It's Time for a Jewish Story, being the high holidays
By Fred Owens
I talked with my brother Tom, married to a Jew as it happens, and he paid for his daughter's Bat Mitzvah -- we all went bowling after the ceremony -- but my brother and I didn't talk about that.. We talked about taking a hike this afternoon. Where he lives the weather is cool enough for that. And he said it's another good day and the world is not coming to an end -- that seemed to be an oblique reference to the mad confrontation with North Korea. He didn't need to explain the comment, being my brother, we can speak in short hand.
I said the world is not coming to an end today because there are too many library books out there being past due.
He said, you're right, we need closure on a lot of things before the world can end.
So it won't end. And that means we get another year to party, hence the holiday.
Marc Zappa
Marc
Zappa was in my dreams last night. He was sitting in his front yard
rolling a joint. He invited me to partake..... such a good friend for so
many years. Eight years ago he and Kathy Woelke came with us to see the
Leonard Cohen concert in Seattle. My date was Patti Detzer. I rented a
room in Patti's farmhouse for two years, but I only went out with her
that one time..... such a story, speeding down I-5 in the dark of
evening, sitting in the back seat with Patti. Marc drove a black Saab.
Kathy told jokes and stories. The Leonard Cohen concert was
wonderful..... I haven't smoked pot in years. The stuff they grow now is
much too strong.
I
used to pick daffodils with Zappa. He used to offer me what I called a
ten dollar joint, meaning one toke would space me out and I would work
much slower and make less money, about ten dollars less .... Being paid
for piece work... Lots of Zappa stories ...
I
could also tell a few good stories about Patti Detzer, but she would
track me down and hurt me. She prefers to tell her own stories.
But we're getting closer to the Jewish story, so pull up a chair, get comfortable and give us a listen:
A Jewish Story
By Fred Owens
dedicated to the memory of Moshe Holcer, 1912-2004
You’re Not Even Jewish
or
How I came to Study Torah in the First Place
They asked me why. Why are you
learning Hebrew? Why are you going to Torah class at a synagogue? You’re not even Jewish.
But why is a dumb question. There is
only one important question – Is it a good thing?
If it’s a good thing, then why doesn’t
matter. If it’s a bad thing, then stop doing it.
I learned that ethical questions
matter most of all. That’s the heart of Jewish teaching.
It was the summer of 1992, I was
living on Blakeslee Street in West Cambridge and working as a landscaper. And I was totally miserable.
I had just broken up with Helen. Her
last words were, “Never call me again.” I was heartbroken, tormented, losing
sleep, drinking too much, phoning friends late at night -- I didn’t know what
to do.
But I had recently joined the Tikkun
group, and we met on Sunday mornings for discussion. I had new Jewish
friends -- Daniel Gewertz, a film
critic, Harvey Blume, a writer, Lois Isenman, a biologist, Diana Lobel, a PhD
student in Jewish Studies, Debbie Osnowitz, with porcelain skin and a brilliant
mind, Helene Benjamin, who had an
impressive collection of Teddy Bears in her Brookline apartment, Ted Pietras,
in real estate in Boston’s South End, and Marty Federman, who was director of
Hillel at Northeastern University.
Living in Boston was an ethnic
opportunity for me. There were Irish gangs, Italian neighborhoods, and Armenian
restaurants. I should have gone Irish, but that would have been too easy. Instead
I picked the hardest one – Jewish. I was going to learn it and figure it out.
Tikkun
is a Jewish spiritual/political magazine founded by Michael Lerner who coined
the phrase "politics of meaning." Hillary Clinton invited Lerner to
the White House shortly after Bill Clinton became President. Lerner seemed
likely to become a spiritual adviser for the Clintons -- possibly like Bill
Graham had been for previous Presidents. But Lerner's presence at the White
House caused a storm of controversy, and I still don't know why. He was a
little hippy-dippy and lefty-lefty, but not very extreme. His views were not
that unusual.
Anyway, in 1992, living in Cambridge,
and wandering around town looking for something to do, I happened to notice
that Michael Lerner was giving a talk at Temple Beth Shalom -- the famed
"Tremont Street shul" near Central Square...... Never having entered
a synagogue in my life, I dropped in that evening, I liked what I heard, and I
liked the people I met, so I joined the group. They never said you had to be
Jewish and I wasn't.
We met on Sunday mornings at people's
house and apartments, maybe 12-15 people each week, and we discussed topics
based on an article in Tikkun
magazine. It was very interesting. The people in the Tikkun group were impressively articulate -- I mean, this was
Boston. I never said much at the meetings, but listened in wide-eyed wonder and
they called me, behind my back but kindly, "the space-case from Seattle,”
because I was newly arrived from the West Coast.
