Thoughts from the CZO, Chief Zayde Officer October 7

The murderous terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, on the joyous holiday of Simchat Torah, painfully conflates Jewish history and the Jewish experience in one day. Ours is what the eminent psychologist Marshall Duke calls an “oscillating narrative” — a history and stories of joys intertwined with sadness and heartbreak.

Yehuda Bergstein/Shutterstock.com As Duke teaches, it is for us to share the oscillating narratives of our families and people. It is the sharing of these stories that builds emotional resilience in our children. It is this intergenerational sense of self that binds us to Jewish people and nurtures our individual and collective courage, will, and humanity. And so, as grandparents, parents, and aunts and uncles, we must share the painful story of October 7, 2023.  But there is another story we must tell. In the words of the author Mark Oppenheimer, the Jewish people represent the longest-running book club in history. This is what Simchat Torah exemplifies. We joyfully dance around our books, adorn them in fine cloth and silver ornaments, and kiss them as they draw near. The Jewish people are the people of the book, and our books guide us in a life of meaning, values, caring, and joy.

SIMCHAT TORAH Child Torah courtesy of the Union for Reform Judaism On October 7, 2024, we will gather as families and as communities to remember the horrific events of the previous year and mourn those we have lost. And on October 24–25, 2024, we will celebrate Simchat Torah, dance around books clothed in fine cloth and silver, and tell our children the stories of the people of the book.     David Raphael  Chief Zayde Officer, Jewish Grandparents Network

 

Notes from the CZO, Chief Zayde Officer Carpets Belong Inside

The rocking chair found its place on the outdoor rug on the porch as the final piece in the refurbishment of our home. I sat there comfortably, rocking slowly, enjoying the warmth of the day, offset by the newly installed ceiling fans. Hal, my recently turned three-year-old grandson, stepped outside, looked down, and said: “Carpets belong inside.”

I’d like to address two elements of this transaction:  Just months before, Hal was barely making full sentences. His language is now full and fluid. Beyond the sentence structure, his comment demonstrated a growing sophistication in his understanding of the world — where things fit in and how they fit together. Carpets belong inside, not outside.   That simple interchange between grandchild and grandparent filled me with awe and wonder. I was smitten, besotted.  The cognitive development of a child is a miracle; one that unfolds in front of our eyes. It is a miracle that, far too often, we take for granted. Those of us who live far from our grandchildren see this development in stop action. One visit our grandchildren are learning to crawl and, seemingly the next, they are running and climbing on a Jungle Jim. One holiday they are saying their first words and the next they are inquiring about the carpet on the porch.   Those who study and teach positive psychology speak about a “beginner’s mind,” the sense of wonder and awe one feels when seeing or experiencing something anew. I like to think of this as a “child’s mind.”   Grandparenting offers us an opportunity to rediscover and reconnect with our beginner’s/child’s mind. We watch with joy and amazement as our grandchildren grow and learn. Through their eyes, we see a world of mystery and discover the world anew. It is with this beginner’s mind — a child’s mind — that I am experiencing the miracle of child development.    More accurately, I now see the world through a “grandparent’s mind,” which is like a beginner’s or a child’s mind of wonder but accompanied by a profound sense of gratitude and hope.    David Raphael  Chief Zayde Officer, Jewish Grandparents Network

Mittendrinnen…and the Urgency of Relationships

 Mittendrinnen*, out of the blue, Arthur sent me a message on Facebook: “Are you the David Raphael who went to Camp Ramah in the sixties?” And, in fact, I am such person. This opening line led to a flood of back-and-forth. Arthur (then Artie) and I were camp friends for four years at Camp Ramah and then years after. As young teens, Artie and I would meet at the Port Authority in New York and spend the day walking the streets of Manhattan snapping photos with our new SLR cameras (Can you imagine parents allowing a 14-year-old to do that today?). In 1969, we traveled to Washington DC together to join the March on Washington to protest the Vietnam War. We lost touch somewhere between high school and college.  A half-century later, Arthur and I have now renewed our friendship. 

