Last week as I was preparing for Thanksgiving, I thought about the moment when we all go around the table and say what we are thankful for. And even though we do it every year, everyone looks surprised when I ask the question. (Perhaps they hope I’ll forget?). And every year we go around the table and everyone says the same thing - family, health, friends, so by the fourth person people keep saying that the person before them took their answer.
So this year I did it differently. This year was about the specifics. Thankful for your health, you say…I wanted details.
This year I am thankful to Dr. Benjamin for becoming a specialist in Lasix eye surgery and changing the way I see.
I am thankful to my husband during these very trying past months. I have been distracted and often have neglected him. I am thankful that he is a patient, kind and forgiving husband and that I get to be his wife.
I am thankful for Rachael. She has taught me how to be a better friend. She listens without judgment. She reminds me to laugh when I can’t.
We’ve been getting off too easily with these one word answers so this year we went deeper. I knew that protests were in the works so I came up with a solution: I had 3×5 cards available for anyone who would rather not say their thanks out loud. We could gather them up and read them all anonymously. But we didn’t need them. Once the group got started - yes, I had to go first - everyone wanted to talk. People were glad not to have to say thanks for only the big things. Yes, we were all grateful for family, but everyone had someone special they wanted to talk about.
I don’t yet know how I’ll add to this next year. But I do know that after this year’s success no one will protest.
I have two broken records in my house. Yes, that is a euphemism for two daughters that are continually asking me for the same thing over and over again- a dog. I get it. When I was about their age I too was a broken record. Over and over again, day after day, I would ask my parents, “Can we get a dog?” And over and over again, I heard the same reply, “NO, we are allergic to dogs.” At four I was not sure what “allergic” meant. (My, have times have changed. To have an allergy is part of the lingo at my daughter’s preschool since everyone has “allergies”. But I digress.)
Since I did not know what they meant, all I heard my parents say was “No!.” “No, we can’t have a dog.” “No, you are not allowed to have a furry, cuddly, unconditionally loving dog living in our house.” Now I am a parent and I am the one saying “No!”
Even my husband is not on my side; he grew up with a dog, Edith, and thinks having a dog teaches responsibility, unconditional love, and kindness to animals. I agree with him wholeheartedly. I think dogs are great. But still the answer is no.
I have my reasons. It turns out I AM allergic. My eyes swell shut, throat itches and I get covered in hives. Sure I have heard there are “hypo-allergenic” dogs. Whatever! I so do not believe it that. But there is a secret (well now not so secret) reason too.
If we get a dog, I know who will be picking up his business, taking him for walks at ungodly hours and schlepping him to the doctor for even the slightest thing - me. I know that even if the dog’s fur and saliva do not cause me to break out every single moment, the responsibility of having a ‘child’ that will never grow up and move out will drive me crazy.
And more, I also know that I will make the dog crazy. Having a dog to call my own! One that I have wanted since I was four! I will smother him with love. I will become that owner that has different leashes for different days, monogrammed collars, serves the dog homemade food and has the vet on my speed dial.
So as long as the question is “to dog or not to dog”, the answer is always going to be no.
Four months after We Plan, God Laughswas published my mother was diagnosed with Glioblastoma (GBM) stage 4 brain cancer. I dedicated this book to my mother for her courage and how she overcame so many challenges in her life. Now she is facing her biggest challenge yet, and she and many others suffering with GBM need your help.
Today June 16, 2009, my mother turns 65 years old and the paperback of We Plan, God Laughs with a new epilogue goes on sale.
In celebration , I am donating 10% of the profits to the Art of the Brain Fundto help in the fight against brain cancer.
At my son’s sixth birthday party, he stood up on the picnic table and took five minutes to introduce each of his guests. One by one, he went around the party and said each person’s name and how he knew them. When he got to India, the blond blue eyed princess in his class, he paused, took a deep breath and announced, “This is India, my love.”
His friends burst into laughter, but he didn’t. She didn’t either. They’re in love. Why would they laugh?
