Fresh Grief

A wave of events has brought fresh grief about Lucas.

It started innocuously (sp?) - almost in a way I felt good about.  In the first of three visits with friends from overseas and their kids, we talked and laughed and the kids played and then almost as they were getting ready to go, we realized they did not know.  They had not seen us in a year and a half, aren't facebook friends, don't interact with us daily.  At first there was an almost giddy shock - here we had spent two hours together without mentioning it - how life had changed in a year - one year ago it would have been the very first thing we mentioned.

But then the grief came back.  Suddenly the photos jumped off the shelves - at least figuratively - and I saw Lucas everywhere.

A few days later Sasha had a really scary asthma attack.  The next day I felt like I had post traumatic stress - it still has not completely dissipated.  That came a couple of days after Gabi and I thought we had lost him in the woods (he was playing with friends in a safe place).  It was just a few minutes, but enough to shake me up and to really scare Gabi.  At night she told me, "I'm afraid I'm going to lose him, afraid that poof, he just won't be here." 

Then we made plans to see some more friends we have not seen since before Gabi was born, with their kids.  So I tried to pre-empt it by telling them on the phone.  But she was horrified and I had forgotten how to tell.  Last year I knew to start, "we had a tragedy in our family" and then to tell.  I had forgotten how to do that.

Then yesterday Gabi and I went with an old friend of mine to see other old friends of ours and their kids.  I felt so heavy on the way there and on the way back.  I had a lovely time.  It was right after the final party for Sasha of kindergarten.  I could be in all this when it was happening, but before and after I felt like I was carrying a weight.

It's of course a joy to watch other people's kids grow - a marvel, one of the greatest miracles in life.  Our kids also are growing so incredibly - easy to see why these are called the wonder years.

This is not promised to us, it is not "muvan me'elav".

So we're starting another summer, I'm about to welcome another wave of students, Alen is somewhat back on her feet after breaking her leg but still not driving, I'm very tired, I'm still parenting a testosterone enhanced version of myself, still feeling so strongly the fear that I call the dark underbelly of parenting.  Taking lots of joy in their changes and trying each day to hold it all lightly and be grateful.

What is the Torah we will receive this year?

I've been feeling like my head is going to explode. 

Last night before I went to sleep, I could see Africa, Africans all around.  I am distressed beyond belief at the recent anti-refugee, anti-immigrant violence in Tel Aviv.  At the same time, this is the first year we've had a number of applicants from Africa who want to come learn at my work.  So I've had pause to think about the continent and how close it is, to talk to staff at the Israeli consulate in Nigeria, to come closer to knowing Africans personally.  When I saw Africa last night I felt that my mother in law z"l, who died in Malawi in 2003, was close to us.  I woke up at night scared.

This week when the police harassed women rabbinical students I know for wearing their tallitot at the Kotel, I thought, "yes, a government that will treat its citizens the way it does will treat anyone that way when they choose."  And non-citizens?  Our government helps them not at all.  Don't they remember "we were strangers"???

Through the fall and winter, watching everything about women in Israel going on around me, I felt for the first time a feeling of not wanting to be here.  Yesterday I sat with four North American young Jewish women here on a social justice fellowship.  We deconstructed much of what is going on around us regarding gender.  I tried to place it in a larger context.  I mentioned Mordecai Kaplan and found out one of the women is distantly related to him.  We studied Talmud and commentaries.  They loved the session.  I did not emerge feeling safer or reassured.

This morning, I was down at the school for the Shavuot tekes for Kitah Aleph.  I could not help being moved despite my grave concerns about our country and where we are going.  But the music was about "the land you gave us" - quoting from Torah.  It's not the verse I think we need to hear most right now.

Alen has taken to watching Rachel Maddow on TV.  I feel no desire to connect with US politics.  I feel mostly scared and insecure.  Like I'm trembling at the foot of a trembling mountain.

What is the Torah we will receive this year? What is the Torah we will teach?

Please explain this song!

מדורת השבט

מילים ולחן: שי דקל

לא יודע מה יהיה. הולך ברחוב ומשתהה.
באמצע היום לחות וחום.
נעצר בתחנת האוטובוס באותו מקום.
רואה חבר בגלגל הזמן חולפות תמונות בעיני
מרחוב קטן בניו יורק ובן יהודה כאן
קצת געגוע וסיפור ישן.

