The Big Lie in My Nation's Capitol

I have always been respectful of differing opinions. I try very hard to avoid politics on social media. Today's attack on the US Capitol is NOT differing opinions. It is an insurrection. The continuing support of statements by President Trump that President-elect Biden and the Democrats are trying to steal the election is NOT a different opinion. It is a Big Lie. The Big Lie is a tactic designed by Hitler and Goebbels to perpetrate their crimes. Continuing to claim this Big Lie while calling, on Twitter, for calm is a facade. President Trump with one hand stokes the fire with this Big Lie while whispering for calm. 

Let us NOT be mistaken as to who is leading this insurrection against our legally and democratically elected government. These are hate groups who would undermine all principles for which the United States stands. Nooses, t-shirts branded with "Camp Auschwitz" and Nazi salutes (I witnessed this during the live feed, shocking me to my core) illustrate this. 

Our Statue of Liberty is the Mother of Exiles bearing these words: 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Those who support this illegal insurrection, align themselves with bigots, Nazis and other hate groups, and those who know not the true ideals of our nation. They stand with those who would see my family and other minorities dead. They deny the strength of our nation, the multitudes who immigrated and built our nation. They stand by violence over the rule of law. And, like those who stood by allowing sinat chinam to cause the Second Temple to be destroyed, they stand with those who would see our great nation fall. 

I have never feared before. But today, seeing a Nazi salute given on the lawn outside the Capitol my heart cried out, and fear struck me to my core. 

When I was a teen, a popular discussion was revolved around the question, "If America and Israel were at war who would you support?" It was never a question. The nations I love, my nations, shared foundational values that could not be at war with each other. Israel is not part of this discussion, but I am witnessing a change in my fellow citizens. I thank those leaders who stood by the Constitution and US values to verify the 2020 election. We won't all agree on many things, but we love the United States and the rule of law. Today my heart bled, but tonight I will hold on to hope that these people will prevail, that our nation will heal, and that I, and my children, will feel safe again in the nation of our birth, the nation we love.

Ending a Year of (Not Really) Saying Kaddish

Tomorrow is my mother's yahrtzeit. 

2020 was supposed to be a good year. A year when Gavi started university. A year when Jesse and Keren were graduating university and high school. A year when Mom was supposed to finish chemo and get her life back. But instead, it would be a year of Kaddish. 

2020 began with a New Year's Day trip to New Jersey, just 2 days after arriving home, to possibly say goodbye to Mom. The trip ended settling her in home hospice care with two wonderful nurses with her around the clock. Home again January 9. After the longest ten days of my life (which is saying something ten months into a pandemic lockdown), Sunday evening, January 19, around 7:00 PM, Mom passed away. 

Wednesday, January 22 we said our final goodbyes. A split shiva in Merrick, Monroe Township, and Toronto, and the cycle of Kaddish began. Each morning I drove Keren to school and went across the street for Shacharit and Kaddish. Each evening I went to minyan in the synagogue where my office is or I came home and went with Sean. I didn't ever sleep in. I sent a note to Mirvish Productions explaining that I would not be renewing our theatre subscription, but it wasn't because I didn't want to. 

Just as everything closed down, after Keren's school closed, after Gavi vacated his dorm, leaving, as Jesse and Sean drove cross-country, I skipped minyan and Kaddish one morning to take our cat Gandalf to the hospital. He never came home. Acute kidney failure. That same week synagogues shut down. 

For a few weeks, maybe a month or so, there was no minyan, no place to say Kaddish. Then synagogues began to set up Zoom, then streaming. Kaddish moved online. 

I've written before about my experience with Kaddish online. I don't like it. My year has not be the comfort within a community that meant so much after my father died. But meaningful or not, it ends tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will be in shul, not online, in shul, with nine other people - masked and disinfected, most of us saying Kaddish. 

And that last Kaddish, especially because it will be in shul, especially because I will be standing with others, but so far away, especially because we're all in this together, that last Kaddish will make up for everything that came before.

With my prayers tomorrow morning I will say a prayer that next year on Mom's yahrtzeit I won't be masked, I won't be distant. I will be standing with friends and family, with my community, and we'll say goodbye one more time together.

You Don't Need a Synagogue (or Church, Mosque, or Temple) to Pray, But It Helps

There are a lot of one-sided conversations happening in the news and on social media. Everything seems one-sided nowadays. Most recently, a discussion has centred around houses of worship after churches and synagogues in the US and Canada have sued to be allowed to hold services in person. 

