Judaism – Page 36

Voice thoughts, feelings

Yesterday, I cried in my car. You shouldn’t worry – I was parked at the time. I share this not for sympathy or even empathy. I share this because these are harrowing times, we all feel the tremendous weight of worry:

For ourselves, if we are relatively young, we know the vast majority of cases are mild to moderate, but some aren’t.

For our aged parents, if we still have them.

If we are older, we worry, as the danger increases with age, though, interesting to me, I have found among many of our elders a rationalism and calm that, if I wasn’t freaking out so much worrying about them, I would take comfort in.

For some, the worry is compounded, as they are beyond our reach in other cities or countries.

For our children, as normalcy evaporates. I told my children the other night, as we canceled plans for our son’s birthday party at the movies, that they will tell their own children how they survived the pandemic of 2020. And they will. The vast, vast majority of all of us, even the aged, will survive this. But we will be forever changed by it – I hope for the better.

For our city and country, as it attempts to “flatten the curve.” I long for the days when that phrase was most often rendered in my head as I looked in the mirror at my belly or hips.

I’d say that I worry for our world, as this pandemic is truly global, but the sweep of this virus is so vast that I can’t wrap my head around the whole world experiencing this crisis all at once.

If ever we needed a reminder that there are no true borders, that what happens here effects people over there and vice versa, this is an example.

Refugee crises. Climate change. Economic disparity. And, now, a pandemic. We are all connected.

There are no Chinese COVID-19 victims, or Italian or Israeli or Iranian or American or Canadian – there are just people living in different parts of the world all with the same fears, uncertainty, worries and prayers for healing. Just people, just human beings – there is nothing so different about any of us – except perhaps age, which is only a matter of time – that protects any of us more than the rest of us.

That’s why I cried in my car, and I share it with you because I learned from that cathartic cry that it is OK to be scared, it’s OK to cry. Not because I did it, and I don’t want to be the only one crying in my car, where the kids can’t see me, but because I felt a lot better after – and you might, too.

There was a cartoon that was being passed around on the internet, I guess we call that a meme. It was of a couple looking at their computer and the caption was, as the man turned to his wife over his shoulder, “That’s odd: My Facebook friends who were constitutional scholars just a month ago are now infectious disease experts….”

I thought it was funny.

I know very little about the science of all of this, though I am trying to keep up. British Columbia’s Dr. Bonnie Henry and Dr. Patty Daly and their teams are incredible in their competence and expertise, but I know almost nothing about science that is helpful here. But I do know a little bit about prayer.

What I would like to offer, what I think might be of help, is the power of prayer. Not to change God, not to change the course of this virus. Though this is a natural evil, I do not think it is punishment from God or within God’s control. My faith doesn’t work like that.

I want to suggest and teach for a moment the power of prayer not to change God, but to change each of us.

Sarah Hurwitz writes in her book Here All Along about the power of prayer. She describes a form of Chassid prayer called hitbodedut. The word, which sounds a bit like the last name of one of the former Democratic presidential candidates, refers to a practice of self-secluded Jewish meditation popularized by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810).

The practice, as he taught, is an unstructured, spontaneous and individualized form of prayer and meditation through which each individual establishes a close, personal relationship with God through a free-flowing monologue. Where some people go out into the woods and make a primal scream, Jews, at least Jews who are students of this practice, go out into the woods and kvetch.

Not only kvetch, but thank and question and plead and wonder and acknowledge. You unload your thoughts and angst without stopping to think or formulate them. You just talk to God. It’s a stream-of-consciousness practice that takes some practise, but, like the cry in my car, it can be incredibly cathartic and remarkably revealing of your inner thoughts and feelings.

It’s not unlike the famous Jewish folk story of the young uneducated shepherd who comes to the synagogue to pray. Not knowing the prayers of the established liturgy, he sits in the back row and sings the alphabet over and over again. (Maybe he was also washing his hands?) The men of the synagogue confront him: “Why do you disturb our prayers with your gibberish?”

The boy explains, “I don’t know the prayer. But I wish to thank God for my sheep and the stream, for the warmth of the sun and the silver moon that keeps me company when I sleep. I am singing the alphabet and surely God can put the letters in the correct order to make the prayers.”

In this worrying and frightening time, give voice, actual voice, to your thoughts and feelings, your fears and your anxieties. Not to change God, not to stop the virus, but to change yourself. To give you insight and courage, and patience and perspective, and confidence and hope, and calm and gratitude. In doing so, you might just find your prayers, not those in the siddur (prayerbook) but the prayers that are deep in your soul. Go out into the woods – they tell us the virus is not as communicable outside – and talk to God.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught: “Those who honestly search, those who yearn and fail, we did not presume to judge. Let them pray to be able to pray and, if they do not succeed, if they have no tears to shed, let them yearn for tears, let them try to discover their heart and let them take strength from the certainty that this, too, is a high form of prayer.”

Talk to God, cry to God, be silent with God, it’s all prayer, and it all helps. I know it is helping me; I pray that it will help you.

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz is senior rabbi at Temple Sholom and author of The Men’s Seder (MRJ Publishing). He is also chair of the Reform Rabbis of Canada. His writing and perspective on Judaism appear in major print and digital media internationally.

