David Matas – a distinguished alum

Winnipeg lawyer David Matas received a distinguished alumni award from the University of Manitoba (U of M) at a gala on the evening of May 1. Matas joined four others – Chau Pham (young alumni), Scott Cairns (professional achievement), John Bockstael (service to U of M) and Bruce Miller (community leadership) – in receiving the award. The event featured performances by U of M alumni, including Juno-nominated performers Erin Propp, Larry Roy and Desiree Dorion.

photo - David Matas
David Matas (photo by Ian McCausland)

On stage, Matas told attendees he is currently working on an autobiography, with the working title Why Did You Do That? He said, “The book seeks to justify my human rights activism. Writing the manuscript has made me introspective, attempting to justify my behavior to myself.”

There are pluses and minuses to receiving this award, said Matas, with a smile. “To be sure, it’s a boost to my self-esteem … [though the] downside is the increased expectations.”

Matas, who is a human rights lawyer in Winnipeg and senior legal counsel for B’nai Brith Canada, said that after having received the Order of Canada, “it didn’t become any easier. To the contrary, afterwards, my court opponents continued as before – disagreeing with everything I had said and adding that my arguments weren’t worthy of the Order of Canada. I hate to think what lies in store for me in court now that I’ve won the distinguished alumni award,” he joked, receiving warm applause.

Outside the courtroom, Matas more seriously added that the award might add welcomed weight to his positions and opinions. “I draw your attention to one particular position of mine: that the University of Manitoba should not be hosting Israel Apartheid Week.

“The decision this year to allow Israel Apartheid Week to go forward was particularly troubling in light of the fact that the University Student Union had stripped the sponsoring group of its student status and funding.”

Next year, as in past years, Matas said, he will be telling the university, “Don’t give this week a university forum.”

Later, he added, “Human rights advocacy, I realize, is often not one-dimensional – opposing rights against wrongs – but, rather, rights and against rights, and determining where the balance lies.”

Thanking the Alumni Association, Matas said, “It gives me the incentive and reinforcement to engage in this debate in years to come. The debate about where the balance lies is one in which we must all take part.

“I never drop a human rights cause until it’s resolved. I’ll be at it until the problem disappears – or I disappear.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelancer writer.

Inclusive and accessible playgrounds

Equipment like the Roller Table can help children develop their upper body muscles. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)

Not all playground equipment is created equal. Some equipment is accessible while some is not. Certain equipment is accessible to young wheelchair users, yet cannot be labeled inclusive play apparatus. However, some playground items are both accessible and inclusive and, notably, provide wheelchair-bound children with opportunities for either muscle toning and/or creative play.

Landscape Structures has designed a number of accessible and inclusive pieces of playground equipment. Take, for example, the new ZipKrooz. This is a scaled-down version of the popular adult zip line. The young passenger sits in a hard, high-back seat, secured with a harness. For safety, the chair runs fairly close to the ground. Gravity propels the child across the line. Close to the end of the line, the chair rocks back toward the centre before coming to a stop. The launching action is repeated, as many times as desired. A child using a wheelchair might need help from a grown escort to assist with the transfer to and from the wheelchair to the zip seat, to position the child at the beginning of the line, and to gently push the back of the chair to launch the occupant.

The Play Booster Sway Fun Glider is a roomy, communal “landed” boat that artificially creates wave motion. The “sailors” can either rock the boat from their seated positions or assistants can stand outside the bow or stern, swaying the boat. Wheelchair access is provided via a pull-down ramp. Sitting around a bolted-down table, two wheelchair-using youngsters may join in imagery play with other passengers. Wheelchairs are apparently not locked down; instead, wheelchair users either stabilize themselves with their chair’s brakes and with the table’s hand holds or have their attendants sit behind them, holding the chair’s back hand grips.

The next three play lot items not only promote inclusion and accessibility, but also muscle strengthening. The Accessible Stationary Cycler, the Accessible Power Lifter chinning bar and the Roller Table, for example, help children develop the muscles in their upper body – in their arms, upper back, neck and/or chest. Each apparatus is built low enough so that children using wheelchair mobility (and who have use of their arms and hands) can either reach up to raise themselves out of their chairs or sit in their chairs to comfortably play.

The following two pieces of equipment provide for inclusion and accessibility while focusing on creative enterprise.

