Tekiah Gedolah

Still recovering from my post Yom Kippur gluttony, I awoke early to read the New York Times and came upon an article on Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Benioff, two Jewish techno-billionaires, blowing the Shofar. The digital version of the article featured a video of the Zuckerberg, in his ubiquitous long-sleeve tee shirt, blowing the shofar at home while an unseen child wailed in the background.  (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/style/marc-zuckerberg-blowing-shofar.html)

Like the Shofars (Shofarim? Shofarot?) used in my synagogue during recent High Holyday services, Zuckerberg’s Shofar appeared to be approximately four-feet long, it’s length far exceeding the length of his left arm which held it in place. At our synagogue, we had four men (although I do not believe any of them were techno-billionaires) with equally elongated Shofars serenading us with Tikiahs, Shivarims, and Truahs from different parts of the sanctuary.  The coordinated blowing was orchestrated to create a dramatic impact on the Rosh Hashanah worship. Unfortunately, it also confused the more senior members of the congregation.  All around me, octogenarians were seen adjusting their hearing aids. 

My friend Sandy turned to me and commented “I don’t remember Shofars being so long”.  Certainly, that was my memory.  Shofars used to be of the 10-inch variety, carved with small notches along their edges. Shofars today all seem to be in the 3 – 4-foot helix variety - far cries from the diminutive size of our youths. 

What also seems to have become elongated is the “T’kiah G’dolah” – the final blast of the Shofar in each cycle on Rosh Hashanah and at the end of Nelah, the concluding service on Yom Kippur.  In my synagogue, it is not unusual for the T’kiah G’dolah to last 30 seconds or more, causing the blower’s face to turn a brilliant shade of red.  I am concerned that one of them will have an aneurysm.

While I recognize that, to paraphrase, Freud, ‘sometimes a shofar is just a shofar’, to my thinking, the growth of elongated shofars and the final blasts of T’Kiah G’dolah, marks the rise of “Macho Judaism”, where men demonstrate their virility and alpha dominance, within the of context our Jewish rituals.  These are, in fact, “the Days of Awe”.

Another demonstration of Macho Judaism seems to be the “Hagbai” clean and jerk.  Each year select men are called upon to demonstrate their vitality by lifting the Torah after the reading has been completed.  The contestants demonstrate their strength and skill by seeing how many sections of the Torah they can unravel before the lift.  I believe the requirement is three, but, this never seems to suffice.  Seven or eight will ensure a positive murmur.  I do admire these kosher strong men but also worry that a slight misstep will require all of us to fast for 40 days.  I have nightmares of unrelenting caffeine withdrawal headaches. During these moments during the service, I was contemplating the need for a new pharmaceutical product “Jewagra”, to enable men to keep their horns and scrolls aloft longer.  Jars of Alex Jones’s “Super Male Vitality” supplements might also do the trick.  I added an additional “Al Chet” (“For the Sin”) for these wayward thoughts. 

My synagogue is fully egalitarian, and women participate in all aspects of the service.  But, in the 12 years I have been a member (and, perhaps, for the 60 years or so I have been attending synagogues), I have never seen a woman called to blow the shofar or lift the Torah.  Women in our country join the Marines, are fighter pilots and serve as police officers and firefighters around the world.  One would think they have the capacity to blow a shofar and lift a Torah.

The High Holy Days have passed, and Sukkot is upon us.  Around the world, Jewish men will be hoisting long stalks of bamboo atop our booths.  At our synagogue, the men will sanctify the holiday with “Cigars and Scotch in the Sukkah”. While I admire the alliteration, as a non-meat eater and non-smoker, I will demure. Don’t get me started on the Lulav.  Sometimes a palm frond is just a palm frond.   

