Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

The interconnectedness of life in an Oregon forest

Before writing silently for 60 minutes, the participants in my Shut Up and Write! group talk about what they’re planning to write. This week, I explained that as my part in pushing against the rise of antisemitism and anti-Zionism—in addition to my aching howl to FREE THE HOSTAGES and my plea for people to stop being motivated by hate—I plan on sharing a Jewish learning.

It feels right to be Jewish publicly, showing that Judaism is a way of being that encourages the individual to constantly improve the self and the world around you, where empathy and concern for the other are motivating factors and that this religion, philosophy, culture, people—this way of being that has been around for over 3,000 years—is not something to chant against or accuse of horrors.

I was drawn back to a quote I heard in the Mussar class that I’m taking. (Mussar is a virtues-based approach to Jewish ethics and character development.) This quote by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”l, from To Heal a Fractured World, focused my pre-writing musings.

“Each of us is here for a purpose. Discerning that purpose takes time and honesty, knowledge of ourselves and knowledge of the world, but it is there to be discovered. Each of us has a unique constellation of gifts, an unreplicated radius of influence, and within that radius, be it as small as a family or as large as a state, we can be a transformative presence. Where what we want to do meets what needs to be done, that is where God wants us to be. Even the smallest good deed can change someone’s life.” 

Not only does this conceptualize the idea that we’re always where we need to be, but it helps me perceive each moment—each circumstance—as an opportunity for growth, to be more fully me. The idea that we must continually work on ourselves, combined with understanding that we are always at our appointed place, means that there is never an excuse to not try to be my best or even to find fulfillment in the simplest of moments. This moment—each moment—is not a mistake: it is a stepping-stone within a life.

Contemplating that quote, I keep returning to, we are “where God wants us to be.”

What does that mean? Am I (this human, this spark), on my own, or is there a current upon which our lives—each of our lives—flows? Is this the concept of God that can help me understand the idea of God that has been so elusive?

Which reminds me of something else that I read recently. In Jewish with Feeling, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, says, “Think of God not as the subject of your sentence, who is or is not this or that, but as the is-ing, the very process of being itself.” He went on to talk about not using the word God but to think of how we each are enlivened or en-spirited to live our lives.

As I looked over my highlighting in his book, another idea stood out.

“Nothing we can say about God will survive the rigors of logical analysis. But that shouldn’t get in the way of our search for the presence we have felt in our most spiritually open—or spiritually hungry—moments. If there is a tension between what we know in our minds and what we feel in our hearts, then let’s stay with that tension. If there is a contradiction, let us take it upon ourselves. Only let us press on with our desire to experience the numinous and serve the patterns of the universe in a deeper, more meaningful way.”

And finally, “That part of us that always seeks to awaken even more, I call soul. Judaism speaks of the soul as a spark of God.”

The concept of an eternal, spiritual energy or force, stripped of the anthropomorphic man-in-the-sky imagery, appeals to me—speaks to the essence that is. The something within that wonders about the connections between people—the strings that seem to draw us together in coincidences and circumstances as we go about our lives—prefers to contemplate the “patterns of the universe” rather than that we are disconnected individuals stumbling around. It seems so much more correct, so much more of a way to consider our own purpose because in this case, purpose is not merely survival. It is to be, as Rabbi Sacks said, “a transformative presence.”

To be within the presence, the fertile soil, comforts me and challenges me. I do not want to wither. I want to use the nutrients that I am given to “serve the patterns of the universe in a deeper, more meaningful way.”

With this perception of God, this force, this is-ing, I can cry out for the pain that others experience and believe that there is a gathering of life forces that has an impact, has meaning. And to that I say, amen.

Recently, I attended an online lecture by a Chassidic rabbi titled, “The Future Is Feminine.” I’m not sure what I expected, but nowadays I want to hear thoughts that haven’t been floating around in my mind for years. I’m also in a religious and spiritual seeker mind-frame where my focus is on learning from the accumulated wisdom of the sages of my Jewish heritage. October 7th propelled me faster down a path that I was already meandering along. A motivating thought: Why should I accept your concepts if they end up leading to—and even encouraging—the dismissal, death, and destruction of my people?

What surprised me, when I listened to the rabbi and heard the direction he took, was that I remained attentive to ideas that, until recently, I would have been aghast at and probably mocked. Now, I’m willing to listen. It seems that when concepts that had seemed valid turn out to twist and distort reality, casting good as evil and evil as good, that becomes the time to be open to hearing other ideas.

As I explained the main points to younger daughter’s boyfriend later that day, he summed it up succinctly, “Oh, it’s about women staying home.” It horrified me to think that I had listened to and found worthwhile thoughts in that vein. But rather than rip up my notes and turn my back on the rabbi’s ideas, I decided to read through them and think about whether there may be something to what he said, while still firmly in my feminist perspective.

While the ideas he presented are simplistic and stereotyping, I still found them thought-provoking.

Women

• Women are motivated by how good the good is. Things can be so good, why not make them better. For women, achievements come from their identity, and contentment is their natural condition.
• Women are motivated to do something good, which leads to their doing more good deeds; for example, keep Shabbat, then start to eat kosher food.

Men

• Men are motivated to eliminate the bad. I must do something to get rid of the bad. They are anxious, then they become active to complete a task, upon completion there is a moment of contentment, then they return to anxiety, to begin the cycle again. Men identify with their achievements. They are motivated by anxiety, to make a change or to fix something, which is their natural condition.
• Men are motivated to stop doing something negative, which leads to doing something positive; for example: stop eating non-kosher food, then keep Shabbat.

The Desired Direction

• We all need to be more like women. Rather than focus on not sinning (the masculine approach), we need to focus on doing more mitzvahs/good deeds (the feminine approach).

I’m not necessarily thinking about what he said from the male/female dichotomy, though it may have some validity, though certainly not on a universal scale. Instead, I’m thinking about these two ways of moving through the world. It does seem more peaceful to go from the perspective that things need to be improved and to work at that, rather than that things need to be broken and then rebuilt. Not only is the latter way destructive, it’s also arrogant. It’s as if all the contributions of those before you are valueless and only yours are of worth. Each time re-creating, rather than growing a creation and maintaining its fruition.

The wars that were and those that are, could they have been prevented if the world had been more feminine, or acting from a place of improvement rather than destruction?

Since October 7^th, my thoughts keep returning to this moment: Israeli hostages still held in terror tunnels, Israel living through the drain and devastation of war; the reignition of the nasty flame of antisemitism; Gazans suffering from the impact of Islamic terrorism and, ironically, antisemitism; and supposedly caring people failing to see the humanity and worth of every human.

And I think about how the rabbi’s ideas could help me think forward, to a way out of the gloom. The rabbi may have been talking about men and women in personal relationships, but that is not where I take them.

These days I see women baking challah, reading psalms, writing, speaking, informing, and organizing as their way of prayer to the Eternal Spirit to protect their loved ones, to return the hostages, to protect the soldiers, to stop the deaths and harm to all civilians—to bring about lasting peace. And I think, too, of the people I know who remain devoted to bringing together Jews and Arabs—people are people—because they cannot abandon the idea that Things can be so good, why not make them better, because they want to make that the way forward rather than I must do something to get rid of the (perceived) bad.

Perhaps the way forward, using the rabbi’s insights, is for me—for each of us—to commit to improving the world—focusing on that which is good: using and sharing our sparks within as best we can so that there is more light, and not a diminishing. Perhaps each of us—man and woman—needs to see what we can contribute to making the world a better place and not letting others, or even ourselves, rip apart the good with the bad.

