Are You Lonesome Tonight?

Are you a loner or just lonely because you can’t find people that you click with, that is the question. They are now classifying the gunman at Sandy Hook as “a loner”. I heard a “talking head” the other day say that the young men who committed such crimes as Columbine, Aurora and now Sandy Hook, the thing they have in common was that they were not loners by choice; that the difference between these young men and others who choose to isolate themselves was that these young men tried to fit in and were shunned by their peer group. Hurt and isolated they began to formulate a plan that would get them noticed. Angry because they didn’t fit in, they choose notoriety over being a “loser” who had no friends.

This situation and the people talking about it on our never ending 24/7 news cycle has provoked me to think of my own life and my own situation.

As a child, I was always alone in my family. Divorced parents, my brother sent away by my mother when I was only five, being raised by a mother who had no interest in me at all, I turned to people on the outside of my family. I also turned to my extended family, my grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins who were around my age. I found acceptance through them; I found happiness; companionship and I didn’t feel so alone.  But this pattern of turning to whoever was there at the time to ease my loneliness was to follow me my whole life and on many occasions has gotten me into trouble, physically, emotionally and mentally.  But I didn’t want to be alone, or more accurately, I didn’t want to feel alone.

I believe every person on this hunk of rock has felt the pain of loneliness at times in our lives. It’s how we handle it that makes the difference in each one of us. On one side of the extreme you have someone who took an assault weapon and killed 20 little children and on the other a person who calls someone over and over not because they are actually interested in a relationship in real life but because it makes them feel less “alone”. I fall somewhere in the middle I think. Because I’ve been alone most of my life, I’m not only used to it, I prefer it. I can pick and choose who I want to be with and when I want to be with them. I answer to no one which some might say is a lonely existence, however if you’ve ever been in a marriage that wasn’t good, you’ll know that this existence is a relief and is much better than being at the mercy of someone else’s whims.  

The easiest way to overcome loneliness is to share, really share who you are, with another person who genuinely cares and has your best interests at heart. I have never had a problem with this. I am not afraid to share who I am with anyone, flaws and all. There have been some people in my life who have not understood; who either used my sharing against me or used it to try and convince me that they actually cared when in reality, they did not, they were just trying to assuage their own feelings of loneliness. Like anyone else who’s had this done to them, of course I’ve been hurt by this kind of behavior but it will not change who I am. I will continue to share myself with my base of friends and family that I know genuinely care about me and the ones who have used me for their own purposes, known or unknown, will get thrown by the wayside as they always have in the past. Those who don’t care will be forgotten. When I was working in a bar in the 80’s, a very wise older Jewish gentleman once told me, “Don’t waste your time caring about people who don’t care about you”.   

Tomorrow is the first day of a new year, 2013. For me it is not a continuation of the old year, but a new beginning. My strength, respect for myself, respect for others who deserve it and my love for the world and all the possibilities it holds has carried me through to this place. The old has no place in this New Year. The people from my past who have treated me badly have no place in this New Year. They became my past for a reason. They had no respect for me, my feelings, my desires, my time and didn’t appreciate the love I gave to them. So as it always has been before I will continue on my own; happy that I answer to no one; filled with the possibilities of the things I can accomplish in this new year; safe in the knowledge that I’m strong; loving those who love me properly in return.

Happy New Year Everyone!  L’Shana Tova

Fight or Flight

In the wake of the Connecticut tragedy, I’m reminded of my own childhood and my elementary school, Glenmont Elementary. In those days we performed drills as well, just like the kids did at Sandy Hook Elementary, but for a different reason. You see, I was raised in the cold war era, where the threat was a nuclear attack and so on drill days, we were told to get under our desks, the classroom door was locked, the windows locked and the shades pulled down, the classroom lights were turned off, just like at Sandy Hook. In my young mind, the thought of a gunman coming into my classroom and shooting my teacher, my classmates, would have been unfathomable.  My Kindergarten class picture sits on my bookshelf. The Year? 1964. How times have changed.

One of the little boys in the classroom in Connecticut where the gunman burst into the room and shot first his teacher and then started riddling his classmates with bullets, got up and ran right past the gunman, out into the hall, then through the shot out front door of the school and to safety. Fight or flight. This little boy knew to run, run like the wind, run like the devil was chasing him and was just about to catch him. I cannot imagine what was going through this little boy’s mind as he left his classmates behind to be slaughtered by a crazed gunman hell bent on destroying the lives of children, teachers, families and a community and then destroying himself but I’m thinking this scene and his flight from it will haunt him the rest of his life.  He will feel guilt, shame, sadness like none of us has ever known. I hope that over time, this little boy will come to realize that he was a child and there is nothing else a child can or should do in that situation but run; run to safety; run to live another day because a child that young has his whole life ahead of him. He could become president, he could become a great psychiatrist, he could be the person that solves the problems of the world and so he should run; run for his life and the life of others.

This brings to mind something I heard recently. The system in our bodies that gives us warnings is called the Adrenal system. This system reacts to stress by releasing hormones that makes us alert and reactive. One of the problems with this system though is that it doesn’t know the difference between just a regular case of nerves and a real impending disaster.   

The body can’t tell what are nerves and excitement, panic and doubt, the beginning and the end. The body just tells you to get the hell out. Sometimes you ignore it, which in many cases is the reasonable thing to do. In most situations in life most of us are not faced with a life or death situation and so we train ourselves to ignore the panic, ignore the doubt and carry on. But sometimes, we listen. You’re supposed to trust your gut, right? When your body tells you to run….run.

