Dr Savta's web log

Who said that when you get old you slow down? Well, maybe there are days when I am not physically running around, but ohmigosh… busy!! I have to say, though, I do love it! It’s great to have my children and grandchildren nearby and it’s great to have other interests as well.

Right now we are working on learning everything we can about our new travel destinations. We also are trying to learn survival Spanish. There are enough cognates of French and English that we often are able to read captions and descriptions, but passive vocabulary won’t get you 4 more tablespoons or enough bread to make sandwiches for 36 people. So it’s a wild and woolly time here cramming for a test of our Spanish that’s coming in only a few months and that we must pass.

To say that the tour to Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, and Peru was fantastic, is such an understatement. Imagine for a moment that you were able to be present on earth on the 5th day of creation. There are the creeping things and the fish and the birds and all of the plant life, and the sea. Imagine all of it living together in harmony. Imagine how beautiful it would be. How pure. How utterly precious.

That is what you find when you step onto most of the Galapagos Islands.

There are no words.

But there are pictures. You can see them here.

Here’s a preview:

It seems a bit absurd to write about how Yom Kippur was for me this year, yet I cannot help but write.  As a child, I only remember this about Yom Kippur:  My parents would buy tickets for services.  In those years, the synagogue was still small and there was not enough room inside for everyone who wanted high holiday tickets, so they would erect a huge tent that seated maybe 200 people, maybe more, and my parents would attend good chunks of the service leaving us outside to our own devices.  I didn’t want to enter because I didn’t understand anything anyway and inside the tent, it was invariably boiling hot.

Late in the afternoon, my parents and I would ride about a half hour to my grandparents’ synagogue and arrive just in time for Neila, the last service of the day.  My mother would walk with us up the stairs of the synagogue into the women’s section.  The women’s section was populated with women of my grandmother’s age, all elderly (in their 50’s!) immigrant women who spoke with heavy Eastern European accents.  My grandmother was always really happy to see us when we showed up.  My cousins and their mothers too would arrive and always there was discussion as to which of the huge flower arrangements my mother and her siblings had bought for the synagogue in honor of their mother.

After the service, we would return to my grandparents’ home with the flowers.  They always consisted of  a large percentage of chrysanthemums and the smell of chrysanthemums usually reminds me of my grandmother.

I am now older than my grandmother ever was.

I am lucky enough to be living in Israel where on Yom Kippur, the entire country stops.  There are no Israeli television channels broadcasting and no radio.  Aside from one police car, I saw no cars on the roads.  In the evening, the park was filled with adults and children.  It is amazing!

This year, at services in our bursting-at-the-seams synagogue, I was privileged to have 16 of my grandchildren.  I pretty much was bursting with happiness seeing all of their beautiful faces.  The older ones, serious about their prayers, remained inside for large parts of the services and some, notably, for all of them.  The younger children, happily wandered in and out.  The youngest were held in their mothers’ or fathers’ or siblings’ arms.  The language we prayed in was the language they live.  The synagogue held familiar people.  The melodies were ones the older children had sung many times before.

And the service…  I don’t think it was my imagination.  Our congregation has been going  for about 13 years.  I think it has come of age.  The singing of large parts of the service was no less than inspiring.  Just as we repented in group fashion as one people, we sang in one voice and if the heavens were open, I can’t imagine more sincere petitions or more beautiful sounds of praise entering the holy gates.

Missing: Amiel Michelson, Elazar Michelson, Shlomo Goodman

May all of you have a healthy, happy, prosperous New Year!

Every year at Rosh Hashana, we exchange the wishes for a happy, healthy, prosperous new year. I used to put “peaceful” into that mix, but this year, I just can’t do it. I know that it is a lie. Peace is not just around the corner.

You see, the problem we have here in Israel is not that we don’t want peace. It’s not that we won’t give up the building of homes in communities in Judea and Samaria. What it is is an ideology fed to Arab children from the day they are born that has to do with eradicating the Jews from all of Israel. I believe that peace cannot come from conferences, from concessions, from cajoling, or from horse-trading. Peace will come when a responsible Arab leadership cares more about the life of their people than about the destruction of mine.

All attempts we have made have only emboldened the radical elements. If they believe that we are tired, sick to death of the terror and the pain, then they will only give us more so that we give up, capitulate, leave.

Economic success, educational success, building a society that serves the needs of its citizens is what will bring about a change in the mind set. It is what will make this senseless hatred recede as parents educate their children to achieve and to value knowledge and to love learning instead of longing for “martyrdom.”

