Elaine's Most Recent Tidbits from New Zealand

Auckland is multicultural. They have McDonalds, Burger King no Wendy's. But an alternative around the corner is Subway and KFC. Then there are coffee shops on every corner and three in the middle of the block. I thought this was a tea country but no, coffee seems to be the number one choice. Dave's Coffee, Mr Coffee Guy and Starbucks  but that is not the favorite of Kiwis. Fancy coffees are a big thing. Decorated tops for cappuccino with or without chocolate sprinkles. Yum!

Chinese restaurants here are a long way from 2 from column A and 3 from column B.(for those who are 60 years old and remember those Chinese restaurants) Everything is very authentic and presented in an artful manor. The very pleasant waitress always coming back to make sure the food is to our liking. How nice! Remember there is no tipping. Just out of the goodness of their hearts. How refreshing!

I had to go to McDonalds to check it out. No happy meals and a bargain meal was a drink, fries, hamburger only $19.00. Not sure they are using the new oil but with so much salt who would know. But  it is served with a smile. Many good choices at the food court-- pita sandwiches, sushi, Italian and ice cream. But I had to have a taste of home. Crazy. I never eat it at home.

 I noticed people running here and there like at home. However, the dress is very black very little color. Now it could have been support for the All Blacks rugby team. We won!!!! Yea! Peter and I are taking credit for the win and bringing the Kiwis good luck. Why not? We are the foreigners? We enjoyed getting to learn the game. These people are just as passionate for rugby as Chicagoans are about Cubs and White Sox, Bulls and Da Bears.

Skirts are very short with black tights or leggings. With all the hills the women don't have pretty legs. However, they must be strong. I wish they would smile more.

Auckland is very spread out. In the central city many highrises. In the suburbs everyone wants a house. Not much land around them but very interesting architecture. Wherever you are there is water. Inlets and boats everywhere. Very pretty. Housing is very expensive 1 and 2 million is not out of the question. Apartments are also very high as well. Like in any large city of the world.

These people are so polite. I took a cab back to the synagogue for Yizkor on Yom Kippur. I had a canvas bag with me. When we got to the synagogue he asked me if I wanted him to take the bag up to the front door. It was light so I said I could handle it. Very nice. Only in NZ. Can you imagine any cabbie in Chicago or NYC doing that? I would never see my bag again.

We went to a student production of a play one of the congregants wrote. She is a well-known playwright. She is from Santa Barbara, Ca. Her grandfather was a very famous movie director.  He directed Casablanca. She only discovered that she was Jewish very late in life. She is desperate to reclaim her Judaism. She writes historical plays. She likes to write about gory topics. The one we saw was about 2 school girls who were gay and wanted to be together so they killed one of the mothers in a park. It is based on a real incident that happened many years ago in Christchurch. .The play was very interesting. Glad  are we went. Before the show we had to stay in an anteroom. Very few chairs. One young man asked Peter if he would like his chair to sit. Wow. Now that was nice. Peter wasn't even pregnant. In some countries on a bus they get up if you are pregnant or old. I guess he thought Peter was old.

Getting back to food. Peter likes weird gamey food. On the menu was Kangaroo. Yes he ordered it. After the plate was empty I told him he has to stay in his seat and not jump around. He was good. After my taste I felt my stomach jump a few times. I did taste it and can say I will not eat it again.

So I have to eat my words. Yes I had to buy a chicken to make chicken soup. Everyone around me is sick and coughing in the stores and synagogue. It was a matter of time that I would get sick. Now was the trip to the Countdown (Supermarket) to get the chicken. Peter went for the vegetables and I went for the chicken. I said to myself I will pay whatever because I need to get better and chicken soup is what I need. The chicken choices were  size 12,14,16. Quite frankly they all looked the same, scrawny no meat on the bone chickens. No giblets and no schmaltz. Where did they go? Remember I only have one soup pot I took from the synagogue. Not very big. The chicken went in then and turned on the stove to boil, skimmed the water and put in the veg. Now the bullions cubes I brought from Chicago. Thank goodness the last minute I said I should take some with me. They made the soup much better. Poor chicken only skin and bones no meat. Not even one cup of meat for chicken salad. However I did have to make 5 pots of soup because this cold is not going away. I have so many cooked veggies. I decided to make chicken pot pie. Some fresh veggies and bits of chicken added to make it taste good.