That seemed apt. I was relatively
in-articulate compared to my new intellectual companions. I felt just as smart
and just as well read, but I have never had the ability to "hold
forth" at meetings like this.
So I went to the Tikkun meetings and listened. The talk was really cool. I liked the
rhythm of it. I wore clean clothes, but my shirt was always wrinkled -- I
didn’t have an iron. It’s not that people were dressed for the occasion, but I
felt conspicuous with my wrinkled shirt.
The meetings kept me from suffering –
remember, I was heartbroken, obsessively reviewing the very wrong things I said
to Helen – and she wouldn’t talk to me, not now, not ever. So the Tikkun meetings kept me from suffering
for three hours every other Sunday morning. That wasn’t enough, but it helped.
One day --I was not really looking for
a solution, but more or less on a dare -- I found the Judaica section at the
Cambridge Public Library. I picked out the books in Hebrew.
It was very bold of me to even look at
these Hebrew books. Loud booming voices were shouting from thunderous clouds,
“Thou Shall Not” – you don’t look at these books, you shall not pass, it’s not
for you – go back to being a landscaper, pick up your trowel, LEAVE THESE
LETTERS ALONE.
I heard the voices, but I didn’t care.
I was in too much pain. Kill me, so what!
I took the books home -- a Hebrew
grammar, a Hebrew-English dictionary and a text of the Torah in Hebrew and in
English – home to my furnished apartment on 42 Blakeslee Street in West
Cambridge. I opened the books on the kitchen table and began to learn the 22
letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
In a way, it was easy, 22 letters in
22 shapes representing 22 sounds. How hard is that?
I learned the letters in a day. By
late afternoon I was picking out words in the text. And I was drawing the
letters on a big sheet of paper. I really liked their shape and the way they
flowed.
It was love. It was infatuation. I was
so absorbed. Hours passed in delightful study, and I never thought of Helen. I
was almost happy. Relief! I could fill up my day.
Although it was a little weird because, like I
said, I’m not Jewish, and what if the Jewish cops find out and come over to my
apartment and pummel me with sticks.
Oh, the Jewish cops wouldn’t do that.
They don’t even care. Well, they do care. Of course, they want you to study the
text in a respectful manner, but otherwise you’re welcome to it.
Except they don’t say that. They don’t
say anything -- there are no Jewish cops.
But what about the booming voices from
the thunderous clouds? Well, yes, those are completely real. The voices of
divine spirits can put you in a world of hurt or shower you with blessings and
diamond lights.
The divine spirits are real. I found
out that night, after the day when I learned the 22 letters. I had the most
incredible dream. I dreamed of black letters in a sea of golden flames.
I never had such a dream in my life,
but that night I saw the letters in my dream, living, breathing and on fire.
The letters are alive! Shining black
in a sea of gold-red flames!
When I woke up the next morning, I was
astonished and full of wonder. And there was no one to tell. I wasn’t going to waste this vision in casual
talk. I never told anyone about this dream. There are some things you just
know, but if you talk you just waste it.
I kept this dream to myself. The
letters kept me warm, and I did not feel so lonely.
One Sunday at the Tikkun meeting, Diana Lobel was reading a Hebrew text, and I looked
over her shoulder and began saying the words aloud. She said, “You know Hebrew?”
I said, “I’ve been studying.” She asked “With who?” I said, “By myself.”
She said, “Come to my class. We meet
on Sunday night at 7 pm at Beth Shalom.”
I was going off the deep end, going to
Tikkun meetings and then Torah class,
and I was doing it because it filled my heart and mind in a good way. That was
the ethical teaching – it wasn’t wrong to do this. I got strong. I didn’t need to explain this,
or apologize, or ask permission. I loved to learn and there was no limit.
So I began learning with her group –
not such a big group, only three students, me, Bobby Vilinsky and a very
strange, very thin young woman who seemed to have wandered in off the street.
Someday I will write a book about
Bobby Vilinsky. We became great friends, and we often discussed his disastrous
experiences with women or his latest digestive issues. He was an artist of
great intensity and poverty.
Diana Lobel was a PhD student in
Jewish Studies at Harvard. She had the pale look of a scholar, but she had
bright, black curly hair. Diana had a way of seeming so unworldly, as if she
did nothing but study and pray -- but that was not true, she was very worldly
at the same time -- if she was paying attention. She often surprised me in that
way.
We spent several weeks on the first
verse, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” She said the
whole of the Torah was contained in the first verse – or she may have said
that, I’m not sure. But it sounds like something a Jewish scholar would say –
that the whole of the Torah, and all of
the Law, and a vivid description of all time and all creation are contained in
the first verse – so we studied it, from every angle, and believe me, there are
many angles -- more than you can
imagine. The depth was incredible.
