Irene was not my first hurricane. That was Agnes in 1971.  One story went around the Jewish community about the Shamash of the synagogue in Wilkes-Barrie, PA, a Holocaust survivor, who, despite being a very old man, rather than evacuate as did everyone else, ran to the synagogue and carried all the Torah scrolls to the safety of the roof, far above the flooding. He refused to get onto the helicopter sent to save him until they had secured all the Sifrei Torah.

It’s one of those stories you store in the back of your mind.  It wasn’t the hurricane that made me remember; it was the earthquake.  I was in Baltimore visiting my mother, may she live and be well, when everything began to shake.  I was with the person who trained me to be incredibly careful with blessings, and to see each beracha as an opportunity, so while everyone else was screaming, I protectively crouched over my mother and recited the blessing over earthquakes.  I admit that I was more focused on using the blessing to honor my mother than I was on honoring God. Little did I know that my blessing was considered an active rejection of Kavod haTorah, Honor of Torah.

It was my mother who taught me about Kavod haTorah. It was she who insisted that as we approached Baltimore, hot and exhausted after the very long drive from Toronto, we stop and change into our Shabbat clothes to greet my grandfather zt”l, “You have to dress in your best clothes to greet one of the greatest rabbis of the generation.” It was my mother who taught me to wash my hands before performing a Mitzvah. I washed my hands before beginning the trip to Baltimore to visit my mother, and, when she asked my for a cup of ice water, I washed again. Her nurse asked me why, and was touched by the explanation, “It’s like you are honoring God when you honor your mother!”

The nurse heard my blessing and thought I was praying. I explained that I was reciting a blessing over the earthquake, just as I do over lightening and thunder. She stopped me on my way to the elevator an hour or so later, and said that she asked a rabbi, and he said that there is no such blessing.

“I’m also a rabbi,” I said.

“He’s a real rabbi,” she responded, “with a long beard and a long coat!”

I laughed, and an obviously observant woman standing next to me, chided me for my lack of Kavod haTorah.

It was at that moment that I recalled the story of the elderly man who risked his life to save the Torah scrolls. That was Kavod haTorah! The rabbi of the congregation told me that the man had served as an example of how lacking he was in properly honoring Torah. (I have great honor for that rabbi’s honesty in speaking to a young teenager.)

I learned one form of Kavod haTorah from my mother. I learned another from the shamash who risked his life to save the Torah scrolls. Am I concerned about the perceived lack of respect for a “real rabbi,” who was unfamiliar with a basic law? No, not really. Am I concerned when people are more focused on external, rather than internal, expressions of honor? Absolutely.

I think I’ll stick to honoring the person who taught me the real meaning of honoring Torah.

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“I was friends with one of the crew members on TWA Flight 800. I had called her because she was on my mind. It had been a while since we’d talked and I missed seeing her. I left her a message on her voice mail to call me. A few days went by and I became increasingly irritated that I had not heard back. My husband said just call again or say what you want to say on her answering machine. I knew she was probably busy and was just waiting for some free time to call me back. Even knowing this, I became increasingly angry. I held back my love. I closed my heart to her. The next day her plane crashed. I deeply regret that I did not give my love freely. I was playing a game with love.”

The woman was measuring her love by the moment, by one action,and then closing her heart. We must try to see love in the big picture, not in detail. A detail such as a single phone call can be a distraction from real love.

David Kessler – Life Lessons Page 43.

“And these matters that I command you today shall be upon your heart.” (Deuteronomy 6:6) ‘You should always look to these matters as if they are new, fresh and exciting – as if the Torah were given today – not like a stale, outmoded dogma.’ (Rashi)

Although each individual action matters in a relationship, some more than others, we cannot measure our love for God by one moment or action, nor can we measure God’s love for us by the moment or single action. Perhaps the “Today” in the verse, especially when considered together with the “Alls” of the previous verse; “All your heart, all your soul, all your resources,” means that we look at the entire day, not moment by moment.

Just as with every relationship, there will be moments during the day when our love for God falters. There will be actions that do not reflect attachment. There will be moments during the day when we do not feel God’s love. We will suffer experiences that lead us to question whether God loves us. We strive to live days of love. We want to be able to recite the Shema before going to sleep with a sense that this was a day of love.We measure the day by its “All.” We want to go to sleep feeling, “This was a good day with God.”