Landscape Structures manufactures what it calls an Elevated Sand Table. This raised sandbox allows juvenile wheelchair users (who have use of their arms and hands) to build sandcastles from their chairs. From a standing position, children without physical disabilities play alongside.

The Chimes Reach Panel lets wheelchair users and non-physically challenged children to literally play harmoniously. They may make music together by ringing a row of chimes.

On the other side of the accessibility spectrum (and geographically on the other side of the world), there is the Australian-made Liberty Swing. With its design to accommodate most wheelchairs, this swing is apparently a big hit in Australia, yet this equipment sometimes stands off to the side of the other playground equipment, fenced off and under lock and key.

Admittedly, vandalism and theft are problems playground officials face worldwide. But this reality means that while the swing is accessible to children who use wheelchair mobility, it is not necessarily mainstream integrated.

Play is necessary for a child’s physical and mental development. In the Western world, playing with one’s peers, regardless of one’s physical or mental ability, has been deemed a child’s right. Overall, the surveyed play items show significant progress has been made in fulfilling this objective. Physical and occupational therapists who work with children would do well to encourage their young clients and their families to make use of such equipment, and to try and make playgrounds everywhere as accessible and inclusive as possible.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic (take-a-peek-inside.com).

Hold a newborn like a kangaroo

Premature babies experience long-term benefits from skin-to-skin contact with their mothers for a short time every day. (photo from israel21c.org)

A new Israeli study reveals that “kangaroo care” for premature babies has life-long effects on neurological and psychological development. Conducted by Dr. Ruth Feldman – a professor in the department of psychology and in the Brain Research Centre at Bar-Ilan University and adjunct professor at the Child Study Centre at Yale – the study shows that skin-to-skin contact between mother and newborn improves brain functioning later in life.

The concept of “kangaroo care” (named for the way that this marsupial carries her unformed offspring in her pouch) is not new. Introduced by neonatologist Edgar Rey Sanabria in 1978 in Bogota, Colombia – where access to incubators was limited – it is a method of using maternal body heat to prevent hypothermia in preemies. That it proved effective in keeping infants warm made sense, but Feldman and her research team set out to examine whether it had a measurable influence.

They began performing a double-blind longitudinal study in 1996 and 1998, looking at one group of 73 premature babies in a neonatal unit receiving standard incubator care, and another set of 73 whose mothers provided skin-to-skin contact for one hour a day for two weeks in a row. The parents in the control group were not aware of the kangaroo-care study, but were offered ongoing psychological and medical care for their babies.

At seven intervals over the course of the next decade, all 146 of these children were tested with brain scans. Today, they are 16 to 18 years old.

“What we found was that the children in the kangaroo-care group had better cognitive skills, sleep patterns and a higher functioning autonomic nervous system, better able to cope with stress,” Feldman said. “And their mothers were more sensitive parents.”

Read more at israel21c.org.

 

Winnipeg’s HAlt program offers alternatives to a hysterectomy

Shauna Leeson and Dr. Richard Boroditsky. (photo by Rebeca Kuropatwa)

According to Dr. Richard Boroditsky, medical director of Winnipeg’s Mature Women’s Centre, hysterectomies are procedures that happen too frequently and are often unnecessary. Boroditsky has spearheaded a new program to give women effective alternatives to hysterectomies.

The program, called HAlt (Hysterectomies Alternatives), is managed by Kerry Antonio, and previously by Shauna Leeson, both nurse clinicians who have been working at Mature Women’s Centre since 2004. In 2006, the centre moved to Victoria Hospital.

There are currently three physicians working with HAlt – Boroditsky, his son Dr. Michael Boroditsky and Dr. Deb Evaniuk.

Patients are often referred by their family physician. The majority are in the age range of 30-55, with heavy or painful periods, and all want to improve their quality of life. Women in the post-menopausal stage are also seen at HAlt. “The majority of the patients we see here have benign ‘disease,’” Leeson told the Jewish Independent.

“Too many women are being told they have only two choices: do nothing or get their uterus taken out. We see about 20 new patients per month. We’re here to give them other options to hysterectomy and we do this because we understand the consequences of having one.”

Leeson added, “If a women in her 40s or 50s is going to have a hysterectomy, she may need to take six to eight weeks or up to three or four months off work and her regular duties, where often her problem can be treated with medication or other alternatives.”

