Olympic Glory and Tragedy

                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                        October, 2000
Dear G.U.C.I. Staff:                                                                 


Now that another wonderful summer has wound down at the old campsite in Z-Ville, and  the Cubbies finished 30 games out of first (I wonder if being so many games out, they might be mathematically eliminated from next year’s pennant race) and the Bears are 1 and 4, seems to me like the only game in town is happening in the town of Sydney.  I couldn’t help but feel proud of the kids on the U.S. team as I watched them go for the gold.  There was much talk of the Olympics a few weekends ago, up at Kutz Camp, our national U.A.H.C. camp in Warwick N.Y.  Katy Goodman, our Assistant Director and I joined all of the other members of the U.A.H.C. Youth Division staff for meetings there, while the Olympics were just getting under way.  It was quite special as the person who is my direct supervisor, and has been for the past 20 years, Arie Gluck, the Director of our Camp Harlam (and Frank DeWoskin's new boss), ran in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland for the first Israeli Olympic team.  I have often heard Arie tell of his experiences running there and in another international meet in Spain. 

Arie fought in Israel's War of Independence.  I've traveled several times with him to Israel and walked with him near the battlefields of T’sfat and around the neighborhoods of his youth in Tel Aviv.  He is living history and I sit in awe whenever I have the opportunity to listen to his stories.  Being with Arie is always special; but to be with Arie as the Olympics are about to unfold is extraordinary. 

Another Olympic historical event was retold this weekend.  After the meetings at Kutz Camp, we joined the entire U.A.H.C. staff for our annual staff retreat.  Over 200 gathered for study, sharing, T'fillot, and general spirit building.  I met a fellow that I haven't seen since my first year at HUC in 1972.  His name is Allan Henkin.  He's a Reform Rabbi and directs our L.A. office and region.  As I greeted him he pulled me aside to relive with me a particularly emotional and devastating moment we shared back then, almost thirty years ago.  Henkin asked me (rhetorically) if I remembered our first trip down to the Negev that September.  My class of rabbinic students left Jerusalem on a bus to tour the south during the Olympics being held in Munich that year.  I certainly remembered every detail of that trip.  On our second day out we learned that a terrorist group calling itself Black September had taken eleven Israeli athletes hostage.  We watched the news on a little TV in the youth hostile we stayed in that night.  The next afternoon, as we rode south of Be'er Sheva, the bus's radio broadcast the news of the eleven Israelis’ deaths.  We were stunned.  We stopped the bus right there in the middle of the desert.  The students filed out, stood together in a clump, our silence only broken by half-stifled sighs and sniffles.  Softly someone began to recite Kaddish and we all joined in.  Having arrived in Israel only two weeks before, this was a remarkable introduction to our rabbinic educations.  A moment in the desert.  A devastating moment for our people.  A glimpse of the harsh realities our people have always had to face.  And a prayer in the wilderness. 

Yes, Allan Henkin, I remember it well.  I try to subdue the thought of it whenever I first hear the Olympic anthem.  I try not to think of it.  I would like not to remember that the games continued during our country's time of mourning.  I'd like not to still be angered by it. 

I'd rather think of Arie Gluck running in '52, for the glory of Israel's first Olympic team.  I'd much rather think of the pride he brought to Jews around the world.   These are the thoughts that run through my head as I watch the games unfold this time around, every time around.  Well, that's the way I see it. 
 
Ron

A Passover Dream

The other night I dreamt of a Seder long gone. My restless sleep carried me back to the days of my childhood. There we sat around the candle lit table, white napkins, unleavened squares, white-hot horseradish, cool red wine. And the rowdy group of us gathered there to laugh and remember, to pay tribute, and to argue and even doubt. In the midst of that foggy dream sat my uncles and aunts, sneaking bits of matzo before it was time, recalling lost family members and their antics at Seders of old. My cousins and I sat at the far end of the table. In a dreamlike way we smirked at the nostalgia of the older folks, watching my Papa hold up the bread of affliction and tell our story. It was a good dream, and now that I'm the Papa I'm beginning to understand most of it.

