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

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}

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 60^th 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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Curacao was heart-breaking. A world heritage site is located here that contains a room of a man named Jacob’s collection of biblical period and earlier artifacts is better known for its museum on the history of the slave trade on that island. Here individuals stolen from their villages in Africa spent two years being broken into slave-attitude, or killed or they committed suicide. The horrendous iron tools of the slavers are displayed, pens and housing, written policies and philosophical statements of slavers. Like at Yad VaShem, the Jewish holocaust memorial, I forced myself to stay present, to read, to learn more, to let hot tears of terror at what was and the knowledge this ability still lies within us, we who are inhumanity, let’s use our real group name, inhumanity.

You think I’m wrong? Read about the waves of complete mushuganosis that overtake human populations and lead us to acts of utter cruelty in every generation that the majority won’t act to stop until feeling threatened ourselves. Ashamnu, we who know as equally guilty….humanity is an organism on this planet, we can pull together…..to me that is messianic, not some dead Jew butchered by collusive men of power who people wish would come rescue us. We are it, it’s not toys are us folks, it’s G*d is us, not “him”, us…and beyond us in the fabric of all of creation. We’re potentially useful nodes that might be allowed to stick around by evolution if we stay differentiated and useful. Remember, when a species gets too specialized, it can’t survive. Watch Nova more often if that comes as a surprise. Diversity is a saving grace of creation, not unified beliefs, as some purport to be essential.

Curacao also has two synagogues, of course. One more orthodox, one more liberal. The latter has an impeccably preserved colonial temple which is still in use, the floor is sand covered, a few inches deep. The museum at this synagogue is fascinating because the lay/professional process of being in relationship pokes through the exhibits. For example, there is a tiny sterling silver and crystal hour glass that runs for exactly 20 minutes. It was commission for the president to use when the rabbi would start a sermon. Twenty-minutes, no more, fartig, as we say in Yiddish. Personally, I prefer 8 minute talks from those leading services, one point is enough to mull and that’s enough time to make one.

At this synagogue they also have ancient circumcision chairs of beautiful dark carved wood where the grandfather would sit with the child on his lap, high up enough for the mohel, the professional who excels at circumcision to kneel on a rung with his tools on a fitted tray and quickly perform the honors. (Jewish circumcision methods take under 1 minute 40 seconds, medical/surgical methods are done in the cold ambience of a med center and take much longer and are more traumatic.) The loving warmth of a grandfather or zandek (godfather’s) lap or these days in many community’s, that of the mother has to be infinitely wonderful as a memory being created for a child. When babies cry during Jewish circumcision (mine didn’t), by the way, it’s not cause it hurts (a local anesthetic I used) but cause, just as when you change their diaper and they protest, the air hits them and this is surprising. Medical circumcision, the kind done in hospitals involves the use of a tight clamp, which definitely triggers an infant reaction when one clamps you know where.

Another special stop was the moving bridge and floating market in St. Martin. Container ships come through the center of the town which is bifurcated by a channel. A pedestrian bridge connects the sides and when a ship is moving through, one instead takes a ferry. The pedestrian bridge has a motor so it can be steered back to the shore to allow ships to pass and you can stand on it while it’s moving, it’s fascinatingly smart. From

South America come tiny fishing vessels bearing fresh caught fish and veggies and they line up against a dock so locals can shop. The beaches here, while pretty, are plagued by crime, it was uncomfortable to have to keep watch on every little thing. Barry’s sunglasses were swiped when he set them down for seconds to change his t-shirt. Special here was seeing a really great mix of races as proprietors. Half the island is French, half Dutch.