איפה הם אומרים שבט אחים גם יחד
מדורת השבט נעלמה נשאר הפחד
לא משעמם בארץ המובטחת
ורק הצחוק מתגלגל עם הכאב ביחד
ורק הצחוק מתגלגל עם הכאב ביחד

ריקוד ההורה כבר נדם. מהשרשרת מה נשאר.
החיבוק נעלם כמו לא קיים.
אולי נשאל את הזקן ודרומה ניסע לשם.
חוזר מהר למציאות ומחר עוד יום של תחרות
כמו שתיל נטוע כאן איך שחולף לו הזמן
כי עוד נשאר חלום חלום קטן


Let me know if you have any ideas what this song is about. Now that I'm reading the actual lyrics, I'm not sure if it's an Israeli writing from being away, or someone who is here. People in the know, please advise. Meanwhile, I greatly enjoyed the Lag B'Omer Tekes where Gabi's class sang this!

Mikvah, Safety and more

A visit from Aliza Kline of the Mayyim Hayyim community mikvah brought up a kind of intense and weird nostalgia and homesickness in me today.

When Aliza arrived at my work, she called to ask about parking. I said I'd meet her outside and when I got there, the driveway was blocked by a van. After I yelled and got the van moved, the driveway was still made very difficult by cars parked on either side. Then she had to take her car down the steep, curved incline to our parking, while I was simultaneously berating the man who was blocking easy entrance (he said he wasn't) and talking to a student who wanted to talk to me.

Later, after the presentation, her entrance seemed like a metaphor to me about my life in Israel. There was one moment during it when I thought "wait, she's not an olah, she may not be able to handle this".

Aliza started her presentation talking about what makes a ritual work. In 11 years in Israel, I feel I have not heard people ask this kind of question. I had trouble understanding it - rituals work and don't work - it's rarely one or the other to me. She asked the students what a ritual was and they had answers - I could not remember what a ritual is. I was trying to figure out which parts of my life are ritual and which are not, and did not feel sure I could distinguish.

But I should back up. That was after another conversation on our way over to the Beit Midrash. My boss had mentioned the old mikvah in Brighton, and I said I had been there before my wedding, and then started on thinking about that and about what it has meant to me to pass at the mikvah - pass for straight that is, because I've never been to the mikvah when I was not a lesbian, and I've never been out at a mikvah, whatever that would mean.

Aliza talked a lot about safe space and what it means to create a space where people are going to feel safe taking off their clothes. I didn't even feel safe talking about it. I noticed most faculty were not there, and I noticed the relative ease with which the students participated, and I thought about how much more restrained a culture Israel is when it comes to talking about sexuality.

I thought about my kids, and about how I went to the mikvah before I got pregnant, for a period of months each time, and about how I was always passing as a straight person. I thought, and almost said something, about how the mikvah lady told me "livriut" and about how I prayed to get pregnant each time. I thought of the Reform rabbi who married us and who had recommended mikvah to me when I was trying to get pregnant, and I thought of the ultrasound technician who, the day after the first time I went to the mikvah in that process, asked me, "did you go to the mikvah?" Could she see it on my face? It was the one and only time in the fertility process that I was asked. I didn't think of, but think of now, the kavannah a friend gave me for mikvah, and how I prayed for everyone who was trying to get pregnant, and how until this day I have a track record - all the people I have prayed for, there and elsewhere, that they be blessed to become parents, have received that blessing.

I listened to Aliza talk about making mikvah in Massachusetts safe and accessible space for everyone. It kind of reminded me of how I feel when I daven with a Reconstructionist siddur - like, oh, my spirituality used to be like that - open, full of possibilities. Aliza had asked for an example of what doesn't work and when I said, "when you can't bring your whole self there" she said, "like maybe when a mechitza isn't done in a way that can work for you," and I thought of the many Shabbat mornings I spend in a mechitza shul where I daven and what it means to try to bring my whole self there to a space that doesn't reflect my values and what it means to pray or be part of any ritual moment and not be all of me but still feel transformed and uplifted. And what it means to sit with contradictions and discomfort and not knowing.

I thought of the parking lot entrance, and how much that feels like my ritual life here. I wondered if I will one day experience some reclamation of mikvah. Alen said maybe we shouldn't be planning a trip to disney world and instead should be thinking of going back to Massachusetts for a trip to Mayyim Hayyim. Then I think of my very real moments in the mikvah, and my very real kids, and thank G-d.

Don't make these fish cakes at 6 pm

I made a big mistake tonight when I started thinking about making dinner around 6 pm. We sat down close to 8 pm. However, since I sort of made this Passover recipe up myself, I figured I would share it.