That night I asked him about it. He looked at me like I was not so smart and said, “I love India.” As if that was not perfectly clear from the day’s events. He is six - so what does he know about love? I started to worry - could he be that precocious? What has he seen on TV that I do not know about? I live in LA, there are Gossip Girl OMFG poster boards everywhere. I can’t cover his eyes driving carpool! So I asked him, “What does love mean to you?” I held my breath.
“When I am dribbling the basketball and I drop it, she runs and gets it for me. She is my favorite person to talk to during the day. She is funny and smart. And sometimes we put our foreheads right up next to each other, look in each others eyes and have a concentration of love.”
He was right.
That night my husband and I put our foreheads together, looked into each other’s eyes and had a concentration of love. It was perfect.
A few days ago, we put up a Sukkah - this shoddy, fragile structure in our backyard made with tarp, bamboo and schach (palm branches) for the roof. We built it to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot (the festival of booths). Booths, you say?
The tradition is that we eat, sleep, and “live” in our temporary house for eight days to gain perspective on everything that is permanent in our lives. Getting ready for it is a pain - dragging all out dished and food into a hut, convincing our kids that this is fun, the thought of eating in the cold. But sitting in it on the first night of sukkot, looking back into our living room, I could not help but feel grateful.
We can return to the warm, cozy house in an instant. Inside it is the refrigerator is stocked with holiday food and desserts. The comforters on our beds are waiting for us. Even our favorite sitcoms are just a click away.
Sukkot was working its magic on us and all we had to do was spend a couple hours making a very imperfect structure to “dwell” in temporarily to remember the blessings of our not quite perfect, but pretty amazing permanent one. I wish this feeling would last forever.
To date I have celebrated 39 Rosh Hashanah holidays. I have eaten a lot of brisket, chicken, apples and honey. And, after all this time, the celebrations have started to blend together. Dinner at home with the family, followed by services, more services, more food etc… for two days every year. Until this year.
As you know my mother was in the hospital recovering from brain surgery this Rosh Hashanah and since she is our matriarch and master host of the first holiday dinner every year - the Martha Stewart of the High Holy Days- everyone was in a tizzy.
Where would the 22 people that were coming to her house for dinner go? How would they eat? Pray? At first I thought maybe I should just send an email dis-inviting them. Really, under the circumstances they would understand. But my mom would not. Even if she had just gotten out of surgery. If I canceled I was worried she would never forgive me. Not a risk I was willing to take.
I did what any dutiful daughter would do. I brought Rosh Hashanah dinner to her hospital room. Yes, 22 adults and 7 small children crowded her room at Cedars Sinai. She had to sit in a chair; I needed her bed for the buffet. All her personal items and clothing were thrown into the shower; I needed every single inch of area space for drinks, paper goods and desserts. Sitting on the floor was not encouraged, it was mandated.
It was noisy. It was messy. It was crowded. Nurses complained. My mother was overstimulated. The food was cold, the drinks were warm. But it was a holy-day that no one there will ever forget. We lost the formality of the dining room, the stress of dishes and what to wear. No one was just playing along to make the rabbi happy. When we sang, everyone was huddled together, laughing and joyous - no one was too embarrassed. When we ate, the food all tasted good. When we prayed, everyone was present.
When we were just about to end there was a knock on our door. Everyone shushed. An old woman entered. Expecting her to start yelling at us, none of us looked directly at her. Then she spoke. “Was that the shofar blowing I heard?” “Yes, I replied meekly.” “If you get a chance, my husband is down the hall and he would love to hear it, would you mind coming by?”
Yes, this was the most memorable Rosh Hashanah ever.
Every year around the holidays our mail gets flooded with family photo holiday cards. And each year I set them up on the mantle above the fireplace and discuss how much our friend’s families have grown. In years past, we did not follow this ritual. As a rabbi of a large synagogue, sending cards to over 5000 people felt ridiculous.
But now I have not been in the pulpit for two years and so my husband suggested that we too begin the holiday ritual of sending a card with our family’s picture to all of our friends. So I booked a date with a photographer notified all the family and prepared for the hour session.
