A FUNERAL IS A GROUP of people standing around talking about someone they’d rather be talking to.
A BUOPOTH IS A STRANGE beast: some say it is half-composed of men’s dreams, others prefer not to speculate. But of the little that...
| Email Edition | ContactA FUNERAL IS A GROUP of people standing around talking about someone they’d rather be talking to.
FUNNY THING ABOUT DEFINING GOD: Despite the impossibility of the task, it does draw one’s imagination and eloquence (or directness, if you’re lucky). I made a stab at it in http://metaphorager.net/working-definition/, tried to understand my understanding in /four-points-of-contact/ and reflected on how I got there in /judaism-as-art/. But waking from a nice Shabbat nap this afternoon, the thought occurred:
“God is the face of the Universe looking back at us.”
Mentioned this to Ann, who opined that it sounded mystical. I suppose it is — I’ve learned to hide the silverware when self-proclaimed mystics come a-calling — but all I’m trying to express is a basic sentio-a-sentio relationship while keeping in mind that the model always rests with the modeler — and that any separation is both experientially illusory and semantically significant.
(Which reminds me of my current favorite Jewish Zen joke:
Q: Can God make a rock that’s too heavy to lift?
A: Sure. But God can lift it anyway.)
(Okay, it’s my favorite because I invented it, but still. Have a good week.)
Dear Sputnik,
James Sputnik Gjerde: 1/24/1962 - 12//27/2002
This is your famous, default and well-known “ohc’MON” expression which, although the photo is dated 1990, remained unchanged (though perhaps just a wee bit more crinkled around the eyes and soul) when you died in december of 2002, some seven years and a few lifetimes ago. The email which carried this photo also carried a few words typical of those for whom your death was — is — very difficult. I’ve written about it, and so has Ann — this groundbreaking (in the sense of earth-shattering, in the sense of a whole lot of people suddenly feeling the ground drop out from under us when we heard we’d no longer all sing, hike, complain, dream, contradict, listen, drum, dance, argue, plot, scheme, critique, criticize, comfort and sharpen together ever ever ever again) death of someone who was everyone’s best friend. They say things like “never before or since have I experienced such a profound personal loss,” “a sane freak, and you must understand that the term “freak” is a compliment” and “God, I miss that little sh*t!”
Anyway, you missed a few things — chief among which was that the lightsaber battle we wanted to see since we were 16 was far, FAR cooler than we EVER imagined, although it paled a bit given what’s become the cultural context of SFX in general. But on the other hand, that cultural context has become a lot more coarse than we thought it would back in the summer apartments of 1981 and 2 when we thought wulgarity for wulgarity’s sake was funny doody. Meanwhile: full frontal nudity isn’t yet on the MAJOR networks; the jetpack problem alas remains unsolved; our futuristic disaster scenario seems to be ecological rather than an alien menace (although don’t forget Apophis!); and you won’t believe what you can do with a cellphone nowadays.
In return, we missed you. Still do — me, mostly when I want to bounce an idea, or check a perspective, or gloat. And we will continue to miss you, despite this sudden, beyond-the-grave exhortation for all of us to get over it. You don’t know how tempting it is to lament that you left the party before it was over, raise a glass to absent friends, and collapse in a puddle of elegies — but you’d just flash that grin again, knowing that at some point in the future, we’ll either all meet again or something else as makes no difference.
I remain, Sir, your humble and obdurate Colleague,
BT Elder
Kicking a whale up a beach
Braiding grape jelly
Comforting the chronically afflicted.
(1/22/09 P.S. to RW: who asked “Why would you kick a whale?” The only reason I can think of is that 1) he’s down, and 2) you’re that sort of fellow.)
IF THE PERSON AHEAD OF you in the checkout line is stocking up on Meow Mix, don’t ask about their cat.
THE REASON WE NEED each other is that life rarely contains enough different viewpoints to even begin understanding Life.
I looked up from the computer, wondering about the “thump.” Then I saw the robin on the patio — fluttering wings outspread, struggling to get up.
Outside, through the gate, into the side-yard. “Are you okay?” I asked reflexively.
She wasn’t, at least at first. Her beak and eyes were wide open, and she was panting — or do robins always breathe that way? She seemed dazed but unhurt (no broken legs or anything), so I sat down next to her and babbled softly: “You poor thing. We’ll get you fixed up, give you some nice worm broth and pyracantha cobbler,” etc.
After about ten minutes (during which I wondered what I could wrap her in for transport to the local bird-rescue center), she closed her beak and blinked at me. Then she stood up, wobbled, and hopped away.
“Good! You’re okay!” I said, relief warming me more than the chill morning air. “But can you fly?”
She flapped her wings a couple of times, then rose from the patio and soared across the creek. I don’t think she saw the hawk. It took her in midflight and a cloud of feathers, with no sound but a faint rustle.
