Love

I Am Lord of Memory*

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Eileen and I went to see Judy Collins the other night at the Brevard Music Center. She confidently walked on stage in a bright pink long dress with a black sequenced jacket. She proudly announced that she was 85 and from mid orchestra she was looking good. She peppered the concert with a lot of good stories and corny jokes. One of the many things I did not know about her was the relationship she and Leonard Cohen had. She credits him with “pushing” her to write her own songs and throughout the concert sang many of his more esoteric pieces. The concert was delayed for a half hour because of serious thunder and lightening but 2000 people still showed up even some June bugs or fireflies. They flashed in the dark as so many of us celebrated this night of memory.   

One of the Leonard Cohen songs she sang was “Priests”. It’s an elusive and mysterious song/poem about love, memory, loss – all that is holy. I went online to try and put the lyrics into one complete and cogent paragraph. I failed. For me it is the wedding of the haunting melody with the words; it is the marriage of the lyrics with the melody to my own memories.

This all came home to me yesterday when I learned that my friend and colleague, Rabbi Fred Pomerantz died. I knew he was having health issues, but he wasn’t supposed to die. I don’t know whether he loved being a jazz musician first and a Rabbi second or there was no way to separate the two. He was a drummer and the beat of his life and career were intermingled with great joy and deep pain. This is not the place to eulogize him, but it is the place to remember the intersection of our lives from Cincinnati to Closter. It was filled with laughter and tears, it was complete with searching and finding, questions about how to live so that the days of our lives didn’t become material for a soap opera. He was creative, funny and unique all in the service of our people and our Judaism.

Judy Collins isn’t that much older than Freddy or me. She stood on that stage for over an hour and a half and amazed me with her stamina. Sure, she had cliff notes; sure, she turned to her musical director to ask him for details she temporarily forgot; sure her voice has changed. But that’s life – it is all about change – nothing remains the same – and nothing can be taken for given or granted. And it was refreshing to be with her as she proudly celebrated who she was at this stage of living.

Between Judy and Fred it reminded me that no matter how old or how young, our challenge is to make a sacred noise, to sound the bells, to beat the drums, to hear the music of Divinity or the Universe pulsing through our cells. The challenge is to love it all; appreciate the moment; grow the good; minimize the bad; celebrate the remembered and forgotten. Be all you can be even when it isn’t all you were.

Right Freddy?

*From “Priests” by Leonard Cohen

Israel Diaries 8

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At the Mount of Olives

Waze was having a tough time finding a better route to the airport. There was a demonstration on the road. Every Saturday night, as Shabbat ends, they begin to gather. Drums, signs, flags, young, old: Make a Deal Now; Bring Them Home Now. All the vehicles were being channeled into one lane as the demonstrators made their way to the residence of the Prime Minister. We were eventually returned to our hotel and sent to the airport through East Jerusalem. No worries (except we did) and we got to the airport on time. Of course the VAT office on the main floor was closed but it seems there is always some reason you can’t get your Value Addeed Tax refunded. I hope my donation goes to a good cause.

But back to the demonstration. This what I love about Israelis. There is a concept of civic engagement and a belief that your voice is important. You can make a difference no matter how much the cards are stacked against you through a convoluted and probably outdated political system. They are not alone -we have our own peculaarities in our democracy: think Electoral College and the lunacy that winning the majority vote doesn’t guarantee one the Presidency.

We came in hard times. Don’t think we didn’t think twice about postponing. There were plenty of reasons to do so including United Airlines cancelling all our flights two days before we were supposed to leave. But we couldn’t have come at a more important moment. Time after time people thanked us for being there. They need to feel and see our support. I am not talking politics when I say “support”. I mean Jew to Jew – people to people – you are not alone.

So I am going to leave you with that enigmatic picture above. According to Google the letters are in Mandarin Chinese and mean “Jesus Is”. They are Christian pilgrims following the footsteps of Jesus. A few moments later, they took out their shofars blowing long and loud blasts with an admirable amount of expertise. Some lay on the ground; several had visible tears. It was surreal and also reassuring.

Just like our visit. It was a hard time, a strange time, an important time, a sad time. Leaving Israel with lots of questions and a fear for the future but with love and hope and most of all the blessing of having been together three generations – what a gift.

Hello Again

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We were in New York a few weeks ago.  Saw two shows and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art squeezing into two exhibits: Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty and Van Gogh’s Cypresses. The exhibits and the shows were radically different: Parade – about the Leo Frank lynching somewhere outside of Atlanta in 1915 and A Beautiful Noise – the story and music of Neil Diamond from Sweet Caroline to Coming to America. We can talk about Parade in a different post.