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“Sadness is a wall between two gardens.” Kahlil Gibran

One of my sisters left a copy of Gibran’s “The Prophet” on the living room couch. Gibran was popular in the sixties, but, protected as I was within the walls of my home and Yeshiva, I had no idea what the book was about. I loved reading bible, and assumed it was a book about one of the biblical prophets. It wasn’t. It did, however, make me think.

I was too young to understand most of the book, but I was taken by the quote above. As usual, I waited up for my answering machine, my father zt”l, to come home to discuss the earth shattering questions on my mind: “Pa,” I said, “my sadness over moving from Baltimore to Toronto is a wall between two gardens.”

“So, smash it down!”

“How?”

“With a hug.”

It worked.

“Once you knew that a wall was there, you could break it,” he explained.

The Three Weeks culminating in Tisha B’Av consistently help me get the walls of sadness that separate me from God into focus. I can now use the Seven Weeks of Consolation to smash them.

The Seven Weeks only work if we have brought the walls of sadness into focus. As long as the walls are invisible, hidden by our refusal to acknowledge them, we cannot begin to demolish them. We are uncomfortable admitting that there is sadness in our relationship with God. We speak the phrase, “All for the best,” but the hurt lies hidden in our hearts. We may declare our belief that God is Perfect Good, but our frustrations separate us from Him. I speak with many people who are clearly angry with God, but insist that they are not. I observe them carrying their walls around with them, but they, sweating under their heavy load, out of breath from their exertion, deny the walls existence.

We can’t smash walls we deny. The Seven Weeks are a complex process of acknowledgment, confrontation and discussion. Perhaps we should rename them the Seven Weeks of Wall Demolition.

The experience of being able to access the garden unimpeded is thrilling, and the perfect way to enter Rosh Hashana.

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A man calls the doctor: “Doctor, what should I do? My friend just keeled over and died!”

“The first thing is to make sure he’s definitely dead.”

“Okay, hold on.” A gunshot sounds. “Now what?”

The sense of helplessness in an emergency, the tragic miscommunication between doctor and caller and it’s tragic consequence and the eager ingenuousness of the final question provoke a simultaneously unbearable and exquisite emotion. We laugh, well, I did.

Most miscommunications are not so funny, but equally tragic, or painful. The husband who responds to his wife without thinking. The child who misunderstands a parent. The parent who misunderstands a child.

When I read all the advertisements for Shabbat Nachamu parties and gatherings, I see miscommunication. Nachamu means “Be comforted,” not, “Party!” I know that some people have joyous wakes when someone dies, but I’ve never seen a party to celebrate the end of Shiva.

The miscommunication does not begin with “Nachamu,” it probably begins with the way we mourn: If the mourning was real and heartfelt, we would not be able to switch so quickly to “Come join our Shabbat Nachamu Blast!”

Were we actually mourning?

Where is this miscommunication? When we are told to mourn what once was. Tisha B’Av is not to mourn what happened long ago; it is to mourn over what we do not have in the here and now because there is no Beit Hamikdash. We mourn the loss of possibilities. We mourn the sense that our efforts do not seem to matter as much as they should. We mourn that we live in such a confusing world. We mourn that we do not seem to celebrate our joys as much as we suffer our pains. We mourn that we do not hear the Torah’s teachings with more clarity.

We mourn the miscommunications. No wonder the Torah portion of Shabbat Nachamu contains the Shema: Hear what is really being said. It’s the only way we will effectively hear the message of the Shofar at the conclusion of the Nechama process.

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Five tears ago, S came to speak with me. A tumultuous childhood, and the early loss of his mother convinced him that he would survive only if he was in total control of his life. By the time S came to speak, he was married with two children, financially secure, and miserable. He felt that he was flailing his arms in the air, slowly losing control of his life. He was so busy maintaining control that he found his life programmed to the minute, over programmed, and he realized that he had no joy in life, or even his children. He had every minute of their lives scheduled, and between music lessons, sports, art, and the country club, they were too busy to spend time with their parents. His wife understood that she could not live with him unless she too lived a super controlled life, and she was increasingly unhappy and frustrated. His structured life had begun to crack, and, to his surprise, he couldn’t control it.