A tribute to my father

Was it really 17 years ago that my sweet, beloved father, Sidney Civkin, passed away? The long row of empty Yahrzeit candles in my closet confirms it. The date was March 13, 2003. Dad was 86 years old. It was indisputably the saddest day of my life.

If you have a good one, you’ll know that there is something unique about a father-daughter relationship. There are secrets and bonds that no mother-daughter relationship can come close to. Don’t ask me why, I just know it’s true.

It’s no secret that my sister Linda and I spent more time with our father in the last three years of his life than we had up until that point – and he was always a very present, involved father. He’d been suffering with end-stage renal failure and was on dialysis for those last few years. And we were his primary caregivers, since our mother was not well by that point.

Our dad often said that, ironically, those were the best years of his life – precisely because he got to spend so much time with Linda and me. He loved to just hang out with us. Whether we were sharing a meal, having a coffee at Granville Island, or sitting in the den shmoozing, he was all in. Flattering to think that he loved our company above everything else.

There was no one who didn’t have an opinion about our father. Some knew him as argumentative, loud and assertive. Others remember him as compassionate, caring and erudite. I knew him as all of those things, and loved him more for it. He was my secret-keeper, my biggest fan, my adoring, supportive father. If anyone has ever loved me unconditionally, it was him.

Dad adored his work (he was an ear, nose and throat surgeon); devoured books; loved to golf; loved to cook; and took great enjoyment in playing bridge with his buddies. But, most of all, he loved his family. And he had a quirky, magnificent sense of humour. He was playful, outspoken and hardworking. And he adored off-colour jokes.

Dad was born in Winnipeg (“the Old Country”) in 1916, served in the Canadian Army as a medical officer, then moved to Vancouver in 1949, determined to escape the brutal prairie winters. He set up his medical practice in New Westminster and, even though we lived in Vancouver, he continued to make the commute for the next 37-odd years. He loved the small-town feel of New Westminster, his working-class patients and his colleagues. He’d found his place as a well-respected doctor who spent his life helping others.

I’ll never forget the night Dad passed on. My life shattered, not just momentarily, but for a few years. I was 47 years old, single, and I’d just lost my best friend. I know that sounds odd, but our relationship was everything to me. I grieved as though I’d invented the concept. I felt like no one’s heart could be broken quite like mine. It wasn’t just an emotional pain. It was intensely physical for me. In the blink of an eye (it wasn’t really, because he had been sick for three years, but death never seems inevitable, even in the very second before it happens), my world splintered into a billion pieces. I was inconsolable.

My grief consumed me, at home and at work. The mere thought of my father set me to tears. It was like a floodgate had not merely opened, but exploded. Seventeen years later, I still think of my father regularly, but the tears are no longer a daily occurrence. Yet, I still can’t believe he’s no longer here with us, physically. He certainly is in spirit. They say that, when the soul leaves the body, it can still connect with loved ones, except it’s in a spiritual way. And we have lots of that. Naturally, I miss the physicality of giving my dad a hug and kiss. I miss looking at his smiling face. But we still connect mightily and often. I can feel his presence in my dreams and, when I see or hear particular things, I just know it’s my dad sending me a message. I know he’s always checking in on me, looking out for how I’m doing.

Grief is a funny thing. It ebbs and flows. It intrudes at the most inopportune times, and announces its presence with a deafening blast. It creeps into your consciousness when you least expect it, and always takes its sweet time getting comfortable. Grief never gets an invitation – it always just crashes the party. Grief never gets easier; it just gets different. The edges blur, the points soften, but the tangible sense of loss never goes away. Seventeen years later, at age 64, I still feel like an orphan.

There is much truth to the adage by Maya Angelou: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” My father always made me feel loved and supported. His pride in me was a source of great comfort. Naturally, there were times when he said or did things that angered or upset me, but they never eclipsed his unconditional love for me. I have always been sure of that.

If I had to distil my dad’s legacy into a nutshell, it would be this: be kind to people and help them when you can. Give graciously of your heart, and always try to do the right thing. It’s a tall order. But I’m up for the challenge. Thank you, Dad, for everything.

Shelley Civkin is a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the Richmond Review. She’s currently a freelance writer and volunteer, including with Chabad Richmond.

Be sure to wash your hands

Before bed each night, our kids practise their reading, both in Hebrew and in English. We have a routine where I knit and sit next to a kid, listening to him reading his Hebrew Grade 3 stories, and their dad does English with the other kid. Then we switch. Recently, I’ve heard two separate easy-reader versions of the story about Hillel and the mitzvah of cleanliness.

For those of you who might not be up on Grade 3 curriculum, Hillel was a great teacher of Torah. One day, he is rushing off and his students ask him, “Where are you going?” He answers, “To do a mitzvah!” And they say, “What is the mitzvah?” And he says, “Cleaning is a mitzvah!” as he heads to the bathhouse.

In one story, it points out that Hillel was also trying to show that, in general, keeping clean is important. We should clean our fruits and vegetables before eating, clean our bodies, clean our houses, etc. This is obviously a useful lesson for kids. It’s good to know that Hillel taught us to keep clean. (I’ll need to mention this next time I’m asking everyone to tidy up their toys and things!)

