Looking forward to our trip ...

It's the last day of 2012, and we have barely 48 hours before we depart for Israel.  I had hoped for and planned for a six month sabbatical there, but those plans have been altered. Elana's sister, Reena, is ill, and so Elana may return to the States sooner.  So might I.  Everything is up in the air right now.

But one thing is (relatively) certain: we have tickets on a flight departing Newark for Israel on Wednesday afternoon, and we expect to be on it.  And we have a place to stay for the first six weeks: Dovid and Shayna Roskies' lovely apartment on Eli Cohen Street in Jerusalem.  We are looking forward to staying there once again.  Following our stay there, we'll travel around Israel for 10 days with the Temple Aliyah group, and then, if we'll be staying on, we'll move into an apartment on Rehov HaPalmach.

Below is a picture that I believe Leora took when we were last travelling in the Negev together, back in 2005: it's taken at Sde Boker, overlooking the Wilderness of Zin.  I look forward to going to that exact spot in about a month and a half, with the Temple Aliyah group.

Until then ...

"Oh, Really?"

“Oh, Really?”

A True Story

This is a story that I rarely tell today, even though it’s a true story.  The reason is that it comes from such a different world than our own post-9/11 world, with different assumptions about what is safe and prudent -- and what isn't.  So do me a favor:  don't pass it around.

Once upon a time -- it was, I think, in the summer of 1975 -- I was travelling to Israel via Europe.  I was just out of college.  I had been to London and Paris, and now I was in Switzerland, my last stop before flying to Tel Aviv.  I had flown into Zurich from Paris, dropped off a few suitcases in the “Gepäckaufbewahrung” – the Left Luggage Office (which, given today’s security concerns, probably doesn’t exist anymore), bought a two-day rail pass and travelled to Bern and other towns.  I finally ended up in the lovely town of Interlaken, where I took a cog railway car traveling at a very steep angle up to a high local peak.  After viewing the stunning panorama from atop, I headed to the railway station to get back to town, only to see the train depart five minutes early (by my watch -- but then again, whose watch would you trust, mine or that of a Swiss train conductor?).  Rather than wait an hour, I decided to hitch a ride down the mountain.  Almost immediately, someone picked me up and we headed down the mountain together.  After a little chit-chat, the driver asked me, "Where are you headed?"  I debated whether to tell him the truth.  I had encountered explicit anti-semitism, here and there, during the previous few weeks, and I wasn't so sure how comfortable it was going to be to continue to share a car with someone who was hostile to Jews or to Israel. And we weren't yet half-way down the mountain! But I decided to go for it.  

"Israel," I said.  

"Oh, really," he responded.  "Why are you going there?"  

He looked at me curiously.  I told him that I was going to be working on a kibbutz, and travelling around.  He looked at me with some suspicion, and then he exclaimed, "Mah Nishmah?"  It turned out that he was, of course, an Israeli -- a practicing veterinarian, of all things -- who was now living in Switzerland.  (What are the chances of that happening? Really?)  We kept switching back and forth between English and Hebrew, and within a few minutes, we had hit it off beautifully.  He told me that he had come to Switzerland to study to become a veterinarian.  Expecting to return immediately thereafter, instead he had met a woman who was to become his wife, and had ended up settling into a vet practice in town.  His wife, who was Swiss, was in Israel with their little boy on "hofesh" (holiday), studying Hebrew at an ulpan for a few weeks.  Although he and his wife, who'd been married for about eight years, enjoyed living in Switzerland, he still harbored dreams of returning to Israel.  Besides, his wife wanted to be able better to communicate with her in-laws -- and wanted to help her child do the same.

He offered to take me around the area after he finished up at work.  I readily agreed.  And so, after witnessing him putting one cat to sleep and performing a hysterectomy on another (at least that's what he told me he was doing; oy), we took off in his car and had a fabulous afternoon and evening.   He even offered to let me stay at his place rather than return to the youth hostel where I had reserved a room. After all, my train back to Zurich was due to leave at 5:00 am, and I'd save time by staying at his place.  (I knew now to set my watch ahead by a few minutes.)  

