A Meditation for Yom HaShoah

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At Temple Emanu-El in Providence, when someone opens the door to our chapel and leaves it to close on its own, one hears a brief and barely audible “click” as the door hits its frame, and then another loud, definitive, often startling, “clack” as the door finally latches. The louder sound happens only after the door has been closed in silence about ten seconds, long enough that the person who came or left through it is long gone.

Today is Yom HaShoah. Holocaust Remembrance Day. The 27th of Nissan, less than a week after the end of Passover, a holiday on which we celebrate our freedom from slavery and oppression. Our celebration of freedom ended with a “click”, but we are jarred back to reality with the “clack” of our commemoration ceremonies and yellow candles. Maybe we were freed  three-thousand years ago. Our oppression barely ended so recently as 1945. It still lingers.

Although it didn’t seem like a day to teach up-beat music to my students in our Religious School as I do each Sunday morning, all students third grade through seventh today sang “Ani Ma’amin”. Each class had different memories about learning about the Holocaust; each class had different feelings about singing the song, hearing its words, and grasping its meaning.

אני מאמין, באמונה שלמה, בביאת המשיח
ואף על פי שיתמהמה, עם כל זה אחכה לו בכל יום – שיבוא

I believe, with wholehearted faith, in the coming of the Messiah.
And even if he is delayed, even with everything, I will wait for him, every day – that he will come.

Even in the depths of our despair, we believe. As Jews, we believe. As human beings, we believe in the goodness of people, despite all else, that a better time will come and that peace will prevail.

When we read texts, we have a tradition of not ending on a sad or angry note. Often times we add a verse at the end of a negatively or reproachfully themed haftarah in order to rest on a more hopeful idea. My classes today ended by singing “Oseh Shalom,” Judaism’s universal prayer for peace, and “HaTikvah,” the national anthem of the State of Israel, as we prepare for our celebration of the State of Israel with Yom Ha’Atzma’ut next week.

Although the tragedy feels long gone and far removed, it still lingers. We still feel the jolt back to reality as we put the death tolls into perspective for our students, as we show them what it meant to us, our parents and grandparents, and theirs, to remember those who perished.

Love Your Neighbor… I am the Lord

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Kids say the darndest things. And give the most wonderful, unexpected divrei Torah.

In Parashat K’doshim, the text states, “ואהבת לרעך כמוך, אני ה” — “[L]ove your neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord.”. Today, in shul, I asked my nine-year-old student, Daniel, “Why, when God tells the Israelites to ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’ does it immediately follow with ‘I am the Lord’?”

I gave Daniel 25 minutes to percolate on the question. He came to find me when he had it.

Daniel’s answer: “Maybe it means that God created you and He created your friend, and you should each be thankful to God for creating your friend, so that you could be friends.”

The traditional interpretation of this verse, of course, is the well-known “Do unto others as you’d have done to you,” the so-called “Golden Rule”. Many of us remember the story of Hillel and Shammai, when Hillel tells a prospective student “Love your neighbor as yourself; the rest is commentary.” For better or for worse, we get stuck in the commentaries of our learned Sages and forget to reinterpret with the innocence of children. Let us, as we read our sacred texts, remember to read innocently and with our own distinct interpretations.

עץ חיים היא למחזיקים בה
“[The Torah] is a Tree of Life to those who hold strongly to it.”

When We Have No Words

~ Hinda ~ 1 Comment

We learn from an early age how to tell stories and how to express our own needs to others. For the first eight to ten years of life, we develop our use of language for survival. When we become old enough to understand the world around us, when we grow to become metacognitive, we begin to use our language to put our emotions, our ideas, and our experiences in to words. Our ability to produce and process complex language is what differentiates us from all other living creatures. It is an incredibly difficult and incredibly human task.

If I asked you, right now, to compose a completely unique prayer, could you? What if I told you it could be about anything?

Try it. It’s not as easy as it might seem.

