Just plain old Life

Israel Diaries 2

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Israel Diary 2

 

Under Their Vines

It is early in the morning (like I mean middle of the night), and I thought that by sleeping till 6:30 AM yesterday I had conquered the jet lag. Hubris. I actually played a game with myself when I woke a bit ago; I guessed what time it was without looking at the clock and I agreed to be satisfied if it was past 4:00. I lost.

The rest of our crew arrived yesterday at various times. They spent the morning sleeping and we went to visit an old friend who used to live in Nahariya and is now in a “Mishan” (Assisted Living Residence) in Ramat Aviv, just outside of Tel Aviv. She Is a textile artist and specialized in Judaica. We discovered each other when we were searching for someone to create a wall hanging in memory of Eileen’s mother, Beatrice. When we shared with Adina Bea’s life and her values and told her that Bea’s Hebrew name was Brachah (Blessing), she proposed to create a piece that incorporated the prayer for peace that includes as part of the text her Hebrew name. The prayer’s text is surrounded by vine and fig leaves as in “And everyone shall dwell under their own vine and fig tree, and none shall make them afraid.” (Micah 4:4). It hangs on the north wall of Temple Israel’s sanctuary.

The weather is beautiful in Tel Aviv. So we sat outside on her patio only big enough for two chairs and a table – but there was room for a small garden between the privacy wall and the patio. There was a vine growing. It looked like zucchini to me but Adina who had only lived there for 3 months thought it might be watermelon. We agreed we would just have to wait and see.

And that is somewhat the mood among so many of the Israelis we have met. It is a wait and see but live your life praying for peace and unafraid, at least on the outside. The beaches of Tel Aviv are full of young people playing soccer and soccer volleyball, running, surfing, enjoying life. The restaurants are full even if the hotels are not. This may be an observation that is skewered by my living in Palm Beach County but I have seen more pregnant women in our two days here than I see in a month in WPB. And there seems to me to be pride in their swelling bellies almost a statement about the future.

Tomorrow we meet our tour guide and head start our “tour”. We will be in Jaffa; we will be examining the grafiti wall art that has been created since October 7; we will be in Hostage Square meeting with families; we will welcome Shabbat there and pray again for a better future.

Let’s see if I can go back to sleep.

A Prayer in Prose

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It is almost Thanksgiving. And over this weekend, our immediate family (minus the two on their Honeymoon) will all be together; we will have turkey and my mother’s Ritz cracker stuffing on Thursday and some alternative to turkey for Shabbat dinner on Friday. We will light am extra set of candles for the hostages that remain in darkness and fear. My head is hoping, praying that by some miracle more than 50 will come home; my heart is just broken when I allow the reality of this madness to settle in.

And it is almost Thanksgiving. I almost feel guilty; there are so many blessings that surround me. I have so much I am grateful for. They are the usual: family, friends, bounty, freedom; safety and security; home and hearth; our fractured, imperfect but better than most country, and even a new car. Not everyone has this all; not everyone in our own United States, not everyone for sure in Israel or Gaza. And none of this should be taken for granted.

And it is almost Thanksgiving. When I was in elementary school it was all about the Pilgrims and the Indians. It was about corn and cornucopias and friendship between the Native Americans and the survivors of the Mayflower. We called them Puritans as if they were pure and innocent. It didn’t even dawn on us that the new land they were settling belonged to someone else. But myths are powerful and the story even if flawed contains enduring truth. Like gratitude.

And it is almost Thanksgiving or is it Black Friday. But of course, given our amazing capitalistic system, Black Friday is now a week, a month. And we continue to live, to buy, to celebrate, to count down or up to the “Holidays” and gift giving. I know the gift I would like to give – the gift of sanity to a world gone insane; the gift of wholeness to a world fractured by hatred and war. A friend of mine who is a child of survivors remembers his mother who survived one of the concentration camps saying: “There is real evil in this world. Make no mistake. And it must be confronted and contained.” There is and we saw it on October 7th. There is and we cannot let evil win. We cannot take goodness for granted. And we can’t allow ourselves to become callous to the pain and suffering of all who are hostage to the horrors Hamas unleashed.

But is it almost Thanksgiving. And I am so grateful for all my blessings and with a heavy heart I say: Amen.

A Superficial Confession

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It is Yom Kippur morning, and some people probably are thinking what is he doing using the computer. But what do you do in between waking up and heading to Synagogue since if fasting there is no coffee to make and no cereal to pour. I reread my Yizkor Drash (that means short sermon) and decided that even if it needed more editing, it was done.  I tried to sleep late but that didn’t work – it never does for me; if I sleep past seven, I must be sick.