Something must be done, now! We can no longer as a society stand by and watch our children, teenagers, parents, friends, family, teachers be gunned down by crazed madmen with assault weapons. We are better than this. The issue must be looked at as a whole. Yes, it is a difficult one. Yes, there are people on both sides of the issue of gun control but we have to, as “reasonable” people on both sides of the issue realize that there is no reason that makes any sense at all for a normal person in our society to have weapons of military grade that belong in a war theater, in the hands of our people on the streets. No one shoots a deer with an AK47 automatic rifle. No one shoots a bird with a Glock 9. These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only. Massive killing of human beings. We as a society have to put our collective feet down to the gun manufacturers who are in bed with the gun lobby in congress and shout “NO, YOU CANNOT MAKE ANY MORE MONEY OFF THE KILLING OF INNOCENT CHILDREN AND ADULTS IN OUR COUNTRY”. We have to hold our congress people’s feet to the fire and shout “DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, NOW!” Now is the time for us to have all the conversations surrounding this issue; from gun control to the mental health system to the security of our schools where children are supposed to be safe. Actually, the time to have had these conversations was BEFORE 20 children were shot to death from three to eleven times each, in a sleepy little picturesque town called Sandy Hook. Anyone who thinks it’s not the time to have these conversations, think about the mother and father going out to their car and removing the child seat strapped in back because they don’t need it any more, their child is dead; think about them removing the presents under the Christmas tree because the child they so lovingly picked out presents for is gone. Think about the future Christmas’ and Hanukahs of the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers and friends of these fallen little ones and adults which will forever be marred by memory that this was the time of year when they lost something most precious and they lost it because our society did nothing after Columbine, nothing after Tucson, nothing after Aurora, nothing after Fort Hood, nothing after Milwaukie. Isn’t it time NOW for us to do something? We cannot expect the government to take up this cause on their own when they are paralyzed by the gun lobby. We have to take up the cause ourselves. “We – The People”. We have to force the government to take up this cause. After 20 children between the ages of 5 and 7 lost their lives in the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States, WE HAVE to do something.  

Suggestions?

Ban gun shows – huge loophole, people purchasing guns at gun shows require no background check. 40% of guns purchased by people in the U.S. do not go through even a cursory background check

Reinstate the ban on assault weapons which expired in 2004 because the statistics show that more mass killings in which more than 2 people have been killed by these weapons since then than the total number of mass killings since 1966.

Shore up the mental health system in this country through the insurance companies, the police departments and the school systems so that kids and parents with kids who have mental issues can get the help that they need.

Now is the time to do something about this. Do not let any more people die because we could not come together as a society and make the decisions that need to be made to ensure the safety of our citizens.

My prayers go out to the families of both the victims and the survivors of this horrifying crime.   

Moving On Is Not The Same As Letting Go

Here’s a question. Can two people really be “meant for each other”, “soul mates”? It would be nice if this were the case. It would be nice to know that all of us have someone out there waiting for us; us waiting for them. I’m just not sure I believe this any more.

The argument for believing it is “Why not believe it?” Who doesn’t want more romance in their life? Who wants to feel alone in the world? Not any one that I know. Maybe it is just up to us to make it happen; to actually show up and be “meant for each other”. If you do that, at least you’ll find out for sure if you’re really meant to be or not. But so many are not willing to even show up; not willing to take the risk that they could be wrong.

It can be very scary to find out that you’re wrong about someone. But we can’t be afraid to change our minds; to accept that things are actually different than what we thought they were; and that they will never be the same. For better or worse we have to be willing to give up what we used to believe. We have to be willing to not just move on, but to let go of those old beliefs. Because once we know we were wrong about someone, there really is no point in belaboring it. If you don’t move on AND don’t let go, you end up in a vicious cycle of telling yourself, “Well, if he had only done this or that”, or “But he had these ‘special circumstances’, that’s why he behaved the way he did”. As Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory said, “If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts, oh what a Christmas we’d have”. The fact is, they didn’t do this or that, and their special circumstance doesn’t give them special rights to hurt people. So forget it, move on, let go. Accept that they’re a crappy person and you were wrong in thinking anything else; that you weren’t “meant for each other” and that’s that.

The more we are willing to accept what is and not what we thought, we’ll find ourselves exactly where we belong. If your two hands are busy holding on to someone who wasn’t right for you, wasn’t “meant for you”, you have no hands to embrace the one who is out there waiting, the who actually does show up; is willing to take the risk of possibly being wrong and can make the saying “meant for each other” a reality. 

Hope, Change and Compromise

First of all, congratulations to our President for winning re-election. Once again, President Barrack Obama has made history. Not only is he the first African American President but he is now the first African American President to be elected twice. Congratulation Mr. President.

Now, this President has faced divisiveness throughout his first term. There were congress people and some on the senate who were determined to see the President fail. So much so that they held the best interest of the American people hostage. There were elected officials who said from the very beginning of this president’s first term that their agenda was to make sure that Barrack Obama was a one term president. Well, they didn’t succeed. Through it all, the President prevailed. He accomplished some very important things for this country in the face of all that adversity and in the end he came out on top winning re-election. I believe this not only speaks to the President’s character but also to his willingness to listen to other views and compromise.

There are those now who have nothing but sour grapes. They want to continue to espouse things that are not true about our President, and continue to block anything he tries to do for the good of the American people. There are people who still, even after this overwhelming re-election, refuse to give credit where credit is definitely due. They refuse to see that if this President did all he did during his first term without people who were willing to compromise and who opposed him on everything; completely blind and uncaring about what was good for this country, imagine what he can accomplish with a congress who is willing to compromise, listen to the experts, and work with the President to keep the momentum going and bring this country back to where it was before we had eight years of war mongering and excessive spending and tax breaks for the rich that came from having an “Oil Man” as president.  