Eileen and I were captured by A Beautiful Noise; loved the music; you could sing it; loved the glitter and the sequins; felt so good, so good, so good. Things I did not know: unlike many contemporary actors and performers, Neil Diamond never changed his name. He was born Neil Diamond and still is. He didn’t pick up the guitar till he was 16. Many of his songs are deeply personal mirroring different stages of his life. And so much of it is about acceptance and loneliness. I hear his music differently now: self-reflective and even soul searching. You got to get past the façade of bright lights and shiny costumes. Just like when you love someone you love not only their persona but also the person they are within, with all the beauty marks and all the flaws, with all the strengths and weaknesses. You see, I am not a music critic, and I am not a psychoanalyst. “I am I said, to no one there and no one heard at all, not even the chair…” We all want to be heard, noticed, felt that this one life we have is impactful.

Some of us sing; some of us tell stories; some of us write; some of us nurture; some of us teach; some of us provide; some of us heal; some of us listen, some of us create; some of us grow things; some of us paint. And some of us struggle and can’t find the road back. It might be ridiculous or ludicrous to pair the two but the Van Gogh exhibit at the Met wants “in” to these words. The image at the top of this is Van Gogh’s “Country Road in Provence by Night”. He was obsessed with these cypress trees. He calls them “flame like” and even writes, “no one has yet done them as I see them.” Maybe it’s the loneliness theme. I often wondered do you have to be lonely or besieged to be creative. Is suffering the secret ingredient in the paint on the palate?

The painting isn’t as famous or as intense as Starry Nights, but it speaks to me about the life we have been given and the road we all are invited to take – one that winds through and by the trees. There are probably many paths, and they change as we grow, age, mature, become. The challenge is to recognize it, stay on it, celebrate it, affirm it, walk it with as much joy as we can muster no matter what God/Life/Chance/Luck bring us. Van Gogh died of suicide. Neal Diamond has Parkinson’s. What do we really know?

God Strings

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I was going to call this Two Weddings and a Funeral but it turns out that it is a South Korean Romcom about a gay man and a lesbian woman who marry to protect their secret lives in a society filled with taboos and judgement. I actually had my numbers wrong. I was thinking of “Four Weddings and a Funeral” the British comedy with Andy McDowell and Hugh Grant. The plot is predictable, the ending happy and the stars ever so young.

All of this is in my head because our summer is its own movie: two weddings, three graduations and one memorial celebration of life. All of them involve a plane or two and are forcing us to make both physical and digital folders for all the arrangements. Not complaining here at all. The first graduation (Jacob, your turn for a shout out) has just ended. And I was so aware as I watched the ceremonies all over the Duke campus, how blessed we are, living the Shehecheeyanu moment. (For those readers who are Hebrew challenged and find the word hard enough to read and almost impossible to pronounce: it translates ‘who has kept us alive’.)

We take that blessing so lightly. Maybe it’s the belief structure around it, praising/blessing God for being so personally interested in us, watching over us, preserving us, and allowing us to reach this moment. Maybe it’s the familiarity or the frequency. Jewish tradition invites us to say the blessing on so many occasions from a New Year to the first night of any holiday to new life events. For me I think it’s the theology: Does God need our blessings? Or do I need to bless. Meaning: I need to recognize the specialness, sanctity, uniqueness of the moment. Does God need our praise or do I need to stop and mark with gratitude and humility how lucky (read ‘blessed’) I am to be alive, aware, and sentient at this time.

I came back from the weekend and the next morning took a Yoga class. At the end of Savasana (the final resting pose in many Yoga classes), the instructor read a teaching about God and Oneness. It taught how many of us tend to think of God in dualistic terms. That there is God and there is us. God is up there or out there, and we are down here, separate from each other. But all that is illusion. There is only oneness. There is only “existence” and as we live in God so God lives in us. We are connected to each other, to the world, to the cosmos both inside and out. We may perceive moments and events as separate, but they flow into each other and out of each other as the waters in a bubbling stream.

All of this is my way of saying Shehecheeyanu again. Not just for the life events of this summer but for every moment. Our being is a gift. Life is a gift and gratitude is the foundational posture upon which a life of meaning stands. So, thank-you to our 3 graduates: Corey, Maya and Jacob. You remind me how sacred life can be. You remind me we are connected in ways astounding and holy. I think I will call them God Strings.