And so, I’m thinking about my sins. Don’t worry I am not confessing them to you. (at least not in lurid detail.) What a loaded word, “sin”. Like there is a universal standard; I am more inclined to a sliding scale. In the Yom Kippur liturgy, there is a prayer that lists our sins alphabetically. In that spirit I am going to concentrate only on the “Ses” – is that how you pluralize the letter “S”?

Some of you know me well and won’t be surprised by this litany. You can probably add a few more – feel free – in the spirit of this day, I can take it – I know I don’t know all my shortcomings and maybe that is its own blessing or sin. I am starting with stubborn.

It is hard for me to admit I am wrong, and it is hard for me to ask for advice (or directions). Although and I was going to save this admission for the end the ageing process is making that easier. (Ageing process — I really mean getting older or if I am really confessing here: I really mean getting old. Period.) And I think that everything I cook is delicious and I think that all the words I write are profound and I have a hard time telling Eileen she is right which is probably my biggest mistake on many levels.

I’m also selfish. It’s a silent kind of selfish. I would give my kids and grandchildren anything in my power they asked for (almost). But I am nowhere near as selfless as Eileen who is one of the best gift givers almost to a fault. There’s another sin: Judging her by my artificial standard. But back to selfish. In my retirement I am beginning to like that word – it is ok to think of your own needs and wants as long as it isn’t exclusive to all others. I’m back to sin on a sliding scale.

But enough: It is time to get ready for Judaism’s communal confession – time to get ready for services and find in the ancient prayers contemporary words that will enter my heart. I’ll save the rest of my confessions for the prayer book.

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?

A Garden is a Place of Worship

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I am watching my garden grow. It takes a lot of patience. It also takes a lot of care. It has taught me that I’m not so good at waiting; I’m also not so good at getting down on my knees and weeding. I’m pretty good at watering and fertilizing but don’t ask me how many little pellets per square foot – for me it is a good deal of intuition and faith – well really – hope. All the professionals tell me that this year has been tough. The winter had a hard freeze when the temperature hovered around zero and the hydrangeas rebelled. So, it is a slow return to summer’s glory.

I expected a rainbow of colors by now. What I got so far are these yellow Yarrows. (Although to be fair the purple Irises have been both faithful and reliable, but they are unhappily very short lived and I saw a few buds on some blue geraniums.) It is quite a spiritual exercise, this waiting and watering, watching and worrying, weeding and wishing.

I never heard of Marc Hamer till I read a piece in the NYT.  In his latest memoir: “Spring Rain: A Life Lived in Gardens, he writes, “a garden is always a place of worship even if it’s a really crappy one.” If I can extrapolate from his words: Worship is believing that there is a power (or Power) in the universe that promotes growth. Some people believe that power listens to prayer. Some people believe that power invites us to find the oneness that unites the flower and the seed. In Hamer’s reflections, “kneeling in the garden is like bowing to the world that made me.” It is acknowledging – there is a place for us. It is hands and heart united in gratitude.

I believe in my garden, but I have a fair amount of garden jealousy. I pass neatly coiffed landscapes with defined beds and barely a weed to be seen. That’s not mine. At least not yet. But it won’t be that way forever. Eileen just bought me a new weeder that hopefully makes the process palatable. It’s Wirecutter’s favorite and called a Woodcraft Weeding Hoe. (Father’s Day you know and who wears a tie these days anyway.) I tried it out this morning. Here’s the challenge – is that a weed or wildflower?  And what do you do with the mulch you have now dug up.

Never mind, it is good therapy. If I can keep the red ants and chiggers away from me, it is a healthy form of meditation. Never mind, I love how it is never static, always changing, always becoming. I love how the dirt under my fingernails (no matter how thick the gloves) is a prayer to creation and all that is yet to be.

“SO”

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I so did not want to begin this long overdue blog with “so”. But here goes.

So, what is motivating me? Why after almost a year have, I decided to go back to this blog? One reason: I got billed by WordPress.com for my annual subscription and the cost of the domain name: rabbiunplugged.com. So, (here’s that conjunction again) I said: either turn off “auto-pay” or get back in the groove and resume blogging. The other: I see this as a legacy piece – and when the years ahead of you are predictably shorter than longer, you get to think about these things – at least you do when you’re in my business. And I can’t but not admit that when you tell me that you miss my thoughts or ask me did I unsubscribe you, I can’t help (let’s be honest) but be flattered.