You can say whatever you want about Barrack, it doesn’t make it true. What is true about this man is that he was raised by a single mother, a situation which many in this country are all too familiar with. He worked hard; got the grades he needed and went to law school, and not just any law school but the best in the country. He was head of the Harvard Law Review. As a legal student myself, I understand the gravity of this accomplishment. He could have gone into the practice of law and reaped the rewards of all his hard work. Instead, he worked for his community, doing pro-bono work (free) for people who couldn’t afford legal assistance. This is a man who understands that to a man whom much is given, much is expected and he rose to the occasion his whole life to meet and exceed those expectations. He understands and appreciates the gifts he’s been given and he has used them to the best of his abilities to improve the lives of others. You only have to look at his kind eyes when he speaks about things he is passionate about, look at his eyes when he is looking at his children, or his beautiful wife. This is a man who is alive, vibrating with a spirit that is determined, filled with the hope that things can change, that people can be convinced to compromise for the good of all, that there is always room for improvement and that man, while ever flawed, should and can make the world a better place for all of us living here on this big chunk of rock we call planet earth.

It is time for those who have so vehemently opposed this president to come together, open their eyes, stop ignoring the facts, listen to the experts in the various fields of science, economics, and education and instead of holding the country down, help to put the country completely back on its feet. We were all knocked down after 9/11. It’s time for the divisors and dividers to stop their negative rhetoric and get down to the business of really fixing the many challenges we have ahead of us. This takes compromise, intelligent listening, the ability to be able to see and understand all sides if the issues, and the willingness to admit that they are not always right. My hope and vision is that this is possible. That everyone can come together for the good of this country and the world. In Judaism, there is an expression, “When you save one life, you save the world.” It’s time to stop looking at and dwelling on the negative things of the past and move forward to save the world one life at a time, for our life in the present and for the future of all of us.   

God bless America, God bless the world. Mazel Tov Mr President!

Analyze This!

A person with a tendency to analyze everything has a specific set of skills. Learning to see the puzzle in everything has its costs. They are everywhere, these puzzles and once you start looking at them, it’s impossible to stop. It just so happens that people and all the deceits and delusions that inform everything they do, tend to be the most fascinating puzzles of all. Of course, most people don’t appreciate being seen that way. It is a lonely way to live sometimes. It does have its costs.

At times, the puzzle seem impossible to solve and some in fact, are never solved. Some you must just move away from, give up, mark it down as unsolvable like an ill manufactured rubix cube; one that was accidentally made with no way to solve it, no way to line up all the little colored squares. Then there are others, simple to figure out, beautiful once solved and glorious in their simplicity.

We all wear costumes to hide our puzzles; clothes that on the outside say to the world “This is who I am”, “I am a professional”, “I am a surgeon”, “I am Jewish”, “I work for the electric company”; uniforms that hide who we really are on the inside, and project to the world a strong sense of who we want the world to believe we are. “I make life and death decisions every day”, “I am deeply religious”, “I can fix things” are all ideas of ourselves we want to project to the world. But when the uniform comes off, we are still that puzzle underneath it all; flawed and complicated, soft and hard, a mix of emotion and disengagement, happiness and sadness. We can all be hurt, and we can all do the hurting. It’s how you recover from it that matters; it’s how you solve your own puzzle that counts.  

Strong People Don't Settle

Strong people don’t compromise. We defy the odds, defeat death, strive for perfection, and are probably way harder on ourselves than anyone else is. We will go through hell and high water to achieve a good outcome, a good result, one that makes us and those around us happy, and confident in the knowledge that their faith in us is not misplaced. We can get the job done. We are strong. We are not built to fail but that doesn’t mean that sometimes we won’t. We don’t want to settle for imperfection, a failed relationship, we tell ourselves, it can be fixed, but sometimes, no matter how strong we are, no matter how hard we try, we have to listen to hearts and accept failure. Sometimes things just cannot be fixed. There are variables we cannot control but that doesn’t mean we just settle.

Sometimes what seems like settling is actually not. It’s actually choosing to move on, defying death, living to fight another day, putting distance between us and the event so we can learn from the mistake and strive for perfection in the next round, and come even closer to our “good result”. It takes strength to move on, to be on your own, and to not settle but it is necessary. It’s what we do, us strong people, it’s how we stay strong. Its how we keep faith to try again with a new person.   

When we follow our heart, move on, and choose not to settle, it’s funny isn’t it, that a huge weight lifts; the sun shines a little brighter; the color comes back into the world again; there is hope, hope that the next time we won’t fail, hope that the next time will be better and for a moment, however brief, we find peace.   

Time Heals All Wounds

Is it time that heals all wounds? I’ve heard this expression all my life and I always wondered why this was true. It became obvious to me early on that in fact it really was true but was it really the passing of time that healed wounds or was it actually something else? I learned a number of years ago that it is in fact, something else.

In the passing of time after a deep hurt, or “wound”, you experience other things in life. You meet new people; reconnect with old friends, family members, share stories and experiences, you go to work each day, and find new things that you enjoy, new people that you enjoy and you take comfort in the people you already know and the things you were already doing. In this process your perspective changes. You apply all of these new interactions to the wound like a salve, healing it a little at time. And as it scabs over, you know it’s there but it becomes less and less painful. Now if you dwell on this wound, it is like ripping the scab off over and over and it never seems to heal but if you leave it alone, don’t pick at it, in time you forget it’s there and it heals itself. In time, you find yourself looking back and thinking “Now what was I so upset about?” Ding ding ding! That is the sound of your perspective changing.

