lifestyle – Jewish Independent

Exchange of missiles

It is May 4, 2019. I am at my desk. It’s early Saturday. I’m catching up on some work. Morning sound in the background. Israeli-style. Siren in the distance. Kind of a weird sound. The way chirping birds and wispy winds comprise morning sound elsewhere.

I didn’t really connect with the siren’s eeriness. Was too deep into Excel and emails. Then my daughter darted from her room. Smartphone in hand. (Do they sleep with these things?) “Don’t you hear it? There’s a siren. But my newsfeed says it’s elsewhere.”

“OK, let’s go to the protected room,” I said. Somewhat controlled. Somewhat alarmed.

We woke everyone up. My wife. My son and his girlfriend – banging on his bedroom door, “Move it!”

Last siren heard in Rehovot was during Protective Shield in 2014. My son just 16. And sleeping alone. So much has changed. And so much has stayed the same. This Gaza quagmire, to whit.

We congregated in our den-cum-protective room. Shut the re-enforced glass window – a heavy screech. Closed the too-heavy steel door – a loud bang. Turned on the TV – 90 missiles slamming into Israel’s south. Our hearts and mouths dropping. The bang of our Iron Dome hitting the missiles overhead. All clear. We can come out. Morning sound.

Singing about Bobby McGee, Janis Joplin crooned, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” And the Gazans have nothin’ to lose. They live in worse than miserable circumstances. Another war. Another round of missile exchanges. It really has no impact on their miserable living standards.

In Israel. We have too much to lose. The upcoming Eurovision – in two weeks – comes to mind. If we go to war now, or launch a massive retaliatory strike leading to counter-strikes, it risks the wonderful success of Israel hosting this international event. Ten thousand visitors. Ten million dollars in revenue. Excellent public relations. Fun. Lightness. Celebration. In Israel, it’s never a good time for war. Always something to lose.

But I think Janis was singing more about drugs, sex and rock ’n’ roll. Here in wonderful Israel the reality – like our morning sound – is a bit harsher.

Sunday, May 5

Morning

A restless night. Even for those lucky enough to live far from the Gaza periphery. Distance is so relative here in tiny Israel.

Woke up several times to check my smartphone – news updates. (Even we adults sleep with those things.) More than 300 missiles fired. One Israeli casualty after a missile struck his house.

Schools canceled within a 40-kilometre radius of Gaza. We live 45 kilometres away; missed the limit by five kilometres. Before Roni went to school, I grilled her on the basics of dodging missiles. She passed. Although there was some ambiguity about when to leave the protective room. “What if there’s no boom, Dad?” (i.e. The missile is shot out of the sky by the Iron Dome.) “Improvise, kid,” was my best answer.

Evening

Another 200 or so missiles fired at Israel today. They aimed for my place again. And missed. Bastards! Dor called me at work from our protected room. Roni texted me from school. Everyone OK. It’s hard being far away. Again, distance is relative.

A factory hit in Ashkelon. Two killed. WTF! And a moving car hit by an anti-tank missile. Driver killed. Again, WTF!

As I write this, lots of booms in the background. Wife and kids looking out the window. Watching the missiles. And the anti-missiles. A sound-and-light show. Happening in the neighbouring cities. Far away.

Some shock here. I must admit.

Monday, May 6

Ceasefire. Gaza has Ramadan. Israel has the Eurovision. A temporary respite for both sides.

We certainly wreaked havoc in Gaza. Two hundred and sixty high-value targets destroyed. But looking for something a bit more definite. Like victory in six days. Like a spectacular comeback. Like Entebbe. Like knocking through walls. Like encircling the Mukata. Of late, just too many broken ceasefires.

To paraphrase Golda Meir – until the Palestinian leadership loves their children more than they hate ours, only a decisive military victory will create peace and quiet. Or at least quiet.

Celebrating 71 on Thursday. Will raise our flag high and eat lots of hummus and kabab.

Regards from Israel, Bruce.

Bruce Brown, from Winnipeg, lives and works in Israel. His first Israeli home-front diary of life in times of national stress and war, “The draft: a dad reflects,” which was published in the Jewish Independent last year, placed first in the personal essay category of the 2019 American Jewish Press Association Simon Rockower Awards for excellence in Jewish journalism.

Happiness thoughts

Summertime and the living is easy! Of all the seasons, probably summer is most closely associated with happiness. Vacation, camping, family time, celebrations, picnics: these are activities that we associate with happiness.

In Western culture, individual happiness is often considered the primary goal of life. What parent hasn’t begun a sentence with, “As long as you’re happy…”? In many other societies, happiness is subordinated to family needs, communal obligations or other less individualistic pursuits. But the pursuit of happiness has a long history in Western culture, codified most notably in the United States Declaration of Independence as an “unalienable right.”

Most of us probably enjoy our happiness without overthinking it. But an Israeli guru of happiness will be in Vancouver later this month and he has thought a great deal about the subject.

Prof. Yoram Yovell is a brain researcher, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst with a PhD in neurobiology. He is the author of bestselling books and is a regular face on Israeli TV.

The United Nations ranks countries on a scale of happiness, topped by the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Australia – and then Israel.

For people who have not been to Israel or who lack an understanding of its culture, it may be a surprise to find that a country whose history has been so wrapped up in violence and conflict would produce a population that is collectively as happy as almost any society in the developed world. There is, however, an explanation.

