knew about her lacemaking or if there were any things made by Penina Moise that I could see. Mrs. Rosenberg said that she did not know about this. But I still wanted to know about the lacemaking.

There are not many clues about how Penina Moise made lace. There are two sentences in the book Secular and Religious Works of Penina Moise with Brief Sketch of her Life, Compiled and Published by Charleston Section, Council of Jewish Women, published in Charleston, South Carolina in 1911.

“She was always nearsighted, but possessed powerful vision and worked exquisitely in all the fashionable laces and embroideries of the day. Doubtless such practices, more than any other, injured and finally destroyed her sight.”

I remember that Aunt Carol explained that making lace does not make a person go blind. To find out more about how Penina Mosie made lace, I sent an e-mail to the Chesapeake Region Lace Guild. The very nice people there put me in touch with Mary Lou Kueker, who is the Archivist and lace historian for the Chesapeake Region Lace Guild. Mrs. Kueker came to my house on July 11th. She brought with her many books about lacemaking and how people made lace in the 1800s, which is when Penina Moise made lace. Mrs. Kueker showed me pictures of women wearing clothes and hats trimmed with lace. They also wore short gloves that covered your wrists but not over your fingers. These gloves were also made of lace.

Mrs. Kueker also showed me how a special kind of lace was made on net.

She made a heart outline with a needle weaving in and out of the net. We used cotton thread. When we weave the thread in and out it makes loops and lines and zigzags. All together this makes lace, if you are patient and you also if you follow the holes and do it the right way. You can work from a diagram that you hold under the lace net. There is also a way to do this with a crochet hook. You pull the hook down through one of the holes in the net and then you bring the thread around on the crochet hook and bring it up through the holes. My mother tried to do this and she knows how to crochet but it was very difficult for her to do because she didn’t know how to do it and she messed it up because she never did it with a net before. It was very nice of Mrs. Kueker to do all of this with us.

Mrs. Kueker also brought lace to show me that was from the 1800s at the time Penina Moise would have made lace. She showed me a bonnet veil with beautiful little flowers woven into it. I can imagine the conversations that would have happened behind that veil, the lady that might have worn it. She also showed me fine crocheted lace. This is also called Irish Crochet because it started in Ireland and was made there for a long time.

I learned that lace is very hard to make. It takes a long time and a lot of patience and a lot of hard work. The people who made the lace did not wear it. Rich people wore it, rich people who didn’t work so the lace wouldn’t get all dirty. The poor people made lace for the rich people, who had servants or slaves to do all the work for them. I remember seeing the slave quarters at the Aiken-Rhett house in Charleston. The slaves lived in the building in back of the house. The rich people lived inside the house with the marble stairs and the big paintings. The rich people wore lace. Maybe Penina Moise made that lace.

Learning about lacemaking teaches me about Penina Moise. She had to be patient and work hard to make lace. She also had to work hard to write beautiful poems and learn about all the things she wrote about. It felt good to try to make lace the way Penina Moise probably did. I feel I understand more about her because I tried to do what she did. I wish I could see her make lace and how she did it and see what she made. But I got very close. Thank you Mrs. Kueker.

Julia writes about a lesson she learned from Penina Moise

Penina Moise went blind in approximately 1861. She was 64 years old. Although she was blind, she was sensitive to light and wore blue glasses to protect her eyes. She kept her head and neck covered to fight off the neuralgia. Neuralgia means pain in nerves. Penina also could not sleep. This is called insomnia. She could not leave her house for the last 15 years of her life because she was so sick. But her memory remained clear. She was able to compose songs, write and teach.

Here are quotes from an article about Penina, “Penina Moise, Woman and Writer” in the American Jewish Yearbook 1905-1906 by Lee C. Harby, on pages 25 to 28:

“A short time before the war she found that her sight was failing. Then began constant and severe attacks of neuralgia, which racked her nerves, and rendered sleep impossible. She never knew when or how often they would overpower her, but between whiles she continued to compose her songs of praise, her hymns and religious anthems of rejoicing, which have made her name imperishable.”