In the fall of 1993, after I had been
in the Tikkun group for more than a
year, Lois Isenmen invited the group to her house in the suburbs for a Shabbat
dinner, the traditional Friday night meal.
I had been doing her yard work, so I
called her that week.
“Lois,
do you want me to come and rake the leaves?” I asked her and she agreed.
The
leaves fell from towering oaks in Lois her back yard. The yard sloped downward steeply
from her red brick home. I raked up all the leaves and determined to build her
a leaf-mulch pile down in the corner by the back fence. “If I drag all those
leaves up the hill, into the truck and then off to the landfill that would cost
too much money. What do you say if I make you a leaf pile and leave them here?”
Lois
was wary. I could see her struggling with the notion. Sure, she could save
money, but it would seem unfinished -- a pile of leaves left in the yard, when
leaves are supposed to go away, leaving the grass bare to freeze and go brown
in the winter. “Look,” I said, “I will make an attractive and tidy pile of
leaves, it will look organic……way down in the corner, by the fence.”
“All
right,” she said.
It was November in New England, and I was
“raking leaves for liberals” as I liked to put it. Making a few dollars,
enjoying the fresh air, working in Cambridge and neighboring towns, raking
leaves and resenting the affluence that surrounded me. “Why don’t they rake my
leaves? What am I, some country bumpkin, blew in from the sticks?” I would
mutter as I raked.
Lois
lived in Newton, a Boston suburb, in the home where she grew up. I knew Lois
from the Tikkun group. We shared our
tarnished ideals every other Sunday, and this week in November, instead of the
Sunday meeting, Lois invited us to a Shabbat dinner at her house on Friday
night.
She
was a biologist at Harvard at some institute – I can’t remember the name, but
she was a Fellow -- what a lovely title, I thought.
I
told her, “I work on a big scale, in the garden growing flowers, you work on a
small scale growing bacteria in a dish, but we’re in the same line of work when
you get down to it.”
Lois
didn’t buy that comparison. She liked me, but she was wary.
For
Shabbat dinner, in Lois’s dining room, it was formal, with a nice table cloth,
but very relaxed. We were seven of us, all friends, seemingly unpartnered.
Marty Federman was married, but even when we met at his house his wife did not
appear... Lois had a relationship with another scientist, but she did not share
any details.
So
we were all single, as far as the group was concerned. But this week we would
share a blessing and a meal together as a family.
We
were all in our forties, except Gladys Damon who was probably past seventy.
Every
Shabbat is special and it felt special that evening, as if our parents were
there, because we had grown up by now, being past forty, and become our own
parents, and because we struggled through a week of six days, fighting and
lying, trying to make a living, and it was time for some good food and good
company, no matter how the week had gone.
As
we gathered at the table, Marty Federman, the most rabbinical of our group,
deferred to Diana Lobel, the most devout. She said the blessing and lit the
candles, and we began to pass the chicken, the broccoli, the rice, and the
salad.
After
we had filled our plates Diana said, “I would like everyone to take a turn in
speech. Fred is the newest, if not the youngest member of the group, I would
like him to pose a question for the group and then have each one of you answer
from your heart.
I
was embarrassed at being singled out as “new.” But I spoke, “I have been raking
leaves all week. I am justified in my labor. See these hands – that’s how I
labored. So, my question is, who is Jew and how are you justified?”
I
turned to Marty Federman, well-fed, bearded, warm and deep, not a show-man or a
comic, even a little shy. “Marty, who is a Jew, and how is a Jew justified?” I
asked him.
“How
do I justify myself?” he said. “I have studied this week, and searched for the
one essential Yiddish word. If you only knew one word in Yiddish …. it would
be? ….”
He
made a long pause, you could see people wanting to guess – “Heymish…..Heymish, meaning homey and
homelike…. That’s all of Yiddish in one word,”
Everyone
nodded – home and family are the center of Jewish life.
“I
am the director of Hillel at Northeastern University,” he said. “Many of my
students are questioning their Jewish identity, so this is a good question for
me. I’m a Jew because my mother is a Jew. We all know that’s the law. But some
people say you’re a Jew if you do Jewish things. That’s a little broad for me,
but I like the idea. Tonight we are all Jews,” he said, looking at me directly.
“We are all Jews because we are gathered together on Shabbat for a meal and a
blessing and the good company.
“Being
Jewish means being part of a family argument that’s been going on for 3,000
years. We talk, we argue, we keep each other warm.
“And
how do I justify myself, you asked. I wish I could justify myself. But
why should I spoil the evening by telling you how worthless I feel and making a
false show of humility. Your question is too hard.
