My Mom: 10 year later, I wonder

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

When my mom was my age, I took my backpack and went on a year long trip around the world from which I’m still trying to figure out how to get back… what was she thinking? Travel – in that dinosauric era when there was no facebook to share pictures and no cell phones to send texts and my location… It literally took hours to get through, a phone operator finally connecting two dots across the ocean only to find out you dialed at a time when there’s no one home, not even an answering machine to catch the call. It took days and sometimes weeks to get to a local consulate or some other agreed upon address, to receive letters from home, real letters, in pen on bluish aerograms. I want to ask her, how did she sleep at night? Did she actually sleep at night all?? Because now, when my kids are packing their bags and heading out the door, each to their own adventure on the other sides of the world, I wonder.
I wonder about so many things.
It’s been ten years, and I still wonder.
Some years ago I’ve asked her to record her life story. She said no. I’ve asked again. And again. After my endless nagging (as if she didn’t know -), she agreed (as if I didn’t know -), reluctantly: “I have such a terrible accent”, she said, “Please listen to it only after I’m dead”. There is something about the quality of voice. Accents of dead people are much worse than live ones…
So I listened anyway (ah Michal, you’re impossible!). I heard everything. I wrote it all down. I got a lot of facts. And still. I wonder.
How was it for her to grow up in Germany of the 1930’s; to leave that beautiful home overlooking a lovely town-park, where in the winters she would go ice-skating on the river with her grandmother; the same grandma they had to leave behind because the quota was filled; the same grandma who said don’t worry about me, after all my husband is a World War I vet; the same grandma they learned later was gassed in Teresienstadt.
How was it to sail in a big ship far away; to arrive at the shores of then British Mandate Palestine in 1938, 10 years old, and go live in a moshav, a rural settlement with red sandy dirt that got into everything, and citrus orchards, and fuzzy, squeaky little chicks; where you can go barefoot and plant cypresses and vegetables, and get sunburned; how was it to complete high school in the 1940’s, in Ben Shemen, the notable Agricultural Boarding School, and then, be a paramedic in Israel’s War of Independence. In the bottom of a drawer I find an old yellowing photo of her and a handsome guy with a dark mustache, both in uniform. Who is he? Is the back blank because she didn’t know or because she never forgot? What will my kids find of me one day??
She stayed in the medical field. The early 1950’s saw some of the wettest winters in the very young country with tens of thousands newly arrived immigrants and no infrastructure. She went to volunteer at a nearby swampy ma’abara (tent city). She told me how she stood there, wet, in tears, unable to contain the scene, unsure what to do, when an old man in a tattered robe got off his barely dry bed, drudging through the water with his stick, to comfort her, to tell her things will soon be better. I’ve always loved that story for many reasons, maybe also because even when she could have come out as Florence Nightingale, she left the stage to another. When my daughter at six years old told me she was shy, I was wondering if I was raising my mother…
She gave us all the travel bug. In the late 1950’s she packed her stuff and boarded a ship again, this time in order to spend almost two years in North Carolina, working in a hematology lab and doing research on Cherokee Indians, as if this was a perfectly normal thing to do, including arguing with bus drivers when she insisted on sitting in the back, and returning to Israel with records of Paul Robeson, because “shy” does not mean ‘not opinionated’!
There is something between parents and children, like a river run: by the time we reach the point they last stood, they’re off to somewhere else. How much can we really know? But sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see her eyes in me. And I wonder.
Especially today, I miss her dearly.
May her memory be a blessing.

sargent maya frolich, 1949

NC1958

north carolina, 1959

shmiz march 2015 plus 080

savta 1997

1989

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what about receiving?