Of course, most people are really good at what we call “small talk”. Most of us can spend hours just “chatting” about everything and absolutely nothing. I can sit across a table from someone and commiserate about frustrating classes, talk about childhood memories, and waste away a whole few hours. But when it matters most, most of us are speechless. Positive and negative experiences – if they are intense, chances are, we have no idea what to say.

Luckily for us, Judaism gives us scripted lyrics for times when we find ourselves so caught up that we can’t find our own words. Not only do I find that more often than not these words are much more appropriate for a given situation than I could personally compose, but I also find comfort in the fact that I’m not the first one to say them; that uttering these words and phrases connects me to a whole history of Jewish communities.

There are many examples of Jewishly-prescribed words for lifecycle events. “Mazal Tov!” literally meaning “Good luck!” but colloquially meaning “Congratulations!” is a well-known example. A bit lesser-known but commonly used in synagogue is the expression of “Yishar Koah” (sometimes “Yishar Kohekha” for males or “Yishar Koheikh” for females) which literally means “May you have unwavering strength.” We use this phrase, perhaps peculiarly, often to congratulate those who have participated in the synagogue service, but also to congratulate someone on a great accomplishment as well. In his article entitled “Yasher Koach: May You Have Strength!”, Eliezer Segal explores the origins of saying “Yishar Koah”. He fascinatingly goes through the explanations of two rituals surrounding Torah reading, and suggests that the term is a remnant of both of those combined, and concludes that “Yishar Koah” actually literally means, “May you have the strength not to cause the Torah to fall.” (Usually I would summarize the article in more detail but it’s so interesting I’d rather you just read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions. I don’t want to spoil the surprise!)

Judaism also provides us with words in times when we are stunned into silence. When a person is ill, we say tehillim, psalms, by their bedside, and we can recite a “mi shebeirakh” for them in the synagogue. When one hears that someone has died, Jewish practice prescribes the phrase, “Barukh Dayan Emet” – “Blessed is the True Judge”. In the Talmud, Tractate Berakhot 59b states that even upon hearing bad news (this blessing can also be said when one hears other bad news), one recognizes the incomprehensible role that God has in this world. When we are faced with comforting a mourner, Judaism prescribes the traditional words, “haMakom yinahem etkhem betokh she’ar aveilei tziyyon virushalayim” – “May God comfort you among all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.” And, when we ourselves are faced with coping with the loss of a loved one, we are prescribed the Mourner’s Kaddish, which, contrary to some popular belief, is not at all a prayer for the dead but rather a prayer of exultation to God and intended to sustain the living.

And for those times when we simply appreciate the world around us, Judaism also gives us blessings to say. Waking up, we are intended to say “Modeh ani lefanekha,” thanking God for restoring our lives and allowing us to wake up in the morning. The first part of davening that we say when we get to minyan in the morning is “Birkhot HaShahar,” which, if you read them closely, basically enumerate the steps in which we engaged to get ready and out of the house in the morning: (1) I woke up, (2) I opened my eyes, (3) I put on clothes, etc.

Most siddurim (plural of siddur) also contain a section of miscellaneous blessings or “birkhot hanehenin” – blessings of enjoyment, perhaps misnamed a bit. These include all kinds of blessings – blessings over food, over smelling sweet trees (welcome to springtime in New England!), over hearing thunder and seeing lightning, over seeing a rainbow. There are other blessings, also, for engaging in Torah study, for seeing a scholar engaged in Torah study, even for seeing “strange-looking people or animals.” Even in this case, when we might be stumped for words, our ancestors have suggested a response.

Being able to appreciate, produce, and process language makes us human. We consider ourselves the highest form of life because we can communicate with this complex system. But there is something else, I think, that makes us human: institutional and communal memory. We as people, as Jews, can benefit from the wisdom of our predecessors. In times of excessive joy and excessive hardship and sorrow, we lean on the words of those who came before us.

Perhaps our generation will produce words which are useful to the next generation. As we come up to Shavu’ot, I notice that perhaps this is one of those pieces that makes us a nation: not only are we connected horizontally with our contemporaries, but vertically to those who came before us and those who will come after us.