There is a life coach who says that you can heal yourself from these life wounds instantaneously. That it isn’t in fact time, but perspective that heals all wounds and that you can change your perspective in an instant simply by looking at the situation differently; looking at it like how you would after the passing of time only don’t wait, look at it that way now. I have found this to be true. Like that old saying, “The best way to get over an old love is to find a new one”. Why is this true? Because in the bright light of your new love, the old one is like a dim bulb, paling in comparison…always. This is the nature of new love. When you don’t really know your “new love” well, they are perfection in every way because you don’t know any better. You haven’t seen their flaws yet, and even if you have, you are so enveloped in the attraction; you find these flaws “cute”, “attractive”, “sexy” even.

Happiness is a choice we each make each and every day. Even if we don’t realize we have the choice, we do. Ever wonder why certain people who have been given nothing in life, who have had to scape and claw their way to achieving the smallest of goals and yet these people live in absolute bliss, happy just to be alive, happy to have the opportunity to love and be loved, share and be shared with? Every day “above ground” is a good day for them. Then there are others in the world that seem to have everything, a good job, a nice family, a nice home and close friends and yet they are miserable, they see the wrong in everything and are completely unhappy. They turn to drugs or alcohol to try and change their state of mind but in the end, they sober up and they are still unhappy and so they do it all over again. These people end up on a downward trajectory, and sometimes, they never climb out of it. Yet the person who has been given nothing yet is happy to be alive manages to find a way to go to college, get a degree, a job they love and live a happy life. It all boils down to perspective. The happy person wakes up every day excited about making his/her life better. The unhappy person wakes up every day thinking “Oh God another day of being miserable”.

This is true with wounds as well. The happy person is able to look at things differently and change their perspective instantaneously which helps them heal and get over things faster than the unhappy person. The unhappy person picks and picks at the scab and it never seems to heal all the while making them more and more miserable with each passing day. They go through their lives as a ghost, walking wounded through every experience never really appreciating it or the people around them, expecting things to just change automatically. Happiness is a thought process that for some is easier than it is for others. For others it takes some work, but it can be done. You can choose to change your perspective and be happy, be grateful for all the things you have whether big or small, appreciate the people in your life, and forgive those who wound you because more than likely, those people are living quiet lives of desperation, the shell of a person while inside, suffering and not knowing how to change that feeling of “Oh God, another miserable day”.

Every single thing in life happens for a reason. I believe it is usually to teach us something that we need to know. If you can ingrain this idea into your perspective, you are well on your way to being a happy person. Yes, sometimes the things we need to learn are painful, sometimes life isn’t pretty and certainly relationships with people can get pretty ugly and messy but if you can tell yourself on a consistent basis that what you experience is not you, it is an experience and it’s meant to teach a lesson. If you can search and find what that lesson is, take it to heart and appreciate it for what it is, forgive yourself when you make a mistake and celebrate your achievements, know that life is short and we are given a finite amount of time on this earth so don’t waste it being unhappy and miserable especially about things you cannot change, be grateful, truly grateful for the smallest of things because often times, the smallest of things are the greatest gifts, you will find that living is easier, more fulfilling and gratifying. Love with all that you have, give all that you can, help wherever you see the need. The rest will take care of itself.  Shabbat Shalom everyone.    

Israel = "God Prevails"

In its strictest form, “atheism” is defined as a rejection in the belief that there is “a” God. According to a report released in 2009 by the American Religious Identification Survey, Atheists make up approximately 2.3% of the world’s population.  In 2009 the world’s population was about 6.8 billion people which would mean that in 2009 6.6 billion people in the world believed in some form of God or Gods.

Since I was a small child, old enough to speak and put ideas together in my brain, I had an interest in religion, particularly ones that were not my own. For most of my life I identified with Christians because really, there was no other identity for me because I was adopted into a Christian (Catholic) family and my birth mother never told the adoption agency about her Jewish background. However, even though I identified my self as a Christian, I never believed the very basic tenants of Christianity, one being that Jesus was God sent to earth to save humanity. It always seemed like a fairy tale, a myth laden with symbols and a story not to be taken literally but a story told to teach people about kindness to your fellow man, the love our creator had for us and importance of having faith that all will turn out OK in the end. I’m reminded of a line from a movie called “The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel” in which the main character says “It will all be alright in the end, and if it is not yet alright, it is not yet the end”. This has become my mantra.

In Christianity I found that a man, a human being, no different than me, was given special powers. Priests could absolve me of my sins; the Pope could make rules about how I was supposed to live my life, as a woman, as a person, all powers given to them by God supposedly. The prayers in Catholicism had lines like “I believe in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” and “He was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died and was buried and on the third day he rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of God” and the ever famous, “He will come again to judge the living and dead”. When you go to confession in the Catholic church, the culmination of being forgiven, and the measure of how great your sins are, is by how many “Our Father”s and “Hail Mary”s the priest that you can’t see or have eye contact with, gives you to say when he excuses you from the dark little booth with the sliding door where on the other side lies the priest’s face. I always wondered whenever I left confessional, was that meant to be a counseling session and if so, why can’t I see his face, why is the little sliding door closed?

My spiritual path has led me down many roads. I studied and in some cases practiced many different religions along the way but the one path I never went down previously was Judaism. I now believe that in the creator’s master plan, he was saving the best for last for me. I had to see and know about all the other religions to be able measure, understand and appreciate Judaism for what it is. It is first of all, the very first mono-theistic religion, born over five thousand years ago. Meaning, it was the first religion to ever believe that there was one God. It was the religion of Jesus which most Christians don’t even realize but all of their teachings, the teachings of Jesus Christ, were based in Judaism. Every good idea in Christianity came originally from a Jewish idea. And it would have had to be wouldn’t it, since Jesus was himself a Jew. Judaism is about the individual and about the world at large. Yes, there are sects of Judaism who believe in the good only for other Jews (Orthodox) and Jews who believe in the good for all of mankind (Reform). My sect, Conservative, believes in both. I prefer this idea because of everything I have learned in the last couple of years, Judaism in its original form, stripped down of all the “man-made” ideas, is in fact about both. It is about striving to be the best person you can be and helping to make the world a better place for all who live on this planet.