According to Boroditsky, “Manitoba probably has one of the highest hysterectomy rates in Canada, with some 2,300 hysterectomies per year in the province.

“Traditionally, the main reason for doing about 70 percent of hysterectomies has been abnormal bleeding. And, before we had some of the newer alternative hysterectomy technologies, there wasn’t much we could offer women.”

The doctor said one of the most common issues they see is a condition called uterine fibroid (benign lumps in the uterus). “We used to believe this meant women in this situation automatically needed a hysterectomy,” he explained.

“Hysterectomy is a major operation with major complications – including risks of general or spinal anesthesia, hemorrhaging, infection and damage of organs around the uterus,” like the bowel, bladder, ureter, etc. “With these serious, major complications that can occur, we shouldn’t be taking hysterectomies lightly,” he said. “We can’t look at hysterectomy as the ultimate treatment for uterine bleeding – it shouldn’t be the first choice. It should only enter into the picture after you’ve tried or considered all other available alternatives.”

In the past, Boroditsky said that he has done at least as many, if not more, hysterectomies than other physicians, but that has changed in recent years. “I’ve gone the other way. I now believe hysterectomies should be only a last resort.”

He added, “One particular study was done about eight or nine years ago in the States, where they looked at several thousand hysterectomies and found that some 70 percent of them could have been treated or managed with other alternatives.”

In Europe, alternatives to hysterectomies are more accepted due to the attitudes of both the doctors and the patients, said Boroditsky. “In Canada, many women, and even doctors, don’t know about or will not consider alternative options.

“There is a lot more cost involved in having a hysterectomy than there is for the alternatives: cost to the system, physical and psychological cost to the woman and to her family. The only way we can make an accurate diagnosis of abnormal uterine bleeding is to look inside the uterus (hysteroscopy). Once you make the diagnosis, there are many alternatives for treatment, depending on each individual case, whether that’s with pills, a device or otherwise.”

The HAlt website offers basic information and some of the benefits of the alternatives to hysterectomy. “Due to the risks associated with major surgery, as well as the negative effects hysterectomy can have on a woman’s self-esteem, their sexual experience and perceived desirability, women are seeking alternative treatments to fibroids and uterine bleeding. The HAlt program aims to provide women with information and awareness of options, including the use of medical alternatives to control bleeding, minimally invasive surgery, and other less invasive techniques.”

Some of the medical alternatives available today include the use of an intrauterine progestin device, which prevents pregnancy but significantly reduces menstrual flow; pituitary gonadotropin inhibitors, which lock estrogen receptors in the uterus to suppress hormone levels and thin the lining of the uterus; oral contraceptives to minimize and regulate menstrual bleeding; gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which produces a menopause-like state, indirectly lowering estrogen levels and shrinking fibroids; and selective progesterone receptor modulators, which act directly on the fibroids and the lining of the uterus, leading to fibroid shrinkage and decreased bleeding.

As noted on the website, patients can consider adding procedures in consultation with their doctors, such as endometrial ablation, hysteroscopic resection of polyps and fibroids, as well as uterine fibroid embolization.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Winnipeg’s Mall Medical was established by Jewish doctors

The Mall Medical Clinic building is now owned by the Winnipeg Art Gallery. (photo from wag100.ca)

The Mall Medical Clinic goes as far back as the final days of the Second World War, when two Manitoba doctors at an overseas army hospital (one ill and recovering, while the other was treating him) discussed what they would do after the war. They decided to create a joint medical practice for returning physicians.

The original group of doctors involved with establishing Winnipeg’s Mall Medical included Alan Klass, Charles Bermack, Laurie Rabson, Sam Easton, David Bruser, Ruvin Lyons, Manly Finklestein and Norman Book. Early in 1947, the Mall Medical Group purchased a piece of land at the northwest corner of The Mall (at 280 Memorial Blvd.) and hired architects Green Blankstein Russell to design their clinic. Construction started on the two-storey building with a full basement on March 4, 1947. The facility was open by January 1948.

Aside from doctor and dentist offices, the building housed a pharmacy, lab and diagnostic equipment rooms. By 1990, the Mall Medical Group also ran additional clinics at 1194 Jefferson Ave., 1717 Main St., and 1868 Portage Ave.

