There was a time in my life when I became incredibly good at carrying everything on my own. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. Divorce. Years of single motherhood. Building a community. Running an organization. Making endless decisions. Holding everyone else together while quietly carrying my own burdens. Somewhere along the way, I came to believe this was simply what strength looked like.
For many years, my nervous system had one job: survive. Not survive in the dramatic sense. I wasn’t running from danger every day. But I was the pillar. The decision maker. The one carrying five children, a nonprofit, a home, and all the unseen weight that life quietly places on your shoulders. When you’re the only one holding everything together, something remarkable happens. You become incredibly capable. You also become armored.
Tales from the Trail
A Jewish Woman’s Journey to the Pennsylvania Superior Court
Community Shabbat Dinner
Join us for a special Shabbat evening with the Honorable Jill Beck, a graduate of Duquesne University School of Law who has served as a judicial law clerk at both the PA Superior Court and Supreme Court.
She will share her journey to the bench, along with reflections on purpose, identity, and an engaging look at how our court system works.
Friday July 10th
6:45 pm Davening 7:00 pm Shabbat Dinner
(no end time)
Adult $36 Child $15
There is something instinctively heartbreaking about something that breaks. A dish shatters. A relationship cracks. A plan falls apart. Our first reaction is almost automatic: It’s over. It’s ruined. It can’t be what it once was. And with that comes a wave of emotion, disappointment, grief, sometimes even shame. We mourn not just what was lost, but what we believed it was supposed to be. But what if breaking is not the end of the story?
For many years of my life, probably from my early teens until my late thirties, my emotional world often felt like a roller coaster. My inner state depended almost entirely on what was happening around me. A phone call could lift me up or send me crashing down. An interaction with someone, a financial situation, a conversation with my spouse, an unexpected challenge, all of these external events determined how I felt that day.
We all love a plan. We map out our days, our years, even our lives with a sense of direction and purpose. And yet, so often, life takes us on a detour. Sometimes it’s small and inconvenient — a delay, a change of schedule, a closed door. Other times, it’s life-altering: a challenge we never asked for, a loss we never imagined, a path we never thought we’d walk.