Even in the Torah, there are multiple reminders to wash. While this isn’t news for Jews, frequent washing isn’t every culture’s practice. During outbreaks of the Black Death in Europe, Jewish communities were often spared because of their insistence on cleanliness, while those around them were dirty and, therefore, more prone to catching this illness. This meant most Jews avoided the plague (Black Death), which was transmitted by rats and fleas. Unfortunately, this also led to situations in which the Jewish community was blamed for the illness, because why weren’t the Jews getting sick, when everyone else was? Through the lens of history, we know why – they washed and, therefore, had fewer fleas and rats around.

In the Torah portion Ki Tisa (Exodus 30:11-34:35), G-d tells Moses to construct a fancy washstand for Aaron and his sons in the Tent of Meeting. Essentially, being clean is part of doing holy work.

The weird thing about all this isn’t that our tradition spends a lot of time on how to properly wash and keep clean and, therefore, be ready for holy work. The weird thing is how often we forget to wash despite this information.

The outbreak of COVID-19 (the coronavirus) is a firm reminder of what we can do, every day, to stay well. We can wash our hands, with soap, with some frequency. You can recite the alphabet or the aleph-bet to be sure you’ve washed long enough. Washing well is not some mystical religious ritual. It’s essential to our health and well-being.

We can also practise social distancing, another tradition straight out of the Torah. Lepers had to stay outside the camp for several days, for example. This is not new information, folks! It was old news by the time the rabbis were creating our oral tradition, what became the Talmud.

The advice around a virus outbreak changes every day, so I cannot predict what officials will know or say when this article is published. However, disease outbreaks aren’t new. We’ve been wrestling with how to deal with them for as long as the Jewish people has been around. Considering things like skin diseases and leprosy as part of this, then, as mentioned, there’s information about how to deal with that going to the Torah.

One parallel that I can’t skip is – remember the golden calf? When Moses was getting the Ten Commandments, there was a mad rush to collect valuables and build the golden calf as a way to reassure the scared and frustrated Israelites. But it didn’t turn out so well. Acquiring wealth or idols didn’t help us avoid scary or frustrating things. We can’t know the future and alas, no amount of gold – or toilet paper – can keep us healthy.

The gold calf story reminds me of the reports of preppers, who are madly hoarding hand sanitizer, toilet paper, masks and other essentials. They are afraid, of course, but this illogical amount of acquisition causes shortages. It also gouges others by trying to resell these items at high prices. Of course, medical professionals haven’t advised anyone to do this hoarding – and Moses didn’t tell anyone to build a golden calf either.

We have to rely on the best medical advice we can get and do practical, everyday things to stay safe, like washing and social distancing.

I hope everybody stays healthy, but it would be wrong of me not to do my part in encouraging that. So? In the words of another famous character in our household, Ernie from Sesame Street, “Now everybody wash! Everybody – wash your hands!”

Some things just don’t change.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

A focus on the environment

Transportation and sustainability consultant Tanya Paz, centre, participates in Tu b’Shevat Circle: Teachings from the Earth, an event spearheaded by Or Shalom Synagogue in partnership with Jewish Family Services, JQT Vancouver and UNIT/PITT Society for Art and Critical Awareness. Or Shalom’s Rabbi Hannah Dresner is seated on the stool to Paz’s right. (photo by Matt Hanns Schroeter)

More than two dozen individuals whose work involves food security and climate change issues met on Feb. 9 for Tu b’Shevat Circle: Teachings from the Earth, an event spearheaded by Or Shalom Synagogue in partnership with Jewish Family Services, JQT Vancouver and UNIT/PITT Society for Art and Critical Awareness.

Those who gathered work or devote time to such organizations as Grandview Woodland Food Connection, Sustainabiliteens, Coquitlam Farmers Market and Extinction Rebellion. They came together to explore various topics, including how their Jewishness intersects with their work in secular organizations, envisioning a sustainable world and the Jewish community’s role in social justice.

“I noticed that so many of these organizations are spearheaded by young Jews and felt it important to create an opportunity for them to see one another and recognize this aspect of kinship in their work … and whether this commonality enhances the work, draws them into kinship or stimulates any collaboration,” said Or Shalom’s Rabbi Hannah Dresner.

Or Shalom brought on Carmel Tanaka to organize a gathering. Through meetings with young adults and stakeholder groups, Tanaka met a number of people whose careers relate to food security and social justice, but most weren’t working for Jewish organizations nor were they connected to one another within a Jewish context. She and Dresner agreed it was worth bringing them together to see what conversations would blossom.

Tanja Demajo, chief executive officer of Jewish Family Services, said JFS provided funding for the event because they believed in the value of the project.

“There are a lot of Jewish and young Jewish people who are interested in food security and questions of accessibility, which is very interesting from a perspective of … whether this work is modulated by [Jewish] values and how this translates to day-to-day practice,” she said. “At the end of the day, it didn’t really matter if the different participants were working in a Jewish or non-Jewish community.”

Some attendees revealed that, for them, being Jewish is secondary to their focus on environmental issues.