“I
will just say what’s on my mind. Don’t laugh….okay laugh, I can’t help it. This
is it, No matter how much I study and how much I pray I still think that Moses
looks like Charlton Heston. I can’t shake the image.”
No
one laughed. This was very embarrassing, because everybody at the table knew
that Moses looked like Charlton Heston.
“He’s
such a goy!” No one said that, but Charlton Heston was such a goy. And as
Moses! Such a mental pollution.
“It
is awful to contemplate,” Marty said.
“God punished the Jews by making them wander forty years in the
wilderness. He allowed the Temple to be destroyed twice and his chosen people
were put into exile for centuries, subject to persecution and humiliation. He
allowed many terrible things to happen to them. But when God made Moses, he
made him look Jewish, or maybe like Al Pacino or Robert DeNiro.
“Still
the image of Charlton Heston as Moses cannot be erased for people of our
generation. Such is the power of
Hollywood -- founded and led by Jews --
in creating false images that defy the First Commandment. Sin and sin,” Marty
said and he took a sip of water, he was finished.
“You
could write a book,” I said. It was dark outside, the chandelier lights twinkled,
we stirred at the table, passing the broccoli and the rice, picking up dinner
rolls, taking a sip of wine. I looked up from the chicken on my plate and
noticed Diana Lobel, my Hebrew teacher, wreathed in an unworldly halo -- there
was nothing on her plate. Even her glass of water was untouched. This disturbed
me. We’re humans, we’re supposed to eat.
But
the conversation continued.
Daniel
Gewertz, film critic by occupation, was the next to speak. He was younger than
the rest of us, closer to thirty. His
build was athletic and tall. I picture him wearing a Hawaiian shirt in the
summer time, although I don’t know why I say that. He was a handsome fellow,
but he seemed so unsure of himself.
“Who
is a Jew, you ask. I wonder about myself at this time of year with Hanukah and
Christmas coming up,” Daniel said. “I get anxiety. I don’t know what to think.
People wish me Merry Christmas. And the music, Silent Night and All Ye Faithful,
it’s everywhere, Season Greetings…The whole experience makes me cringe.
“It’s
the way I was brought up. My parents were secular, never at temple, no menorah,
nothing in our house that said Jewish. I think they would have skipped the
whole thing.
“At
Christmas we had a tree and decorations and a plastic lighted Santa Claus doll
and I got presents. It was crazy. I knew we were Jewish. I was seven-years-old
playing on the living room rug with a Lionel train, but I didn’t enjoy it that
much.
“My
parents laughed and shared drinks with friends and neighbors during the
holidays -- just like everybody else. I mean, why not? We didn’t look different
or act different. My Dad had a white-collar job, we lived in a suburban
neighborhood. We had BBQs in the summer. We went trick or treating on
Halloween, so why not have a Christmas tree too?
“I
cannot disrespect my parents, they did so many wonderful things for me, they
were such good people. But you just know, even when you’re only seven, when
something isn’t right, and for me the memory never goes away -- every year in
December it’s the same.”
That
was Daniel telling his life. I heard this with wonder. For me, growing up a
Catholic, Christmas was the most uncomplicated joy and pleasure. I knew that
Christmas could be hard for people with bad families—being stuck at home with
awful relatives and such. Or a lonely time for lonely people. But I never
thought of it as being difficult for Jews. Hearing Daniel say it directly was
quite a different experience. Obviously
it was difficult for some Jews. They cringed – that’s what Daniel said.
“But
I’ll go out for Chinese this year like I always do,” he added.
Harvey
Blume nodded. He was the most talented conversationalist in our group, but he
had been quiet the whole evening. It was November and he was still tan, he had
a burnished skin tone -- he hadn’t been to Florida, he didn’t work outdoors,
but then I remembered – Harvey was on the street. His tan was not a matter of
exposure, but an act of will. Harvey lived for the street and the drums.
So
he and I did this rap thing, which made it kind of fun.
“Harvey,
what’s your take?”
“My
take? You’re the man with the rake. Figure it out yourself.”
“Well,
I don’t want no fake. Are you a Jew?”
“Who’s
asking?”
“You
got a Brooklyn attitude, my brother,” I said and I smiled.
“Yeah, now you got it. I’m from Bebop Brooklyn.
On the street, with a drum, with the people, of the people and by the people --
we’re all on the street.”
“And
you’re justified with a drum, so is it good to be a Jew?” I challenged him.
“Good,
bad, but always interesting,” he said and he smiled.
Harvey
lived in East Cambridge. He had written a book about a pygmy who was captured
in Africa and taken to be an exhibit at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. Ota Benga was the name of the pygmy and
the title of Harvey’s book.
