A Year of Kaddish

And so I returned to say Kaddish last night, the yahrzeit or anniversary of my mother’s passing a year ago. On the English calendar, her death came August 6, but the date on the Hebrew calendar was the 16th of Av, and not wanting to mix metaphors or symbols, I am choosing to observe the Jewish ritual according to the Jewish calendar, which began at sunset Monday night.

It’s an interesting drama that unfolds over a year of mourning. My obligation, according to Tradition, was to say Kaddish for 11 months, not a year.  Why not a year? The reason goes like this: the soul spends some time purifying itself before entering the World to Come. The maximum time required is 12 months for the most evil person, but to recite Kaddish for the year would imply your parent needed a full 12 months of purification. To avoid that implication, the Sages decreed that one should recite the prayer for only 11 months.

So last month, I finished saying Kaddish, but the year of mourning had not ended, and restrictions remained, like not going to concerts, including the free summer jazz series Monday nights in Hartford’s Bushnell Park. The last one, which I plan to attend, is next Monday. (Anyone want to join us?)

I continued to go to Shabbat services, but my twice-daily attendance at weekday minyans dropped to a morning here, an evening service there, and when I went, I refrained from saying Kaddish.

This morning, after davening Shacharit, Rabbi Adler approached me.

“A lot different saying Kaddish today than the first time?”

“A lot,” I said, nodding. In fact, I had thought about that very question while leading the service. For starters, though I had felt sad heading off to shul last evening – even noticed a hint of a tear in my right eye as I rode down the driveway onto Fern Street, it wasn’t the same kind of sorrow or sense of loss I felt a year ago.

I thought about how fluently I was able to daven today compared to a year ago, and the comfort I got from having that oversized Art Scroll siddur in front of me as shaliach tzibbur or prayer leader. And I thought about some of the other repercussions the year offered, like the question I’m exploring this summer about whether to switch my synagogue membership from the Conservative Beth El, where I’ve been for more than a decade, to the Orthodox Beth David, which has in many ways become my new spiritual home.

My mother, Pearl Felson, was not a very religious woman, not in the Torah-observant sense, at any rate. Indeed, one of the last times we went out to dinner – for my birthday a year ago May in Oakland’s Jack London Square – she ordered a cheeseburger, though she only bought kosher meat at home. Her real value was family and she kvelled over the lives of her three sons, their families, her nieces and nephews and their families, and all the other relatives and friends scattered across the globe. Mostly, she stayed in touch with all of us during long, meandering phone calls. I thought about that too, as I rode my bike home last night. This past year and how we’ve all honored her memory – she would have been proud of us. She’s probably kvelling to all the other departed loved ones up there in the World to Come. Her mother, her father, her brother, her aunts and uncles, her cousins, her friends. She’s no doubt the one with the apron wrapped around her waist, pouring tea around the kitchen table.

I woke up around three this morning, but could not fall back asleep. Finally, around five, I think I dozed off, but it didn’t feel like quality sleep. That French Press coffee (caffeinated) that I had with dinner at 2T must have done it, I thought. Or maybe it was the call with a friend and teacher from Vancouver after 9 o’clock last night that got me thinking in the middle of the night.

Whatever, when I woke again and looked at the clock, it was six o’clock, the time I normally get out of bed to go to minyan. For a moment, I thought, I’m going to be tired all day if I get up now. And I turned over, burying my head in the pillow, hoping and praying before official prayer services began that I might get some quality sleep. I’d skip the minyan this morning. But another voice, the voice who pushes me, who believes I can suck it up and follow through, yanked me from my false slumber.

I got up. I got dressed. I grabbed my tallis bag and my tefillin bag. And I was out the door and on my bike, riding to shul. I felt better after leading most of the service. It was warm and sunny outside when I walked out.

