“This is the day of the world’s creation,” our Rosh Hashanah prayer proclaims.
In this new year, may we recreate in ourselves all that is kind, gentle and compassionate …
And may we curb all that is cruel, violent and selfish …
And may our world be blessed by our actions!

“For You, O God, silence is praise!” (Psalm 65:1)

In the face of the hurricane that devastated the lives of many and disrupted our lives, silence is appropriate.

There are no words to convey our feelings.

There are no words to express our relief that we are still here and that though our property may have suffered damage, we are still here.

This season is one of renewal and atonement. Rosh Hashanah celebrates the creation of the world. More specifically it celebrates the values of Genesis creation story.

For me the “Truth” of that story is that our lives have purpose and meaning and that we humans-–not the alligator or the shark—are in charge of and responsible for the quality of life on our planet.

God’s hope, I believe, is that we humans will use our individual talents to forge a just, caring and compassionate society on this planet.

A natural disaster like Hurricane Irma challenges those ideals but has the potential to strengthen them. We must find the strength to re-create our world.

Silence and reflection help us find that strength.

One of my favorite prayers is (from the URJ’s Shabbat Manual): “Help us O God, to distinguish between that which is real and enduring and that which is fleeting and vain.”

Our house, our car, our boat our furniture, our whatever —they all mean a lot to us. They represent years of hard work and pride in what we have achieved. But at the end of the day all of these things are “fleeting and vain.”

How we live, and how we use the opportunities we have to help one another … these are the real and enduring bases on which we build meaningful futures.

Perhaps silence is the place to start.

Confronted with the disastrous sudden death of his two sons, Aaron, the High Priest of Israel was silent (Leviticus 10:10).

Thankfully the impact of Irma on most of us has been less devastating, but silence is still an apt response. To listen with empathy to our friends and neighbor as they describe their losses and is a great gift. To silently contemplate how we might best help others at this time is another.

But then we must move forward.

We cannot undo Irma’s’ impact, but the future is ours to shape.

My prayer is that we come together as a community—no matter where we live–and face that future with hope and courage.

 

 

 

Source: We Can Do Better

I cannot get the image our of my mind!
On a morning walk when I lived in Jerusalem, I could see minarets, church spires and the Western Wall of the ancient Temple courtyard.

I cannot get the sound out of my ears!
At this time of the year—this month of Elul that precedes Rosh Hashanah—I could hear the mingled sounds of shofars, church bells, and muezzin calls urging Muslims to prayer.

These persistent images and sounds represent harmony and mutual respect.

I treasure them.

Yet we all know that the realities of Jerusalem and those of the world at large are a far cry from the images and sounds that my heart holds fast.

And yet I cling to hope! We can do better!

The greatness of humanity is not that we have always lived up to our lofty ideals but that we have never failed to hold our ideals aloft.

Those words are not original with me (I would love it if a reader can point me too their source), but I wish they were.

It is easy to look at our world and launch into angry rants.

We can demand change in our government, protest many policies, and feel good that we are taking a stand for social justice. “It is (to quote Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address) altogether fitting and proper that we do this.” We hope our protests will bring change down the road.

But real change–immediate change—can begin in our own hearts and with our own actions.

This may not be the year that the images of  harmony, affirmation and respect that I treasure from Jerusalem become reality.

But …

• It can be the year when we express our own pain less and listen more to that of others.
•  It can be the year we spend less time on our business and more time with our loved ones.
• it can be the year we spend less on luxuries and more on helping others who have so little

It might not be the year that we change the world, but it can be the year that we change ourselves.

 

 

 

 

The song was originally recorded in 1941 as a message of hope in response to World War II bombings.
But it is the Doo Wop version by Willie Winfield and the Harptones
(1957) that runs through my head as Hurricane Irma wreaks havoc on Florida.
Certain Doo wop songs have the ability to touch my heart and bring me comfort in troubling times. This is one of them:
“Our home is in shambles
All I treasured is gone
The town seems deserted
Everyone’s so forlorn!
A storm came from up above
But somehow it missed
The Shrine of St Cecilia.