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

We had to stop short our learning in 1st grade this afternoon so they can get to PE on time. At first they were so, so disappointed, then they realized something and started to jump with joy: “Tomorrow we’re getting the Torah! Tomorrow we’re getting the Torah!”
Although the holiday celebrating the Giving of the Torah is still almost six months away, this week’s reading which includes the Ten Commandments, is like a little holiday of such. The extensive preparations and excitement was great back then, not only in my class.
Before the Giving of the Torah, the Children of Israel are told:
וְאַתֶּ֧ם תִּהְיוּ־לִ֛י מַמְלֶ֥כֶת כֹּהֲנִ֖ים וְג֣וֹי קָד֑וֹשׁ
“And you shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), and the question raised is, what does it mean for you to be “a kingdom of priests”? If it means that we should all be like the priests, well then, the priests of the Temple did not own land, were dependent on the people for their food and basic survival, and were busy serving the sacrifices, which were made and brought to them by others! If we’re all priests, who will do the rest of the work? Are you seriously saying we’re all supposed to be kind of like this?
Yes, pretty much, says the “Ba’al HaSulam” (1885-1954). There are many commentaries on this but his focus is saying that just like the priests have no share in the materialistic things of the land, so we should also remember that the world belongs to G-d, and we have to part of the flow, part of giving and receiving.
Flow is hard for us. It means being tunes in to the song of the universe; it means – being. In order to do so, we need to switch our self-centered egotistical needs and wishes, to more altruistic feelings and actions; to focusing on what we can and want to give; to figuring out how we can serve and improve life for those around us. Giving means we empty a spot within us to receive, and vise versa. Sometimes the action itself is not that different and all that happens is us seeing ourselves differently. “In those moments”, says the Ba’al HaSulam, “it’s as if someone who is doing their daily, mundane chores, sowing or harvesting ot whatever the task, is like the high priest, standing in the Temple, offering incenses and sacrifices to G-d.”
We still talk about the Giving of the Torah, because while it is given, it is up to us to receive it. Contrary to what we might think, receiving is even harder than giving (think of compliments we hear about ourselves – we tend to view them either with “modesty” or haughtiness). The Torah is a love song to the world. Had G-d not cared about His creation, He would have not bothered telling us what to do, how to be better to each other, our animals, plants and greater environment around us. Us joining it with joy and excitement, is us participating in this great love.

Shabbat Shalom.

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The Granddaughter of Doctor Doolittle

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

I am a granddaughter of a vet, so in our family, it was always very clear: animals live outside, people live inside. My childhood memories have lots of cats, mitzi and kfitzi and the like, all running through the streets of Haifa, rummaging through our neighborhood’s garbage cans, meowing high-pitched concerts at night. Living at ground level with windows open to a common yard, it happened occasionally that one or two sought a safe haven in the bottom shelf of the linen closet to give birth to a litter. After their discovery and recovery, as was the case whenever we children found a living creature, we gave it milk and got some soft shmates to line up an old crate. And if we were really good and it was really desperate, or the other way around, we would be allowed to leave it right near the front door, outside.
We never had a dog, because with a 3 rooms apartment, where would we put it? Dogs were a lot of work, suitable for those who had private yards, time to walk them, and the gumption to pick up their poop. The dogs I knew were tied to a tree in an orchard, their rope reaching just about the doorstep of the farmhouse at my grandfather’s moshav. They were meant to avert strangers, and they scared me.
Don’t get me wrong: being kind to animals was an important value. My grandfather, always addressed as doctor and highly respected, had, what a better sign of reverence? one of the only two phone lines in that moshav. The area’s agricultural residents would bring their donkeys, mules, horses and once, legend has it, even a circus elephant, to be cared for and cured. They would park their wagons at the dusty roadside, the row of cypress trees planted by my mom as a child already taller than me. He would walk down the brick path with a measured step, bag in hand, talk to the animal, talk to the owner, do some magic to make them both feel better, and send them on their way, trotting along.
The granddaughter of Doctor Doolittle, I knew the rules: animals are out, people are in. This is how I grew up.
My kids, naturally, inherited some of that attitude too. We treat our animals with joy, wonder, appreciation and care, but they are just as much farm animals as pets. When any one of the many rabbits we had, opted to run into the woods, that’s just the way life goes. When the song bird’s cage was left open and it flew out, we wished it a good life somewhere. And when the iguana, on a leash and harness, decided to climb the apple tree, we chuckled at life’s curiosities.
And then Zoe came into our life.
In retrospect, there was some scientific explanation to it: we simply got her a week too early, something about ours and the owner’s schedule. She was only 7 weeks old and missed the last week of basic training with her birth mother, the one about socialization with other dogs. One way or another, while for outsiders, she looked like any other (though much cuter!) golden lab, both she and we knew it: she was not really a dog.
So there was not even a question of where she’d live (inside), where she’d eat (bowl in kitchen, right near the dining table) and where she’d sleep (naturally, not near or under, but in our beds). Many hiking trails were chosen with one question in mind: not how long or how beautiful or how far, but – can we bring her. The 5 seater Camry often fit 5 of us, plus Zoe’s 75lb sprawled all over us. She knew she was part of the family and I think, was quite proud of it. She earned it and deserved it. Sure, she was cute, but she was the best dog one can hope for – kind and friendly and beautiful and joyful, always ready for an adventure, and… well, she was ours.
Earlier this week, she ran out, slipped, fell over and just died. I was there the whole time and still I can’t tell, what happened, did she hit her head too hard, was it a stroke, an aneurism, a… who knows. I find that there is not always comfort in knowing everything. We know she’s not here. The beds are emptier, the table is emptier, the car is emptier, and life, well, life is emptier too.
I never imagined one can get so attached to a dog, but In Hebrew, the word for dog is kelev – literally meaning, like a heart, and Zoe was just that. From her early days, with me, not knowing what to do with such a tiny ball of fluff, taking her to work, showering with her, caring her in my kids’ sling to do grocery shopping, she was part of the family. In time, her “babiness” wore off, and she grew out of her “teen” years of barking (only when we tried to eat or watch a movie– preferably with guests…) into a lovely lady. She had good and wise eyes; she understood people and interactions, approaching and distancing herself as needed; she put up with our nonsense, like dressing her up for Halloween; she knew when we’re going on a walk or a drive, and was quick to get in the back seat, lest she’d miss an outing.
I often tell my kids, it’s hard to raise parents. It was hard for Zoe to raise us too, but through all this, she allowed us an opportunity to be better, to get out of our comfort zone, to care for another, even when inconvenient; not to mention to have a healthy routine of walking twice a day and being outdoors, definitely improve our gumption level, picking up all sorts of things, and understand jokes about dogs and owners we would otherwise never… oh Zoe, we’ll miss you.

