3 June 2008 - 0:34Glatt, Lucca Over Here

Goldie: Barry took some glorious photos during the trip, here’s a link to the album on-line – takes 4 minutes to watch the whole slide show – enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/barrybub/Europe2008

Barry: We aborted an overnight at the seaside resort Via Reggio since it was a ghost town and rainy and the season is a month away. The famous walled city of Lucca beckoned. While our ship’s stop in Dubrovnik, Croatia revealed higher and more awesome walls, those of Lucca are beautifully landscaped, set with trees, benches and walking the walls is like walking the beachf ront in Sea Point, South Africa, or the lake in Central Park, NY. In Lucca the walls are very much part of the identity of the city.

Goldie: The walls are 30 feet wide sloped embankments, surrounded by shallow deep green forest. The older thin walls remain inside the embankments. Rather than let Lucca be conquered the city state’s famously wealthy silk merchants devised every possible approach to survival

– multiple physical layers of defense including each wealthy family having their own tower that they could retreat to and retreat or burn away the steps to the top,

– multiple walls and their army [the best defense is a good offense],

– paying them off not to attack

– and diplomacy.

Lucca’s only occupying power until Napoleon was a brief period under the city state Pisa and to this day those in Lucca and Pisa have their rivalries.

Barry: Lucca is the birthplace of Puccini, touted here as the Italy’s greatest opera composer [Rossini and Verdi are similarly touted in their own cities]. There’s money to be made in branding the city as Puccini’s birthplace, yet in reality they did not appreciate him when he was alive, lived and died elsewhere. Lucca has the longest running music festival in the world – it’s permanent. Every night there is a different program involving Puccini music as well as other composers. So, should we attend? – it’s kinda pricey.

We figured the concert to be a tourist trap, but there was literally no other formal entertainment in the town that night, so off we went to listen to listen to arias at one of the infinite number of churches in these towns [they could afford a church on every corner, reminiscent of Chattanooga TN.] There is no synagogue.

As the Velveteen Rabbi mentions in her blog, it becomes depressing visiting towns where the synagogues are museums, archaeological sites, or non-existent. We’ve lost all interest in visiting remnants of destroyed Jewish communities or seeing another image of a Jewish mother adoring her son [what about singing and painting the messiah as coming BAT David, as the daughter of David (um…new mother needed?)….could be refreshing?]

Goldie: The last Jew we met was back in Livorno and purely by chance. We had hopped off the ship and asked the first fellow in town, an elderly behatted Italian man, ‘how to get to Pisa‘. When he answered in English in a Bronx accident we almost fell over. Sam Sandek, a former head of the 600 person Jewish community of Livorno, was equally overjoyed to see us, we talked Torah and more Torah and have already received an invite back to teach. [Sandek, by the way, is the traditional term for the person honored by holding the baby at a circumcision ritual. The role implies responsibility to Jewishly mentor that child as well.]

Barry: The concert surprises us - the soprano is physically and vocally magnificent, thus proving that obesity is not a professional requirement. The male baritone was fluid and effortless in his performance and we were uplifted by the music and their gestures because they clearly understood the words and so could best convey meaning. The piano accompanist was a star in his own right.

Imagine our delight when we saw colorful kippot atop heads in the audience and the announcer welcomed a group from Israel. Half-time we approached them and discovered amongst them a South African couple now living in Ranana, Israel. He asked me for my name, I offered it and he replied, “Yes, I thought so, I recognized you, you were just a little kid when I was good friends with your older brother Sam.” He then proceeded to talk about my grandmother’s famous chicken soup, our long-time housekeeper Caroline who could speak Yiddish, may she rest in peace, and various other family members.

Goldie: He also recalled Barry’s bubbe’s famous meat-stuffed matzah balls that are rolled in ground cinnamon, then baked next to the turkey or brisket, and only then served in a rich chicken broth where carrots, celery, and onions float happily along.

Goldie: Of all things, these Israeli folks were present in Lucca to attend a kosher cooking school that teaches Tuscan cuisine. Founded by a Lucca-loving Israeli couple whose name is with the receipts in our luggage, their website is naomicatering.com. They invited us to the villa for dinner, about 15 minutes outside the city walls, where daily the guests labor at learning and prep, and then at night dine on their multi-course effort. While we love people in general and delight in human diversity, this was such a delicious treat to have a fully kosher meal and the company of a group of committed yiddlakh.

As a woman rabbi, I was somewhat of an object of curiosity to this modern Orthodox cluster given they’d just read of my colleague Gail Diamond’s woman partner Alen Kacal receiving permission from the Israeli Supreme Court to legally adopt the children they co-parent. The conversation was lively and for a time focused on eco-kashrut and other aspects of something they have found illusive in their orthodoxy, spirituality. We talked about the power of metaphor and the capacity to be touched by Jewish practice, not only live the rules by rote. All are unabashedly ardent Zionists who have voted their beliefs with their feet by immigrating to Israel which, given it’s smaller than the state of New Jersey, has the added benefit of their children and grandchildren living close by.