So, another beginning. Isn’t that the truth – there is always another beginning. It is almost my personal definition of faith. Every morning brings me another opportunity to both bless the moment and be a blessing. (I know a lot of you like the political commentary better than the religious/spiritual stuff – but hey: it’s me – rabbi unplugged writing.) Faith is knowing you have choices. Sometimes they are bright and colorful, and the pale pink of dawn gives way to a bottomless blue sky. Sometimes the choices are different shades of gray leaning away from the light. Sometimes we like the choices the moment presents; sometimes not. But here’s the thing: faith is knowing you have the power to choose how you will respond even if you do not appreciate the choices.

Like my knees. They have recently decided to tell me that they are tired – not so tired that they want “out” – not yet. But fatigued enough that they want help. So, I succumbed and got gel injections. They told me it would take about a week to begin to work and ease the pain of walking up stairs and doing squats/lunges/getting out of chairs, hiking and should last about 6 months. Although friends who are “gel junkies” report that they last 6 months cause that’s how often Medicare will pay, and the pain abates and returns, and this is no magic bullet.

But what is? Life, especially the getting older phase, is about managing your bodies’ changes. And that includes your mind and memory. And that includes your definition of good or well. It is somewhat relative. And that includes how you define your reason for being. Are you here to make yourself happy? Are you here to have as many toys as possible? Are you here to make your passage through this world a blessing? And how do you do that?

So, my knees say: it’s not by playing pickle ball. So, maybe in the next blog I’ll have a better answer. But “so” is a conjunction and it is good to be back in touch.

Musings

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I don’t know about you but every day that I get up in the morning and see the sun rising I know I am blessed. I don’t know about you but every day when I get up in the morning and get out of bed without pain in unexpected places, I feel lucky. I don’t know about you but anytime my nose runs or my throat tickles or I cough I fleetingly ask myself is this COVID. We live in unsettling times. There is almost no such thing as normal. We think we are in control of what will happen tomorrow or the day after and the airlines throw a curve ball, or the weather does a number, or the rapid test shows two lines, and you are screwed.

It’s not that I am in a bad place. Not at all. I am aware how amazing my life is and that I live in interesting times. Not that they are perfect. Not that they aren’t worrisome. Not that sometimes I feel like we are living on the edge of a precipice. And tomorrow is either free fall into an unknown abyss worthy of depiction in a movie about the apocalypse or we are on the border of a new epoch about to soar into horizons we can barely imagine. There are so many things I don’t know.

I don’t know what it felt like to live as a Jew branded with a yellow star or cone or hat in some European ghetto or Middle Eastern Mellah. I don’t know what it felt like to live as a serf on land that was not my own in a time when life was valued by what you could produce and not by who you were. (Although we are not so distant from the same kind of yardstick). I don’t know what it was like to live without antibiotics or modern medicine when a simple cut could end your life. Or maybe I do – maybe we all do. This pandemic has certainly humbled us and taught that the simple act of covering your face can keep you safer. And things we once took for granted like sitting in a theater or dancing the hora (I just came from a beautiful wedding) or dining inside a restaurant can’t be taken for granted. Neither can attending a 4th of July parade.

I don’t even know what there is to say about all these guns. I don’t know why anyone needs semi-automatic weapons. There are no dinosaurs roaming our streets. There are no lions lurking in the tall grasses. There are no marauding masses breaking down the barricades. Most of us live in relative safety. Why the guns, the guns, the guns? The politically correct thing is to applaud the “bipartisan” gun bill just passed. But this is what I know. It is not enough. Not enough. Not enough. And I feel powerless to make effective change. I know: VOTE. I know: SPEAK OUT. I know: GIVE MONEY/TIME. But in the words of the prophet called Pete: “When will they every learn; when will they ever learn?” I don’t know about you but the fireworks didn’t do it for me the other night.

from the bottom up

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I feel so stupid starting off with a couple of stalks of flowers, when children are being killed in classrooms; the newest television series is produced by the January 6th committee; the rights of women to control their bodies seems to be eroding; there is a war in Europe and Ukrainians are dying for our freedom; and every day the cost of everything seems to be rising. I bought two ice cream cones yesterday at over $5.00 each. (Granted they were waffle cones, but they were classified as smalls.) And there is nothing complete about this list.

There is so much happening in our world it is hard to focus on the simple things that remind us that we are not the only living things that inhabit this orb that is steadily hurling through space in a predictable arc. I am looking at the last flowers of the Hollyhocks proudly blooming. They seem to bloom from the bottom up which by the way takes me right back to the politics of this fragile democracy we call America. It too blossoms and flourishes from the bottom up. My reading of American history is that the framers of our political system wanted our representatives to be responsive to us. They are not landed gentry; they are not noble men and women who are entitled to power based on their class. They are us and are supposed to be listening to us. When they don’t, America is precariously close to being broken.