Stability, basic freedoms and an economy that allows for individual financial comfort or success are among the baseline requirements for societal happiness, notes Yovell. Things like clean water, a social safety net and an effective, accessible healthcare system are also on the list. In many cases, it is also critical to have a sense of cohesion and shared purpose.

While Israelis may no longer be as united as they were in the days of the early chalutzim, the requirement of military or national service plays a factor in building social cohesion and making individuals feel part of a larger whole. For many, the ability to live in the world’s only Jewish state is another factor that leads to shared purpose and, indirectly, to happiness. (It is worth noting that, although Israeli Arabs report being less happy than Jewish Israelis, their happiness levels are higher than Arabs in neighbouring countries.)

Economic challenges in Israel – inflation, high cost of living and such – do not ultimately have a huge influence on happiness levels, Yovell maintains. Once the most basic needs are met, incremental differences in income or GDP have little impact.

We could all take some time this summer to reflect on the things that make us happy. In so many cases, the things that make us happy are precisely the things that make our society better – volunteerism, engagement and participation in our community, getting outside (especially if it’s sunny!), spending time with family and friends. These are things we could all do well to be more conscious of, be grateful for and try to consciously encourage in our lives.

Maturation entails practice

There’s a funny story from when my husband and I were first married. We were in graduate school, but I had returned to grad school after teaching in Washington, D.C., inner-city high schools. I discovered that my husband and his friend Lou, one of his school lab mates, were regularly going out to eat fast food. Worried for his health and our budget, I let my new husband and our friend know that he was absolutely “not allowed” to be doing this. It was bad for them! My high school teacher tone was threatening and both guys heard me loud and clear.

Lo and behold, later, they walked past the student centre’s Burger King. And guess what? As Lou describes it (to this day), “WHOA!… She shut down Burger King!” Both believed that perhaps I had this huge power. I had jokingly let them think that I could shut down Burger King, all on my own. Sometimes, for our own best interest, we need to be told what to do.

The Torah portion Chukat, Numbers 19:1-22:1, is full of practical advice about how to deal with challenges in life, including food, death and sacrifices. There’s information about how adults should clean themselves, change clothing and do other ritual routines, such as those around deaths, which could prevent the spread of disease. Yet, there are complainers who forget to be grateful even about food, as when, in Numbers 20:5, the Israelites say, “Why did you make us leave Egypt to bring us to this wretched place, a place with no grain or figs or vines or pomegranates? There is not even water to drink!”

Then, there are divine-inspired miracles, like when Moses struck the rock (twice) and the water appeared.

There is a medical term called “dysregulation.” It means something may not be “normal,” but it could be part of a metabolic physiological or psychological process. So, a person can be physically dysregulated (klutzy or clumsy) or emotionally dysregulated (unable to respond with socially appropriate emotions). Dysregulation doesn’t come from one thing. It’s a general term. It means, this is abnormal and maybe the person is impaired by it. It’s something to be aware of and to work on.

Those who struggle with dysregulation may mature or become stronger than average and successful because of how hard they work to function “normally.” An example might be adopting an older animal-shelter dog. When I’ve adopted these dogs, sometimes they are already adolescents but lack basic training or manners. Through consistent, daily practice, they become good at the few obedience commands and behaviours I expect. When both my dogs sit on command at a street corner, a bystander, perhaps with an unruly dog, might say, “Wow! That’s amazing! How did you do that?”

I smile. The answer is something like, “Well, I’ve been asking these dogs to sit at every street corner every morning for the last six to 12 years.” With a lot of practice, my older shelter dogs grow and learn. They are every bit as amazing as a pedigreed puppy someone bought. It’s a maturation process, and it comes with years of practice and the assumption of responsibility.

In this Torah portion, there is the strong narrative voice and actions of G-d, telling the people what is expected of them, and pointing out where they may have faltered or failed. In effect, the impairments faced by people who used to be slaves have to be overcome. The people have been in a state of imbalance because of their traumatic experiences. Overcoming that dysregulation means healing, finding maturity and a reliable path forward.

All of this doesn’t happen overnight. We can’t do it alone. I know about dysregulation through reading about it in medical reports. Yet, through consistent learning, maturation and hard work, humans (and animals like shelter dogs) can overcome many things. This is a process. It’s a “two steps forward, one step back” narrative.

I was reminded of this issue when I recently visited a newly renovated grocery store. While the layout looked complete, the cashier said there was a mountain of work still to be done in the warehouse. Even the employees, on close inspection, were out of sync. I watched a manager willing to give a locked cart to a shopper for free rather than make change. Meanwhile, another manager shooed away a person down on his luck who was asking for change or food. There was a huge amount of new and fancy food on display but the food bank bin was nearly empty.

The store boasts of being community-minded, but it was dysregulated. They’d lost their way. Just as in the Torah, nobody, not even Moses, is perfect – he shouldn’t have hit the rock twice. Nobody should complain about the lack of figs or pomegranates – but we’ve got shortcomings. We’re all in the process of becoming something more.

Growth comes through many paths. Sometimes, in order to cut back on the fast food, you need a scary commandment from your new spouse! On more important matters? There’s an important divine voice. It’s a series of small, ritual, self-regulated steps that shape us into being our best selves.

