My children's Judaism will not be primarily a collection of warnings.

Right now, the news is "warning us" about Iran planning "another Oct 7th." About the danger lurking for Jews in the Diaspora because of the chagim approaching and the insane upswell in antisemitism cloaked as "anti-Zionism."

There are warnings about where they can go safely, and how they can live their regular lives safely too.

About WHO is safe- which concert, movie, or TV show isn't spreading blood libels or supporting those who do.

Which brands they can buy from that "accept us" or apologize for us (but never to us).

They ask me about the news they see. The rumors they hear. The fearmongering and the politicking and the threats.

We discuss it all. Of course we do. This modern world we live in has given me no other choice.

They are teenagers, and frankly I couldn't shelter them from it if I wanted to. Not now. Not anymore.

As a parent, it's my job to somehow figure out how to make sense of this broken world for them.

Explain things I can't begin to understand because it's based on madness. Evil. Inversion and perversion.

Even though I could spend all my parenting energy trying to protect them, warn them, shield them- I cannot be a human bubble that encapsulates them.

As their mom, I also can't allow them to only live in a world of warnings. Of fear.

It's my job to populate their world with wonderful things too.

Tradition. Texture. Joy. Love.

The smell of their mother's challah before Shabbat.

The zemer we sing together every Friday night.

The sounds of their little cousins laughing in the yard.

That first bite of apple and honey on the first night of Rosh Hashanah.

Building their grandparents' sukkah in our yard, the one that came from the States on our lift.

The flag of their homeland waving from our driveway, welcoming them home every day.

The music we blast when we cook for chag as a family.

The friends that accumulate around our tables.

The community we are surrounded by in shul.

Driving with the windows open, through the sand dunes of the Negev, through the green hills of Judea, along the shores of the Mediterranean.

The power of knowing that we have returned to where we belong.

And now live where our ancestors built a nation, a kingdom, a holy Temple.

The knowledge that our lives move to an ancient rhythm: holidays, seasons, liturgy, and tradition- authentic, established, original.

The world I want to populate for them is not one of danger and warnings.

Reality has already made sure those things are there.

What I want to add is belonging.

Home. Memory. Beauty.

The feeling of being rooted in something ancient and alive.

The tapestry of a Jewish life, in the Jewish homeland.

Because being Jewish cannot become primarily about what we have to fear.

It also has to be about what we are lucky enough to inherit.

What we get to love, build, and hand down.

They will know what threatens Jewish life.

But they will also know, deeply, why Jewish life is worth living.