Before I packed my belongings, he asked me to do him a favor: His wife was staying with some old friends of his in Jerusalem, and their dog was sick.  Could I take some dog medicine back with me to Israel and give it to them?  Sure, I said.  No sweat.  And so I packed it into my suitcase, and went to sleep.

The next morning, I got up bright and early, walked to the train station, and within a very short time -- it was an express train -- I was at the Zurich airport.  I picked up my bags and proceeded to the boarding area.    

Now, you have to realize that this was a long time ago, long before that awful case of the Palestinian terrorist who packed the suitcase of his unsuspecting Irish girlfriend with explosives to explode on board the plane (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindawi_affair).  Nonetheless, this was a few years after the Lod airport massacre (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod_Airport_massacre) and other similarly bloody attacks.  So there were armed policemen monitoring the area where the El Al passengers were gathering, and, needless to say, there were plenty of security people inspecting our baggage. 

So there I was: a young, innocent student traveling alone with a couple of heavy suitcases (which the inspector, of course, asked me to open).  After rummaging around for a few moments, the inspector came across a plastic Ziploc bag containing the packages of pills that my congenial host had given to me.  One of the packages was open, and a few of the pills spilled out as he held it up.  The dialogue that ensued I will never forget:

"What's this?" he asked.

"Medicine," I responded.

"What kind of medicine?" he asked.

"Dog medicine," I said.

"Oh really," he asked.  "Do you have a dog?"

"No," I said.

"So then why do you have it?"

"Actually," I said, -- and by this time, I could see something out of the corner of my eye -- "a friend of mine gave it to me yesterday.  Um, it's medicine for his friend's dog in Israel." 

"Really," he said.  "Tell me more."

By this time, I sensed rather than saw that I was now surrounded.

Without raising his voice, and with his eyes still on me, the inspector calmly called out to his buddies, "Yossi, Hayyim, Moti: could you kindly take a more careful look at this passenger's bag?"  

I realized that if breathed a little more deeply, I'd bump into Yossi and Hayyim, two unsmiling, stocky, sturdy and athletic young men who were now on either side of me, as Moti -- who was apparently standing behind me, and was equally strong -- began to frisk me.

“Please spread your legs, sir.”

"Actually," I said, "this is really easy to understand.  You see, I met someone yesterday, a veterinarian, an Israeli veterinarian ..."

"Really," the inspector said.  (I could tell that he was beginning to like that word.)  "How did you meet him?"

"Well," I said, "I was hitchhiking."  

Need I continue?  

The more I talked, the calmer and quieter everyone around me became, even as I became more and more flustered.  My awareness of the absurdity of what I had done was interfering with my ability to express myself.  Nothing I said made sense.  Everything I said sounded ridiculous:  to me, as well as to my interlocutors.  On the other hand, they were hardly listening to me.  They were focusing their attention on my belongings rather than on me.  My story was so ridiculous that after thoroughly searching my luggage, the security agents, finally convinced that I was  innocent of nothing more egregious than stupidity, began to drift away. By now, they were thoroughly bored.

The story has a happy ending:  the next day, I went to the ulpan in Jerusalem which my new friend's wife was attending (yes, she really did exist and she really was a student there) and I carried out the "handoff" of the medicine.  And yes, although I never had a visual siting of the dog on behalf of whom I had brought medicine into the country, I am convinced that he did exist, and that the pills that I brought into the country really were dog medicine tablets.  A few days later, I learned that the dog had made a wonderful recovery.

That's my story.  Perhaps you'll understand why I myself no longer take medicine from other people to Israel -- whether for dogs or for people. 

Three Books in Four Days

"Three Books in Four Days"? That makes it sound more impressive than it was. Actually, it wasn't impressive at all.


Last weekend, Elana and I were able to get away to the Berkshires for a few days of R & R.


Upon my return, someone asked me, "Why do you go? Do you ski?" The correct answer is that, although I can ski, and sometimes do, that's not why we go to the Berkshires. For us, it allows us the opportunity to sit down and read.