The supermarket is normally opened 24 hrs but on this morning it was closed. They were reorganizing the store. He had to go back again for cough drops and chicken and veggies. The cough drops cause diarrhea. Did you ever hear of such a thing. I want the old fashion Smith Brothers cough drops or Vicks. Pharmacy opens now at 9 AM so he will have to go back. They know him by now. Poor guy and great husband.

Rosh Hashanah was interesting. I walked into the sanctuary and a Chinese gentleman welcomed me with “Israel is the best country.” Someone asked his name. He yelled out “Jerusalem’. Not sure what that was about. By the way he did not come back for Yom Kippur. I guess he had enough and got mixed up with the Hebrew. Peter was great. Music was heartfelt. They have no cantor and they worked hard and that counts a lot. Out of necessity this is a real do it yourself place .

For Yom Kippur They had the cello player from the NZ orchestra play Kol Nidre. Now that was very moving and great. I missed Beth Emet. Maybe next year.

Let's talk about toilets. You may have seen the new trend of toilets in the States. Instead of a handle to push down there are two buttons on top of the tank. One for a big flush and a smaller one for a small flush. It is to save on water. Not a bad idea. However when the buttons are the same size which one is for big and which one for little? One time I just pressed both and held my breath for it not to overflow. No problem. All went down fine.

Did I tell you about the frozen peas I bought for the pot pie? Well, I was about to pour them into the pot when I smelled mint. Where did the mint come from? Yes I bought minted peas. Did you ever? Not in my pie. So we had no peas only corn and cooked veggies from the many pots of soup I made. I did put in some fresh veggies. It was delicious.

What a new world. We were about to sit down to watch Bears game on Monday night football. It was preempted by soccer. Seth had just Skyped us to see the kids and said he could put the screen so we could watch the game. We decided just monitor the game on the computer. Bears won! Now can we take credit for that? Maybe. Because we were interested and hoping for a win.

Another pot of soup and another stop at the supermarket. Peter is off again with list in hand. Soon more soup and veggies and chicken. We are overflowing with cooked veg. We have nothing to put the soup or veg in. Soon it will be in our shoes. We put the veg. in two plastic bags. That was a mistake. Who knew they send rejects to NZ. So the seams opened and the residual soup ran all over the refrigerator. We were not happy campers.

The weather is supposed to be spring. Rain almost every day. Slightly warm on day cold the next. No wonder everyone is sick! When you check the weather online it refers to one two or three layer day. Sometime they say one layer rain one layer gale force wind. Everyone carries an umbrella. You never know. The only good thing is many days there are wonderful vivid rainbows. Just a little touch that God is still with us.

Last night at St.Partick's Cathedral in Auckland NZ I particpated in  a celebration of the 25th Anniversay of the Decalogue of Peace which was written in 1986 by an interfaith meeting of 70 of the worlds religious leaders under sponsorship of Pope John Paul II.  It is a magnificent commitment to interfaith dialogue and to working together to make a better world. It is worth reading and contemplating.

Decalogue of Assisi for Peace
1. We commit ourselves to proclaiming our firm conviction that violence and terrorism are incompatible with the authentic spirit of religion, and, as we condemn every recourse to violence and war in the name of God or of religion, we commit ourselves to doing everything possible to eliminate the root causes of terrorism.
2. We commit ourselves to educating people to mutual respect and esteem, in order to help bring about a peaceful and fraternal coexistence between people of different ethnic groups, cultures and religions.
3. We commit ourselves to fostering the culture of dialogue, so that there will be an increase of understanding and mutual trust between individuals and among peoples, for these are the premise of authentic peace.
4. We commit ourselves to defending the right of everyone to live a decent life in accordance with their own cultural identity, and to form freely a family of his own.
5. We commit ourselves to frank and patient dialogue, refusing to consider our differences as an insurmountable barrier, but recognizing instead that to encounter the diversity of others can become an opportunity for greater reciprocal understanding.
6. We commit ourselves to forgiving one another for past and present errors and prejudices, and to supporting one another in a common effort both to overcome selfishness and arrogance, hatred and violence, and to learn from the past that peace without justice is no true peace.
7. We commit ourselves to taking the side of the poor and the helpless, to speaking out for those who have no voice and to working effectively to change these situations, out of the conviction that no one can be happy alone.
8. We commit ourselves to taking up the cry of those who refuse to be resigned to violence and evil, and we are desire to make every effort possible to offer the men and women of our time real hope for justice and peace.
9. We commit ourselves to encouraging all efforts to promote friendship between peoples, for we are convinced that, in the absence of solidarity and understanding between peoples, technological progress exposes the world to a growing risk of destruction and death.
10. We commit ourselves to urging leaders of nations to make every effort to create and consolidate, on the national and international levels, a world of solidarity and peace based on justice.