Before going to the airport to fly from Southern Florida to Oregon, I removed my car fob from my key chain. I wanted to keep with me the key chain with the hamsa (a symbol thought to thwart the Evil Eye) that has on it the Jewish Traveler’s prayer in Hebrew. I never did that before, but it felt important to have it with me.  

A few hours into waiting at the airport for my connecting flight, it was cancelled due to the weather and icy conditions at the destination airport. Rather than wait a couple of days until flights resumed and I could get a seat, I decided to take the bus—which was leaving in 40 minutes. As I was trying to find the bus stop (which, not surprisingly, is hard to find in an airport), my daughter’s anxiety (I wonder where she gets that from) about the road conditions was tempered by her boyfriend’s confidence that I-5 would be clear.

Since it was still only early afternoon and I didn’t want to sit around waiting in a hotel room for days, I got on the bus. The ride was supposed to take seven-hours instead of an hour’s flight.

The ride from Seattle to Portland was relaxing, since there was no evidence of snow or ice most of the way. I enjoyed being a passenger looking out the window watching the world go by instead of focusing on the road and the aggressive drivers down in Florida. I could see the view that we miss when we fly: the dusky shapes of hulking mountains and the dark green of a northern forest were a nice change from the flatness of the land and the bright greens of Florida’s greenery where palm trees are the only natural thing with height. Not that I’m complaining about living in the tropics, I just felt myself transition to appreciating the experience of being a detached passenger on a dimly lit bus and not a stressed, stranded traveler in the charged energy of an airport when delays abound. 

It was dark when we departed cold, snowy Portland, where we had to wait outside in the cold for our connecting bus. No one sat next to me, so I remained in my little mental bubble. As we pulled out and onto the snowy streets, I remembered my key chain and took it out. I tried to read the traveler’s prayer, but the lettering was too small and I wasn’t familiar with the Hebrew. I used my phone to read an English version of the prayer (see below). I read it over a few times, wanting to get a sense of what it said, the dangers that a traveler might expect, and what a traveler could ask of G-d as they embarked on a journey. I tried to absorb the prayer as a whole, and not necessarily think about the individual words.

A friend told me that she always recites this prayer before she goes on a trip, and raised her daughter to do the same thing.

I had never read it before. But it seemed right to think about G-d, or appeal to G-d, or consider other Jewish travelers (now and in the past) and what they needed to feel safe, or at least not completely alone on their journeys. And I wonder now, as I think about that moment of speaking and appealing to G-d, of wanting to connect to that spirit to protect me and look out for me—what will it take for a Jew of this generation to ever feel safe again on this journey. Is it possible? Is it something to desire?

When we arrived at my destination, I thanked the bus driver for his cautious driving and tightly hugged (and got tightly hugged back by) younger daughter and her boyfriend.

The next day, I ventured out to start discovering my new neighborhood, where I’ll live for a couple of months. It was icy and neither the streets nor the sidewalks were cleared. Not far along on my walk, I slipped and fell on my right arm. I took baby steps to make it back without falling again. It took 15 minutes to walk a square block (about 1,000 feet). Gratefully, nothing broke and it took a couple of days for my arm to be almost back to normal.

As I was recovering, I was thinking of the pain that injured Israeli soldiers are experiencing, and the pain that the recovered hostages are experiencing, and the pain that everyone impacted by the massacre on October 7 is experiencing, and, of course, the unimaginable pain of the hostages. I thought about how much my arm hurt just from falling on it, compared to what Hersh Goldberg-Polin might be experiencing after having his arm blown off.

This is not a time, I realize, to be alone in one’s thoughts—there is only how to use one’s thoughts and experiences to try, in whatever way possible—to connect with and help Israelis and Jews. This is a time to support each other in our pain and our (eventual) healing.

I wonder, as I’m trying to drop my skepticism and doubt, what impact all those prayers to G-d have. As I told my daughter the other day about a prayer session that I attend, “It can’t be a bad thing to send out positive thoughts into the atmosphere.”

The other day, this line in Psalm 54 stood out: “Behold, G-d is my helper; G-d is with those who support my soul.” It’s a line to linger with, to think about what it means to support my soul and to consider, too, that it is not just a job for myself.

How do our recitations and prayers and thoughts connect and build? How do they help us protect ourselves and each other? How are they heeded and what does it mean for a prayer to be manifested?

As a secular woman who has always seen my identity as a Jew as important, I think that perhaps I have missed the essence. I’m not sure where I’m going, but saying a prayer for a safe journey, and praying for the safety of those battling for Israel’s safety, and those traumatized by hate and terrorism, feels like the right direction. And knowing that there are others who are doing the same thing brings me the comfort of knowing that I am not alone.

May it be Your will, G‑d, our G‑d and the G‑d of our fathers, that You should lead us in peace and direct our steps in peace, and guide us in peace, and support us in peace, and cause us to reach our destination in life, joy, and peace (If one intends to return immediately, one adds: and return us in peace). Save us from every enemy and ambush, from robbers and wild beasts on the trip, and from all kinds of punishments that rage and come to the world. May You confer blessing upon the work of our hands and grant me grace, kindness, and mercy in Your eyes and in the eyes of all who see us, and bestow upon us abundant kindness and hearken to the voice of our prayer, for You hear the prayers of all. Blessed are You G‑d, who hearkens to prayer. (link)

Walking out of the supermarket the other day, I was a few steps behind a woman with a baby carrier, her hair was up, making her back-of-the-neck tattoo visible. It said, שלום. I smiled. A simple moment of connection in that word, shalom—hello/goodbye/peace—especially seeing it in Hebrew, especially now.

As I passed her, I turned and said, “I like your neck tattoo.” She smiled back and said, “Thank you.”

Amid chants calling for death to Jews, either through slogans or increasingly blunt chants, and the grotesque ignoring/diminishing/discounting of Israeli women’s (and men’s, it now appears) horrific experiences of sexual assault and rape on October 7^th, and the harrowing stories from the released hostages, and the increasing fears for the remaining hostages, and the stories of Jewish college students fearing for their lives on once seemingly pastoral campuses, and the vandalism and protests outside of Jewish institutions and Jewish-owned businesses, and disruptions of celebrations, and blocking highways and bridges, and the “context” that morally bankrupt college presidents (and their supporters and advisors) need to condemn genocidal antisemitism—and and and—this long list of pain and suffering—just let us Israelis and Jews live in peace!—this woman made me happy to see how easily she expressed herself and her existence.

It was a relief. Like when I see someone wearing their Jewish star or Chai necklace (חי, which means “life” in Hebrew). I look at them and smile, often with a nod of mutual recognition.

To spread those nods, I wear a new Jewish star necklace. This symbol, also referred to as a Star or Shield of David for the biblical king who ruled in Judea—Israel—from approximately 1010-970 BCE (more than 3,000 years ago!) represents Jews and Judaism. It was important to me to buy mine from an Israeli artisan: supporting my people in two ways.

When I took my mother to a doctor’s appointment the other day, a woman in a Muslim head scarf signed us in. I could see her looking at my necklace. There was no nod of recognition, but I felt an acknowledgment. Here we are, both proudly showing who we are, in this country where we are both minorities (against the backdrop of a big Christmas tree in the lobby and a small Hanukkah menorah), and especially since we are often portrayed as enemies or expected to be enemies. But we are not enemies. My abiding fear is that the extremes—the terrorists and their growing numbers of ghastly supporters who have become so visible and verbal—will continue to get to define how we see each other and how the world sees us. It does not have to be this way.