This time, I completed three books that I had begun. Without the solitude, without the isolation, I don't believe I would have finished them.


The first was an Israeli novel by A. B. Yehoshua, called, Friendly Fire. Elana had read it and told me that I had to finish it so that I could explain the ending to her. And so I pushed myself and read several hundred pages in two days. I finished the book -- but I don't think I understand the ending any better than Elana. Ethan Bronner, our friend (who grew up across the street from Elana in Louisville, KY), wrote a fine review of the novel for the New York Times, in which he pointed out its flaws. Nonetheless, it felt good to read an Israeli novel. Yehoshua captures that "Israeliness" that is so nice to be reminded of.


The second book was a spy thriller by Daniel Silva, called The Kill Artist. Jan had recommended it the other day. We were talking about the recent assassination of the Hamas operative in Dubai, and the clumsy way that surveilance cameras picked up all of the assailants during their stay in Dubai. It was amazing to read a work of fiction that seemed to anticipate these concerns.


The third book was the best of all. It is Eating Animals, by Jonathan Foaer Safran. It is quite an eloquent, beautiful book, an ethical treatise.


Donna Cover had nudged me to read it -- after Leora had recommended it.


All my life I've waffled with vegetarianism. Even when Jeremy, in his singlemindedness, refrained from eating fish as well as meat, I waffled. After this book, I'm not sure I can waffle anymore.

As I was leaving our local library this afternoon, I saw a copy of a free newspaper put out by an organization that promotes the study of Kabbalah. As is well known, Kabbalah has become very popularized in our society. I thought that it might be interesting to take a look at this newspaper and see what it does to promote Kabbalah's appeal.

Before I had the chance to do that, I saw something that immediately distanced me from the entire enterprise. Just about the first thing I saw in the newspaper was a sentence on the front page: "The men who wrote the Zohar were a group of ten great Kabbalists led by the famous Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (RASHBI)."

What fascinates me -- and depresses me -- about this sentence and its prominent place in this magazine is that it is so blatantly false. Scholars don't know everything about the creation of the Zohar, but one thing that they know for certain is that it wasn't written by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. Yes, the Zohar is attributed to him. Yes, the text purports to be a collection of tales and commentaries written by RASHBI and his colleagues and disciples. But the work was written in medieval Spain. RASHBI -- if he existed -- was a Talmudic sage who died a millenium earlier. (For a good introduction to the Zohar, consult A Guide to the Zohar (2004) by Arthur Green, published by Stanford University Press.)

Now, someone might ask: Does it really matter? Does it matter who wrote the Zohar? After all, people turn to Kabbalah because they are drawn to mysticism. They are drawn to Kabbalah because they are seeking answers to personal issues and quandaries. It's probably irrelevant to them that the Zohar was written in the Middle Ages and not in Late Antiquity. If it doesn't matter to them, should it matter to anyone? Does it matter at all?

I believe that it does. To me, truth is actually important. I say "actually," because you would think that any religious leader would care about truth. But many religious leaders, though they care about religious truth -- that is, truth with a capital "T," -- they don't care about historical truth. Historical truth is just not relevant to them. And so, if "the tradition" teaches us that the Zohar was written in the 3rd century by RASHBI, that's what happened, and we have no need to question it. The authors of this article are probably saying to themselves, "We 'know' who wrote the Zohar. We don't want to hear about, we don't want to know about, any research that would question that 'fact.' Indeed, questioning that fact may be religiously offensive."

I have a problem with that. To me, Judaism has always been inspiring. It's always been a source of comfort, a source of inspiration. But truth matters to me. It matters a lot. I could never teach people what I know to be false, any more than I could teach them to do what I know to be wrong. And truth matters to me not because of who I am, but because of what Judaism teaches. In our tradition, the word "emet," (truth), is "the seal of God." God desires truth. That which is untruthful is not consistent with our understanding of God's will. To spread falsehood is hardly a praiseworthy religious act.