While Italy is truly more visually beautiful than Israel, it’s simply not home in the way Israel and America is for me. Even though it was a week early, we determined to head north to Milan, and to exercise the frequent flyer option to simply go home at five weeks away instead of six. We miss family, students and friends. Five weeks was a perfect interval and we’ve lots of packing ahead as on June 18 we’re downsizing and moving to the other size of Mt. Airy to Leamy House, a former home to indigent Episcopal widows built in the nineteenth century that was reshaped into condos some years back. A number of Shabbat-delighting families live in the complex, we anticipate sweet community times. Our unit faces a lovely courtyard that will carry our hearts buttered in Umbria home to melt again during summery days. We’ve a tiny guest room with double bed and private bath for you. Come!

With love, Goldie and Barry

No Comments | Tags: world cultures

19 May 2008 - 7:33O Soul O We-o

Goldie: A few days back we visited the birth place of the opera composer Rossini - Pesaro, by the sea. There was a line about Rossini that awakened some new consciousness for me as an organizer. It was about how he would spend time getting to know the vocalists and rewrite opera parts to match their abilities. Rosssini’s changes sometimes resulted in revisions that would become permanent improvements.

Barry points out Rossini’s was a process-based approach to music, the outcome is a whole that can evolve along with the parts. This concept points to the importance of reshaping a vision, rather than attempting to bend those involved to our will. As a person of drive and strong will, the notion has the quality of a martial art concept that I can benefit from mastering.

Barry: What I learned from that Rossini quote is the importance of putting effort into knowing the “other” in any relationship – doctor-patient, parent-child, child-parent, employer-employee, student-teacher is capable of, feels and needs – and shaping the outcome and process based on that knowledge. “I don’t really need to know this child,” is wrong thinking. Once one really knows what is possible, then the time spent initially in the knowing can save a lot of time in the long run and the process of engagement becomes much smoother.

One can also extend this in getting to know yourself. In hunting for a condo we finally took the time to try to know ourselves and our needs and then within minutes of seeing a particular unit we knew this was the right one for us. This, after having looked for several years. The problem was we’d focused on what was out there rather than on ourselves and our needs re space, esthetics and cost. Once Rossini shifted from crafting the perfect piece to understanding his performers much more became possible.

Goldie: Lately, we’re both teaching what Barry terms ‘communication skills that heal.’ On this five week trip we determined to walk our talk with each other, to give the time and attention to process that yields quality of encounter. As Zadie Smith wrote in The Autograph Man, “He had been surprised to discover that when you subtract the rows, what you are left with is love, a huge amount of it, leaking out of you.” It is as though we have been in someway like an inchoate block of marble to one another and the exquisite living sculpture within the dynamic of our relationship, a harmonious “we,” has become revealed these five weeks. Or perhaps it’s due to Barry’s manopause or my menostop combined with our mutual computer-cease save for these weekly postings.

[Odd book, Barry and I had diametrically opposite opinions about the Autograph Man – he was very impressed by the caliber of the writing, I was mostly appalled by the content. Have you read it?]

Peaceful co-existence is attempted in so many unique ways that are documented amongst the walled cities of Umbria and Tuscany. Gubbio, some 2500 years old is visually astonishing, it terraces up a mountainside. Ascending its steep stone streets, each archway and narrow shoplet are the color we’ve deemed “buttered Umbria.” Turning right, a man bearing huge keys, what you might indeed think castle keys would look like, is unlocking an ancient door to a thirteenth century medieval dining room being readied for a religious festival.

Banners, we never before understood their applications in a medieval town. The iron hooks on buildings – near windows and roofs – these are catches for colorful celebratory banners, such as might also unfurl from horns announcing a king’s arrival or festoon the side of the horses of knights. Wealthy families would have servants maintain their banner collections, to hang their code of arms and devotional pieces down the walls of the palazzos (palaces.)

Gubbio is not a Disney thing. It is simply the real thing. Men will carry what look like three-story high heavy carved platforms on their shoulders with wax religious figures atop them in a racing manner throughout the city on the day of devotion. Though churches hold their version of shacharit, minchah and maariv throughout Italy daily [Rome alone has 750 gem-like churches from an artistic point of view], only a few elders seem in evidence except for weddings. But festivals seem to ignite passion for the old traditions; the energy is clearly building here.

The elaborate ancient agreements to govern this city state are worth reproducing here for you, the balanced allocation of power rather than domination is so powerfully revealed. When a young family member recently insisted on the evil of the ancient Romans because of the destruction of the temple and ultimate treatment of the Jews, it proved impossible to get a first grader to see the evolution of civilizational ideals as a process (a slip-sliding one at that) and that the Romans also left creative steps forward for humanity in their footprints on history.

In Gubbio, the evolution of governance forms is as striking to us as when reading in Torah about Yitro teaching Moses to set up a system of advisors. Here, efforts to govern the city states more equitably than in prior generations were being worked out. See what interests you in this paragraph I’ve transcribed from an exhibit card at the castle:
“The Consilium Generales Populis represents the citizens: the richest, forty for every quarter, constituted the Consilium centrum maloris summe; they continued in office in conformity with their position in the list of the richest. The representatives of the four quarters, fifty for each one, constituted the Consilium populi and they ruled for six months. In this assembly there were also the Captains of the Guilds, the Consuls of the Traders [and others]; they received a warrant for a period of six months.