When we sang our slightly off-tune, out of sync Dayenu in my dream, I came to realize that, although I joined in and sang out, I did not feel that it really was "Enough," for me, that is. My Jewish journey had been but a short hop at that point. I felt little connection to the Israelites wandering in the desert. Heck, I was more interested in the unfolding season at Wrigley Field than the journeys of our people. But on a long winter's night there's ample time for the mind to play. With no regard to my desires, my dream dragged on, like a blender mixing family memories with the Haggadah's stories of our people in the wilderness.

My rebellion and rejection of the simple connectors of that holiday became my walls of identity. I was ME, different than any who had journeyed before. In dreamlike fashion, I drifted away from my family scene, still smelling the Seder smells, and hearing the Pesach melodies. I'd become a participant at a distance, a half-hearted, gefilte-fish-eating skeptic. I remember thinking that this night was not so different from ALL other nights. There had been Seders for centuries. Other doubters sat with their families wondering how they fit into the grand scheme of our wandering ancestors. Maybe that was my connection. I was heir to the Jewish throne of alienation, bound to all those who had come before me who had sat on the sidelines, unable to take the step and get out there and play in the Jewish People game. Thrashing about, as my dream became nightmare-ish, visitors began to appear.

My visitors looked like any of the other kids in the neighborhood, one of them, the girl, had a bright knowing gleam in her eye. The other two were just regular kids, a simple boy and then the very quiet one, who seemed to just be tagging along. Staring me down, my bright-eyed female all-of-a-sudden companion challenged me. "Don't you realize that God has given us these laws and observances?" she scolded. I defensively countered with, "What do you mean 'Us?' Maybe God commanded you, but certainly not me! And, how can you be so sure anyway?"
                                                        
"Why, look in you heart." She said, "Do you think your life starts with you?"
With that, a light flashed and a fog descended. We were floating on a cloud. A breeze began to blow, dispersing the cloud. My hostess, her companions, and I had been transported to a barren and rocky place. With an outstretched hand she presented a most unusual scene. I witnessed a line of people following an old man through the desert. They looked disheveled. I heard their grumbling, saw the fear in their eyes. The old man stopped. He turned to speak to them.  "My dear ones," he said. "I know that you are weary, and frightened. We have left all that is familiar to us, our homes, our friends, our old ways. Be strengthened in the understanding that it is the One God who has commanded us to build new lives in a new land. Know that because we have faith, because we are brave, because we have each other, we will endure. We are the birth of a new People. Our new homeland lies before us. God protects us. Because we have begun this journey, the world will never be the same. Our ancestors will remember what we have done. We shall be the inspiration for future generations of Jews in their own journeys. So begins the greatness that will be; a free people, living in their own land, speaking their own language, in covenant with the One God."

I tossed in my sleep. I wanted to shout out to that band of ragged pioneers. "We do indeed remember the words that God spoke to you." I wanted to show them all that I understood the words "Lech Lecha," and that those words still held meaning to millions of other Jews, maybe not me, to this very day. I wanted so in my heart, in the midst of my dream, to encourage them. My frustration was enormous and my hosts sensed my discomfort. The smart one understood.

"You're beginning to get it. Hold that feeling," she instructed. "This is just our first journey. There are others to see."

The simple one asked, "Where to next?" The other one followed quietly along.
The wind kicked up. Our magic fog-carpet floated us along, depositing us in a large auditorium. This was a familiar place. I tossed and snored and looked around. Slowly, while the lights were dimming, I realized I was in the Chicago Theatre. The movie was about to begin. I'd been there so many times with my mother, I could smell the popcorn right there in my bedroom. The plush seats and ornate sculptures on the walls of this old, magnificent theater comforted me. Turning to my hosts to ask just what the heck was going on, the wise one signaled me to "Shush and watch the screen." But as dreams would have it, the movie reels were out of order. It didn't start at the beginning.
                                                          
We saw a ragged bunch of European Jews walking slowly across the screen, pushing carts filled with belongings. They sang of Anetevka, their village, as off they marched to unknown destinations in new worlds. I remembered the saga of Tevye the dairyman. He had problems with his daughters Tzeitle and Hodle. I remembered Golde and her dreams, and the tailor, Motle. I remembered the Pogroms. "But what has any of this to do with me, I thought? It's a movie. Ancient history. After all I'm dreaming of the Chicago Theater." Now the most incredible dreamlike thing happened. Tevye turns to talk to the Jews behind him, but instead he’s looking right at me.