In Toronto, the only Conservative synagogue holding an in person minyan is Adath Israel. Sean attends almost daily. I attend a few times a week. All distancing regulations are observed. The sanctuary seats 1100, not including the bima. We are ten people spaced throughout the room. We provide a minyan base to be streamed to others. 

As a rabbi, I am thrilled that so many have found a home in live-streamed and meeting app minyanim. I regularly speak with with people for whom it is meaningful. One woman saying Kaddish joins her nephew at his shul in the US. Another enjoys attending minyan online because she couldn't fit it into her day of dropping kids at school and heading to work. With everyone home, she's able to simply log-in. Another man thought he'd never be a daily mainyan attendee while reciting Kaddish, but has found great comfort in joining everyday, where he sees his father and others on the same mourning journey.

As a Jew in the pews, online minyan depresses me. I'm okay, even ecstatic at helping others find their prayer space, but when I'm seeking my own, I can't get comfortable. I am distracted, frustrated, and lonely. Online minyan emphasizes my solitude in a way neither social distancing nor praying on my own can. After closing out Mom's house I returned home to quarantine and online minyan. Nothing made me feel more separate than reciting Kaddish alone in my room unable to see others except through the screen. Maybe it was the added layer of quarantine that finally broke online minyan for me, but I couldn't go back after that. It depressed me, making me feel numb. Kaddish, previously healing became a painful endeavour. After about a month I realized something had to change. I needed a minyan to help pull me out of that dark space.

When individuals post or write articles pitting religion on one side against caring about controlling covid on the other, they create a syllogism asserting that those who want fairness in the application of laws or feel a need to pray in the presence of others do not also care about preventing the spread of covid. 

Control of covid is not a simple matter. If it was, we would have done it already. But if one examines the affects wrought by closures in different areas, one thing is clear - it comes down to the responsible actions of individuals. To pray, with masks and social distancing, without singing, but in the same room, in synagogue, church, mosque, or temple when all protocols are observed dies not increase viral transference. Those who don't care are gathering anyway. I see it in the small minyanim exiting homes in groups without masks. I wonder if they even keep records of who attends for contact tracing. Ten people in a very large room is not the same as ten in a small space. Square footage matters. 

It's not only prayer. It's being able to see another person without a screen, even from six or more feet away. It's letting people know they won't lose their livelihood, their house, or their ability to put food on the table. It helps to create one rule that is clear for all. Use square footage. Figure out how to give people hope instead of just pulling it away.

Covid will be around for a long time to come. We cannot begin to know what the new strains will bring to us. The vaccine may let us see the end of the tunnel, but doesn't tell us how long the tunnel will be. In the meantime, we all need an outlet to make sure that, when we reach the tunnel's end, we're still okay.

I Am Linus - 'Cause Security's Something We Never Outgrow

 I just finished davening Shacharit. I am not a morning person. Shacharit takes a little more concentration and focus, but that's a good thing. Years (and years) ago, at my rabbinical school entry interview, one of the rabbis on the interview committee asked me how adding Shacharit had added to my day. I responded that I needed to be more awake and aware. If I wasn't, my tefillin strap would get tangled in my tzitzit, and I'd need ten to fifteen minutes to untangle them before I could proceed. It may not have been the most practical answer, but it was honest. It improved my davening and my morning. The committee laughed and, later that day, accepted me into rabbinical school.

I've come a long way from worrying about tangling my tefillin straps (although it still happens every once in a while as a cosmic reminder to attend my prayers). I now have multiple tallitot for different days and places. I wear my father's z"l white tallit for the High Holidays. I wear my JTS tallit when representing the community. At home and on the road I wear a smaller red tallit. It's smaller. It's light. It's simply easy.

I also have a large, loose-weave, blue tallit I made one summer at Camp Ramah. No matter what tallitot I get or make, I always come back to this one. It wasn't my first. It was my fourth. It wasn't even the first I chose for myself. But it's my favourite.

What's so special about this tallit? I can say that I loved the fabric from the first time I saw it. I can say it's because I made it by hand. I can say it's because the loose-weave keeps it from sliding. But the real reason is ephemeral. Though I love all my tallitot, this one feels right. It feels right the way a worn-in pair of jeans or a favourite sweatshirt feels right. 