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. See more about her at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Being positive can be hard

My Southern friends and family often joke, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” This morning, I wondered what I would write for this column. I was walking dogs in the sunshine and things were mostly going well.

Except, right after 8 a.m., as I set up the slow cooker for dinner, my husband returned to the back door. He’d just left for work, but announced, “Change of plans.” Why? He’d just discovered that my car had another window smashed. It was the second time in eight days.

This column could be a real downer. There’s plenty to write about the rise in vandalism and crime, the current meth and opioid addiction crisis, the lack of mental health supports and addiction counseling; there’s a lot to say. Since we’re commanded to care for the sick and the homeless, well, it’s all a Jewish topic. (Yes, Jews struggle with mental health issues, commit crimes and take drugs.)

However, I’m going to look at something else that happened instead. When the first window broke, we thought it might be from vandalism, but it was just as likely that the vibrations from nearby construction broke the glass. I tried to come up with a positive narrative.

Sad to say, the second broken window was clearly smashed by a person, who then scattered our (totally worthless) belongings around in the car. We came to the inevitable conclusion – this wasn’t just an accident. Someone was trying to steal but couldn’t find much in there of value.

It’s easy to get stuck in a negative feedback loop here. If you spend a lot of time complaining, focusing on the negative, and repeating what happened, it’s bound to get you down. Yet, it takes work to be positive sometimes.

My kids are the lucky recipients of PJ Library books each month. Every generation of Jewish kids is offered the folk story where someone comes to the rabbi to complain about his house. The rabbi usually tells the man to get a dog, then a chicken, a duck, then a goat, cow and horse … put them all in the house.

Of course, it’s a chaotic, messy, loud experience. The poor complainer comes back to the rabbi saying, “Rabbi, why did you suggest this?” And the rabbi tells the man to give away or sell all the animals. Suddenly, when his little house is empty and quiet again? It’s a palace.

I won’t lie, we all have many things to kvetch over. Things don’t go well, or things that we want that cost too much money, or seem beyond reach. The truth is that we’ve been struggling with this, as a people, for as long as we’ve been around. In the Torah portion Sh’lach L’cha (Numbers 13:1-15:41) which happens around this time of year, we read about how scouts were sent out to check out the Promised Land. How they describe it – good (who doesn’t like milk and honey?) but with significant downsides. It’s settled by giants! They will eat us!

As a result, aside from Caleb and Joshua, G-d doesn’t let anyone in who was enslaved in Egypt, essentially sending a new generation into the land of Israel. Some read this as punishment for all the negativity and things that went wrong. Others see it as something of a narrative “refresh” button. Want to get rid of the negative feedback loop? Start with people who see things in a positive light, and don’t let them focus on what is going badly.

Is it possible to cut out all negativity? In my opinion, I think that’s naïve. The world is a challenging place. There are going to be difficult experiences and bad days. However, we also need to consciously work to be grateful for what we have. Like the man with the livestock in his house, we may not realize how good we have it until things get much, much worse.

Recently someone commented that she was amazed to see me smiling and present when I was actually quite tired. (Plus, I was struggling with some bad stuff, but I kept it to myself. She didn’t even know about that.) Sometimes, we have to “fake it until we make it.” As a mom with grade school kids, I don’t get many breaks. There are times when a kid or dog is sick and wakes me up at night, when street construction is terribly loud or, heck, my car keeps getting vandalized. However, if I give in to the negative feelings and list all the complaints, I get stuck on that same problematic negative narrative, like the aforementioned Torah portion, when those folks in the desert got frightened and suggested they should go back to Egypt.

This portion also mentions a list of physical things we can do to remind ourselves of our positive connection to G-d and Judaism, such as wearing tzitzit and taking a portion of our baking as a gift to G-d. It was a good reminder. Today, I’m making a big batch of challah – and I said the blessing as I sectioned off a portion of the dough.

It takes a brave leap some days to be positive and seek out the things for which we are grateful. Yes, my windows were smashed. I’m hoping all will be repaired by the time you read this column. In the meanwhile, I focus on how good that challah will taste and – maybe? – how quiet it will be when the construction is over.

Seeing life’s challenges as the glass half-full rather than half-empty can be hard work. However, that work is a conscious (and a Jewish) choice.

Reflections on parenting

So, I’m thinking about the times of our growing up, and who did what in the story of our lives. We never think much about it while it’s happening, during the years when we are coming to our senses. During those times, we are too busy trying to figure out what’s going on.

This process has always fascinated me, wondering what I was thinking. I can’t remember any details about how it was for me. Do you ever wonder how we ended up in the particular places we were, with the people with whom we were packaged? Do you ever wonder how it was that these particular people came to inhabit your life?

Didn’t we just take for granted what was happening all around us as we were growing up, and just went on from there? But, let’s face it, the operation of our lives didn’t just happen. Somebody was out there doing the heavy lifting for us while we just floated along with the tide. It may take us a lifetime to figure that out and to begin to appreciate how generous other people have been, with what may have been meagre resources, in the making of our lives. I remember I resented, for the longest time, never having had any choice about the particular place in which I found myself. I couldn’t wait to get out of that place into one of my own making. Are all of us that arrogant as to our imagined rights at that young age? Did you ever have similar disloyal thoughts?