The pit in my stomach since October 7^th is a real, constant presence even, here, in southern Florida. It is hard to remain calm amidst so much hatred—hatred with fancy explanations.

How does it feel to be obsessed with an entire group of people? How does it feel to hate people you don’t know? How does it feel to think that raping, beheading, and burning people alive is a form of liberation? How does it feel to believe that death is better than life? How does it feel to be proud of hurting and terrorizing people? How does it feel to know that there is so much blackness within you?

If this is a test for humanity, so many are failing. And it doesn’t matter the psychological explanations, the religious reasonings, or the philosophical underpinnings: to be ruled by hate is a dark existence. It is not one conducive to inquiry, discovery, creativity, conviviality, and inspiration, or even the basics: happiness and love.

Rather than seeing that there can be light and striving toward it, they are/there are insatiable black voids of hate.

I would like to pity those who refuse to emerge from their internal tunnels, but I am too angry, disappointed, distressed. Too many people believe blanket assertions of evil about Jews. The absurdity makes me laugh, a bitter laugh for the twisted state of the world.

I am too saddened by more reports of deaths. Of deaths because the people were Jewish, or protecting those who live in Israel. If prayers—heartfelt thoughts that go out into the ether, perhaps creating a stir, like butterfly wings—have an impact (how do we continue to believe this after centuries of this cycle of pain and hatred?) I want to use mine to find light, I do not want to be dimmed. Oh, how I want to believe that our continued existence, our strength, our commitment, our beliefs have been/are for good.

In my prayer class today, when one woman tearfully said how dismayed she is about the latest devastating news out of Israel, others told her not to give in to despair, to not let others break her.

I don’t know. I get not despairing because it removes hope, but not being broken? Perhaps the innate drive to repair one’s broken soul and spirit forges something stronger.  

But what purpose is the dead-end darkness of hate?  

Jewish mothers are rising and we are lionesses!

We’re done being mocked for loving our families too fiercely. There can be no “too” much love, as there can never be enough kugel or rugelach (two tasty signs of that love).

Jewish mothers have often been portrayed in movies and TV as meddling, overprotective, domineering, aggressive, pushy, and even a tad bitchy in support of their brood. Is that bad? This is how we do generational trauma!

And now we see the reason for having developed those behaviors playing out right before our eyes. We see the devastated mothers of kidnapped Israelis battling the world to get their children back. We see mothers whose children were killed in a modern-day pogrom and mothers whose children, Israeli soldiers, died as they fought for our survival, bereft, grief-stricken, but still rising with an untamable fierceness to find their children, to protect the memory of their children, to roar in pain.

Does it still seem like a burden that a mother would want to know where her children are and when they’ll be home? Just one, two, three generations ago, it wasn’t a stretch for her to wait with real trepidation and supreme relief to hear from them, to see them, to pamper them.

Is it funny that Jewish mothers seemed to smother their children with constant concern when we are now presented, in the supposedly safe USA, with the reason behind the behavior: vile antisemitism?

It’s clear now why Jewish mothers always need to know where their children are and who they’re with. Today, their children are on campuses where students and professors mass together to call them murderers and chant slogans for the destruction of their people, and where administrators are dangerously silent—where exactly is the line between overbearing and sensibly protecting their children?

It’s clear now that this protective stance may be one of the reasons why Jews have survived through so much destruction and turmoil over the centuries.

Look at those Jewish lionesses whose sons and daughters have been abducted. They are not settling for letting men in high places figure things out quietly or standing behind any man. Nope. Centuries of institutional oppression, wherever we have lived, taught Jewish mothers to be the strength and the backbone of the family. But now, finally, they don’t have to do that quietly, salvaging what is left of a destroyed family—no, they’re demanding to be seen and heard. Let’s heed the cries of these modern versions of our Biblical mothers. They are a force to be reckoned with. And their voices sear our hearts.

I’m in awe of Jewish mothers in Israel. One woman I know has two sons serving in the military, and still she goes out and volunteers, determined to do more to support other people who are suffering. Another mother, with two daughters in the military, provides succor to those with whom she interacts, even as she herself is consumed with worry.

Thinking back to Jewish mothers who sacrificed in ways big and small (which is it when she gives an extra matzoh ball to her children, but only takes a single lumpy one for herself?), nagging them to keep studying so that they can get into the finest schools in the land and have professions that they could take with them wherever they may be forced to live. Now, somehow, they need to protect their children on campuses rife with antisemitism and hate, reminiscent of the baying crowds of the pogroms that drove so many of our ancestors from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

How can it be funny that a Jewish mother sees her children as little princes and princesses? Why not smother your children with things when just a generation ago all was taken and destroyed: all that your family had managed to amass from the previous pogrom or expulsion. I finally understand that being raised as a Jewish American Princess was aspirational and not something by which to be embarrassed.

We Jewish women need to channel our inner lionesses, demanding that all Jewish lives and what happens to them matter.

I recently joined a daily women’s prayer group where we recite tehilim (psalms), as an act of calling to God. I’m not really sure why. But part of me feels that through it I’m establishing a connection with Jewish women in the past for whom prayer was an integral part of their lives, their expression of faith, of that which is within and which they could control. I’m also connecting with other Jewish women in that zoom room who are earnestly praying for safety, victory, and peace. It’s not that I believe in the power of prayer, but I realized who am I to not believe in it. Why not do something that I don’t understand, something through which I send out my voice and my heart.

Once I would have mocked them—me—but now I see nothing to mock in hoping that there is a force that binds the world and that, perhaps, the positive energy that we create can somehow be for the good. We are quiet lionesses. We each need to find a way to express our pain and our hope—to not give in to the drag of fear and anger, but to let our pain lead, somehow, to something better.

Cafe life in Tel Aviv in better times

Last week was my younger daughter’s birthday. She turned 28. She and her boyfriend went to a restaurant near their home for dinner, then to a bakery for birthday cake to complete their celebratory evening. Last weekend they went to a concert and this weekend they plan to go hiking.

If we hadn’t left Israel, the place where she was born, years ago, the reality of her birthday would be much different. Would she have gone to the nature party where so many young Israelis were killed, abducted, shot at from the air, and wounded by grenades in shelters? Would she and her boyfriend have been called to reserve duty? Would she need to huddle in the safe room or stairwell of the building where she lives when sirens go off, or along a barrier on the highway when she and her sister went together to or from a funeral or shiva call? Would my daughters be organizing supplies for people who have been displaced from their homes because of the constant intermittent bombing of Israeli towns and cities? Would they know that I, their mother, had moved to Israel from America for a better life for them as Jews, which I still believe to be true, which is a damning statement to the world.

It boggles and doesn’t boggle my mind: the hatred, the victim blaming, the anti-Zionism—the antisemitism. For years—up to now—I wondered intellectually about the reasons behind antisemitism. But I think I will stop doing that now. Does it matter why people think it’s okay to kidnap Israeli children, rape Israeli women, murder Israeli men, and harm Israeli elders? Does it matter why people gleefully support the kidnapping, raping, murdering, and harming of Jews? They do. And others don’t speak up against it. That’s enough to know.

Kind of like with the bombing of the hospital parking lot in Gaza. If you don’t care that terrorists did it, if you don’t even stop to ask, “Are you sure?” about who did it or the number of people killed, then why should I let you agonize my brain?

My blanket understanding after doing so much reading over the years, including for a Master’s degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution, is that there is evil in the world and there is the pull of the ego for power and control over others. There are people consumed by envy and low self-esteem, and fear that they will be harmed by bullies, so they bully first. There are people for whom Jews are scapegoats, blaming them for all their own failures and disappointments. It’s so easy to live in the crowd, without an independent thought, without the moral fiber to ask “Is this right?”