Gak.
When Ann and I joined the small synagogue in our Northern California town back in 1998, it was with the understanding that we would get involved.
Neither of us had been, when we were younger. But especially since 2000, when I started teaching the b’nei mitzvah class and occasionally leading services, that involvement has (as anyone involved in congregational life can tell you) brought both heartwarmth and headaches. It’s nice to be part of a big happy squabbling extended family, but also sad sometimes to see and be part of the behind-the-scenes politics — especially if you’re something of a mildly bipolar idealist.
(Bit of background: our congregation — since its 1995 inception an informal, do-it-yourself kind of place — last year engaged a rabbi who liked to teach that “compassion” was not a Jewish value. Things got very bad for a while, but he quit earlier this year, and now things are better. We’re a community of smart and good-hearted people who like to learn and hang out together — and that brings its own blessing.)
Anyway, yesterday was the annual congregational sukkah-decorating party. As usual, it was mostly the schoolkids and their parents; but attendance was larger than I remember it being, and there was a nice intimate vibe that hasn’t been there before (or at least not as obvious). Everybody got to take the lulav — even some of the adults who had never before done so — and ate snacks and hung the world’s longest paper chain.
It was great, but for me also scary. I’m fairly enthusiastic about Judaism and enjoy leading services and teaching, but yesterday was One Of Those Days; sometimes my self-doubt divides me from the world, and I was looking forward to someone else leading the blessings.
That didn’t happen, though, because the someone else in question — a big enthusiastic guy who’s on his own Jewish rediscovery path, and a frequent attendee at our apartment every Shabbat morning for Torah study — handed me the lulav and etrog and said “Teach us.”
So I opened my mouth, and out popped the teaching that the Four Species — lulav (palm), hadass (myrtle), aravot (willow) and etrog (citron) — respectively stand for Jews who have much Torah learning but few accomplishments in mitzvot, many mitzvot but little Torah, neither mitzvot nor Torah, and both Torah and mitzvot. “And when we bring them together like this, it shows that we all need each other,” I concluded.
It’s not something I had thought to say — in fact, when my friend handed me the lulav I couldn’t think of anything at all but my own fear — but the warm-hearted crowd huddled under the chilly October sky welcomed it with a smile.
One of my favorite teachers, Rebbe Nachman, says “The world is a narrow bridge — the essence is not to fear.” Sometimes, though, the fear reminds you that the bridge is wide enough to cross.
IT’S ALL DIFFERENT, NOW.
But as the smoke palls the sky
The flowers still bloom
from a pre-Blogger blog
Conversation with a 12-year-old bat mitzva candidate, who I’m tutoring by probing the meaning of the prayers:
Okay, read me the first part of the Sh’ma in English.
“Hear O Israel, the Eternal is G-d, the Eternal is One.”
Okay… what’s that mean?
“Well, G-d is one.”
What else?
“Well, that monotheism is something Jews believe in.”
Okay. But what does it mean to you?
“I think it means that, in a way, that we’re all Abraham, since Abraham was the first Jew, and the first person to know that G-d is One or that there’s one G-d. So, every time we say the Sh’ma, it’s like we’re saying that for the first time, and understanding that we’re Abraham.”
…..! Well…. ah…. what responsibilities does that give us, if we’re all Abraham?
“It means that we all have to treat each other honorably, and with love. But since we’re none of us perfect, and can only do the best we can, that’s what we have to do — the best we can.”
from a pre-Blogger blog
Attending a dinner for the Society of Professional Journalists’ Northern California chapter, as a co-recipient of their annual James Madison Freedom of Information Award, I’m in the presence of real journalistic heroes: men and women quietly doing their jobs in order that their fellow-citizens can be better informed about their world. Some of those people, like the person who enabled us (by which I mean, my former employer and myself) to write the stories which lead our reception of the award, are bigger heroes: someone who risked a job (and security) in order to do the right thing — by blowing a badly-needed whistle.
As this is an online scrapbook, here’s my half of the acceptance speech (after my ex-boss introduced me by telling everyone that I had quit the news biz to attend rabbinical school):
“They say this job will drive you either to drink, or religion. I seem to have chosen the latter…
“When I was a kid, I was crazy about Don Quixote: knight-errant, defender of justice and the innocent, tilter at windmills which he thought were fierce giants.
“As a result, I wanted to follow in his footsteps. I never thought I’d do it while working as a reporter.
“But when we first broke our story, after years of anonymous — but unproven — allegations that all was not well at SDC, my wife sent a bouquet of flowers to my desk, with a note: ‘You knew they were giants all along.’
“In a different way, this award says the same thing. The quest continues. Thank you.”
The evening is inspiring. It’s enlightening. It makes me really, really miss the news business. But it doesn’t make me miss it enough.
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