“The room was full of people who identify in varying degrees with their Jewishness and, for some, it’s an important aspect of their identity and, for others, it isn’t integral,” Tanaka said.

Dresner spoke to the indelible connection between environmental action and Judaism. “In my understanding of Judaism, saving our world is at the heart of what it means to have a Jewish spiritual life,” she said. “Creative energy, or the vitality of spirit, is always flowing toward us. It’s what I’d call the ‘world that’s always coming,’ or the ongoing nature of creation. We can encourage and aid this vitality, helping to direct it where most needed, or we can impede the flow. When we are selfish and impede creative flow, the result is a deprivation of generative spirit, spirit denied to corners of creation, and we see results like species blinking into extinction.”

The rabbi wants to spend more time with young Jews working in social justice. “The Judaism I believe in mandates their work as the highest mitzvah of our moment,” she said. “It’s a misconception born of the compartmentalized Judaism in which many of us were raised not to understand that attention to the environment is a Jewish priority.”

Aaron Robinson, chair of Grow Local Society Tri-Cities, a food security group that runs the Coquitlam Farmers Market, said his work for the organization won’t ever have a Jewish mandate, but his Judaism is tied into what he does. “Personally, I can never underestimate the role that Jewish values play in the way I see the world, especially when it comes to tikkun olam,” he said, adding, “I guess it’s become engrained in me, but it was nice to bring it back to the surface to see, wow, there is this Jewish connection to all this work that we’re doing.”

Robinson appreciated the opportunity to connect with other Jews working in similar fields and hopes the conversations will continue.

Some people discussed not feeling supported by the Jewish community to undertake the work they do within a Jewish context. Tanaka said she believes the Vancouver Jewish community hasn’t focused attention on these issues until recently, citing the 2019 climate march and protests as a galvanizing factor, and said it’s time for the local community “to support young Jewish adults who are doing this kind of work … because these are Jewish issues at the end of the day.”

Some at the event suggested funding for environmental advocacy was needed. Dresner said there was also a desire for bridge building. “They seem to be asking for an arm of organized Jewish community to create some occasional containers for their gathering, just to share within the hybrid of their niche or to explore potential collaborations,” she said. “Or Shalom will be looking at finding funding to continue holding this group and its outgrowth in a loose, nurturing embrace.”

Demajo said the JFS food security program has already benefited from the event. “Being exposed to more city-wide programs and initiatives and being exposed to all different voices gives a different perspective to JFS,” she said, “because it opens up new ideas.”

Shelley Stein-Wotten is a freelance journalist and comedy writer. She has won awards for her creative non-fiction and screenwriting and enjoys writing about the arts and environmental issues. She is based on Vancouver Island.

For Nanaimo-area kids

The first Camp Gan Israel in Nanaimo was last summer at the Shemtovs’ home, which doubles as the Chabad Nanaimo centre. (photos from Blumie Shemtov)

For the first time last summer, Blumie Shemtov offered a Jewish day camp for kids 5- to 10-years-old from her home in suburban Nanaimo, where she and her husband, Rabbi Bentzi Shemtov, operate Chabad Nanaimo and Central Vancouver Island. With no dedicated Jewish infrastructure in the city, families in the small and relatively disparate Jewish community are enthusiastic about the day camp.

A few years after Chabad Nanaimo started up, Blumie Shemtov met several families interested in having their young kids experience Jewish camp. She offered the five-day Camp Gan Israel in July 2019. Shemtov was struck by the sense of belonging that developed among the 10 children who attended, most of whom are the only Jews in their schools, she said.

“The idea was a week where children could be around other Jewish children and gain that sense of pride … and know that they are not the only ones” in the community who are Jewish, she told the Independent.

Jewish prayer, songs, culture and history were taught against a backdrop of recreational activities. Much of the day was spent in the Shemtovs’ backyard and large downstairs recreation room, but, to expand the activities, Shemtov and her counselors took campers on day trips to the beach, forested trails and even a trampoline gym.

She said, while some families attend holiday events throughout the year, the camp was the first immersive Jewish experience for many of the children.

“There’s something that’s holding everyone together,” she said. “The Jewish aspect that they don’t get regularly, I think, is an extra plus that makes people feel automatically closer together. Some people don’t feel the need [to be in Jewish community] until they have it.”

Research in recent years about the value of Jewish day camps has suggested they create long-term personal investment in Jewish community, much like overnight camp experiences, but have a lower barrier to entry financially and may have the ability to reach more children and families.

A 2018 report by Judith Samuels for the Foundation for Jewish Camp noted that day camps engage parents in the experience as well and allow “for a greater partnership between the camp and the camper’s parents surrounding the growth and skill-building that takes place at summer camp…. Unlike in overnight camp, day campers return home to their families each evening to share stories, songs and new learnings from their day.”

A companion report authored by Ramie Arian suggests why day camps might work so well in regions with no formal Jewish community space. It concludes, “Day camps can operate with much greater flexibility in the size and shape of their facility” than overnight camps.