And now for another prescribed, but wonderful phrase:
Shabbat Shalom.

Talking about Gender and God

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This week in the Mitzvah Initiative, participants engaged in an incredible discussion about God. The discussion reminded me of a paper I wrote when I was in college, for a class on Gender and Judaism. It seems like a good time to share some of the thoughts that I wrote in this paper with you.

The paper wasn’t about the general concept of God. It was entitled “(Not) Just a Pronoun: Where Feminist Theologians Differ,” and explored the exceptionally varied relationships that individuals in the Jewish community have with God, specifically related to the pronouns we use when we do speak about God. Some use primarily masculine pronouns, some use “God-neutral” (never using pronouns), and others switch back and forth situationally. I interviewed twelve students from different walks of life and Judaism, different backgrounds, upbringings, and denominations, and compared their narratives to those of a couple of Jewish feminist theologians, most notably Judith Plaskow, author of Standing Again and Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (1989), Tamar Ross, author of Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism (2004), and Rachel Adler, author of Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics (1998).

I began to wite the paper with a distinct problem: I couldn’t begin to talk about God without knowing what pronouns to use myself. Could I talk about Him (note the pronoun) at all? I asked the question, “How do I refer to God in a way that is respectful, yet inoffensive to my reader; grounded, yet does not give away my own bias before I have even penned my thesis?” I proceeded, of course, to admit my bias. I couldn’t have done it any other way. I admit it again: I’ve always used masculine terminology for God. It is the convention I have been taught, it’s a space in which I am comfortable, and it is not a convention that I’m willing to give up.

I also began with another distinct problem. What do I mean when I say “God”? While Judaism is a monotheistic religion and therefore I as a Jew believe in one God, and that God exists (though this is interestingly not necessarily required by Torah), it is clear that there are many versions of “God” which exist in the world. Others might say that all that exists in the world is a part of God — that God exists in everything, and beyond everything. This view is called pantheism, rather than monotheism. Another modern convention is to say that all monotheistic religions pray to the same God who goes by different names. Perhaps this is true. However, as one of my interviewees, a female Conservative Jew from Atlanta, Georgia, pointed out, “I feel like Jews talk about God, but they don’t really talk about God. It’s a problem.”

My interviews for this paper revealed that the distance we feel from God-talk isn’t just a Conservative issue. Many of my interviewees had never taken the time to think about God, let alone God’s gender. When forced to think about the issue, all but two said that God is and continues to be male both in our conception and convention.

Judith Plaskow remarks that “Exclusively masculine imagery for God […] tells us nothing about the deity, but it does say a great deal about an androcentric Judaism that regards female images as degrading precisely to the extent that it has degraded and marginalized women” (136-137). Just because we use masculine imagery for God does not mean that God has a particular gender, really. In fact, we as Jews pride ourselves in specifically not having a human-like image of God, and thus we can’t define God by sex. As for degrading and marginalizing women, perhaps Plaskow should give more credit to those lay-thinkers who can think beyond the masculine pronouns into a realm where language does not define being.

Tamar Ross addresses this very issue. She states, “While describing God in gender-neutral terms reflects a philosophical understanding that the divine force is surely abstract and ungendered, to appreciate this transcendance of gender human beings many need feminine imagery to counterbalance to the male use of gendered language, to preserve as ense of personal relationship with God that is not captured by abstract pronouns” (119).

It is important to note that the problem of engendering God stems from the lack of neutral pronouns in the Hebrew language, much like Spanish or Italian. Our Bible is written in Hebrew, and thus everything — every object, every animal, every being — is gendered. In modern Hebrew, cars are female, computers are female, sinks are male, tables are male. Et cetera. On the other hand, according to another of my interviewees, a male Reform Jew from Massachusetts, “gender is a social construct that we make up for ourselves, that really has no basis in the godly world.”