I think about the roles I had in bringing up my own children. I get the feeling that I sleepwalked through that job, concentrated as I was on making the best of my career opportunities. How much of that was ego and how much of that was an inbred drive, an absorbed imperative to provide for my dependents? I always told myself that they were the ultimate beneficiaries of my misguided priorities. My dependents may have a different view.

How much time did I spend preparing them to cope with the demands of a sometimes hostile world? Did I spend enough time counseling them as to how they might overcome the challenges they were sure to face? Did I do enough beyond providing food, clothing and housing? Was it enough? Did I do a better job than my parents did, as I was convinced I could? Didn’t I have a greater capacity to do that, so that so much more was expected?

I’ve never talked to my kids much about these concerns. Now I am a little hesitant about broaching the subject. I fear the memories they might have would have them judging my behaviour as bordering on neglect. Horrors! Did I do enough of the heavy lifting that was required? Do you people out there ever think about this stuff? Don’t we all console ourselves with the thought that we always did our best under the circumstances? Do we dare ask our kids about that?

If we look at nature, at the way creatures go about raising their young, it is clear that, in most cases, mammals and birds will, like humans, protect and nourish their young during their vulnerable periods, even to the point of surrendering their lives if need be. For wild creatures, the pains they go to, making nests and burrows, hunting and gathering food, seem without limit, commandeered by instinct. And the young learn by following their parents’ example. For humans, that period of vulnerability is so much longer. And what our young have to learn is so much more complex.

I always thought I would do better when my turn came, only to realize on maturity how the many gifts I had been given by my parents would challenge my own capacities to match them with my own brood. We know what a difference parental attendance can make in an offspring’s future.

How many parents stick with a job they hate to put bread on the table? How many parents stay in a relationship they loath to keep a roof over the heads of their young? Most just keep on doing what they have to do, day after day, year after year. That’s heavy lifting!

How many parents abandon places where they know all the rules for the unknown, in the hope of ensuring their children will have a better chance at life? How many jump off into danger in the hope of finding a better life? We are hearing a lot about that these days at the Unites States’ southern border. And at many European borders for the last several years. Didn’t most of us have it a lot easier?

How do we define what we owe ourselves and what we owe to those we are responsible for bringing into this world? How many of those rules come from outside ourselves, absorbed from our parents, from our communities? (What a hierarchy of social imperatives I inherited just by being born Jewish! What was in your birth box?) Or, like other creatures, do we mostly act out of instinct? We see all kinds of behaviours. And we can’t help judging what we see, whatever our own performance has been, with whatever tatters of standards remain to us.

Now, no longer under the gun, and seeing things with a broader perspective, what do we do now? Do we think we have the right to butt in on our offspring with our own views about how things should go? How do you think we would feel if we were in their place? Isn’t it obvious? Do we have the wisdom to wait to be invited to comment? Will that invitation ever come?

For many of us, the heavy lifting is now in other hands.

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

Chocolate babka debacle

Babka gone bad: The Accidental Balabusta’s first attempt at this Jewish treat was less than a stellar success. (photo by Shelley Civkin)

After I conquered challah and cholent, I felt it was time to tiptoe into the forbidden realm of babka. I say the word with a great deal of reverence, because, well, if you’ve ever eaten a spectacular babka, you know it’s something awe-inspiring. There are limitless variations of babka: chocolate, Nutella, boozy, apricot and cinnamon, pumpkin, butterscotch and more. I even found a recipe for babka ice cream sandwiches and babka bread pudding. This is not diet food. Never was. Never will be.

Babka is comprised of a basic challah dough or a butter challah dough. Every recipe is different and, sometimes, to achieve the perfect babka (which I am far from accomplishing) you need to do a bit of mixing and matching of recipes.

My first attempt at making chocolate babka was an unmitigated disaster. Not only was my dough so velvety soft that I couldn’t even roll it, but the filling was so thin that it smooshed out all over the place. Part of the problem was math. I have always been math challenged. In fact, I have a pair of socks that say: “The three things I hate most are math.” My brain shuts down when faced with mathematical conversions (yes, I know there are apps for that). Long story short, I mistakenly used a half-pound of butter instead of a half-cup of butter for my babka dough. Hence, the flaccid, unresponsive dough. Nobody likes flaccid dough. Most people don’t even like the word flaccid. Except sex therapists. Anyway….

My other challenge was not realizing that you have to refrigerate the dough for a bit before rolling it out and filling it. There are tons of YouTubes on how to make babka – I recommend viewing several of them before attempting this at home. Also, check out lots of Jewish cookbooks, too. I stress “Jewish” because we Jews know how to accentuate the caloric value of our food so that it tastes impossibly rich and irresistible. Jewish baking is famous for a reason. If a recipe calls for eight ounces of dark chocolate, what the hell, 12 ounces must be better. Half a cup of butter – why not half a pound? Don’t bother pointing it out. I see the error of my ways.

If my first attempt at babka was less than a stellar success, it’s not just because of the aforementioned infractions. My main excuse is my miniscule galley kitchen. I lay the blame squarely where it belongs: on the almost-nonexistent counter. Things are so squished in my kitchen that there’s very little room for food. Or utensils. Take, for example, my long, articulated spatula. It’s the perfect implement for shmearing the chocolate onto the dough before rolling it up. I digress.