Basha Bishop wanted her two daughters to attend the Nanaimo camp so that they would have more exposure to Jewish culture and history and “learn more about their heritage.” Both girls have grown up in Nanaimo and attend some events at Chabad throughout the year. While Bishop believes her daughters already had a strong sense of being Jewish, the camp was “important for them to have the exposure” to Judaism. At home, they talk about Jewish values and discuss Jewish-related topics, but, mainly, Bishop wants to teach her kids that “they have options available as their faith.”

“They’ve always adopted this idea of everything is kind of fluid – there’s no one way of doing anything,” she explained. “They can take what they need and feel like a part of community.” She said they will attend the camp again this summer.

Shemtov thinks the effort people made to have their kids attend is a testament to their dedication to community-building and Jewish learning.

“The beautiful thing I see here is, in other places, people send their kids to camp to get them out of the way, to give them something to do,” Shemtov said. “Over here, some parents are almost sacrificing their family time and vacations because they feel this camp is more important … and the experience [their kids] are going to gain is important.”

If more families come forward, Shemtov will consider extending the camp to two weeks this July. For more information, visit jewishnanaimo.com.

Balabusta does nothing

(photo from pexels.com)

Lest you think this Accidental Balabusta has been slacking off, let me set the record straight. I’ve been sick since the middle of November and haven’t had the koach to do anything, including writing or cooking. No need for the gory details; suffice it to say that it’s worn me down to a nub.

It’s been a struggle to find the silver lining in all this, and months of illness has taken its toll both physically and emotionally. There were days I couldn’t see the end in sight, and felt like my life had no purpose – a soul-destroying way to feel. There was no energy to do what I love: volunteering, attending Torah classes, meeting with friends.

In the absence of meaningful activities, my mind became a slave to anxiety and rumination, and the negativity spilled over into my various relationships. Let’s face it, no one likes a chronic complainer. Desperate to snap out of that funk, I didn’t have the mental or physical energy to attempt it.

Fast forward. I’m almost fully recovered. So, which came first – recovery or a sense of optimism?

Since regaining the bulk of my energy and well-being, I can now look at that period of suffering and negativity with a more balanced perspective. Which answers the aforementioned question – recovery came first. Which stands to reason, as it’s nearly impossible to feel positive in the midst of ongoing poor health. At least for regular folk.

A short video I watched while I was sick, by Goldie Plotkin, called Inner Strength – Courage and Faith for Life’s Challenges, was pretty inspirational, albeit vague. It emphasized the importance of “seeing the blessings in the challenges,” and learning how to use these challenges as “springboards for good.” Having overcome and embraced her own personal life challenges, Plotkin views adversity and struggle as “impetuses to grow and learn” from, and resiliency as an integral character trait. What puzzles me is this: How exactly do people “access” these blessings while they’re in the throes of illness? Or can we? Maybe it’s only after the fact that we can perceive the blessings.

The question remains: Is there a way to cope more effectively while we’re in the eye of the storm?

It got me thinking. What do Jews of great faith do when faced with illness and suffering? They think positively. Since they trust that G-d does everything for the good, they have faith that something positive will come from every experience. “Tracht gut vet zein gut” – “Think good and it will be good.” A life-affirming attitude, for sure. And one that probably takes a lifetime to cultivate. Unless you happen to be a Chassid. And still.

As my health improves, and the negativity lifts, I’m reminded of a joke from a book called There Must be a Pony, where a boy wakes up on Christmas morning and finds a pile of horse manure under the tree, instead of gifts. Possessing an extraordinarily optimistic outlook, the boy immediately starts shoveling the manure, exclaiming enthusiastically, “With all this manure, there must be a pony somewhere!”

If only faith and trust in G-d were that easy.

During the latter part of my recovery, when I actually had the energy to get dressed, I promised myself that I would do something every day to get out of my head: go for a walk, listen to a Jewish-themed podcast, read something inspiring. Anything to distract my mind from its endless loop of pessimistic storylines.

I started reading a book called Positivity Bias: Practical Wisdom for Positive Living. It gave me some practical tools to help stop my cycle of negativity. One such tool is the concept of “cognitive restructuring” or “reframing,” which was integral to me turning the corner. It’s a technique that helps people view situations from a different perspective and, when a person’s perspective changes, their thinking and behaviour often change as well. It helps one challenge the veracity of negative, often inaccurate, perspectives, and reframe their thinking. Based on cognitive behavioural therapy, the long and short of it is this – if you want to feel better, change your mind.

The essence of the book is simple yet profound. Since our thoughts and words influence how we feel and behave, each of us has the power to reshape our lives. Mindfulness and consciousness are huge parts of this process. If our thoughts are not helping us or moving us forward, then we need to change how we think. The catch is that it’s difficult to do and it’s an ongoing challenge.

An article I read recently – “Ten Hacks for Mental Control that Every Human Being Should Know” by Tzvi Freeman – was also helpful. It talks about negative thoughts and how to counteract them in a healthy way. (Read: from a Chassidic perspective.) Naturally, most of the references are to religious thought and practice. According to Freeman, the challenge is not just stopping ourselves from having negative thoughts, but finding wholesome thoughts and actions to replace the negative ones.

Relaxation techniques, like breathing meditation, and distractions such as paying attention to external stimuli, work well, too. Basically, getting outside your own head. While both approaches work, I personally think replacing unhealthy thoughts with healthy ones is the better alternative, since it not only redirects your mind, but also retrains it in a significant, consequential way.