Dr. Norman Goldberg, 64, a pediatrician who was born and raised in Winnipeg, began working at the clinic in 1976.

“I looked around and saw that Mall Medical was a well-established group and was willing to take in a new colleague,” he said. “Not every group was able or willing to do this. I knew some of the Mall Medical doctors and there was a strong Jewish representation of doctors. They were accepting of Jewish physicians, whereas some were less welcoming.

“The Mall Medical Group all started when a group of Jewish doctors decided to start up a combination of family practice and specialists – to have a little more marketing power and to be able to help each other out,” to refer within the group to each other.

“There was certainly a Jewish influence there, and it was to counter some of the exclusionary practices at some of the other clinics.

“Over the years,” he added, “people joined us from various specialties, as well as general medicine. It [retained] less of a Jewish identity over time, because there were no longer exclusionary policies.” Even later, however, “there were still very few Jewish physicians at the Winnipeg or Manitoba Clinic. That has since improved.”

The Mall Medical Group dissolved around 1996. “We were finding it harder to recruit physicians,” Goldberg explained. “We were no longer able to compete in the market space as it was, in the space we were in. It was becoming too expensive to maintain the building and there were other reasons, too.

“We were all doing well and were busy, but we needed another eight or 10 physicians to make it really function well and we couldn’t recruit that number.”

At that point, Goldberg moved to the Manitoba Clinic. By then, he said, things had changed for Jewish physicians. At the Manitoba Clinic, for example, “They were very welcoming. I was pleased to be there and they were pleased to have me. I never felt any exclusion from the rest of the group. We all got along very well.”

Still, Goldberg remarked, “Today, you’re expected to forget past history, which isn’t always that comfortable. I think you still need to be a little aware of what past history was, although right now things are good.”

One of the other doctors in the Mall Medical clinic was Dr. Nassif Moharib. He was born in Egypt, where he became a doctor, and moved to Canada in 1967. “I’m a Christian and was hated because of that by extremist Muslims in Egypt,” said Moharib of his decision to move overseas.

After arriving in Winnipeg in 1967, the doctor did emergency work at Misericordia Hospital for six months, and then did over a year of training/residency in neurology.

“My wife was working as an operating room nurse at Children’s Hospital, when one of the doctors from Mall Medical was saying that the neurologist at Mall Medical was leaving the group, so they were looking for a new neurologist,” he recalled.

He went for an interview at the Mall and was accepted in 1970. “When I joined, there were only about three non-Jewish doctors of about 26 or 29 doctors there,” Moharib said. “The majority of doctors in the Mall Medical Group would refer their patients to me. We were all very friendly with each other. Dr. Phil Barnes delivered two of my children. It was a very good, friendly atmosphere.”

Today, Moharib is retired and is unimpressed with current wait times to see a doctor. “I think it’s gotten a lot worse – longer – than it used to be. When I was working, I didn’t let patients wait for more than five minutes but, in some doctor’s offices, people have to wait for two hours. It’s not right. I think it’s because doctors are booking too many patients.”

In 1992, the Mall Medical group vacated its original location on Memorial Boulevard. The following year, the Winnipeg Art Gallery purchased the lot and a $750,000 infrastructure grant helped convert it into the WAG Studio.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

TEDxJaffa speaker says porn habit is detrimental

It is not every day that the subject of pornography gets centre stage at a major venue of a vast international audience such as TEDx, but that is just what happened recently – at TEDxJaffa in Israel.

The featured speaker, Ran Gavrieli, has been all over Israel and beyond, speaking about pornography addiction and how it afflicts women and men alike, as well as impacting children, even those as young as five years old, according to researchers.

photo - Ran Gavrieli
Ran Gavrieli (photo from Ran Gavrieli)

According to such research and to candeobehaviorchange.com, a website dedicated in part to sexual addiction, watching pornography and sex brings about a chemical reaction in the brain similar to that produced by consuming drugs or alcohol. As the brain releases a surge of endorphins and other powerful neurochemicals, like dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin, these “natural drugs” produce a rush or a high. Statistics reveal that people all over the world use pornography as a form of escape and self-medication.

At the TEDxJaffa talk, Gavrieli had the opportunity to explain his personal position on the topic, including how porn watching affected his mind and, consequently, his relationships with the opposite sex. The talk can be viewed at YouTube, under the title, “Why I stopped watching porn: Ran Gavrieli at TEDxJaffa 2013.”