Over the course of my life, I have been blessed with wonderful lifelong friends, some of whom I’ve known for over half a century: Richard, who became my “bestie” playing basketball for the Jewish Center of Bayside Oaks team at age 16 (1968). Today we share photos of our grandchildren. I am still close with Jonathan, my apartment-mate when I was a senior at college (1973). I reconnected with Bob, head of the waterfront at Camp Masada when I was a counselor (1972). Marc and I first met in 1977 on the Staten Island Ferry on our way to the first day of our field placement at social work school. And of course, there is my dearest friend, my wife Jo, who I have loved deeply for 45 years.   

These precious relationships have and continue to frame and enrich my life. I am a far better person because of them. I have learned of the importance of attending to these and relationships – regular phone calls, birthday cards, and being there in times of need.  

A recent passing health scare, (the seemingly ubiquitous backdrop of aging and, these days, the primary content of our conversations) caused me to reflect on the inevitable passing of time and, in this context, the urgency of relationships.   

And it is with this mindset that I think not only of time but of grandparental time.  

Life's occasional “health bumps” are reminders that I will never be a grandfather for half a century. In recognizing and accepting this reduced time frame, these moments suddenly seem even more profoundly urgent. And so, I will commit myself to nurturing and attending to these precious relationships and to be fully present in their presence.

As I think about my life after death, my world to come, I see it in the eyes and the smile of a six-year-old girl who loves to sing, dance, and twirl and her two-year-old brother who is infatuated with trucks and dinosaurs. And so, as soon as I finish writing this missive, I will make flight reservations to travel to an attached home on Abell Avenue in Baltimore, filled with toys, plastic spoons and forks, sippy cups, picture books, little sneakers, and the melodious voices, and hugs from two little children - the reminders of the urgency of relationships.

*Note: As a child, when I would either ask for something unusual, or do something unexpected, my grandmother, and then subsequently, my mother would respond, with a tone of either incredulity or annoyance, “mittendrinnen”  (mitten-DRIN-nin).

Notes from the CZO - The Day After The Visit

Notes from the CZO, Chief Zayde Officer   The Day After the Visit

The morning after our grandchildren left our home to return to Baltimore (with their parents), I spent 45 minutes trying to wedge the car seats from the back of our Honda. Reaching the anchors, hidden behind the back seat put my aged fingers to an excruciating test of endurance and required a dexterity beyond my 71-year-old capacity. Think of spelunking blindfolded. The car seat removed, I spent the next 20 minutes with the hand vacuum prying bits of Cheerios, fig bars, and animal crackers from the seat. A sticky outline of lollipop residue remains. While I wrestled with the car seats, my wife Jo began cycling the multiple loads of sheets, pillowcases, and towels through the wash. (A note about this marital division of labor, several years ago, Jo asked me to move the wash to the dryer. I responded: “Which one is the dryer?”).

Cleaning the basement playroom was another matter entirely. Doll clothing, Brio train pieces, and Lincoln Logs (remember Lincoln Logs?) lay strewn across an approximate 50 square foot area. We removed the batteries from a 30-year-old Fisher Price ambulance as its piercing noise caused a shrill feedback noise in my hearing aids. We will pick up or step on Lego pieces for months to come.

Our dog Maddie may have been the most disappointed to have the grandchildren leave as she no longer has access to fallen (or thrown) mac and cheese, bits of bagel, challah chunks, and Honey Nut Cheerios. And now, the house is clean, toys picked up, and the laundry done. Exhausted, we sit on the couch... and we miss them desperately. Gone is the joy of their laughter, the grandparental pleasure of snuggling with them while reading bedtime stories, the patter of little feet descending the staircase in the morning, and the sheer, unmatched delight of hearing “Zayde, Zayde, Zayde”!

Remaining are the memories of lighting Shabbat candles together and watching my children bless their children, baking cookies together, and the delight of romping with them at the playground. How can we measure these moments? I cannot help but return to Jacob’s words in the bible after he experienced his dream of angels: “Surely God is in this place, and I knew it not.” Surely, angels were in this place.

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