There are some things that most of us never have and never will experience. We can imagine what it would feel like, but we never will really know.

One of those things has to be entering a huge arena and jumping, dancing, twirling, flying, seemingly beyond gravity’s pull. For about a minute and a half. To music. In front of thousands of people, clapping for you, and tens of millions more sitting in their living rooms all across the world watching you. Judging you. At the Olympics.

You’re very young when you do this — just 18. It’s the Summer Games in London last summer. You do very well in all your competitions — and you get the gold in your last one, the floor program. You are the first American woman to do this. You also win a bronze medal for your work on the balance beam. You are also the team captain, and the whole team wins the overall gold, as well.

There are a lot of differences between Carnegie Hall and an Olympic stadium, but when you ask your GPS how to get to either one, you get the same directions.

Practice.

It helps if you start that practice when you are really young. In other words, if you want even a chance to become Aly Raisman, first you have to work very hard to turn yourself into Eden Glick.

The Kaplan JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly has a gymnastics program, but it is not a training program for competitions, according to Joe Agosto, the JCC’s athletics director.

Twenty to 30 children — overwhelmingly girls — participate in the program. The 3- to 5-year-olds do tumbling; the older ones practice rhythmic gymnastics. “It’s a combination of gymnastics and dance,” Agosto said.

There are so many things going on at once!

First, it’s spring. The flowering trees have just peaked, tulips are gloriously unfurled, and the whole world is bright flowers and blue sky and translucently green grass and fluffy white clouds. (Unless, of course, it rains, but it can’t. It mustn’t. And the colors shine even through the rain, when the sky glows with steel and everything is reflected in the road.)

It’s a day for community, for families to gather, for fitness exercises led by professionals, for a carnival in the morning for kids, for music and food.

It’s Mother’s Day.

There are many reasons for the Rubin Run. First, to run is to help sponsor activities for people with special needs. But there are interior reasons as well. Running is good for you.

“Running has beneficial effects on the heart,” said Dr. David Wild, a cardiologist who lives in Englewood and practices in Teaneck. “People who exercise frequently are less likely to suffer cardiac complications, including heart attacks and other issues, including high blood pressure.

“Typically, people who are more active live healthier, longer lives.

What: The 2013 Rubin run – a half marathon, 10K run, 5K walk and run

Where: Beginning at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly

When: Sunday, May 12; the first race begins at 7:45; activities last all morning

Why: For the joy of running, for the pleasures of community, and to raise money for the JCC’s special needs programming

How: Register and learn more about sponsorship at http://www.jccotp.org/Rubinrun

What else you should know:

The JCC and the Tenafly police department want to ensure that the day is safe and fun. Here are some security suggestions that they ask you to follow.

Please:

Leave your bags in your car — all bags unattended outside your car will be removed and the police will dispose of them.

Bring your JCC membership card or a valid ID and be prepared to show it to enter the JCC.

Bring a driver’s license or a JCC membership card if you plan to use babysitting.

Enter the building only through the Berrie Health and Wellness wing.

The races begin at the JCC and will cause traffic delays on East Clinton Avenue and Woodland Street from 7 a.m. until noon, and some side roads will be affected. The main parking lot will be full early in the day, so park on nearby streets and follow any temporary parking restrictions.

>For more information: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or (201) 408-1406

When Bernice Silberman Greenberg was 20 years old, in 1942, back at home on Long Island after two years in heaven — actually, two years at the Tyler School of Fine Art in Philadelphia, but she thought of the two places, school and heaven, as synonymous — her grandmother had just the guy for her.

“My grandmother went to his brother’s wedding, and she told me that she’d met an artist whose name was Michel,” Greenberg said.

“I was so intrigued! I thought that he would wear a beret and hold a palette,” she said.

LOS ANGELES — Sit back by the bonfire and pop open a brewski. It’s Lag b’Omer.

Since we have been counting the Omer — a biblical measure of barley that was brought as an offering to the Temple — each evening from the second night of Passover, what better way to mark the coming holiday than by downing a barley beverage, cold and carbonated?

What’s the occasion?

Lag b’Omer marks the ending of a plague during the Bar Kochba revolt in the second century C.E. According to tradition, students and soldiers had been dying — but the plague ended on that day.