11 May 2008 - 12:54Cellutations from Urbino

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 75th 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

1 Comment | Tags: world cultures, mitzvot, travel

27 April 2008 - 8:46A Dearly Belated Seder

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

No Comments | Tags: world cultures, mitzvot, travel, Holidays

14 April 2008 - 13:29Rebbe on the Road Europe

Rebbe on the Road Europe 2008 Part One: Hard”ship”

Radical awe is my favorite companion in life. Via cruise, we’ve just spent a day each in Rome and

Barcelona, cities where the tipping points of civilizations yield magnificent markers of art, literature and architecture. Time’s airbrushed streets of Barcelona’s former Jewish ghetto reveals the curved stone channels through which Sephardic Jewish culture once flowed, today, a dense bar, travel token, and restaurant quarter mostly graffitized with tales of many nights recent reveling. We pause at building #4 on a certain street our guide book says was the home of medieval rabbi. There I hear his daughter’s anguished deferential whisper, “But father, if I marry the son of the trader Aurore, he is to be posted to establish a business outpost in

Alexandria. Once our ship sails I am likely never to see you and Mama, nor any in our household again! No Papa, not a fabric merchant, please, Papa, I’d rather a poor scholar, please Papa, don’t send me away.”

Did you ever notice the word ship in the term hardship before? I hadn’t until thinking about this mythical bit of herstory.

Two days before, at the Empire Palace Hotel [we recommend it] lobby I was sitting amongst businessmen whose conference badges identified them as from

Lake

Como in

Northern Italy. I noted they were passing a newspaper cartoon amongst themselves and from their ages (60’s), chanced they are old enough to have learned French when it was the international language. In my moderately decent French I inquired: “What’s so funny?” explaining: “My father and I share a love of cartoons.” A maximally dapper fellow replied:

 “You see the rich repast set on the table in this building? We know it to be a special-invitation spot in the

Vatican. Here, the Church is once again becoming a force with which to reckon. The business community is depicted as young boys holding their favorite toys [a Boeing aircraft, a building with the name of a major hotel chair atop it, etc.] also with fine laptop cases preening at the attention they are receiving from this Prelate with a um, bump, under his gown. They are foolishly thinking their reception a great honor….the cartoonist implies they will shortly find themselves….uh…you know.”

“How will this affect you?” I inquire.

 “We shall see,” he replies, “Power works both ways; without a convenient plague to exploit, they have no upper hand.” His companions snigger.

“But the down turn in the economy may suffice…” I point out the obvious. He bows slightly in acknowledgement of the other option. My French wasn’t good enough to capture the last bit of phrasing, so they broke his rejoinder down for me in very fragmented English. I believe he said: “Then we will manufacture crosses and build churches, and design and build germ resistant environments and new pharmaceuticals, our conglomerate is perched to prevail.” His comrades guffaw in a cartoonesque gluttonous glee.

Before leaving the States, we had set aside the newly available fax-it-in opportunity for a group audience with the pope, and similarly available private

Vatican tours given by monks. Old soul sparks within me want to lurch for this Pope’s throat raging that he has disavowed the overdue, hard-won writ of his predecessor that granted Jews as whole in our own faith. Those old souls within are beyond fear, they want to tear at the patterns of time and demand genetic recoding to prevent the emergence of religious triumphalism – or without it, would something worse have appeared? Perhaps it has - capitalism, or an equal or interim evil? How can one know? In the Trevi Fountain, we learn in the newspaper, this very day there floated a model Alitalia plane thrust in by the union members enraged at the proposed purchase of the line by Air

France. Leftist parties are out in booths everywhere and posters of huge heads of those running for office posed to look more trustworthy than avaricious are omnipresent.

Not so long ago it was more convenient to have learned conversational French, and so recently was English the standard that I can see the words in the air between us all. German is the more useful second international language now. Germans I’ve met traveling are learning Chinese, so it seems civilizations’ tipping points are flying this way and that.

I’m reading a Michael Crichton novel that opens with some science journal précis regarding quantum theory and multiverses, speculation that  there really is no time and according to the theory it seems, no such thing as time travel – no before, not after, only nows, each slightly and increasingly variant. I want to call Jeff Bub, Barry’s cousin in DC who is a philosopher of science to find out more……might the Noah’s ark verses in Torah be metaphoric residue of memory of some ancient black hole moment? Intentional? Accidental? The Jewish practice of yirah writ large, radical “awesome fearsomeness” of It All shivers through.

Speaking of awesome/fearsomeness, as happens in families, ours had two Jeff Bubs. Last week, one of my husband’s four brothers, one of the Jeff Bubs, died in his early sixties, all-too-young of a virulent lung cancer. I think we saw Jeff and his very quiet wife Sheila in person three or four times since our marriage a decade ago, their life together split part-time in

Cape Town, South Africa and part-time in

Los Angeles. Several things struck me about this strident man, in particular his generosity. In South Africa, even on Shabbat in an Orthodox synagogue, it is customary to stipulate by amount a “natan” a financial donation to the synagogue when called up to witness the reading of Torah [scripture] at a service. He always gave a natan, a generous one. He did well, and he gave well. For those who, as we, would like to honor his memory in the traditional way, here is the link to how to make a credit card donation to a very worthy local charity in

Cape Town, the Highlands House: http://www.chaisouthafrica.com/about.html. Sadly, many who emigrate leave parents to this institution and “forget” to pay their bills not long later. Why should the elderly suffer the sins of their children, when we can be an invisible family of preference, who cares and acts?