Gavrieli holds a BA in gender studies and theatre, and a master’s, and is working on a PhD in gender studies. He has been an outspoken activist against human trafficking and prostitution since 2008. He gives approximately 400 lectures a year to audiences of all ages, including military units and high-tech organizations.

He said he began viewing porn when he was in his twenties. “I soon felt the distortion of my mind,” he recalled, “and I began doing something about it around the age of 30.

“Porn did not change my general perception of women, but it did invade my intimate life. By doing that, it made me look at women in an automatic way, through ‘porn lenses.’ This contradicted who I am, so I had to uproot this habit for my personal well-being.”

Gavrieli said, “I felt [feelings] without the ability to name them, but when I started reading [work by feminist author and activist] Catharine Mackinnon, it all became crystal clear.”

Gavrieli was approached by TEDxJaffa organizers after some of his views were published in popular media in Israel. “The experience was great, because it gave the option to communicate with people all over the globe,” said Gavrieli.

“It is my day job to do these talks, 90 minutes each. But usually it’s to an audience of few hundreds, not millions. I am very grateful to the TEDxJaffa team for allowing me to do so.”

Since the TEDxJaffa talk, Gavrieli has continued receiving positive feedback from viewers. “The comments were fabulous. I keep on getting tons of them every day on Facebook,” he said. “The only thing I am still waiting for is the TED official website to put me on their front page for a couple of days. My talk is only on YouTube for now.”

Gavrieli’s goal is to “deconstruct power relations between genders, between people,” he explained. “In so many aspects, we try to strive for equality in our society, but in terms of sex and money, we regress.

“Prostitution is where sex and money intersect. So many self-made women don’t want to be called ‘feminist,’ or feel disappointed with feminism. It is because of equality not prevailing. Sex and money are how we preserve oppression toward women.”

Porn watching by the numbers

According to Gavrieli, “In Israel, like in the U.S. and all other Western countries, porn is being watched on regular basis by 92 percent of 12-year-old boys. The same rate of girls is exposed as well, even when they don’t wish to be.”

As a father himself, Gavrieli emphatically asked, “Are we cool with porn being, by far, the Number One educator of sexuality and intimacy of our kids?

“Israel is not dealing with it. Not yet. Just like the U.S., the Israeli government cares more about money and taxes coming in from porn than it cares about [the] education, values and identity of the next generations.”

Statistics at familysafemedia.com show that the average age of first internet exposure to pornography is 11 years old, with 90 percent of 8-to-16-year-olds having viewed porn online (most while doing homework). As well, the website notes that 40 million Americans regularly visit internet porn, with 10 percent admitting to it being an addiction.

The male/female breakdown is at 72 percent male, 28 percent female. While 17 percent of women admitted to having a pornography addiction, nearly 10 million were found to access adult websites on a monthly basis. Women are more likely than men to use adult chat rooms and be more discrete about their cyber activity. In fact, 70 percent of women keep their cyber activities secret.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Help end the chaos of ADHD

Shanna Pearson (photo from cjnews.com)

Do any of these symptoms apply to you? You find that your life is chaotic and unmanageable. You are easily sidetracked from tasks you begin. You flit from job to job. You can’t follow through on a project. If so, chances are you’re part of a fairly sizable segment of the population who have been diagnosed with ADHD, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.

Often associated with children who face learning challenges at school, it’s less well known that it can be diagnosed in adults. Shanna Pearson, who was diagnosed with the disorder eight years ago, started a business one year later dedicated to helping adults cope with the condition.

Called One Focus Total Success, Pearson’s company provides coaching assistance to people who want to get their lives under control. It does so by having its coaches direct clients to focus on one specific task at a time. With a coach on the phone, the chance of an ADHD sufferer getting sidetracked or procrastinating is reduced, and the coach can verify through a number of means that the client is following through, Pearson said.

The coach’s advice is tailored to meet the needs of each client. If a person is hamstrung by a messy, disorganized desk, the coach gives specific instructions on getting it cleaned up – not later, right now. Instructions will be given and the client might be, for example, expected to photograph the desk, before and after, and email the images to the coach while they’re still on the line. That way, the client stays on task and implements the practical advice they receive. “That’s what we do that people love us for,” Pearson said.