This piece by Rabbi Yoffie is very powerful and worth reading for all of us concerned about the future of Israel and the possiblities of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Rabbi Yoffie does not mince words.


Monday Oct 10, 2011
By Rabbi Eric Yoffie
President of URJ

Stop deluding yourselves!

There is far too much self-delusion, on all sides, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and issues of peace in the Middle East. What follows is my unsolicited advice to the major players.

To the Government and leaders of Turkey: Stop deluding yourselves! No matter how sharp your attacks on Israel and how craven your embrace of Hamas, you will not—as a non-Arab state—ever be accepted as a true leader in the Arab world. And your outrageous criticism of Israel for “misusing” the Holocaust will not erase the memory of the Ottoman Empire’s role in the Armenian genocide—a role that your government shamefully continues to deny.

To the leaders of the Palestinian Authority: Stop deluding yourselves! You will not be taken seriously as proponents of a two-state solution if you fail to support the underlying principles that make such a solution possible. A two-state solution means that there is no “right of return” to Israel, and that once a treaty is signed, the conflict is over. Really over. If you cannot say this now, and if you talk about Palestine being occupied since 1948, you are not serious about two states—or about peace.

To the leaders of the settlement movement: Stop deluding yourselves! No one believes you when you claim that the thugs who burn mosques, uproot olive trees on Arab land, spout anti-Muslim slogans, and deface army bases exist only on the margins of your community. This violence has been going on for years, feeding on extremist views of Jewish law put forward by too many of your rabbinic leaders. And everyone knows that you could do far more about this hooliganism than you are now doing if you really wanted to.

To the leaders of the Israeli right: Stop deluding yourselves! You cannot support a two-state solution and oppose it at the same time. The Prime Minister asserts Israel’s position, but you offer tepid assent in public while whispering to everyone that you hold the opposite view. In your heart you know that the occupation cannot continue, but after all these years you have yet to explain how it might end—and how Israel will maintain its democratic character and its Jewish majority if it doesn’t. Do you believe, as the Prime Minister says, that Israel should negotiate without preconditions? Again, without exactly saying so, your words and actions suggest otherwise.

To the leaders of the Israeli left: Stop deluding yourselves! You say that the Palestinians want peace, and Israelis would like to believe that, but where, for heaven’s sake, is the evidence? Hints, and feints, and winks are not enough. Abbas at the UN should have said: “I welcome the Jewish state as my neighbor, and I welcome the Jews home;” but he had his chance, and he blew it. Please, no more making excuses for him.

Should we despair? Absolutely not. Now is the right time for Israel, with American agreement, to define provisional borders for the Jewish state—borders that might result should the Palestinians get serious about talks. What Israel needs now is tough-minded, unilateral steps to regain the initiative. But no more delusions—from anyone.