Back to the babka. I started shmearing the chocolate and, part way though, I had to sneeze. So, I put the long spatula into the bowl with the melted chocolate sitting on my teeny, tiny counter. The sheer force of my sternutation – it was probably a 7.8 on the Richter scale – caused the chocolate-covered spatula to fly out of the bowl and splatter chocolate everywhere, and I mean everywhere. It ended up on the walls, the floor, me, the counter, the carpet and Harvey, who looked on in mute husbandly horror. It was like something out of a slasher movie. Except the splatter was 85% bittersweet cacao chocolate instead of blood. I could have been arrested for assault with a confectionery weapon. All that was missing was the yellow police tape.

As if that wasn’t enough, the excitement of it all caused me to knock the recipe into the sink, which was filled with dirty bowls and brown water. At that point, I almost cried. But I didn’t. Instead, I casually looked at my chocolate-covered hubby and said: “OK, no one died. I’m going to try again.” I was determined not to let this babka get the better of me. I was going to show it who was the boss.

After wiping chocolate off my face, the walls and the counter (I may have licked the counter), I rolled up the flaccid babka, shoved it into the fridge and poured myself a teeny, tiny single malt Scotch. Just to shore up my nerves. Once I’d consumed the liquid fortification, I took out the babka, sliced it down the middle lengthwise, which is kind of difficult when it’s not really a shape, and proceeded to twist it so that that the layers of dough and chocolate showed on the outside. Then, I carefully laid it to rest in a parchment-lined coffin. I mean loaf pan. Said Kaddish.

photo - Babka gone better: Subsequent babka attempts were more successful — Babka gone better: Subsequent babka attempts were more successful. *(photo by Shelley Civkin)*

Since I’d made enough dough for about 15 babkas (by mistake, of course … remember my math impairment?), I now had to figure out what to do with the rest of it. I was tempted to sell it on Craigslist, but how would I even describe it? “Blob of velvety soft dough for sale. Nearly house-trained. Enough to make several loaves of bread or a small border wall. If frozen. Pick-up only. $10 obo.” In all honesty, I would have paid someone to take it off my hands at that point.

Stuck with all that dough, I shmeared and shaped the rest of it into circles, rectangles and free-form sculptures, jammed them into every available pan I had, and shoved them into the oven to bake. The entire procedure took about 11 hours. My bone graft and tooth implant took less time. I think I started the whole process at around 9 a.m. and didn’t remove the final “babka” (I use that word loosely) until around 8 p.m. Of course, I’m also factoring in the time it took the restoration team to steam clean our entire apartment. Should have just moved.

By that time, there was no way I was making dinner. So, we ate three-quarters of one chocolate babka for dinner. Slathered in even more butter. I think I may have sent both of us into a slight sugar coma. Not sure. No paramedics were called, so it couldn’t have been that traumatic.

I put the rest of the evidence into the freezer, for when I want to scare some unsuspecting dinner guests. I promise, here and now, that my next foray into babka-making will start with single malt Scotch.

If I’m lucky, it may end there, too.

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, and currently writes a bi-weekly column about retirement for the Richmond News.

See the light inside everyone

Lately, I’ve been thinking about Elijah the Prophet, or Eliyahu Hanavi. He’s that guy who somehow travels worldwide, to drink all the wine at every Passover seder every year. (What a hangover he must have!) Elijah is also supposed to attend every Jewish boy’s circumcision (brit milah or bris). We sing about him during Havdalah, the short service that separates the Sabbath from the rest of the week. This guy’s all over the place!

Well, he’s both all over the place in Jewish tradition and shrouded in mystery. This is the quirky prophet that never actually died, but instead ascended to heaven. He’s got three separate roles in Jewish tradition.

1) He’s a zealous prophet, reminding people how to behave properly and to remember G-d.

2) He’s known to appear and help those in distress.

3) He’s supposed to announce the coming of the Messiah or the Messianic Age.

(There’s more to Elijah’s roles, depending on what text you study.)

I hadn’t thought much about Elijah as an adult. I’m not big into worrying over the coming of a man on a white donkey (from Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a) or the Messianic Age. However, he makes an appearance in ways that capture my kids’ interest. There’s that mysterious cup on the seder plate, and the song that we sing hoping that this week will be the one where Eliyahu Hanavi shows up to bring about the Messiah’s coming. Even if a kid doesn’t attend a bris too often, he might ask questions about Elijah.

There are a lot of stories that retell rabbinic traditions about Elijah. The most powerful are ones I never forgot from childhood, and which may still be helpful today. The stories seem to align directly with those points above, that adults are already supposed to know.

From the Prophets, we know that Elijah reprimanded others, threatened them with scary stories and told them to shape up. It’s essentially “putting the fear of G-d” into them. Apparently, he was good at this role, as he was sent to do it multiple times. In Jewish folklore, Elijah is the stranger who appears and helps the poor and reminds the wealthy of their failings. It’s this combination of the stranger who appears when you least expect it and the coming of the Messianic Age that I think about most often. Why?

I was taught to try to treat everybody with respect and empathy – because that person might be Elijah. That Elijah could appear at any time, looking like an old lady or a child, a homeless person or an older person with dementia. How we treat people indicates how we’re doing on bringing about a better age, or a Messianic one. When this idea was introduced to me, I remember thinking it sounded weird.