S believed that control was a source of comfort in that it was the opposite of his childhood experience. He acknowledged that it is impossible to assert total control over life, and was willing to consider that his need for control was a strategy to avoid life rather than live. There was no question that his need for control made his life less controllable.

We agreed on an experiment. He took his family on a unscheduled vacation; meaning, he did not schedule an activity for every minute of their vacation. He even took his old paintbrushes, paints and blank canvases he had stored away more than twenty years earlier. His wife and children were hesitant; they had never experienced such freedom with him. They all had two fabulous weeks filled with joy and relaxation.

He called to thank me and to inform me that he had signed up for a Yoga, Tai Chi, and meditation, classes. I voiced my concern that he was again over scheduling his life and would eventually lose the benefit of the classes. I urged him to take only one class. He laughed, and said, ironically, “Don’t worry! I’m in control.” I knew that it was only a matter of time.

I did not hear from him again until last week when he called for some comfort: His life is again out of control. He didn’t request help, but comfort. He was suffering through life, and did not want, perhaps could not want, to hear how he could let go of his need for control. “I want you to comfort me as I look back at my life and realize that I destroyed my happiness, my wife’s happiness, and my children’s happiness.”

I offered to help him develop strategies to change his life, but he wasn’t interested. He wanted comfort: “You comfort mourners all the time. Why can’t you comfort me?” He wanted to control my response.

I refused. I did not argue with a mother who had just lost her ten-year old son who said, “My life is over.” I argued with S. I did not argue with a nineteen-year old who woke up in ICU after a skiing accident as a quadriplegic and said, “Now I’m just waiting to die.” I argued with S. I comforted the mother by listening. The mother eventually chose to live again. I visited the boy three months later with a mute, crippled and deformed survivor of Mengele’s experiments. He sat next to the boy’s bed and held his hand. We sat in total silence for about fifteen minutes. The boy got more from staring into the eyes of my companion than from countless pep talks. He is now happily married to a wheelchair bound woman. They were among the four people who came to that survivor’s funeral.

The mother certainly experienced that she could not control her life. She was comforted when she accepted her lack of control, but was determined to deal with whatever would come her way.

The quadriplegic definitely learned that he did not control his life. He was comforted when he accepted that he could still control certain things.

The Jews who refused to heed Jeremiah’s warnings believed that they were in control, and could prevent the world’s super power from capturing Jerusalem. They soon learned that they could not control everything. They, as the mother, learned to accept that they could not control everything in their lives.

They arrived in Babylon without any sense of control, in chains, disgraced and humiliated, but soon began to rebuild their lives. They learned that although they could not control everything, they could control some.

They went through two stages; accepting what they could not control, and then, learning to accept responsibility for what they could.

This is why Isaiah begins his words of consolation, “Nachamu, Nachamu,” “Be comforted, be comforted;” he reminds us that comfort and consolation progress through stages.

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Earth has no sorrow that

heaven cannot heal.

Thomas Moore, “Come Ye, Disconsolate”

It’s comforting to know that I have friends who are always there for me.

It’s comforting to know that I can reconnect with them even after long periods of silence.

It’s comforting to know that I have overcome far greater challenges.

It’s comforting to know that I have a loving family.

It’s comforting to know that I can make new choices.

It’s comforting to know that I don’t have to be perfect.

It’s comforting to know that I can make mistakes and still be loved.

It’s comforting to know that I will have more opportunities to pray.

It’s comforting to know that I have so much more to learn and discover.

It’s comforting to know that I have so many happy memories.

It’s comforting to know that I still dream of great accomplishments.

It’s comforting to know that, despite disappointments and losses, I have so much that is good.

It’s comforting to know that there are people crazier than I.

It’s comforting to know that there are people much saner than I.

It’s comforting to know that I have teachers and friends to whom I can turn for advice and guidance.

It’s comforting to know that I do not need to turn to Moore’s “Heaven” to find comfort!

Please don’t misunderstand me; I, of course, turn to Heaven, (perhaps not Moore’s version of it,) for direction and meaning. I do not want to turn to Heaven for comfort.

I did not turn to Heaven for comfort when I sat Shiva for my father. I believe that Heaven , through Torah, prayer, the laws of mourning, and Mitzvot, guided me in finding comfort from my life here on earth. Heaven helped me find comfort within.