Those who know me, know my first love (sorry Barry) is appel geboeck (a-pl kheh-bock), dutch apple cake. The best in the world we discovered here, topped with whipped cream, mitt shlag, of course. Note the utterly blissed out Goldie in the accompanying photo. [to be inserted]

Ponce was one place we perched for a few nights. An old, classically Spanish town, where noble buildings still are crumbling whilst streets are being made anew with major government funding, we wandered freely to the beautiful, rather new, elegant and eloquently assembled art museum. The paintings of a guest German artist David Schnell took our breath away. Stunningly skilled in the huge scale use of paints that give the impression of light, depth and architecturally fascinating spaces, he also includes what appear to be towers from concentration camps in many pieces. It was the first art we’d seen in years that engaged our imaginations with in-breath of awe and out-breath of oh. The message I took away was of a new Germany with the past increasingly far behind it in a bright and healthy way. Hope so!

El Junque, the rain forest region lived up to its name. All night sheets of rain alternated with the music of frogs found only in this eco-zone, nine species, each louder than any cricket you ever had in your bunk at camp. Owls punctuated the night too, it was like trying to sleep in New York City your first day back in town, impossibly fascinating just to listen to the soundscape. We were intrigued to learn the rain forest is destroyed by nature on a regular cycle of cyclones for as long as anyone can remember. This causes seeds of short-lived trees to germinate; they provide shade for longer-lived ancient palms and other trees to renew. These latter will gradually provide so much shade that the shorter lived trees will die, and on and on. The colorful snails were 4-6” wide. We didn’t do off trail hikes outside of the formal rain forest area after seeing our host return covered in mud over his waist, he thought we might have some trouble out there in the seasonal and rather junglish climate and terrain. We’re not writing the name of our B&B here in order to avoid lashon har-ah [unethical speech] since all things change. Let’s just say the breakfast was great, but with massive construction scenes underway on the property, the ambiance and personality of the owners were impediments to the manuscript work we have underway on this trip.

We have a food recommendation, eat the regional cuisine from food kiosks and food trucks in Puerto Rico. The “Puerto Rican” food in major city restaurants was a kind of bland bean/plantain scene, not really the Mexican Spanish Americans tend to like. The cuisine in Ponce at the restaurant at the Melia Hotel was particularly memorable - we give it five stars. Our hotel room there (ask for one’s in the older section, they are lovely with high ceilings and romantic courtyard-like overlooks) was lovely - large room, lovely large shower too. First they gave us one that was like a motel room in another wing, bleh - be sure to specifiy.

The kiosk row on the high way near the glorious beaches atLuquillo offer yummy indigenous fast foods – plantain is made into a kind of starch container for meats (if you eat that out), fishes and veggies, there are varieties of these and they are yummy, albeit deep fried. The fish is super fresh in the villages of Puerto Rico and definitely stop in the little fishing villages for just caught meals if you like we, reluctantly do eat food with a face. (I once had a dream that a fox went by driving a jeep, he leaned out the window and pointed at the bumper sticker which read: join the food chain, eat meat. I then wondered if my lack of energy might be resolved by ending 10 yrs as a vegetarian – yes, amazing how my skin and spirit began to improve over three weeks of renewing animal proteins in my diet. Guess I’m an aminal, as my kids used to say, after all, no denying it.)

Here is a photo of our improvised Hanukkah first night candles, which we lit at a beachcomber dining spot near the sea in Rincon after getting lost in the pitch dark and not making it back to our B&B in time for sundown. While streets signs are in Spanish and English, English literacy is not emphasized so far as we can tell. The city museum in

San Juan does not have signs in English, most of the art museums have at least some English interpretative signs available. Fortunately, Spanish is easy to learn for those familiar with other romance languages, typically the same root words, so we’re punting as quickly as possible. Plus, art speaks for itself.