Now
the room was going quiet, like we were coming to the end.
Then
Diana began to speak. People relaxed because Diana had sat in the center of the
table, as a guiding spirit, and now she would hold forth in a good way.
“Here in Genesis it says there was a famine in
Palestine and Jacob said to his sons, ‘I have heard that there is grain in
Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us, so that we may live and not die.’
“It
was a fateful choice. The whole history of the Jews hinges on this one verse.
You want to yell from the audience, a hundred generations later – Don’t go –
don’t go to Egypt. There’s nothing but trouble down there – slavery,
corruption, idolatry, people worshipping monkeys. Don’t go. Stick it out in
Palestine. The rain will come back and there will be more crops.
“But
Jacob said it is better to live and not die. You can spin that, explain that,
write a book on that, or a poem or a song. Fine. Interpret it as you will, and
yet the meaning is plain – it is better to live and not die.
Jacob
said that …….”
“Stop,”
I said. I interrupted her. “Your plate is empty, you haven’t eaten anything.”
Diana
looked at me, surprised. The whole table was silent. I couldn’t stand it. I was
angry at her and she was my teacher! How could I be angry at her?
It
was the food. “You don’t eat,” I said. I couldn’t explain. Words failed me. I
picked up a piece of broccoli, picked it off my plate, and threw it at her.
Not
at her, but I kind of tossed it or lobbed it over to her plate. Even so, such a
physical act was deeply disturbing.
Food
is food, you have to eat. Diana was not thin but she was becoming a little
transparent. Some parental instinct in me wanted her to eat, for her own good
and for my sake too. Eat, for God’s sake. I work in the fields where nature
brings us food. My hands are callused. We don’t live by the spirit, but we need
bread too.
Except
I didn’t say anything. The dining room was tense. But Diana looked at me again,
as if she understood. She smiled. She picked up the piece of broccoli and ate
it, and she said “Thank you.”
Oh,
I felt better. Like I had done something very wrong, but she said thank you,
and that was that.
The verse was about food, and it’s better to
live and not die, and here she was not eating and how can you live if you don’t
eat?
And
it was over. Table talk passed on to
other things. Marty and Lois were huddling. Harvey got up to clear some plates.
We might be moving back to the living room for dessert.
Then
Gladys Damon spoke. “I have something to say.” Gladys was close to seventy or
past it, from Manhattan’s West Side, but now retired in an apartment tower in
Jamaica Plain. She was stylish, wore a tailored skirt, had good legs. She spoke
in a honeyed tone with a good-natured irony.
For
her, the plain meaning was only the beginning. It was better to live and not
die and she would say sure, but she reminded me that refinement is what made
life better.
“This
happened to me during the war in 1944. My parents sent me to Smith College, one
of the Seven Sisters. You know – Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Vassar, Radcliffe -- all
those precious college girls from good families. I could pass, I don’t mean
that how you think, but I had nice clothes, good sweaters and shoes.
“And
to find a husband and get married, yes, but they hinted, the faculty suggested,
and even said so, that we could be what we chose to be.
“I
formed surprising friendships with girls who were very different than me.
“But
it was war time, and we heard the news from Europe. In May of 1944, the Jews in
Hungary – up to that time they had been safe – were being transported to
Auschwitz to be murdered. More than 400,000 Jews were put on the trains.
“It
was hard to find notice of this in the news. We heard news of stirring military
action and home front preparedness -- that was the story -- marching to
victory, rumors of the coming invasion of France, profiles of Eisenhower and
Patton, the great leaders, but of the slaughter to come in Hungary, it was like
a dark whisper. Letters came from Eastern Europe, reliable reports of the real
story. We didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it, and yet I knew it was true.
“I
knew it was true because it was far, far worse than anything I could have
imagined -- this death and horror.
“But
what is so hard for me to describe is the silence. We read those letters, but
we were silent, we did not ask questions. We just sat there. We did nothing.”
Gladys
was speaking without irony.
“We
did nothing to save the Jews in Hungary. Roosevelt did nothing, Eisenhower did
nothing. My parents, my friends at school, we did nothing. The Hungarian Jews
were loaded on the trains. We knew it was their death and we did nothing.
“It
was the most important moment in my life, and I failed.”
.
. . .
. . .
. . . .
Years
later I still remember the silence that followed her remarks. It had been a
good dinner and we enjoyed being together. In mid-November the night air was
frosty and it began to snow as we said our goodbyes and walked outside to our
cars. “Lois, thank you for such a lovely evening, you have such a nice home,”
someone said.
I
walked outside and noticed her privet hedge and how it badly needed a trimming.
But that’s me, a landscaper and gardener, I can’t help noticing things like
that.
