A friend asked me what seemed to be a simple question: “How did you find the time to write a book?” I had a 375-page book on the topic of eishes chayil (a woman of valor) on the way to bookstores, and I had posted a snapshot of it for my friends to see.
I wanted to answer, “It was nothing; let me also show you this gorgeous chocolate dessert I whipped up while working on it. Oh, and did I show you the pictures of my boys in their matching outfits?”
Accomplishments are supposed to look easy. But the question struck me. How did I write a book? Me: mother, wife, friend. How did it get done in between Yom Tov cooking, laundry, and siddur plays? The questions sent me on a 14-year nostalgic tour.
Fourteen years ago, I was a very new mother and teacher. My husband was in kollel, and I had left computer science to follow my dream of teaching Torah in a Modern Orthodox high school for girls. There was a group of teachers who, like me, were young and passionate about our work. We debated the issues of the day: feminism, Orthodoxy, Chazal, emunas chachamim. My friends would go on to be trailblazers in the Modern Orthodox world for women’s leadership.
Their approach never resonated with me. I felt passionately that Chazal should define a woman’s role. What did Chazal actually say? I had no idea. One semester, my students asked me to teach about women in Tanach. I found a midrash on eishes chayil that talked about 20 women, and I taught from that list. As I learned the pesukim and the midrash, I knew I had found my guide.
The next summer, my husband finished kollel, and we were moving out of town so that he could be the rav of a shul. I correctly guessed that there would be few sefarim in town for me to use that would help me with my project. I went to the Yeshiva University library and photocopied everything I could find about eishes chayil and the women in the midrash. I bought a database of midrashim and meforshim (commentators), hoping one day to return to preparing the material. When my husband went to Israel, he returned with a compendium of meforshim on eishes chayil. I put the papers in an official manila folder, labeled it “Eishes Chayil,” and packed it away in my boxes.
Around that time, I read an interesting statistic. It said that people who share their goals with others are more likely to meet those goals. The new person in town, I shared with strangers my plan to write a book. I was not very serious, but I shared the idea anyway. The next few years saw me collecting more sources from the database and beginning to write short summaries on cold motzei Shabbosos when I had nothing else to do.
Three years went by. I read another book about time management. In it, the author suggested writing everything that you want to get done on a piece of paper. I had hundreds of things written down. The immediate concerns formed my to-do list. The dreams formed my “Someday” list: paint the living room, write a book, sew Purim costumes. The Someday list kept popping up in my task list on the computer, always teasing me about my hopes and aspirations.
Another year or two crept along. I now had three children under six. I was teaching, rebbetzining, and going to graduate school. Writing was still taking place on infrequent motzei Shabbosos as I felt guilty devoting time to this unrealistic project. A friend took me out for coffee for a heart-to-heart chat about my goals. In addition to a to-do list, she encouraged me to write down my vision for myself as a mother, wife, friend, and professional. Accompanying each statement was to be a list of long-term goals, short-term goals, and next-steps to make the vision a reality. I defined one of my goals as a professional to spread a love of Torah and Chazal to the women of klal Yisrael. My Someday list item of writing a book now had a reason to move onto my to-do list.
I started working late on every motzei Shabbos. My husband knew that Sunday mornings were my time to crash, making up for lost sleep the night before.
Somewhere after I had my fourth son, I submitted what I thought was a finished project to a publisher, who told me that it needed a lot more work and many, many more stories. Every other publisher just said no thank you. I was discouraged.
Some more good advice came to my rescue. I had read that it is not our successes but our responses to failure that define us. I decided that I was not giving up so easily. I was writing this book for myself as well as for others. I also needed a guide as to how to be a better wife and mother – how not to lose my temper, how to advocate without being obnoxious, and how to respond to those claiming that Orthodox women were oppressed. I was going to continue with what I had begun.
Another five years passed. My oldest was now 11. I was writing, rewriting, and no closer to my goal. Finally, my husband and I worked out that I could take a few months and really finish this dream of mine. It had been over a decade, and I wanted to check off that box on my Someday list. I started writing almost every day for an hour or two. I typed my last paragraph, printed the book, and mailed it to Rav Zev Leff, in Moshav Mattisyahu.
Even with all the hard work, this was the scariest part of the process. I had not shown the book to anyone – not my husband and not my friends. It was my personal journal and thoughts on a perek in Tanach, and I did not want feedback until I was ready. I almost didn’t put the book in the mail. I was addressing a letter to a talmid chacham of note. What would he say about my approach to the Midrash?
I had learned from some of the content of the book how important it is to do what is right even when it feels uncomfortable. Despite my hesitation, I did not want to give up on my Someday goal, so I swallowed my pride and dropped the envelope in the mail. A few weeks later, my cell phone rang. Rav Leff was on the line. He wanted to read me his haskama (approbation) and encourage me in my work. I could hardly string together a coherent sentence as I thanked the Rav (trying not to say anything in second person) for calling me. I was a witness to greatness as a gadol baTorah (Torah great) took the time to call me personally – a woman he did not know.
With a written haskama in hand, the bracha of a gadol, and a lesson on humility, I submitted the book to publishers. Once again, the no’s were quick to pour in. Gratefully, I also received two yeses.
I would have thought that the hard part was over. It had taken close to 11 years to write 77,000 words. I asked my parents to sponsor the book, and they agreed. It would now be dedicated to my grandmothers, whose path I was trying to follow.
The fun was just beginning. For two more years, I edited thousands of corrections, and the book continued to grow. During this time, my mother was ill, I had a baby girl, made a bar mitzva, moved, and got a new job. My written Someday goal kept me going. It was going to happen – I was going to check off that box on my to-do list. Yes, it took longer than I expected. Some weeks I could only edit a few pages; some months I did not look at it at all. Whenever I could, I just did the next step in the five minutes I had available.
Then, as suddenly and as intensely as it was for months, it was done. I got an email with a picture of an actual book sitting in a bookstore in Israel that I shared with my friends.
So, to answer that original question of my friend, how did I find the time?
I followed some really good advice – I shared my goal with my friends, wrote it down, knew why I was doing it, learned how to overcome rejection, leaned into vulnerability and worked only one page at a time. That’s how.
So, what’s next? I’m not sure. It’s probably time to sit down and write a new Someday list. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next.
Shira Hochheimer, born and raised in Baltimore, was a rebbetzin and educator in Rochester, NY, before returning to Baltimore. She is the author of Eishes Chayil: Ancient Wisdom for Women of Today (Mosaica Press, 2017) available at Shabsi’s or Feldheim.com. This article was originally published in Binah magazine.