Irma, like Charley, Katrina and other disasters, has taken lives and left much of what we treasure in shambles.

Some have suffered greater loss than others. Regardless of the level of personal devastation, the key to our future is to find a “Shrine of St. Cecilia” in our hearts.
There are so many inspiring stories to hear and read of people coming together in the face of disaster to rebuild their lives and their dreams.
Not every story has a happy ending, but for those who have been spared it is the ability to cling to and build on hope that will determine the future.
The courage and resolve of many inspire me and, I pray, all of us, to do however little or much we can to bring hope and encouragement to others as the hurricane goes her way:

I kneel in my solitude
And silently pray
That Heaven will protect us dear,
And there’ll come a day
The storm will be over and
We’ll all meet again
At the Shrine of St. Cecilia.

Amen

 

Waiting is the hardest part!

I have never dealt with a hurricane so personally before, but waiting is excruciating. We are safe , thank God, in Connecticut because our children and others prevailed on us to postpone our journey to Sanibel until the storm passes, and the island is safe.

In checking with members of my new congregation most of them are safely elsewhere. Many have tales of what Charley did in 2004. Moods range from resigned and anxious to hopeful and upbeat.

I learn a lot from them!

TV reports are increasingly ominous. Fort Myers’ streets are deserted. The trees are swaying, and the waves are high. In Naples wind and rain are increasing rapidly. Similar reports come from Sanibel. It seems like a prelude to a frightening drama called:

STORM SURGE

A week ago that term was not even part of my vocabulary. Now I wait for it to unfold, and waiting is the hardest part.

Ecclesiastes teaches: לכל זמן ועת  L’chol zman et! “To everything there is a time. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

We were all psyched, almost packed and ready to move to the house in Sanibel that will be our home until May. I am eager to settle in, meet members of my new congregation, prepare for and welcome the New Year with them.

But now is the time to wait and to pray.

And waiting is the hardest part.

I have a new favorite movie.

I don’t go to movies much, but Vickie urged me to see the Zookeeper’s Wife that she saw on a plane to San Francisco. On the way home I watched it too.

IT IS SO POWERFUL!

It is about Antonina and Jan Zabinski who ran the zoo in Warsaw when the Nazi’s invaded Poland.

It is a beautifully told story about how this heroic couple saved 3000 Jews from the jaws of Nazi savagery.

The movie is “based on a true story.” I will research the details to sort reality from fiction, but I know there is enough truth in the story the movie depicts that the State of Israel has recognized the Zabinskis as “Righteous Among the Gentiles,” the highest honor the nation can bestow on non Jews for heroic feats of saving Jews during World War II.

The Holocaust testifies to the depths of bestiality to which human beings can descend. But stories like this testify to the heights of heroism to which we can aspire and attain.

The words of Psalm 8 come rushing to my mind.

“What is humanity that You are mindful of them … For You have made them little lower than the angels and have crowned them with honor and glory.” (Psalms 8:6)

Each of us has the potential to attain such a crown, but sometimes it takes courage that nearly defies the imagination to wear it.

In this month of Elul that leads up the sacred season of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur our tradition urges each of us to seek the angel that resides in our soul. This month, more than any other, calls us to reach for and grasp hold of our best selves.

I don’t go to movies much, but I will watch this one again hoping it will help me to reach higher than I have to enhance the “Divine Image” (Genesis 1:26-28) in which each of us was created.

 

 

 

 

My mother-in-law is a genius! At 96 she lives independently and still does artwork for which she is justly renowned!

Yesterday, Vickie and I took her out to lunch. As we dropped her off I walked through her garage turned gallery where some of her wonderful works hang. I noted two lovely water colors of Vickie and her sister Claudia.

As her son-in-law for 43 years, I thought there should be one of me. So I asked her when she might do it?