Ultimately what I learned while writing this paper was that we live in a society that openly challenges gender roles. In our American society, who says that a male cannot be compassionate, loving and kind; that male ballet dancers aren’t just as graceful on the stage as their female counterparts? And who says that women can’t embody a strong, “macho,” warrior-like hero, in addition to fitting the paradigm of the sweet, compassionate, kind girl? By saying that we must ascribe God any “inherently female” attributes and use female terms to replace the previously inherently masculine terminology, we are in danger of perpetuating negative gender stereotypes rather than positive ones, as we at the same time work hard to combat them in our secular and in our Jewish society. We should embrace the fact that we live in such a society, which allows us to talk about God openly and to perceive Him — or Her? or God? — any way that suits our needs.

Shabbat Shalom.

What’s a Minyan?

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You receive e-mails from the synagogue asking you to come and participate in the morning or evening minyan. If your first inclination is to ask, “What’s a minyan?,” know that you are not alone in your puzzlement. (I cannot stress enough – if you have questions, please feel free to ask me! As they say, there are no stupid questions…)

A MINYAN (as defined by the Conservative movement) is a quorum of ten people above the age of bar or bat mitzvah, i.e. men aged thirteen or older and women aged twelve or older, who join together in prayer. While it is permissible to pray on one’s own, it is preferable to pray with a minyan because there are pieces of the service that can only be performed within this framework, such as kaddish and kedushah.

The concept of ten people unified as a minyan comes from the Talmud, one of the earliest Rabbinic law texts, composed roughly between the second and fifth centuries C.E. In Tractate Megillah, page 23b, the Rabbis explain that these “holy” parts of the service, like kaddish and kedushah, cannot be recited with fewer than ten qualified individuals. Why? Because in the book of Bemidbar, when Moses sends twelve spies into the land of Canaan, ten of the spies come back unified in their negativity against the Children of Israel entering the land. According to the Rabbis, Numbers 14:27, in which the reference to this “wicked congregation” appears, is talking about a congregation. Therefore, according to the Rabbis, it is ten individuals unified who constitute a “congregation,” and thus in order to pray in a congregation, a group must have ten individuals. Another suggestion comes from Tractate Berachot, which tells a story in which God shows up to a service in the shul and discovers that there are fewer than ten. God is immediately angry – it is as if no one has shown up!

At Temple Emanu-El, we generally hold minyanim (the plural of minyan) on weekday mornings at 7:00 A.M. and on Sundays at 8:00 AM for Shaharit, the morning service. We also hold minyanim at 5:45 every weekday evening for Minha, the afternoon service, and Ma’ariv, the evening service. If the schedule is changed, it will be marked in your Temple calendar. It is important that we have at least ten people present at each minyan so that our fellow congregants can say kaddish for their loved ones who have passed on. Please join us when you can – once a week, once a month, twice a month – to ensure that we have a minyan for those who need one.

More “Shul 101: Ask the Ritual Director” columns will be coming out to our congregational family on a weekly basis by e-mail. If you have questions that you’d like to be addressed, please send them along to Hinda Eisen, heisen@teprov.org.

What’s a Minyan

~ Hinda ~ Leave a comment

You receive e-mails from the synagogue asking you to come and participate in the morning or evening minyan. If your first inclination is to ask, “What’s a minyan?,” know that you are not alone in your puzzlement. (I cannot stress enough – if you have questions, please feel free to ask me! As they say, there are no stupid questions…)

A MINYAN (as defined by the Conservative movement) is a quorum of ten people above the age of bar or bat mitzvah, i.e. men aged thirteen or older and women aged twelve or older, who join together in prayer. While it is permissible to pray on one’s own, it is preferable to pray with a minyan because there are pieces of the service that can only be performed within this framework, such as kaddish and kedushah.