If I’ve learned anything from this experience, it’s that cultivating positivity requires superhuman vigilance and self-control. It demands that we learn to regulate, train and discipline ourselves in how we behave, how we speak and, most importantly, how we allow ourselves to think. And it’s key to living a more intentional, meaningful, happy life.

Am I walking the walk? All I can say is I’m trying. Day by day. Moment by moment. Every one of us is a flawed human being, but each of us has the potential to make our life better, more purposeful. My advice is to use whatever works for you. Just remember that there’s something to learn from everybody.

If all that fails … try prayer. I’m a huge fan. Surrendering to something greater than oneself isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength and faith. And it’s just a thought, but maybe don’t ask G-d to heal you. Maybe, instead, ask G-d to give you the emotional and physical strength and courage to heal yourself. Just saying.

Shelley Civkin aka the Accidental Balabusta, is a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the Richmond Review. She’s currently a freelance writer and volunteer.

God and America

Michael Medved’s latest book is God’s Hand on America: Divine Providence in the Modern Era. (photo from Michael Medved)

Most of us would call them close calls or dumb luck – the many things in American history that could have gone terribly wrong, but didn’t. But Michael Medved firmly believes they weren’t merely happy accidents; rather, they were a direct result of God’s guidance.

Medved’s God’s Hand on America: Divine Providence in the Modern Era (Crown Forum) is a chronological sequel to 2016’s American Miracle (Crown Forum), a book that began with the pilgrims in 1620 and ends with Lincoln’s assassination, on April 14, 1865. They share a common theme, he said: “Divine intervention is extraordinarily obvious and important in tracing the course of American history.”

Story after story, Medved builds the case that there are solid “arguments for divine providence in the rise to power, and continued power and prosperity, of the United States.” President Theodore Roosevelt, for example, was shot in the chest but a folded speech in his jacket pocket took the bullet.

In another of many examples, a seemingly lucky moment came during the Battle of Midway, in June 1942. U.S. planes had gotten lost over the Pacific Ocean but, just in time, they suddenly found their way back, to dive bomb Japan’s fleet. History, said Medved, regarded this as a huge blow to the Japanese – at a time when the Americans and British had, up until that point, faced setback after setback, loss after loss, and were struggling to make advances in the Pacific.

“Fate, destiny, providence and the United States is a complicated process. It doesn’t mean America only wins, but it does mean that it’s safe to say that Lincoln, Washington, the Roosevelts, were right; Kennedy and Eisenhower were right; that America has been used as an instrument, or vehicle, for grand purposes by a Higher Power,” noted the Jewish syndicated radio host, whose daily program reaches more than five million listeners, across 300 stations. Medved is also author of 12 other books, including bestsellers The 10 Big Lies About America and Hollywood vs. America.

His thesis isn’t out of the blue, either – since the first landings, ordinary Americans and their leaders have believed that God helped in their nation’s successes, said Medved. For people of faith, it was the most reasonable explanation for the seemingly inexplicable. Their Bible-centred view carried over to an appreciation of Jews, he added, at a time when there were few Jews in the United State, i.e. until the 19th century.

They recognized, he said, “the special place the Jewish people had in America,” especially conscious of the verse in Genesis, which says that anyone who blessed the Jews would be blessed, and anyone who cursed the Jews would be cursed. These beliefs were exhibited in many ways, such as the Hebrew words on the seal at Yale, Urim and Thummim, elements of the ancient high priest’s breastplate, used for obtaining oracles; and the seal of Dartmouth College, which has El Shaddai (God) in Hebrew.

Early colonizers even identified themselves as being “like the Israelites who have crossed a perilous ocean to come to the land that was promised,” said Medved. “That identification of Puritans [goes] all the way back to the founding of New England in the 1630s.… They described themselves as ‘New Testament Hebrews.’ The identification with the Jewish people was very profound.”

While at Princeton, then-future president James Madison’s concentration of study was Hebrew, said Medved. Later in history, Harry Truman formally recognized Israel, minutes after it was declared a country. And then there was Richard Nixon’s military aid to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War – quite unexpected, said Medved, given the recordings that surfaced of Nixon using insulting epithets against Jews. According to Medved, Nixon’s gesture of goodwill, though not mentioned in the book, saved the Jewish state from annihilation.

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world.

Symbolic treats for Purim

While hamantashen are one of the most known Ashkenazi treats, many other foods are associated with Purim. (photo by Rebecca Siegel)

In the Book of Esther, all we are told is that letters were sent to the Jews in the provinces, telling them to have days of feasting and gladness. Fourth-century scholar Rava interpreted this to mean a seudat Purim, a meal in the late afternoon, to differentiate Purim from other days.

There are no rituals attached to the seudah, and no special Kiddush is said, though some people make up a Purim Kiddush, which is nonsense or a parody on something in the Torah.

Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, a French writer, philosopher and translator who lived in the 13th and 14th centuries, wrote a parody of a talmudic tractate, called Masekhet Purim, citing 30 different dishes to eat on Purim. He included chestnuts, duck, venison, goose and pigeon.