A bunch of left over tilapia from last night occasioned these parve Pesach fish cakes:

Mash up a bunch of left over fish.
Peel, boil and mash about 3-4 potatoes.
Add salt, pepper, about 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley, 1 tablespoon matzo meal, a teaspoon of mayonnaise, 1/2 teaspoon of mustard if you eat kitniyot, juice of 1/2 a lemon. Taste to correct seasonings. Then add one egg. Mix it all up.

To fry, make balls and roll them in matzo meal, then flatten them in the frying pan in hot olive oil. Cook it in a better frying pan than I have. Put the ones that are done in the oven until they are all cooked.

Serve with lemon, mayo, or whatever else you think will be good, and a big salad.

For chocolate toffee matzo to serve after, see this

For more Pesach recipes from me, see here

Hag sameach to all!

Coming out again!

Those of you who know me or read this blog regularly probably know that to get lots of medical services I drive about 5 km to an ultra-orthodox west bank settlement.

Today after I got home from work and dropped the kids to their sport, I ran to get a prescription filled for Alen. I didn't have her health insurance card with me.

At the pharmacy were 2 orthodox or ultra-orthodox women behind the counter, the pharmacist whom I don't know and the well-baby/child nurse whom I do know but have not seen for awhile.

So I asked the pharmacist could she put the charge on my card (it goes direct to my bank account) and she said, but who is Anne (Alen)? Who is she to you? So I said, she's my partner (bat-zug) and she says, she's your friend? Where's her card? What's her ID number?

So I said, it's here on the prescription and she's my partner. And she says, they will want to know, who is she to you, and I say again, as if I'm talking to a 2 year old, she's my partner. And I see her writing in the computer "haverot" (friends). And I said, "what, is it forbidden for you to write partner?"

She's flustered and I'm getting pissed off and the well baby nurse says, "Oh hi, how are your kids, your son is Alex right?" And the pharmacist says, "one pill four times a day." And me and the nurse say, "these are eye drops". Then the pharmacist goes off to answer the phone and the nurse and I continue talking about Sasha and whether he gets another appointment and I give her my phone number to call me.

This nurse really saved me from myself and from feeling bad. I try not to make waves in Beitar, but at the same time, if someone asks me directly, I'm going to say and stand up for my family. The nurse gave me a very positive message, "I know you, I see your family, I recognize you. This community may be homophobic but I'm not - I know you and I like you."

Enough coming out for today.

Thoughts after one year - in memory of Lucas

Today is Ash Wednesday. Yesterday was Mardi Gras - Carnival Tuesday - the day that Lucas died.

I can't believe it has been one year. My heart is with Sophie, Eddie & Kayleigh and all the family.

Thank you to everyone who has helped Alen & me and our kids during this year.

Two books I read this summer and fall helped a lot. One was "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" - a book of interviews by Studs Terkel. It's lots of different perspectives on death, loss and faith. The other is "Does the Soul Survive" by Rabbi Elie Spitz.

I spent almost two weeks in California at the end of January and beginning of February. I had not been there in 30 years. Everywhere I went I was welcomed by people I know from all parts of my life - from grade school, from my college days, from my first year in Israel in '83-'84, from rabbinical school and from these past 11 years in Israel. I also met new people - including my 3rd cousin and 3rd cousin once removed and his wife.

My cousin Andrew the genealogist gave me a gift - the marriage certificate of my great uncle Jack. It turns out my uncle Jack married his wife Edith exactly two weeks after my grandparents got married, on Sunday, April 28, 1929. (Or maybe it's the 23rd - the date is hard to read - the 23rd would make more sense if it was a civil wedding at an office not open on Sundays.)

My grandparents were married April 14, 1929 in Sharon, MA. In California I saw several people who are connected to Sharon and decided that all roads lead to Sharon - the place where my grandparents married and are buried.

I also saw and felt many other things connected to the past - to the Holocaust especially.

I came back feeling that if I can go 9000 miles away to a place where I have not been for 30 years and experience so many amazing connections from so many times, then there really is no time and no space and no distance.

When Lucas died the song that kept coming to me was the Sweet Honey In the Rock song, Listen More Often. You can find it on this blog if you search the Lucas tag - it's the first song I posted when he died. I'll probably make a new tag for loss as well. The song says "The dead are not under the earth" and it's something I believe more every day.

Sending lots of love to everyone who reads this.

Gail