Party or Pass? Do You Celebrate Your Birthday?

No matter how you acknowledge (or don’t acknowledge) your birthday, the day holds  opportunity.

How do you feel about birthdays? Are you one of those who eagerly count down to your next birthday as soon as the previous one has passed? Do you make elaborate parties for your kids’ birthdays and spend months trying to find the perfect gift for your spouse or parent? Or do you pretend they never happened, either because you don’t believe in birthday celebrations as a Jewish concept or because you are trying to deny the fact that you are getting older? Or are you comfortable enough with your place in life that you can celebrate the aging process and look at each birthday as a mile marker of how far you have come and how much you have left to go?

The merits and demerits of celebrating birthdays have been debated before, but I’d like to bring a slightly different perspective. 

No matter how you feel—or don’t feel—about birthdays, there are ways we can all acknowledge them for the wonderful opportunities they hold. I’ve gathered a collection of personal perspectives from a range of women on how they make the most of birthdays, their own or others’. 

Birthdays are a special opportunity for…

… making someone feel special

My husband grew up with the mesorah that celebrating birthdays with cake and parties is not a Yiddeshe zach and so, while acknowledged, birthdays weren’t really a big  deal in his home. In my home, birthdays were eagerly anticipated for weeks in advance. The birthday girl or boy – including my parents! – would get a party, a gift, a special supper, the works! 

It was one of the compromises we made in our marriage. Instead of having birthday parties and cakes, we celebrate each kid’s birthday as their I’m-so-glad-you-were-born day. It’s a day dedicated to making my child  feel loved and valued as a cherished part of our family. And what better day to do so than on the day he or she actually joined the family?

Over the years, we’ve developed a routine that leaves the kids glowing for at least a week after their birthday. The child in question chooses what we will have for supper that day, and the rest of the family has a meeting to decide what gift to buy the birthday kid. We discuss what we love most about them, what special qualities they have, and then we buy a gift reflecting that. Each child then writes a short but sweet card for the birthday kid. We put them all together in a big envelope. 

We present the gift and card at the special supper, and we go around the table and have every member of the family tell the birthday boy or girl what they love most about them and give them a brachah. The birthday kid then gives a little speech and his own brachah to the family. My husband comes home early from work (by all of twenty minutes, but to the kids it’s a big deal!) and since my parents moved to Lakewood, they, too, join us  for birthday suppers! It makes the kid feel so valued and loved. 

As they got older, they’ve taken to doing the same for my husband and me, and honestly, I haven’t gotten through a single one of my own birthday suppers without bawling. It’s not only kids who need to feel the love. 

When I heard this, I got pretty emotional myself. It really is a beautiful way to make every child feel special. Birthdays are a great time to celebrate the special people in our lives and show them how much we value them. Sure, every day is a great day to do that, but we get busy with life and that date on the calendar is a wonderful reminder to stop and appreciate this particular person and to remind them of just how cherished they are. 

This goes for the preschool child who brings pekelach to school and feels on top of the world standing on that little chair in the middle of the circle, and it goes for Bubby who looks around the rented shul at her eightieth birthday celebration, feeling the love pouring out toward her from her doros. 

I know people who keep lists of the entire extended family’s birthdays and will make a point of recognizing each one. And of course, there is my very special Tante Breina who has a photographic birthday memory and never forgets a single one. Child and adult alike light up when we receive her birthday calls. No one is above being remembered and recognized. 

… reflection and introspection

I will always remember the year we all turned forty as the year of the great big freakout. One by one, as each of my friends in our core group that had remained close since seminary reached that big number, they were too overwhelmed by the oldness of it, by the depressing fact that they were “over the hill,” and they each went through some sort of midlife crisis. And then when my birthday came around, they all marveled at my calmness and serenity, even joy. “Aren’t you freaking out?” they all cried. I smiled mysteriously and showed them my Birthday Notebook. You see, I was prepared for Forty. After Thirty hit me hard when it caught me unprepared, I went out and bought this notebook. I spend each birthday making a cheshbon hanefesh. I think about what I’ve accomplished over the past year and what I would like to accomplish over the next year. I’d been thinking about forty since thirty-nine, and truthfully, even before. When you don’t think about your birthday and just let life slip right past you, then yes, when you are caught by the reality of your aging, it can be depressing. But when every year finds you growing more, living life more vibrantly, then each passing birthday is more exhilarating and meaningful than the previous one.

