Seeing In The Void

In this silence

I must find You Lord

All I have are the longings and the desire

All I want is the certainty of You

It would make this journey so much easier

After my trauma especially

To help me make sense of why and how

And what is being asked of me now

I feel so inadequate

So ordinary

So unfit to have survived

If only

A message

Something

Yes You do speak to me

Through holy angels such as Dad "Uman is out!"

My sponsor; such judicious timing!!

My holy children; who inspire me

My wife; whose Chesed is unparallelled

Oi those nights she stayed up with me!

Throught the writings of the Tzaddik who understood my

darkest soul

Through the sobs of Bienenstock in the hineni Uman's

musaf

Yes I want more

Of You

In the very void we are asked to cross over and see You

despite...

This "challal hapanui" is so real; an empty void

But I fall short

I fail here

I am no Tzaddik.

I do hear the silence on a summer's day in the corn fields

The wind rustling the tips of the golden sheaves

And the leaves play a symphony of green being conducted

by the breeze

The grass even feels soft to my barefeet

The lapping water on the boat's side in the middle of the

quiet lake

Here I do feel Your Presence

And when a patient says "the pain is gone!" your magic is

delivered

When a good shiur is over and my students connect, the

glow in their eyes

The "aha" of connecting with truth, You are definitely there

In my tears and broken heart when I feel I am alone in this

world and the only one who senses the insanity of "out

there"...

But mostly in the humdrum the routine there is silence

In the silence

In the absence of You

In the suffering of all broken bones

In the senseless violences in Your name

In the pietistic Holier-Than Thou scholarship of your

sacred texts

In the hair-splitting legalisms masquerading as Spirit

I still must see You

Even in the darker side of my own soul

My betrayals and lies

The deceipts and indifference

The sloth and laziness

In all this I must learn to see You.

Help me to see through

The materiality and silence

To hear You

And see the message encoded in reality

Help me feel You in my life

In my ordinariness

In my mediocrity

In my grandiosity

In my brokeness

In my rote-ridden halachic rituals

In the void

The silence of the expanse

Not a sound

Deafening

Please hear the screams

Failed In My Pain

Six weeks and more

The pain abates imperceptibly slowly.

Day by day punctuated by waves of relief then irritation

I am reminded of it daily.

A wrong move

A twist or turn

Lying the wrong way

Sore reminders of a worse period of intensity.

But I feel I have failed it

The pain inscribed in my sinister leg and back

I have missed somehow the message it contained

Written into the C1 fibers as they emit their strong

message top the cord and brain.

I have not decoded the written message, the Morse code

that would banish the need for them again.

As if I still don’t get it

As if I must interpret the body as pointing to something

beyond itself

Why not just accept the body as is, for itself

An automaton, independent of mind.

Listen to the waves, the character of pain the triggers, the

sensitivity

The paresthesias, the dysesthesias the hyperpathia,

each a different quality of pain and sensation, listen to the

symptom,

stop interpreting, stop reading the body.

But that is my way!

The body as text

Sometimes impenetrable

Often inscrutable

To be deciphered like a sacred manuscript,

Musty and wilting, letters almost disappeared

But then what parameters are we to use in our

hermeneutic quest!

What Middot or rules of interpretation, 6, or 13, or 32!

Each points us in a different direction!

Each leads to a different oral text, a different imagined

body.

Reading is one thing

Interpreting a different art

Translating is something else

As Benjamin said; translating is violent; creating or

destroying in its path

I must not be a good interlocutor

Or maybe good at listening to others but stomped when it

comes to my own body.

Have I let it down?

Have I failed yet again?

I need more patience for sure

To allow the voices to percolate up

From the depths and the memories

Patience is such a rare commodity these days.

The work is hard

Journaling recovery mediation and prayer

The quartet of song

The medium by which the feint voice may just surface

If allowed

I will wait more.

Patience Patience

From Webster’s dictionary:

_pa•tient

Pronunciation: 'pA-sh&nt

Function: adjective

Etymology: Middle English pacient, from Anglo-French,

from Latin patient-, patiens, from present participle of pati

to suffer; perhaps akin to Greek pEma suffering

: bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint

: manifesting forbearance under provocation or strain

: not hasty or impetuous

: steadfast despite opposition, difficulty, or adversity

a : able or willing to bear -- used with of

b : SUSCEPTIBLE, ADMITTING (patient of one

interpretation)

- pa•tient•ly adverb

Main Entry: 2patient

Function: noun

a : an individual awaiting or under medical care and

treatment

b : the recipient of any of various personal services

: one that is acted upon

As a patient myself I recently had much time to reflect on

the meaning of the word.

My illness required the utmost patience! Paralyzed by my

pain, unable to move I had plenty of time to reflect when

not consumed by the pain!

My illness demanded endurance beyond my expectations.

For the first time I was bed bound and powerless over my

body. Trying to imagine the pathology within, the facture

sites and the mashed lung tissue old memories from

medical school path classes needed to make sense of all

of this. Bloody tissue slowly being resorbed into the body

through the white cells, release of toxins etc etc.

Lying on my bed face up, fluorescent lights glaring waiting

waiting, the nurse comes, the therapist oh no not her! She

will cause me immense pain with those bloody breathing

exercises. I want to leave my lungs alone I do not wish to

stretch anything! Alveoli bronchi whatever, leave them

alone! Then the waterworks, change of dressing plumbing,

water in yellow fluid out, measure measure. Then blood

pressure, the squeezing of the upper arm, more

discomfort, the pulse the thing in the ear for the

temperature etc etc. the day fills up rapidly with these

measurements the pill time the food time the X rays visit

downstairs over the agonizingly uneven floor, each bump

anticipated but never as bad as the actual bump, sending

shivers of pain through the back. The day fills rapidly.