"Nu, nudnik?" He said. "You think you're not part of this poor journey? Why this is the very community that gave birth to your great grandparents. Our trouble, our experience, our faith and nostalgia are the cornerstones of your Jewish life. Like you, I sat at my family's Seder table and heard the story of our Peoples' flight from Egypt. I never expected to lead my own community from a kind of slavery to a hope of freedom in new lands. We lived in a little Jewish town…not exactly a suburb, but a very Jewish place. When Shabbat or Passover, or any other holiday descended on our village, everyone shared the warmth of the holiday, every family, every person. We could hear the family in the next house singing Dayenu, a few moments before or after we sang it. We were each other's echoes. We wore the warmth of those communal feelings like a suit of armor to protect ourselves from the outside world. But the armor proved thin. It couldn't keep us safe.  As you can see," he continued, "My family and I are forced to venture out into the unknown. Who knows what will be? One has a cousin in New York, another, an uncle on a Kibbutz in the Galilee. But what we do know is that this is not the first time our People have journeyed forth from their homes. What we do know is that we have faith in our God and the love of our families. Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Maimonides, many generations of Jews, no different from this one, have learned to face the trials and anxieties of challenges like ours. You'll face them too, in your own way, in your own time. God only knows what will happen to us …and he's not telling. But whatever happens to the poor Jews of Anetevka, the story of our journey will be etched into the identity of your generation."

Then Tevye turned his eyes to heaven. "Dear God. You have made me a poor milkman, but one who now understands the anguish of Abraham, the dilemmas of Moses. Give me the strength to lead my family as they led theirs…and if, along the way, we find some nice new Shtetle… like Shaker Heights or New Rochelle…even Skokie…well, who would mind?"
                                                    
The old velvet curtain that once opened and closed the vaudeville shows of its time descended over the screen, ending this historic, if nightmarish performance. My restless sleep had carried me over centuries and continents. But my hosts, the smart, the not so smart, and the quiet one were hardly done with me. Slowly they turned, inch-by-inch, it seemed, they raised their eyes to mine, silently questioning, "Now do you see your own connection to the journeys of our People?"

I must admit the skeptic in me had weakened. Even I was a sucker for the Sunrise, Sunset nostalgia of our more recent past. But there still lurked a question or two in my This-is-the-twenty-first-century, and I'm-a-modern-Jew mentality. "I can relate to the journeys you've shown me. I can see how they have built the character of my generation. I can appreciate being a link in the chain of this tradition," I admitted. They flashed a glimmer of a victory smile in my direction. "But what journeys are REALLY mine?" I still wondered. "Where are the drama and the challenge, and the hope of my generation's future? Do we have a 'Lech Lecha,' a Sinai, an Anetevka of our own?"

And so I returned in my dream to that Seder of my youth. There my grandfather sat during the meal and told us of his younger days, coming to America. I heard him tell of the orthodox lifestyle his family had maintained in the "Old country," and how America became his religion. The Yiddish, and the Jewish, he explained, was the old way, the greenhorn's way. He wanted to be "An American."   We sat and listened to him admit to leaving all his Jewish practices behind him in Europe. He laughed as he recalled that even his name changed when he passed through the gates of Ellis Island. They couldn't pronounce his Jewish sounding name and he was happy to take on the new, Americanized pronunciation as his introduction to the New World. My grandfather's eyes always twinkled when he told this story.

"So Nu? How come we sit together tonight at a Seder table, if I left our Judaism on the boat?" he asked. We all knew, but would wait for him to answer his own question. "It wasn't that America could be our religion," he'd come to realize. "We needed to be Jews even in America. But what kind of Jews? That was the question." My grandfather was the wisest man I ever knew. He was the bridge from Anetevka to my Seder table. Now I remembered how he taught us. "We needed a new Judaism. Special (sp.) made for the modern world." He said. "That's how I came to talk to the Reform Rabbi at our synagogue, and that's why we are sitting at the Seder table tonight."

When we opened the Haggadas in my dream that night, I had a minor revelation. We read of the four children, the wise, the simple, and one unable to ask. My dreamy hosts described to a tea. "But what of the wicked one?" I thought. "What happened to the one who says "You," and not "We?"  Well, there I was, to round out the foursome. And so the lesson was well taught.

I'd come a long way during that restless night. I'd dreamt of a Seder long gone, and the hardships and faith of our People. It was a good dream, one of my ancestors and my grandfather and me. It was a dream of our journeys, not someone else's.