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The Liberation of Auschwitz – 71 years later

Posted on January 27, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

In honor of the 71st anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz tomorrow, January 27, I’ve asked – and am honored – to share this amazing story:

Shabbat B’shalach and the Liberation of Auschwitz
by Patrick Pinchas Feigelson

Having lived a significant portion of my life with two direct witnesses of the horrors of the Sho’ah , I think I have a primary (and growing) responsibility to pass on the message I received from them; a message made of words and silence, love and tears, fear and courage; a message that may not necessarily be found in books, movies, or museums.

My father, Raphael Feigelson, was born in Paris, where his father, Paul, forced into political exile, had come from Lithuania with his wife in the late 1880s. He was a metal worker, and he raised his son with the values of the union movement: social justice and education.

When World War II broke out, Paul started his own clandestine resistance with a newsletter, La Lettre de Monsieur Paul. Following in his footsteps, his son became one of the hundreds of students who marched down the Champs Elysées on November 11, 1940 — in theory to celebrate the end of World War I, but in fact to protest the presence of the Germans on French soil. He was only 14 years old. When the collaborators of the Vichy Government arrested his father, Raphael, for safety reasons, was sent to the city of Toulouse. There, while going to high school, he organized underground fighting among youths in the southwest of France. Imagine yourself, 17 years old, spotting a drunk German soldier in the middle of the night, knocking him down to steal his gun, a Mauser, and throwing him in the river. Imagine yourself, 17 years old, thinking, “When my father was my age, he killed people”…

In the spring of 1944, the French Nazi group, la Milice Française, caught my father and tortured him for one week before delivering him to the SS for more tortures. In June 1944, he was transferred to Compiègnes Prison. In the train, he tried unsuccessfully to escape. He was then sent to Drancy, the concentration camp outside of Paris from where Jews from France were deported to the extermination camp of Auschwitz.

My father was sent to Auschwitz in the last train that left Drancy, on July 31, 1944. Some 300 Jewish orphans were put in that last train to Auschwitz at the last moment, by the request of the SS chief of the camp, Alois Brunner, so that he could meet the quota of 1500 per train. Upon their arrival in Auschwitz, all these children were brutally thrown into the crematorium. Alois Brunner escaped punishment, and lived in Syria until his death in about 2010.