But
I thought about Gladys and how she said she did nothing. Not true. Her life was
a triumph. It was better to live and not die.
A
D’Var Torah
The Torah is the first five books of
the Bible -- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers -- did I get
that in the right order?
When they read and chant out loud from
the Torah at a service, they have one person doing the chanting, and one or two
others following closely to watch for mistakes. If the chanter mispronounces a
word or something like that, then they back up a little to get it right.
So, did I get it right? I'm not
Jewish, but I studied at the temple and I learned a lot of things. It's very
complicated. It seems to be the delight of Jewish tradition to make things complicated
rather than simple.....That makes for good mental exercise as well as spiritual
development.
"Im Ein Kemach Ein Torah, Im Ein Torah
Ein Kemach." That means, "Where there is no Bread, there is no Torah,
and where there is no Torah, there is no bread."
This saying answered the question,
"What should I do with my life?" I should not choose between writing
and gardening because I need both. I work on the land with my hands, because
that is the source of our sustenance. And I write and study because I need to
seek and serve the truth.
You don't choose one over the other --
Bread and Torah, Livelihood and the Spiritual Path -- both are essential for a
good and balanced life.
Ted was a member at Temple Beth Shalom
when I went there in the early 1990s. As you recall, I wrote that I first
attended this temple to hear Michael Lerner give a talk. Basically, I liked the
vibrations in this place, so I stayed for the next three years..... and why?
Because of people like Ted Kaptchuck. Sure, he is a most distinguished author
and a learned fellow, but also he was just kind of a cool guy......Ted used to
pray up front in the sanctuary, up near the altar, but over to the side, even against
the wall, always on the right side .... so he was sort of in front of us, but
not in front....
Hey, that was a teaching -- Ted
standing in front of us, but not in front of us. It's right from the book of
Chinese Medicine -- the resolution of contradictions -- the realization of the
underlying harmony.
But mainly I learned from Ted about
wearing a hat. At a temple a man is expected to cover his head. I don't know
why. They keep a basket of yarmulkes by the entrance in case you need one. If
you don't put one on, someone might kindly hand you one.....It is not strictly,
absolutely necessary for a man to wear a hat at the temple, but it would make
them happy, so I did......Except I didn't like it. You can call them a yarmulke
or a keppah, but if you ask me they're a beanie and they look stupid......I'm
quite vain, and I did not like the looks of it.
But I wasn't about to SAY anything, I
just took it as humbling experience, until I noticed Ted up front (but not up
front) swaying and praying, and he was NOT wearing a yarmulke, he was wearing a
black beret --- totally cool..... So that's it, I said to myself. You don't
have to wear the beanie, you just have to cover your head..... So I bought a
black beret like Ted's -- and it was cool.
Mornings
with Maimonides
Reading Maimonides is a superior way to begin
your day. He was a philosopher, legal scholar, and physician -- his fame was
worldwide, his authority was respected by Moslem and Jew alike. .... 1135
to 1204.
He was born in Cordoba in Spain into a
distinguished Jewish family. Cordoba was at the height of cultural glory, but
when Maimonides was almost a young man there was a change of regime, and a
group of rabid Islamic fundamentalists stormed out of Morocco, conquered Spain,
and established a harsh and intolerant regime. Many Jews and Christians were
forced to convert to Islam at that time.
It was a difficult time for Maimonides
and his family. They fled to the city of Fez in Morocco to live in a more
tolerant climate.
But even in Fez, the persecution continued,
and it is said, by some but not all historians, that Maimonides feigned a
conversion to Islam in order to save his life.
Not willing to continue as a false
Moslem, Maimonides traveled to Cairo in Egypt where he lived for many years. During
those times Jews and Moslem lived together well. They sometimes shared a
business together, such as goldsmithing. The Jew would go home on Saturday, his
Sabbath, and the Moslem would go home on Friday, his Sabbath, and that way the
shop could stay open seven days a week -- a pleasant arrangement, don't you
think? But the Jews at that time, although prosperous and widely travelled,
were a formally dependent people. They must pay a certain respect to the Caliph
and they must, in certain ways, recognize the superiority of Islam.....That
live and let live arrangement lasted until 1948 when the Jews declared
independence, they would no longer bend a knee to the Caliph -- and the
fury continues since that fateful year of 1948 -- I wonder what Maimonides
would say about that ...... I have a friend, an email correspondent, whom I
never met, but he's a Jew and he was born in Cairo, and his family was expelled
from Cairo in 1948, all the Jews were kicked out of Cairo, where they had lived
for several hundreds of years, since the time of Maimonides ..... but they were
kicked out so, naturally they migrated to Palestine, now Israel...... But my
friend, an Egyptian Jew, has a more complicated story -- before moving to
Israel, they sojourned in Italy, where he acquired Italian citizenship as a
young boy -- they then moved to Israel and that is where he grew up. Now this
man owns a vineyard in the Judean Hills, called Domain du Castel. He makes fine
wine and he hopes to stay on this land forever, but ----- BUT, he still keeps
his Italian passport, because he knows he might not be able to keep his vineyard
for all his days -- for now, he does not bend his knee to the
Caliph -- do you think he should?