The concept of ten people unified as a minyan comes from the Talmud, one of the earliest Rabbinic law texts, composed roughly between the second and fifth centuries C.E. In Tractate Megillah, page 23b, the Rabbis explain that these “holy” parts of the service, like kaddish and kedushah, cannot be recited with fewer than ten qualified individuals. Why? Because in the book of Bemidbar, when Moses sends twelve spies into the land of Canaan, ten of the spies come back unified in their negativity against the Children of Israel entering the land. According to the Rabbis, Numbers 14:27, in which the reference to this “wicked congregation” appears, is talking about a congregation. Therefore, according to the Rabbis, it is ten individuals unified who constitute a “congregation,” and thus in order to pray in a congregation, a group must have ten individuals. Another suggestion comes from Tractate Berachot, which tells a story in which God shows up to a service in the shul and discovers that there are fewer than ten. God is immediately angry – it is as if no one has shown up!

At Temple Emanu-El, we generally hold minyanim (the plural of minyan) on weekday mornings at 7:00 A.M. and on Sundays at 8:00 AM for Shaharit, the morning service. We also hold minyanim at 5:45 every weekday evening for Minha, the afternoon service, and Ma’ariv, the evening service. If the schedule is changed, it will be marked in your Temple calendar. It is important that we have at least ten people present at each minyan so that our fellow congregants can say kaddish for their loved ones who have passed on. Please join us when you can – once a week, once a month, twice a month – to ensure that we have a minyan for those who need one.

When a House Becomes a Home

~ Hinda ~ 1 Comment

Today, Sunday, August 23, 2009, I hung a mezuzah on my doorpost, in the front of my house. It wasn’t just any mezuzah — it was one that my parents gave me. And it wasn’t any small event — it’s the first time I’ve ever hung a mezuzah on a home I call my own.

Today marks one week since I moved to Providence, RI (apparently ahead of the rabbinic schedule since the gemara gives us thirty days to hang a mezuzah!) and I am finally starting to feel settled. No, the boxes are not all unpacked, and, no, I do not have all the furniture I need and many of my beloved books are still in boxes; but I am finally starting to feel like this is home.

As I hung the mezuzah in front of my home, I thought about the b’racha that we say as we are mounting it:

Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu, melekh ha’olam, asher kid’shanu bemitzvotav vetzivanu lik’boa mezuzah.

Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us in His mitzvot, and has commanded us to affix a mezuzah.

The word “lik’boa” is the word for “affix,” but this is an example of a word that doesn’t have a good translation in the English language. It comes from the word “keva” meaning “permanent”. Like having a “makom kavu’a”, a permanent space, in davening.

Hanging a mezuzah is a spiritual experience. It is the point where someone becomes the owner of her own space. It switches a house into a Jewish home.

And then, of course, I bless my house with the traditional prayer:

Let no sadness come through this gate,
Let no trouble come to this dwelling,
Let no fear come through this door,
Let no conflict be in this place,
Let this home be filled with the blessing of joy,
and peace.

May it be a place of only happiness and prosperity, and may it do me well in my new life.

They Have Aspirations, Too

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This summer, I am working at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, in a whole conglomerate of jobs. I am on the music staff, I am teaching, and I am working with Tikvah, the edah (division) in camp for campers with moderate special needs. Overall, the whole experience is rewarding, but I am learning most from my Tikvah campers.

I’ve worked with special education programs since I was in ninth grade, already eight years ago. I’ve worked with many different kinds of children and adults with many different kinds of disabilities: learning disabilities, cerebral palsy, autism, hemihypertrophy, CHARGE syndrome, and Down’s syndrome are only a few of these. But being in camp with these kids is much different than being in an after-school program or in an in-school classroom setting. Here, in camp, we get to see how these children exist outside of a classroom; how they thrive in everyday life activities; and where their failings are so we can help them stand on their own two feet. In a classroom we talk at our kids a lot. Here, we talk with them.

As many encounters as I’ve had with kids with special needs, I disappoint myself to think that it never struck me how these kids have big aspirations for their lives just like the rest of us do. A graduate of the program and of the additional vocational program told me over lunch during staff week this summer that he wants to be a chemistry teacher when he graduates from college, and is striving as hard as he can in school to be a chemistry major (something that I could probably never do successfully). A current camper expressed to me today that he would never want to come back to this camp on staff because he’d rather be a counselor at a basketball camp. Another wants to be an artist, and she already designs some of her own unique products, which she sells to contribute 50% of her profits to an organization doing work with children who have brain tumors. Another one of my campers told me last week she was a cheerleader in middle school, and would love to be a dancer. And one of the boys, like in any boys’ bunk, wants to grow up to be a rock-and-roll drummer, having been lead in the marching band at his school.