I remember the wild hollyhocks from my youth when they would grow alongside the grey cement walls of the apartment building in Dorchester or maybe even the one we lived in before that in Roxbury. It’s a long time ago and almost the length of the Atlantic seashore away. I doubt if anyone planted them. In the world I remember no one had time to plant flowers. If you planted anything it was vegetables – most likely tomatoes – or am I confusing my Jewish upbringing with an idealized version of our Italian neighbors. And is all of this memory pieced together from the movies and stereotypes?

I didn’t plant these hollyhocks where they are growing now. When I bought them at a local nursery, they told me they would blossom every other year. So, I placed them near the house where I would remember to watch over them and patiently wait. But they had a mind of their own and somehow, they wound up happily flourishing near the tree halfway down the hill. I guess the world has a mind of its own; we probably should listen to it more often.

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?

Lessons from the Paint Can

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White Dripping Paint On White Surface Free Stock Photo and Image

We watched Survivor last weekend on HBO MAX. We chose it as one of the ways we would observe Yom HaShoah. I was surprised how graphic some of the concentration camp scenes were and how bloody the boxing matches. It is the story of Harry Haft who survived Auschwitz by boxing for his captors and after the war lives in New York searching for his pre-war girlfriend. Near the end of the movie, one of the characters sings “God Bless America” in Yiddish. I found that moment especially touching. Maybe it was its inherent softness winding down this tough and sometimes brutal film. Maybe I was just manipulated by the story line and the film editor or director.

Or maybe it made me think how lucky we are to have been born in this land filled with so many blessings and so many challenges. My grandparents who left their home and left their past must have been desperate to risk so much to find a better life. I think there could be a film made of all our ancestors who began the long walk from dusty villages and oppressive cities to these shores that promised freedom. I think we underestimate their courage.

I only remember my father’s parents. My mother was an orphan by the age of 12. She was raised by her older sister, Aunt Molly whose husband was a house painter. He sat on my shoulder this afternoon as I painted squares of different colors of white on the walls in our apartment so we could decide which shade of white to paint. Here’s an easy confession and an obvious statement. I am a messy painter – I know there’s a way to keep the paint on the walls and off my hands, floor, and clothes, but Uncle Harry isn’t here to teach me. Thank God for water soluble paint.,

And what is it that we are being taught these days? That you can paint over truth? That you can whitewash the sometimes harsh and sometimes unsettling realities of the past? That you don’t have to pay attention to the way things were and if you have the power, you can paint the present with the colors of your choosing? My grandparents didn’t come to a land where the streets were paved with gold. They come to a tough country where you had to claw your way to survival. All of ours did. They fought with all their beings to realize their dreams. So what if the paint drips. Clean it up and try again.

Things are getting dark and dirty here. I guess my lesson to myself is – can’t step back and disengage. I hear Rabbi Tarfon: It is not your obligation to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it. The fight for freedoms just got harder: time to get back into the ring. I am starting here:  https://www.plannedparenthood.org/

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

On Hold

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What do you do when you are on hold? You listen to horrible music interrupted by an announcement that informs you: “All specialists are assisting other customers. Please hold for the next available specialist.” At the beginning of this process I was informed that the average wait time is 50 minutes or more. Thanks Chase. At least Apple lets you choose the music you would like to listen to. (or none – even better.) Too bad Chase’s website doesn’t address my issue.

This is what I am doing on hold. I decided I needed some fortitude so I picked out a nice California Red.(Now this is going to sound like I know what I am talking about.) Nothing too fancy medium of body, not too acidic, but one that will hold up to this drivel I am listening to. You know what I like about the wine I am savoring? It has this beautiful almost pink color that compliments the dark red at the edge of the glass. I would take a picture of it, but I am afraid I will lose my place in line.

This is what I am doing on hold. I am resolving to go back to the poetry course with Billy Collins  I bought from Masterclass. I left off during our shut down and I am going to see if I can motivate myself to continue and maybe even complete it. In chapter three he teaches, “There is no chronology involved in poetry. You can go anywhere. You can fly.” I like that. It reminds me of what happens when I try to meditate. My mind is like a poem. It goes anywhere and everywhere and if I am successful slips away to a place deep inside.

This is what I am doing on hold. I am thinking about you and this unplugged blog. Of course, it really isn’t unplugged. It is connected in a hopefully important sense to the wires in my brain and being and to the question of purpose and meaning. I often ask myself: Who am I writing this blog for and why?  I always find it interesting that the more “political” I get the more comments I receive. So, I find myself torn between moments like this where we share a slice of life together and causes to which I am committed. But ultimately I’ve decided: this is all about the connections we forge with ourselves and each other. Isn’t everything?