Food tray arrives, negotiating the space between the tray

and the mouth without pain, not wishing to eat, no

appetite, being pushed by the staff and family.

Patience is demanded and learned quickly and painfully.

Patience for the process of healing

Body time

Slow time

Agonizingly slow time

Healing time

Time to ponder

The insanities of one's life

Time to think about relationships past and present

Resentments and fear surface quickly to fill in negative

space

Time to pray and make sense of this on a higher level

Why me

Why now

This is not what I needed!

But it is

Precisely what the "Doctor" upstairs ordered

"go learn patience" He said with a smile

"go be a patient for a while!" He said.

Looking back the body leaves its scars

Things do not work like they used to

Aches and pains arise form places I never thought existed

on my topography

And the therapist now hits more tender spots than ever.

If anything I have learned about mortality and fragility

And how lucky I was

And nevertheless I did not come away unscathed

In the psyche scars are also left

The depression has still not lifted

And I cannot will it away

Nor will I medicate it

I must watch it closely and not allow it to become anger

And learn to remain hand off

Allowing it to percolate and dissipate with respect.

I learned how close I needed my children

how angelic my wife was throughout

Arising at 3 am once home to lift me up to a sitting position

which was still agony.

Night after night without complaints.

Love in the trenches.

I learned what a small community the town I work in is

And that even now patients ask me how I am doing

And that people still care.

I learned what angels the nurses are day after day self

sacrifice in ways doctors have yet to figure out.

I learned how paradoxical this God of mine really is

That He teaches in unexpected ways and painful too.

This I must still teach

Having experienced it myself

To my poor patients in pain and suffering

To remain patient

To learn to endure

To suffer well

To listen to the body and its message

For it will arise no doubt.

Bonded In Sciatica

I stroke Tsiona's neck slowly as she is absorbed in her

pain.

This sciatic pain leaves its trace, as she bears the next

generation, the first of my grandchildren...

totally at one with her body, its pain its pathway but also so

connected.

an organic union of spirit and flesh. I can relate to her and

her tears, my beloved daughter, always have.

My uncle Eric (London) held me back from running amock

in 1953 at my aunts wedding. I was a terror! You can see it

from the black and white fotos. You see he is my hero,

loving to all despite everything. Now at 80-something, he

hobbles around with one gammy leg from a severe

arthritic hip and or spinal stenosis. Today on the phone to

Eric he has that same tone of voice telling me "Julian don't

worry so much" with an "ah" that pierces me as to how

similar the voice is to Tsiona's compassion.

Eric has suffered too all his life, parental rejection, BBC

Symphony Orchestra-years of work to acceptance after so

much abuse, now body racked in pain as he limps on his

Jacobean arthritic hip…

I, representing the intermediary generation...with my

baggage (we need not rehearse yet again the litany.) limp

at times and feel that curvy nerve after hours in traffic as I

fidget and squirm in my seat.

Joined between three generations -Eric, me and Tsionawe

have forged this moment in a bond of knowing. So this

is the genetic transmission… this is how that spirit gene

worked its way through the family tree web of Ungars and

Sargons.

Tears that bind us three together, tears of knowing, the

body in pain, the soul in anguish

We know in ways...there is something Divine about it, we

have this unconscious awareness of things as they areand

what is wrong-and who is responsible.

We three carry this burden together, knowing God's

unbearable pain-reality as is-and being as unacceptable.

Yet accepting it as is.

In The Bosom of God

After that our father Abraham had seen, and pondered

over, investigated, and understood these things, he

designed, engraved, and composed them, and received

them into his power (hands). Then the Lord of all appeared

unto him, took him to His bosom, and kissed his head, and

naming him after his own name, called him his friend; and

as it is written, completed a covenant with him and with his

seed forever, who then believed on God, the

Tetragrammaton, and it was imputed to him for

righteousness.

Sefer Yestira Chapter 6 Mishna 4

Into the Bosom of God

God taking Abraham into His bosom and kissing his

forehead and calling His beloved

What does it take?

An Abraham of course!

But he included us Abraham's descendents forever into

His bosom.

That is the covenant the Brit.

To be enveloped near the heart so close one can hear it

beating

To be enveloped with both arms; the right signifying

unconditional healing, the left a stricter yet caring love.

Held close until the breath gets short

Feeling the intensity of desire of the Father/parent.

Tears begin to flow

So this is what we were searching for, for so long

Filling our hearts with every kind of substitution including

work food drink

Rage false loves and desire

Only to find out that in the surrender the arms were waiting

all along

The bosom opens warm and receptive

And the breath full.

Sobbing for all the pain caused others

All the selfish pride and arrogance

All the denial and self delusions along the way

Too late for most

Many still smarting from the damage done years ago

Children in therapy for the demands to fulfill some ethereal

notion of success.

Parents harboring pain for abandonment at critical

junctures when needed

Absent for siblings emotionally

The litany continues on and on,

Heaving cries for a wasted life

Spent in illusion, missing the point

Chasing the life style not the content

The trappings of wealth and culture

Even the pursuit of academic credentials for other ends

Not an end in itself

The defiling of religious virtue and praxis

To impress others to impress period

But in the end not fooling oneself

The dark nights tell all

The restless awakenings

The legs keep moving though the body is still

The mind keeps racing

The thoughts never end with no peace…

As a child of Abraham

Whose grandfather was Ellis Abraham

Whose grandson is Abraham Menashe

Who’s added name is Abraham born out of the current

trauma

Four generations no doubt more ancestors as seen in the

cemetery in Cochin

Surely we too have the right as his descendants

To make claims

To beg being taken I

Into the bosom of God!

Avinu Malkeinu.