Vickie gave me a dagger look, but Stephanie smiled and said, “How about now? Wait here.”

Five minutes later she returned with a towel, a brush, a few tubes of paint, a small dish of water and a small canvas.

“Sit here,” she instructed.

So I sat.

As she began dabbling with the paint, her face transformed. Years, even decades dropped away as she alternately tilted her head this way and that, looked up and down, and smiled. Her beautiful eyes sparkled.

Ten minutes later she handed me the photo at the top of this essay.

I was floored!

For years people have told me that I look like my mother who looked like her father (pictured next to me, above),  but I never saw it.

Now I do. Clearly!

With her unique eye and exquisite talent, Stefanie converged the generations. Through her genius I see my Poppy, my mother and me all at once.

Yesterday was the eleventh anniversary of my mother’s death. I miss her terribly. There is a tribute to her (just search for Florence Fuchs) on this blog.

My grandfather died when I was ten, and if you read my essay, “Poppy” (also on this blog), you will know how my mother and I both felt about him.

Now, miraculously, Stefanie has brought us all together again!

It is a priceless gift for which I shall always be grateful!

 

 

 

Ed with his wonderful daughter Ivy

 

For much of my life I have been around tennis courts. My experience including five full summers as a teaching pro convince me that I can learn more about people watching them play tennis—regardless of their skill level—than I could if I interviewed them for an hour face to face.

Even before I got to know Ed Kalin, I saw quite a bit of him on the tennis courts both from the sidelines and from the other side of the net. The test of character that every tennis player I see undergoes, whether he or she knows it or not, was a test Ed passed with flying colors.

He was intense and competitive, yet scrupulously fair. He was gracious in both victory and defeat. He carried himself with confidence but never with arrogance, and he never made excuses.

I got to know Ed much better when he studied with me for his adult Bar Mitzvah, an event in which he took great pride. He was less concerned with the mechanical aspects of reading the portions—although he did them flawlessly—than with what he could teach the congregation about what he had learned.

How proud he was just a few months ago when I asked him—in the middle of a lecture I gave in his new hometown of Scottsdale– to tell those in the audience what his Torah portion means to him today.

He spoke with reverence and enthusiasm, and I kvelled. I knew Ed would have no trouble doing so, and in so doing Ed played a major role in helping me drive home my major point that the stories in the Torah are really stories about us and our lives today.

Ed’s Torah portion fit him perfectly. It was about the Golden Calf, the idol our ancestors demanded Aaron make for them to worship at the foot of Mount Sinai.

Ed understood and cherished the opportunity to teach that idol worship is much more than bowing to graven images. Idol worship is when we put greed and selfishness above kindness, caring and compassion. For sure Ed Kalin never did that.

The lessons he taught from the Torah were the lessons he lived in his life. And they were the same lessons he exuded when I watched him play tennis.

Speaking of tennis, Ed found great joy and satisfaction in his post retirement career as a teaching pro. He loved giving lessons, and he loved seeing kids make progress.

Ed and his high school sweetheart, Maddy, shared almost 49 years loving marriage together. Their daughter Ivy, her husband Larry, and their twin grandchildren were the light of Ed’s life. He felt truly blessed to have them living close by.

There is something very unfair about watching a kind, caring man suffer and die the way Ed did. But Ed knew well, and we do well to remember, that life is not always fair.

Ed’s life testified to the lesson of the Rudyard Kipling, poem, If, a quotation from which hangs in the tunnel near the entrance to Center Court at Wimbledon:

        “If you can keep your head when all about you others are losing theirs    …

        If you can meet with triumph and disaster

        And treat those two imposters just the same…

       If you can fill the unforgiving minute

       With sixty seconds worth of distance run …

       Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it

       And—which is more—you’ll be a man my son!

 Ed Kalin was a man in the finest sense of the word! He was a man I was proud to know, and a man who taught me much about living and dying. He was the type of man I will always aspire to be, and his memory will endure for a blessing!