This is a great piece to comtemplate as we prepare to hear Kol Nidre

The surprising appeal of Kol Nidre

By Lawrence A. Hoffman · September 22, 2011

NEW YORK (JTA) -- On his way to converting to Christianity, philosopher Franz Rosenzweig attended Yom Kippur services and was so moved that he decided to remain Jewish. One look at the most famous prayer for the occasion makes it hard to believe that he did not abandon Judaism all the quicker.
Kol Nidre actually is no prayer at all. Rather it is a legal formula in Aramaic that delineates obscure categories of vows and oaths known to the Bible and the Rabbis, and then solemnly proclaims that we are free of them.
The origin of this concern was our ancestors’ anxiety over reneging on promises sworn in God’s name. The Talmud permitted such oaths to be canceled, but only one by one and in the presence of a Talmudic sage. The idea of a blanket nullification was anathema to rabbis who first heard of it in the eighth and ninth centuries and denounced it as “a foolish custom.” But no one listened.
The prayer had emerged alongside a parallel practice of smashing clay pottery on which a formula to annul vows had been engraved, the idea being that your enemy might have conjured evil spirits and forced them magically to promise you harm. Breaking the bowl would free them from their promise.
Here, then, is a superstition-laden prayer that was condemned by rabbinic authorities but stuck anyway. Its final version reflects a 12th-century substitution of “vows made in the future” for “vows made in the past,” so as to do away with its obvious disregard for Talmudic law. Even so, it hardly represented Judaism at its moral best. In the 19th century it fueled German anti-Semitism to the point where Jews were hauled into court and forced to swear that they would be held answerable for the truth of any oath they took there.
Despite all this Kol Nidre persisted, eventually supplied with unforgettable music and the choreography of a courtroom trial held before God. Jews were chanting it is as far back as 11th-century France; 14th-century German cantors were prolonging the melody to make sure latecomers got to hear it. Polish Rabbi Mordecai Jaffe (1530–1612) sought in vain to change the text because cantors resisted coupling the age-old melody to new lyrics. Nineteenth- and 20th-century rabbis tried to substitute Psalms or write a new prayer altogether.
A more successful subterfuge was to play Kol Nidre on a musical instrument without words or to chant the prayer but omit the words (especially in translation) from the prayer book.
What attracts us to this strangely haunting ritual of Kol Nidre? Is it the music? Surely. Is it also the high drama of the occasion -- Torah scrolls dressed in white and held stunningly in full view of the congregation throughout the chant? Yes, it is that as well. But it is more. "All These Vows: Kol Nidre" (Jewish Lights, 2011) assembles the thoughtful and moving answers of more than 30 people -- rabbis and cantors, artists and thinkers -- the world over. My own view is that Kol Nidre connects us with the sacred.
Since the 19th century we have been on a road toward greater secularity -- not necessarily a bad thing, if by “secular” we mean the discovery that the world is devoid of magical forces and that everything runs by an immutable set of scientific laws. But we have paid a price. Secularization is the process of yanking at the curtain of the universe and discovering there is no wizard micromanaging it. But a universe that operates by natural law can still have mystery. We pilgrims on the yellow brick road strive to be secular, scientific and savvy without giving up on God and the certainty that life still matters. On Kol Nidre eve, it is as if nothing has eroded that certainty because energy runs high, memories go deep and some things seem not to have changed in a thousand years or more.
People mistakenly think that they cannot pray because they cannot believe. The reverse is true. Prayer compels belief, not the other way around. For a very brief moment, as Kol Nidre is chanted, we are in touch with the sacred and with our finitude; with those we love and with the broader human universe; with our own better selves and with the God we are not even sure we believe in.
Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, a professor of liturgy, worship and ritual at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, is the author most recently of "All These Vows: Kol Nidre" (Jewish Lights).

Goodies reflections

Second time I am writing this. OMG…. I wish I had saved it correctly.

People are very nice and helpful. The other day we went out looking a place to eat dinner. Traffic was bumper to bumper. At a light someone came up to the back of the car. Yes the old window washer trick. However Peter was looking for some change to tip but he went away. There is no tipping in the country. Nice. They want to be of service. Even the super did a few things for us. He wouldn’t take a tip. So I made him some shortbread. That he took. Smart man. He didn’t want to make me feel badly. I have several things that need to be done in Evanston. It would cost only $1900.00 in coach. Oh well just a thought.

Every time I want to call home it is 3 AM at home. Too early and the day is always wrong. 1 day different. Tomorrow is another day.

Holidays are very different this year. No family, chicken soup. brisket, or turkey. I looked for chicken livers the other day in the super market. I thought I would surprise Peter with a little touch of home. But nowhere to be found. I guess the New Zealanders don’t eat chicken so no livers. It is hard to be Jewish in this country. Someone told us his grandfather was a Kosher butcher and had to go out of business. No one would buy meat from Christchurch. Too bad.