May this child of God grow to fix things

His ancestors as yet were unable to accomplish

What a weight upon those little shoulders!

But that is the price he pays

Another Akeidat Yitzchak

The altar of expectations this time

Poor thing.

It Doesn't Get Better Than This

18TH TISHREI YOM HILULA of RABBI NACHMAN BEN

SIMCHA

It does not get any better than this.

He places his head in the nook of my neck-dozing yet

Still clutching me with his short arms.

It does not get any better than this,

A happiness I never experienced before-deep penetrating

satisfaction- simchah, an experience that echoes 'this is

what have lived for all along-for this very moment'

All has been worth it for this little child, all the pain of the

past the discomfort in being alive, the deep wounding, all

worth it.

It beats even love-making!

So this is naches!

The Divine Child lies on my shoulder-what a zechus.

I feel so blessed. I cry in joy. Thank you God!

For this moment, thank you! I am truly at one with this

Child-of-God, I wish only to nourish him, his growth, his

becoming, my desires melt away- he is my only focus now,

the future, my flesh and blood, my kinsman, I would truly

die for him.

Another moment; another head lying on me,

This time it’s my father in law's.

The white-haired Patriarch lies in my lap, in the succah,

second day Yom Tov, after suddenly feeling feint. The

normal chit chat suddenly broken by an impending sense

of foreboding, all goes quiet as we busy ourselves in his

immediate care. The succah becomes transformed making

way for the ambulance crew, the stretcher and the

paraphernalia of medical equipment. Such is the norm for

the management of near-syncopal episodes in modernity.

A strange feeling and a bond, my teacher, father-in-law,

mentor, often feared, now lies flat on makeshift chairs

cradled in my arms. White beard squared at base, pasty

forehead, still possibly unconscious, ashen-faced. Is this

the end-so much history between us! Has it all come down

to this moment? I too am powerless over his life.

Ambulance on its way we wait and listen for its siren in the

neighborhood streets. There is a strange calm in the

succah now, nothing to do but wait. So ironic that his life,

his purity and obstinate righteousness, his halakhic

precision, his erudition and Talmudic mastery, his delight

and sense of pride at having married into the Beis harav,

Malchus, now lies prostrate in this succah on my lap, in his

83rd year, face up, almost fearless, as if accepting

gracefully whatever is in store.

Life is so fragile, and I lie strung between the two of them,

one a child, an infant less than a year old, the other a

patriarch-hoary headed and a sage of a generation,

respected by all. Both heads lay on me, strung between

generations, one in the nape of my neck, filling that

angular gap perfectly with his little keppie, the other

cupped in my palms as we cool his forehead with cold

compresses. One the past-full of tradition and erudition,

Rabbinic splendor, the other a promise of the future, a

knowing look in this infants eyes when he gazes upon you

as if he has the secrets-a compassionate eye- followed by

a royal gestured wave.

Do I even remember dada holding me as an infant? My

other grandfather was killed 8 years before I was even

born. I have no memory as I search for body imprints of

such paternal connectivity. I only remember Nana in my

body.

It does not get better than this -

Chained before and after in a link of fathers and sons I

have finally found my place this succos in this long line

that stretches back into antiquity and forward into the

misty future.

I am so grateful to God for this

I am so grateful for this simchah in my heart

I feel equally privileged to have served both sage and

grandson holding their heads, their beings, in my hands.

For this alone

For this moment in time

It was worth having been created

It remains eternal.

Living on the Knife Edge of Doubt

Strung out between two worlds secular and sacred.

I remain on that knife-edge between the two.

Not allowing myself the luxury of one camp or another,

even within my tradition

I used to staunchly defend "modern orthodoxy" (which

turns out to be neither) or "religious Zionists" (a true hybrid

contradiction in terms).

Not wishing to give in to either nor to give up on either

validating both,

Worried about losing the essential quality of either were I

to choose.

And even in my turn to Hassidism the path of Reb

Nachman "chose" me and demanded one "Be a Litvak in

the head and Hassid in the heart".

Once again, straddling both the rational as well as the

mystical worlds.

In my practice I too strive for "evidence based" clinical decision-making

And counsel my patients on remedies that are scientifically based

Yet I believe it’s practice is an art, more akin to the

humanities and magical arts!

Lastly in my theology; in a nightmarish post-Holocaust world

Where others drill the last screw into the coffin of Western

Civilization and Christianity

I remain drawn to the symbiotic roots of these Pharisees,

Rabbis and early Church Fathers hankering after a long

forgotten mythic collegiate dialogue

So that I might be able to reconstruct a truer picture of

Incarnation and Crucifixion

From a Rabbinic perspective,

Treasures lost in our rejection of sectarianism.

For living in a world after the Tremendum-I need so badly

to recover those roots of Mesiras Nefesh and the Torah of

Rabbi Akivah to make sense of God’s latest demands for

His people's collective Akeidah.

Fully aware of the psychological benefits of such a stand

And the prophetic criticism of "sitting on the fence" literally

I still wish to remain in that space "in between", since I

cannot nor wish to make intellectual choices either here or

there.

I wish to hold the opposites, stay with the tension, hold

that too

And let the conflict allow something new to emerge.

This is the brilliance of Reb Nachman's refusal to choose

either the Vilna Gaon's or the Alter Rebbe's position on the

Tzimtzum, rather demanding from his Hassidim to "hold

the paradox of the Chalal Hapanui" the vacated space, for

only the Zaddik can hope to traverse this infinite chasm of

the presence of the Absence of God.

And in this post Holocaust space a place of apparent

radical absence of the Divine the Rebbe demands an act

of faith as in Chagal's painting the White Crucifixion

portrays-an act of Mesiras Nefefh of surrender despite the

absence.