If cleaning a garage is a problem, the instructor helps create a system for storing, and monitors its implementation. Perhaps it’s as simple as storing like objects together, or keeping it color-coded. “The system has to be easy for the client to implement. Everything is simplicity,” Pearson said.

For people with ADHD, organizing tasks can be difficult and learning to prioritize is crucial. Clients are advised to schedule their most important tasks at the time of the day they’re most productive and save less important jobs, like checking email, for less productive times. “We’re teaching them how to create a system and to implement the system,” she explained.

Clients receive one coaching session per week along with a follow-up text message or email. Most clients stay with One Focus for a period of six months. They pay by the month, and are able to cancel at any time.

At any given time, One Focus has more than 400 clients and that number has doubled every year, Pearson said. Like the coaches, many are American, but One Focus has clients across Canada and the world.

“The hardest part of the business is hiring people,” Pearson said. “These people have to be the best coaches on the planet. They need to be motivational, quite good at prioritization, and they have to go deep into people who’ve been living lives with ADHD.”

Coaches have to really understand their clients, who often “have issues of commitment. A lot get overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task and they become paralyzed and go do something else.” She later added, “We stimulate their brains,” clients “learn by doing, not by talking.”

Most of her staff members are trained counselors, psychologists, social workers or teachers.

Given her own history, Pearson said she understands the challenges faced by people with ADHD. She worked for years for a number of nonprofit organizations in the Jewish community, but would leave those jobs after a relatively short time. She also worked for the Ontario Ministry of Health Promotions, designing large health and wellness programs for career counselors. Nevertheless, she found that her life was chaotic, and she wasn’t meeting her career and relationship goals.

“I was very quick and ambitious, but I was not able to follow through,” she said. Over time, “I created a system for myself and [now] it’s the basis of all our coaching.”

Completely self-taught, Pearson designed the One Focus program based on what worked for her. It seems to be working for others, as well. The company is so busy, she is currently hiring three new coaches. And she no longer has time to do any of the coaching herself. She’s delegated that task and set her priorities. Looks like that part of her business life is firmly under control.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

The value of getting out of the way and experiencing radical wonder

(photos from chabad.org)

You may have heard of figure-ground reversal. That’s when you switch the foreground for the background and vice versa. For instance, looking past the vase to see the faces that form its background.

This is how we create new ideas. We are the vase, the faces are the idea. We put ourselves in the background, quiet and out of the way, to let this new idea take the foreground and centre stage.

The same applies to teaching a student, raising a child or counseling a fellow human being. Those who are good at these things know the secret of being there by getting out of the way.

Yet, ironically, the reason we are getting out of the way is because, eventually, that is the way we will be most present. We will be present in our idea as it becomes a tangible creation, or in this other person as the seed we planted in his or her mind begins to grow.

That’s a divine experience, because drawing on this experience allows us to have a sense of G-d’s act of creation and His purpose in doing so.

Radical switch

Originally, there was only One: a singularity without bounds. The kabbalists use the term “Infinite Light.” Trying to imagine Infinite Light is a self-defeating venture. If the light is infinite, there’s no room left for anything else, not even for someone observing this light – even from his own imagination. How can you imagine a situation that leaves you no room to exist?

And that’s really the most wondrous thing about the Infinite Light: that a finite, bounded creation could emerge from there. But it does, because when there are truly no bounds, even the impossible is possible.

Creation, then, was a figure-ground reversal of this state of the Infinite Light. It was the Infinite stepping aside, hiding behind the curtains so that a finite world could take centre stage. Previously, that finite world may as well have been a movie projected onto a screen in the bright sunlight of midday, or a 20-watt light show dancing deep within the orb of the sun. Even those examples are woefully insufficient to describe what it means for a finite impossibility to be utterly subsumed within an infinite context. And now, as the Infinite Light recedes within itself, this world takes on a life of its own. Now all the parameters and patterns that we call the laws of nature step into the foreground. A profusion of disparate events and distinct particles emerges. A world.

Could there be a oneness behind this plurality, a singularity from which all of nature emerges? Rationally, it would seem so. A powerful mind could even attempt to visualize how this must be so. But the tangible, maddening experience of life drowns that sense of reason with its clamor, declaring the very opposite.