That's in normal times. These are not normal times. We are amidst a pandemic. Now, when I wrap myself in that tallit, I feel the warm, solid weight of memory in its weave. I feel the comfort of every moment shared with family and friends in shul and at camp, in mornings before building with Habitat for Humanity, and at shiva minyanim. Its fibers are like the embrace of the community around me. This morning, I wrapped myself in my tallit, and as I felt it settle onto my shoulders, I heard in my mind a lyric from "Snoopy," by Steve Krause, "though his blanket may tatter he'll still hold it close 'cause security's something we never outgrow." Covid has made my mornings times to reflect. To look back to that interview question, how has it changed my davening? Tefillot are a quiet oasis of comfort and memory in a world I don't fully recognize.

There's another lyric from the song, "and then there's Charlie Brown falling down again." No matter what, Charlie Brown continues to hope. "This time," he thinks, "this time I'll make the kick. I'll succeed." We're all Charlie Brown right now. We need that security. But just like one season passes into another, like one year turns to the next, this too will eventually come to an end. For now, "memory shines like the spring coming just around the bend." I hope Snoopy will save me a dance.

To check out more of Steve Krause's music click here or like his Facebook page. Steve is a friend from years ago. He is a gifted musician and a good human being. I highly recommend his music. I receive no benefits through this endorsement.

Lock-Down Chronicle - Trying to Get Back to Who I Want to Be

I'm trying to blog again. I like the me in my blog. I am serious. I am funny. I am focused. I am three dimensional. I am real. 

This was supposed to be inspirational. But as I said in the sentence above, I am real. I am not okay. It's Mental Illness Awareness Month, and it's important for others that we can admit when we're not okay. If you continue to read, know this is not a happy entry. 

But it will be okay, because I'm on my way back. 

We've been in COVID lock-down for almost 37 weeks. I could describe it, but Charles Dickens already did in A Tale of Two Cities.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..."

I am not a Dickens fan, but I recognize his brilliance in turning a phrase and in building a story. He would have been the perfect person to write the story of COVID. 

COVID has brought out the best in us. It has shown us that we can support each other through the worst moments of these terrible times. Through it all, we have gained scientific wisdom, medical wisdom, but we have also seen the most reckless of behaviours with little regard for others. This is not a symptom of COVID, but of the world we have created, a world in which personal rights come before communal responsibility. 

It's after midnight, and a new lockdown is begun. There is a limit to how much we can slow a pandemic. Unfortunately, there is no limit to how much we can speed it up. My normal state is eternal optimist. It says so in my bio. And I will NOT let COVID break me, but I'm tired. I'm a bit numb. I don't even care that we shut down again. "We had everything before us, we had nothing before us." 

Two weeks ago I began physiotherapy for carpal tunnel. I'd like to blame it on COVID and the lockdown, but, reality is, it began the summer after my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I spent a few weeks in New Jersey with her, working from afar, and my slight problem blossomed into a full-grown problem. If only that was the end of it. I'd last seen my physiotherapist five years ago. She asked me how I was doing. How do I tell her what she missed?

Five years ago - my father was alive and healthy. Thursday is his third yahrtzeit. He cut his foot. It got infected. Gangrene set in. His toe was amputated, but the infection was in the bone. Antibiotics killed his kidneys. Dialysis kept him alive, and, eventually, killed him.

Just as Mom, and we, were getting our lives back on track, Mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. 

AND...

Just about a month before Mom's diagnosis, I discovered a lump on my uterus. It turned out to be nothing, sort of. Though I'd never had any hint of them before, I had three large, nay huge, fibroids. My uterus was about the size of a four-month pregnancy. Fourteen painful months later, with the size close to a five-month pregnancy, one week after my mother's cancer took a turn for the worst, I finally had a complete hysterectomy. Less than a month later, we were setting her up in hospice. She died before I finished my recovery. Two months later, just as we were locking down, our beloved, sweet cat, Gandalf the Grey died of acute kidney failure. 5780 was supposed to be a year of healing. I decided it. I kept the intention. Unfortunately, life had a different idea. So I looked to 5781, and 2020 happened. 

But 2020 won't last forever. I'm tired, and I'm numb, but I won't always feel this way. We don't know what the world will look like on the other side. When all this is over, we'll take the good, and we will heal.