I’ve had many discussions with a person very close to me regarding the “marks” of a “good Jew”. He and I have known many people who identify themselves as “Jews” but question whether they are in fact “real Jews”. He is a Christian (Church of England actually) and has not had good experiences with the people he has known who identified themselves as “Jews”. Though I’ve explained it to him many times, and will probably need to explain it many more times, there are many facets to “being Jewish”. It is probably the hardest concept to get across to Christians because they think of being Jewish as only a religious identification. I understand this difficulty because for much of my life I thought the same way so I understand how hard it is to shift the paradigm of belief of only a religious identification to being Jewish is a religion but it is also an ethnicity, a culture, a people with specific DNA markers all originating from a specific place on this earth, the middle east, and specifically, Israel.

Israel is all of Jewish humanity’s home. The original Jews were in fact called “Israelites”. This is why the state of Israel has a right to exist, and should exist, just like Greek people have Greece as their homeland, Russian people have Russia, Spanish people…well, OK, so Spanish people have many homelands depending on where their ancestors were from but every Jew’s ancestor going back to the beginning was from Israel is my point. 

 Though the actual length of time the Jews spent in Egypt as slaves is still being deliberated by scholars, the fact is that we as a people were captured and taken into slavery for at least 350 years and the Bible says 400 years. This was our first departure from our homeland and the reason that people give as to why Israel should not exist as the “Jewish” country. In that time, our homeland was overrun by other peoples. They made homes, had families, generations were born and died in our homeland. This doesn’t make it any less ours. It is where we came from, it is our country. When you look at other country’s histories, we don’t say that England doesn’t belong to the English because they were occupied for a certain amount of time in history by the Romans. 

And speaking of the English, at one point they had one of the largest empires in the world, but we don’t today call any of the countries they occupied “England”. By 1922, the British Empire controlled more than one fifth of the world’s population and was spread across one quarter of the earth’s total land mass, and yet, India is still known as India, the homeland for East Indian peoples, Africa is still known as Africa, the home of the African peoples. It is ironic to me then, to a certain degree, that since 1948, due in large part to British intervention, Israel has become in modern times the “official” homeland of the Jews.

The literal translation of “Israel” from Hebrew to English is “God Prevails”. It makes sense to me then that the homeland of the people who were the first to believe in one God, and one God only, would be called “God Prevails” and so far, for now, he…or she…does.  Shabbat Shalom everyone!

 

It’s the Time of the Season

Since I was a young child I could always tell when fall was arriving. It wasn’t in looking at a calendar that was the signal for me. It was that first color turn of leaves falling to the ground enveloping my world with the smell of musty wet leaves. It was the crisp air filled night sky which seemed to make the stars more visible and plentiful. It was the site of pumpkins every where, on people’s porches, in all the aisles at the grocery store and the site of them piled high at all the roadside farmer’s markets.

In those days my mother had her summer wardrobe and her winter wardrobe and now was the time of year when the switch happened. These days my closet is filled with winter and summer clothes all mixed together and I wear whatever the day and the weather calls for.

While the old signals still hold true for me that fall is coming or has already arrived, today I have new signals. Rosh Hashanna, Yom Kippur, Sukkot. I have my own house now so when the tree in the front yard starts shedding its leaves, I know its time to get the rake out and turn the air conditioner off. I know it’s time to clean the filter in the heating system and mow and weed the front and back yards one last time before winter sets in. Towards the end of October, I know it’s time to bring in the plants that have been outdoors since spring and have grown exponentially while being outside in the direct sunshine and humidity that is so prevalent in the Washington DC area.

Fall is for me a time for the ending of things that don’t work any more and the start of bright new beautiful beginnings. For the last few years, the traumas that I had endured through the year, ended around this time. And this year, well, this year is no different, except for one thing. This year, I know who I am. This year I won’t grieve over those endings like I have in the past. This year, I learned something very important; I learned that I am worthy. This year I learned that I’m a normal woman with the same desires as everyone else, to love and be loved in return and that love takes work, input, face time and open honest communication. I felt the lesson this year that everything really does happen for a reason and that there is a plan underneath it all. We may not know what it is, but its there and it’s set up this way so that we will learn and seek out knowledge, of ourselves, our families, of our creator and of the community we live in.

Love will get us there, on a wing and a prayer. I don’t know where we’re going but I know we’ll get there. 

The Last Piece of Cake

The story goes that there is this beautiful woman who is dating this man that she thinks is wonderful. Things are getting pretty serious and so she decides to take him to her parent’s house for dinner. The dinner goes well; there is good food, and a lovely cake at the end of the meal. When all is done, the father takes the daughter aside and says to her, “You do not want to marry this man”. The daughter is stunned and asks her father “Why?, why shouldn’t I marry him, he’s a nice Jewish boy”. And the father replied, “Because at the end of dinner, there was one piece of cake left, and he took it and ate it without asking if anyone else wanted it”.

This is a simple yet poignant story that says so much about so many people in the world today. Our tradition (the Jewish tradition) requires that we think about others. Yet, there are many of us (Jews and non-Jews) who do not conduct our lives this way. There are some that take that last piece of cake without even saying “Hey, there’s one piece of cake left, does anyone want to share it?” I can say that at times, I have probably have been guilty of this myself. We are commanded to be aware of others. Yet, I’ve had experiences with a couple of different people (both Jewish men) over the last few years where their disregard, self centeredness, self absorbedness, and utter unawareness of their own cruelty was completely baffling and astounding. If I cared now, I would ask them, “What kind of family were you raised in that you could turn out to be so self centered, so self absorbed, so uncompromising, so uncaring and so cruel?” But the truth is, I don’t care anymore. I simply did what the father told the daughter to do; I got them both out of my life. Of course I say “simply” but there was nothing simple about it, but I did it, I overcame and I've moved on. Without awareness of others, you can not compromise, work things out, come to any agreement. Without awareness of others, there can never be honesty, trust, or safety. It’s just not worth it to have people like that in your life.