I have seen far too many people avoid dealing directly with painful experiences by “turning to heaven” as an escape, or, from my perspective, avoidance.

When I wrapped Tefillin the morning after my father’s funeral I felt that although my life had been shattered, I still had enough strength to continue to live with passion and joy. Heaven’s Tefillin, so to speak, reminded me that life continued to be filled with possibility.

I do not turn to Heaven for comfort; Heaven turns me to look inside me, and it is there I feel comforted.

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“He cut down the towering stature of Adam, the creature He had fashioned with His own hands,

He had just stepped into the treasure house of Eden when he was evicted. Thus God demonstrated to him that the couch is too short.”

We cannot think of all the death and destruction of Tisha B’Av without going back to the first sin and the first exile that soon followed; Adam in the Garden.

We cannot think of Adam’s sin, so soon after being fashioned by God, without wondering whose fault was it that Adam sinned? Is it possible for us to live without sin? Were we always destined to live in exile? The first “Eichah,” – “Ayekah,” is a question to one who has lost his place: “Where are you?”

We think of the spectacular failures that led to Israel wandering the desert for forty years, and the destruction of the two Batei Mikdash and Beitar and automatically think back to that first day, so soon after God fashioned Adam, and reread the question and respond to God’s, “Where are You?” with our own question of “Eichah?” – “How could this be?” Or, “Could it be otherwise?”

Tisha B’Av takes us to the core of the human struggle to soar and create, to master ourselves, to “conquer” the world, which inevitably confronts us with the possibility of sin. We begin by remembering the tragic events of Tisha B’Av, but soon go to reflecting on the failures that have haunted humanity since the Garden.

It is easy for one who is mourning to think back on humanity’s slips and weep, “Eichah,” “Alas!” However, we too can reread the “Eichah” to “Ayekah,” a simple question that has more than one answer, “Where are you?” We can respond as Adam did not, “We sinned, but are prepared to repair.”

The true tragedy is when we are stuck in the “Eichah” mode, focusing on failures and the difficulties of a creative life. The solution is a simple rereading of the word as “Ayekah,” to take time to reflect and ask ourselves, “Are we where we want to be?”

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The popular conception of genius is that it is an inborn gift, yet an increasingly large body of research suggests the opposite – that genius is always the product of sustained effort. A case in point – Mozart:

“Standing above all other giftedness legends, of course, [is] that of the mystifying boy genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, alleged to be an instant master performer at age three and a brilliant composer at age five. His breath-taking musical gifts were said to have sprouted from nowhere, and his own father promoted him as the ‘miracle which God let be born in Salzburg.’

“The reality about Mozart turns out to be far more interesting and far less mysterious. His early achievements – while very impressive, to be sure – actually make good sense considering his extraordinary upbringing. And his later undeniable genius turns out to be a wonderful advertisement for the power of process. Mozart was bathed in music from well before his birth, and his childhood was quite unlike any other. His father, Leopold Mozart, was an intensely ambitious Austrian musician, composer, and teacher who had gained wide acclaim with the publication of the instruction book A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing. For a while, Leopold had dreamed of being a great composer himself. But on becoming a father, he began to shift his ambitions away from his own unsatisfying career and onto his children – perhaps, in part, because his career had already hit a ceiling: he was vice-kapellmeister (assistant music director); the top spot would be unavailable for the foreseeable future.

“Uniquely situated, and desperate to make some sort of lasting mark on music, Leopold began his family musical enterprise even before Wolfgang’s birth, focusing first on his daughter Nannerl. Leopold’s elaborate teaching method derived in part from the Italian instructor Giuseppe Tartini and included highly nuanced techniques …

“Then came Wolfgang. Four and a half years younger than his sister, the tiny boy got everything Nannerl got – only much earlier and even more intensively. Literally from his infancy, he was the classic younger sibling soaking up his big sister’s singular passion. As soon as he was able, he sat beside her at the harpsichord and mimicked notes that she played. Wolfgang’s first pings and plucks were just that. But with a fast-developing ear, deep curiosity and a tidal wave of family know-how, he was able to click into an accelerated process of development.

