#BlogElul 5777: Remember

Photo: Flickr user @Heartlover1717/CC

It’s relatively easy to write about kindness and forgiveness and trust and understanding. It’s much harder to remember to do them.

May I remember to be kind, even when I’m frustrated.

May I remember to forgive, even when the sting of being wronged still burns.

May I remember to trust, even when I must also remember that we’re on the same team.

May I remember to be understanding, even when we don’t see eye to eye.

May I remember to be compassionate, even when I’m angry.

May I remember to be accepting, even when I don’t understand.

Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima , this #BlogElul post is one in a series marking the days of the Hebrew month of Elul, which precede the Jewish High Holidays and traditionally serve as a time of reflection and spiritual preparation for the new year.

That Time When Uncle Irv Came to Torah Study

I think it might have been the ripe, red strawberries on Cantor Dubinsky's milestone birthday cake that brought Uncle Irv to Torah study last Shabbat.

During minyan, she'd chanted from Kedoshim, beginning with verse 23:

When you enter the land and plant any tree for food, you shall regard its fruit as forbidden. Three years it shall be forbidden for you, not to be eaten. In the fourth year all its fruit shall be set aside for jubilation before the Eternal; and only in the fifth  year may you use its fruit -- that its yield to you may be increased. I the Eternal am your God.

After we'd all enjoyed the cake and the celebration, our Torah study conversation started with a discussion of trees and fruit -- and the difference between letting ripe fruit drop to the ground versus not letting it grow in the first place. All of a sudden, it was as though Uncle Irv was sitting next to me in that already crowded classroom. I remembered the bed of strawberries Amy and I planted and watered under his firm tutelage -- with a row of alternating marigolds and bachelor buttons in front, one way organic gardeners keep the bunnies away.

How excited we were when green shoots, followed by vines and then small white flowers finally appeared. And, oh how disappointed when he instructed us to nip off every last one of the delicate, yellow-centered flowers.

"Why??" we whined, less than thrilled by the whole gardening thing he was trying to teach us. According to Uncle Irv, it would ensure a bountiful crop of sweet berries in a few years.

Who knew we were learning Torah right there in the backyard?

Yom HaShoah: Past and Present

In honor of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is tomorrow, I wrote this short piece, which was Thursday's Ten Minutes of Torah.

Two years ago, I wrote this post on Yom HaShoah, and in 2009, this was my Yom HaShoah reflection.

As a witness to history, it is my responsibility to remember...on Yom HaShoah and always.

Our Circle of Remembering: A #BlogElul Post

We Jews are a remembering people.  I think it’s in our DNA.

Each week in welcoming Shabbat, we are commanded to “shamor v’zachor”— to “keep” and to “remember.”  Later in the service, we are told of the various ways to love Adonai, “Thus [we] shall remember to observe all [God’s] commandments and to be holy….”  Still later, we remember that God redeemed us from slavery in Egypt, and, one more time, before the Kaddish, we remember those whose finite flame has been consumed and is no more.

Each year we observe Yom HaZikaron, remembering the Israeli soldiers who died in battle, just as we remember and retell the story of our Exodus from Egypt annually and, seven weeks later, recall the presence of our entire community atop Mt. Sinai.

Is it any wonder, then, that, individually, I do my share of remembering?

In this, my very first blog post ever, I remember Chaim Glasberg, a man I never knew.

Here, I remember Tante Mina, a cousin I never knew.  (Don’t ask why earlier generations referred to a cousin as Tante…I don’t know the answer.)

In this post, I recall visits to the cemetery before the High Holidays.  It’s ever more poignant now that my mother’s there instead of shuttling us from grave to grave.

My memories of Mrs. Steinberg—oh, how I miss her!—were recorded here, just a day after her funeral this past March.

Blogging’s not the same without comments from Larry Kaufman, and here’s my tribute to him.

And my mother?  Nothing’s the same without her, and I’ve written too many posts to remember each one distinctly.  This one, though, from early in my remembering of her, quite fittingly includes this comment from Larry Kaufman:

Jane, I lost my mother eighteen years ago, and my father more than fifty years ago, and the meditation before Kaddish that continues to resonate for me is #6 in Mishkan T’filah, especially these lines:
“…those who live no more echo still within our thoughts and words, and what they did is part of what we have become.”
You have the special consolation of knowing that what your mother did is part of what many of us have become.
May these words from Rabbi Levy stand alongside those you quote from Rabbi Greenberg in bringing you comfort and healing.

In the end, I think it all comes back to “shamor v’zachor”—to keep and to remember; “zachor v’shamor”—to remember and to keep.  We keep them close so we can remember them.  We remember them so we can keep them close.  Just as they were part of our circle of life, so, too, are they part of our circle of remembering.

Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima,this post is one in a series marking the days of the Hebrew month of Elul, which precedes the Jewish High Holidays and traditionally serves as a time of reflection and spiritual preparation for the new year.