I’ve been thinking lately about what it means to stick with a commitment, to follow through, especially for the long haul, now that I’m rounding third base, as it were. The 11 months of saying Kaddish is nearing its end. The 16th of Tammuz marks my last day, which corresponds to June 28. It may be a mitzvah or a commandment to say Kaddish daily in my circumstance, but how does that play out when we live in a world where feeling commanded by a Higher Authority is not a given? There’s a concept in something called neo-traditionalism called “voluntary obligation.” Which sounds like an oxymoron, but it may be what got me out of bed this morning. I know there are other places in my life where, commanded or not, I could benefit from  feeling moved to push harder, climb higher, be a better person.

“Sounds like you’re having an affair!” We were sitting at Starbucks. I was telling a friend my dilemma when he interrupted to offer his take. We were not talking about another woman. We were talking about another shul.

As many of my friends know, I’ve long been fascinated with other shuls and independent minyanim. Even before I began saying kaddish. I was curious how others do it, and by that I mean, how they pray and create spiritual space on Shabbat or any hectic weekday.

Trying to balance home life, work life and my obligation to say kaddish daily offers its own set of challenges. My synagogue, Beth El Temple, holds weekday services at 7 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. It’s 2.2 miles away, according to Google Maps, and takes about five minutes by car. But what was I to do on a night, for example, when I had another evening engagement? Sometime last fall, I discovered, a way to meet both commitments. Beth David Synagogue.

At least to date, when the sun still sets earlier, especially during the autumn and winter months, I have been able to attend services much before 7:30 p.m., because Beth David provides a full mincha service just minutes before sunset. It’s followed immediately by the evening or ma’ariv service. The synagogue is three blocks from my home, where I also work. I can get there in a minute; in nice weather, I can ride my bike, walk or jog over there. In the middle of winter, when services were starting around 4:30 or so, it provided a nice break from my desk.

My friend laughed, shaking his head. “Classic stuff. You’re trying to justify why you’re cheating on Beth El. What about on the days when they need you for a minyan? Don’t you feel bad?”

“Believe me, “ I said, “I feel the guilt. Jewish guilt, ” I said. “But there’s more,” I said.

I like the services at Beth David. I like walking there and back home on Friday evenings, as Shabbat arrives. I like walking back there late Saturday afternoon for their seudah shleshit, a traditional third meal between mincha and ma’ariv, when a couple hauntingly lovely z’mirot or songs are sung, as Shabbat is about to depart and the new week is about to begin. I like the more complete repertoire of Psalms chanted in the mornings during Pesukei’ D’Zimrah.

On the other hand, I still go to Beth El. I go every Shabbat morning.  I go two or three other mornings a week, and an evening or two.

But then, I told my friend, something happened about a month ago that really changed the relationship.
He leaned in closer. Took a sip of his coffee, wondering what the juicy details could be.

They asked me if I wanted to daven. To lead part of the service. Since I’m an avel, a mourner. By then, I had been going to services at Beth David enough that I was able to confidently say yes. And from my experience leading at the Orthodox shul in Oakland last winter, I knew I could do it. I did it a few times during the afternoon and evening services and parts of the morning service as well.

“Jeeze,” my friend said. “You’re in deep.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “It’s stressful. I feel like they both expect me to show up.”

He laughed again. “Who would have thunk? You’re quite the catch.”

Today would have marked my parents’ 59th wedding anniversary. They made it to 58-1/2 years. “Not bad,” as my mother, who had a knack for the understatement, might have said. Or “pretty good, don’t you think?”

I’ve heard the story of how they met and got married hundreds of times, and it got told a lot last August after the funeral and during shivah to the delight of everyone, not the least my father who relishes its telling.

My dad was a Holocaust survivor. He and his brother, Don, were the only survivors in his family. When the war ended, they made their way to America from Poland or what is now the former Soviet republic of Belarus. Their destination was San Francisco, where Auntie Katie and Uncle Reuben Ungar lived. Katie was my paternal grandmother’s sister. She had immigrated between World War I and World War II, and my father remembers hearing his mother saying she hoped to get more members of the family out of Poland during those interwar years. But U.S. immigration quotas of Polish citizens were low and the number who wanted out was high.