So the message for me this High Holiday Season is “The Last Piece of Cake”. I don’t ever want to be thought of as being selfish, self centered or so self absorbed that I can not hear another's cries of pain, or can not console someone when they are having a bad day, or can not share laughter with those I love and hold close to my heart or can not compromise when I know that something is important to someone I care about. My new years resolution this year is first to forgive those who have harmed me, and second, to be more aware of the people who are actually in my real life and to give them the consideration, love, kindness and caring that they have shown me. I love you all so dearly and consider myself lucky, very honored and very blessed to have you there.

L’Shana Tova

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You Are Who You Believe You Are

Our subconscious, like a little voice, has this way of infecting our personalities in ways we are completely unaware of, until an interaction with another of our species brings up the question “Why did this person treat me this way?” Suddenly we’re looking for answers, and if we look closely and listen carefully to those wiser around us, we will indeed find the answer.

I had an experience last week with someone whom I felt humiliated me and embarrassed me for no reason that I could see at the time. I felt hurt and I got angry. I asked a close friend “What is it about me that makes some people treat me this way? I’m good to people, I don’t humiliate people”. At the end of the week I heard a story told by a very wise man that put it all into perspective and I found the answer to “Why do some people treat me this way”. I now know what to do with this information and how to act upon it to change and the answer could not have come at a more appropriate time.

The story is called “The Rabbi’s Gift”. This is the Dr M Scot Peck version and it goes something like this:
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The story concerns a monastery that had fallen upon hard times. Once a great order, as a result of waves of anti-monastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth, all its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was a dying order.

In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through their many years of prayer and contemplation the old monks had become a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in his hermitage. "The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods again", they would whisper to each other. As he agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot at one such time to visit the hermitage and ask the rabbi if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.

The rabbi welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. "I know how it is," he exclaimed. "The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore." So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. Then they read parts of the Torah and quietly spoke of deep things. The time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other. "It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years, "the abbot said, "but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?"

"No, I am sorry," the rabbi responded. "I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you."

When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, "Well what did the rabbi say?" "He couldn't help," the abbot answered. "We just wept and read the Torah together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving --it was something cryptic-- was that the Messiah is one of us. I don't know what he meant."

In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the rabbi's words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that's the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people's sides, when you look back on it, Elred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Elred. But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah. Of course the rabbi didn't mean me. He couldn't possibly have meant me. I'm just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn't be that much for You, could I?

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And on the off off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.

Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.

Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi's gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm.

So here in this simple story, was the answer to my question that I had asked my close friend earlier in the week and had asked of myself for pretty much my whole life. There is a small quiet voice inside my head that tells me I’m not worthy, that I don’t really deserve respect, kindness and caring. I’ve had this voice since I was a child and when I was younger, before I had accomplished so much, the voice was quite loud. As I got older and started to accomplish things, the voice got quieter but it is still there, mulling around in the back of my brain somewhere. This is a common thing among children who have been abused and neglected and unfortunately we spend our lives trying to make this voice wrong by letting people who use our weakness against us, determine how we feel. We try over and over to sooth those feelings of being mistreated and neglected by trying desperately to gain respect, love, kindness and caring from people who are just not able to give those things. Somehow, we think in our heads that by accomplishing this, we will make everything that happened to us as children, right. The voice tells us that if we can get those things from THESE people, that we will finally be worthy. Nothing could be further from the truth.    

And so, through out my life, I have not only allowed people into my life that did not treat me with the respect, kindness and love that I deserved, but it became a vicious circle in which I found myself unable to escape. People would treat me badly; I would not stand up for myself but found myself unable to ignore what they did or said that made me feel so bad. Somewhere inside, I believed I deserved to be treated this way. This attitude at times has made me very unhappy and later in life has caused bouts of depression, anxiety, and at times the inability to get out of bed and face the world for fear that someone, somewhere along the way was going to hurt me again.

The truth, the absolute truth, as I see it now, is that I am God’s child. No matter what happened to me as a child, no matter that the people who raised me, were really messed up and attempted to instill in me this feeling of unworthiness, the facts speak for themselves. I come from a long line of people who have endured persecution, hatred, banishment and death. Throughout our history, at any given point, an event could have happened differently that would have made it impossible for me to even be. Yet, here I am. In the living flesh. God saw fit to allow me to be created, allowed me to be born when I could have ended up as a back alley abortion, allowed me to be raised in such a way that caused me to seek the truth of who I am, caused me to seek answers and in every way has provided me with people in my life that have showed me the answers, whether they meant to or not.

I can not control what people think of me, I can not control the way some people treat me. There are people in the world who see someone like me as weak and they attempt to use me to boost their own feelings of inadequacy within themselves instead of enjoying my company and allowing us to each explore and enjoy the gift of each other. I have no control over these people or how they behave. I do however, have control over how I react to what they say and do to me. I most assuredly am not a victim. I have control over the things I tell myself and that little voice in the back of my head that tells me I’m not worthy to be treated with respect, love, caring and kindness. I must, from now on, remember this story and tell myself each and every time I have an instance where someone treats me with disrespect or unkindness that I am a gift; a gift to myself, a gift to the world and that there is a reason, a good reason that I was created in the first place, and because of that, I am totally worthy. 