Now that I'm the Papa, I'm beginning to understand.

The Camper in the Ark

                                                                                                                 

                                                                                                    January, 2000


Dear G. U. C. I. Staff:

                             
One of the things I enjoy most at camp each summer is teaching the Machon program.  Machonikim are first-year counselors, experiencing, observing, and learning about counseling techniques, child development, and program planning.  Almost all of them have had camper years either here or in other camps upon which to draw memories.  I’ve learned how important it can be to remember those mentors we admire in our lives, identify what exactly they did to create such positive impressions on us, and emulate those good qualities.  Of course, the opposite is also valuable, to identify those we hold in low regard, examine why that is the case, and try to avoid incorporating those characteristics in our work and relationships.  Machonikim are fresh, usually excited about the work, eager to share their ideas, open to suggestions.  They stoke my camping fire. 

When we speak of remembering those who have the most positive Jewish impacts on our lives, I can’t help but remember my camp rabbi, Rabbi Ernst Lorge.  I’ve written to you about him.  He was a pioneer in our camping movement.  I worked with him for many summers at our camp in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.  He was a hard-nosed, yet compassionate Rabbi who never failed to amaze my cabins with late-night, lights-out stories of his experiences as a chaplain in Europe during the Second World War.  As Olin-Sang-Ruby turns fifty, I’ve been thinking about some of my early experiences as a camper and staff member there.

All counselors have favorite camper stories.  Not stories about favorite campers. I mean outrageous stories about strange campers.  I have mine as well.  In one of my cabins in 1964, I had the dubious pleasure of caring for Robbie S. (name withheld upon request…. my request).  Robbie was actually a nice boy who did pretty well at camp except for one minor quirk.  Robbie liked to hide.  Almost every day we had to stop at least one activity and search for him.  Once we found him it was right back to whatever we were doing.  Robbie usually hid in the outdoor broom closet behind the Bayit, the main building of the camp.  It had kind of latch on the door that closed itself and couldn’t be opened from the inside, so if someone went in and let the door close behind them, they had to yell for someone else to open the door.  Robbie never yelled.  He liked it in there.  It was the first place I always checked whenever my Co-counselor Don or I realized Robbie was missing
. 
One Shabbat morning we had all slept a little late, as was the custom.  Seeing that Robbie was missing, Don, my Co, went to check the broom closet while the other boys in the cabin and I made our way to Shabbat T’fillot with the rest of the camp in the outdoor chapel. 

The service began and proceeded.  Rabbi Lorge, was conducting the service.  Rabbi Lorge was a pretty serious, no-nonsense, Old World rabbi.  He spoke with a German accent.  He was a great, old-school, Reform Rabbi.  He was, after all, one of the founding rabbis of U.A.H.C. camping.  We all rose as he turned to open the wood-crafted ark for the Torah service; and were astounded to see my camper, Robbie S. seated, curled up, next to the Torah, IN THE ARK!  What Rabbi Lorge did then was beautiful.  With one hand he removed the Torah from the ark, and held the other hand out to Robbie, inviting him to join the rabbi in blessing the Torah.  It was as if it was a natural thing for Rabbi Lorge to find a camper in the ark.  Like, it happened all the time.  (I thought I was going to die)

Robbie smiled and came to sit by one of his friends when the Torah was placed on the lectern for the reading.  And Rabbi Lorge never said a word to me about finding Robbie there.  But, anyone’s natural reaction to finding a child in the ark might have been a raised voice and wagging finger, or at least a “What’s going on here look?”  I remember most clearly Rabbi Lorge’s outstretched hand, inviting, compassionate, understanding.  Therein lies the lesson.
Needless to say, I kept a keen eye on Robbie for the rest of the session.

