Book writing and butt wiping, or how I am coping with the war

“Why-y-y-y?!?” my preschooler shrieks from the farthest room of our apartment, “Imma! Why-y-y-y-y?!?”

Like so many of us in Israel these days, my nervous system is set on “emergency” mode much of the time. Physically we have stayed relatively safe. We live in Jerusalem and when there is an azaka (a warning siren), we have a whole, comparatively luxurious, ninety seconds to get our family of four down three flights of stairs to shelter. 

Emotionally, of course, no one here is remotely OK. So it takes me a split second to realize that my screaming child is neither in danger, nor even throwing an epic tantrum. No, he is just yelling for me to come and w-i-i-i-i-i-ipe his butt. Such a relief to be called to this very simple doody, I mean duty! Sorry, sometimes poop jokes are all we’ve got keeping us going around here.

Indeed, when relatives, friends, and colleagues—both here and abroad—ask how I am doing, I tell them that my method of trying to cope with this war seems to consist of putting my head down, and focusing exclusively on “book writing and butt wiping.” I wake up, and try to be grateful, each morning for another day of writing the book that is mine to write and wiping the butts that are mine to wipe. That’s my job and that’s my—only sometimes effective—bulwark against despair.

Book writing and butt wiping were largely what occupied me before October 7th as well, but each set of tasks has also changed since that horrendous day. Butt wiping—a shorthand for all of the unpaid labor of tending to the needs of the two young children and the two not remotely young adults under our roof—now also includes war-related needs. My son refuses to be in any room by himself after dark because he’s afraid there will be an azaka. And, yes, this does include the bathroom.

My daughter often wants to talk about the war and it takes real work to listen intently and with some semblance of a balanced emotional presence. Why, she wants to know, for example, does the poster on that telephone pole, depicting a mother and her red-haired babies, show them lying down in a bed? I make a mighty effort not to burst into tears while searching my mind for a way to tell her something that is both truthful and age-appropriate. I try, “Because the artist wanted to show how we are all really hoping that all the hostages have a safe and comfortable place to rest.” 

The book project I’ve been working on has also gotten more intense, though for much happier reasons: the week after the war started I found a publisher. Stemming from my work growing Fat Torah, the book uses Jewish tradition to wrestle with anti-fat bias. I believe deeply in the kinds of conversation and growth I know this work will spark. Still, it would have been daunting to keep at it in wartime without the benefit of an editor who believes in the project too. Having a signed contract with actual deadlines embedded in it has also been vital. 

Focusing on book writing and butt wiping also means there is a lot that I have definitely not been doing. I have not been going to demonstrations. I have not been picking stranded produce or baking cookies for soldiers. I have not even been doing my part to try to counter the misinformation and disinformation—from multiple points on the political spectrum—that flood my social media feed. In fact, I have set a strict limit for myself on how much I am willing to listen to anyone at all who has less skin in the game than I do.

Beyond making a few initial connections when the need first became obvious, I did not play much of a role in the clothing drives that sprang up all over the country to help displaced people in larger bodies get the hard-to-find sizes they need. Early on in the war, I did donate our stroller and some diapers for a displaced baby staying in a hotel nearby, but that felt more like I was the one being helped with decluttering. And I did pull out my guitar to play at one benefit concert. 

It has been moving to see so many friends and neighbors mobilize in efforts large and small to try to somehow heal what this war has torn apart. I understand how important it is, in the face of ongoing collective trauma, to find ways to feel that we are making meaningful contributions. But book writing and butt wiping seem to be about what I can manage.

Because we bring to any trauma the past traumas that we have lived through or witnessed, I keep being reminded of flying to Baton Rouge, Louisiana one month after Hurricane Katrina. I was housed in a hotel in which all the other rooms were occupied either by emergency services personnel or by evacuees from New Orleans and other harder hit areas. And me? I was there for my first time ever serving as a hazan (prayer leader) for High Holy Day services at a local synagogue.

I was obviously out of sync with everyone else where I was staying. It felt deeply odd to sit in the crowded breakfast room at the hotel each morning. The people with clipboards would shortly be heading out for the morning’s relief efforts. The families in pajamas were facing another day of not knowing if or when they would ever be able to go home. And my day would largely consist of sitting in my hotel room trying to learn the proper melody for each prayer. It was hard to imagine that what I was doing really mattered.

Then, one morning in between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, some members of the synagogue got clearance from the authorities to go down to New Orleans to try and rescue the books of a Jewish library from encroaching flood waters. I said I wanted to go and help too, but the synagogue volunteers would not let me. They were concerned that, if my voice were damaged by mold, I would not be able to fulfill my prayer-leading duties. 

I was struck by the clarity with which they expressed exactly what my role was and how I could best help them during this catastrophe. They were headed to New Orleans under police escort to try to preserve some tiny bits of Jewish life in the form of books. They needed me to stay behind so that I had the best chance of being able to do my part by helping the Jewish community live on spiritually in the face of tremendous loss and upheaval.

As this war drags on, I have slowly come to appreciate and even honor my role of book writing and butt wiping. These are the two tiny fires that I am trying to tend, surrounded on all sides by floods upon floods of tears. This is my way of whole-heartedly offering this hurting world whatever is mine to give, one word and one wipe at a time.