The critical key is how to find that road map that will help

us traverse the vacated space!

And I'm told that I must stay put on the knife-edge

between the Makif and the Pnimi [1] the transcendent pull

and the immanent push.

The Ratzo and the Shov [2] rising and falling in the cyclical mythical

Mandala of life.

I must remain in that space between the Twin Towers.

So the easy solutions and one-sided response must be let go

For a more complex holding pattern

The waiting for God

And Simone Weil's afflictions

The refusal to accept easy theological platitudes

Despite Rabbinical approval.

We will stay in this space of radical doubt

And make of it a new path

A paradoxical faith

A faith, despite

Steadfastness in the face of

A protest in the style of Midrash and the Baal Shem Tov

The lost Princess and the Seventh Beggar [3]

And when the Messiah arrives we will ask him why?

Why so long in coming?

Why watch so much suffering in the interim?

What pleasure had the Divine from all this?

And he will sigh.

[1]See my essay Makif and Pnimi, Circles and Lines, June 2007

[2]The ebb and flow, ascent and descent, the coming toward and backing away

from the Divine which is the hallmark of all spiritual paths.

[3]The Story of the Seven Beggars, Rabbi Nachman's Tales, by Arnold Band,

Classics of Western Spirituality, Paulist Press 1985.

Dying Into Creation

Before He thought, about this world

An idea arose in His mind, Israel.

In the silence of shtok kach ala bemachshava

He thought of the martyrs, Rabbi Akiva, and the mothers

who would sacrifice their children in the churches of

Mainz, Speyer and Worms, and the babies who would go

up in the flames of Hitler’s inferno.

In that first breath of life He too had to die a bit. In His

plenitude, in His pleroma He too had to make room, of

Not-Him, an internal dying to the self.

From His breath, I breathe...

That unconscious deep inhalatory gasp recognized only

when I surface after being too long submerged

In the purifying waters of the supernal mikveh,

When I realize just how primitive this reflex gasp is,

Unable to control it.

(And they say water boarding is not torture!)

But in that breath-His exhalation into my lungs comes at a

price-

For He demands, requests, begs,

We live, and return the favor!

But how! We finite creatures living out our puny lives

At the end of which we too must "give up the ghost"

And breathe that last breath

When that very last exhalation gets no inspiration and

We stop....breathing

We ex-pire.

Yet taught in the secrets of Torah about the "kiss of death"

reserved for the precious few, the Patriarchs, Moses, the

Tzaddik/saints and Reb 'Melech', (even my wife's

grandfather! was witnessed)-in whose death mirrored that

primordial act of creation- in the kiss- the breath is literally

sucked out, sucked back into the divine. misas neshikah

But those chosen received this gift precisely because they

lived each moment,

Each breath as if...what was being asked,

What was being demanded,

Was a readiness at any moment,

For mesiras nefesh

To give infinite pleasure back to the divine

By self-sacrifice

To give up the ghost immediately upon request.

As the martyrs were so ready- the daily rituals and

customs seem to focus on training us for the possibility for

such similar demands at focal points in history- (do we

need to rehearse them again?)

The martyrs argue among themselves as to who should

go first,

Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel or Rabbi Shimon the High

Priest,[1]

Who should be first to die, and

As the Piacezna mourns his son in the fall of 1939, in the

Ghetto Warsaw,

He rereads the death of Sarah our matriarch[2]

As one of possible suicide in order to confront her Maker

With the real question behind the Akeda, the binding of

Isaac.

Not his survival rather his descendants' martyrdom!

She foresaw in her prophetic mind

Generation after generation of blood, and man's

inhumanity to man.

This was not the blessing promised to her husband!

She was to present herself prematurely to protest and

complain

That this might be the lot of her descendants.

"And the remaining of her years did not protest."

But God demands no less of what He himself gave in

creating this world.

Mesiras nefesh as imitato dei,

A true replication of creation, in the very act of dying.

By dying and giving Him our last breath

We, too, act in creation in the very surrender to creation.

We, too, breathe back into God what He had given so

painfully

By limiting Himself in this world.

By transforming our desire for self preservation

Into the desire to breathe back into Him

We are replicating His desire to create

Resulting in His dying-if only a little.

When the angels then protest citing "zu Torah vezu

schora!"

Is this Torah and is this its reward"

God's response remains "shtok! Kach ala bemachshava.

Be silent!

For thus it arose in My mind".

A silence that is so deafening it can shatter a universe.

But the shtok refers to the silence of withholding, waiting,

holding back...

"Be silent" meaning "it is not yet time to breathe it back

into Me!"...

"I am waiting for my martyrs!"

Creating the world dying and breathing,

The inspiration and exhalation

The pulse of life itself

Includes the dying

For all is mirrored in the divine in that original thought.

[1] Avot deRabbi Natan 38:3. the reason being "not to watch the death of my

friend" but reworked in Eish Kodesh By R. Kalonymous Kalman Schapiro

Succos 5702 as "I want to be t'chila the first to be martyred because being

first forges new paths in worship. Alluding to the death of his beloved son;

who also was meant to forge new paths in hassidut."

[2] See Rashi to Gen. 23:1-2. and midrashim op cit.

Music Thanatologist

I lie on the couch and prepare myself for this experience.

I close my eyes and prepare myself as if this might be the

last day on this earth.

I am in my 55th year

My preparations should begin.

Lower Heh

He begins with playing his harp.

Each string gets plucked and is allowed to die slowly

without dampening

Each note follows the other sequentially

I am filled with grief

For myself, my past, my children and parents

My ancestors

My people,

Humanity

In ever enlarging circle of grief

I think of the Vurker Rebbe and the "ocean of tears"

Yes I am his Chassid.

Drowning in tears of grief I am breathing deeply and slowly

holding the in-breath then the out breath.