God Laughs

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According to the Yiddish proverb, this is what happens when you plan. God laughs.

It is Sunday morning. Dani and Corey get married tonight. Eileen and I flew up to NY on Wednesday to be here for Sammy’s graduation on Thursday and the graduation party on Saturday. And this is all one week after we missed going to LA for Tali’s USC graduation the week before which we watched streamed because of a Covid scare.

So many blessings and celebrations. So many new clothes to buy. The suit for tonight was the hardest; the white shirt was a close second.  That’s because I don’t fit into an athletic fit (duh) and am too thin across the shoulders for what used to be called a “regular” and too thick around the middle for most “slims” and besides they only work if they have a 35-sleeve length not 34/35. (You didn’t know it was so complicated or all this about my body.)

Of course, I left the white shirt home.

Which is one of the lessons of the day. What made me think people would be looking at me? (Well to be a little bit fair, I was officiating.) The bride and groom were stunningly beautiful and handsome. So happy and so comfortable in the controlled mayhem that accompanied pictures, the venue, the logistics, the wedding planner’s timeline – they handled it all with grace, laughter, and ease. It was amazing. The whole month has been filled with passages: two graduations, a wedding, and a confirmation. The whole month has been filled with God moments. The God I believe in doesn’t pull strings, manipulating human behavior as a master marionette. The God I believe in laughs as I plan. The God I believe in is the spirit of gratitude, appreciation. The God I believe in resides in the holiness of these passages. And every wrinkle and kink are reminders of my humanity – flawed but not sinful, imperfect but not guilty, but oh so capable of love and appreciation.

So, the shirt I found to wear was not a perfect background for my tie. But it wasn’t about me. (You knew that from the beginning.). It is about transitions and tomorrow. It is about life’s journeys, time turning and the next generation. How “lucky” (read blessed) to be alive in this moment. It doesn’t matter to me what my theology of the day is (or the color of my shirt). It matters that I can feel how profound the moment. It is what I mean when I praise the Source of creation who has preserved me in life, kept me in health and brought me to this moment.

Do I hear an AMEN?

More

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Today is our 55th Anniversary. (I stopped at that word anniversary and wondered should it be capitalized or not. I decided it was a big enough deal that it deserved all the attention it could get.) We were married on Saturday night June 25th, 1966, in Teaneck, New Jersey. It was a big and lavish wedding. The kind that couldn’t begin till after sunset because the family Rabbi wouldn’t begin to travel from Queens to Teaneck till there were three stars in the sky. Dinner was served around 11:00 and you went home with the NY Times. We went to Bermuda on our honeymoon and began a life filled with lots and lots of love and lots and lots of laughter and lots and lots of challenges and lots and lots of compromise and lots and lots of blessings.

The secret to our marriage is simple. It is Eileen, known today as “GE”. She is first and foremost the one person in the world who really knows me. She is my best of besties. She knows what makes me laugh; what makes me cry; what I am proud of; what I am ashamed of; what I wish were different; what I wish will continue forever. She is a storyteller and a gift giver. She can tell you the story of how we met and what she said to me at the wedding of our friends’ when I asked her to dance. I still remember the black long dress with the white decolletage. She had ample cleavage to make it more than memorable. She gives gifts for every occasion to people I think we barely know. But try and buy her a gift!

Her greatest gift is her gift of love; a love that is laced with understanding and ‘negotiation’; a love that is littered with encouragement and wisdom; a love that makes me a better person and can’t be limited by words on a page. Has it been easy and without bumps? This is life I am talking about. This is being a clergy family I am reflecting on. She hates the word “Rebbitzen” but ask her to tell you the story that happened in the kitchen of the Temple’s Social Hall and let me tell you she has been the best Rabbinic spouse there could be because she defined her role as CEO – chief encouragement officer. And first in line to critique and first in line to keep me in line. And she lived her own professional life from teacher to Julia Child to mother to Holocaust Educator to teacher again and always.

Has it been perfect? Life is not a Hallmark Card. Has it been wonderful? It has been passionate; it has been crazy fun and crazy maddening. The arc of our love hasn’t been symmetrical, but it has soared, and it has filled and completed me in ways I never expected.  Yes! It’s been wonderful. And here is the best part; It has been together and it’s not over. The song we danced to at our wedding was “More”. To more and to whatever we have left: I love you.

ps – you will have to ask her the story of the Mustang