The holidays were coming up and I decided to get my nails done. We went to one of the malls. The nail salon was in the middle of the hall. It was cold. No problem they had a heating pad for my tush. So my arms and legs were cold but bottom was toasty warm. The store on one side was Polo. Not one person came out with a bag. No sale on polo shirts $75.00. Surprisingly, very few stores were empty or going out of business like in the States. Getting back to the nails. It was a good thing I brought my own polish because the colors they had were black, green, and blue. Not my style. Not sure they celebrate Halloween. A woman sat next to me and had tips put on. After they were glued on, someone else came and did one hand and the other hand was done by someone else. One hand could be 4 incnes. the other 2 inches. Maybe a new style. Time will tell.

Things are very expensive. Sample sizes Adults $99.00 Children 89.00. That was for sandals. If you come to New Zealand, make sure you bring everything you think you need.

This is a very gay friendly country. One article said, they are more interested in what kind of car you drive than your life style. Nice to see.

Rugby is the main religion in New Zealand and it is still a mystery. Give me baseball, basketball or football any day. The commentary is as funny as the game. Why anyone wants to catch the ball and have everyone pile on top of you. This is a rough game.. Ouch!!!!

The other day we took a ferry to Wakiheke Island to visit a congregant for lunch. They live on 7 acres and have a sustainable farm. They have young people working it. They were working on a new Chicken coop. They have 4 chickens. The farmer showed me the eggs that were laid. It was like an Easter basket. Blue, brown, green. Dr. Suess knew something. I didn’t know about green eggs and ham. It was a cold and rainy day. We plan to go back and see the wineries that the island is famous for. We will taste and eat lunch. But we will wait until it gets warmer. I hope before we leave.

Peter went shopping the other day without me. When he got home, he told me this story. When he found the car to put groceries into the car he opened the door. The wrong side. Not unusual but he opened the door and sat inside. Then noticed the wheel was on the other side. Not automatic yet. I am glad I wasn’t around. I would still be laughing.

 

Oh what a country! Fun to experience new ways. People are always dressed in black. Not sure if it is because the World Cup. New Zealand is called the All Blacks. You just don’t know who is a real Kiwi. So many Japanese, Koreans, Indonesians. Therefore there are many ethnic restaurants. Some good , some tasty. You just don’t know until it is in your belly. Too late to leave.

Services went well. Peter wowed them and me.   It is a small place and everyone helps.--moving chairs, bringing a light meal for a nosh. It is still cold and very windy. I decided not to go to the cemetery for a service today. They will do without me this time.

  Signing off for now.

  Elaine

 

Elaine's reflections on Peter's Driving
Yes, driving is on the left side of the road. With my mind not completely recovered, I decided not to drive. There is no place I need to go without Peter. He is doing a great job. Only a few times did I have to remind him "left, left." Now each day we go to level 4 of the garage. Round and round we go up and up to the light that is either green or red. When it is green, we can go up and hold our breath that no one is walking across the walkway. We look to see if traffic is open to get into the left lane and go down the hill. At this point I try and relax because the two lane road goes into one. "Merge you idiot" Let us in we are Americans." We really should have a flag like everyone else has. They all fly a rugby team on the roof of the car. This way they can be patient and keep far away from us. Peter got a Garmin chip which was a great idea. Except it is always looking for the satellite. Sometimes after we have already passed the turn. "Recalculating." Not our favorite sound. The other day when it wasn't raining, we decided to venture out to a winery. Rt 16 out of Auckland city. We had written instructions as well as the Garmin. The Garmin said get off and make left. But when we got off it said turn rt. Funny it was taking us back on the Highway. Idiot. Sometimes I want to smash that person. Didn't she know we wanted to go to Babich Winery which was plugged in with correct address. It was not as pretty an operation as those in Argentina but it is just after winter so the plants are cut down ready for the growing season. We may go back. There are other places to visit. Not a total lose. We got some nice magazines and restaurants. I am finding prices so high I will probably cook more than I wanted to. Like in Michigan the meals are better at home. Getting back to the driving. We decided to go back home. Not a problem. Peter seems to do better here than at home. Go figure. I hope that doesn't mean he wants to stay. I am coming home. I do miss you all. Even though we Skype it isn't the same. The only thing is that Peter still can't get the turn signal and the windshield wipers right. So all of a sudden the wipers go on and we turn. At least I know where he wants to go. Poor person behind us. We really need that USA flag. Now it is time to go across traffic to go down the garage. We have to wave a security charm to open the door. Then down a steep hill and round and round 4 floors. Find the parking space. Thank G-d another successful trip. Until next time. 