When my father arrived in San Francisco, he got a job selling Watkins products and later plastics, as in plastic table clothes, house to house. When other opportunities knocked on his proverbial door, he traveled north to Petaluma, Calif., where he peddled his wares from ranch to ranch and to a nickel-and-dime store. One thing led to another. Before long, he was selling in Portland, Oregon.

Portland was good to him. After first taking a room at the YMCA, he found a room to rent in a Jewish family’s home, when one day his life changed for good, though he didn’t know it at the time. Another Jewish family, the Sliffmans, across the street invited him to the wedding of their daughter, Shirley, on Christmas Eve 1950. And who knew?  Maybe he might meet a nice Jewish girl at the wedding.

The groom was a nice Jewish boy named Ben Benson from Toronto, Canada. Also at the wedding were Ben’s parents, Rose and Joe Benson, and his sister, Pearl, who had planned to spend the week in Portland before returning East to her job in Toronto.

That night at the wedding Stan met Pearl. “Would you like me to show you around town while you’re here?” Stan offered. “Sure,” she said. “That would be lovely.” They went out once. And then again and again and again.

A week later, New Year’s Eve, Stan proposed. In some ways, it was a perfect match. Stan was an immigrant to America. Pearl had grown up speaking Yiddish at home. And in a sense Pearl served as a bridge to this new land for Stan. As his Aunt Katie in San Francisco said, “Canadians are half European and half American.”

Six weeks later, on February 11, 1951, they got married in Vancouver, British Columbia at the home of one of Pearl’s aunt’s, Ann Cohen.

The newlyweds settled in Seattle, where I was born along with my two brothers. Seven years later, in 1958, we packed our station wagon and moved to California and the San Francisco Bay Area.

And as they say, the rest is history.

You know that song from the Broadway musical, “Rent,” that starts “Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes…”?

Well it came to me as I was driving away from shul this morning. By The Gregorian calendar, which is to say our everyday civil calendar, this Saturday will mark six months since my mom’s passing.

The line in that song — it’s called “Seasons of Love” — that speaks to me is the one at the end of the first section that goes “How do you measure a year in the life?”

So I divide that in half today and ask myself, how do you measure six months in a life? Or how do you measure six months after a death?

What I love about the song is that it measures that profound question in ordinary events. “In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee…”

And I believe there’s an assumption in those lyrics that each of those events contains more than just the passing of time. Rather, they suggest that it’s not the counting of our time that matters, but making our time count, as my rabbi often says when celebrating someone’s birthday. Which is to say that what matters is that we make ourselves aware that each moment has the potential to be so much more. That those cups of coffee, those daylights and sunsets can be infused with conscious living instead of just going through the motions. I try to live by that philosophy, I really do. But like all of us, I ain’t perfect.

If all this sounds like a buildup to new resolutions, maybe it is. Since returning from the West Coast, I’ve been re-reading two life-affirming books, one of which you might say is practical, the other of which you could say is spiritual. But in fact the two have much in common. The so-called practical one is “Getting Things Done,” by David Allen; the so-called spiritual one is “Everyday Holiness,” by Alan Morinis, a wonderful guide to building a Mussar practice.

One of my goals for today is to capture all the open loops in my life and then begin to process them, to decide what action I need to take to “get things done.” If that makes no sense, read “Getting Things Done.” I’ve got three magazine assignments to get to work on and more digging to do on a couple others. I’ve got a desk to clean and organize. As I look outside, I’m aware that the temperature here in New England this morning is below freezing, but what I see out my office window, is a blue sky and the sun shining on rooftops and bare trees.  Our two dog are quietly sleeping nearby, a beautiful sign of peacefulness. I can’t help but feel grateful right now. Cue the music :

“Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes.
Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Moments So Dear
Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes
How Do you Measure – Measure A Year ?