The second organ of the Parliament was a magistrates’ committee with the legislative power; they were eight consuls and, one of them, was elected Gonfalonier of Justice. They ruled for two months and they lived inside the palace, on the upper floor. They couldn’t leave without a good reason: in that case they had to be accompanied by the Communal Guards. The Consuls were not allowed to speak with anyone, especially the nobles.

The administration of the city (executive power and judicial bodies) were entrusted to a variety of offices, the most important were the Podesta and the Captain of the People. They had to be foreign and of the Guelph party, they came from allied City States situated at a distance from Gubbio (540 miles away) and they couldn’t have any personal relations with the eugubian people. The Podesta … ruled for six months but eight days before completing his commission, he was judged by a citizens’ committee. In the affirmative he was settled with the last two months of his salary, with which he had to pay all the people that moved him from one to another (judges, notaries, etc.)

The requisites of the Captain of the People was similar to the Podesta, he was judged by a citizens’ committee. His assignment were to maintain peace and order to collect fines and to solve the problems of the prisons.”

In 1384 Gubbio became part of the Dukedom of Urbino, the town governed by the progressive Montefeltro family covered earlier in this travelogue.

What I take from the above is that perhaps: 1) They were upfront about the role of the rich in the decision tree; 2) They were wiser than we about term limits; 3) They understood the dangers lobbying to the potential for justice and took steps to limit this; 4) Alliances were consummately consciously employed to help keep the peace.
Barry: Also Goldie, they understood [something we seem incapable of in the United States] that corruption is an inherent part of governance. Rather than giving access to lobbyists, those who might have were kept isolated. Heads of government were rotated frequently, every few months. And even our constitution seems in some way heir to that of the Gubbio-type with its arms of governance, checks and balances.

Goldie: Oddly, Gubio turns out to have an elevator to escort those in need up to the municipal castle which proved to be the stuff of fairy tales in scope and shape, opulence and vista. We explored entranced.

I’m posting this on the day we returned to the United States. We visited a few other fascinating places and had another astonishing encounter about which we’ve written provisional postings. I’ll polish them over the next few days and post them as well during this week or next as time allows.

No Comments | Tags: Music, Torah, world cultures, art, travel

11 May 2008 - 12:54Cellutations from Urbino

We are on a mountain top in Urbino, Italy at the university, home to a key stem cell bioethics professore. [pro-fessor-ey], central to my own recent professional research, so this is exciting. We’re finished with the cruise-rabbi segment of this trip, but one thing that happened on the ship connects to the stem cell topic with amazing synergy.

By way of orientation, first a bit about the relevant and inspiring history of Urbino, where utopian intentions were grounded in Renaissance humanism. This university town still functions as a collective to some degree, which is amazing given that one of its rulers, Duke Frederico is described as having conceived it as a place where people would be equals, regardless of rank. Frederico was a patron of the arts, a student of history and passionate advocate of humanism. He gathered scribes and copiests to create the second largest library after the Vatican in his time. Among dozens of examples on display we witnessed a huge illuminated book of Psalms, written in exceptionally beautiful Hebrew calligraphy and translated into Greek and Latin; the illustrations send a soul soaring into connections pregnant within the text and the translation seemed sweet and accurate (I can only vouch for the Latin, have not studied Greek.). The duke’s palace shows a fascination with the emergence of perspective as a dramatic addition to the repertoire of the Fine Arts of his time, and for all time.Let’s not romanticize, Duke Frederico was both a scholar, patron to poetry, art and science, and he made his way up from his birth as an illegitimate child by being a warrior of reknown, often for hire. After being knighted, he was wounded during a jousting tournament - one eye was gounged out along with most of one side of his face as well as the bridge of his nose. Wounded healer? He provided for the widows of his wounded warriors which included education for the children. He was said to walk safely in the streets of the town unarmed, beloved by the people. Jews were among the tolerated populations under the Duke’s reign and scholarship shows he worked at protecting the Jews in his realm via ensuring their role as along as “practitioners of the money trade whose credit served to induce economic equalization and prosperity in the monetized society of fifteenth-century Urbino.” [http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-111738112.html]

After Frederico died, his second wife Battista Sforza and her frail son ruled for some time. A youth with incredible artistic talent came to their attention (Raphael(lo) the artist whose works inspire to this day and whose school continues here in Urbino. So it does not surprise that Urbino might be a good home to science as well as the arts. Now for the ship-board connection to our saga.Here is a bioethics dilemna for you. A woman attends to a man via hospice while his wife is dying, her own husband has already died of cancer earlier. They become friends and marry and alas, he develops skin cancer, heals. Then colon cancer, heals. Then

-seven liver tumors and
-as he is preparing to enter the hospital for treatment with a new drug, Avastin and for both surgical and radiologic removal of the tumors, having already been told to put his affairs in order and expect imminent death, at this moment, his second wife is called and informed her stem cells are a match for someone who is dying of leukemia. They tell her the odds of this match are 600 million to one. Can she leave her husband’s side to donate her stem cells? Without her doing so, one person dies for sure.Leukemia affects white blood cells and what would happen is that Mrs. Rosenberg’s stem cells would harvested from her blood and then treated to grow into healthy white blood cells which are then injected into the recipient.. Donors are checked for psychiatric stability, as once the recipient is prepped, he or she will die if the donor backs out.