Even we, who encounter individuals with special needs every day, forget sometimes that our kids are “normal” kids in more ways than we can imagine. They strive to mentor each other, to teach each other, to learn the most for themselves, and to be the best version of themselves that they possibly can be. They have hormones like the rest of us. They have crushes on boys (or girls), they enjoy hanging out with friends, they play sports. They sing, they laugh, they get hyper, they cry. I do the same.

Ultimately, as we work with any sort of individuals, whether they have been identified as having special needs or not, we must remember that they aspire. They aspire to do great things just like we do. They aspire to have great successes, and they perspire as they do. It goes back to that wonderful instruction I hung on my wall through my four years at BU, a lesson to everyone: “Stand tall, reach for the stars, and always wear deodorant.”

Personal Theology and the Study of Religion

~ Hinda ~ 1 Comment

New school year, new classes. New wonderful thoughts. Happily, the new thoughts have started, full-speed ahead. I’m really excited!

My professor for Theory of Religion this semester presented us (indirectly) with a fascinating question this afternoon, during our first lecture of the semester: What is the place of personal theology in the academic study of religion? Asked a bit differently, Are our backgrounds relevant to our study? Do we truly have a right to keep our biases private?

Perhaps the two are slightly different questions.

As for the first question, before asking what the place of personal theology is in the context of the academic study of religion, we must ask whether it does belong. Does it? Of course. Our professor today noted that most academics come to their fields by virtue of some passion they have for the subject; however, he said, “the field of Religion is populated by many scholars who are kind of hostile.” Perhaps hostility is a kind of passion in itself: as Joseph Fletcher once wrote, “The true opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.” Negative passion is still passion. In this vein, our passion — our baggage, more broadly — informs everything we do, especially in our academics.

Yes, I understand that passion, or baggage, is not theology. In a way, though, it is a large part. Theology is the part of my baggage that I pack in my carry-on backpack, right between my siddur (prayer book) and my science textbook, squished in there next to my water bottle and my music. Even if I don’t want it to, my own belief in God and religion — my theology — permeates into all of the thoughts I have, in all the activities I do, whether I present those ideas aloud in class or not. Like Franz Kafka, who once claimed that none of his works were autobiographical in the same breath as admitting that the subconscious consistently leaks into all his writing, one could argue that even if we try to assert that we are capable of divorcing our biases from our learning, all of our biases eventually sneakily leak out into our conversations and discussions like carbon monoxide.

The more pressing question, then, might be: Do we have an obligation to share our biases in a controlled forum, to inform our classmates of our possibly-skewed paradigms, or do we jut let them slide into our speech and writing? Some professors have different philosophies.

In my blog entry “Almost Atheist” (2/3/08), I discussed an experience at the beginning of last semester in which my professor in a different religion class required that we introduce ourselves and our religious backgrounds, as it would “define our perception of the material we are going to study,” a philosophy that grants us a much different — though not necessarily a negatively different — classroom environment than the “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” policy of my current professor. In all honesty, I have great respect for any person who believes that he can, and does, keep his personal religious biases outside the classroom unless relevant and consciously introduced. Personally, I try very hard to leave my biases by the mezuzah when I enter a room, but it’s very hard. Especially being a religious person, who believes that the Torah is the word of God, I find it difficult to accept lessons like the Documentary Hypothesis (J, E, P, D, and sometimes H). While on the one hand it’s hard, on another hand it’s easy: If I believe that God wrote or somehow inherently influenced the writing of the Bible, and I believe that God is all-powerful, there is no reason that I couldn’t believe that God could write in four (or five) different writing styles. Heck, I write in more than four myself: between my To Do lists, my divrei Torah, my formal academic papers, my Instant Messaging to friends, my poetry, my lab reports, my e-mails to colleagues or e-mails to friends and family, and this blog, there are nine different styles in which I write, not to mention that I speak in an entirely different way. And when I talk about the wonderful things my mom does, sometimes I refer to her as “My mom”, or “Mommy”, or “Mom”, or “Susan”, “Susan Eisen,” or even sometimes “Susan Schor” (her maiden name) depending what I’m telling whom. It doesn’t change the fact that I am the author. Furthermore, while some Documentary Hypothesists would say that the intentionality of the four (or five) authors is different, that proof doesn’t stand here. All of my forms of writing also depend on my intentions.