In Daylights – In Sunsets
In Midnights – In Cups Of Coffee
In Inches – In Miles
In Laughter – In Strife…”

I know the blog has been quiet of late. Weekly posts instead of the earlier pace of three times a week. Part of the reason may stem from the ritual I’ve come to adopt. How much can one write about going to shul daily, morning and late afternoon or evening without repeating one’s self?

But another reason stems from how busy we’ve been over the past month. Around the same time that a new girl arrived into the Felson family, that being our niece, Ayala Pearl, the one born in Jerusalem Dec. 4, Julia and I were on our way back from an overnight trip to Rochester, N.Y., where we picked up a 14-month Wheaton Terrier named Darla. It turns out she and our six-year-old Wheaton, Sammy, have the same father, Abe, so they’re siblings. I had managed to scout out shuls before hand, and the timing worked out perfectly. Well, for me, not for Julia and our new pup, who sat in the car for too long while I said Kaddish at Congregation Beth Hakneses Hachodosh.

Then a couple weeks later, our middle-son, David, 23, arrived home, after spending the last year working in Washington, D.C. at various internships – unpaid and then paid – and at a Farmer’s Market, where he worked as market manager one day a week. Like many his age, it’s been a tough year to find full-time work. But he’s landed a job through a D.C.-based organization -– actually, a paid year-long fellowship in Bolivia of all places. He leaves this Friday.

A few days after David arrived home, our son, Ben, 20, returned home from a semester abroad, coincidentally, also in Bolivia. The story gets even more bizarre. Until Ben left for Bolivia late last summer, none of us had ever heard of the city he was studying in, Cochabamba, though it boasts a population of more than 500,000. Now it turns out David will be stationed in – yep, you guessed it – Cochabamba as well.

The same day, Ben flew into JFK from South America, our daughter, Rachel, 27, was flying East from Boulder, Colorado, where she had just completed an 18-month program to become a certified Rolfer. She came home to spend a few weeks with all of us before flying back to the Rocky Mountains. Yesterday she packed all her belongings into her Subaru wagon and embarked on the next chapter in her life: Moving to San Francisco to live and start her new Rolfing practice. [By the way, she’s still looking for a name for the practice and her soon-to-be announced website.]

Ben returned to college before New Year’s Day – he too flew back to the Rocky Mountains, as he’s a junior at Colorado College. So this past Friday night, among those sitting at our Shabbat table were Rachel and David. We sang Shalom Aleichem, chanted Kiddush over the wine, said the blessing over two loaves of home-baked challah and then dug into a lovely vegetarian meal: Moroccan Yellow Split Pea Soup, Israeli Couscous with Curried Vegetables, and Butternut Squash with Cranberries, Toasted Walnuts and Maple Syrup.

The next morning as I was walking to shul, it came to me what was missing. There’s a tradition on Shabbat Evening for the parents to bless their children. I have to admit, we usually don’t do it, not because we don’t wish them a life full of blessings, but because it’s just a tradition and ritual which with neither Julia or I grew up.

But as I was walking last Saturday in below-freezing temperatures, the sun shining on the frozen snow, I was regretting not having bestowed blessings on both of them on their latest journeys in life.

Besides saying the traditional blessing, I would have said something like: May you live this new chapter in your lives fully. May you feel the courage to do what might feel frightening. May you be open to what unfolds. May you remain curious. May you take risks, but be careful. May you feel joy. And stay in touch..

My dad talked the other day about going over to the Berkeley JCC for a Chanukah event last Sunday afternoon.

“Good for you,” I thought. “Get out of the house. Enjoy the festival.” He was even planning on taking BART, the Bay Area rapid transit system instead of driving. This by a man in his 80s.

By all accounts, he’s doing well. Keeping busy. Going to dinner at my brother’s and sister-in-laws on occasion or to one of his nephew and nieces who live nearby. Baking his salmon in the toaster oven. Having Nelly, the Peruvian cleaning lady, cook a few things for him on the day she comes to clean the house.