Additional data. Her first husband was an early advocate of stem cell donation and lived in hope of being a donor before his inevitable death. She had gone along with being tested and entered into a registry when he was, and now, the chance of a lifetime to fulfill his dream by becoming the donor herself.What would you advise? If you are wondering about using fetal stem cells, not possible for this condition at this time. Fetal stem cells are a different matter entirely – medically and bioethically. Those taking the course Bioethics, Jewish Law and Role of the Clergy Person will study this in depth with me this fall, among a number of topics.Jerry Rosenberg husband urged Lea to the mitzvah. Arrangements were made for her stem cells to be collected in the same hospital where he was. And the results were…Two miracles. First, Jerry Rosenberg, who celebrated his 75^th birthday on the ship, survived and last month was declared cancer free, for now.

One thing I learned about serving as clergy on a cruise ship is that there are lots of counseling hours involved – relationship issues, 3-5, usually of advanced age will die of natural causes on a typical cruise, we had one suicide, and then there are those who fall ill and request a visit, and crew who request confidential counseling. Jerry was no trouble to “minister to” because he was in the most radical state of amazement at still being alive of any human I’ve ever encountered. To hear and witness him, to learn the determination it takes to get through the most horrific of chemo regimentia and multiple surgeries, to hear him say the treatments were so rough he became ready and preferring to die but other’s insisted he keep trying for life. To listen to this couple’s stories of docs at the true cutting edge and realize advances are pouring through in time for some…wondrous.Second. Lea Rosenberg [first name is pronounced Lee] did not, at first, know whether her stem cell donation made a difference because there is a practice of confidentiality for both. Three years later a call came from the center to say the recipient lives in England and wants to make contact with her to express his appreciation – would she be willing to speak with him? A Cypriot national working as a chauffer in London, it seems his boss had paid the six figure bills for his access to the stem cell treatment that saved his life. He insisted they come to England enroute to the cruise to meet his family. There they also were hosted by the boss’s wife, for her generous husband had not lived long enough to see his employee survive the treatment. This is how a woman founder is forged, now Lea is a major advocate for stem cell research and donation, which puts the donor at neither risk nor in pain. Imagine a world registry where each of us can instantly be found if needed. Duke Frederico never met Raphaelo, but he created the forum where such a talent could be identified and flourish. Moses never saw the promised land, but he lead the way. Lea’s husband did not survive to donate, but his virtue led her to a great mitzvah and Lea, she points the way for us all.Here is a link to a site that explains the registery:http://www.cityofhope.org/blooddonorcenter/marrow.htmWe continue our travels tomorrow to – Gubio, Italy a town which is 2500 years old and utterly intact.
with love, R’Goldie

1 Comment | Tags: world cultures, mitzvot, travel

27 April 2008 - 8:46A Dearly Belated Seder

Rebbe on the Road: A Dearly Belated Seder

Goldie: Ellie the Elder breaks off a fragment of afikomen, wraps it in a napkin and quite obviously places it in her purse. The fellow beside her jokingly asks if she koshered her purse for Passover or, perchance, is the afikomen lodging next to yesterday’s collection of dinner rolls?

“Actually,” Ellie explains, “I’m going to mail this with a letter to my 11 year-old grandson. You see, I’ve never met him. His mother cut off relationship with me before he was born after I seriously misspoke to her. I’m going to invite him to a belated seder at my home for the week after I get off of this ship. I’m going to rock the boat of that family of mine and do you know why?”

Elie continues: “Listening to everyone on this ship, I realize how isolated I’ve been, living alone, thinking only for myself…and I realize I’ve become bitter instead of sweet. Here I’ve heard a lot of what the role of a parent and grandparent can be and I’ve learned that I’m not the only one who’s hurt someone by being too judgmental and got herself cut off. So when the rabbi said that it’s holy to break the matzah, that brokenness is an asset and that whole thing she taught about the two Hebrew letters, it got me to thinking differently about my own family.”

Goldie: She’s referring to a teaching about kav, not sure how much of it was learned somewhere and how much emerged as awareness over time. Perhaps someone reading this post can give a source? That would be great.

At the seder each generation of Jews ensures the next generation of Jews and humanity remains aware of the importance of perpetuating freedom. Like Moses whose awareness shifted from the inevitability of rulers and slaves, to awareness of the human potential to bring people out of slavery, we’re all enslaved to something we have come to take for granted, individually and collectively. The seder is a station in time set up by our ancestors to encourage us move beyond constantly recalling the times we fell flat and move forward through that narrow place to a new level of living. When we break the body of our stories open in ever new ways – we let in the original energy of the light of creation, which can be neither created nor destroyed. Presence is eternally reJewvenating.

It’s interesting to take in that more fully that it is a holy act to break the matzah as well as to eat it. Kav, “line,” is the root term of tikvah, “hope” and mikvah, the Cosmic Womb of infinite energy and hope for the future. It is holy to break the matzah, and the kav, the line of the lechem oni, the bread of our impoverished self and the afikomen, the dessert matzah, the bread of our nourished self, and the vessel of Light inbetween lets us immerse in a momentary mikvah of the infinite light of [re]creation.

Imagine (or actually) hold the matzah over your heart as it breaks, let the Light of the Infinite Potential for Awareness and Change to enter your mind, body and spirit. Break open the body of assumptions brought to seder about what Judaism is, what life is, what family is, what is supposed to be, and open to what might possibly be.

