Rebbe on the Road: A Dearly Belated Seder

Goldie:  Ellie the Elder breaks off a fragment of afikomen, wraps it in a napkin and quite obviously places it in her purse. The fellow beside her jokingly asks if she koshered her purse for Passover or, perchance, is the afikomen lodging next to yesterday’s collection of dinner rolls?

“Actually,” Ellie explains, “I’m going to mail this with a letter to my 11 year-old grandson. You see, I’ve never met him. His mother cut off relationship with me before he was born after I seriously misspoke to her. I’m going to invite him to a belated seder at my home for the week after I get off of this ship. I’m going to rock the boat of that family of mine and do you know why?”

Elie continues: “Listening to everyone on this ship, I realize how isolated I’ve been, living alone, thinking only for myself…and I realize I’ve become bitter instead of sweet. Here I’ve heard a lot of what the role of a parent and grandparent can be and I’ve learned that I’m not the only one who’s hurt someone by being too judgmental and got herself cut off. So when the rabbi said that it’s holy to break the matzah, that brokenness is an asset and that whole thing she taught about the two Hebrew letters, it got me to thinking differently about my own family.”

Goldie: She’s referring to a teaching about kav, not sure how much of it was learned somewhere and how much emerged as awareness over time. Perhaps someone reading this post can give a source? That would be great.

At the seder each generation of Jews ensures the next generation of Jews and humanity remains aware of  the importance of perpetuating freedom. Like Moses whose awareness shifted from the inevitability of rulers and slaves, to awareness of the human potential to bring people out of slavery, we’re all enslaved to something we have come to take for granted, individually and collectively. The seder is a station in time set up by our ancestors to encourage us move beyond constantly recalling the times we fell flat and move forward through that narrow place to a new level of living. When we break the body of our stories open in ever new ways – we let in the original energy of the light of creation, which can be neither created nor destroyed. Presence is eternally reJewvenating.

It’s interesting to take in that more fully that it is a holy act to break the matzah as well as to eat it. Kav, “line,” is the root term of tikvah, “hope” and mikvah, the Cosmic Womb of infinite energy and hope for the future. It is holy to break the matzah, and the kav, the line of the lechem oni, the bread of our impoverished self and the afikomen, the dessert matzah, the bread of our nourished self, and the vessel of Light inbetween lets us immerse in a momentary mikvah of the infinite light of [re]creation.

Imagine (or actually) hold the matzah over your heart as it breaks, let the Light of the Infinite Potential for Awareness and Change to enter your mind, body and spirit. Break open the body of assumptions brought to seder about what Judaism is, what life is, what family is, what is supposed to be, and open to what might possibly be.

Ellie: “When you showed us all the roots that come from two letters of a word, when you said that brokenness is an asset, my heart leaped over the past, all at once! Rabbi, you said that’s what the root of passover is - to leap over?

Goldie: Yes, lifsoakh, to pass or leap over.

Ellie: So brokenness is an asset?! Who’d have thought that could be. As the seder ended, I thought I’m going to plant a seed in my grandson, whether his mom lets him have the fruits of that seed right now or not. G*d-willing I’m going to still be alive when he’s independent and trust that he’ll find me for that seder sooner or later. I’m mailing him this piece of afikomen with a long overdue letter of apology to his mother and an invitation for one or both of them to a belated seder. She doesn’t hold seders, she’s raised him secular, like I raised her. But today I’m thinking what kind of inheritance is that? Without her Jewish roots how could she have a night like we are tonight? A night where your heart is broken open and something you never realized can become possible?

Goldie: So a spontaneous ritual was born. Around that table many hands reached out for bits of afikomen. Who among us doesn’t have someone to invite to a belated seder, whether metaphorically or in actual deed? Figuring a cruise ship is not the place to do a full-blown Jewish renewal-style seder, I’d gone fully by the book just like Barry always has wanted. It turns out the symbols and sequence interpreted through a metaphoric lens are more than sufficient to catalyze meaning, community and connection.

Chag sameach to all! You’ve correctly guessed that we are not going to give a travelogue describing much about the ports. In brief, Paris was even more lovely than we remembered, we jumped ship for two nights with the captain’s permission so got three spring days there, savored the art and atmosphere totally. Tiny Gibraltar surprises with its rapid growth and four synagogues. Lisbon’s terraced terrain is so lovely and the coach museum was astonishing – the Cinderella type royal coaches are not fables, they were owned by the Royals and the Popes from Seventeenth Century forward. We would have appreciated dry land during the seder - the sea crossing was astonishingly rough and teaches a lot. We’re on a tiny cruise ship and it leapt off the end of high waves and plotted into the troughs astonishingly, many were quite terrified and ill. I found it fun fortunately. So our adventure is all good. It is the work of being an onboard clergy person that most fasincates and gives the gift of learning, every day. Have to find time to write to you about ana amazing woman founder we just met with - another day, have to get back to the ship, we are in Gibralter again and enroute to Barcelona.