Still, I was more than a little surprised when I got an email from my brother with this link that features my dad lighting the menorah at the JCC festival. Apparently the event was also honoring Holocaust survivors, of which my dad is one. But now he’s also a veritable local TV celebrity. Well, for 19 seconds. There’s a short promo in advance of the very short news clip. That’s my dad wearing the cap lighting the menorah: http://cbs5.com/video/?id=59238@kpix.dayport.com

I couldn’t make the evening minyan at Beth El a couple of nights this week. As a writer on the hunt for my next story, I had conflicts.

Last night I went to Hartford Seminary, where three religious scholars – one Jewish, one Christian and one Islamic — gathered to talk about spirituality within the three Abrahamic religions.

The night before, I went to Real Art Ways, where Connecticut Public Radio was taping a production of its program, “Where We Live.” The show featured a discussion about how cities foster a culture of creativity and innovation.

So instead of the 7:30 p.m. service I often go to, I decided to go to a much earlier service at Beth David, a shul in my neighborhood. The advantage for me was that Beth David’s custom is to begin mincha, the afternoon service, before shkiah (or sunset), which this week was 4:27 p.m. But it’s also difficult to guarantee a minyan at 4:27 in the afternoon. When I walked into the chapel, only four or five men were there. A minute before sunset, we still did not have a minyan, and so those who were there davvened mincha indivdually. Because we had no minyan, I did not say kaddish.

On may way out, someone mentioned that another shul, Young Israel, had an evening minyan at 9 p.m. Who knew? Not me, and so after I finished at Real Art Ways, I decided to try Young Israel’s minyan. I was turning into the synagogue driveway, expecting to see a few cars in the rear parking lot. Instead I was surprised to see cars lining the side of the driveway. I drove into the rear and was surprised again to see the lot full. When I walked into the Orthodox sanctuary a couple minutes before nine, I saw a brightly lit room of about 30 people – men and women – listening to the rabbi’s shiur or talk on preparing meals for Shabbat. His talk ended, and as people left the sanctuary, a minyan gathered quickly for ma’ariv, the evening service.

“Who you saying kaddish for?” one of the men asked me afterwards.
“My mother,” I said. “How about you?”
“My mother,” he said
“You visiting?” he asked. “No,” I said, explaining how I fit into the community in 30 seconds. As I walked through the entry hall to leave, two women, who were kibitzing, stopped to welcome me and also ask if I was visiting. Again, I explained.

I laughed in amazement as I left. Thirty years living here and tonight I happen on another community –another synagogue I knew about, but had never actually visited. And another option when it came to finding a minyan.

For all its ideals and challenges, Judaism can be such a practical religion. That morning last August when Rabbi Judah Dardik gathered us around the kitchen table to explain the customs of mourning, I asked him about the appropriateness of going on a planned vacation in the Adirondacks three weeks into the future.

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to find a minyan,” I said. He pulled out his Treo to look up the name and number of someone at Yeshiva University, explaining that for a donation to the school, he could put my mother’s name on a list so that I would be “covered” whenever I couldn’t say kaddish. In my stead, a yeshiva student would say the prayer in my mother’s memory. It seemed like an easy way out. For a few bucks, or whatever price I put on this kaddish service, I would be covered? I wondered: could I get someone to go my dentist’s appointments as well? As it turned out, and somewhat amazingly, I found a minyan in the Adirondacks, the Lake George Summer Minyan, a 30-minute drive from where I was staying, which every time I attended felt like being transplanted into a Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood that had moved to the mountains.

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“You could make the minyan!” Julia said, as we boarded the Roncari Valet Parking shuttle van outside Bradley airport yesterday evening. I looked at my watch. She was right. It was 6:30. If we stopped at Beth El on our way home, I would get there in time for ma’ariv.

I had assumed I would miss it by the time our flight landed and we got to our car. And given those circumstances, I also decided tonight would be a good time to practice the discipline of flexibility, paradoxical as that may sound. But now I was looking forward to making the minyan and saying kaddish. Flexibility could wait for another day.

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