It's a Mystery

Each year is unique, and each year brings it surprises.  Last year, in the days preceding Rosh Hashanah, we held the infant Bina Mazel in our arms and celebrated her Simchat Bat (Baby Naming).  A year later, in the days following her first birthday, we sat in Nomi and Keith’s living room together watching her scoot around the room.  I was reminded of days long ago when we struggled to keep up with her mother as a non-stop toddler.  Bina wants to explore everything; toys, books and dolls; but also paper cups, pieces of lint, and Milo’s (the dog) eyes and inner ears. Like both of her parents, she is drawn to music and shakes her hands and tush to the same Raffi songs we shared with our children. Like her Zayde (grandfather) she is a two-fisted eater, and, for instance, armed with an avocado slice in one hand and a sliver of pizza in the other she relishes her meals.  She is a great blessing, and her grandparents, aunts and uncles are smitten.  We are all in her orbit. 

5778 ended with a bit of crash…literally.   On July 23, as all slept, and a heavy rain pelted Atlanta, the earth that held the roots of the large oak tree loosen and physics took over. At 11:00 pm a large crack reverberated, and the house shuttered. From the back deck, the flashlight beam revealed a tree forming a perfect hypotonus across the backyard onto our roof.  Bina lay sleeping perhaps 10 feet below where the tree trunk had fallen and was lodged among the broken rafters of our roof. 

Life’s blessings so often lay hidden right before our eyes – a child sleeps. undisturbed by a raging storm and damaged home; this was a miracle of an inconvenience that could have been far worse.  

Five weeks later, we are being kept dry by a beautiful new roof, but the damage inside the house has yet to be fully repaired.  It is a useful metaphor; things become damaged and break.  We can patch them up in a matter of hours or days but a return to full equilibrium can take far longer.  So it is with life and its challenges. There is often a half-life of repair and renewal.  As the New Year approaches I am thinking about the storms I have weathered and the days, months and years it often took to recover.  But most of all, I am thinking of all the blessings I have been given; such as a sleeping baby beneath a shattered roof. 

As above, Bina recently turned one year old.  Words are emerging, most notably “Hi!” said with the same happy inflection we say it to her.  Somewhere in there is also something that sounds like “Zayde” but that may be wishful thinking.  I like these words I wrote in a recent essay: “From my limited perspective as a new grandfather, there is a deep and perhaps ineffable quality of love that we feel for our grandchildren.  Perhaps it is our primal brain rewarding us deep within our limbic center for an evolutionary job well done.  Presented in within a spiritual framework, perhaps our grandchildren link us to the eternal. In some measure, this is my contribution to the world to come.”

Fifteen months ago I left the salaried world and began a new life as a self-employed consultant. When I deposited the last of 30 years of salary checks from Hillel I had no idea how things would work out.  Since that day, I have been guided by these words from “Shakespeare in Love”:

HENSLOWE: The natural condition is one of unsurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. 

FENNYMAN: So, what do we do?

HENSLOWE: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.

FENNYMAN: How?

HENSLOWE: I don't know. It's a mystery.

We are thankful for the mysteries of life and grateful for all the blessings that have been given us.  We wish you a “Shanah Tovah U’mitukah” – a Happy, Health and Sweet New Year.

The Raphael Adams Family: David, Jo, Nomi, Bina, Jacob, Alya, Keith and Augie the Dog

Response to My Uncle Myron on the Book of Job

Monday, September 3, 2018

Dear Uncle Myron,

I read and reread your wonderful essay on the Book of Job several times.  Some personal reflections:

It seems to me that the question is not “why bad things happen to good people”, but “why things happen”.  My mom used to frame this existential dynamic in her own words: “It is because it is”. I never saw these words as defeatist or fatalistic, but rather and acceptance that things just happen.  Life isn’t planned and can’t be predicted. “Man plans, God laughs”.

Like many, I have faced difficult, painful experiences (although not quite Jobian). My father’s illness and death, at a time in my life when I was just beginning to make sense of things, was profoundly painful – and the pain had a half-life far longer than I could have imagined.  Fourteen years after his death, when we learned that Jo was pregnant with our first son, my sadness arose like some mythical demon.  In the moment, it was unrecognizable and undefinable.   As I wrote in an essay 13 years ago, when Jacob was diagnosed with significant developmental challenges: “Compounded by the unresolved mourning for my father and by the memories of ongoing loss, my bereavement over my son’s autism was overwhelming.  It was exponential sadness and I was rendered helpless.’