Holding all this suffering on behalf of humanity right this

moment

The only one alive

Avraham haya yachid...

Deeper breaths bring deeper pain and it cuts right through

me.

That is until he stops. The silence is deafening and cuts

short this self-indulgence.

Silence, holding my breath

All is still

The chapel is silent.

Screaming silence.

Vav

Next he begins to sing, deep slow baritones

Vowels of the language emerge from him

And I feel I am being transported across somewhere

To another side

Where there is movement, as if I am transforming into

something deeper and higher.

This lasts for a short time followed by another silence.

Heh Elyona

Now music emerges once more

Notes in a higher range being played with a slightly more

distant feel

I am in another place now where I am hearing the music of

the spheres

An exalted place beyond suffering

Seeing or feeling on God's perspective

His overall view of the world below where all is soothing

and calm

In this space nothing is affecting me

Just the privilege of being present to a higher order of

harmony.

Yud

Finally silence and my vision is clouded by waves of

circular shadows coming and going

I am puzzled by these spherical shapes moving across my

visual field

Until I realize that I have arrived at the core of the Divine

Adjacent to the Ein Sof, where in Azilut there is only

Desire

I have become present to Divine Desire

And filled with a sense of awe and reverence for the gift

Being present to the source of all creation, desire.

This place brings a feeling of exaltedness and sanctity.

I cannot stand it here too long and end it quickly

As if I had been privy to something so refined

I must only stay a little while and soon return

To my world.

To Think That This Day Could Be Your Last

It is good, we are told, to see this day as possibly your last

It is good, we are told, for it stimulates repentance

But what if

As I do today

Really feel

That this day

Is my last?

The terror overcomes at first

Then the unbelievable sadness and grief

Imagining as I do

How Malka must feel right now

When the doctor returns with the imaging report

The belly

The mass in the pancreas

The terror, the realization, three months left

The end is near.

My last day?

Impossible to describe

The pit of the stomach, a gray round mercury ball filling it

Hard shiny surface, impenetrable and reflective

Disallowing anything to penetrate.

The last day, Like some platoon of soldiers ordered to

stand fast knowing well

That the odds are overwhelming

The possibility of survival slim at best

No way out

Under orders.

They write home, each one in another corner of the dug

out.

A strange quiet pervades the group

Realization of the inevitability of life and death

And the imminence of what is near at hand

Time cramps up-it accelerates

And memories flash past too quickly, but then one is

Not allowed the luxury to stay awhile, to linger on a

particular feeling.

Not allowed to bask in the glow and warmth of such

sentiments...

Ah, the soldier reminisces, that first kiss, messy but of

another world, the first dance, feeling he thighs rub slowly

to the music on me, to be drowning in that love and

tenderness.

Nana's dining room table laden with curries and yellow rice

with almonds and raisins atop…stuff I never got at home,

the aroma wafting down the street as I approached

running as a child famished with hunger, only to be met by

Dada in the doorway, cod liver oil in a spoon on an

outstretched hand.

Our journeys to Europe the car laden with supplies an

adventure with Dad at the helm, the summers after school

with Mum by the public pool, or the trips to Harrods, then

the mind fast forwards to the arrival of my first child on the

way home form the hospital playing him Mozart's 21st

piano concerto in C the slow movement, as if my

transmission of culture and ideas had to begin

immediately and never stopped. His creativity and ability

to talk to one and all.

The twins, their ultrasound and dancing in the hallway of

the hospital grabbing the cleaning man and hugging him,

Tsiona's V on the trampoline, such perfection in movement

and body control, Ayelet's birth and naming by Rav

Soloveitchik and her love of horses. Tsiona's V- shaped

jumps on the trampoline at Eli's barmitzvah on the front

lawn in Boston and her perfection in spirituality now, her

strength and non-intellectual insights into others, deeply

psychological analysis. Ayelet's love of horses and show

jumping with such pride, Aliza's sharp mind and loving, in

my old age, Naftali's deep sense of the tragedy of it all,

inheriting this sense allowing me to rest knowing my son

will carry on this message, Batya's incredible intuitive

sense of people and fierce intellect, admired by all.

My wife who supported me through the hard times and the

embarrassments of my life, who stood there despite my

lies and betrayals to love and care unconditionality...

And the first snowfall and brilliant blue sky, the green

leaves of summer and golden leaves of fall, the aroma of

spring and the rolling countryside of England gentle and

welcoming, the music of the spheres, the Beethoven and

Bach the glory of the sublime, the words of the Rebbe that

connect, the utter fullness of all life has to offer...

To this I must now be able to say farewell

To this I must be able to surrender

I must relinquish

For it is not mine

Nor of me

I can only touch it and bless it and leave it for the next

To move on

To allow others to witness and taste of the Garden of Eden

like I did

To be able to say thank you

And goodbye

To be able to let go

To leave

And be grateful

Without regrets nor tears

To swallow sentiment

And pray for the memories to stay forever

To join others who have left already and are waiting

For me lovingly

Nana and Dada and all my loved ancestors who watched

me born and now to arrive on the other side.

This is what is being asked of us each day

To be in that space

To be able to let it all go.

And in kriat sh'ma to be able to leave it behind

immediately

For the Other, the Creator who makes and takes

Who gives and demands

Who allows us in to this amazing crazy thing called life

Then asks us to relinquish it sometimes slowly sometimes

quickly in a flash

And sometimes with a mass in the belly

Just enough time to do the unfinished business and make

amends and tie up strings

And say the goodbyes slowly

To prepare for the next journey

In joining the ancestors.

The daily doxology recited to proclaim the oneness of the

Divine

Eileh Toldos Eliezer, Eliezer

And just like Noach we are told,

It was not just his life

But what he left behind that remained alive

Even greater than in his lifetime.