What happens after the Rabbi dies?
What happens after the Rabbi dies?
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2004. It
snowed all night, unusual for early November. The streets were slushy. I got to
Beth Shalom on Tremont Street sometime after 10 a.m., about midway through the
morning service.
The crowd was small. Jack Diamond and the
other old guys are gone now. Jack used to go from man to man and woman to
woman, around all the pews, and shake everybody’s hand -- every week.
Otherwise I never talked with him.
This week’s parsha was “mayim-chayim”
or living water, from Genesis, about the time when Isaac was digging the wells.
This was the passage I liked. Not that
old family trouble about Jacob and Esau, but before that, when Isaac was a
young man. He sowed and reaped a hundred-fold. He did such
honest work in the fields, and all he got was few lines in the Bible.
That’s what I was thinking.
The shul looked clean and fresh. I had not
been there for six years.
People had gotten older. David, the cantor, had a
touch of grey, a rounder face, but the same sweet voice, although still a
little harsh on the high notes.
Ed, the president of the congregation, was a
little bald now and he grew a mustache. He remembered me and greeted me warmly.
Beth was leading the service, carrying the Torah
scroll through the congregation, singing “Mizmor l’David.” She looked up
with a big smile and said, “What brings you back?”
I touched the scroll and brought my fingers to my
lips, then I smiled back at her.
Still, I had this feeling of being a stranger, the
odd man out. What was I doing there?
A feeling that wouldn’t go away, even though I
learned that every one at Beth Shalom had the same anxiety of being out of
place.
Beth finished taking the Torah around the
congregation. Then David, the cantor, began to sing Adon Olam -- lord of
the universe or God almighty or something like that, but it’s important, and
always sung at the end of the service, only this time David sang it to the
tune of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” So everybody smiled.
You can’t be really serious unless you make it
laugh once in a while.
The service ended and we went downstairs for
Kiddush. Kiddush refers to the blessing over the bread and wine, but, by
extension, it means the meal itself, a social time.
Only the rabbi is gone now. Reb Moshe was 92 when
he died. That was only three months ago.
Moshe was gone and so was the lemon vodka. That
was his special brew, always at the Kiddush table in a half-gallon jug, as if
sent in a cloud of vapor straight from Russia.
The vodka had a very pale lemon color, and
just a little bit of sugar. Moshe had black diamond eyes and we could drink
shots of neat vodka with him -- after the blessing, along with
whitefish salad and bagels and other snacks.
But he has gone now and so was the vodka. Just
fruit juice and some insipid wine, which I did not want.
It was the Egalitarians who did that. Moshe died
and the Temperance ladies took over -- no vodka and no whiskey anymore.
That was old-time.
I looked around the table. I saw Ari, the
oceanographer, he had a young baby. I saw Ted Kaptchuk, a doctor of natural
science, he had the same iron-grey beard. It was all very familiar.
The food was okay, all catered now, egg salad,
pickles, challah bread.
I sat with Ed on the bench against the wall, near
to where Moshe used to sit. Benny sat on my other side. He has a
tough hawk’s nose that matched his pointed irony. He wore a black beret.
Diana Lobel came up and gave me a huge hug.
She was my Hebrew teacher and she was very glad to see me, after this long
absence. She had gotten thinner -- too thin, she never eats. Diana is so
unworldly.
She told me she was getting tenure at Boston
University and about to publish her book on Judah Ha-Levi, the medieval
poet.
She asked me about various people. Harvey Blume?
Yes, I knew he was in Brooklyn. Harvey had selected Beth Shalom as the shul
he wouldn’t go to, which is a kind of status.
Marty Federman had been the Hillel rabbi at
Northeastern University, but I had no news of him.
Ted Pietras was still selling real estate in
the South End.
Then Diana moved off to another table.
She rarely goes anywhere, but when she does, she floats around.
That left me with Ed and Benny on the
bench, and I felt bold, like I could hold forth, so I concocted a legend about
the making of the lemon vodka, how Rev Moshe mixed it carefully as a way of
teaching, because for Moshe everything was a teaching, and the lemon was oval,
like an egg, meaning birth, but the lemon was also bitter because
life can be that way. So he added a bit of sugar to make it sweet.