Ron

All My Memories Gather 'Round Me

                                                                                                                   November, 1999


Dear G.U.C.I. Staff:


"As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a Camp Director..."  (adapted from the first line of the movie, "Goodfellas."  [Thanks, Jer].  Well, at least as far back as the summer of 1969.  I’d just finished college and almost convinced myself that that was to be my last summer in camp.  But 1969 is long enough ago to qualify for "As far back as I can remember."  Once I did realize where I was going with this camp thing, it took me six years to actually move into a Director's office (this, of course, does not count the times I snuck into the Director's office in Oconomowoc to sleep on his carpet in the air conditioning).  I was reminded of all this last summer when our Goldman Union Camp Institute Staff and Avodahnikim gave me a gift worth remembering...they gave me an Oneg Shabbat.  It was to honor my 25 years as Director here in Zionsville.  How they kept it a secret from me, I'll never know (come to think of it, it must have been pretty easy to keep it a secret from me).  I was completely surprised.  As a matter of fact, I was really knocked out that week as it had been in the high 90's and even 100 degrees for days, and I was going to skip the Oneg and go to bed.  It was that crafty Frank DeWoskin, our Program Director who said to me, "Come on.  Let's just go see what's up with the Oneg."  Yes.  He's the one who got me there.  Like leading a lamb to the slaughter.

Well, I was caught off guard (I guess that rooster got into my yard...), and completely touched by the thought and sentiment expressed that night (the food was good too).  My staff gave me a collage of pictures of our camp centered on a beautiful aerial shot, with a caption at the bottom that reads, "All my memories gather 'round me."  And bless those Avodahnikim if they didn't give me a genuine Cubs jersey with "Klotz 25" printed on the back.  Eat your heart out Sammy Sosa.  What a great way to commemorate an important personal milestone!

Did I tell you that just earlier that evening I met my Midurah buddy at the Shabbat campfire, as I did every Friday evening during Kallah Bet this summer?  He's a Shoresh boy who I happened to sit next to at the first campfire of the session, and while I was thinking about whatever story I was about to tell, noticed that he wasn't singing.  I leaned over and asked him if everything was all right.  He replied with one of the most beautiful sentiments I had ever heard.  He said, "Look at all of the faces around the campfire...and look at the sparks and the stars.  Everyone is so happy.  It’s just so beautiful.  I want to take it all in.  I want to remember this moment."  

I've thought about what that eleven-year-old boy said to me that night.  I've thought about it a lot.  He was appreciating a blessing, recognizing it for what it was, a rare gift.  He was savoring it, storing it, putting it away with his treasures.  I think in his own way, my campfire buddy was saying the most sincere prayer of thanksgiving that one could offer.  His wisdom reminded me to appreciate the blessings that are all around us.  We met each week there after, without invitation or arrangement, in the same spot at the Midurah.  We sang together.  He liked my stories.  I looked for him each Friday night.  We both liked “Campfireing” together. 

So, when I stood there in front of the staff and Avodah, during that Oneg, I followed my teacher’s advice.  I looked at all the faces.  I appreciated how happy we all were.  I gave my thanks for the blessings of camp and community, for being given the opportunity to work with so many wonderful people over the years.  And, I thought back to those days when I was just beginning to follow this path.  All my memories gathered ‘round me.
I’m looking forward to next summer’s campfires already.

Ron

Being a Congregant

                             
                                                                                                                  September, 1999
 

Dear G.U.C.I. Staff:


It’s been a long time since I’ve written.  I hope this letter finds you enjoying the beginning of a wonderful New Year, number 5760.  Shannah Tovah to you and your families.  We are closing the books on another terrific summer here at camp.  Even as those heavenly gates slammed shut and Yom Kippur sputtered into a break-the-fast, our Earlybird Applications were racing out to last summer’s campers while we all cried, “Here we go again!”  Thank God!

I had a new experience this High Holiday; I went to Temple.  I know, I’ve been in Temple for the Holidays every year since Abraham climbed the mountain with Isaac (it seems), but for the past twenty-seven or so years, I’ve been on the Bima.  This year I went to Temple…as a congregant.  I sat in the congregation with my family, I read the responses in Italics, I listened, I thought…a lot.  I heard so many things in the services that I never heard before when I was reading them out loud.  It surprised me.  I was also moved by the absolute beauty of our liturgy, especially on Yom Kippur afternoon. 

 Being a congregant gave me more time.  And I used that time to listen.  What I heard was the blend of the words and moods of each service, mixed with my own thoughts, feelings, and memories.    That recipe gave me a lot to chew on (pardon the poor fast-day metaphor).   At times, I was transported back to my childhood days at B’nai Jehoshua in Chicago where I sat with my Mom and Dad, the other Klotz’s, Steiners, Garbers and Peaks.   Sitting here in Indianapolis, I vividly remembered those days, when, as a youngster, I would run and play in the social hall downstairs until I was over-heated and red in the face.  Or later as a teen, I’d sit in the balcony whispering with my friends during services, giggling and trying hard not to make too much noise.   
  