God has carved out a special place for me here and has given me a special purpose. I may struggle sometimes to know what that purpose is. I’m not perfect; who is? But I am a work in progress that if only because of my people’s history and how far I have come to be here in this place, at this time, I deserve respect, love and kindness. And anyone who does not show me that? Well, they are the ones in fact that are not worthy. They are not worthy of my time, my interest in any ideas they are attempting to manipulate me with, or worthy of my presence in their lives. I am a gift from God to this world, as we all are, that they can not appreciate and so it will not be given to them. 

The Torah makes it clear that unkind words and deeds are as abhorrent to God as murder, greed, lust or any other cardinal sin and to associate with people who do these things, I am helping them to sin. 

So, there, in the story of the Rabbi’s Gift and in the first, most sacred and holy text lays the answer to my small little problem. I can not control the wind but I can control my sails.

Live In Joy

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last year or more focusing on negative things because of the intolerable situation I let myself be put in but there have actually been quite a few positive things that have come out of it that I really should pay more attention to and focus on.

The first thing is that I was able to complete my conversion process and Judaism has brought me such comfort, joy and pride in spite of everything I have endured. I doubt that I would have been able to complete the process with the amount of passion that I did and I certainly wouldn’t have learned as much as I did about things that really weren’t part of the conversion process had I not gone through what I did. In doing all that I also made my Rabbi a very happy and proud man that his last conversion before his retirement was such a passionate and dedicated student. So the blessing was actually two-fold.

I got my freedom, something I really hadn’t had for 13 years. It is a different kind of freedom than I had in the past because I was able to negotiate and keep the best part of the relationship I had with my husband and that was our friendship. Being married to each other didn’t bring out the best in either one of us and now we’ve finally been able to be honest with each other and remain friends. I don’t think I would have been able to do this if not for having to deal with the difficult situation I had. The freedom now is also different than the freedom I had before I was married. I have a home, a really good job, my physical health is much better and I am more educated and spiritual which makes me more confident in who I am. I have done the work over the years and know exactly who I am.  

People are comfortable with people who feel comfortable about themselves. This transcends race, religion, culture, age and sexual orientation. Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Who you are speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you’re saying”. How you feel about yourself shouts to me so loudly that what you say is almost irrelevant. This last year has taught me to have antenna now that I did not have before. Previously, when I met someone or talked to someone, even on the phone, I focused on how they made me feel.  Now, I know I can learn so much more by actually seeing and focusing on how the person feels about themselves. If they are not comfortable with themselves, they are going to attempt, whether consciously or subconsciously to put me in an uncomfortable situation as well. If a person is comfortable with themselves, then I’m going to feel comfortable relating with them and being involved with them. I have learned now that this is a fairly safe and sure barometer as to whether you should let someone in your life.   

Musically I gained quite a bit of knowledge about Latin music, something I always loved but had never been inspired to learn too much about. I found out that there is a colorful fluent history behind Latin music and it changed my perspective and increased the love I always had for it. I can hear now how the Latin Rhythms have influenced popular music and I can hear its influence in songs by some of my favorite bands and performers.   

I learned about a new language and even began to learn it, along with my required Hebrew language. Ladino, which is a part of Jewish culture and heritage, but not part of my Jewish heritage, is almost as old as Hebrew. I’m proud that I am one of few who know about it and that I also know the history behind it. I have found that it always impresses other Jews that first of all a convert, and second that an Ashkenazim would have knowledge of such a thing. It makes my heart happy to be able to share with someone something new about a part of their culture that they weren’t aware of before. It makes me feel like a bridge between the two groups, Ashkenazim and Sephardim, and in my mind it is a bridge that should have been built long ago.   

I started writing in earnest my book and have come quite far with it. I will finish it in the next year. Perhaps it will be published, perhaps it won’t but it will be a record of my life and experiences and I believe it is a story worth telling. I hope that if it published, it inspires, educates and comforts those who can connect with my story.

I have a new outlook on what it is like to be with people. I look at them differently now. I’ve had experiences with negative people, and I recognize the positive people. I now know the difference between a negative person, and someone who authentically cares about me. I know the difference between a negative person who looks down on me, and a person who really cares about me and considers me their equal. I can now recognize the difference between people who care that I’m happy and people who are jealous that I am. And I know which ones to avoid!

I know what I want in a relationship. I can not give up hope that I will find it. I want chemistry, someone I can have conversations with about anything, someone who makes me laugh and someone I can make laugh. I want attraction and romance and at this point in my life I know that if none of those things are there, it’s better to not have a “partner” and not having a “partner” is not a bad thing. I am never alone. I’m surrounded by friends who love and appreciate me. I would rather spend the time enjoying the life I have, which is a good one,  than spend the time wishing, waiting and hoping for something that is never going to happen and was never going to happen.

I have also learned another very important lesson, when to give up! Give up the minute you feel someone is not being open and honest. If you feel in the beginning that someone is hiding something, more than likely, they are. The time to leave is then. Don’t make excuses for them; don’t spend time trying to find out what it is that that they are hiding; don’t convince yourself that they will change. They won’t, trust me and your time is better spent with people who are open and honest with you. Leave before you are attached. It is way less painful that way. 

Another really valuable lesson I have learned is that people don’t really change who they are at their core. I will never ever go back and connect with anyone from my past again. There is a reason why they are in the past and that is exactly where they should stay. I don’t regret it, I had to go through it to learn the lesson but I won’t do it again. Just because you can reconnect with people from your past doesn’t mean you should. I’ve had three experiences so far with people from my past. Two of them turned out to be people who hurt me in this life worse than they ever hurt me in the past. The other one I’ve been friends with for more than twenty years, so it hasn’t all been bad. I just wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Leave the past where it belongs, in the past. There is nothing you can do about what happened there and more than likely, if you try to change the past, you will find it more painful than the first time around. People just don’t change that much. You can only change yourself and what happens now.