En route to Auschwitz, my father tried to escape again, but failed again.

My father’s number tattooed on his arm is B 3747. He talks about Auschwitz every day, one way or the other. I remember him telling about the work assignments like the Mine commando, the SS Kadduck, the underground resistance network (which he joined when one of the leaders recognized him from his Paris activities), Shmulevsky (the man who took the pictures of the crematoria that were sent to London), the smell of the burning flesh, the words ‘Shema Israel’ heard over and over and over, and much more…

As the Death Marches started in January 1945, a small group from the underground resistance network prepared a plan to escape. For two days they encouraged people to try to escape. It turned out that only those who tried, survived. Having worked in the Disinfection section, my father knew where to find sheets and clothes. At night, a handful of underground members left the camp, covered by white sheets to simulate the snow. Some of them, too tired, returned to Auschwitz. No more than six, exhausted, finally reached the Red Army, which had been stationed less than 60 miles east of Auschwitz since August 1944. (They had no instructions to go to Auschwitz.) The first Russians soldiers they encountered arrested them as spies. But the officer in charge was Jewish. He understood the Yiddish words that were spoken to him by the escapees. “Bist du a Yid?” he asks. And my father tells him the horrors. He tells him Himmler just sent a Commando of SS to destroy the evidence of the massacre. He tells him they must go there to liberate the camp.

The officer sought permission from his superiors to go to Auschwitz. After days without an answer, spurred on by constant pestering by my father and his handful of companions, the officer finally gave in. They arrived at Auschwitz on Saturday, January 27, 1945 – Shabbat Beshalach (13 of Shevat 5705), when Jews around the world read about the miraculous Exodus from Egypt, and sea splitting and the escape to freedom…

And so, as History goes, the Russians liberated Auschwitz… My father still has the military uniform and coat that they gave him then. I am personally very grateful that the ‘Frantsusky Partizan’ refused the honor of the invitation by Stalin to go to Moscow… Instead he traveled through the Ukraine and took a boat in Odessa to Marseilles. On the way, he wrote a telegram to General De Gaulle in Paris: “We, the first survivors to come back to France, miraculously saved, want to keep fighting…”

Right after the war ended, most survivors tried to find a place to live, and tried to live. My father kept fighting: He would go to meetings, schools, conferences, where he would explain again and again the dimensions of the horror. He would work with the American Joint Committee to rescue Jewish children. He would write newspaper and magazine articles, books, essays, poetry. He told me: No one would listen then, no one could believe; some of us even stopped talking about it because no one seemed interested. But he kept talking. He kept fighting.

I’ll conclude with a remark that my father shared with me when I read an earlier version of this text to him in 2001. He said:

“We don’t understand what caused the Sho’ah to happen and we are probably still very far from finding an explanation… but you know, we should also ask the question: What caused the Sho’ah to stop?”

 

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The Song of the Trees: Shabbat Shira & Tu Bishvat

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

Shabbat, although repeated next week in the Ten Commandments, is already mentioned in this week’s reading. Contrary to life the way we know it, when we get rain from the heavens and bread from the ground, the miraculous journey the desert begins with the unthinkable: rain from the ground (some say, through a traveling well), and bread – from the sky. The people can go out and collect that sweet white stuff that is their food daily, but not on Shabbat. On Shabbat no manna will show up on the ground. Instead, they will get a double portion on Friday and Shabbat will be a day or rest. (Exodus 16:4-30).
When some do go out on the 7th day, unable to perceive how is this supposed to work out with us not working seven days a week, Moses is very angry with them, as if, they already suppose to know, and one wonders, why?
Maybe because from the Torah perspective, Shabbat is as old as the world. The first time we hear about it is as the 7th day of creation (Genesis 2:1-3), when G-d “rested”. Does G-d really need a break, or did He create a day for us?
As often is the case, the sages offer two conflicting ideas about this day. The first is described with this imagery: “In this world, a person picks figs on Shabbat, and the fig says nothing. But, in the world to come, the fig will scream and say – it’s Shabbat today!!”
The second quotes a verse from later in the Book of Exodus saying: “for it is holy to you” (31:14) and explains: “’to you’ namely, she (Shabbat) belongs to you and not you – to her” .
The first saying emphasizes Shabbat as an innate part of the world. Even a fruit of a tree knows of this day, and can advocate for its holiness. In the second, Shabbat is ours, and we get to do with it as we wish. If my way of “resting” is going to a soccer game, then so be it.
Which way is it? Yes.
There is something about Friday afternoon which I cannot explain, as if a soft blanket wraps the world and slows everything down. This is not about a specifically “Jewish” environment because the neighborhood I live in is as mixed as they come. It’s just a tiny, brief moment of greater peacefulness (yes, I wonder if it can be felt on a lonely island -). And yet, that something, if not captured, is quickly gone. That’s when the second saying comes in: Shabbat is ours. We get to decide. We get to act.
Nowadays there’s talk about the concept of “unplug” and making a “not to do” lists. Because the challenge of the Children of Israel in the desert is ours too. It is so hard to stop! There is always one more thing, one more dish to prepare, one more message to send, one more thing to write down, one more place to go to… but what if not. What if for 25 hours, everything can wait. What if I can get it into my mind that in spite of how highly I think of myself, and the importance of all I do, it is possible to make time for nothing, and allow me and the material world a break from each other? What would that look like?

