Mountains

Everyone is afraid of something.  Some people are terrified when they attempt to balance their checkbook (and therefore never do).  Others recoil at the thought of death and some shy from financial obligations.  We have all met people who are terrified of flying.  Some call these various fears, phobias.  Maybe they are.  All I know is that we all have dark corners in our self.  We are very different and have varying shadows that cause us fear and pain.

I remember officiating at a funeral in Massachusetts where I was told by the family in mourning that their mother missed out on much of life because she refused to travel anywhere.  As a result, they told me, she had led a lonely life.

Most of us do not let our disabilities get in the way of living. Nonetheless, they may still haunt us and deprive us of becoming whole.

Viktor Frankl, a survivor and analyst, wrote, “The crowning experience of all, for the homecoming man, is the wonderful feeling, that after all he has suffered, there was nothing he need fear anymore-except his God.” What a powerful affirmation of life! For Frankl, after his bid or years spent in Auschwitz there is clarity of vision. Life is for living. Without fear.

This from Dag Hammarskjold: “When all has become silent around you, and you recoil in terror - see that your work has become a flight from suffering and responsibility, your unselfishness a thinly disguised masochism: hear, throbbing within you, the spiteful, cruel heart of the steppe wolf - do not anesthetize yourself by once again calling up the shouts and horns of the hunt, but gaze steadfastly at the vision until you have plumbed its depths.”

Mountains are only obstacles when we can see no way around or over them. To a slightly different eye, they represent a journey, a new possibility of exploration and wonder.

Knowledge of Life

When God created the universe He decided to plant a special gift, a hidden treasure. There was, He decided, the need to have a place to ensconce the wisdom of the world.  With such a trove distant but available, people would be energized to seek and value the most wondrous offering God ever left.

The problem was for God, where to put the gift? One angel suggested that it be placed on the highest mountain.  In that way only the most committed would be able to achieve it. “No. That would put it out of reach of all but the most hardy,” explained God. Another one of the Hosts posited that such wisdom belongs on the bottom of the ocean. “Too wet,” God countered. So it went until one meek angel offered, “Why not put it in people’s heart? That way, the wisdom is always with a reach but the people have to struggle to find it.”  So it was.

We toil for truth. We sweat to find our place on the wheel of life. There are many paths but only one is right for you. It emanates from those secret recesses of your heart.

James Webb write, “Honor begins who is accepting that what we do, large and small, matters. When I was first appointed Secretary of the Navy, a reporter mentioned how important he thought his job was and I agreed, but I also told him that when I die, God is not going to ask me if I had been secretary of the Navy.”

It is all there, in the secret places of the heart.  You know what to do.

When Death Visits

We dance about death in a staccato rush of steps and carefully studied movements.  Evert Jew knows about Shiva and its accompanying rituals. Our hearts have been pierced by the rending of the tiny strip of cloth, nondescript ribbon attached to our clothing. We have all experienced the pain of throwing down the final clods of earth at the interment service.

Intricate customs surround the emptiness and angst of death.  Some, we are familiar with, others we must learn.  Yet, the question ought to be asked, for whom are these traditions observed?  For the living?  Or for the dead?

If the rites of mourning are for the living, provide a sense of simplicity. We bury all those who have passed from this world in the same way: the body is treated with dignity and reverence.  We do not allow autopsy to destroy the remains of our beloved. Gently, the body is cleansed and robed and holy shrouds – tachrichin –that comes from the holy land.  The decedent is then placed in a simple wooden vessel.

There is more.  Jewish tradition demands that the mourners participate in the physical interment. The reality of death is confronted as shovels of earth are lifted and emptied.  Denial of death is unlikely.  Our faith posits that the bereft must deal with the pain of their loss and accompanying pain.  We do not shrink from its reality.  This is the way of psychological wholeness and healing.  The eating of eggs, returning from the cemetery, the prayers and kaddishes, the sitting on low stools for seven days all act in concert to heal the soul. In our tradition we allow ourselves the privilege of crying as much as we need.  And this, says Judaism, is healthy.  One must shed tears and reflect on our personal misery so that we may return to life with fewer scars later.

Or. Are these ancient laws for a different universe?  Do they exist for some other hidden reason?

Among the long discourses of our Sages, of blessed memory, is the statement that the soul peregrinates from the body upon death.  Enduring terrible pain because of its own earthly sinfulness, the soul (neshama) is excoriated for one year in the netherworld called Sheol. Only the most pure and pious ones escape a fate.

However, the faith of the living has the power to banish the torment of the neshama.  The holy words uttered in their memory alleviate the pain of the dead.  Kaddish is the way in which the living attend to their beloved who have travelled to the next world.  In this way the living penetrate the thick veil of death for the sake of Divine forgiveness and mercy.  We urge God to hear our prayers on behalf of our lost love.   when we mourn, as we inevitably will, for whom do we go through the age old rituals?  For the living?  The survivors?  Or the dead? The answer is clearly both.

Frankly Speaking

Another meeting that drones until 11 PM. It amazes me how many times and ways the same point can be stated and restated.

”How do you do it?” she asked me.

”The late hours?”

”No,” she shook her head. “The stress.”

Hmmm.

I walk in the front door and there is my answer.  With tones that makes me smile and sway.  Frank.