And still the vodka was clear as ice, but now
flavored.
That was my interpretation, and I paused. Ed
and Benny’s faces were blank. They didn’t get it. I knew what they were
thinking -- “Hey, the space case from Seattle is back in town.”
But I wasn’t finished. I was bold. The lesson was
about Isaac, who was a farmer, and I, alone in this group, had worked the land
and known its rewards, and yet such work leaves you with few words.
Isaac was a good husband to his wife and to
his land, but he was always ignored and passed over.
His son Jacob had no use for farming. Jacob
lived by his wits. He schemed against his brother Esau, stole his
patrimony and became a hero for that.
Was that right? The irony was so rich.
Ed and Benny didn’t get it. I had to scrap my
campaign to make Isaac more important among the Patriarchs.
Is it my fault that I get these ideas?
I had a small talk with Janet Zimmern, because a
long time ago we had dinner together -- some very good seared tuna at a nice
restaurant in Harvard Square.
I always looked at Janet in a certain way, but she
would only go out with me that one time.
At the end of the meal we sang the 23rd
Psalm. Diana came over to say goodbye. She said how much she missed
Moshe. I assured her that the shul seemed as good as it ever was. She
sounded afraid. She said there had been tension between the Egalitarians and
the Traditionalists. I said there has always been tension -- that it would be
all right.
I said, “Moshe believed in us, as much as he
believed in anything. And if he believed in us, then we ought to believe in
ourselves too. We’re his children. We can keep it going.”
Then I left. I drove back
to Helen’s house out in the country, where I was staying, wanting to tell
Helen all about Beth Shalom, but frustrated. This was an experience I simply
could not share with her. Words and gestures that meant so much to me, meant
nothing to Helen.
She made dinner, some beans and rice that she had
cooked the day before, plus some chard and other vegetables.
We ate by candlelight. The woods were still but
for the bird song and a rushing brook, and the stars were shining in the sky.
There is still no solution. Moshe is dead. Helen
doesn’t understand me, and Isaac gets no respect.
NOTES:
- Temple Beth Shalom is still on Tremont Street, and still pleasantly divided between Egalitarians and Traditionalists.
- Ted Kaptchuk wrote a book on Chinese Medicine, The Web That Has No Weaver.
- Diana Lobel wrote a book on Judah Ha-Levi, a medieval poet, Between Mysticism and Philosophy: Sufi Language of Religious Experience in Judah Ha-Levi’s Kuzari .
- Harvey Blume wrote a book about an African pygmy, who was imprisoned and brought to the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904 and put on display in a cage, Ota Benga, the Pygmy in the Zoo.
- Ted Pietras is still selling real estate in the Boston area.
- Marty Federman’s whereabouts are unknown. ........ I wrote this story a few years ago. Only recently, a few months ago, I got a notice that Marty had died, so, in a way, his whereabouts are still unknown.
Subscription Drive.
A $25 or $50 subscription to Frog Hospital comes with the
promise that I will try my best. I have been writing this journal since1998. I
have written some hundreds of issues of this journal, and some of it has been
very good indeed and I would like to continue writing this, and I would like
you to send me a check for $25 or $50 or punch the PayPal button.
You can find the PayPal button on the blog. Go to Frog Hospital.Or make out a check to Fred Owens and mail it to:
Fred Owens, 1105 Veronica Springs RD, Santa Barbara, CA
93105
Fred Owenscell: 360-739-0214
My gardening blog is Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital
- Diana Lobel wrote a book on Judah Ha-Levi, a medieval poet, Between Mysticism and Philosophy: Sufi Language of Religious Experience in Judah Ha-Levi’s Kuzari .
- Harvey Blume wrote a book about an African pygmy, who was imprisoned and brought to the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904 and put on display in a cage, Ota Benga, the Pygmy in the Zoo.
- Ted Pietras is still selling real estate in the Boston area.
- Marty Federman’s whereabouts are unknown. ........ I wrote this story a few years ago. Only recently, a few months ago, I got a notice that Marty had died, so, in a way, his whereabouts are still unknown.
Subscription Drive.
A $25 or $50 subscription to Frog Hospital comes with the
promise that I will try my best. I have been writing this journal since1998. I
have written some hundreds of issues of this journal, and some of it has been
very good indeed and I would like to continue writing this, and I would like
you to send me a check for $25 or $50 or punch the PayPal button.
You can find the PayPal button on the blog. Go to Frog Hospital.Or make out a check to Fred Owens and mail it to:
Fred Owens, 1105 Veronica Springs RD, Santa Barbara, CA
93105
Fred Owenscell: 360-739-0214
My gardening blog is Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital
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