This Monday is Tu Bishvat, literally “the 15th day of the month of the Hebrew month of Shvat (the construct “tu” being made of the Hebrew letters tet = 9 and vav = 6), which has been set aside as “the birthday of the trees”, or more correctly the “New Year’s” for the trees, already in the Mishna (so about 1800 years ago). Why would the trees need a birthday?? Because the Torah tells us how to treat the fruits of a tree that is 3, 4 or 5 years old, so counting the years of the trees was important and practical. But the day has also allowed an opportunity to honor and celebrate trees and nature. The Kabalists created a whole Tu Bishvat seder with different fruits parallel to the different worlds we experience (with a hard pit or core, with a hard shell and with neither), and in modern Israel, it became a day of planting and going out to celebrate nature.
Elsewhere in the Torah (Deuteronomy 20:19) it says, “ki ha’adam etz hasade” – “for humans are like a tree in the field”. Actually, if I understand the original correctly, the context is exactly the opposite: the topic is war and we are commanded not to chop down fruit tree. The Torah asks an obvious question: are trees like people and who can run away when a war is waged on them?
But the Torah has no vowel or punctuation marks, so maybe it is a statement, and maybe because of the deep nature of the issue (wondering how far we can actually run away, from which war, what does that mean etc -), the sages understood that people are indeed like trees of the field. Just like trees, in order to grow, we need a home and base (ground), nourishment (water), warmth and support (sun), and challenges to get stronger (wind). A tree is a reminder of the connection between heaven and earth, planted in the ground and reaching to the heavens. The metaphor is likewise handy in relationship with other people, especially as educators, parents, teachers. Thinking of people as trees means paying attention to who we are in our core; It means understanding that our differences and uniqueness is essential to who we are; it means thinking which branches help us and which ones block us and our sunlight; it means thinking of stuff that bore holes in us, and stuff that heals.
Perhaps one of the most beautiful essays I’ve ever read about trees is by Nobel Prize winner, Herman Hesse. Here is just a piece of it: “When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy. Life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let G-d speak within you and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads you away from home. But every step and every day lead you back again. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or nowhere at all”….
Shabbat Shalom.