As an adult, it makes more sense because, well, life is weird. Life offers us many opportunities to practise conscious kindness, to do mitzvot (commandments) that help make the world a better place. If we keep doing this “fixing the world” (tikkun olam), well, we might just hear from Elijah.

There was that time when we had a stranger knock at our door. My husband answered it and then told me what happened. It was an indigenous man who didn’t look well. He looked like he had been doing some traveling through back lanes, but he came to the door with our dog’s collar in his hand.

I was immediately anxious. Our dogs are never without their collars and ID tags. However, this man came along, saw the collar in the back lane, clearly beyond the fenced yard. He was worried for the dog. The good news? We called her, and our dog was happy and safe inside. She’d somehow managed to shed her collar and leave it in the back lane without anyone noticing. This kind act made me wonder: Was this Elijah, known for his affinity with dogs? In the Sefer HaAggadah, it’s said that, when dogs are happy for no reason, it’s because Elijah is in the neighbourhood.

Sometimes, one of my kids carefully saves the seat beside him at services for what appears to be an imaginary friend. We joke that he knows Elijah is coming. Instead, it ends up being the friend on her own who needs just one spot or maybe even a stranger, who we then get to welcome to synagogue.

It’s the extra granola bar in my “mom bag,” when I thought someone might need a snack – and, indeed, a hungry person turns up. He needs it to continue onwards. Who knows what that person’s potential will be? That stranger gets a granola bar because, well, he might be Elijah.

This is all mystery and whimsy, if you take a purely Western and scientific view of the world. Yet, most of us acknowledge that we can’t explain why we’re lucky or when misfortune befalls us. Is it because of our behaviour or our efforts to do good in the world? Is it because some people “deserve” misfortune? I think not.

There are amazing people, all around us, who have struggled. Some were homeless, were put in foster care as children, or had addictions. Perhaps they suffered through wars or trauma. This childhood lesson about Elijah has stood me in very good stead because, if you remember that every person has value, every soul is important, it doesn’t matter how the person’s body presents itself. Whatever their clothes or hair look like, that person could be Elijah. Better yet, every person is someone important. It’s up to us to see that light inside, the potential waiting there, and to acknowledge the “other,” as Martin Buber would say. Be ready to offer something, with love and hope, when needed. It could be welcoming someone and offering a seat, a kind word, a thank you for returning a lost item, or a granola bar. Anybody can do this. Remember, that person across from you may be Elijah. The rest? It’s up to you.

Put down “the ducky” in shul

I chatted with a friend recently about what it was like in “the old days” when someone had to take a cellphone call during synagogue. This is when there were only big, clunky cellphones. I remember seeing a doctor on call pacing in the lobby. He – and it was usually a man – looked apologetic as he listened carefully. It was an emergency. It was a doctor who needed to attend to a patient, even though it was Shabbat and he was at services.

Given the circumstances, we recognized it was OK, because it was pikuach nefesh. He was helping save a life and that level of emergency is allowed, no matter how observant you are, on Shabbat. You put a person’s life above everything else.

The media has done many features where they reflect on research that shows how social media and being attached to a cellphone or other device has affected our health. It can keep us from interacting in the real world with other people, from sleeping or focusing properly. Social media increases our anxiety levels and, sometimes, it’s an addiction. Waiting to get that next update, from a friend or a news source, can sometimes seem more important than any actual person or event taking place in the same room.

My kids know the lesson from Sesame Street and the classic song, “Put down the ducky!” Ernie wants to play the saxophone, but Hoots the Owl tells him, “Put down the ducky if you want to play the saxophone!” It’s a lesson that we must break habits – like carrying a cellphone or the rubber ducky – to learn something new, make music and interact with others.

In the Jewish context, I see it everywhere. It’s at services, lectures, at the Passover seder or Shabbat table, at the kids’ events and play dates. It’s so pervasive that those doing it don’t even realize they are blocking out the world to engage with their electronics. It’s like a body part for those folks, while its noise means others can’t concentrate.

I was at a family service on Shabbat when we were interrupted with what sounded like a radio playing. It seemed to drift on and off and it was terribly distracting. Are we hyper-aware of such things? Absolutely. I am always tired and it makes me extra sensitive to noise and stimulation. There are some folks in my family who are also noise-sensitive. Too much noise and chaos often means we just have to leave. It’s too much.

Meanwhile, while the radio-like sound continued to compete with the prayers, adults in the back kept talking over it all. My husband, usually immune, looked bothered. I encouraged him to get up and ask someone to shut it off, since I sat with a kid on my lap. I thought it might be somewhere outside, but I was wrong. It was one of the talking adults, who failed to even notice that her phone was making the noise. Even when it was finally shut off, the adults continued to talk.

The interference was so pervasive and distracting that I couldn’t wait to leave. At Kiddush, at the end of the service, I heard someone say to a kid, “You can go ask the rabbi, he’s not praying now.”

That was it in a nutshell. I found myself wondering what the heck we were doing there. Are you coming to synagogue to play live-streaming radio and talk loudly? If you aren’t praying, or even sitting quietly, as a role model for kids, why bother coming to disrupt everyone else?