And there are those who have been taught to hate. What chance does a child have to know right from wrong when the adults in their life—at home, at school, in the mosque—encourage them to hate and kill—that Jews are not worthy of life? These brainwashed, life-deprived people cannot abide that people—Jews—show that, no, your way is not the only way. We do things a little differently, but can’t you see that it’s all the same: we all have the same basic needs? OK. You say a prayer in Arabic and we say one in Hebrew. So? What’s the problem?

Apparently, you can’t forgive us that we decided that the way we had been doing things for centuries before your religion even started is just fine for us, but you, go ahead, find your own path. (And this same sentiment and analysis fits with Christians; and, oh, how I wish that after 2,000 years they have finally come to accept us as we are.) How does our dedication (and stubbornness) harm you and your belief system? Does everyone have to be the same or kill anyone who isn’t? Are we at a modern Inquisition where conformity is king. Is this the philosophy that liberals, who supposedly believe in free speech and human rights and individual rights, have adopted, thus completely relinquishing their morals?

On this topic, the spread of antisemitism, there are enough thoughtful people, who I have been reading over the years and intensely so over the past two, heart-wrenching, aching weeks (two weeks that feel like a lifetime)—at this holy work of calling out the, oh, so basic, truth that Jews are people too. 

Since that black Saturday, October 7, these people have had to explain things over and over and over again, hoping to dismantle the little house of hate cards that some have built in their brains, and to prevent others from creating their own.

There have been so many words, but there have also been those horrific images.

As I feel committed to listening to people’s stories, so, too, did I feel that I need to see what happened—what was done to people because because because—there can be no reason for such brutality. It is not a crime to be Jewish.

But following through has been hard. Not hard to understand that people can be brutal savages. Hard to witness a human body—created in God’s image—to have suffered so much. Hard to grasp the pain those people experienced. Hard to know that people think it was—is—okay to cause so much pain because they’re Israelis.

No. I don’t want to think about those savages any more.

I want to think about the victims, alive and dead. I want to think about the people who may still die protecting Israel or simply living in Israel—who are not all Jews. And, yes, I also want to think about the civilians in Gaza who may still die because their leaders don’t care about them.

Since the massacre on October 7, I have been to a prayer service, a Solidarity with Israel rally, and an information session about the work that Magen David Adom does in Israel (it’s Israel’s Red Cross, but without the cross). At each meeting, the phrase Am Yisrael Chai (the People of Israel Live) was chanted at the end, signaling that while we had gathered to mourn and cry at the horrific massacre of Jews in Israel, we also reaffirmed our faith and our connection to each other.

We Jews are a people with a religion and a culture with approximately 4,000 years of continuous history in our homeland, Israel (c.1700 BCE, the Biblical patriarchs of the Jewish people settle in the Land of Israel). Some of us like to refer to ourselves as a tribe. After all, there are only 15 million of us (finally back at our pre-Holocaust population). While this deep familial connection between us may have been hard to see recently with the divisions that the government seemed to be sowing, we are standing side-by-side at this moment of attack and survival and commitment.

I’m not sure why Jews need to keep proving that they are worthy of being treated just like everyone else. Oops. I caught myself: I’m not going to think about antisemitism. I’m going to think about Am Yisrael and Jewish pride.

If part of our assignment as Jews has been to be a light unto the nations, then even now, our unity and support of each other, in Israel and in the Diaspora, show that our spirit, the thing that makes us human, the motivation to care about others, the force that keeps us Jewish regardless of religious observance, is mighty within each of us. Strong even as we suffer watching the parents of kidnapped children plead for help, for their immediate rescue and release. Strong even as we absorb the pain of parents, whose children were murdered, with their otherworldly look because they now inhabit a different world.

I ask that you don’t use labels—Jew, Israeli; Muslim, Palestinian—to determine who is deserving of compassion, of life. I ask that you see that terrorists (yes, that is a label) who set out to murder and abduct others do not represent a worthy cause. I ask that you look at yourself to see if you have a light within that could be used for good, rather than supporting evil. 

And, me, I will do what I can from here, in the States, to support Israel and the right of Jews to their homeland, to acceptance, to peace.

One small step that I am committing to at this time when rockets are still landing in Israel, and terrorists are still trying to infiltrate from the south and the north, and when so many people have been displaced from their homes because they don’t have homes any more or they are in harm’s way, and others have been called up to serve in the military, is to buy at least one product made in Israel each time I go to the supermarket.

Am Yisrael Chai!

Peaceful evening scene in Zichron Yaacov in better times

Sunset in Snoqualmie, Washington (author's pic)

When the people who had already boarded the plane (they had seemed so lucky a few minutes ago, already sitting and with their luggage in the overhead bin long before those of us in later groups were still worrying if there would be room left for us) started to exit, and the airline’s counter agent announced that there would be a delay because they needed to investigate an issue with a door, there was a universal groan and words of complaint. Those of us who were at the Phoenix airport on a summer Thursday afternoon hoping to get to Eugene, Oregon, in just a couple of hours, dreaded the thought that we would become another sorry group of stranded airline travelers.

I turned to the man standing next to me and voiced my frustration. And he, responded that he really needed to get to Eugene that day to bury his brother who died the previous day.

Quite a conversation killer—or starter.

In our case, it was a starter. We stood there, amidst impatience that was tinged with hope, since it was still so early in the delay, and talked. He told me about his three brothers: the one who had died the previous day and the one who died the year before. He told me about his parents, old-school farmers in rural Oregon. And then he told me that he was dying of cancer, that he was given nine months to live, but hoped to live past the one-year anniversary of his brother’s death, not wanting to burden his parents with so much sorrow so quickly.

Again. A conversation killer—or starter.

After a few more, “still checking” announcements, we were told that our plane needed more work than could be done at the terminal and that they were waiting to see if there was another plane they could get for our flight. At this point, I was glad that it was only mid-afternoon and that we were at a large airport, hopeful that we would be on our way, as some point today.

The man I was talking to kept our conversation going, and not on the morbid side of things. We next got into, sort of, politics. He told me that he was a redneck but that he was not all that one assumed from that, telling me that his daughter-in-law was Black and that his granddaughter was biracial. I told him that I was from New York City, to which he nodded. We further indulged each other in saying the things that we believed in—the things that were similar or adjacent, as we like to say these days. And I said that I was Jewish, just to make sure that he knew the extent to which I was originally from NYC. And since I wasn’t in a classroom where I had to watch what I said (or even going back to a classroom in the fall, so I don’t need to watch what I say here), I talked to him about abortion and the devastation of Roe being overturned. And we kept talking and listening to each other.  

He told me that his name was Randy. I smiled and touched his arm, saying that when I was visiting my older daughter in Las Vegas, where I had just flown from (he had flown to Phoenix from Tombstone, AZ), I met a friend of hers, named Randy, who casually said that we should hang out, but he never followed up on that. I told this Randy that he was the Randy I was meant to talk to. Funny how you can find meaning in coincidence; funny, too, the meaning that you can find in a random conversation that seems less random the more you think about it.

He was wearing a “I'm Not Retired, I'm a Professional Grandpa” hat. I commented on it. He said that his grandfather could never wear a hat like that and he seemed proud that he broke a cycle. He was beloved. I wondered if he was thinking about the legacy that he would leave for his children and grandchildren, so soon to come.