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what’s ahead on the journey

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

Source: what’s ahead on the journey

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what’s ahead on the journey

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

If we were G-d, what would we do? ‘I’ll do whatever I want!’ ok, so let’s say we’d spend bazillion of years enjoying ourselves on a beautiful beach somewhere, and then another bazillion traveling around our amazing universe, and then some more on our favorite activity, whatever that means, and then, one day, we decided to create humans, and then decided to have a people (and I do realize how challenging are each of these statements -), what would be the first mitzvah we’d give them??
We could ask them “to believe”; we could tell them ”to be holy”; maybe circumcision would be a powerful one, or how about if everybody ate the same food?
All these are good, but would they really work? How would that people look some years later?
This week’s Torah reading introduces the first mitzvah given to the people: to keep common time, to have the same calendar, to be synchronized; to have the same Shabbat day from New Zealand to CA; to celebrate all holidays together.
This seems minor. A calendar? Oh, I thought it would have been something bigger, but if we think about it, we can quickly see what happens to people who do not hold the same calendar, who do not “sync” their “clocks”, and who do not spend any time together, doing some common things.
As a parent, especially when my kids were little, there was a buzz about “quality time”. The online dictionary even defines it as “time spent in giving another person one’s undivided attention in order to strengthen a relationship, especially with reference to working parents and their child or children.” The idea is, don’t worry if you’re busy, but get those two hours once in a while to really focus and really catch up, and you’re fine.
The reality is, of course focused time is great. My kids still remind me how we used to go to Borders to have hot chocolate and read books, one of one. But, life is not made of once in a while hot chocolate. It’s made of million little seemingly insignificant details that we can’t time, and that we benefit from floating in each other’s orbit to share. Space is one such dimension, time – is another.
This idea is so powerful that the superfluous words “in the land of Egypt” are added when G-d speaks to Moses and Aaron, instructing them with this mitzvah. Why the addition? Why mention where it was given? The Torah does so very rarely, because usually the location of where a mitzvah is given is insignificant. But perhaps here it needs to be emphasized lest we think that this is something we’re going to do only in the Land of Israel, but rather that this is something to take with us everywhere, inside and outside of the land, during our travels, at all times.
There are changing of observances of Rosh Hodesh, and questions around this mitzvah of the beginning of a new month, such as: if this is so important, why are we starting the current Jewish calendar year in the fall and not in April as “it says”? And why do we count with Persian- Babylonian names (and yes, we try to infuse Jewish meaning into names such as Elul and Adar) rather than 1st, 2nd, 3rd, as we do the days of the week? Each of these (and more) has historical-rabbinical answers. Still, the critical idea of communal time expressed in the solar-lunar calendar remains. That is a foundation. Once we know when, we learn more about what to do with that time, which for holy, which for mundane, which to sit a few minutes longer to write, and which to rush for Shabbat…

* * * * * * *
As mentioned elsewhere here, Moses is big on not only “let me people go”, but “let my people go so they may worship Me” (Exodus 7:17 and elsewhere), and yet, when Pharaoh starts giving in, trying to bargain how is this “worship Me” going to look (with cattle? with property? with kids? See Exodus 10:26), Moses comes back with:
“. . . [W]e will not know how we will worship the Lord until we arrive there.” “. . .וַאֲנַחְנוּ לֹא־נֵדַע מַה־נַּעֲבֹד אֶת־יְהֹוָה עַד־בֹּאֵנוּ שָׁמָּה”
The leader who speaks with G-d on a first name basis, all the time, who gets all the commandments “mipi hagvura”, from the Almighty’s own mouth, can still say, ‘really, until we get to wherever it is, we can’t know exactly what it is that G-d wants from us; we just have to be ready for anything, because after all, Pharaoh, we’re not dealing with a human, we’re not even dealing with you; we’re not dealing with anything predictable. We’re dealing with G-d, and regardless of how much ink will be poured over analyzing each syllable He says and each mitzvah He gives, we still need to remain open to what He wants from us right then and there’.
When it’s time, the Torah too, will be given in the desert, to remind us of this: yes, we need to follow instructions, and there’s lots of them. And at the same time, stay open to what’s ahead on the journey.
Shabbat Shalom.

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on the complicated journey to freedom and the patience we need to take with it*

