I have long toyed with the idea of keeping a journal or diary. I like the idea of keeping a record of my life, something to look back on to remember how I felt about things in the past and see how ...

From hospital stays to Shabbat dinners, a few lines a day became a Jewish way of reckoning with memory, loss — and the comfort of routine. In January 2011, I wrote my first entry in a five-year diary.