I am learning a lesson now from my life over the last year or more that you’d think at my age I would have learned long ago considering what my childhood was like and other parts of my life as well. This is probably the most important concept because it ties everything together. And that concept is forgiveness. Forgive the person who has injured you, not for them, for yourself because as long as you can’t forgive them, try to understand what they did, why they did it, as long as you are focused on the wrong that was done to you, carry it around inside you, you can’t focus on the joy in your life. Forgiveness comes at the realization and acceptance that things could not have turned out any other way. Forgiveness comes when you stop making excuses for the person, stop trying to figure out why, stop rationalizing their behavior and just accept that they have a defect in their personality, you can’t change them, you feel sorry for them, but them injuring you is not your fault. The fact that the person has this defect made it impossible for the situation to turn out any other way. Forgive and then you can move on and live in joy. Of course this doesn’t mean that in forgiving the person you have to have them in your life or trust them again. In fact, they don’t even need to know that you forgive them because you’re not doing it for them; you are doing it for yourself and all the people involved in your life. The first to apologize is the bravest. The first to forgive is the strongest. The first to move forward is the happiest. Be brave. Be strong. Be happy. Be free. Your responsibility in life is to find a way, for the next generations, for your family, and friends, to live in joy. You are useless to anybody including yourself if you are living in despondency and blame.

I recently saw an interview with Jake Ehrenreich, the author and star of the Broadway one man show, A Jew Grows in Brooklyn. When asked why a people who had endured so much hatred and horror, so much persecution, the Jewish people, could be so involved in the world of comedy, his response hit very close to home. He said that in order to live, you need to live in joy and he is right. We all have challenges in our lives and things that are better in our lives. You can focus on one or the other. They’re all real. It is true that they are both real. People who are depressed; they have a tendency to focus on those negative things in their lives. My mother was like that. Still is actually. People who live in joy, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have challenges in their lives, they do, but they focus mostly on the joy. Somehow as a people we have figured out a way to laugh through the imperfections of life. It is very unusual, but when you talk about the idea of a people, it is something that we as Jews can be very proud of because laughing through the misery and through the hard times and finding something funny, is a real gift. I am a part of these people. I may not have been raised in the culture but I have been around it most of my life and I have the genetics, no question. When I look at myself now, I see an Irish Jew. It all makes sense; the gift of gab, my sense of humor. I know who I am and I am proud of who I am. I will never again let someone make me feel less than because I am more than most people ever deserve. I am more than most people are ever worthy of simply because I have overcome so much and have come out not just ahead but actually enlightened. And my greatest gift from the creator is the ability to know when it is time to make a change and my capacity to make that change. I would have never thought in my twenties that I would have become a successful professional, a spiritually enlightened, funny woman, who like a cat has had many lives and life experiences. I will still struggle, because after all I am human and my most difficult challenge is to miss someone once I am “involved”. I always find it difficult to accept that at times in my life I have wanted to be with people who not only never really wanted to be with me, but never had the intention to do so. I always find it hard to accept and to understand why some people would purposely set out to deceive and hurt others but I am not alone in that. Every person comes into your life to teach you a lesson. I can take some comfort in that, comfort in my friends and parts of my family who do love me and want to spend time with me. I need to learn my lessons well, take my medicine when I make mistakes and live for the joy. That’s really all any of us can do.  

Remember, we may have different faces, we may have different faiths, but above all, we must see each other as members of one human family. A great Jewish sage said, “If you believe that it can be broken, then you must know it can also be fixed”. 

Alone Again...Naturally

There’s a reason I said I’d be happy alone all those years ago before I married. It’s wasn’t because I thought I’d be happy alone. It was because I thought if I loved someone and then it fell apart, I might not make it. It’s easier to be alone because what if you learn that you need love, and then you don’t have it. What if you like it, and lean on it, what if you shape your life around it and then it falls apart. Can you even survive that kind of pain? I still don't know if you can. Loosing love is like organ damage, it’s like dying. The only difference is, death ends; this...it could go on forever.

You can seek the advice of others; surround yourself with trusted advisers but in the end the decision is always yours and yours alone. Everyone has a method of how to get over loosing love but when it’s time to act and you’re all alone with your back against the wall, the only voice that matters is the one in your head. The one telling you what you probably already knew, the one that’s almost always right. 

The next step though is predicated upon being able to hear that voice in your head and many of us have more than one, leaving us confused and not knowing which way to go. We have the one that wants to believe the best and the one that believes every one of us is selfish at our core; that there is no one on the planet who thinks about others. Two competing theories that have the same outcome...at the end of the day...you are alone...again, naturally. 

In Gilbert O'Sulivan's song he talks about being left at the alter and wanting to throw himself off a tower. He was looking forward to his new life and role as a husband, and in an instant reality cut him to pieces causing him to doubt in God's mercy, even God's very existence. The truth as I have come to know it through the study of Kabbalah is that God put everything here; the good , the bad and everything in between so that when we are in doubt, we would seek knowledge in order to be closer to the creator. Each one of us at any given moment, in sorrow or immense happiness can choose to seek knowledge. 

Every one of us has only two choices in life, no matter what situation we are faced with. We think because we're human we have free will in all things but the reality is this: We have only two choices, to activate either the will to receive or the will to bestow. There are no other choices. When you are in a place where you feel you have lost love, the best way to get out of your head, and stop listening to the two competing voices is to activate the will to bestow. Go do something for someone or something else; something that is not self serving. You wil find first of all, love is there because whom ever you bestow upon will be grateful and will show you love in return, but it will also make your pain seem very small when compared to someone who doesn't have food or an animal who has been mistreated and neglected. The added benefit is that even though the reality is, we are each alone in this world, when you help someone or something else, you don't feel it as much.