Survival into Song
Jan 21, 2026
So I have this thing about my birthday. I’ve always believed my birthday is objectively the best one.
It’s at the start of summer.
People are relaxed.
School is out.
Everyone’s in a better mood.
And it’s the week of Shavuos, which means my birthday cake is cheesecake. Obviously.
It’s objectively the perfect time to have been born.
Then I recently learned something mildly devastating and kind of hilarious.
There’s research showing that (almost) everyone feels this way about their birthday. Even people born in the dead of winter.
I refused to believe it. Until I polled my kids. Three of them born in Shevat. One in Adar.…And each one is just as convinced theirs is the perfect date.
Whatttt?????
Which sent me down a small rabbit hole about birthdays.
Why are we wired to celebrate them? What are we actually celebrating if it’s not something objectively amazing?
Timing wise, it’s the perfect moment to delve into the psychology of birthdays. We’re in the season of Tu B’Shevat, the birthday of the trees. A day that isn’t about fireworks or parties, but about the first stirrings of life underground. Sap rising. Potential gathering itself before anything is visible.
That curiosity pulled me into learning everything I could about what birthdays actually are in Jewish thought. Not milestones. Not age. Not celebration for its own sake.
And even more meaningful - blessing.
Birthdays are when we honor what a blessing it is to keep showing up.
I shared what my observations and findings in a shiur I was privileged to give to the Brooklyn chapter of the Chizuk Mission earlier this week.
You can access the lecture recording here:
It was only when I got home after the shiur that night, that I belatedly and ironically realized something else.
I have a birthday this week too. In the dead of winter. Like my kids.
Tomorrow, 4 Shevat.
I’ll celebrate twenty two years in remission.
Remission is a strange thing to mark. It's not really celebrating a finish line. It's celebrating a high level of uncertainty held with faith.
Celebrating the fact that I showed up every day. And will keep showing up. And that I continue to marvel at the abundance that is my life. Continue to honor every Modeh Ani. Every moment. Every day.
That daily act of celebration is what inspired the production of my Vessel Journals. The first batch has been landing in people’s mailboxes all week. And the reports are in.
(And we’re officially backordered until next month!)
One thing I’ve been loving is watching people turn straight to their “birthday page” in the journal. Every date has its own Vessel quote, all drawn from either Vessel or Azamra.
People keep telling me the same thing.
How uncanny it feels to read the quote on “their” page.
How aligned.
How much it feels like their line.
Kind how we feel about our actual birthdays. How perfect they seem.
Here’s mine.
How amazing is that?
Birthdays aren’t just about the calendar date you were born.
It’s about the life you keep choosing even as you live in the mystery of how it'll all play out.
A birthday isn’t a party.
It’s a quiet agreement between ourselves and the future.
22 years and I’m still in.
I’ll keep showing up.
Let’s see what grows.
With love,
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Life happens in little bits. Learn to love the little bytes.
