Rivka Bennun Kay

I Read This Over Shabbos is a weekly newsletter from Rivka Bennun Kay about Jewish book culture, book recommendations, and modern ideas. Receive this free newsletter every week in your inbox by subscribing here. Questions, comments, or feedback? Email Rivka at Shabbosreads@18forty.org. This month, to mark America’s 250th birthday, 18Forty explored American Jewish history. At the end of each month, we like to recommend books as a way of continuing the conversation.

Your 18Forty Parsha Guide is a weekly newsletter exploring five major takeaways from the weekly parsha. Receive this newsletter every week in your inbox by subscribing here. Questions or feedback? Email Rivka Bennun Kay at Shabbosreads@18forty.org. At every Pesach Seder, we trip on the same line. “In every generation, a person is obligated to see himself as if he personally went out from Egypt.” Whoever is leading reads it, everyone repeats it, and we move to the next page.

After nine long years of infertility, including ten heartbreaking pregnancy losses — three of them in the second trimester — I was expecting again. This pregnancy was everything to us. Our hope. Our miracle. After six months of doctor’s appointments and hospital stays, our long-awaited miracle arrived. On 20 Iyar, our precious baby, Shimon Aryeh a”h, entered the world through an emergency C-section. His birth was a whirlwind of fear and awe, of desperate tefillos and cautious hope.