Ellie: “When you showed us all the roots that come from two letters of a word, when you said that brokenness is an asset, my heart leaped over the past, all at once! Rabbi, you said that’s what the root of passover is - to leap over?

Goldie: Yes, lifsoakh, to pass or leap over.

Ellie: So brokenness is an asset?! Who’d have thought that could be. As the seder ended, I thought I’m going to plant a seed in my grandson, whether his mom lets him have the fruits of that seed right now or not. G*d-willing I’m going to still be alive when he’s independent and trust that he’ll find me for that seder sooner or later. I’m mailing him this piece of afikomen with a long overdue letter of apology to his mother and an invitation for one or both of them to a belated seder. She doesn’t hold seders, she’s raised him secular, like I raised her. But today I’m thinking what kind of inheritance is that? Without her Jewish roots how could she have a night like we are tonight? A night where your heart is broken open and something you never realized can become possible?

Goldie: So a spontaneous ritual was born. Around that table many hands reached out for bits of afikomen. Who among us doesn’t have someone to invite to a belated seder, whether metaphorically or in actual deed? Figuring a cruise ship is not the place to do a full-blown Jewish renewal-style seder, I’d gone fully by the book just like Barry always has wanted. It turns out the symbols and sequence interpreted through a metaphoric lens are more than sufficient to catalyze meaning, community and connection.

Chag sameach to all! You’ve correctly guessed that we are not going to give a travelogue describing much about the ports. In brief, Paris was even more lovely than we remembered, we jumped ship for two nights with the captain’s permission so got three spring days there, savored the art and atmosphere totally. Tiny Gibraltar surprises with its rapid growth and four synagogues. Lisbon’s terraced terrain is so lovely and the coach museum was astonishing – the Cinderella type royal coaches are not fables, they were owned by the Royals and the Popes from Seventeenth Century forward. We would have appreciated dry land during the seder - the sea crossing was astonishingly rough and teaches a lot. We’re on a tiny cruise ship and it leapt off the end of high waves and plotted into the troughs astonishingly, many were quite terrified and ill. I found it fun fortunately. So our adventure is all good. It is the work of being an onboard clergy person that most fasincates and gives the gift of learning, every day. Have to find time to write to you about ana amazing woman founder we just met with - another day, have to get back to the ship, we are in Gibralter again and enroute to Barcelona.

^{Also, favor if you have time, have just redesigned and reposted reclaimingjudaism.org, if you find any links not working or typos - please let us know!}

^{with love, Goldie}

No Comments | Tags: world cultures, mitzvot, travel, Holidays

14 April 2008 - 13:29Rebbe on the Road Europe

Rebbe on the Road Europe 2008 Part One: Hard”ship”

Radical awe is my favorite companion in life. Via cruise, we’ve just spent a day each in Rome and

Barcelona, cities where the tipping points of civilizations yield magnificent markers of art, literature and architecture. Time’s airbrushed streets of Barcelona’s former Jewish ghetto reveals the curved stone channels through which Sephardic Jewish culture once flowed, today, a dense bar, travel token, and restaurant quarter mostly graffitized with tales of many nights recent reveling. We pause at building #4 on a certain street our guide book says was the home of medieval rabbi. There I hear his daughter’s anguished deferential whisper, “But father, if I marry the son of the trader Aurore, he is to be posted to establish a business outpost in

Alexandria. Once our ship sails I am likely never to see you and Mama, nor any in our household again! No Papa, not a fabric merchant, please, Papa, I’d rather a poor scholar, please Papa, don’t send me away.”

Did you ever notice the word ship in the term hardship before? I hadn’t until thinking about this mythical bit of herstory.

Two days before, at the Empire Palace Hotel [we recommend it] lobby I was sitting amongst businessmen whose conference badges identified them as from

Lake

Como in

Northern Italy. I noted they were passing a newspaper cartoon amongst themselves and from their ages (60’s), chanced they are old enough to have learned French when it was the international language. In my moderately decent French I inquired: “What’s so funny?” explaining: “My father and I share a love of cartoons.” A maximally dapper fellow replied:

“You see the rich repast set on the table in this building? We know it to be a special-invitation spot in the

Vatican. Here, the Church is once again becoming a force with which to reckon. The business community is depicted as young boys holding their favorite toys [a Boeing aircraft, a building with the name of a major hotel chair atop it, etc.] also with fine laptop cases preening at the attention they are receiving from this Prelate with a um, bump, under his gown. They are foolishly thinking their reception a great honor….the cartoonist implies they will shortly find themselves….uh…you know.”

“How will this affect you?” I inquire.

“We shall see,” he replies, “Power works both ways; without a convenient plague to exploit, they have no upper hand.” His companions snigger.

“But the down turn in the economy may suffice…” I point out the obvious. He bows slightly in acknowledgement of the other option. My French wasn’t good enough to capture the last bit of phrasing, so they broke his rejoinder down for me in very fragmented English. I believe he said: “Then we will manufacture crosses and build churches, and design and build germ resistant environments and new pharmaceuticals, our conglomerate is perched to prevail.” His comrades guffaw in a cartoonesque gluttonous glee.