These Zaddikim have that power

We are told?

Not that this diminishes the pain

For her, for Beila

I saw her first by his bedside

At Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center

(Now some 30 years later

Now questioning all I had learned here

The dogmas and beliefs of such exalted ivory towers.)

I came to the bedside

Saw the MRI?s and sighed.

Having seen too much already

Too many of such injuries

Too much grief and suffering already

One more Zaddik.

But there she was, Tehillim in hand

Ready for battle, she refused

To accept

Anything given, any expert advice that did not point the

way back to what was,

A radical refusal

She was going to take her own path

Despite conventional wisdom

She was going to bring back her husband, by

Conventional and other means

No stone left unturned.

Of course she paid the price

She would have to relinquish everything

For this goal this mission

Family relationships, sleep, career

She had it all worked out.

I quoted a Zohar to him

Lying motionless,

And his eyes opened.

A miracle.

He was "locked-in", not comatose.

A neurological nightmare for those imprisoned in the body.

This challenge was not going to be left unanswered.

We went to work bit by bit, but

As you know,

Neurology is a different planet

What is slow in this world is lightning speed in planet

recovery

All is measured by tiny improvements over months

Extreme patience is required, as well as commitment and

diligence

Any slight oversight

Results in pneumonia and set-backs affecting

consciousness and the brain.

But we commit to each other and get to work.

A glorious year of ups and downs setbacks and

improvements

The glory of his children surrounding him in the Catskills

and his students.

And she never faulted

Never gave up hope

Never ceased her critical inquiry

She the unsung heroine of this story

Can only be comforted in the knowledge

That no stone was left unturned

And that he is more alive now that before

That his children and students, disciples and those

influenced by him

Are in his consciousness and better served by his present

place

By his representation above

A true advocate for our broken lives.

She must feel this now

My heart knows she wanted it otherwise

Of course

She wanted only the ultimate

Her man

Back

In her arms

In her living room

However, whatever, whenever

That connection,

My heart cries for her

Despite all we are told

All we believe

All we profess.

She the unsung heroine of the story

Left no stone unturned.

Sir Aaron's Last Hours

No longer did I chuckle at Robert's 'knighting' of my

patient, Aron Schreiber - "Sir Aron" he would say...

for his native, innocent colonial respect revealed the

deeper truth of Aaron's true aristocracy.

Never before had I a patient like this, combining an

incredulous body-will-to-survive,

coming back each time from the brink of death... with a

soul already tired of this world,

longing to re-unite with his beloved.

I arrive at noon to find him ashen faced and dyspnoeic.

He recognizes me, and then shakes his head...

I know - we've rehearsed this many a time - he a victim of

zealous caregivers

and a loving family, I a victim of my training - a warrior

against the malach hamavet (yet now

torn by my wish to honor his desire, his autonomy, his will

to leave, to be free of the

prison of his ailing and frail body).

Each time I see him suffering my resolve to help him be

free of his anguish is met with

the weight of tradition and ethics on my shoulders. Never

were the two so evenly

matched.

He is gasping for air but not from an inner desire to breath,

rather as if driven by some

mechanical power to inhale against a reluctant and

increasingly resistant chest. I go

through the motions... ordering blood work, gases, suction

equipment arrives, oxygen

tank, I.V. antibiotics for the aspiration pneumonia.

Esther cries" "Aaron...breathe!", "Aaron…drink!", "Aaron, do

you love me?" He answers "Yes,

I love you".

Two years ago, following the stroke, he had told me of his

fatigue, tired of life itself,

ready to leave this world...only to be brought back as we

medicated him, infused him,

intubated him, bagged him, fed him, catheterized him

incessantly. Then last year,

hospitalized, I see him again, and he shakes his head, and

again now. He knows I read

him correctly. He is holding me accountable to him. This

time, I cannot bring myself to

call the ambulance. A voice within says

"dal" as if this week's sedra that has God naming Himself

"Shaddai" was no accident,

and now these voices within are at peace with the

decision. No longer torn, I would

make him comfortable with oxygen and fluids and a mini

bedside ICU and be with him

for as long as it would take. No anger, no pain, merely

provide a space for his suffering

within my own, to give him the permission he was seeking

all along to leave. No more

cries to "eat" "drink" "breath" or even "live" and "love", just

give him the ability to choose.

The sun begins to set over the glorious bay, clouds reflect

its orange glow and Aaron's

eyes become glazed as he too looks towards the window,

the blue sky, as red and

purple hues begin to tamper with the confidence of the

day.

I want so much for this...to honor his decision,

I want so much for his dignity to remain, to the end,

I play a chazanut tape he liked, to usher in the Shabbat,

and tell him of the sanctity of

the coming hour.

Esther calls a minyan of ten honorable men to bring in, to

welcome the Sabbath Queen,

the Bride, his bride - I knew in my heart he was a romantic

- that love and music and

good fellowship were his life's blood, that his humor and

love of others could never be

quenched, that even at this moment, this hour, there

should be poetry in his passing.

The sky begins to turn purple, then blood red, then deep

dark blue, that sun, yellow,

large ball of fire, dips slowly towards "shkiya" into its

mikveh of purity.

Esther lights her candles and I ask her to light another set,

I Know not why - as if his

neshama, that light of beauty should remain long after...a

premonition.

We begin to recite Minchah and the sun slowly dips below

the horizon...I am gripped

with fear, a dread, for my own death? no...I grieve for my

own life...for his life, for the

utter tragedy of life, for the sunset, for the impending

inevitable darkness.

We begin Kaballat Shabbat and sing louder and louder

around Aron...

"Aaron...you must rejoice, the Sabbath Queen has arrived

to escort you...she loves you..."