I pop in one of his great golden crooning hits.  Who cares? I am swept up, gone.  He booms through the speakers making me tap and begin swirling in the living room.  

A few years ago I watched a part of his biography on television. Terrible life. Immoral. How can I face my beloved icon after such an awful depiction? He really did naughty things in this time. Fortunately, he was now too old to get away with much more.

This is a major existence of crisis. On the other hand, chocolate is on a par with Sinatra. It may do no good for the body but it makes this heart sing. Yes!

“Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Carnegie Hall.  Here is Frank Sinatra!”  The bands winds up to life as I’ve lunge to my feet and sing with so much passion that people run for cover.

All worldly concerns melt into the distant past of the instruments feel my head and invigorate every pore of my body.

Who cares of tomorrow or Sunday and it will rain all day long? Winter is a meaningless word. April 15 might as well be 12 light years away. Boring meetings? I don’t see any meetings, do you?

“You make me feel so young.  You make me feel that spring has sprung…”

On those dark dreary days when nothing seems to go right, light radiates out my home.  It pulses with joy and celebration.  Everything is fine. I knew it would be anyway.  Yes!

Midges

“Sex, the food chain and the habits of the National Park Service are slowly doing them in.”

Catchy Huh? This title splayed across the byline of a major article some years ago. The real story goes like this:  every evening at sunset, tiny midges begin to mate. Just as the lustful urges begins to beg these insects on, the flood lights in the National Park bring on a nocturnal daylight. Throngs of frenzied midges while responding to the instinctual urges are undone by the lights and in swarms they crash into lamps and thick columns.

Their bodies become delicious meals for spiders, which feast on the midge body parts, scattered over their webs and strewn over the ground. Birds then swoop down to enjoy spider a la mode. And the National Park Service is wringing their hands because concrete and marble are eroding from the mess.

Kids are kind of like midges. In the aggregate they make a mess. One will leave one or two toys in variety of places. Another child comes along deposits some crayons in the corner. The next one as spoon. And so on.  You get the idea.

Finding one one potato chip is no big deal. Neither is an aveira (sin) but they tend to mount and accumulate.  One aveira begets more.  So it is with mitzvot.  Our sages declares long ago, “mitzvah goreret mitzvah.”   Another will soon follow. Just like evil is catching, so is goodness. I like to think of this when I see a baby spell her bowl of cereal on the floor. For the third time. I also like to think this when I have the opportunity not to pray. Or kick the dog when no one is looking. Or cheat on my taxes.

Love

Love means trying. I believe most people buy into the myth propagated by the film industry and romance that love is free; it comes without thought or effort. We meet a beautiful person and “fall in love.”  The two then ride on the steed into the sunset. It is moving vision but one steeped in non-reality.

Closer to the truth is that boy meets girl, falls in lust, generally assumed to be love, and they beget children. She wakes up one morning to find that he is a monster and he loses the sense of thrill that he once knew. Troubles begin because initial expectations were too many, too high. Real love is not like that.

Love means continually trying.

Love means waking up with the baby at midnight.   It means listening to the screams of labor pains and weeping at the sight of a newborn miracle.  It is handholding when friends disappear (they cannot be there all the time). It is enduring the great fights of intimacy and withdrawal.  And surviving.

Creation of love is realized after laughing hysterically until tears roll down the cheeks and crying until the heart nearly splits causing  pain. Nobody hurts us like the people who love us. No one could. By definition, the people who love us most hurt us the most. After all, if an unknown insult us that is hurtful, but when our love is in jeopardy or so many causes of pain that cuts down to the marrow.

Love must be worked on. From the little I know, and less understand, of the business world to make money one needs to invest great amounts of energy. We put ourselves into our work to become successful. If that is true to make a buck, doesn’t it make even more sense to work hard at a love that will comfort us when we are bleeding?  No friend will stand by us like they will. Lose the soul mate and a lot more is been jettisoned than any ephemeral profit margin.

I am truly amazed that so many people expect so much from love, free. It is not free.  For the sake of love we must give more than we get.

If after a hard day, I come home angry and brooding I expect my counterpart to be there with a comforting word and soothing touch. I want her to act the part of my mother easing the furrows from my brow. But who is to say that she has not had a more difficult day than me? That is an unknown.   

Are you such a thing as bliss. Eden really exists. But it is only located after much work. I’ve seen many couples well into the senior years still in love. And I ask them, “What is your secret?”  They answer, a willingness to contribute daily to the basket of love. Here is a blessing I give to all the couples I marry, “Grow old together.”  That means giving every day, every moment.

Change

Changes are difficult. Transition means adjustment. Adjustment brings pain.

All changes are difficult. Nobody really likes change because of the upheaval that often accompanies it. Sometimes we recalibrate the change and face it with excitement and anticipation. Some people shy away from anything that smacks of change while others run headlong into it. 

Moshe Dayan once famously said, “If I had to choose between peace without Sharm-al-Sheihk (a beautiful port city that now belongs to Egypt) and Sharm-al-Sheikh without peace; I would choose Sharm-al-Sheikh.”   Yet, he was one of the Israeli leaders who willingly traded the city for the promise of peace.

The moral of the story could be that peace is worth any price. Maybe so, maybe not. The moral of the story is that change begets change. Knee-jerk reactions are not befitting of mature human beings. Yet they are at the hallmark of most people.

The human spirit is tested by its ability to work for and with change, not against it.