Posted on January 8, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

The journey of a band of slaves going out to freedom is fascinating, mostly because it’s not just a long ago and far away, and not just a national story of some tiny people some place, but rather, something that each person can identify with. The struggle with various kinds of enslavement (physical, emotional, spiritual) and the complicated journey out is one we all face. One of my teachers compared the exodus from Egypt to a birth: first we’re inside the womb, well provided but constrained; then we’re pushed out (through water-) to freedom, only to discover , the journey has just begun, and that not all of it is “fun”. One way or another, this story has been a favorite from Louis Armstrong’s soul song to Prince of Egypt and more.
So this week we read, again, about the (the first seven) dramatic famous plagues, and it seems like the more often one reads it, the more questions arise. When we’re younger we “just know” the story and grow to think this is the way it suppose to go, but as we read it again – and again, it’s hard not to wonder, what is this? Why all these plagues? I mean, if G-d – or anyone for that matter- wants to get someone out of a bad situation, why not just go in and get them out? What’s this whole extravagant show for?? And the people? Didn’t they know they were in slavery? Didn’t they just want to go out??
Rashi, the medievalist commentator, points to Exodus 6:9 וְלֹא שָׁמְעוּ אֶל-משֶׁה מִקֹּצֶר רוּחַ וּמֵעֲבֹדָה קָשָׁה – “and they couldn’t listen unto Moses due to impatience of spirit, and cruel bondage”. Drawing on the unique term “kotzer ru’ach” – literally meaning, shortness of breath, he says that someone whose breath (“ru’ach”, also wind, spirit, soul) is short, cannot have long breathing. Isn’t that stating the obvious? Rabbi Beni Lau explains Rashi: “This is like a person who is experiencing an asthma attack, and seeks immediate relief. As he reaches for his inhaler, someone tells them about an experimental new drug which might be available someday. The patient’s reaction is likely to be – I’m choking here, and you’re talking to me about something long term in the future? Likewise, the rulers of Egypt were pressuring the Children of Israel, leaving them breathless, unable to hear anything.
G-d then explains to Moses what’s the master plan, and how there will stages to the delivery from bondage. And again, we wonder, why? I get the guy with the asthma and the inhaler, but here we’re talking G-d! Why not just get the people out? After all, they are suffering so much and G-d can do anything!
Inspired by watching “Chatufim”, the Israeli TV drama that was bought in the U.S. and became Homeland, I realize the devastating pattern of enslavement even more. Chatufim tells the story of three IDF soldiers who are kidnapped and kept in captivity for 17 years. The complex and highly recommended show has left me with many issues to ponder, chief among them is the psychology of the kidnapped. It shows what happens to someone who is kept in isolation, beaten up (physically and emotionally) and at the same time, fed and cared for. Each one of these three components is critical and the combination is a “winning” recipe for creating complete dependence and enslavement of the kidnapped to his captives.
This is the pattern that repeats itself in various abuse situations, from that of POW’s to battered women to the Children of Israel in Egypt (we see it later, when the Children of Israel will moan “remembering the fish, which we were wont to eat in Egypt for naught; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic” Number 11:5). Heat stroked imagination? Or perhaps, not everything was bad in Egypt, or else slavery would not have been possible. Too much oppression ultimately begets escape, riots and revolts or the death of captive, a situation the oppressor usually actually wants to avoid. It takes the right mixture of isolation (in this case away from their land, from the silent G-d), harsh labor & torture (as in the back breaking work and killing of the baby boys) as well as care (“free food”) to create the ultimate slavery.
We often look at such situations and ask: Why didn’t the person who was in so much pain just walk out? If Egypt didn’t work anymore, why didn’t Jacob’s children just go home? Why didn’t the Jews of the 1930’s leave Europe? Why doesn’t a battered woman walk out on her abuser? Why doesn’t our hero in Chatufim cross the border, not even a few miles away, even though there are times he can??
The bottom line is, from where they (we-) stand at that moment – that is not possible. The successful captivator knows it. The successful redeemer must know it too. The carefully constructed web designed to keep one in, must be carefully undone to ensure a complete and safe journey out. And note: this is no different whether the captivator is an outside or an inside force, keeping us “jailed” within. Maybe we’re told here that even G-d takes time when delivering a band of slaves from under oppression and that while we too should be determined to go, we have to be patient with the journey ahead.
Shabbat Shalom.

  • edited from my 2013 post
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Darkness and New Beginnings

Posted on January 1, 2016 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

New Year’s Eve, Haifa, 2016. We’re walking back after watching the fireworks amidst raindrops, trying to figure out what is the origin of this custom we too got drawn into, and celebrate by default. I can’t help but bring up the Jewish roots of both Christmas and New Year’s. I can’t escape the parallels between Christmas and Hanukkah, both beginning on the 24th – in the evening – of their respective months, symbolically, or actually, 3 days after the winter solstice, and emphasizing the theme of lights. Christmas and New Years are also (the only?) two Christian holidays which start on the evening before, just like Jewish days (Genesis 1: “and there was evening, and (then) there was morning…”); and, If Christmas is Jesus’ birth, then New Year’s is the day of his brit (or bris, covenant of circumcision), which, I find that it is still observed as such in the Anglican and Lutheran Church. Before the Gregorian calendar, introduced in the 1500’s, in pre-Christian Rome, there was a Julian calendar, starting with January, and dedicated to Janus, the god of beginnings and Gateways.