Now consider this. What was a radical proposition in the original state – the act of existence – now becomes the mundanely obvious. And what was most apparent and obvious – the singularity of the Infinite Light – now becomes a wondrous concept beyond our imagination.

Radical fix

This, then, is the goal of our labor of life, the meaning behind our struggle with the everyday world to wring out its hidden treasures. We are healing this reversal. With every purposeful act, we are bringing the world to such a state that it itself should openly express the harmony of its underlying oneness, so that the singularity of the Infinite Light – that which we call G-dliness – will be as apparent as before the creation.

But, it’s not so simple. If the background steps back into the foreground, what have we accomplished? Doesn’t that simply void the original reversal? Won’t all of existence once again be swallowed back within its womb?

This is where our metaphors of creator and creation, teacher and student, parent and child, counselor and counseled become useful once again. In all of these, the purpose of getting out of the way is not in the absence itself. It is to be present even more so, which is possible only within a space that seems so far outside of us.

Here is a world that seems so far outside the oneness its Creator. Yet the further it seems from Him, the more He can be expressed within it.

Radical wonder

How will it occur? Perhaps, in a future time of plenty, peace and harmony, men and women will be disillusioned with materialism and dedicate their minds to focusing on inner truths. Such was the case in ancient Israel, when prophets and enlightened souls were to be found on every hilltop and orchard.

Certainly, something of that sort will occur, but it would not present any healing. If the Infinite Light can only be found by transcending the physical world, then what have we accomplished in all our labor with this place?

Perhaps it will be through some massive revelation, by a great light from above – as was the case in Solomon’s Temple, where any person who entered lost all sense of self and was lifted to an entirely new world.

But that, too, would be a failure. It would not be this world speaking, but some supernal light. The world itself would remain unhealed.

Rather, the world will remain a material world, our eyes will remain physical eyes, and all of human experience will function just the same. The rods and cones by which we see, the drum and tendrils by which we hear and the grey matter that processes all that stimuli – they will see and hear and process G-dliness as clearly and as evidently as today they see material objects and hear physical sounds. The little child jumping rope outside, the construction worker drilling steel girders, the ocean’s roar and the big blue sky will all speak of the oneness that breathes within all of them, without need to sit and ponder. It will be the foreground experience. Because this is what they all truly are.

The material world will no longer conceal the light. Quite the contrary, it will be the device through which we can perceive and absorb that light. Because that is the purpose for which it was originally created.

“I will pour My spirit upon all flesh and your sons and daughters will prophesy….” (Joel 1:1)

“And the glory of G-d will be revealed, and all flesh shall see….” (Isaiah 40:5)

Will there still be wonder? Yes. What will be wondrous and astounding is that this could actually be happening in a material world, that the infinite could be expressed within finite bounds. There will always be wonder.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at chabad.org, also heads the Ask the Rabbi team. He is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth. This article is based on Maamar V’nacha Alav, 5725. To subscribe to regular updates of the Freeman Files, visit chabad.org.

David Mamet’s Oleanna still prompts debate

Susan Coodin as Carol and Anthony F. Ingram as John in Bleeding Heart’s Oleanna. (photo by Adam Blasberg)

David Mamet’s controversial play Oleanna set up home in Vancouver this spring. By coincidence, two small theatre companies programmed the two-actor drama for around the same time and the result is several weeks of heated conflict, on stage and off. For more than 20 years, audiences have argued about the play, about what really happened to Carol in John’s office. Possible answers continue to turn up as the play is produced over and over again around the world.

The Mamet on Main production ran from April 19-27 at Little Mountain Gallery. The second production, by Bleeding Heart Theatre, runs from May 6-18 at Havana Theatre on Commercial Drive.

Recently, Mamet is better known for his books of essays, polemics against antisemitism (The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-hatred and the Jews, 2006) and against the American left (The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, 2011), but he remains one of America’s greatest 20th-century playwrights. Oleanna is among his most successful and frequently produced works, along with Glengarry Glen Ross (Pulitzer Prize 1984), American Buffalo and Speed-the-Plow. Oleanna remains current because actors and directors love to engage with the challenging piece and audiences can still be electrified by the emotional battle for power.

In the play, a young college student named Carol visits her professor, John, in his office looking for help. She’s failing his course and doesn’t know what to do. John offers to tutor her and puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder. In the next scene, we are back in John’s office but Carol is no longer looking for his help. She has filed a written complaint accusing John of sexually harassing her. He beseeches her to see reason and to withdraw the complaint. John’s job and entire future are at stake.