So my prayer, it isn’t for peace. It is for the beginning of a change in the hearts and minds of the people who want to destroy me and my people. I pray that G-d will open their hearts to the knowledge that their children are precious gifts as are all of G-d’s children. I pray that by next year, the Arab parents will begin to value their children and their children’s future. I pray that responsible Arab leadership will focus on what they can do to help their people live happy meaningful lives.

It’s a lost art, appreciation. People who see something beautiful such as a beautiful house or a palace, may know that it’s beautiful, but they don’t usually appreciate all of the thought and hard work that went into planning it and building it. People who see great performances often don’t appreciate that the performer has spent hours and hours learning, rehearsing, and improving his/her performance. When food is delicious, we often don’t appreciate the wonder of beautiful fruits and vegetables growing from seeds out of the ground in a rainbow of colors and a variety of shapes and sizes. We don’t appreciate the person who peeled and cut and arranged the food. We don’t appreciate the minutes or hours spent mixing, dicing, sauteing, kneading. When the table is set, we don’t appreciate the thought given to settings and colors and table accessories. When we see a garden, we don’t praise the gardener. When someone we love tells us he/she loves us, we hear, but often we don’t really hear. We don’t fully understand or appreciate the importance of ourselves in that person’s life or of their importance in ours. When people die, often survivors then begin to see the kindness, the warmth, the sacrifice of their deceased relative. Then they realize what they have lost.

Sometimes when I wonder what all of the traditions we as Jews observe are about, I remember that there is a large component of appreciation– for the food we eat, for the land we were given. These prayers should serve to sensitize us to the gifts we have been given, whether by G-d, by the people we love, or by those who work to make our lives better.

This is a post that will need to write itself since I want to write about the seder, but have no idea of where to start. First of all, the logistics: Israeli homes are on average, the size of US elevators so our seder configuration was roughly equivalent to an elevator at Macy’s on the day after Thanksgiving, except that the average age was about 15 months. OK. I exaggerate. The children’s ages: 15, 15, 12,12,12,11,9,7,4,4,3,1.5,1,7 months, 3 months. The fact that the youngest 5 were 3 and under led to a substantial amount of motion and noise. The truth is that all of them were super-adorable. But imagine 5 super-adorable puppies… you get the point. This entailed less barking and a bit less biting, but just as much action.

But all that aside, the family was beautiful. Each and every one of them looked wonderful. We enjoyed reading and chanting and singing together, even when one or more of us were off-key and/or making up our own melody that was similar to but not identical to the ones we are accustomed to singing. There was a feeling of happiness and a real sense of tradition. It all really was worth it. I only pray to enjoy many many more with the ones I love!

*That was the seder that was

A sigh of relief. It’s almost done. Can’t wait to see all of the happy smiling faces. It’s worth it. All of it.

This week has been a difficult one. My daughter and her husband are faced with a difficult decision. A child in our city was killed in a traffic accident. People I know have lost loved ones. And I feel impotent- unable to provide the right answer, the right words. And who should know what to say? Surely a family therapist, an “expert” in human interactions, a person who should know how to phrase things properly, how to say exactly the right thing, surely I should be able to respond in a meaningful, thoughtful, helpful way.

But I can’t.

Because, there is nothing to say. There is nothing that makes a difficult decision easier other than expressing one’s confidence that whatever people choose to do will be the right choice for them. There is nothing to say that removes grief. No one else can feel the pain of the bereft. No one can know what that family member meant to them. No one can know what words might heal and what words might hurt.

A long time ago I worked in the intensive care unit at a hospital. My supervisor, a chaplain, had talked to us about “a ministry of presence.” He told us that just being there and being with was in itself, a ministry. There was one very old woman (I think she was 92) who was in a coma. Each day I went and stood by her bed. I would take her hand. I would sometimes talk to her, although I knew she most likely wouldn’t hear me. I would stay there for 5 or 10 minutes and then I would wish her well and leave. One day I came to the unit and she was gone. I thought she had died. I was about to leave the unit after visiting some other people when one of the nurses came to me and told me that the woman had awakened. She told me that the family had asked her to thank me for being with their mother and for having been so kind. I never thought to ask how they knew. Did she hear me? feel me? Had the nurses told them? I don’t know.

But after that I understood that sometimes, when there is nothing to say, being there, being with is the best thing we can do.

It’s interesting what we humans do. We are born into a world that has some degree of predictability– the sun will rise in the morning and set at night, but a very large degree of randomness. If we look at our lives, we realize that very little is in our control. We cannot control the other driver- who may be talking on his cell phone or just not paying attention. We cannot control the illnesses that we are subject to. Oh yes, researchers work on treatments and cures, but aside from taking precautions not to do things that are dangerous to our health (smoking, excessive use of alcohol, tanning, eating large quantities of artery-clogging foods), we have very little control.

