Vayikra: 12: 6-7
“Run the light.”
“I can’t do it.”
“I said run the light!”
“I won’t.”
“Run the light or I will kill you.”
Ron and Rachel Singer had been stopped at the traffic light at the corner of Engle Street and Palisade Avenue in Englewood for what seemed to be an eternity. Rachel’s first contraction had occurred at 3:57 a.m. according to the digital clock next to her bed, and at the time she hadn’t thought much of it. It was probably just one of those annoying Braxton-Hicks false alarms. But by 4:32 they started coming more frequently, almost every 10 minutes, and Rachel knew it was time. She calmly took a shower, assembled the last items she needed for her hospital bag—her toothbrush, her iPod and the dog-eared copy of Dr. Zhivago she had been reading for months—and woke up her husband.
“Ron.”
Nothing.
“Ron.”
“What?”
“I think it’s time we get this party started.”
Ron sprang up in his bed like a jack-in-the-box.
“Thank God.”
This baby had been very stubborn. When their first child, Nicole, was born, she had arrived right on her due date. But this one was a hold-out. Rachel was six days late, and she was not pleased. Her back was hurting. The bathroom runs were becoming absurdly frequent. It was hard to sleep. The baby’s head (they didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl) was very low, and it was causing Rachel considerable discomfort. And she was not a pleasant pregnant woman under good circumstances. Ron had started to pray three times a day in earnest for her labor to start.
Rachel had tried all the conventional methods her friends had recommended for inducing labor. Per her sister Rhonda, she tried spicy Indian food, but to no avail. Her boss had advised copious amounts of chamomile tea, but that merely exacerbated her bathroom issues. Her best friend, Roberta, suggested castor oil, which did not work and caused Rachel to seriously question their friendship. She went for power walks with her neighbor Ariella, but all they did was demonstrate her lack of physical stamina while trying to exercise with the equivalent of a 25-pound bowling ball strapped to her belly. Ron had sprung for a full body massage at a local spa, and although it did relax her, it did not bring the baby any closer. Finally, she took her hairdresser Karen’s advice and ate an entire pineapple in one sitting. Although the idea seemed completely insane and she could find no reference to it anywhere on the internet, and despite the fact that she would never eat pineapple again, Rachel did go into labor six hours later. Rachel decided to write a thank you note to Dole when she got home from the hospital.
Ron was dressed and out the door in less than five minutes. He remembered to open the car door for Rachel and recalled from Nicole’s birth not to say too much in the car and not to make any jokes. He tried to avoid any sudden movements. (Did I mention that Rachel was not such a happy pregnant woman?)
The trip from their home in Oradell to Englewood Hospital would normally take about 15 minutes, and Rachel had already experienced two contractions before they were halfway there. While she had been somewhat calm when she first woke up that morning, anxiety was now beginning to set in. Ron was normally a cautious driver, but he had been pushing the envelope of the 50-mile-per-hour speed limit on Route 4, feeling perspiration on his forehead despite the air conditioning that was blasting in the car. All had been going well until they hit the traffic light on Palisade Avenue.
“For heaven’s sake, go through the light.”
“I can’t do it. It’s just not in my nature.”
“It’s six o’clock in the morning. No one will see.”
“Nothing doing.”
It was deathly quiet in the car for a few seconds, then Rachel spoke.
“Sienna.”
“What?”
“I was just thinking what I’m going to name the baby if I give birth in this Toyota. I think I’ll call her Sienna.”
“Nice. What if it’s a boy?”
“Hmm. Then I guess I’ll call him Van.”
“Good one. I’m glad we didn’t take my car. Civic is no kind of name for a cute little baby.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Rachel said. “We could call her Chonda. It’s like Chana with a ‘D.’ Didn’t you have a great aunt named Chonda?”
It was a very long traffic signal.
A new contraction began, and Rachel grabbed Ron’s arm and squeezed hard.
“Go through this light, or I will make your every waking moment a living nightmare.”
Ron looked both ways and went through the intersection. He expected to see the flashing lights of a police cruiser in his rear-view mirror, but none materialized.
“Wow, that was close,” he said.
“Yeah, Ron, real close. You’re a regular Jesse James.”
“Now I finally understand why a woman has to bring a korban chatat, a sin offering, after she gives birth to a child,” Ron said, sailing down Engle Street toward the hospital at 10 miles per hour above the posted speed limit.
“What?”
“In the Torah, in Parshat Tazria, it says that when a woman gives birth to a son or daughter, her husband brings a korban olah, an elevation offering, and a korban chatat, a sin offering. The Torah even says vechiper ale-ha, that it will atone for the mother.”
“So?”
“So I always wondered what a pregnant woman has to atone for. I mean, she just brought a new life into the world at great risk to her own health and with considerable pain. What does she have to feel guilty about?”
“That’s a good question,” Rachel agreed.
“The Ibn Ezra suggests that she is atoning for any resentful thoughts she may have had against her husband or against God. I never understood that concept, but now I think I get it.”
“You’re in so much trouble,” Rachel said.
A light turned red just one block from the hospital. Ron slowed up slightly, looked right and left, and went straight through the intersection to the hospital parking lot. He gunned the minivan’s engine in the lot, pulled right up to the electric sliding doors of the emergency department, and slammed on his brakes. The car stopped with a loud screech.
Rachel turned toward her husband and smiled.
“Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”
“Stop talking and get out of the car,” Ron said.
“Yes, dear.”
Larry Stiefel is a pediatrician at Tenafly Pediatrics and the father of four children. His wife Chana was a very pleasant pregnant woman.
By Larry Stiefel
