Welcome to Two Pockets!

What's with the title, you might be asking—has Ilana become a fashion blogger?

Hi there, and welcome to my new blog, Two Pockets. What’s with the title, you may be asking: Has Ilana become a fashion blogger?

(If you’ve ever met me in person, you’ll know the answer to that is noooooo.)

My previous blog, Midlife Bat Mitzvah, was getting a bit dusty. I started it in 2008 while studying for an adult Bat Mitzvah and raising a teenager. Well, the Bat Mitzvah happened almost 12 years ago and the teenage daughter is close to 30. I’m not even sure that I qualify as “midlife” any more! And on the more mundane technical side, I haven’t been thrilled with the way my old Wordpress platform has evolved.

So thanks for joining me in this new incarnation on Substack!

“Two Pockets” refers to a well-known story from Martin Buber’s Tales of the Chasidim. Rabbi Simcha Bunam (b. 1765) said to his disciples, “Everyone must have two pockets, to reach into as needed. In the right pocket is to be the words, ‘For my sake was the world created,’ and in the left, ‘I am earth and ashes.’”

I love this quote. It’s so true: Every person needs to feel that their life is valued and important, yet they also need to understand that they are only a tiny bit of a vast, beautiful, aching world. If you only draw from one pocket, you become a narcissistic power-monger. If you only draw from the other, you end up paralyzed with self-loathing.

In my writing group the other day, we were discussing how we all swing between extremes of hubris and humility. With a new and exhilarating idea, we feel, “The world has to read this! Right now!” Then, reviewing our draft, we feel, “This is the worst piece of dreck ever put on paper.”

Part of survival as a writer is learning to modulate between those swings — recognize them, take them with a grain of salt, use them. The hubris makes us write. The humility makes us edit. In non-writing life, too, there are times we need to bolster our sense of self-worth and times we need to set self aside and put others first.

And so the title for this blog. It will explore—on a very occasional basis—the same themes as my old blog: writing, parenting (although now parenting of an adult!), Judaism, family history, and politics.

Thanks for coming along. As always, I’d love to read your comments and responses!