But as important as was the time I had to listen and think, to pray and feel nostalgic, so was the emotional impact of being led in prayer by two of my campers who have become my Rabbis.  We spent Rosh Ha Shannah with Sandford Kopnick and his family up in Ft. Wayne, and Yom Kippur here in our home congregation, Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation with Eric Bram.  Sandford, as you know, started here at G.U.C.I. as a camper just after Abraham descended the mountain (so it seems) and stayed on through staff, program director, and faculty years.  Eric was my camper back in Oconomowoc at Olin-Sang-Ruby, before I migrated south, and has served several summers on faculty here at G.U.C.I.  Both now are my colleagues, both have become my teachers.  Sitting in their congregations gave my High Holidays an added sense of depth and continuity.  Through them I felt the connection between camp and the synagogue, and I must admit, I also felt a sense of pride for our movement at having produced two such accomplished and successful Rabbis.  They each, “Made my day.”

Well, the years are rolling by, Jewish and otherwise.  Here’s to a sweet one.Ron

One of my Favorite Staff Letters. "A Trip With Mom"

                                                                                                               

                                                                                             November, 1998

Dear G.U.C.I. Staff:

All families have their special traditions.  Mine is no different.  Every year my mother comes up from Florida for the High Holidays.   Sometime between Rosh Ha Shannah and Yom Kippur, we usually make a pilgrimage back to the old neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago.  Ours was a very ethnic family, three of my grandparents from Czechoslovakia, one from Poland.  My mom and dad, all of my aunts, and of course all of my grandparents spoke fluent Czech.  We called it Bohemian.  At our holiday dinner table, there was a much Bohemian flying as there was English.  So Mom and I (the remnants of the family, except for a cousin in California) pack up the car each year at this time and head back to Cicero and Berwyn with three goals in mind.  1.  To visit the relatives in the Free Sons Cemetery (and they are all there).  2.  To buy several dozen kolatchki (fruit filled Czech pastries), and a few containers of frozen durshkovah (tripe soup).  And 3.  Have the heaviest Czechoslovakian dinner possible at the Plaza Bohemian restaurant in Berwyn.
 
But this time around, we decided to add a ride past our old home in Cicero, just to take a look.  The neighborhood had changed ethnic groups, but looked almost the same.  Yes, the Czechs had been replaced by Hispanics, most of the restaurants and bakeries replaced their Bohemian signs with ones in Spanish.  When we rode by our old place, we saw an old lady outside cleaning.  My mom wanted to tell her that she had grown up in that house, so we stopped the car and she got out.  She tried to explain that my grandfather had bought the house in 1921 and it had been the family meeting place until well into the 60’s, over 40 years.  My mom and both of her sisters, my cousins, my father, grandparents, and even yours truly had lived in that house.  As my mom left the car, I said that I hoped the lady spoke English. 

While they spoke, pictures of my childhood in that house crept into me.  There was my cousin Ralph and me wrestling on the couch in the front room (the room that looked out on the street, we’d probably call it a living room today).  There was my cousin Judy getting ready to go to a dance.  I remembered vividly the many nights I slept in the front bedroom and watched the lights of the cars going down 60th Court as they reflected off of the ceiling and moved across the walls.  And there was my grandfather, sitting on the front porch on a warm summer evening.  Pictures came of family dinners (Thanksgivings always offered a turkey for the family and a goose for my father and me), and sleepovers on winter Saturday nights, and everyone trying to get into the bathroom on Sunday morning so we wouldn’t be late for Sunday school.  I saw the bathtub, a big iron job on four clawed feet, and the mantel in the front room with the pictures of my grandparents on it.  In my mind’s eye I remembered those pictures, oval, old-fashioned looking, black and white with some kind of sepia painted backgrounds.  I was flooded with a herky-jerky, 8mm-like, remembrance of times long gone. 