But we long for control. We long for predictability. We try to find reasons why others have hardships and heartaches and disabilities in order to protect ourselves from the realization that all of us are vulnerable. But when we are being rational, we know that the terror victim happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We understand that cancer began to grow in someone as a random occurrence. We comprehend that we are vulnerable.

We teach our children that this is an ordered universe- that if they behave nicely, good things will happen to them. And, we hope, we pray, this is true. We want so much to create for them a world without pain. And then the randomness of the universe once again shows itself.

Where is G-d in all of this? I wish I had an answer. I know that I cannot understand. I am not sure that humans are meant to understand. I have read more than once of life on earth as a tapestry. Just as a magnificent tapestry may have areas that are dark or bent or frayed, but when seen in the full context, they only add to the beauty, so we may see our lives. It’s a beautiful metaphor, but it doesn’t answer the question. Why can’t all of the people I love be part of the bright and beautiful part of the tapestry?

I think the answer to the lack of control is to take control of the part that we can. We CAN be kind to each other. We CAN help each other. We CAN value each other. We CAN provide the listening ear, the gentle touch, the warm embrace. We may not be able to control the world, but we can control how we act in it. And we have the ability to make it a better place.

Since the military operation in Gaza, there have been rumors of a woman appearing to the Israeli troops and guiding them away from danger. David Hazony has written this most beautiful piece about the belief that it was mother Rachel, protecting her children. The original appears here on the Commentary web site

This is his article:

Did Rachel Appear in Gaza?
David Hazony – 01.25.2009 – 1:37 PM

For weeks now, we have been hearing rumors about a mysterious woman who appeared before Israeli troops in the thick of the Gaza battles. Not just any woman, mind you, but the biblical Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob, matriarch of Israel. (My nine-year-old daughter gave me an excellent speech about the pluses and minuses of believing these rumors.) Israel’s former chief rabbi, Mordechai Eliyahu, announced that he himself had sent her. And now another former chief rabbi and Shas spiritual leader, Ovadiah Yosef, has confirmed these reports.

This is the point where I’m supposed to say how ridiculous it is. A hoax, or a superstition, or something. But I’m not gonna do it.

I don’t care if you call the appearance of Rachel a metaphor or a miracle. There is a point in rabbinic discourse where miracles and metaphors all mingle together, where the word “literally” loses its meaning, making room for midrash — the art of saying something illiteral and literary. To say that Rachel was with our soldiers, that our matriarch was protecting her boys, is a deeper statement than anything that can be made by a professional reporter with a camera.

Let’s give the religious spinmasters the benefit of the doubt. Of course she wasn’t there. But, of course, she was.

Tomorrow night it begins– Rosh HaShana, the New Year. And, as usual, it will be a busy and full holiday with my son and his 6 children staying with us, with both daughters and their families joining us for a meal each, not to mention the 3rd of our 2 daughters and her family who will join us also for a meal.

I actually enjoy cooking and when I designed my kitchen I made sure to have a huge working area on one counter. It stretches about 7 feet long. Today I filled the entire area with flour, oil, sugar, salt , potatoes, baking soda, eggs, corn, vanilla, soy milk, margarine, a food processor, a mixer, and various measuring implements. The oven performed overtime heating one after another of the creations (challah, potato kugel, corn pudding). The fridge will soon be filled as it plays home to all of the vegetables, the defrosting turkey, and roast, and all that I’ve made today once it all cools down.

And tomorrow it will be soups (chicken and sweet potato), the turkey and the roast, probably cole slaw and potato salad, and of course all of the salad vegetables. Then it’s opening out the table, setting it, making up all of the beds, and general cleanup.

It all seemed overwhelming until I had a realization: We are celebrating the creation of the world. I can’t help thinking of all of the preparation G-d had to do for Rosh HaShana. There was the heaven and the earth to create, the lights (sun and moon), the seas, the plants and trees, the fish and the birds, and humankind. … and I think that I have a lot to attend to?

Instead, I think I will say that He did an excellent job, with only a short amount of time to work with. Sure there were areas that could have used more thought (teeth and feet come to mind) and there’s that whole nine months of pregnancy thing not to mention other womanly issues, but all and all, job well done! The blue sky- gorgeous, the cleansing, life-giving rains- brilliant, the variety of flowers, trees, bushes- exquisite, the ability to give and receive love with family members and friends- perfection.

I remember reading e. e. cummings who said:
I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

Shana Tovah– may you and your family have a healthy, happy, new year!