They announced that they found a plane for us and the new gate number. I needed to take a walk before I would be shut into a plane, so I said goodbye to Randy, overwhelmed by the encounter, the connection that we made, and my sadness for him.

It was a short flight from Phoenix to Eugene. He sat toward the front of the plane, since I said “Hi” to him when I passed him and kept walking back to reach my seat. I wanted to see him before I went off on the next leg of my trip, this time visiting with younger daughter. I felt that we were missing something—another moment of connection.

As I was walking out the doors of the small airport, he was coming back in. We both smiled and hugged without a moment’s hesitation. Not a quick, barely there hug, but a hug that you give a friend you haven’t seen in a while and want them to feel that you’re there for them. He smelled like cigarettes; I guess he went out quickly to have a smoke. No comment on what he may be dying of. (Oh, those hard-dying assumptions).

My heart goes out to Randy and his family who are dealing with so much grief.

My heart goes out to us—all of us—who don’t find ways to connect to each other, no matter how different we may be, even though it’s the easiest thing in the world.

New and Old Tel Aviv

When I arrived in Israel in mid-October, I took the train north from the airport outside of Tel Aviv to Binyamina, the stop nearest where I would be staying. In the hour ride, I looked around the crowded train at the people working on their laptops, talking to each other or on their phones, gazing out the window, sleeping—people in the interim stage that is travel. Out the window I saw office buildings, strip malls, industrial areas, greenhouses, farms, neighborhoods of private homes and apartment buildings—and I thought to myself that the antisemites and anti-Zionists who want to destroy Israel don’t seem to grasp—care—that this is a real country, with millions of people living their lives. This is not a political statement; this is life. This is not merely a decision written on a piece of paper or a vote in the UN. This is not a military base. This is home to generations of Jews who are simply living their lives, as they have done since ancient times.

Israel has a robust infrastructure—one that is continually being developed, as evidenced by that train itself which didn’t exist when I flew out in 2000, and the light rail I took in Jerusalem, and the light rail being built in Tel Aviv, which made the traffic there even worse. This is not a temporary spot to move from. This is the place Jews have prayed to return to. This is home.

This should be the place to feel at peace, as when you get home after a long trip. After more than two millennia of being chased out of towns for trying to make a living in the only ways permitted, or being forcibly converted because we’re still waiting for the Messiah, or being burned for praying differently, this settling in should be lauded. Our ancestors were not all killed. They did not all give up. They did not fully concede to the majority religion wherever it was that they lived at that time. Seems to me that perseverance and dedication are behaviors we generally value and admire.

That the people who proclaim that no Jews should live in Israel are accepted astounds me. That the people who want to deny Israel’s right to exist—Israelis right to live in their country—that they want to give one group rights and then deprive those same rights of another group (not just of a homeland, but of life itself)—seems to be the definition of inhumanity and hypocrisy. In the twisted way the world and the mind work, they are seen as being on the side of freedom. Dangerous hypocrisy.

The absurdity in rising antisemitism, the throwing of the Jews—who are just people like all people, trying to live their lives—once again under the scapegoat bus of a world full of people who find it easier to hate and blame than to consider the challenges of someone else’s life situation, challenges my (natural) inclination to believe that people are basically good. This is a stark testament to the fact that this is not a time of enlightenment, as we had hoped. No, it is a time, just like any other, where there are advances and setbacks, a constant struggle. We are not better because we have indoor plumbing and vaccines. People are still people. But why does poor treatment of Jews always have to be a sign?

My month in Israel, with more trips on trains and buses, miles of walking along bustling streets, and people-watching as I sat at cafes, was inspiring. I remembered anew why I had moved there after college and why I had stayed for almost 20 years. To feel an intrinsic bond with the people around you is not something to take lightly. To see jelly donuts in bakeries as a sign that Hannukah is coming (yeah, this celebration of oil!), as opposed to the barrage of Christmas merchandise and programming meant that I didn’t feel excluded, that I belonged. Jewish people feeling safe in their own homeland should be the goal, not something to conspire against. Jewish people feeling safe wherever they live or travel shouldn’t be a goal, but the norm.

I wish that “people are people” wasn’t my sour understanding that people can be horrible to each other, to Jews, as they have been over the centuries. No, I wish I could interpret it to mean that notwithstanding our differences, we focus on the commonalities and that leads to curiosity and acceptance.

A commuter in Israel should not be a terrorist’s objective. It should be what it is, a person going to work or school, supporting their family, sharing ideas, overcoming challenges, helping those who need it. People living lives. Such a basic concept.

Downtown Tel Aviv

Grateful for beauty and talented people

Sometimes I wonder what I know, which is a way of thinking about how much I do or do not value myself and my life experiences.

I was 20 when I completed my BA in English Language and Literature, with an emphasis on writing. When I moved to Israel not long afterward, I learned Hebrew to integrate into life there. Since then, I’ve taught Hebrew and translated articles, a book, and Holocaust survivor testimonies from Hebrew to English. My first real job was writing user’s manuals for software programs (back when they were printed and shrink-wrapped). After typing, “Press Enter,” one too many times, I got creative and became a marketing writer. For a creative after-hours outlet, I developed toys and games—my drawer is full! More than twenty years after finishing my undergraduate degree, I completed an MS in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. As part of my studies, I became a trained mediator. Then, for sixteen years I was a high school English teacher, who enjoyed resolving conflicts between students doing groupwork, as well as explaining how to use commas and semi-colons, among other prized punctuation marks. Over the years, I’ve used my writing and editing skills to help friends, family, and non-profits to improve their documents, so that they effectively represent them. I’ve written two novels, a memoir, a few children’s books, a play, and (what would amount to) volumes of personal essays.

And, I’m the mother of two adult daughters, who both have college degrees (one a graduate degree as well), who are in stable relationships, and who seem to enjoy spending time with me. I was married for 21 years. Then, I divorced him before I was completely broken by his controlling ways (though I was definitely broke). As a single woman, I purchased two cars, and bought and sold a condo.

So, clearly, there are things that I know. Life. I know how to live. I know how to use and develop my skills, so that I can benefit myself and others. Yet, self-doubt arises. I wonder what I know because I think that I should know other things—things that I value more than the things I know, things that other people know.

I can blame this on being a woman in this ridiculously male-centric and misogynistic society (where “society” is used in the global sense of the word), but I don’t want to. I want to think about how I can emotionally support myself without needing a societal upheaval first (because that seems to be a long way off, though now I’m volunteering with an organization helping to change that). I don’t want to use this valid excuse. I want to confront myself and create a space where I look up to myself. This doubt should not still be accompanying me.

When I first became a teacher in my 40s, I doubted that I could do it because I didn’t think I knew enough or that I had anything to share. Turns out, with studying, a few helpful colleagues (and students), teacher editions of textbooks, and my own life experience, I knew enough. No. I knew a lot. But that was in the classroom. I conquered my doubts there.

Still, this disappointment that I didn’t accomplish more—that I didn’t become more—continues to beleaguer me. It overrides what should be a sense of self that lets me focus on what will be and not what wasn’t. My three professional regrets are that I’m not a published author, an entrepreneur, and/or an expert in a chosen field. But when I think of those aspirations, ones that put a lot of time demands on a person, I realize that they were never within reach because I always sought work-life balance over professional dedication. (No leaning in here.) I didn’t stay up late delving into whatever it was that I needed to delve into. No. I read books for pleasure, lots of books. I drove my daughters to their lessons and to friends’ houses, and I enjoyed weekend baking and afternoon naps. I made things easy for my husband, so he could devote himself to his work. I went easy on myself, because oftentimes just getting through a day felt like an accomplishment. It still does.