And so, this little sentence in this newspaper discredits the entire newspaper -- from my perspective. It renders everything that its publisher produces suspect. The people who produce this newspaper don't seem to care about historical truth in the way that I do -- how then can I learn religious lessons from them?

And so, before writing this blog, I tossed that newspaper into the trashcan. However interesting those articles might be, however much I wanted to enjoy that newspaper, I knew it was going to leave me disappointed and discouraged.

The other day, a member of my congregation who works at a local funeral home asked me to review a prayer to be recited upon lighting a seven-day shiva candle. I found the prayer to be cold and stiff. When I told my congregant that, she asked if I might be able to write one myself. I willingly agreed.


One of my earliest memories is seeing a shiva candle burning in my family's living room. At the time we lived in a row home in Philadelphia. Unlike the candle pictured above, the candle I recall was contained within a red-colored glass sheath. At night, it cast a beautiful reddish glow through the room.

The candle was there because we were sitting shiva -- though I didn't know it at the time. I don't recall hearing the word "shiva" mentioned. Whenever I see a shiva candle burning in a home, I think of that first one that I saw. It's not an unpleasant sensation. Somehow, even though that candle was burning in a home that had suffered a serious loss, remembering that candle brings back feelings of warmth and security.

My mother died at the age of 39. I was five years old at the time, so I don't have too many memories of her. I do remember that, just before the funeral, my sisters and I were allowed to see her. She was dressed in a beautiful blue dress. I remember that we had been involved in choosing that dress. At some point between my mother's death and the funeral, my Aunt Eva (my mother's sister) had come over to our house to choose the outfit in which my mother would be buried. My aunt showed that blue dress to the three of us, and I recall all of us nodding our heads in agreement.

In the coffin, my mother looked lovely. We were alone. Since children weren't permitted to attend funerals in those days, this was our last chance to see my mother and "say goodbye." I was curious and couldn't stop myself. I reached out to touch her wrist. It looked normal, but it felt cold. Before we left the room, my father bent down to kiss my mother on her forehead.

I recall that sometime afterwards, someone -- it might have been my Aunt Eva -- asked me, "Weren't the flowers lovely?"

"What flowers?" I said. And this elicited startled, amused reactions: "You mean you didn't notice the flowers?" "Can you believe it, he didn't notice the flowers!"

The memory I have of that shiva candle must have been from later that day or one of the days thereafter. The house was a grieving household, and yet I can recall feeling calm as I looked at that candle.

The symbolism of a shiva candle is, indeed, powerful. It's a reminder of the ability of a human soul to illuminate someone's life -- even after death. That was certainly true in the case of my mother, and it is true whenever a loving, caring person, a person who forms strong connections with other human beings, dies.

My hope is that I will be able to write a prayer that can bring to the surface mourners' appreciation for their loved ones, and rally their hope for the future, so that when they light the shiva candle, they will feel the way I did, way back when I first saw such a candle burning in my family's living room.

Earlier today, I heard a speech on the radio that disturbed me.

It happens to be a speech by a national political figure, so I hesitate to speak or write about it, because I don't in any way wish to say anything about the speaker's political views. But because the comment isn't so much about political views as it is an expression of an attitude regarding intelligence and its role in leadership, I feel compelled to respond. The speech included the following sentence:

“We need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at a lectern.”

It occurs to me that a statement of this kind was probably uttered many times during the presidential campaign of a genuine war hero who ran against an intellectual senator from Illinois who was known as an intellectual . I'm referring to the Dwight D. Eisenhower's successful campaign against Adlai Stevenson.

It makes me want to go back to Richard Hofstadter's book, "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life." I don't believe I ever read that book in full. -- I only skimmed it. Now, I want to read it from cover to cover.

It's now Wednesday evening, June 24th. We leave on Sunday evening, June 28th. Between now and then, I have to pack, prepare the teaching materrials I will be presenting on the trip, etc., etc., etc. My main concern right now is that the dental issue that I've been contending with doesn't "blow up" (in the words of my endodontist) either before or after my trip!!!

A Postscript:  It certainly did blow up!!!