Before leaving the States, we had set aside the newly available fax-it-in opportunity for a group audience with the pope, and similarly available private

Vatican tours given by monks. Old soul sparks within me want to lurch for this Pope’s throat raging that he has disavowed the overdue, hard-won writ of his predecessor that granted Jews as whole in our own faith. Those old souls within are beyond fear, they want to tear at the patterns of time and demand genetic recoding to prevent the emergence of religious triumphalism – or without it, would something worse have appeared? Perhaps it has - capitalism, or an equal or interim evil? How can one know? In the Trevi Fountain, we learn in the newspaper, this very day there floated a model Alitalia plane thrust in by the union members enraged at the proposed purchase of the line by Air

France. Leftist parties are out in booths everywhere and posters of huge heads of those running for office posed to look more trustworthy than avaricious are omnipresent.

Not so long ago it was more convenient to have learned conversational French, and so recently was English the standard that I can see the words in the air between us all. German is the more useful second international language now. Germans I’ve met traveling are learning Chinese, so it seems civilizations’ tipping points are flying this way and that.

I’m reading a Michael Crichton novel that opens with some science journal précis regarding quantum theory and multiverses, speculation that there really is no time and according to the theory it seems, no such thing as time travel – no before, not after, only nows, each slightly and increasingly variant. I want to call Jeff Bub, Barry’s cousin in DC who is a philosopher of science to find out more……might the Noah’s ark verses in Torah be metaphoric residue of memory of some ancient black hole moment? Intentional? Accidental? The Jewish practice of yirah writ large, radical “awesome fearsomeness” of It All shivers through.

Speaking of awesome/fearsomeness, as happens in families, ours had two Jeff Bubs. Last week, one of my husband’s four brothers, one of the Jeff Bubs, died in his early sixties, all-too-young of a virulent lung cancer. I think we saw Jeff and his very quiet wife Sheila in person three or four times since our marriage a decade ago, their life together split part-time in

Cape Town, South Africa and part-time in

Los Angeles. Several things struck me about this strident man, in particular his generosity. In South Africa, even on Shabbat in an Orthodox synagogue, it is customary to stipulate by amount a “natan” a financial donation to the synagogue when called up to witness the reading of Torah [scripture] at a service. He always gave a natan, a generous one. He did well, and he gave well. For those who, as we, would like to honor his memory in the traditional way, here is the link to how to make a credit card donation to a very worthy local charity in

Cape Town, the Highlands House: http://www.chaisouthafrica.com/about.html. Sadly, many who emigrate leave parents to this institution and “forget” to pay their bills not long later. Why should the elderly suffer the sins of their children, when we can be an invisible family of preference, who cares and acts?

My personal life motto is “all things change. I know for Barry, it also felt a false thing to do, to make plans to attend the burial of someone where the relationship had not been a close one. Barry, as is his way, found another route to authenticity. Rather than surface too late, he sought his brother out on Skype, and through the sometimes miracle of trauma, found Jeff ready to meet him for perhaps a minyan of heart-felt and healing talks over the last months of his life. The remaining State-side brothers, we trusted, and did, do the traditional right thing, fly down to

Cape Town in the final days of the brother’s life to ease the healthcare, say good-bye and to ensure his mother would feel fortified with caring presence.

Within the week in which Jeff, z”l died, a mandatory Medicaid sale of my father’s house so long on the market resulted in my having to finish dash between legal authorities to deal, a property on which we’d placed an offer was accepted, inspected and a mortgage had to be finessed and packing at least half finished to meet the timing of settlement upon our return from my obligation as a Passover cruise rabbi in Europe. Of course, right then, the final publisher’s edits (several hundred) on the last volume of my Reclaiming Judaism trilogy arrived with a few days deadline to review and advise, and I was finishing a major remake of the ReclaimingJudaism.org website timed to June release of Living Jewish Life Cycle, and of course, our taxes returns were due. We had, as had long been scheduled my clergy students from the nearby Buddhist seminary and a faculty member coming for a traditional Lithuanian Shabbos dinner in this same interval. Barry cooked 5 courses himself while preparing to teach a three hour seminar that represented a major professional breakthrough he’d been working toward for close to a decade.

I, the usual rock in times of distress, found myself startling easily and severely exhausted. If no one will fall dreadfully ill or die on the ship, this gig feels like a potential G*d-send, a tether in time, my G*d sense told me to reach for it and not let go. I persisted when Barry, feeling quite anxious and acting deeply depressed, resisted. He wanted to stay in his nest at our apartment, to cancel the trip and cancel the condo purchase, his message to me “Just stop the stress, I have to get off.”

But we’re here and settling into a rhythm of three weeks aboard a ship full of round-the-world in 102 days passengers. For some this turns out to be a form of assisted living, one man is on his 60^th cruise, many are frail and all are the kind of quirky folks who are not about to miss a minute of the glory of creation.

Yesterday, in sunshine rather than the predicted spring rains, we walked the charming markets and quays of the medieval town

Antibes and then wandered a pre-festival

Cannes. We experienced the “zeh” and zest of carpe diem, versus ceasing the gift of life, knowing gratitude for this retreat, just in time.

2 Comments | Tags: family travel, world cultures, life cycle events, mitzvot, travel, Uncategorized

16 March 2008 - 12:57Reform Buddhism, go figure

We’re back home in Philadelphia My teacher, Rabbi Dr. Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer wrote to say the Buddhist seminary across from the rabbinical college needs a homiletics teacher, would I be interested. What a cool compliment.