A few months ago, I went to a women’s discussion group where we focused on gratitude. We all talked about the things we’re grateful for. After health, we mainly focused on people, and a few pets. I wonder now if changing how I think about gratitude would help me on my path to no-excuse self-acceptance. Perhaps I need to look within when I contemplate gratitude. Why should it be based on external indicators? Funnily, health is an internal factor. Maybe that’s my clue. Why do we judge ourselves against external factors (because it seems that gratitude has a certain degree of comparison)? We’re playing solitaire, not poker.

At the end of the hour, the leader suggested that we keep gratitude journals. If I had done that, and was still doing it, my entry for today would read: I’m grateful that I didn’t abandon this essay, but kept writing until I wrote into understanding. I’m grateful that I decided to change the in-person volunteer work I do so that I feel that I’m giving more than I’m getting. I’m grateful for my health.

And if I expanded my journal to includes words to focus on, I would write: Appreciation. Purpose. Compassion.  

May you all find the balance and words that inspire and protect you.

Grateful for the beauty in nature

Bans Off Our Bodies March, Washington DC, May 14, 2022

Clearly, there are a lot of bad things happening now. Young men with assault rifles killing children with summer dreams and Black people with groceries (and dreams)—this ongoing American war. Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine and Ukrainians. Republicans’ political attacks on women for whom pregnancy should not be terrifying, and children who may want to read a book or learn history. Homophobes’ attacks on a person’s different experience of gender and sexuality—of life itself. Antisemites’ attacks on Jews, in Israel and around the world, including NYC (the Jew-ish city of my childhood); as this teeny-tiny ancient minority just tries to live and give. Greedy assaults on the earth when we know that the real price is in lives, not cheap goods. And COVID continues taking victims and showing how little some people care about each other. UGH!

The public horrors seep in. There is no casual humming falalalalalala as I skip down the street knowing that freedom is being attacked, and that each of us needs to do what we can to stop the hate, the madness, the attacks. We must be alert, convinced that our anger and our angst—and what they motivate us to do—will realign the tilt of our world so that kindness and compassion are the baseline. I will not accept this infantilizing of women, this “knowing what is right for you” b-s, this ‘women as baby factories’ mindset. Guns kill. Abortions save. This is clear. None of this restricting our sovereignty over our bodies, and our reading material, and our talk topics. This is absurd, beyond absurd! Cataclysmic. How is the clock being turned back? Why are people okay—still okay—with this mistreatment of other human beings who aren’t just like them? So, yeah, there’s a lot going on. Clearly. I just went into rant-mode in seconds. Infuriating. This fear and anger are not separate from my life, they are part of it.

But even as that pit of horrors eats away at my waking thoughts and my sleep, life continues.

And living a meaningful life remains the goal and the challenge, especially when so many of us are forced to live in fear, sadness, deprivation, without the luxury of contemplation. Can the focus of my life, the way I live my life, help tilt the balance? Are we as the trees in the forest, not isolated neighbors but interconnected beings—where poison can be flushed out, eventually, by nourishment?

A few weeks ago, I visited friends in the DC-area. On Saturday, May 14, I went with one friend and her husband (also a friend), to the Bans Off Our Bodies march. Another friend assumed that I had come up from Florida for a march about something. A friend of my mother’s assumed that I went to the march, saying that “your daughter is such an activist.” I hadn’t realized that I was perceived that way. My impression of myself is that I go to marches because it’s what I can do, though, always wondering what good it does. But now I think that besides my being physically counted and making me feel that I did something, however small, to act on my beliefs, it shows others that we are not alone. The task for each of us is to find the right ways to express ourselves and then to acknowledge them, so that we don’t disparage ourselves and stop, but encourage ourselves to continue.

My “failure” has come, I realize, in measuring my actions against the wrong scale. Since I had hoped to be different, to be a mover and a shaker who starts a movement, runs an organization, speaks on a stage, the fact that I am just a supporter in the crowd (with neither a savvy sign nor tee-shirt) has taken a long time to appreciate. I need to accept the way I am, but not the way things are.

This thinking on the page makes me realize that this, too, is a true expression of self. I have not failed in becoming who I am not, I have not acknowledged who I have succeeded in becoming. Now is the time. This is true for each of us. We each have what to give; we each need to believe that what we do—who we are—matters. Roots spreading out and joining to create a fertile environment for positive, supportive change.

Protected Windows. Photo by Yuliia Tretynychenko on Unsplash

Most of us in America are here because of suffering that we or our ancestors endured or could no longer endure. Oppressed. Enslaved. Tortured. Starved. And those who were already here, they, too, endured those crimes. Perhaps some came to escape perpetrating crimes, while others came to perpetrate them. Some of us have learned that we must help those who suffer, while others have learned that it pays to oppress. An ugly, horrid web.

Seeing the carnage on the streets of Ukraine shows so bluntly that wars may be motivated by the grotesque ego of those sitting on their hollow thrones, but the men who carry out their plans of conquest are not innocent. They shoot people who are trying to survive and rape women who, perhaps, represent victory to those who are tiny in their hearts and minds. Perhaps they are motivated by hurt and imagined indignities, not beauty or compassion. This is a hard world.  

We learned about “rape and pillage” from centuries of war, and thought (hoped?), naively, that there could be a time—that this was that time—that is post-war. But that was just us not paying attention to over there and there and there and there. Has that time ever existed? It seems to be a base/basic method of human expression; surely, our worst method. Can we ever have peace if we are basically the same people we have been for thousands of years?

Communication. Miscommunication. Misleading communication. Words lead to debasing actions. To death. To destruction. To denying another’s right to live unfettered in body, heart, and mind.  

I watched a video of a displaced child talking softly of the green gardens of her hometown that are now gray rubble. What has been won? What has been lost? There is no balance.

The ache continues here, in its way, as I also read the news of America. The brutality of pushing against one’s neighbor, of imposing one’s venomous vision on others, makes it so clear that the push to oppress is not just done in air raids, but in a blindness of ethics, for how can it be ethical not to recognize the rights and dignity of those who aren’t you?

We see the cruelty that seems always to be lurking, ready to exert itself. We know fear—the feeling of anticipating that the worst could, yet, happen. But we have also been inspired by wisdom and the actions of those who have come before—those who always seem to rise—those who have not succumbed to holding power—over. They must be supported.

Those images of bodies—hands tied behind backs, lying on the streets of their city, fallen guardians—reach in so deep, to the fibers within that twitch with ancestral memory—human memory. This cannot be. Yet, it is. It should not be. Yet, it is. I refuse to accept that, concede to this dark reality. We must each, in our way, stand up and push back and protect. Move forward, undeterred by what is, focused on what should be.

May the war end soon and with it may the violence, the destruction, and the killing end.

May those who have been harmed find healing and safety and trust and peace.

May those who have harmed others acknowledge in anguish, remorse, regret, and grief what they have done and who they are, and may they be guided evermore to redress what they have done, as much as can be.   

Fence proclaiming its stand. Photo by Tina Hartung on Unsplash

The war continues. Watching the news continues. Reading articles and tweets continues. Donating to organizations helping Ukrainian refugees continues. Crying in empathy continues. Being within the fog of dread for what is and what may be continues.

The horror of watching death occur, knowing that more people will die or be injured is an unremitting feeling of sadness and helplessness. But not hopelessness, when seeing bravery, communal and individual. But still, the deep sadness of knowing that death and destruction are so central to what is seen. Why is it always so?