Some might say this is just an isolated incident, but it’s pervasive. On Yom Kippur, there was a grandfather who thought it was OK to hop up and snap photos with his phone during the service.

As I looked at the Torah portion, Behukotai, Leviticus 26:3-27:34, for the first week of June this year, I remembered this experience. It’s a portion that emphasizes all the amazing things offered by the Divine Presence “if you follow my laws and observe my commandments.” It’s a carrot-and-stick story, it clearly states the bad things that will happen to those who don’t follow the rules.

Our understanding of the laws and commandments may have changed, but social norms still exist. We live in a society with clear tension between individuality and the common good. If you judge someone else’s behaviour, you can be told that judgment is inappropriate – even when the individual isn’t behaving in a considerate or safe way for the community. If you feel uncomfortable with someone’s behaviour, we’re taught “we can only control ourselves and our response to it.”

You may not want to stop social media use on Shabbat or want to pray at services, and that’s your choice. However, it’s probably not your place to keep others distracted with your phone so they cannot concentrate on prayer. If you’re set on having it your way, and don’t want to think about others, why join a community Jewish event to do it? Stay home to use your cellphone instead.

Winnipeg prides itself on being a friendly place, and inspired other places to adopt a United Way campaign day of “conscious kindness.” It might be time to live the slogan and think of others – if you can’t put down the phone for your own sake, please do it for ours.

How we can live after death

It is the instinct of all living things to try to stay alive, humans among them. Most religious doctrines pay a great deal of attention to this issue. And many people, whether part of an organized religion or not, believe that a spirit leaves the body after death. Where viewpoints vary mainly is what happens then.

In many belief systems, we stay alive in some form or another even after death. Hindus, like Buddhists, believe that a departing spirit is reincarnated into some other life form. Buddhists believe there is no guarantee that the life form will be human; they believe that liberation from the cycle of life is the only desirable objective, a state they call nirvana.

The monotheistic religions all have some concept of an afterlife, with outcomes based on our behaviour during our life on earth. Indeed, both Christianity and Islam see the afterlife as the most desirable state, at least for the righteous, compared with our life on earth, the current one being a “a vale of tears.” Judaism also sees a reward for the righteous, with a resurrection when the Messiah arrives to usher in the “End of Days” and heaven on earth. But Jews, in contrast, are urged to live the fullest possible life while alive, every life being precious.

Without entering into discussions on this issue as to the merits of one position or another, I have drawn some conclusions as to their relevance on the question of staying alive. Empirical evidence from religious enthusiasts is meagre, relying on faith rather than hard facts, or reports of a life, or lives, after death from thousands of years ago. These form the basis for the promise underlying the religious thesis.

The realization of a positive outcome in the religious sphere depends on an unblemished life experience. I cannot count on being among those judged as sufficiently righteous and deserving. That leaves me with the task of doing the best I can to extend the life I know about, the one I am living now. Having past the four-score mark is evidence that I have done some things right, having already survived many of “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” I must have good DNA.

Chance has favoured me in my encounters with accident, disease and body-systems breakdowns. I have survived my encounter with “the big C” up to this time. I have diabetes under apparent control, but one never knows, as it works its damage asymptomatically.

I take pills in abundance to ward off the evils of sugar, high blood pressure and stroke. I quit smoking in my early forties and drink alcohol sparingly. My food habits are not outrageous, without denying myself the favourites that make life worth living. I exercise religiously when not on holiday. I have given up driving on the promise it will increase my life expectancy. Best of all, I pass my life with the woman of my dreams. Life is grand.

The other night, I spent some time with family. We found ourselves talking about our experiences with forbearers who had gone before us. For a short while, it appeared to me almost as if those ancestors were there with us, alive and sharing our good times. Like a lightning bolt, it struck me that that was truly another way of staying alive. The people in our lives who are important to us, those who have marked us in our life experience, they continue to be alive for us as long as they remain in our memories. They never disappear for us as long as we live; they go on being a part of our lives.

So, that’s the secret. We must continue to be important in the lives of the people who surround us. As long as we do that, we will stay alive even after we are physically gone. We have to cherish those we care for while we have them, in part so they will continue to cherish us.

But this does not apply to family only. It is true for all the people in our lives to whom we reach out, to all those we touch and those who touch us. If we want to stay alive, we have to do the reaching out.

Moses and Jeremiah and Isaiah and Jesus can thus be alive for us as well, if they have touched us and touched our lives. Shakespeare and da Vinci are alive for me. Spinoza is alive for me. Danny Kaye and Sid Caesar are alive for me, as is Beethoven.

They are all alive for me because they are a part of who I am. All the people who have made me what I am are alive for me every day of my life. I am surrounded by a crowd. Sometimes, they speak through me. You can’t spend much time with me without getting to meet some of them.

If I write something and it touches another soul, then I may still be alive for them whether I am physically there or not. Even for the people who no longer remember my name, I may still be alive for them in some cranny of their consciousness. That’s not so bad. If we can believe in that, in our own minds we have a future beyond our temporal experience of life.

So, now you know the secret. Go out there and talk to the people around you. Phone them. Write an email. Hug or kiss them if you can get away with it. You may get to live forever if they tell their children about you. If you know what you have done, if you have faith in it, as I do, regardless of your other beliefs, this can be your “promised land.”