Was she harassed? We, the audience, were there when it happened, but nothing is clear.

According to theatre legend, back in the early 1990s when this play premièred, arguments broke out in theatre lobbies over what John had done and what he meant by it. Many saw the play as misogynistic, and an attack on feminism. The taint of that accusation remains, which may be one reason actors and directors today are eager to reconsider the play and see what is really there.

“Mamet obviously believes this is a balanced argument, a dialectic about the nature of power in our educational institutions,” said Evan Frayne, director of the Bleeding Heart production. Frayne’s other directing credits include The Verona Project and The Foreigner for Pacific Theatre. He said one big challenge with Oleanna is choreographing the moments of physical contact between the two characters.

… the only stage direction for one such moment is: “He puts his hand on her shoulder.”

“The nature of how he touches her,” said Frayne, “becomes the crux of the play.” He notes that the only stage direction for one such moment is: “He puts his hand on her shoulder.” So, the director must decide how chaste or sexual or ambiguous the touch is to be. “It’s how far and how long,” he says of the simple touch. “Can that be something more than just a hand on the shoulder, or someone comforting someone else?”

He said he regards the historic controversy around the play as specific to those earlier productions. “My interpretation of what the controversy is about is a lot of people think that the character of John is more fully realized than the character of Carol. People say she’s simply trying to take down this good professor, which I think is not true.”

To Frayne, language itself is the source of the trouble. “I see this as a language play about education,” he said. Both characters are “stuck” with English, which is full of traps, he suggested. Male dominance is built into the language, he said, especially in a university setting.

The Mamet on Main production, which has closed, made the characters equal combatants. Director Quelemia Stacey Sparrow gave us a powerfully intelligent Carol and an insecure, clueless John. Pandora Morgan played a young woman temporarily overwhelmed by the demands of first-year university. Her confidence shaken, she looks for advice and reassurance from her professor. David Bloom’s John was a nervous man more at home pontificating than speaking plainly. He wants to help his student, but is too self-absorbed to treat her with respect. Instead, he regards her as something damaged that he can fix. This insults her and gives him licence to treat her like his own child and so to inappropriately touch and console her.

Bloom, who played the professor, is a seasoned local actor who teaches on faculty at Capilano University and Langara College. He said by telephone he was initially reluctant to take the role because the production he had seen 20 years ago made the play seem pretty one-sided and he had no interest. Upon reading the script, however, “I found Carol’s arguments more compelling than I remember from when I saw the show,” he said.

He said both characters behave badly. “Both are deeply flawed human beings who do some pretty horrible things,” he said.

Mamet on Main would like to remount its production at some point, said Bloom. “We don’t feel like we’ve explored the whole thing and we’re interested in working on it further,” he said.

Susan Coodin, Carol in the current Bleeding Heart production, had never seen or read the play before embarking on the current production. The University of British Columbia graduate who has many theatre credits, including Bard on the Beach performances, said by phone she was drawn to the script by the character of Carol. She identified, she said, with Carol’s life as a young person in a university setting. She was aware that in past productions Carol has been portrayed as heartless and vindictive, but Coodin said she took a fresh look at the role.

“I knew that there was more to her than what was on the surface,” she said, “and I was really interested in finding her truth and what she believes to be true.”

Coodin sympathized with the character who needs John’s help and validation so much, but who never properly receives it. “It’s hard to come to terms with what she has to do to find herself. I wanted to find her sensitivity and her compassion and her desire to connect with John, with her professor, and she seems to be consistently denied that.”

In the end, she said, Carol finds security and a new maturity through the work she does with her “group,” an amorphous organization never fully defined for the audience. Carol is “a sensitive person, but she also comes to realize that there is a cause bigger than herself and her relationships, that gives her confidence and she comes to find herself through her cause,” said Coodin.

The artists involved with both productions agreed that Oleanna is a sophisticated, well-written drama that can support a variety of readings. This is the sign of great dramatic literature and Vancouver has been fortunate to see two different interpretations of this classic script by one of America’s greatest playwrights.

For tickets to the Bleeding Heart production, visit bleedinghearttheatre.com.

Michael Groberman is a Vancouver freelance writer.