Ima Sheli – Launch in LA

This blog is a place to honor my Mother and all mothers. Through this blog, I will try to continue my mother’s life mission by:

• Helping and Supporting my community and people in need;
• Cooking and Sharing our mothers’ recipes;
• Sharing our mothers’ stories and journeys;
• Listening to each other and providing guidance and wisdom through Torah classes for women;
• Hosting events;
• Enjoying and Celebrating life;
• Fighting cancer;
• Transmitting our traditions and values to our children;

My name is Ety, I am Meytal’s sister. I am a recently divorced mother of 3 children, a daughter and a sister. I was born in Israel, grew up in France, and completed my graduate studies at UCLA.  I have been working full-time at a Structural Engineering Firm in Los Angeles for the past 20 years. I live in Los Angeles, California. Unlike my sister, I consider myself somewhere in between a conservative and a reform jew in that I keep kosher, celebrate shabbat dinner with my family when I am with them, though I have not yet given up on electricity or work occasionally on Shabbats. I also celebrate all the major Holidays, but don t necessarily do all the fasts. I know it is a bit easy to say that, but I feel better giving and helping than practicing all the rules of Judaism religion to the letter. Just like my sister, and most mothers I am sure, I am always busy, trying to stay 2-step ahead of all the things that need to be done for the kids, for work, for my dad, for our home, that I often forget that I exist, that I am human, and that like a machine, I may break if I keep going at the same pace. I do Thank H. every day when I wake up to be healthy, so that I can continue to take care of my family the way I do. Yet, I rarely opt to take time for myself, whether it is to rest, exercise, shop, entertain my relationship with my friends. I suppose, it is the model my mother showed me: Be kind, put others before you, work hard, give all that your body/mind can take and more.

In 2016, my mother was diagnosed with an advanced and aggressive uterine cancer at the young age of 60. After 4 years of fighting and going through various treatments and surgeries, my mother passed in 2020, just before the whole COVID pandemic started. I had separated my husband after the birth of my second child, a year before my mum was diagnosed, and decided to get back together, not because my feelings had changed, but because I did not know how I could have traveled as much as I had needed with our custody arrangements, and I figured my personal life was gone anyways. During the years my mother was sick, I put a pause on my personal life. I was alternating travels with my sister, brother and aunts to be besides our mother as a daughter should be. We were determined in finding the best doctors, the best treatments, the best nutrition. We truly believed she would be a survivor, because she wanted to be, becaue she was such an amazing human being, and probably also because we needed her so much. we had promised her grand-kids that she would bar-mitzvah them and marry them. We did our best to plan happy family moments. We also did our best to support our dad morally and financially, so he could help her when we were away. 

My mum’s loss had a huge impact on my life. Besides the broken-heart and the huge void she left behind, it was just a huge reminder that life can be taken away from us any point and time, it is not really in our hands. To that extent, all the things I had been willing to endure for the next ten-fifteen years of my life became unacceptable to me. I finally started to make major life-changing decisions, one step at a time, like seeing a therapist to express my inner feelings, and handle the decisions I knew had to be executed. 

In parallel, I started to think about what I wanted to leave behind to my Children. Yes, I was doing my best to teach them to be smart, generous, kind and compassionate, but was that enough? Actions speak more than talks.  I felt like I was not taking risks enough, I was being somewhat complacent professionally. I also felt like that I was not helping others enough.  I was so focused on my own life issues, that I forgot to look around and carve out time to make a real impact on other people’s life, people in need. 

I think being a mom, a sister, a daughter, a professional, a friend, a cook, a clean…. is simply hard core, though the best training one can ever have at mastering essential life skills. It clearly teaches us that sky is a limit, and that we can handle more. I have decided that my more will be to GIVE, whether it is moral support, role model, or financial support to as many lives as I can.

To achieve this new goal, I have embraced my sister’s amazing initiative to launch IMASHELI, and decided to open a chapter in Los Angeles.

The goal of ImaSheli is to bring us all together around simple and traditional values, to live generously and to share. Sharing our stories, our recipes, our time, our experience, our values, our advices and our hearts. We will try to set up bi-monthly events prior to high holidays, to discuss experiences and values, and help good cause together.

With your help, I will honor the life mission of my Mother who would always give everything she had for everyone and anyone who ever crossed her path. Her generosity had no limit, and with Hashem’s help, we will try to continue her mitzvoth and her traditions. She will continue to live through myself and hopefully through my children as well.

I hope this resonates for some of you and I hope to see you all very soon at our next ImaSheli gathering.