Switch and turn to this week’s Torah portion, and find we are opening the Book of Shmot, or Exodus. Shmot literally means “names”, retelling us who came down to Egypt and what happened there. Interestingly, Genesis was about the journey of individuals, and when their linage was told, we heard about toldot, “the begets”, from the root of births. Now that we’re moving to the story of a People, we switch to the story of a Nation.

As we know, and read every Passover, and as is repeated in modern days, what started out as a short trip (to get some food) and quick relocation endeavor, turned into a long term settlement which span over generations. Now “a new Pharaoh rises, who knows not Joseph” (Exodus 1:8). First there is a plan, then hard work, then enslavement and bitter torture. The situation looks bad, and dark.

Then the next chapter opens, and like any good TV drama, the scene changes: while slavery is going on outside, we’re now in the home of some man and some woman of the tribe of Levi, names not mentioned; the woman is pregnant, and gives birth to a boy, who will grow up to be Moses, the leader who will be instrumental in the redemption of the people from their predicament.

And, it might be cliché, and it’s not the first time, nor the last (we are slow to learn!), but once again we’re reminded, that dawn comes after the darkest part of the night. Rav Kook is quoted to say that for a plant to grow, the seed must rot in the ground, a process which must be uncomfortable, painful, unwanted and so dark on many levels; a process we would much rather avoid, or talk about theoretically rather than go through, but turns out that is not possible. Coincidentally, this is what we should be celebrating today too: the beginning of longer days (later Shabbat 🙂 and more light.

Much ink has been spilled on the verse quoted above: “a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph”. What is this “knowing”? Did Pharaoh not study history? Is it really possible that anyone didn’t “know” that because of Joseph, Egypt and the whole region was saved? To gain some more insight, we should check the first time the word “to know” appears in the Torah, which was when Adam “knew” Eve and she bore a son (Genesis 4:1). The common translation is that they “had relations”, but if that is it, what would we do with Pharaoh here?? Turns out that “to know” is really “to connect”, and often on a deeper level. Adam and Eve’s connection bore a promise for continuity; Pharaoh, maybe “knew” Joseph in the way we think of knowing some random fact, but it didn’t mean anything to him; he was not connected to that fact and it didn’t matter to him, thus he really didn’t “know” it.

We can’t be connected all the time to everything; we can’t also live in eternal bright light, which by the way, is often how the afterlife is described, thus being a time when we are not alive in this world. But it’s interesting to think of darkness as a form of disconnect and of light – as a form of renewed meaningful connection, and from there, sort out where we’d like to light our flame.

Shabbat Shalom.

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weihnachten whining

Posted on December 25, 2015 by Michal Kohane מיכל כהנא

I love Christmas. Maybe because I don’t have to do anything for it. And maybe because in a strange way it reminds me of my childhood: the very multicultural city I grew up in, when this was a simple, obvious reality, and not an overly used buzz word; the sparkling cards we got from friends and relatives abroad; and my own mother, fumbling with the radio dial to find Christmas songs, waiting to watch the midnight mass from Beth Lechem, just because it reminded her of her long lost childhood in Germany before the War.
On this Christmas morning Zoe, our golden lab, can sense that I’m not going to work and that we’re going on a longer walk, though it’s not Shabbat (she can tell I have my phone). The streets are quiet; the few people out are smiling; most stores are closed; there is the scent of wood burning stoves… I want to get in the middle of the almost empty freeway and yell: guys, let’s do this more often!!

*******

Dear fb friends who are writing messages such as “merry Xmas to all my Christian friends!”, please stop. Who are your Christian friends?? Do you not know their names? Would you really feel personally “blessed” when someone says, ‘happy yum kipur to all my jewy friends’?? Any benefits to that? and sorry for asking, but do you actually have “Christian friends”? I mean, are those who are not like you “Christian”, or are they celebrating the 25th of December because that’s what everybody does today? Do you know the details of their faith? And those of your “friendship”? How many of those do you have?? Then please, write them a real note.

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