On the day we buried my father I was engulfed with sadness and pain. And when Jacob was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder the emotional devastation was unbearable.  

In those moments, both upon the death of my father and the discovery of Jacob’s developmental challenges, had I been able to look into the future, and, perhaps, see time and space as God does, I would have seen myself standing under the Chupah with Jo at my side, and Uncle Myron looking at us lovingly.  I would have watched from above as I stood in awe at the birth of my children and at my granddaughter’s Simchat Bat.  I’d picture myself pushing Alya, Nomi and Jacob in a swing, reading them books and playing with them on the floor.  I would have seen Jacob returning from his year in Israel and walking across the auditorium stage to be handed his college diploma. I would have seen myself playing with Bina and experiencing a greater joy than I thought was possible.

Of course, in moments of profound sadness, none of us have the gift of future vision.  But, we can engage in it retroactively; I can look back and see the death of my father and other struggles I have faced in the context of my life and all the blessings I have been given.  I can also look back and understand that these pains and these hardships were essential elements of the framing of who I have become.  In my essay about my dad’s passing and Jake’s autism I wrote: “Time doesn’t heal all wounds, it’s how you choose to spend your time that can heal wounds.  

How many of us are blessed to see our children’s children? Ad kama v’kama (how much more so), our children’s children’s children.  Here is another question: How many of us have had the blessing of being a spiritual guide, a friend, a teacher, a mentor and role model to thousands of people?  How many of us can say that we have made the world a better place?  I’d like to think that I have done a fraction of this – and I’d like to think that I have done a fraction of what you have done. 

Certainly, I was not able to see or comprehend this in the immediate days following my father’s death. But, had I, in those days, been able to see the fullness of my life and the blessings that God would, one day, bestow on me; a wonderful wife, children, grandchildren, dear friends and a belief that I have been a force for good, I might have, in concert with all the divine beings, “shouted for joy” (Job 38:7)

“Then the Lord replied to Job out of the tempest” (Job 38:1).  Each of us will face times when our lives are in tempest.  And in the midst of these whirlwinds of profound sadness and pain, when our lives seem shattered and in turmoil, how will God speak to us?  What will God say? Will we be able to hear God? Perhaps, this is the understated lesson of Job; in the midst of our personal tempest, listen for the voice of God. Perhaps that voice can only be heard, truly heard, out of the tempest.  Exodus 19:16: "And it came to pass on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mount." A tempest, no?

Perhaps it is of little comfort to those who have suffered or who are facing suffering, but, to an extent, I wonder if one can truly feel love and joy in their fullest if they have not also been able to experience pain and heartbreak. Here’s another line I wrote over ten years ago that I like: “I have learned the hard way, but perhaps the only way, that memories, and generations of memories, of life, love and loss can provide us with great potential and great strength.  If we can face the sadness and the hurt that lies in our memories we can also find the passion to pursue and, hopefully, find hope, joy and love”.

This may be my favorite line in your essay: “You may not find an “answer, but you will be comforted to know your question is real, authentic and Biblical.”   “Theodicy, to justify the workings of a good God in the face of evil.  It is an ongoing and ever-renewing problem, with no easy answer.”  Easy answers to difficult and painful questions are rarely satisfying and, most often, not helpful.  It is the hard-earned answer, borne by struggle, by devotion, by wrestling with angels that are both sustaining and definitional.  The path to leading a meaningful life in the context of suffering and pain must be a personal one and each individual’s life answer must be sui generous.  Perhaps the import of the search for answers far outweighs the answers themselves. And perhaps, among all the great lessons I have learned from you, this is the most meaning and impactful.

With love, respect, admiration, and devotion,