But I have digressed. Getting back to the second question on hand, I still must ask: are our backgrounds relevant to our study? Do we truly have a right to keep our biases private?

Again, difficult. Of course we have a “right” to keep our biases private. That is what the Bill of Rights meant when it allowed people to “plead the fifth” in order not to incriminate themselves. Sure, this is not a legal issue, but in the American world we do have the right to say, or not to say, what we choose. However, we must remember that when someone “pleads the fifth” they do so in order to cover up relevant information on which they do not want to be judged. Our biases are relevant, and, in an ideal world, it would be important for us to share those.

But we don’t live in an ideal world; we live in a world full of judgment and Nose-in-the-Air syndrome. If we could assure concerned academics and students that they would not be bombarded with these, and that the field was a risk-free environment, then perhaps we would be able to freely air our biases in public. Perhaps there are some, the “good ones,” who successfully bury their paradigms and divorce themselves long enough from their own religions – religions of God or of Science or of hostility – to research and speak freely about their subjects. Many are not so talented.

Dear Grandpa

~ Hinda ~ Leave a comment

(I delivered this eulogy at my grandfather’s funeral, Z”L, on July 29, 2008)

On Sunday night, I had the distinct כבוד to stay with my grandparents in the hospice facility in which my grandfather was residing. While I was up late that night, I composed the following letter, which I’d like to share with you.

בס”ד
July 27, 2008
Dear Grandpa,

As I sit here tonight with you and Grandma, I think about all of the good times we’ve had together, and about how you’ve enriched my life so much, as well as the lives of my parents, my siblings, and so many others around you.

You were always smiling, I remember; you always loved to make us smile. You were the kind of grandpa who loved to see us laughing, who was content to have your youngest granddaughter sit on your head and play with your hair, to show us new tricks on the computer (that is, before we knew more than you did). At every birthday you’d sing a perfectly in-tune “Good Evening Friends” at the end of the Happy Birthday song, even up to Grandma’s most recent birthday, which we celebrated when you stayed in our house this year on Pesach. I remember years ago, sitting on your lap, having you sing your own doctored version of Al Jolson’s “Sonny Boy,” which included each of our own names, and our age with some equation ending in three. I remember being seven years old, sitting in your lap, while you sang to me: “Climb up on my knee, Hinda girl, / You’re one plus two times three, Hinda girl.” I wished this year on my birthday you could have sung to me, finally seven times three.

As I sit, I’m playing through my head the interviews we did together, the great stories you told me. Through it all you seemed so modest, so understated, but your stories reinforced for me that you were a good soul, a brave soldier, a lifelong learner, an avid reader, a dedicated teacher. Even though I always knew you as an academic, I learned that you were the kid who disliked the first few days of kindergarten so much that you used to run home. You enjoyed a good laugh, a happy occasion. You loved my Grandma, your wife, for over 55 years, and treated her as an equal, with respect and honor.

My father, the biggest blessing you’ve given me (in greatness and in stature), summed up his experience of you in his own beautifully written words. I sit here reading them with you, Grandpa, at my side, grinning to myself because I know my father inherited his love of dinner-table grammar lessons from you. I know that in your condition you are not able to read his words yourself, but let me share them with you. You would be proud to read them.