Your birthday is like your own personal Rosh Hashanah. Where Rosh Hashanah signifies the creation of the world, your birthday celebrates the creation of you. What better time to do a real cheshbon hanefesh on where you are holding? You have just celebrated another year of life. How did you do? What would you like to see for the next year?  Here are some questions to ask yourself:

What have I accomplished over the past year?

How have I done in terms of the goals I set last year?

What have I struggled with over the past year?

What tools can I employ to help me with these struggles so they don’t continue to block me next year?

What are my goals for next year?

How can I go about accomplishing them?

What will I need to see in one year from today to know that I have lived the year to its fullest?

What were my high points over the past year?

What were my low points?

How can I increase the highs and decrease the lows over the next year?

… gratitude

Every year on my birthday I make a list of all of the things I am grateful for, starting with the very amazing, and often taken for granted, fact that I’ve just been granted another year of life. I lost my mother at a young age and I lost a couple of close friends too. Ever since I passed the age my mother lived to, there is an extra fervor to my gratitude. But it doesn’t stop at life itself; I make sure to list the blessings, large and small, that this year has brought.  The new baby, of course, but sometimes it’s the growth and faith that sprung from a devastating loss. The most amazing teacher for a struggling child. An unexpected influx of cash. A surgery that went well. While I try to be grateful every day, my birthday poses a special opportunity to really take a serious look at all the beautiful brachos I’ve been granted.

Gratitude comes hand in hand with introspection, because as you sit and reflect on the past year, you can’t help but become overwhelmed by all that you have been given in the course of those twelve months. 

So even if you are “not the type” to engage in all that self-improvement and reflection, at the very least thank Hashem for all that He has given you over the past year and take a moment to daven for more good and more bounty in the coming year.

Encourage your children on their birthday to thank Hashem for five things that happened to them or that they received over the past year that they are grateful for.  

… Doing chessed 

Every year, I try to spend my birthday doing chessed. I didn’t see this anywhere; it just felt right to me. It’s my way of thanking Hashem for giving me another year of life, and proving myself worthy, so to speak, of celebrating my next birthday too. Depending on my stage in life, the chessed that I do can be making phone calls and visits to lonely people, focusing more on my own children, discreetly paying for someone’s lunch at the bagel store, even picking up garbage in a public place. Sometimes I plan something beforehand—like taking a trip to a nursing home— and sometimes I don’t have anything in particular in mind, but I go through my day on the lookout for opportunities to do chessed. I’ve found that when I have that chessed mindset, the opportunities always, always come. 

This was the first time I’ve heard of this and I think it is so beautiful! Of course, we should go through all our days with a chessed mindset, but what could be a better way to celebrate one’s birthday than to pass on the celebration. Part of what makes people uncomfortable about birthday celebrations is that it becomes a day that’s all about “Me.” Some find that selfish in nature. 

This is a magnificent way to turn the focus from selfish to selfless and celebrate the miracle of our existence by giving back. 

… Brachos and tefillah

Every year on my birthday, I wake up early to daven a full and heartfelt davening. My davening on my birthday is actually similar to a Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur davening. I daven for myself, my family and those I know who are in need of a yeshuah. I also take the opportunity throughout the day to send out birthday brachos and good wishes to those I feel could use it and to those I feel close to. I think of birthdays as a very powerful day with tremendous koach. I don’t know if this is true or not, but I figure it doesn’t hurt! 

The source for birthday brachos comes from the passuk in Tehillim (2: 7-8): Ani hayom yiliditichah; she’al mimeni v’etna.

Hashem is telling us, “Today is the day I created you; ask from Me and I will give you.” It sounds like the day we commemorate our own personal creation would be a wonderful day to daven for that which we want and to bless others that they receive that which they want. 

While being on the receiving end of many moving brachos, I never was into giving them until the day my cleaning lady quit. 

She was the best cleaning lady I had ever had, the kind you think only exists in a dream world. She knocked on my door on my Hebrew birthday to let me know she couldn’t work for me and my neighbors anymore. As the one who had arranged her schedule, I had to be the one to notify all of the wonderful women who had come to rely so heavily on her. I ended off the sad text with a birthday brachah: “Hashem should help us all find someone even better, very, very soon!”

Not even an hour later, out of the blue, there was a knock on my door. Theresa turned out to be even better, if such a thing was possible. And she is still with us today, my very special birthday cleaning lady. 

And so, as I write this on my birthday, I would like to give a birthday brachah to all of my readers. May Hashem bless you with all that your heart desires and grant you the yeshuos you need. May you be zoche to a life of health, peace, success and prosperity and the koach to make the right decisions and to achieve all of your goals.