Pretty churches are major tourist attractions. Out of curiosity about the varieties of world religious traditions, I drop in on services in most countries we visit. The attendance is sparse here in

San Juan’s large cathedral, maybe thirty-fifty. Striving for relevance and congregant participation is evident as a small rock band accompanies one service, and lay vocalists and many readers of the lectionary (bible selection) are part of another. No one under 50 appears to be at either service save for two of the electric guitarists. I stand and sit with everyone to be an accommodating visitor, but stop short of kneeling, which feels like it would be inappropriate given I’m not a Christian, nor inclined to be one.The woman beside me in the chapel, is wearing an employee badge from an area market is weeping deeply. I offer a tissue and touch my heart to show empathy. Later she touches my hand in appreciation and seeing my open-gaze to be there for her, she elects to hold my hand for much of the service. I visualize myself as a representative of a tethering rock, tzur hevli b’yet tzarah, like in the Adon Olam prayer those of us inclined to Jewish practice say each day, the “Rock which anchors in times of distress.”

When Barry beckons from his wandering amongst the glorious classical art in the various chapels and nooks through out the cathedral, fortunately she’d already dropped my hand and gone into her own reverie. I slipped away softly, the service was becoming long for me sinceI couldn’t understand much of the Spanish other than the holy, holy, holy, which comes from Christianity’s origins in Judaism, as well as the Latin G*d words in the congregational responses.  beisdes, I was allergic to the incense and sniffing up a storm, and having given away all my tissues…. Time for bright light and fresh air.

Often we proved a curiosity as Jews in Puerto Rico and when we did meet English speaking staff in museums, we were often asked questions about our people’s practices and traditions. As it happened, our host here at the B&B in Rincon proved to be Jewish. When she asked we explained how in the traditional blessing formulation, Barukh Atah Adonai, that Adonai has a root word, eh-den, meaning Threshold. It is also a place holder term for the letters yud hey vav hey, the “shmei rabbah” described in the Kaddish prayer, the Great Name. This most mysterious and holy name for the Jewish G*d idea, is made up of all the forms of the verb “to be”. So once could also say that for our people, G*d is the Infinite Potential for Change. It was wonderful to be able to share that with our host, as she’s been going to church to study bible with a priest and is married a Catholic from

Spain.

Having done my doctorate under a foundation grant that led me to study at a Christian Seminary, I now understand why the Jewish Scriptures (Torah) sounds rather alien interpreted through the lens of Christianity. Christians tend to read Jesus backwards into the biblical period by using key words like yeshua (it means “drawing out,” like Moses was draw out of the water, or in our Havdalah ritual, “the G*d who redeems me, who draws me out is, hinei el yeshua-ti” to mean that Jesus was already in the Torah. This core Christian belief, that he was predicted in such texts, is the heremeneutical device used to get Jews to think they can still be Jewish and believe in Jesus. Of course, educated Jews know our tradition allows no one human to be considered G*d. In Judaism, every human, in our tradition carries a G*d spark, a chip off the Old Block, if you will, our soul, and so we are each all-together b’tzelem elohim, made in the “image of G*d,” and yet like a flea could never grok the dog with which it is in symbiotic relationship, Jews accepted we can strive to grok The Big Picture, but never fully will. That existential condition is quelled by the experience of a Still Small Voice that can be heard within, light from the Spark if you will, that we learn to trust far more than dogmas from from professional institutional dogma generators who are inevitably tied to political dramas. Fortunately Christians and Jews share almost all the same behavioral values – so if your attention isn’t on the afterlife or committed to the Christian belief in the necessity of being “saved,” there’s no need for all that much conflict.  It is no fun for any one religion to imagine it holds the keys to the doorway to the kingdom of G*d, gosh, what hubris.  A G*d that doesn’t make one kind of rose, one kind of butterfly or one kind of universe, sure isn’t going to institute only one doorway to the Mystery beyond embodied life.

Jews believe everyone’s soul is evolving and that there’s no saving involved in moving on to the next plane of being, if there even is one, our musing on that question start with “no one knows” and include ideas from “we return to dust” to “re-incarnation.” In my next book, Living Jewish Life Cycle: Creating Meaningful Jewish Rites of Passage for Every Stage of Life (Coming out, if the publisher is on time, May 2008), I explain our life cycle perspectives in some depth, and also the wide range of contemporary and historical Jewish views on the after life.

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?

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, 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.

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.

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.