Daddy writes:

“This week’s Torah portion, מסעי, recounts the path of the Israelites as they wandered through the desert on the way to their final destination and then goes on to describe how each tribe’s נחלה, or legacy of hereditary property, would be determined. In recalling the path of my father’s life, I believe that one aspect of his legacy was how Dad continued to strive to reinvent himself as a better person all through his adult life.

Dad grew up in a home that was unmistakably Jewish in that my grandmother kept a kosher kitchen and she lit candles on Friday night, but there weren’t a lot of other observances of Jewish ritual. When my brother and I developed an interest in attending shul on Shabbat mornings, Dad was supportive — at least to the point of getting us there and then picking us up again afterwards. By the time we were teenagers, both Dad and Mom had become regulars at Shabbat morning services. Those days at East Midwood marked the start of several lifelong friendships for my parents, including a particularly close friendship with my in-laws, Roz and Leon Schor. Years later, after Susan and I were married and Mom and Dad finally moved to the Midwood community from the “Diaspora” of East 58th Street, imagine my surprise to learn that Dad had become a regular at the daily minyan. The increased frequency of his attendance at shul, he explained, was somehow connected to his desire to help out the minyan with some computer work that he had volunteered to do, but while I never did fully understand the connection, I suspected that, somehow, some spiritual growth may have been involved. How proud we all were when he chanted the haftarah at his second bar mitzvah, just three years ago.

Dad reinvented himself in many other ways, too. He reinvented himself into a non-smoker, in response to a certain amount of loving pressure from the rest of us. He reinvented himself into a fairly adept personal computer user, after having grown up with IBM mainframes in the 1950s. And, patiently explaining to me all the nuances of the game, he reinvented himself into a Mets fan when I got interested in baseball after the ’69 Mets won the World Series, years after his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers had abandoned Ebbets Field for sunny Southern California.”

Grandpa, in your ability to reinvent yourself, you’ve touched so many people, so many different kinds of people. How many individuals get to serve in the U.S. Army, work at a parent’s store, teach at four different colleges and a prison, in addition to caring for a sister, two proudly Jewish sons and their wives, and six (now seven) grandchildren, all in one lifetime? You always very apparently loved your family. On this, Daddy writes:

“While we lived in the same house as my mom’s parents, we were blessed to have also enjoyed a very close relationship with my dad’s parents, who lived only a couple of miles away. I remember looking forward to our frequent visits with them. As much and as effusive as they were in their love for my brother and me, occasionally my grandmother let it slip that her only disappointment was that my parent didn’t also give her a granddaughter to dress up in ribbons and bows. After her first two great-grandchildren turned out to be boys, Grandma Fannie figured that all hope was lost. Imagine her delight when the first of her two great-granddaughters was born. In his own quiet way, I believe that this was Dad’s delight, too, and perhaps one of his greatest reinventions — being the proud grandfather of not only boys, but also two girls, who not only wore ribbons and bows, but are also quite accomplished in their own right.”

As I play through this retrospective, a whole lifetime of wonderful things passes through my head. And knowing that I’ve been alive not even one-quarter of your years, I can only imagine how much impact you had before I arrived. Through it all, Grandpa, though you reinvented yourself may times, you were always strong, always a fighter. Even when you got sick, you defied every prediction, you continued against all odds. You still do. And I could not be prouder to say that I have inherited from you your taste in music and theater, your love of laughter, love of family, proficiency for teaching, a bit of irreverence, and genes.

Daddy concluded his remarks as follows:

“May we all remember the legacy of Dad’s example, his דוגמה, of the importance of continually growing and improving oneself, setting and striving to reach new goals, one’s whole life long.”

In addition to this profound message, I would like to add my own, as I sit here watching you, Grandpa. I want to leave you with some lyrics from later on in Al Jolson’s “Sonny Boy,” that you used to sing with us: “You’re sent from heaven, / And I know your worth. / You’ve made a heaven for me here on earth.” I want to thank you for all of the blessings you’ve given us, all of the smiles we’ve shared. Even if you won’t be physically with us, I hope you’ll continue to share in all of the smiles we have for years to come.

Love, Hinda