Meanwhile, just about everyone I know who’s Jewish knows more about Buddhism than I do and when I told the Won Reform Buddhist Seminary so and offered a referral to a colleague, the response was: We teach Buddhism, we want you to teach homiletics, public speaking in a western environment, to our clergy students. Why not? I love teaching, feel most fully creative and alive when doing so. I love world cultures and know little about Korea….this could make for a lovely cultural exchange…..Stay tuned for developments….

No Comments | Tags: world cultures, Uncategorized

16 March 2008 - 12:53Curious Curacao, Simmering St. Martin

Curacao was heart-breaking. A world heritage site is located here that contains a room of a man named Jacob’s collection of biblical period and earlier artifacts is better known for its museum on the history of the slave trade on that island. Here individuals stolen from their villages in Africa spent two years being broken into slave-attitude, or killed or they committed suicide. The horrendous iron tools of the slavers are displayed, pens and housing, written policies and philosophical statements of slavers. Like at Yad VaShem, the Jewish holocaust memorial, I forced myself to stay present, to read, to learn more, to let hot tears of terror at what was and the knowledge this ability still lies within us, we who are inhumanity, let’s use our real group name, inhumanity.

You think I’m wrong? Read about the waves of complete mushuganosis that overtake human populations and lead us to acts of utter cruelty in every generation that the majority won’t act to stop until feeling threatened ourselves. Ashamnu, we who know as equally guilty….humanity is an organism on this planet, we can pull together…..to me that is messianic, not some dead Jew butchered by collusive men of power who people wish would come rescue us. We are it, it’s not toys are us folks, it’s G*d is us, not “him”, us…and beyond us in the fabric of all of creation. We’re potentially useful nodes that might be allowed to stick around by evolution if we stay differentiated and useful. Remember, when a species gets too specialized, it can’t survive. Watch Nova more often if that comes as a surprise. Diversity is a saving grace of creation, not unified beliefs, as some purport to be essential.

Curacao also has two synagogues, of course. One more orthodox, one more liberal. The latter has an impeccably preserved colonial temple which is still in use, the floor is sand covered, a few inches deep. The museum at this synagogue is fascinating because the lay/professional process of being in relationship pokes through the exhibits. For example, there is a tiny sterling silver and crystal hour glass that runs for exactly 20 minutes. It was commission for the president to use when the rabbi would start a sermon. Twenty-minutes, no more, fartig, as we say in Yiddish. Personally, I prefer 8 minute talks from those leading services, one point is enough to mull and that’s enough time to make one.

At this synagogue they also have ancient circumcision chairs of beautiful dark carved wood where the grandfather would sit with the child on his lap, high up enough for the mohel, the professional who excels at circumcision to kneel on a rung with his tools on a fitted tray and quickly perform the honors. (Jewish circumcision methods take under 1 minute 40 seconds, medical/surgical methods are done in the cold ambience of a med center and take much longer and are more traumatic.) The loving warmth of a grandfather or zandek (godfather’s) lap or these days in many community’s, that of the mother has to be infinitely wonderful as a memory being created for a child. When babies cry during Jewish circumcision (mine didn’t), by the way, it’s not cause it hurts (a local anesthetic I used) but cause, just as when you change their diaper and they protest, the air hits them and this is surprising. Medical circumcision, the kind done in hospitals involves the use of a tight clamp, which definitely triggers an infant reaction when one clamps you know where.

Another special stop was the moving bridge and floating market in St. Martin. Container ships come through the center of the town which is bifurcated by a channel. A pedestrian bridge connects the sides and when a ship is moving through, one instead takes a ferry. The pedestrian bridge has a motor so it can be steered back to the shore to allow ships to pass and you can stand on it while it’s moving, it’s fascinatingly smart. From

South America come tiny fishing vessels bearing fresh caught fish and veggies and they line up against a dock so locals can shop. The beaches here, while pretty, are plagued by crime, it was uncomfortable to have to keep watch on every little thing. Barry’s sunglasses were swiped when he set them down for seconds to change his t-shirt. Special here was seeing a really great mix of races as proprietors. Half the island is French, half Dutch.

Those who know me, know my first love (sorry Barry) is appel geboeck (a-pl kheh-bock), dutch apple cake. The best in the world we discovered here, topped with whipped cream, mitt shlag, of course. Note the utterly blissed out Goldie in the accompanying photo. [to be inserted]

No Comments | Tags: Caribbean, family travel, includes travel pictures, travel, children

16 March 2008 - 12:50Cruise ship rabbi

The pride of place, language and culture we witnessed among residents of Puerto Rico resembled what I wish more Jewish people could recover. This sense of cultural pride was uniquely evident on the cruise ship we boarded for a week’s travels around the islands. While I was serving as rabbi, there were few Jews with whom to celebrate the last days of Hanukkah, because of the 3000 aboard the ship, some 80% of paying voyagers were middle and upper class Puerto Ricans. When a band in a bar, or the dining room, or a walkway would play a Spanish folk song or popular Spanish love song, those eating or strolling simply, sweetly, and un-self-consciously, so far as I could tell, would burst out singing. Oddly enough both in Puerto Rico and on the ship we rarely saw folks other than Caucasian Americans or the odd European smoking. And not once did anyone leave “sprinkle on the seat,” women, you know what I mean.