I looked over and saw that my mom wasn’t getting too far with the lady on the sidewalk in front of our old place, so I decided to give it a shot and went to talk to her too.   She didn’t speak any English, but I was able to communicate to her that my mother had been a little girl in the house that was now hers.  When she understood, she became very excited and to our surprise invited us in.  We hadn’t been through that front door since 1963 or so.  What a trip to do so now.  The last time I stood in that kitchen and looked out into the alley in back, I was 17 years old, my Mom 50.  Now we were there again, and little had changed.  The old bathtub was gone, replaced with a modern one, but the rooms were very much as I remembered them, down to the dark wood trim that ran along the walls and ceiling in the dining room and in the front.  The wood cabinet where my Aunt Lil kept all of her good dishes remained in place, now holding their good dishes.  Not a whole lot different than it was 35 or even 50 years ago. 

The old lady called her daughter from the back.  It turned out the house belonged to her.  She spoke to us in English and was happy to hear a few funny family stories about the house.  We met her two children who attend Burnham elementary school, the same school my mother, aunts, and cousins attended.  Her older son had graduated from Morton High School, like my parents, my aunts, my cousins, and I had.  It was quite the same, only the tune had a Latin beat to it. 

I felt that we had completed our family remembering day in a wonderful way.  We started where they (my family) had all ended, and ended where we had all lived.  What a great way to remember.

When it was time for us to leave our old house, the old lady, the grandmother hugged and kissed my mother.  Neither could speak to one another, yet there was some bond there.  We walked out to the front door and I turned for one last look at the front room and the mantel with the gas fireplace and the dark wood trim.  There on the mantel were pictures of grandparents from the old country, Mexico.  They stood in the same spot my grandparents’ pictures had stood.  I told the daughter of the old lady, “Take the sombreros off of the people in those pictures, and they could easily be my grandparents.”  She smiled.  We smiled.  

What a way to start the New Year, eh?

Ron

“I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn”

                                                                                                     

                                                                                                           October, 1998


Dear G.U.C.I. Staff:


The mood of camp has shifted dramatically from the noise and action of the summer to the cool and calm of fall.  The leaves started changing into their colors around the same time we were all putting on our High Holiday finery.  It’s a pretty time.  We started our camp introspection, thinking about what we’d like to do differently this winter and next summer, around the same time that our Jewish cycle stopped on the look-into-yourself-and-figure-out-how-to-be-a-better-person square.  This is our strength.  That we stop each year and examine ourselves, that we seek new directions or re-adjust our present ones.  I asked myself this season, why we Jews keep coming back to our synagogues on the High Holidays?  Why are they so important to us? 
One of the answers might be that we come seeking words of wisdom (but unlike the Beatles, we just won’t let it be…).  I think that we would like Rosh Ha Shannah and Yom Kippur to smarten us up.  Teach us something.  But, what?  Well, think about it.  We’re looking for direction, and to find direction into the future, we have to know who we are and where we have come from.  The Holidays connect us to our past, to our history.  The physical act of going to Temple links us to Jews all over the world.  And the service itself (and perhaps the rabbi’s words) speaks to our values, our relationships, responsibilities, our shortcomings, our dreams.  It seems to me that Temple is exactly the right place to come seeking words of wisdom. 
We all are wise in our own rights.  What words of wisdom would you share with others if you had the chance?  Here’s a list of wise words I came across; maybe one or more of them will speak to you: 

“I’ve learned that you can’t hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk” - Age 7
“I’ve learned that if you want to cheer yourself up, you should try cheering someone else up” - Age 14
“I’ve learned that brushing my child’s hair is one of the great pleasures”  -Age 26
“I’ve learned that there are people who love you dearly but just don’t know how to show it”  -Age 41
“I’ve learned that the greater a person’s sense of guilt the greater their need to cast blame on others”  -Age 46
“I’ve learned that you can tell a great deal about a person by the way s/he handles these things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights”  -Age 52
“I’ve learned that making a living is not making a life”  -Age 58
“I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance”  -Age 62
“I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands.  You need to be able to throw some things back”  -Age 64
“I’ve learned that whenever I’ve decided something with kindness, I usually make the right decision”  -Age 68
“I’ve learned to believe in miracles.  I’ve seen several”  -Age 73
“I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one”  -Age 82
“I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn”  -Age 92

What words of wisdom would you use to complete the sentence;  “I’ve learned that…?”   Now, it seems, is the appropriate Jewish time to start composing them.  Shannah Tovah…All the best in 5759.

Ron