Goldie: A few days back we visited the birth place of the opera composer Rossini - Pesaro, by the sea. There was a line about Rossini that awakened some new consciousness for me as an organizer. It was about how he would spend time getting to know the vocalists and rewrite opera parts to match their abilities. Rosssini’s changes sometimes resulted in revisions that would become permanent improvements.
 
Barry points out Rossini’s was a process-based approach to music, the outcome is a whole that can evolve along with the parts. This concept points to the importance of reshaping a vision, rather than attempting to bend those involved to our will. As a person of drive and strong will, the notion has the quality of a martial art concept that I can benefit from mastering.
 
Barry: What I learned from that Rossini quote is the importance of putting effort into knowing the “other” in any relationship – doctor-patient, parent-child, child-parent, employer-employee, student-teacher is capable of, feels and needs – and shaping the outcome and process based on that knowledge. “I don’t really need to know this child,” is wrong thinking. Once one really knows what is possible, then the time spent initially in the knowing can save a lot of time in the long run and the process of engagement becomes much smoother.
 
One can also extend this in getting to know yourself. In hunting for a condo we finally took the time to try to know ourselves and our needs and then within minutes of seeing a particular unit we knew this was the right one for us. This, after having looked for several years. The problem was we’d focused on what was out there rather than on ourselves and our needs re space, esthetics and cost. Once Rossini shifted from crafting the perfect piece to understanding his performers much more became possible.
 
Goldie: Lately, we’re both teaching what Barry terms ‘communication skills that heal.’ On this five week trip we determined to walk our talk with each other, to give the time and attention to process that yields quality of encounter. As Zadie Smith wrote in The Autograph Man, “He had been surprised to discover that when you subtract the rows, what you are left with is love, a huge amount of it, leaking out of you.” It is as though we have been in someway like an inchoate block of marble to one another and the exquisite living sculpture within the dynamic of our relationship, a harmonious “we,” has become revealed these five weeks. Or perhaps it’s due to Barry’s manopause or my menostop combined with our mutual computer-cease save for these weekly postings.
 
[Odd book, Barry and I had diametrically opposite opinions about the Autograph Man – he was very impressed by the caliber of the writing, I was mostly appalled by the content. Have you read it?]
 
Peaceful co-existence is attempted in so many unique ways that are documented amongst the walled cities of Umbria and Tuscany. Gubbio, some 2500 years old is visually astonishing, it terraces up a mountainside. Ascending its steep stone streets, each archway and narrow shoplet are the color we’ve deemed “buttered Umbria.” Turning right, a man bearing huge keys, what you might indeed think castle keys would look like, is unlocking an ancient door to a thirteenth century medieval dining room being readied for a religious festival.
 
Banners, we never before understood their applications in a medieval town. The iron hooks on buildings – near windows and roofs – these are catches for colorful celebratory banners, such as might also unfurl from horns announcing a king’s arrival or festoon the side of the horses of knights. Wealthy families would have servants maintain their banner collections, to hang their code of arms and devotional pieces down the walls of the palazzos (palaces.)
 
Gubbio is not a Disney thing. It is simply the real thing. Men will carry what look like three-story high heavy carved platforms on their shoulders with wax religious figures atop them in a racing manner throughout the city on the day of devotion. Though churches hold their version of shacharit, minchah and maariv throughout Italy daily [Rome alone has 750 gem-like churches from an artistic point of view], only a few elders seem in evidence except for weddings. But festivals seem to ignite passion for the old traditions; the energy is clearly building here.
 
The elaborate ancient agreements to govern this city state are worth reproducing here for you, the balanced allocation of power rather than domination is so powerfully revealed. When a young family member recently insisted on the evil of the ancient Romans because of the destruction of the temple and ultimate treatment of the Jews, it proved impossible to get a first grader to see the evolution of civilizational ideals as a process (a slip-sliding one at that) and that the Romans also left creative steps forward for humanity in their footprints on history.
 
In Gubbio, the evolution of governance forms is as striking to us as when reading in Torah about Yitro teaching Moses to set up a system of advisors. Here, efforts to govern the city states more equitably than in prior generations were being worked out. See what interests you in this paragraph I’ve transcribed from an exhibit card at the castle:
“The Consilium Generales Populis represents the citizens: the richest, forty for every quarter, constituted the Consilium centrum maloris summe; they continued in office in conformity with their position in the list of the richest. The representatives of the four quarters, fifty for each one, constituted the Consilium populi and they ruled for six months. In this assembly there were also the Captains of the Guilds, the Consuls of the Traders [and others]; they received a warrant for a period of six months.
 
The second organ of the Parliament was a magistrates’ committee with the legislative power; they were eight consuls and, one of them, was elected Gonfalonier of Justice. They ruled for two months and they lived inside the palace, on the upper floor. They couldn’t leave without a good reason: in that case they had to be accompanied by the Communal Guards. The Consuls were not allowed to speak with anyone, especially the nobles.
 
The administration of the city (executive power and judicial bodies) were entrusted to a variety of offices, the most important were the Podesta and the Captain of the People. They had to be foreign and of the Guelph party, they came from allied City States situated at a distance from Gubbio (540 miles away) and they couldn’t have any personal relations with the eugubian people. The Podesta … ruled for six months but eight days before completing his commission, he was judged by a citizens’ committee. In the affirmative he was settled with the last two months of his salary, with which he had to pay all the people that moved him from one to another (judges, notaries, etc.)
 
The requisites of the Captain of the People was similar to the Podesta, he was judged by a citizens’ committee. His assignment were to maintain peace and order to collect fines and to solve the problems of the prisons.”
 
In 1384 Gubbio became part of the Dukedom of Urbino, the town governed by the progressive Montefeltro family covered earlier in this travelogue.

What I take from the above is that perhaps: 1) They were upfront about the role of the rich in the decision tree; 2) They were wiser than we about term limits; 3) They understood the dangers lobbying to the potential for justice and took steps to limit this; 4) Alliances were consummately consciously employed to help keep the peace.
Barry: Also Goldie, they understood [something we seem incapable of in the United States] that corruption is an inherent part of governance. Rather than giving access to lobbyists, those who might have were kept isolated. Heads of government were rotated frequently, every few months. And even our constitution seems in some way heir to that of the Gubbio-type with its arms of governance, checks and balances.
 
Goldie: Oddly, Gubio turns out to have an elevator to escort those in need up to the municipal castle which proved to be the stuff of fairy tales in scope and shape, opulence and vista. We explored entranced.
 
I’m posting this on the day we returned to the United States. We visited a few other fascinating places and had another astonishing encounter about which we’ve written provisional postings. I’ll polish them over the next few days and post them as well during this week or next as time allows.

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

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

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

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

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

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