“She sat always in the center of her bed chamber, her face turned away form the light. As a further protection, she wore blue glasses, for though she could not see, she used to say that she could feel the light on the sensitive nerves of her eyes. She wore a cap of sheer white Swiss muslin, and across her head, and passing down over the sides of her face, a folded black kerchief—all to fight off the attacks of the fiend neuralgia. Her fingers were ever busy – ripping, generally, something black in silk, fold after fold; but on Saturdays and holidays and on her birthday she would be holding lovingly some old book of poetry.”

I wanted to find out more about what made Penina Moise so sick. On June 9, 2008, I interviewed Dr. Carol E. Rose, who is an anesthesiologist in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (She is also my wonderful Aunt Carol).

We looked at clues about why Penina Moise was blind. We looked at charts about the brain and nerves. Aunt Carol said that we can’t know for sure why Penina Moise was blind and had headaches. Maybe something was wrong with the nerves in her brain, or she had a tumor, or an aneurysm, which is like a little balloon in a blood vessel. There were no tests or x-rays to see really what happened. So we can’t know why Penina Moise was sick.

But Aunt Carol says it is not important why Penina Moise was blind and had headaches. That is not what matters. What is important is the lesson. When some people get sick, they stop doing good things for other people. But Penina Moise did good things for other people even when she was sick and blind, like teaching and writing poems. This is a lesson we can all learn from her.

Julia writes about her research on lacemaking, one of the ways Penina Moise earned a living:

One of the things I learned about Penina Moïse was that she made lace and embroidery to sell for money because she had no money because she was poor. She sold lace to get money for her family. Penina Moïse made lace from about 1820 to 1850. In Charleston, that was one of the few ways women could earn money. I wanted to find out more about lacemaking to learn more about how Penina Moïse lived and the things that she did.

On Sunday, May 4^th, I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. This is at the Howard County Fairgrounds. The only place you can park is out on the grass. That is really strange. But I was there to learn about lacemaking. I found a tent with ladies from the Society for Creative Anachronism. This means that they learn about history by doing it. This club makes clothing and food from many years ago in Europe before 1600. They learn about the music and the history. They wear costumes that were what people wore back then. They have fun meetings and teach each other about how people used to live.

In the tent, I met Susan Lee, who was making bobbin lace. This is also called pillow lace, because you make it on a pillow because you have to stick the little pins in it through a pattern and weave around with the thread on the bobbins. You put bobbins in the middle of other bobbins to go around the pins. It is like braiding hair, making many little braids to make the lace design. Susan Lee said that she could make about an inch of lace an hour. Susan Lee said that Penina Moïse would have made very similar lace in Charleston. Someone who is very good at bobbin lacemaking can make about an inch of lace in one hour. Susan Lee said that someone who makes lace must be very patient, able to concentrate, and not have any cats around because cats love to play with the thread and the bobbins. Susan Lee said that it was okay to use her picture in my blog. That was very nice.

From meeting Susan Lee and seeing her make bobbin lace, I learned things about Penina Moïse. I learned that she was very patient and that she could focus really well for a long time. This is also true of her in her teaching and in her writing poetry, that she kept going even when things were hard. I also learned that maybe making lace made her go blind. Susan Lee explained that many lacemakers went blind from straining their eyes.

I want to learn more about lacemaking. After the Sheep and Wool Festival, I e-mailed the Chesapeake Region Lace Guild. This is a club for people who make all kinds of lace today and teach other people about it. They will help me with my research. Doing this project lets me meet a lot of nice people.

More “on the road” notes from Julia’s mom:

On Tuesday morning, we toured the Aiken-Rhett House, one of Charleston’s many historic homes. The home was built in 1817, when Penina Moise would have been 20. The house has been modified very little since 1858. We walked through the main mansion, the slave quarters, carriage house and kitchens. The grandeur of the house shone through the faded layers of paper and paint. An art gallery still holds sculptures and paintings brought back from a grand tour through Europe in the 1850s.