Sitting comfortably at home is a blessing, but to know and not be able to stop it is a different aspect of the horror of war.  

How is this world possible? How is it possible for there to be flooding and drought at the same moment? How are some huddling from the cold while others are harmed by the heat? How is it that some people starve while others, with stocked pantries, have more groceries delivered to their homes? Why is there good and evil, empathy and indifference? It hurts to see that so many people cannot accept people with any difference from what they are. How can I be created in God’s image but not you? Who gives you the right to impose yourself on others? Are war and peace as natural as the seasons? Can we not overcome this aspect of nature as we have used our brains to develop the tools and medicines that improve our lives?

The obscenity of me sitting here watching the sunlight reach out from the dimness of dusk to create a bright day while people in Ukraine will never see the trees, they planted, grow. There should not be guilt in living, a life, a comfortable life.

During my graduate studies in conflict, I came to the understanding that wars and conflicts are based on a person’s desire for power and greed (which is surely a desire for another kind of power). Why do so many of us need to suffer for the grubbiness of people who never have enough, who never see what they have, who will never be satisfied beyond a moment before they desire more?

The war is in Ukraine. There are other wars. There is suffering, more suffering. Will the bully-beasts ever be defeated for long? Long enough to know/care that it is better to grab for less; to see that each life is deserving; to hear the cries of a child, a partner, a parent, and know that it is as important as your rattles of mememememe?  

The Life of Ukraine's Colors: Photo by Olga Subach on Unsplash

My heart goes out to the Ukrainian people who are suffering from the war that Putin, and Russia, have hurled upon them. As I sit here writing, it’s shocking to realize that just a few weeks ago Ukrainian writers were also in libraries and cafes and at their kitchen tables writing down their thoughts and not struggling to survive the brutality of war—of a war machine—that does not value human life, that sees value in destruction. So much pain and its impact. It doesn’t matter how sophisticated our stuff may be, there is still so much baseness within.

The images of brute destruction of the places where lives have been lived; the voices speaking up and down the scales of pain; the faces expressing horror, exhaustion, desperation, pain, anger, love—fear. The shrieks of why, which may get a response, but, really, can never be answered in the way a heart can comprehend. Why is it so hard to live without trying to hurt someone else?

The other day I spoke to a friend who was a refugee when she was a child, more than 70 years ago. The pain of the loss of her father and the loss of her home and all that she knew have remained with her. She is heartbroken knowing the painful path before these new refugees. The images we see of children pressing their hands against the glass to touch their father's hands before their train takes them away, represents a pain that will never go away. This moment remains forever—its presence is always present.

There have been other images of children that have distilled in our minds, not of a specific war or conflict or tragedy, just the horrible impact of using deadly weaponry to resolve human interactions. Will words ever be enough?  

And while I sit here thinking these thoughts, I get an update from Ancestry that a cousin has added previously unknown relatives to our expanding family tree. My family tree that has branches that escaped death and pain and oppression that were rooted in what is today Ukraine and Lithuania and Belarus. From century to century, there have been horrors. The cycle needs to end.

When will the cries be more powerful than the bombs?

May this war end soon—with a peaceful, self-determined future for Ukraine (and Russia and the rest of us)—with leaders who know how to laugh and know that, sometimes, they are laughable.

Painting a front door on MLK Day 2022 (Photo: Jewish Federation of PBC)

Over the years, I’ve volunteered with different organizations, doing different things, for different reasons. I’ve filled bags with food, cleaned a beach, canvassed for politicians, sat with people in hospice, and translated Holocaust survivor testimonies. This week, I’ll start volunteering at a local public garden and continue helping to write fundraising materials for two organizations in Israel focused on coexistence. My retirement days are not just filled with reading and wandering.

You’ve likely heard the statement that the giver gets more than the receiver, but I will buck the trend and say that I don’t agree with it. It must be more of a balance. How can you say that my peace of mind for having done something good for two hours is the same as a parent receiving food for their hungry children, or a dying person having someone sit beside them for part of their endless day? If it were true, then I would need to feel guilty that part of the reason I do these acts is for me to meet people and be engaged. It’s not purely an altruistic move and I don’t want to feel bad about that.

My volunteering really started when I became an empty nester, since I had more time and less financial stress. It was a sign that I had transitioned from survival mode to fulfillment mode. It occurs to me now, though, that just when I no longer needed to focus on someone else, I chose to continue focusing on others, which, I also realize, is my way of taking care of what I need, both morally (Jewishly) and psychologically. It seems to be impossible for me to be in this world and not try to be a part of it, to help improve it, to ameliorate its pains in the ways that I am able, even while trying to make friends.

During my on-boarding interview at the garden, the interviewer asked me if I had volunteered anywhere else. I quickly mentioned a few places, but later in the interview and the day, I remembered other places. All of them had been for causes that are meaningful to me. But at most of the places, for various reasons, I hadn’t become engaged with the activity or the people with whom I worked. It seems that finding a good volunteer fit is like finding the right job or partner.

At an organization that helps abused women where I volunteered a few years ago, the woman who ran the volunteer training program had started out as a volunteer and was so dedicated that she ended up as a full-time employee. For me, it wasn’t the right fit and I only volunteered there the minimum required following the (excellent) training. At other places, I could just sign up for a few hours. In many places, there was either too little engagement or too many people coming in groups that resulted in my feeling left out. This shouldn’t be a concern and maybe it sounds selfish, and maybe it is, but I don’t want to feel bad about myself or uncomfortable when I’m trying to be of service to others. I have also realized that I would prefer to use my skills, which utilize my very being, then simply do a task. I haven’t ruled those out, but they would be more occasional than ongoing.

While some of these volunteer adventures have been frustrating, I have remained persistent, knowing that I need them and knowing that when it is the right fit, I have felt whole—as a part of what is. As I sit here pushing this thought, wondering why this has been so important to me, Hillel’s statement of ancient wisdom comes to me:

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

And me as a human being—not the women who needs to understand everything—knows that the answer is simply that this is the way for me to be in the world, to share in the world. It is to know something intrinsically. It is to be.

Beach walking find

A few mornings ago, I volunteered at Kind Kitchen, which is dedicated to providing homemade kosher meals to anyone who needs help. We were preparing for the big Thanksgiving and Chanukah delivery that will be made next week. (This year Chanukah starts on Sunday night.) There were about ten older women and one older man helping out and, since it was a school break, there were two mothers with their children who were doing some of their required service hours. Coerced volunteerism. It works for everyone.

For about 45 minutes, I ladled corn-muffin mixture from a big bucket into a few hundred muffin cups in industrial-kitchen-sized muffin tins. Between myself and the woman opposite me, we prepared more than 500 muffins. Another group ladled cranberry sauce into small plastic containers, another group put horseradish into very small containers, and one group put pumpkin cake batter that the women who work there made into cake tins. When we each finished our jobs, we went to another part of the synagogue to continue onto the next assignment.

Most of the women were putting together Chanukah gift bags with a note containing the holiday prayers, a menorah, and a box of Chanukah candles.

I ended up in the kids’ section with the two mothers and their children. We put together about 200 gift bags for children that included a note of well-wishing, a Thanksgiving napkin, two dreidels, and one bag of gelt (chocolate coins). We wondered about the napkin and what its purpose was. The mother at my table was sure the note and the napkin would be dropped and ignored in the rush to the chocolate and dreidels. I mused over the fact that the napkin had a cute image of a smiling turkey, but yet we go ahead and eat the turkey at the meal. Are all Thanksgiving holiday paper products like that? The mother excitedly told me about a holiday centerpiece she makes: another happy turkey, this time surrounded by fall leaves. It does not sit right with me this idea of eating the entertainment. (I’m glad to report that the table where I had my holiday meal did not have such an insensitive display.)