^{Also, favor if you have time, have just redesigned and reposted reclaimingjudaism.org, if you find any links not working or typos - please let us know!}

^{with love, Goldie}

The pride of place, language and culture we witnessed among residents of Puerto Rico resembled what I wish more Jewish people could recover. This sense of cultural pride was uniquely evident on the cruise ship we boarded for a week’s travels around the islands.  While I was serving as rabbi, there were few Jews with whom to celebrate the last days of Hanukkah, because of the 3000 aboard the ship, some 80% of paying voyagers were middle and upper class Puerto Ricans. When a band in a bar, or the dining room, or a walkway would play a Spanish folk song or popular Spanish love song, those eating or strolling simply, sweetly, and un-self-consciously, so far as I could tell, would burst out singing.  Oddly enough both in Puerto Rico and on the ship we rarely saw folks other than Caucasian Americans or the odd European smoking. And not once did anyone leave “sprinkle on the seat,” women, you know what I mean.

Paramount was the cultural norm of bringing one’s parents, children and grandchildren along for the cruise. There was little of the acting-out that American families with children often bring to a resort. There was dignity here. We were impressed. This cruise was one where the population took “formal nights” seriously. I wish you could have been there to watch the multi-generational family photographs being taken. Beauty radiated from each body present, the kind that is sometimes physical and also spiritual.

The ship itself, the meals, the cabin, the entertainment and the staff attention on Royal Caribbean were the best we’ve experienced anywhere. Definitely recommended.

There was even the improbable arrival of latkes and applesauce as we concluded services for Shabbat and the last two night of Hanukkah. The small batch of Jews who gathered from crew and passengers enjoyed a spate of English and one elder present was honored with turning the light bulbs each night in the candlebra, candles not being allowed due to fire hazard issues now prevalent in many public institutions. I taught on how each branch of the menorah corresponds in Kabbalah to a different quality in the Tree of Life practice known to ancient and contemporary Kabbablists. Not the new-agey stuff, rather the real material from Zohar and other traditional texts. This proved deep and meaningful for those present.

Puerto Ricans, we learned are typically genetic mixtures of Spanish conquerors and former black slaves or long ago present Taino natives and black former slaves. There’s some Christian imperialism warring, we noticed with efforts to embrace an earlier indigenous lineage among the youth. When one art museum tour guide spoke of how horrible it was that the local art had been burned during an insurrection action the government, it turned out she actually meant church art. When I asked about art by those who had been living there before the church took over, she looked briefly thoughtful and they responded, “Well, they must have been some primitive art before we brought civilizations here.” Other museums contained Taino art fragements/reconstructions.

What is Taino? Pre-Columbian indigenous inhabitants of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. It is believed that the seafaring Taínos were relatives of the Arawakan people of South America, how they came to Puerto Rico is under scholarly dispute. It is documented that their women were stolen for wives by warring Caribs for many centuries, and so were likely involuntarily added to the local genetic mix. The delightful musical instruments in a beautiful old mansion in Ponce, for example, does include instrument fragments attributed to Taino culture. Also a guitar that folds into a suitcase and soundscapes from room to room that teach the evolution of salsa. It was closed when we arrived, due to an air conditioning failure, but when we said we didn’t mind the young curator with a PhD in musicology took us through, picking up each instrument and playing it beautifully and with such soulful contact to our interest and the instruments capacity that we began to have tears of pure joy at the encounter.

On this huge cruise ship, recently known as the world’s largest, on many of the floors at various points in the day musicians play in combos. When one chose to play a Latin love song, everyone walking past spontaneously began to sing along in sweet, often rich voices. Soon perhaps 750 or 1000 people on that one floor of the ship were singing the song together. I wept, couldn’t help it. When the Dutch ship’s captain did his best to give daily welcomes in Spanish, they cheered. It wasn’t until later in the voyage when a mostly Spanish-speaking man from San Juan stopped me in the hall to thank me for trying to understand what he was saying at lunch, that it struck me how he wasn’t the first person to say that. So I asked him if other Caucasians on the ship were less friendly.” “They don’t want us on these ships.”  “The crew?” “No, they are mostly minorities too, the problem are the passengers.” (He showed me his meaning with a gesture towards the hoards passing by.) I told him I’d grown up in an anti-Semitic neighborhood and could relate. “Ah, but you could be quiet. Few Puerto Rican’s are quiet by nature, plus our color gives us away.” His humongous girth and hug almost erased me as he saw my tears for his words that I have heard in other cities and lands, and at home in Philadelphia. Even being quiet, the kids in my neighborhood had tried to crucify me after a priest preached that we killed their messiah. I didn’t both to explain that, just happy to have him and his six children, three grandchildren and wife as friends to touch base with during the trip.