One custom, particularly of Jews of Middle Eastern backgrounds but also of some Ashkenazim, is to serve dishes with chickpeas on Purim. Why is this done? They say, in order to remind us that, to keep kosher, Esther lived on vegetables, notably beans and peas.

Another custom, according to the late Gil Marks in the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, is to eat turkey, because Europeans had thought the bird came from India and the Book of Esther says Ahasuerus ruled from India to Kush. The Hebrew word for India, the country, and turkey, the animal, is hodu. Another idea is that the turkey bird is very foolish, and so was Ahasuerus.

Some people also serve kreplach, the triangular-shaped, meat-filled, savoury pastry on Purim. They do so because the meat inside is prepared by chopping, which is a form of “beating,” akin to the stamping of feet on the floor to drown out Haman’s name.

In the 17th century, European Jews made a dish called megillah kroyt, consisting of sauerkraut, raisins and honey. A stringy dish, it symbolized the rope used to hang Haman.

In her book Quiches, Kugels and Couscous, on Jewish cooking in France, Joan Nathan writes that Jews of Alsace made Alsatian Chouroute, sauerkraut with sausage and corned beef, because the sausage hangs in butcher shops and reminds them of Haman. The Alsatians also call the corned beef “the Haman.”

At the actual seudah, Marks says that Ashkenazim often serve koyletsh, or keylitsh in Russian – a long, braided challah symbolizing the rope on which Haman was hanged. Other Ashkenazi dishes include kreplach in chicken soup, knishes, pirogen (filled, boiled, pasta dumplings), stuffed roast chicken or veal breast, stuffed cabbage, and tzimmes.

Some Sephardim serve breads or foulares (pastries filled with long-cooked eggs), sambusak (meat turnovers), stewed chicken, and rice with chickpeas or nuts.

According to Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, because the name of G-d is not mentioned in the Book of Esther, “the sense of the mysterious and hidden extends even to the food.” In other words, we cannot see the fillings inside and that alludes to “the many intrigues, secrets and surprises unfolding in the Purim story.”

The sweets served on Purim symbolize a good “lot” and a sweet future. In fact, Muslims refer to Purim as Id-al-Sukkar, the Sugar Holiday.

The most important aspect of many Purim pastries is their shape. Most Ashkenazi Jews only know of hamantashen, the name for which comes from the German mohn (meaning poppy seeds) and taschen (referring to pockets). Some say the pockets refer to Haman, who stuffed his pockets with bribe money.

The original name was mohntaschen, and the tradition of eating them may date back as far as the 12th century. Shmil Holland, the Israeli historian, caterer and cook, says, when Jews fled Germany for Eastern Europe in the late Middle Ages, they took the poppy seed pastry with them and added the Yiddish prefix “ha,” thus making it hamantash. The Midrash, however, says, while reflecting on his plan to get rid of the Jews, Haman realized the three Patriarchs would intercede. Thus, the pastry is triangular in shape.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer in Jerusalem. She created and leads the weekly English-language Shuk Walks in Machane Yehuda, she has compiled and edited nine kosher cookbooks, and is the author of Witness to History: Ten Years as a Woman Journalist in Israel.

Why groggers on Purim?

(photo from ajudaica.com)

One of the most popular customs for Purim is to drown out the name of the villain, Haman, with a noisemaker. In Hebrew, it is called a ra’ashan; in Yiddish, it is a grogger, which comes from the Polish word for rattle.

The origin of this custom comes from the Book of Exodus 17:4: “For I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the Heavens.” Haman’s ancestors were Amalekites.

While the custom of using a noisemaker during the reading of the Megillah is more recent among Sephardi Jews, some form of grogger has been used primarily among Ashkenazi Jews since the Middle Ages.

There are records that children in ninth-century France and Germany used groggers on Purim. They took flat stones or wooden paddles on which Haman’s name was inscribed and beat them together when Haman’s name was mentioned in the reading of Megillat Ester. It was also popular to write Haman’s name on the soles of their shoes and then stamp their feet when his name was read, thus erasing his name.

Today, the traditional grogger looks like the Hebrew letter dalet, a horizontal piece made of wood or metal with a rotating cylinder or tongue attached to a vertical handle, which, when turned, makes noise.

One also finds groggers decorated with illustrations from the Book of Esther, plastic groggers with clapping hands, and designs in wood and metal. Schoolchildren often make their own containers of paper or metal and then fill them with beans, so that, when they are shaken, they make noise.

Whatever grogger you use for Purim, just make sure you do it loud and often, for, in each generation, a Haman has arisen to live among us!

Belief in God gives strength

Author Cheri Tannenbaum gives a talk about her book, A Woman of Few Words. (photo from Gefen Publishing House)

“Happiness is a choice,” writes Cheri Tannenbaum in her book Woman of Few Words: My Creative Journey with Dystonia (Gefen Publishing House, 2019).

No one would blame Tannenbaum for not being happy, for staying in bed, for giving up. But that’s not who she is. “From the first day of my illness to this very day,” she writes, “I wake up each morning, say Modeh Ani (the prayer said upon waking in the morning), push myself out of bed, and consciously and deliberately choose life.”