My personal life motto is “all things change. I know for Barry, it also felt a false thing to do, to make plans to attend the burial of someone where the relationship had not been a close one. Barry, as is his way, found another route to authenticity. Rather than surface too late, he sought his brother out on Skype, and through the sometimes miracle of trauma, found Jeff ready to meet him for perhaps a minyan of heart-felt and healing talks over the last months of his life. The remaining State-side brothers, we trusted, and did, do the traditional right thing, fly down to

Cape Town in the final days of the brother’s life to ease the healthcare, say good-bye and to ensure his mother would feel fortified with caring presence.

Within the week in which Jeff, z”l died, a mandatory Medicaid sale of my father’s house so long on the market resulted in my having to finish dash between legal authorities to deal, a property on which we’d placed an offer was accepted, inspected and a mortgage had to be finessed and packing at least half finished to meet the timing of settlement upon our return from my obligation as a Passover cruise rabbi in Europe. Of course, right then,  the final publisher’s edits (several hundred) on the last volume of my Reclaiming Judaism trilogy arrived with a few days deadline to review and advise, and I was finishing a major remake of the ReclaimingJudaism.org website timed to June release of Living Jewish Life Cycle, and of course, our taxes returns were due. We had, as had long been scheduled my clergy students from the nearby Buddhist seminary and a faculty member coming for a traditional Lithuanian Shabbos dinner in this same interval. Barry cooked  5 courses himself while preparing to teach a three hour seminar that represented a major professional breakthrough he’d been working toward for close to a decade.

I, the usual rock in times of distress, found myself startling easily and severely exhausted. If no one will fall dreadfully ill or die on the ship, this gig feels like a potential G*d-send, a tether in time, my G*d sense told me to reach for it and not let go. I persisted when Barry, feeling quite anxious and acting deeply depressed, resisted. He wanted to stay in his nest at our apartment, to cancel the trip and cancel the condo purchase, his message to me “Just stop the stress, I have to get off.”

But we’re here and settling into a rhythm of three weeks aboard a ship full of round-the-world in 102 days passengers. For some this turns out to be a form of assisted living, one man is on his 60th cruise, many are frail and all are the kind of quirky folks who are not about to miss a minute of the glory of creation.

Yesterday, in sunshine rather than the predicted spring rains, we walked the charming markets and quays of the medieval town

Antibes and then wandered a pre-festival

Cannes. We experienced the “zeh” and zest of carpe diem, versus ceasing the gift of life, knowing gratitude for this retreat, just in time.

 

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2 Comments | Tags: family travel, world cultures, life cycle events, mitzvot, travel, Uncategorized

2 December 2007 - 9:47Stormy Beauty

We are in Puerto Rico on a mission of self-care and book research. So many of those we love are declining in health and needing extra support right now, hopefully this trip will restock inner reserves. It’s fun re-learning how to be in the stormy tropics. We were about to leave San Juan for the village of Rincon, but the skies have opened yet again with a stupendous downpour. That said, we are learning how to be the wind, the colors, and the pure friendliness of the people here calls out one’s highest self.

Between squalls, our first two days hold colorful, joyful, serene moments with pure awe of nature swirling towards us from right inside the city of San Juan. Here is a creature we met, about 5″ x 2/3″ the only one of its kind that seemed to be about. The red part is it’s rear, it flickers as one approaches, the red rear leaps out at you to protect its vital head, the end with the black antenna is the head. No one seemed to know what type of moth or butterfly it will turn into.

Huge Caterpillar in San Juan

Huge Caterpillar, we did not use magnification, this is same size image. San Juan, PR

In that same park were infinite pigeons, in fact they part is for them and dedicated to them as holy creatures. This somewhat mollified my discomfort when one spattered me utterly with her gift of presence. The sign says being so spattered means you have been blessed by G*d. Far be it for me to eschew a blessing. They even have an ancient dove cote built into the city wall, pigeon condos. The hope it seems is that by feeding and lodging them, they’ll stay home and leave the city statues alone.

Dove cote in Walls of Old San Juan

The author Aryeh Kaplan, z”l describes a phenomenal state of consciousness in one of his books where from the compression of intense study and drive one reaches something new and worth all the physiological consequences of that time. This happened to me here on our first day here, a lucid dreaming that revealed what I’m supposed to write next as a serious work in my field. Within seconds of this awareness a huge rainbow appeared in the sky, kinda trite for that to happen. Still I’m (w)holy happy to know, living between assignments has an anxiety to it.

rainbow21.jpg

My sense is that nothing new pops under the sun at such times but rather is suis generis and arising in multiple persons since Creation seems to invest in multiple innovators for the sake of all.

By way of details for travelers we stayed at Guest House Nuevo Uno in Ocean Park, outside the city in a glorious safe neighborhood by the beach. Their restaurant Pamela is truly fine dining, they do fish in a caper butter that melts in your mouth, the roasted garlic to spread on bed in an additional garlic infusion is memorable and their pina coladas delivered to each guests private umbrella and lounge chair, perfect.

No Comments | Tags: Puerto Rico, mitzvot, includes travel pictures, travel