“As Wolfgang became fascinated with playing music, his father became fascinated with his toddler son’s fascination – and was soon instructing him with an intensity that far eclipsed his efforts with Nannerl. Not only did Leopold openly give preferred attention to Wolfgang over his daughter; he also made a career-altering decision to more or less shrug off his official duties in order to build an even more promising career for his son. This was not a quixotic adventure. Leopold’s calculated decision made reasonable financial sense, … Wolfgang’s youth made him a potentially lucrative attraction. …

From the age of three, then, Wolfgang had an entire family driving him to excel with a powerful blend of instruction, encouragement, and constant practice. He was expected to be the pride and financial engine of the family, and he did not disappoint. In his performances from London to Mannheim between the ages of six and eight, he drew good receipts and high praise from noble patrons. …

“Still, like his sister, the young Mozart was never a truly great adult-level instrumentalist. He was highly advanced for his age, but not compared with skillful adult performers. The tiny Mozart dazzled royalty and was at the time unusual for his early abilities. But today many young children exposed to Suzuki and other rigorous musical programs play as well as the young Mozart did – and some play even better. Inside the world of these intensive, child-centered programs, such achievements are now straightforwardly regarded by parents and teachers for what they are: the combined consequence of early exposure, exceptional instruction, constant practice, family nurturance, and a child’s intense will to learn. Like a brilliant souffle, all of these ingredients must be present in just the right quantity and mixed with just the right timing and flair. Almost anything can go wrong. The process is far from predictable and never in anyone’s complete control.”

David Shenk – The Genius in All of Us

Quick Question: People often speak of the Genius of the Jewish People that allowed us to survive, even thrive in, two thousand years of exile. Is our “Genius” an inborn gift or the result of sustained effort, nurtured through the environment we create?

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A golden bell ornament that archaeologists believed belonged to a priest or important leader from the Second Temple Period was found in an ancient drainage channel in ruins next to the Western Wall on Thursday, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced.

The small bell, which has a loop for attaching to clothing or jewelry, was found underneath what is today known as Robinson’s arch. The area underneath the arch was the central road of Jerusalem, which lead from the Shiloah Pools in the City of David to the Old City and the Temple Mount.

They believed that the bell fell off the official’s clothing while he was walking along the road and rolled into the drainage channel, where it has sat for nearly 2,000 year

The archeologists based their findings on the verse in Exodus: “…And upon the skirts of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the skirts thereof; and bells of gold between them round about” (Ex. 28:34,36)

Read more Jerusalem Post

http://dusiznies.blogspot.com/2011/07/2000-year-old-bell-from-kohanims.html?m=1

In honor of my grandfather’s yahrtzeit, the 14th of Tammuz: I was sharing a memory of my grandfather zt”l (Lessons From a Stained Haggadah) with a friend, and he reminded me of a story I told almost twenty years ago:

My grandfather was giving me a horse-back ride on his back in 1963, when Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l entered the house. My grandfather turned to Rav Moshe and said, “I promised Simcha that I would give him a ride to the next room.” He finished my adventure, rose and went to properly greet the Gadol Hador, the greatest rabbi of the generation.

When I was older, I asked my grandfather why he did that, “Isn’t greeting Rav Moshe more important than giving a grandchild a ride?”

“Yes, but greeting Rav Moshe is not as important as keeping a promise to a child!” He then pointed out numerous examples in the Talmud and Halacha about keeping promises to a young child.

I was in awe of how his mind worked and how, even with a grandchild riding on his back, while he was on his hands and knees, he was making decisions based on Halacha!

And there was more: “I never forgot that story,” he said, “because I’ve always been worried that you would learn to treat Rav Moshe with just a drop less of respect. I carefully observe your interactions with him and how you speak of him to be certain that you were not negatively influenced by the story.”

If I was in awe of him before; I was now at an entirely new level of awe of a great Torah scholar. I believed that it was an insignificant story to him despite being so important to me. Yet, he not only remembered; he thought about it to an unimaginable degree! He understood that I may have been negatively influenced, “just a drop,” by the experience, and that it would affect my development. He saw things and thought about them in a way that was and is far beyond me.

It is not his learning I envy, but how the learning was expressed in everything he did; how it enhanced his awareness and sensitivity.

No wonder our Sages insist that we must spend time serving Torah scholars to truly acquire Torah.

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