Jews used to be considered people of color in North America. I once read a book about that. We come in quiet versions and all-too loud ones as well. The Puerto Ricans had a different relationship to body space than North Americans. They’d stand centimeters behind me chatting when I was playing ping pong, oblivious. Their boisterous enjoyment of it seemed most every minute of the day created a din that both enchanted and at times made us want to jump ship. With a strategic mass, my friend told me, they realized they could be themselves. How holy is that. Awesome.

The Passover Kiddush, a prayer for the holiday that is chanted over dark red grape wine or grape juice symbolizing the vitality of life reads, zman heyruteynu mikrah kodesh, “times we are free holiness happens.” Several things holy happened during free-time on our trip to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean islands.

The first was appreciating the difference between attending or teaching retreats and a trip that is mostly vacation. Definitely have to begin taking vacations more seriously. Feeling revitalized, filled with light in winter’s darkness from the outside-in. Teaching or taking intensives builds light differently, more so from the inside-out. Both are good and have different effects.

This is a dynamic, rather reborn Puerto Rico. In my youth I was an inner-city social worker and later, I served in Cumberland County, NJ, a farming area, so those born in

Puerto Rico who I tended to meet in the

US were more recent immigrant families and migrant workers. When I visited

San Juan some twenty years ago, it seemed a slum not dissimilar to living conditions of those I’d met in the

US. Not so on this trip.

The historic area of San Juan is colorful, completely rehabilitated, thriving, with boutique museums. In another section of town is a world-class art museum in a remarkable modern bulding.

In a tiny pharmacy museum, Barry was intrigued to see digitalis leaf among the containers. This triggered his memory of the US medical boards which, when he arrived only some 35 years ago, still contained something as irrelevant to modern practice as a question asking how many grams of ground leaf were required to treat some aspect of a heart condition.There are certainly areas here in Puerto Rico where homes have windows and balconies barred against crime, such as one sees in parts of

Jersey City, NJ. 4 million residents and not enough jobs leads to poverty and emigration, another 4 million Puerto Ricans live in the

United States, or so we heard on the news. Immediately next to the historic section of

San Juan, in a narrow area of land by the sea that one might have been temped to enter and wander, is the most notable area for drug-related crime. In the photo you see we’re walking with school teens and they’re message was unambiguous, go down there, into that neighborhood and you will get robbed, raped and shot dead.The many locals we went out of our way to encounter seemed actually happy to pause with curiosity on the beach or street to chat with us about their lives and ours. Catholic and Episcopal school uniforms abound and the youth did not exude the frighteningly wild behavior of kids near where we live do after school. Wonder what we will learn as we leave the town and tour the villages?

Thanksgiving appears to be modeled on the mitzvah of hakarat ha-tov, recognizing what’s good and pointing it out with gratitude. I’m not sure how, but I don’t recall it being mentioned when I went to Hebrew school in the 1960’s, that it is a Jewish spiritual practice to make a point, not just on Thanksgiving, but throughout every day, of seeing what is good around us and acknowledging it. Sounds simple enough, but isn’t always.

What a joy to be around folks who are naturals at seeing the good in the world. My mother, before Alzheimer’s erased her mind was such a deeply nice person. There’s a book I heard mentioned on NPR, The Power of Nice, have ordered a copy. Why dwell on this? Let me ask you a question, have you ever lost your power of nice? When does that happen to you? I mean other than during hormonally challenged times.

 

Last year, when a collision of responsibilities became overbearing, I hit the wall hard and fell into deep despair and exhaustion and wasn’t able to be sustainably nice somehow. Interesting to reflect on it now - too much work, too much multitasking, too many emotional issues with ill parents, sister with cancer, husband living in another city then. Too much makes for a less nice Goldie.

Only have had experience of this excruciating state of being once before, a few months after initiating divorce from my first husband. These experiences were both followed by a kind of therapeutic despair/depression that burns through resistance to needed change. Work changes, residency changes, eating and exercise changes, priority changes.

So grateful for the human capacity to go into dark nights of the soul and emerge into the light. Learned a lot. Life, keyn ayin harah, is good.

What a turkey I’d been, with no slur meant to these real turkeys I encountered in Costa Rica last year.

Just for now, life is so deeply good even with all the sad things still happening among friends, family and the world.

Meanwhile, we’re heading to visit all around Puerto Rico for three weeks soon and wondering if there are any Jews in Rincon with whom to celebrate Hanukkah? After Hubbatzin Barry took these pics in Costa Rica when we were there last year the furious turkeys eventually chased me up the fence of their corral and the farmer rescued me. Gotta love barnyard adventure! Turkey in Hebrew, fyi, is Hodu, which also means “praise”. Happy Holiday - Hodu LaShem