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

Diversity in retirement

For Prof. Michelle Pannor Silver, author of Retirement and Its Discontents, an individual should be the one to decide when they start to work less. (photo from sociology.utoronto.ca)

Not long ago, it was a given that, when you reached the age of 65 or so, you would retire. But, that is no longer the case.

Michelle Pannor Silver, an assistant professor in the University of Toronto’s sociology department and its Interdisciplinary Centre for Health and Society, explores some of the reasons for this, as well as the difference between planning for retirement and the experience of it, in Retirement and Its Discontents: Why We Won’t Stop Working, Even If We Can (Columbia University Press, 2018).

Pannor Silver’s interest in the topic started when she was tasked with helping wind down her father’s office.

“My real initial motivation for studying retirement at all, and really for the book, was my dad’s experience,” Pannor Silver told the Independent. “I wrote about this in the book, that, when I was in my 20s, my dad developed dementia. It became really clear that he was not able to continue seeing his patients. And he was quite active in Jewish Big Brothers. That was something that was a big part of his work as a social worker. That’s the way he identified, as a social worker. He was a psychotherapist.”

This experience led Pannor Silver to the U.S. Health and Retirement Study, and she spent many hours and years examining people’s retirement trajectories. In her dissertation, she focused on, among other things, the relationship between the type of work people did and several different health measures, before and after they retired.

“After spending a lot of time looking at data points, I became really interested in talking to real people about what their retirement was like and, really, to discuss what retirement meant,” she said. In quantitative analysis, you make certain assumptions, she explained, “like how this person works this many hours and, therefore, they are fully employed, versus this person who works that many hours and then stopped … and, so, I’m going to code that one as retired.”

To verify or refute such assumptions, Pannor Silver interviewed people.

“I started really basic – just asking people what it means to them to be retired,” she said. “That helped me realize that, boy, this is a loaded term. It seems so simple, so straightforward, and the media gives us these clues about what it’s supposed to mean – you’ll see these commercials with these people who are retired, but are running on the beach, so retirement must mean running on the beach holding hands. Or, there are other ones that are about saving for retirement, so it must mean that it’s something you do when you stop working.”

A focus of Retirement and Its Discontents is ageism, and what it means to be told by society that it is time for you to stop doing the thing you have probably spent most of your adult life doing. The people she features found that life without work wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

“The people I interviewed, many talked about being pushed into retirement – being told it was time to make room for the next generation,” she said. “Some of them did it of their own volition. They weren’t really forced into it, but they assumed it was time for them to move over. They looked at how old their fathers had been when they retired, and decided that a certain age was going to be their benchmark. It’s really about the fathers who they looked at, and some of them saw their fathers retiring and dying the next year, or very shortly thereafter. And they thought they’d better retire then, too, so they could live a little before the end comes for them.”

The idea of when to retire is influenced by media messaging. Some of Pannor Silver’s Canadian study participants talked about “freedom 55,” the advertisements for it and how that has always been in their mind as the magic number at which to retire.

Pannor Silver’s study included international participants. And, while the magic age may differ, “the thing they shared – whether they were forced by existential pressures or because of their own internal ideas about when they ought to retire – first of all, they ended up living longer than their parents. All the [financial planning] models people generally have are wrong,” she said, “and that has, of course, implications for the public pension systems that are out of whack, too.

“But, my book really speaks to the experience of people facing the norms on a sort of anachronistic or out-of-date understanding of what retirement is and are disappointed by their experiences because of that – because of the expectations … that it should happen at this certain time and should be a certain way that would lighten and free them. Yet, they felt kind of burdened with life without work.”

Pannor Silver hopes that readers of her book will discard the idea that retirement should be associated with a chronological age. She would like to see them open themselves up to the idea that there are many different ways people can experience retirement.

“I think that, for many people, retirement is a bad word they don’t even want to use,” said Pannor Silver. “My point is to share the experiences of varied, different types of people who, for various reasons, retired in traditional ways … and had to find their own way around it … to sort of rewrite and create their own retirement experiences.

“For them, it was very surprising and, hopefully, others take some comfort in recognizing it’s a really challenging transition, a really important time of life. There’s so much attention paid to the early stages in life – finishing high school, getting into university or that initial career transition, and career mobility and trajectory, but very little attention is paid to later career transitioning. And that was my goal – to be able to say, ‘Here’s a set of people’s experiences.’ And, people tell me that these experiences have really resonated with them…. We can’t just assume that, because an employee is reaching a certain age, it means he or she should be passed up for promotion, cast aside or ignored. It ought to be up to the individual to say, ‘I have other things I want to do,’ or whatever the reason is – to make the decision on their own, that, now, they choose to make a transition to working less.”

While Pannor Silver’s target market is people approaching retirement, she is hoping that the book will also influence the employers, managers and others who are deciding – on the basis of incorrect assumptions or ignorance – to overlook certain parts of their workforce.

“I have Olympic athletes who I interviewed for the book, homemakers, doctors and CEOs … it’s a varied group of individuals,” said Pannor Silver. “But, their experiences are all people who were incredibly dedicated to their work. Their work was their life’s work, and the point is to contribute to an ongoing discussion about what retirement is now … what we can assume about it and what we should not assume.”

Pannor Silver’s next book will examine the importance of physical movement in the later stages of life.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.