In the afternoon, we met with Anita Moise Rosenberg, the great grand niece of Penina Moise. She met us at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, the synagogue Penina Moise attended and helped to rebuild after it was destroyed by fire in 1838. The hymns Penina wrote were sung in the sanctuary for many years and are still performed there on special occasions. Also, Penina Moise was the superintendent of the Hebrew school at the synagogue.

After showing us the magnificent sanctuary and a collection of portraits and artifacts connected with the Moise family, Anita drove us to the Coming Street Cemetery, where Penina, her parents, brother Abraham and niece Jacqueline are interred. Julia and Barrie both put rocks on the graves and brushed away some leaves and grass clippings. Julia said that it was sad to see the grave because it showed her that Penina had died. When reading her poetry, Julia has been impressed with the vivid imagery Penina uses to describe biblical figures like Noach and Yosef. I think the strength of Penina’s words became very present to Julia, so it was difficult for Julia to see first hand that Penina was no longer living.

Julia also interviewed Anita about her family. The Moise family can trace its roots to 1492.

The Coming Street Cemetery is also the resting place of several heroes of the Revolutionary War, many founders of Charleston’s business, artistic, and Jewish communities, and four of the eleven founders of Masonry’s Scottish Rite.

Anita then drove us down to the Battery to see the canons, explained the unique features of Charleston architecture and pointed out many landmarks.

Before taking us to the cemetery, Anita showed us a small gray house, no longer square, at 5 Coming Street. After the Civil War, when Penina Moise returned to Charleston from her wartime refuge in Sumter, she lived in this house with her niece Jacqueline. The two of them ran a school. Penina taught literature and religion from memory, as she had lost most of her sight. The house is unmarked and in disrepair. We returned there after dinner to have a closer look. Julia was sad that there was no longer any sign of Penina there. She said that Penina probably did not like to live there even when the house was newer, that it was probably never a nice house.

Julia pointed out that Penina Moise probably wrote several of her alphabetical acrostic poems while living at 5 Coming Street. As she could no longer see, Penina would recall literature, authors, geography and other disciplines in alphabetical order as an aid to memory.

Wednesday morning, docent Carolee Fox gave us a guided tour of the sanctuary at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. The ark is made of mahogany wood from Haiti. Julia remembered that Penina Moise’s parents, Abraham and Sarah Moise, lived in Haiti (then Santo Domingo) before they emigrated to Charleston. Ms. Fox showed us the marks on the sanctuary floor where the original amud stood. Julia was thrilled to see the spot from which Penina Moise would have heard the Torah read. Ms. Fox also explained to us the history of religious freedom guaranteed by the South Carolina Constitution and how groups of all religions cooperate amiably in the city.

Afterward, we toured the covered market, now a gift and craft mall that was formerly a fruit and vegetable market. Julia posits that Penina Moise would have done her grocery shopping for Shabbat at this market. From the market, we continued toward the river to the U.S. Customs House, in continuous use for about 150 years. Back to Pita King (great fries!), then on the road again to Yulee, Florida.

With the end of the on site research comes the beginning of writing the book, checking and rechecking the facts and continuing to solicit input from the experts. Julia is eager to start writing, but not tonight. It’s going to be a long drive tomorrow, and we could all use some sleep.

A special thanks to Barrie Miller, Julia’s sister, for taking so many of the above photographs and being such an excellent helper.

First, a quick review from Julia’s mom …

Episode One: When a Book Report is Not Just a Book Report

This story begins in December 2006, with an ordinary fifth grade book report assignment. Jodi Sohl, Julia’s general studies teacher at the Hebrew Day School, assigned a biography book report. She had the students choose from a long list of names, some more well known than others. At the top were nine names of Jewish Americans whose contributions were significant but now forgotten. Extra points for choosing one of those names. Julia considered the list carefully, pointing to each of the extra credit names. “Penina Moise. Who is that?” asked Julia. “I don’t know,” I said. “Good. ” says Julia. “We’ll do her.”