Of course, it was a nightmare. The photographer wanted to shoot us in the best light, four o’clock in the afternoon. This is the witching hour for children. This is when your delightful little people become devils. No one, except my adorable nephew Zachary who was in love with the camera, wanted to sit still. My step-father was horrified that we were not wearing shoes in the shot. My son hid behind my husband and only popped his head out to make faces. The baby kept trying to escape.
I felt for the photographer - and for me. I must have apologized at least twenty times to her - explaining that today was completely abnormal (a lie, but what could I do). But she was a professional and sure enough we managed to get the shot. The next day, through the magic of digital photography, she sent the picture.
Everyone looks perfect. Not magazine perfect. But we look like a family. Happy, messy, silly, real. We do not look like we posed for a picture. We are not all looking into the camera. Not everyone is smiling. But it’s a great shot. It captures us, all of us as we are. It is the way a picture is supposed to be and I can’t wait to send it out.
It has been three weeks and four days since my mother went into the emergency room. I know because each day has felt so long. I keep track without having to count.
Maybe because each moment seems to stick out in my memory. The moment she was in unbearable pain. The moment the Emergency Room doctor told me she had a stroke. The moment I saw my husband’s face when he walked into the ER. The moment she lost consciousness. The moment the nurses took her in for brain surgery. The moment of the code blue because of the heart attack. The moment the oncologist told us she had a GBM (gliobastoma.) You get the picture. Each moment has felt like a lifetime because it has been so painful.
Judaisim worships time. It sanctifies time. Every week we celebrate Shabbat - 25 hours of rest from our lives - to recognize that time is fleeting. We are suppossed to hold onto each moment as if it is our last. Each night before we sleep we are suppose say the S’hma (our proclamation of faith) so that our last utterance of our lips is one of praise to God lest we die. Each second counts.
This is all sounds good and in moments of clarity, I feel grateful for the 64 years and 4 months (to the day) that my mother was healthy. I feel thankful for all the precious moments we have shared. But in my not so good moments, I’m furious. It is still not enough.
Why is it that it never seems like there is never enough time? Could there ever be enough?
I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love and kindness that my family and I have been receiving since we learned of my mother’s illness. She had surgery yesterday and is doing well. We are all focusing on her recovery at this time and so I will be resuming this blog sometime after the High Holy Days. My brother, the techie, has set up a website for her friends and family with updates - you can find it at http://bzscolnick.blogspot.com. Shana Tova Umetucha (a very sweet new year), Sherre
I was recently preparing to speak to the Haddassah Convention with Rabbi Harold Kushner and Rabbi Laura Geller on “Happiness” when I came across a shocking statistic. In 1957 economists called the United States “The Affluent Society”, today we are twice as rich. We own twice as many cars per person. We eat out twice as often and we have technology in our homes that our ancestors never dreamed of. Yet -and this is the biggie - our happiness levels have decreased. The divorce rates have doubled. Depression and teen suicides have been on the rise. Not surprisingly, having more ‘things’ does not make for well being. (Of course in places where the people are dealing with basis survival on a daily basis this principle does not apply in quite the same way.) I have been thinking about it a lot. When have I been the most happy? Was it related to my financial status or something else? I can tell you that when I was in college, going to school full time and working at a consulting firm 30 hours a week all while watching my parents marriage crumble I was not happy. But I was very happy when I was sharing a small studio in Los Angeles with my best friend; eating dinner out of a toaster oven while going to Rabbinical school. Maybe this study is onto something. We can excel at making a living but fail to making a life.