In the past, I’ve volunteered at the Palm Beach County Food Bank. There, I generally helped put together bags of food so school-aged children would have food for the weekend’s six meals and two snacks: two small milk cartons; two small containers of cereal; two or three cans of food such as tuna, chicken, rice and beans, beef stew, chicken soup; two bags of dried food such as pasta, noodles, beans; dried fruit; a snack bar; and a face mask. The items filled half a plastic grocery bag that we intently pressed out the air, so we could fit six bags into a box. It is sobering to see how little space that weekend supply of food takes, especially when I consider how my home always had a full refrigerator and pantry for my daughters, and there was often eating out as well.

After that morning’s volunteering, I drove 45 minutes to a beach I like. The drive was through the commercial streets of West Palm Beach and Palm Beach, and then the residential streets of Palm Beach with its palatial homes behind high hedge walls. What you can see when a driveway is visible are generally mansions of cream-colored stone and manicured grounds.

There is no fairness in who has and who doesn’t have, I thought as I drove my Corolla surrounded by Mercedes after Mercedes. Between the walls and hedges of the estates and the two-lane road were parked the gardeners’ and service workers’ trucks. The stark difference is obscene. I wonder what those workers think about the difference.

I had felt good about my morning until I saw those homes, which in most cases are merely vacation homes.

Now that it is the season in Florida (no more sweltering heat and thick humidity), the beach was more crowded than it’s been since I first arrived in June. I sat on a towel and ate the snack that I bought at a nearby grocery store. Then I took a walk along the water, glad that I had worn shorts because the splash of the waves was so refreshing. After my walk I sat again for a little while. It is not comfortable to be aware of being grateful, envious, and angry at the same time.

After leaving the beach, I walked across the road to the parking lot and used the beach shower to wash off the sand from my feet and ankles. Still not ready to leave, I sat on a nearby bench, continuing to dry off my by-now dry feet. A few minutes later another beach-leaver approached the shower, which had three shower heads and one foot faucet. She was dressed and, like me, just looking to clean off her feet. I stopped her from soaking herself and showed her where the foot faucet was. We laughed for a moment. Connected. I was ready then to get back into my car and continue my day.

I had thought about going to the beach today

as an escape from the ordinariness of my days:

to walk on the boardwalk and look out as the waves roll in,

to think about the vastness behind what is seen and then

to eat at a seaside restaurant (I had already checked the menu),

and perhaps, before or after ice cream, walk to the lighthouse;

but then I decided that I don’t want to sit in the car for hours

alone or with friends.

Something about being contained repelled me.

I didn’t want silence nor did I want constant conversation.

So here I am, in a coffee shop that I walked to from home.

It is not scenic. But the coolness of an early autumn day was lovely

and the podcast that I listened to kept me company.

Maybe I will buy something for dinner on my walk back home.

In the end, this has been another ordinary day that, upon reflection,

was fine for me to feel part of a world where people

come together to live their lives

and not always feel burdened by the darkness of hate and selfishness.    

As a rule, I don’t buy bouquets of flowers for myself. Occasionally I’ll buy a flowering plant that I can replant or expect to last long enough for me to feel that I got enough flowering out of the investment. But sometimes when I look over at the bouquets in the supermarket, I wish I would just splurge and get a bouquet, leaving aside rationalizations why not to purchase and just let myself go for ephemeral beauty. It’s hard to splurge on myself, and it’s not just about wanting to save, or rather not to spend, but that I have a hard time convincing myself that not everything needs to pass a purpose test.

While this is clearly not a serious problem at this time of national turmoil and humiliation seeping down from the top, it does get to a self-punishing mentality from which I occasionally need a break. Even when I get together with friends nowadays, we commiserate and rant about the administration, then re-gain ourselves and declare a need for a break. Then we back down from disgust and get into the details of our lives.

The other day I was in Trader Joe’s when I thought that I needed to do something different. Defiantly I stood before the buckets of bouquets and forced myself to find a bunch. It wasn’t to fulfill a resolution, it was more that I needed a break from my sternness. When I got to the cashier, one of the flowers in the bunch fell apart, so I went back for another bunch. That’s when I saw the packages of 20 tulips in brown paper. The decision this time was instantaneous: the dark purple closed blossoms. This time I wasn’t being defiant, I felt graced by their beauty. It was about appreciation, not a lesson.

It is good sometimes, isn’t it, to simply let ourselves remember that truth is not always in words or explanations. It can be found in those generally unacknowledged connections that exert pressure on our hearts through our senses. It’s true especially now, isn’t it, that we need to remind ourselves that hearts connect through webs of compassion as fully as flowers bloom.

 A weekend on an island,

Respite from the

Malevolence of

Sexism, of

Women’s lives

Discounted, ignored, contested, belittled—raped.

But still,

Feasting on oysters,

Watching ponies by the sea,

Riding bikes to the beach,

Climbing up the lighthouse,

Were not enough to

Contain disgust and anger, nor to

Suppress the

Drive to push back for change—for

Justice for All—

For every single woman who has been harmed

Because she is a

Woman.

It’s hot, but the windows are open

for the sounds, the bare breezes,

the connections that reach beyond

my imaginings as I sit at my table.

Closed doors and windows confine cooled air,

but they separate me from the raucous cicadas,

the passing cars, the carried snippets of voices,

the reminders that

all is not outrage, fear, turmoil.

Yesterday was a day of talking about poetry:

imagery and the power of figurative language

with ten-year-olds before

hearing, reading, seeing the news of Treason,

of a man who stands for nothing, not even himself.

It was far too literal to compare to

peering down a rocky cliff,

dredging a septic tank,

razing a blooming field,

depriving an infant of sustenance.

The encroaching overlap of the day and my day

as it played out, as it plays out in far too many iterations,

shouldn’t make modeling being kind to each other

seem like a noble act.

The only fealty we should have is to honor and respect

each other. To do no harm.

Maybe it’s like having a peanut free room or table:

We take care to protect those who could be harmed

by our actions. And then,

We take care of those who just need

a kind word, a supportive nod, an encouraging smile.

Humanity. Compassion. Love.

No t-words.

I went to the Families Belong Together Rally and March in DC with my march friend. At first we couldn't understand how people were grouped. Then we realized that they were gathered around trees: everyone seeking the "cool" shade. You see, no differentiation between peoples, just seeking comfort from the elements. Can diversity show unity any better than that?

I finally got my chance to hear Lin Manuel Miranda sing live from Hamilton--free. Of course, I couldn't see him since we were behind the stage, but all of a sudden I heard a single voice sing and all the phones around me starting popping up in the air to record the moment. Sharing hearts and beauty shouldn't be a hard thing to do or a difficult concept to grasp.

Marching from the White House down to the Department of Justice to walk around it and then to the Capitol. I didn't plan it, but I love how the Statue of Liberty's beacon in the poster is right next to the Capitol in the distance. They really do go together and there were tens of thousands of people marching all over the country to proclaim that.

Vigil at dusk. Representatives from different faiths spoke; very powerful expressions from faith-based perspectives which basically boil down to treating each other with respect and dignity. This is Mark Levine (Democratic Delegate to the Virginia House of Delegates from Virginia's 45th District) speaking  from the Jewish perspective against family separation. Except for the Christ candles, which I didn't hold, it was a lovely gathering and affirmation that We're Not Backing Down.