We sing Lechah Dodi the way he liked, Young Israel style,

"Come my beloved...to meet your bride, we shall receive

the Sabbath..."

at that moment in time...yazesa nishmato...

with these words

among a fellowship of honorable men

surrounding him

escorting him to the threshold

where She...his Malka...was waiting...

Finally out of anguish and pain.

No longer yearning for all he had lost

and all that we can never have

at peace with his beloved

at last.

I ask the Kohanim to gently leave

we place him in the den

and close the door.

We sing louder still

between the tears

what utter pain,

what wound that cannot heal...he was

Only a patient - I've had many,

but what a prince, what dignity.

only a man - I've known man

but what an aristocrat, what a life!

only a yid...

but what a neshama - so beloved by all,

yazesa nishmato...be - lecha dodi

It is dark outside,

the lights of the bay skyline flicker as if to remind us of

what might have been, a taste of

the true light now hidden.

Despite the last hour

our meticulous preparation

having honored his wishes

having escorted him in dignity

and song

to the threshold,

we are in shock.

It cannot be,

a sentential human soul has left us.

The lifeless corpse remainsone

less neshama...one whole universe is gone.

Patriarch of the family, who lived and loved and joked and

sanghow

can we get over you?

we cannot.

Your subtle humor and song live on in our broken

wounded hearts.

All who knew you, family friends, colleagues, doctors,

nurses, and...caring gentle

devoted Robert...were loved by you and loved you-

Farewell, prince of men.

The Cruel Ukrainian Sky

Uman 2004

Chilled tonight

No street lights in this poverty-stricken village

So the heavens light up instead

A myriad stars interrupted rudely by

An arrogant Milky Way streaking across its belly

Like a paintbrush dripping with white color.

It has to be this way, dark below, the lack, of power

sanitation

Food clean water, warmth, here in the belly of the Ukraine

Well known for inflicting suffering on its peasants and in

turn they on its Jews

A few incandescent lights flicker insufficiently

The mirror image of the myriad lights of Las Vegas whose

night is day.

Dark below and deathly silent above.

It occurs to me that it is only because of the absence

below that

Those heavens do light up

I cannot see this in say Chicago or London

They burn too light

But here

In the dark village night

The sky radiates its own specter of myriads of white dots

And it is precisely the absence of sun

Only in its total lack of presence

Do these millions and billions of stars reveal themselves?

Only against a total blackness below and above

Only in the absence of any light

Can one appreciate what is really out there?

As if in my life too

Only in the paradoxical absence of light, of that which we

are used to depending on

Here in this village totally incapable of housing or even

feeding thousands of pilgrims

Here as I suffer hunger, jet-lag, insomnia, fatigue and

sanitary facility

Here alone, can I see reality as it is

Its silence

Its loneliness

Its magnitude

Its seeming eternity

Only in the degradation and filth

Only in my own broken life

Here in the Ukraine

It becomes apparent.

Is there hope of seeing it in its truth?

In the absence.

Next morning the sun shines brightly

A few clouds whisp by

The blue azure sky reveals nothing of what transpired

Nothing but an open expanse of seeming emptiness

All might be in order

This maybe all there is

The golden globe traversing its daily course

We bowing to its times for our prayer rituals

Timing everything by its rise and setting

Who would have guessed the secret up there?

In this cruel place

Other secrets emerge

The whole quarter is a burial ground

Thousands martyred here by Gonta

Then the Zaddik desires to remind us too

Demanding we never forget him or the souls he came to

rescue here

Secrets in 1941 more Jews drowned under the suffocating

ice

Mostly local complicity

The Nazis needed few men here

Secrets buried and drowned

Occasionally body parts emerge splintered

After a torrential rain

On the side of the mountain.

Cruelty etched into the very landscape

In the high Slavic cheekbones of the paratroopers

Doing light duty

Protecting us from them or them from us we wonder?

Snickering at the Hassidic kids prancing around them

In another time it would be different

If the Jews were not bringing dollars like today.

Europe drips with Jewish blood and secrets like these

If not for the Zaddik this too would escape the gaze.

Their rage is tightly contained under their uniforms but

their expressions

Betray everything. Nothing has changed,

Why should we dignify this place of hell, massacre,

torture, the way we do each year?

For the Zaddik demands we hold this very paradox

To come specifically here to dance

In the middle of this horror

Under the cruel sky above

Mirroring the apparent calm and absence

Like the sun during the day

But if you come out like he demands at night

To meditate

His secret to us will be revealed

The other side of midnight

Reveals the opposite

The heavens split open only here

Silent

Majestic

Beyond the petty hatred below

Eternal

To dance and rectify the souls

And ourselves

Here in this cruel landscape specifically and nowhere else.

The paradoxical Zaddik makes those kinds of demands of

us.

The Ides of March

To Hershy

To those of us humbled?

No longer an intellectual quest,

No longer an academician's point of interest, the quiet

library of discourse,

To those of us humbled

By the power of this -other side?

By its sheer uncanniness, its cunning,

Its control over our lives

Be it illness, dis-ability, pain or addiction

We, who have been humbled,

Have a different -knowing?

We know instinctively, in the body

Some innate sensor, like a cat when danger is at hand

Though the body wreaks its havoc

The battlefield of lain corpses

In this body, the wasteland of past desire.

Stumbling, faultily, we hobble home from the lost war, in

the broken trenches

Whose only recompense is this wise knowing

The knowledge of the flesh

An ironic reminder of a primordial gnosis

In-the-flesh, whereupon waking

Those ancient parents felt only shame

Soon to be clothed in rags-of-guilt

Even God was called in as a tailor

For only God could hide this shame, yet

Even God could not, would not remove this shame.