OMG! A seminary student of all people had the audacity to take Obama’s note to God out of the Western Wall and give it to the media to publish. Of course the national news and every one of us condemned this behavior. How dare we expose the personal prayers of another human being? I could not help think, what if the prayer had said something incriminating. Just what if Obama confessed on that small piece of paper a great sin, would we have reacted the same? Maybe, then we would have felt justified looking at his personal words. I hope not. Which made me think, when Obama wrote that message, did he have to think that it might be read? Did he have to edit his own prayers? Has our exposure of political figures became so pervasive that they even have to be wary when writing to God. I can’t answer whether Obama was thinking that it would be read when he wrote that note, but I can say if he did, then as a society, as a people we seriously need to scrutinize our behavior. On Yom Kippur, we repent in the plural asking God to forgive Our sins - not only our sins as individuals. but our sins as a collective community. We repent this way because even if we never committed the sin, we are still responsible for each other and must them repent for the ones committed in our society. Everyone has the right to write to private note to God, so this year I will be asking for forgiveness for all of us for having read it.
Last week as I was preparing for Thanksgiving, I thought about the moment when we all go around the table and say what we are thankful for. And even though we do it every year, everyone looks surprised when I ask the question. (Perhaps they hope I’ll forget?). And every year we go around the table and everyone says the same thing - family, health, friends, so by the fourth person people keep saying that the person before them took their answer.
I have two broken records in my house. Yes, that is a euphemism for two daughters that are continually asking me for the same thing over and over again- a dog. I get it. When I was about their age I too was a broken record. Over and over again, day after day, I would ask my parents, “Can we get a dog?” And over and over again, I heard the same reply, “NO, we are allergic to dogs.” At four I was not sure what “allergic” meant. (My, have times have changed. To have an allergy is part of the lingo at my daughter’s preschool since everyone has “allergies”. But I digress.)
At my son’s sixth birthday party, he stood up on the picnic table and took five minutes to introduce each of his guests. One by one, he went around the party and said each person’s name and how he knew them. When he got to India, the blond blue eyed princess in his class, he paused, took a deep breath and announced, “This is India, my love.”
A few days ago, we put up a Sukkah - this shoddy, fragile structure in our backyard made with tarp, bamboo and schach (palm branches) for the roof. We built it to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot (the festival of booths). Booths, you say?
To date I have celebrated 39 Rosh Hashanah holidays. I have eaten a lot of brisket, chicken, apples and honey. And, after all this time, the celebrations have started to blend together. Dinner at home with the family, followed by services, more services, more food etc… for two days every year. Until this year.
Every year around the holidays our mail gets flooded with family photo holiday cards. And each year I set them up on the mantle above the fireplace and discuss how much our friend’s families have grown. In years past, we did not follow this ritual. As a rabbi of a large synagogue, sending cards to over 5000 people felt ridiculous.
It has been three weeks and four days since my mother went into the emergency room. I know because each day has felt so long. I keep track without having to count.
I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love and kindness that my family and I have been receiving since we learned of my mother’s illness. She had surgery yesterday and is doing well. We are all focusing on her recovery at this time and so I will be resuming this blog sometime after the High Holy Days. My brother, the techie, has set up a website for her friends and family with updates - you can find it at http://bzscolnick.blogspot.com. Shana Tova Umetucha (a very sweet new year), Sherre
OMG! A seminary student of all people had the audacity to take Obama’s note to God out of the Western Wall and give it to the media to publish. Of course the national news and every one of us condemned this behavior. How dare we expose the personal prayers of another human being? I could not help think, what if the prayer had said something incriminating. Just what if Obama confessed on that small piece of paper a great sin, would we have reacted the same? Maybe, then we would have felt justified looking at his personal words. I hope not. Which made me think, when Obama wrote that message, did he have to think that it might be read? Did he have to edit his own prayers? Has our exposure of political figures became so pervasive that they even have to be wary when writing to God. I can’t answer whether Obama was thinking that it would be read when he wrote that note, but I can say if he did, then as a society, as a people we seriously need to scrutinize our behavior. On Yom Kippur, we repent in the plural asking God to forgive Our sins - not only our sins as individuals. but our sins as a collective community. We repent this way because even if we never committed the sin, we are still responsible for each other and must them repent for the ones committed in our society. Everyone has the right to write to private note to God, so this year I will be asking for forgiveness for all of us for having read it.
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