Paramount was the cultural norm of bringing one’s parents, children and grandchildren along for the cruise. There was little of the acting-out that American families with children often bring to a resort. There was dignity here. We were impressed. This cruise was one where the population took “formal nights” seriously. I wish you could have been there to watch the multi-generational family photographs being taken. Beauty radiated from each body present, the kind that is sometimes physical and also spiritual.

The ship itself, the meals, the cabin, the entertainment and the staff attention on Royal Caribbean were the best we’ve experienced anywhere. Definitely recommended.

There was even the improbable arrival of latkes and applesauce as we concluded services for Shabbat and the last two night of Hanukkah. The small batch of Jews who gathered from crew and passengers enjoyed a spate of English and one elder present was honored with turning the light bulbs each night in the candlebra, candles not being allowed due to fire hazard issues now prevalent in many public institutions. I taught on how each branch of the menorah corresponds in Kabbalah to a different quality in the Tree of Life practice known to ancient and contemporary Kabbablists. Not the new-agey stuff, rather the real material from Zohar and other traditional texts. This proved deep and meaningful for those present.

Puerto Ricans, we learned are typically genetic mixtures of Spanish conquerors and former black slaves or long ago present Taino natives and black former slaves. There’s some Christian imperialism warring, we noticed with efforts to embrace an earlier indigenous lineage among the youth. When one art museum tour guide spoke of how horrible it was that the local art had been burned during an insurrection action the government, it turned out she actually meant church art. When I asked about art by those who had been living there before the church took over, she looked briefly thoughtful and they responded, “Well, they must have been some primitive art before we brought civilizations here.” Other museums contained Taino art fragements/reconstructions.

What is Taino? Pre-Columbian indigenous inhabitants of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. It is believed that the seafaring Taínos were relatives of the Arawakan people of South America, how they came to Puerto Rico is under scholarly dispute. It is documented that their women were stolen for wives by warring Caribs for many centuries, and so were likely involuntarily added to the local genetic mix. The delightful musical instruments in a beautiful old mansion in Ponce, for example, does include instrument fragments attributed to Taino culture. Also a guitar that folds into a suitcase and soundscapes from room to room that teach the evolution of salsa. It was closed when we arrived, due to an air conditioning failure, but when we said we didn’t mind the young curator with a PhD in musicology took us through, picking up each instrument and playing it beautifully and with such soulful contact to our interest and the instruments capacity that we began to have tears of pure joy at the encounter.

On this huge cruise ship, recently known as the world’s largest, on many of the floors at various points in the day musicians play in combos. When one chose to play a Latin love song, everyone walking past spontaneously began to sing along in sweet, often rich voices. Soon perhaps 750 or 1000 people on that one floor of the ship were singing the song together. I wept, couldn’t help it. When the Dutch ship’s captain did his best to give daily welcomes in Spanish, they cheered. It wasn’t until later in the voyage when a mostly Spanish-speaking man from San Juan stopped me in the hall to thank me for trying to understand what he was saying at lunch, that it struck me how he wasn’t the first person to say that. So I asked him if other Caucasians on the ship were less friendly.” “They don’t want us on these ships.” “The crew?” “No, they are mostly minorities too, the problem are the passengers.” (He showed me his meaning with a gesture towards the hoards passing by.) I told him I’d grown up in an anti-Semitic neighborhood and could relate. “Ah, but you could be quiet. Few Puerto Rican’s are quiet by nature, plus our color gives us away.” His humongous girth and hug almost erased me as he saw my tears for his words that I have heard in other cities and lands, and at home in Philadelphia. Even being quiet, the kids in my neighborhood had tried to crucify me after a priest preached that we killed their messiah. I didn’t both to explain that, just happy to have him and his six children, three grandchildren and wife as friends to touch base with during the trip.

Jews used to be considered people of color in North America. I once read a book about that. We come in quiet versions and all-too loud ones as well. The Puerto Ricans had a different relationship to body space than North Americans. They’d stand centimeters behind me chatting when I was playing ping pong, oblivious. Their boisterous enjoyment of it seemed most every minute of the day created a din that both enchanted and at times made us want to jump ship. With a strategic mass, my friend told me, they realized they could be themselves. How holy is that. Awesome.

No Comments | Tags: family travel, world cultures, Puerto Rico, includes travel pictures, Holidays, children

16 March 2008 - 12:38Nosherei

Ponce was one place we perched for a few nights. An old, classically Spanish town, where noble buildings still are crumbling whilst streets are being made anew with major government funding, we wandered freely to the beautiful, rather new, elegant and eloquently assembled art museum. The paintings of a guest German artist David Schnell took our breath away. Stunningly skilled in the huge scale use of paints that give the impression of light, depth and architecturally fascinating spaces, he also includes what appear to be towers from concentration camps in many pieces. It was the first art we’d seen in years that engaged our imaginations with in-breath of awe and out-breath of oh. The message I took away was of a new Germany with the past increasingly far behind it in a bright and healthy way. Hope so!

El Junque, the rain forest region lived up to its name. All night sheets of rain alternated with the music of frogs found only in this eco-zone

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