Born in Edmonton, Tannenbaum is the oldest child of Samuel (z”l) and Frances Belzberg; the family moved to Vancouver when she was 16. With refreshing honesty, Tannenbaum shares her struggles with anorexia, but also some of the ways in which she was a “happy, fun-loving, gregarious, outgoing flower child” when she was in her teens. She writes about how she became religious, and it is her strong belief in God that has buoyed her since she became ill with dystonia at the age of 20, the first sign of which was that her “handwriting suddenly became totally illegible.” As well, her voice became monotonic, and other symptoms appeared, including severe difficulties in walking and, eventually, speaking, a symptom that, very much later in life, was remedied, as the unexpected result of medication intended for another purpose.

Woman of Few Words details Tannenbaum’s life with dystonia, which, according to the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, which was founded by her parents, “is characterized by involuntary muscle contractions and spasms.” She openly talks about the time she attempted suicide and the difficulties she had in having children. She offers thoughts on living with the illness and lessons she has learned, as well as several pages on dystonia and many inspirational quotes from various sources.

Tannenbaum has a bachelor’s in psychology and a master’s in human development. She has followed her passion – art – in more than one creative direction. She has a long-lasting marriage, three children, grandchildren, and family and friends who care about her, and she has lived in several places in the world, making her home in Efrat, Israel. As she writes, “Dystonia is not my essence, nor does it define me.” It does, however, present many challenges.

“If I didn’t have the belief that there is an all-loving, all-powerful G-d who runs the world and has a master plan, then all challenges are just random; things that happen are just occurrences coming from nowhere…. Most probably, those challenges would feel meaningless and purposeless,” she told the Independent.

Tannenbaum responds to every reader who sends her a note. “The notes I have gotten have been extremely positive, telling me how I have helped them or given them a different perspective, etc.”

She said, “If I were to have gotten only one response that I have touched one person’s soul then I have accomplished what I set out to do – baruch Hashem, I have gotten more than one.”

Tannenbaum’s mother shared some of the ways in which her daughter’s illness affected the family.

“Cheri’s illness was slow in showing itself so, at first, her tripping or falling or dropping things was almost a joke for her siblings,” said Belzberg, who has three other children. “I took her to our family doctor, who said it was just teen angst, then that it was physiological, so she saw a psychiatrist, who said she was fine, so back to the GP.

“As her condition became worse, I began shopping for different kinds of medical advice locally and even to Scripps Clinic in California, and still no answers.

“In the meantime,” said Belzberg, “Cheri met Harvey, married and moved to Los Angeles … and her condition worsened.”

Belzberg said it took almost five years for them to get a diagnosis and a name for her daughter’s condition: dystonia muscular deformans. “There were, at that time, three known patients,” said Belzberg. “Today, we have several hundred on this continent alone.”

With no known patients and no known treatment or cure, Belzberg said, “My husband mobilized with the help of two doctors from UCLA [University of California, Los Angeles], Dr. John Menkes and Dr. Charles Markham; we gathered about five or six known neurologists from across the U.S. and began to do research. Meetings were set up for every two weeks and both my husband and I monitored the meetings between the experts … with the whole purpose of finding everything there was to know about the disease and how to treat it.

“Word got out that this was being addressed and there was more interest from within the research community,” she said. “We got a grant from the NIH [National Institutes of Health], plus our own … financial support, to establish ourselves, and began a series of research conferences with different doctors with different specialties. That was almost 40 years ago and, this June, there will be the Samuel Belzberg 6th International Dystonia Symposium in Dublin, Ireland, the latest in our international annual meetings.

“Through our persistence, as parents, we have created an international research body with a large patient list and researchers waiting to have their grants financed,” said Belzberg. “We also – as parents and ones who are crucially and emotionally involved – started our own scientific board and monitored them ourselves. We set a precedent – no other research board that we know of allows lay people to actually participate, verbally, in the discussions as they ponder their findings.”

Belzberg noted that funding is always a concern because dystonia “is not a well-known disease or a recognizable name, though we fall in the category of MS [multiple sclerosis] and Parkinson’s.”

Asked what advice she would have for a parent of a child with a chronic illness, Belzberg said, “Every family has to deal with their own crises emotionally, spiritually, within their own strengths, and persist in finding answers. Chronic illnesses can be very wearing both for the patient and the family, so it takes a great deal of tolerance and understanding on the part of each to make it through the day.”

For someone who just found out they have a chronic illness, Tannenbaum said, “I would first give them a big hug and sit with them, hold their hands and just listen to them vent – how they feel about the diagnosis, their anger, their fear, their hopelessness, their ‘why me?’

“When they would be ready to hear me, I would tell them that there is a G-d, master of the universe, who loves you more than anyone else loves you in the whole wide world. Everything G-d does is for the good, even though I know it doesn’t feel that way right now. This is a test that G-d knows you can pass; otherwise, He wouldn’t have given it to you…. This is an opportunity for you to grow and to bring out your hidden potential and strengths that you never knew existed within you. Through this test, you can create miracles. Through this test, you can bring good and G-d into the world. Depending on your attitude and perspective, you will be able to help and change other people’s lives. This test is bringing you farther along to fulfilling the potential that only you can do.”