Then we figured out there were no books in print about her. Google book search had a few chapters of public domain material from 100 years ago. Julia spent hours with excerpts from the American Jewish Yearbook from 1905, writing facts on index cards. What did Julia find out?

Penina Moise was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1797 to Abraham and Sarah Moise. Fatherless at 12, no longer able to attend school, she persisted in her dream to become a published writer. She was the first American Jew to publish a book of poetry, Fancy’s Sketchbook in 1833. She wrote widely on religious and political subjects, helped raise the funds to rebuild Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, her synagogue, after it was destroyed in a fire. She taught school, nursed her mother for years in her final illness, nursed many people during the yellow fever epidemic of 1854, went blind shortly after, yet continued to write and teach until shortly before her death in 1880. She never married. Her suitors were non-Jews, and she would not intermarry.

Eventually, Julia produced a book report (and got an “A”). She did a wax museum presentation on Penina Moise for her class and the first and third grades, reciting excerpts from her report and a brief essay by Penina Moise.

Episode Two: Julia Gets an Idea

Julia was becoming concerned that no one seemed to know who Penina Moise was. In May 2007, Julia had an opportunity to do a little public education. She and I participated in the Makom mother-daughter learning program at Ohev Shalom Talmud Torah on 16th Street in Washington, D.C. Aliza Sperling, the teacher, encouraged Julia to give a dvar Torah at the spring shabbaton. Julia chose the life of Penina Moise as her subject. She went through Pirke Avot and drew parallels between the mishnayot and Penina Moise’s dedication to study and learning despite terrible hardships. Julia also made an illustrated timeline poster to use during her speech. She was supposed to speak just once, at seudah shlishit. Then Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld asked Julia to speak at the dinner, in the ballroom, to a crowd of more than 80 people. She agreed. I repeated for her, but she came across very well. So well that she was asked to give the speech again at seudah shlishit. At both speeches, only one person had heard of Penina Moise before, someone who turned out to be from South Carolina.

On the way home in the car, in the pouring rain, stuck in traffic in downtown Silver Spring, Julia pondered why no one seemed to know about this great and pioneering woman. I asked her how someone would find out about her. Eventually, Julia said, “A book.” “But remember, there are no books about her, at least not in print.” And then, from the back seat: “I will write a book about Penina Moise.” She described her ideal bat mitzvah as a pizza party and book signing, where she would autograph her book about Penina Moise for the guests. “And how are you going to do this?” I asked. “Mommy, you have to take me to Charleston.”

Which Brings us Back to: Episode Three

I made contacts with archivist Eve Cassat and Professor Dale Rosengarten at the College of Charleston. Eve sent Julia a wonderful packet of material. We contacted historical societies and tried to get into a convention (that didn’t work). Eventually, it looked like we might be able to get to Charleston in April, right before Pesach. No sooner than I made the hotel reservations, Barrie, our eight year old, had a playground accident that loosened a few teeth. The x-rays looked good, so we started packing. Then literally, on the way out of town on Sunday, we detoured to Rockville for throat cultures because Barrie and David had sore throats. Julia and Barrie both had strep. After some chewable Augmentin and the promise of Mary Poppins on the portable DVD player, we got on the road about 4:30 p.m., arriving in Charleston a little after 2:00 a.m. Most interesting thing on the trip down: the moosehead tied to a top of an SUV just north of Richmond.

Today, we still managed to do the first third of a walking tour designed by Anita Moise Rosenberg, the great-nice of Penina Moise, showing the houses and businesses connected to the Moise family. We toured the Footlights Theater and saw a mural featuring Isaac Harby, a relative of Penina Moise who wrote plays in the early 1800s. Then we walked down Queen Street to Number 46, where Penina’s parents lived with their first six children. In the afternoon, we spent a wonderful hour with Professor Rosengarten at the Addlestone Library, looking at archival materials, newly discovered poems by Penina Moise and discussing Julia’s questions. Prof. Rosengarten gave Julia many newsletters and magazines featuring Penina Moise to take home to assist in further research.

We had dinner at Pita King, then drove around the historic district down to the water front. Lots more planned for tomorrow.