We do not need Mel Gibson to tell us of Passion

We too have our flesh whipped and torn

We too run the gauntlet of Prussian then Russian soldiers

The snake beating us into submission

We too have had illness inscribed into our flesh

As carriers for our past, our families our ethnic groups

Even our nation.

Too much violence out there

Too many centuries of torture now inscribed in the chosen

ones

In pain, in illness, a new cross, a new nailing, new

stigmata.

To those of us humbled, nailed to the cross of illusion and

desire

Waiting for God to remove our shame

No longer satisfied with mere covering

Refusing the tailor albeit divine

We say?

Surrender!

Resist this game

Be taken prisoner

Prisoner -of-war

You warriors-of-the-flesh

You’ve won already

Because of your burning flesh

You have "the knowledge" you know the secret, you have

the gnosis

Inscribed in you

Without even thinking

In your stigmata the secret is revealed

No longer an ideos

In the head

No longer a mind-game

You radiate it in your broken flesh

Your pain and your anguish

You, we are the prophets of today.

Sienna Racine Retreat

The Middle Ages showed a renewed interest in labyrinths

and a design more complex than the classical seven circuit

labyrinth became popular.

This was an eleven-circuit design divided into four

quadrants. It was often found in Gothic Cathedrals but

over time many of these eleven-circuit designs were

destroyed or intentionally removed.

The most famous of these remaining labyrinths is at

Chartres Cathedral near Paris, France.

Yehuda Leib and Mark play together, guitars, on the

Labyrinth here Sunday December 1st anno domini 2003

A strange spectacle: two Russian exiles, singing Hassidic

music on a Dominican mat in a convent!

This was to be my substitute pilgrimage to Jerusalem this

sunny Sunday in Wisconsin.

The labyrinth at Chartres was built around 1200 and is

laid into the floor in a style sometimes referred to as a

pavement maze. The original center piece has been

removed and other areas of the labyrinth have been

restored.

This labyrinth was meant to be walked but is reported to

be infrequently used today. In the past it could be walked

as a pilgrimage and/or for repentance. As a pilgrimage it

was a questing, searching journey with the hope of

becoming closer to God. When used for repentance the

pilgrims would walk on their knees. Sometimes this

eleven-circuit labyrinth would serve as a substitute for an

actual pilgrimage to Jerusalem and as a result came to be

called the "Chemin de Jerusalem" or Road of Jerusalem.

In walking the Chartres style labyrinth the walker

meanders through each of the four quadrants several

times before reaching the goal. An expectancy is created

as to when the center will be reached. At the center is a

rosette design which has a rich symbolic value including

that of enlightenment. The four arms of the cross are

readily visible and provide significant Christian

But the music moves me to stand and dance

I am dancing with the Lord

Like David

A rapture

Fills my heart

My legs are at one with the tempo

Now high notes and I tiptoe

Now low ones and I thump like a Cossack.

I am dancing with You Lord

I open my arms wide to embrace you

Then raise them

In praise

Of Your world

The green grass outside

The wind on the bluff

The lake and the whiffs of cloud

Paralleled like the paths of the labyrinth

The water laps up slowly and rhythmically

The patterns of nature

Below as above

Gone are the worries

The surgicenter

The powerlessness

Now all is warm sun through the cloud

The sun as begun to set slowly

So mincha faces another direction. Away

As if after High Noon no longer do we pray in her direction

For she is dying too

And our worship must face East

To life

And Jerusalem

And the future

The lake the bluff the green the blue sky

The setting sun

My life

My words

My embededdness in the world

Away from home

Here-Right now- I am

Alive.

This labyrinth is the very key

For each obstacle standing on the path from the periphery

to the center

Looks as if it forces one away from the center

Forcing one to take a right angel or even 180 degrees...

Yes if one perseveres and sees this as part of the very

nature of this path

Then eventually, but only eventually

One will arrive at the center.

Ye, you may ask why the bother...

Why such a tortuous path...

But then at the center it forces you once again to turn

There is no stopping

And once again you twist and turn at every obstacle

Only to find yourself at the periphery once again

Where you began.

Yet looking back you slowly realize that the purpose was

never to merely reach the center

Never to have gotten there as soon as possible

In the shortest distance possible

No

Far from it

The real goal was to have covered the entire map of the

circle

To have trodden the entire field of the circle

Leaving nothing out

As if everything on the circle was equally important

As if you had to have visited every inch of this area.

My dancing was circular

Like a dervish

And my field was my life

And the goals I thought I had in place initially some 30

years ago

I met with only gates and fences and high wired obstacles.

Each step along the way I met resistance

And only now so much later

Do I realize?

In this dance

The obstacles were my truest friends and spirit guides

That in the very obstacles and traumas

The rejections and the failures

I was forced to make about face turns some 90 degrees

and some 180 degrees

So that by now I have covered most of the field

The light and darker side of my soul

And that this was my greatest gift.

Do Not Become a Professional Patient

My dear patient

Do not become a professional patient.

Do not become dependent on doctors.

Do not turn into a doctor hopper.

Let me not be just another doctor along the way

To some mythical cure you are seeking

Another physician along a string of opinions.

Not for my sake

I will continue to heal, as I best know

Whether you come back or not

(God willing)

But for your sake.

Let not your expectations be your source of frustration.

Open yourself to the possibility that this time

Both you and I will work together

To hold your suffering and healing.

This time let your expectation slowly dissolve

Open yourself to new possibilities

And resist the temptation to become dependent yet again

On me or anyone else but your own

Inner healer.

Allow us to validate your pain and suffering

And strengthen your inner power for healing

Your own ability to stop the hopping

Office to office

And finally rest here

With us

As we help you take charge of your health

Once and for all.

Thanks.