A Thought for Selichot  Thanks Jonathan Rosove for sharing the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sack
I pass it alone as gift to anyone following my blog

"Forgiveness is more than a technique of conflict resolution. It is a stunningly original strategy. In a world without forgiveness, evil begets evil, harm generates harm, and there is no way short of exhaustion or forgetfulness of breaking the sequence. Forgiveness breaks the chain. It introduces into the logic of interpersonal encounter the unpredictability of grace. It represents a decision not to do what instinct and passion urge us to do. It answers hate with a refusal to hate, animosity with generosity. Few more daring ideas have ever entered the human situation. Forgiveness means that we are not destined endlessly to replay the grievances of yesterday. It is the ability to live with the past without being held captive by the past. It would not be an exaggeration to say that forgiveness is the most compelling testimony to human freedom. It is about the action that is not reaction. It is the refusal to be defined by circumstance. It represents our ability to change course, reframe the narrative of the past and create an unexpected set of possibilities for the future... Indeed there is none so self-righteous as one who carries the burden of self-perceived victimhood. But it is ultimately dehumanizing. More than hate destroys the hated, it destroys the hater."

-Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Dignity of Difference, pps. 178-9

With Selichot only a day away, I found this thought worth pondering.

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
-Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918-2008)

From Elaine Arriving in New Zealand

We arrived the other day without our luggage. We really didn't want to buy all new things. The good news was we did had the roll-on which had our medicines for 3 months. Now we can stay alive a bit longer. The luggage was found and delivered except Peter’s. They weren't sure where it was. We got a friendly email from a congregant who said “What a world! One day in Chicago, 2 days later in New Zealand and luggage in Belgium Congo. Peter wrote back and said, “I hope the person who gets the luggage enjoys my new tallit.” Good news, it did show up the next day.

 So far people have been very nice and welcoming.Speaking of  lost ting. Peter had meetings at the synagogue on Wed. and parked the car in front of the building not seeing a tow away zone between 4-6 pm. The President asked during the board meeting, “ Where did you park your car?” Peter told him and then with a blank face he said, “ I think it was towed.” Then the treasuer of the congregation drove Peter to the pound.  At the pound they asked Peter “What is the make of the car? What is the license plate number?" Now the blank face was Peter’s. They were nice enough to let him walk around until he located the car.  When the treasurer went to pay the fine, they discovered the registration was out of date. No problem they paid both fines and got a new registration.

 By the way do you know why you buy only 8 eggs in a carton? Because there is space in the refrigerator for only 8. BTW We better not get sick. One frozen chicken is $15.99 on sale. No chicken soup for us. Prices are very high. We decided to get what we needed and not think about the price. It is not the way I usually work but I guess we have to. Otherwise I won't enjoy this new life. Weather is very cold and they don't have central heating. We have room heaters in two rooms. We would wear sweaters. However, we didn't bring any. We have to find some sheep that aren’t being used for New Zealand lamb.

            We are having a great time. Tonight is Peter’s first service. They are having a potluck to welcome us.

 Shabbat Shalom

 Elaine  

In the current political climate and as we prepare for the Yamim Noraim. I found this article by Vincent Harding a veteran of the civil rights movement to be powerful. I heard an interview with him on the radio show On Being with Krista Tippett. My devar Torah on Friday night will be in part a reflection on this article.

Is America Possible? by Vincent Harding
 
THE LAND THAT NEVER HAS BEEN YET 
This essay is an updated version of Chapter Ten in Vincent Harding’s seminal book Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement, originally published by Orbis Books in 1990. The book is a series of interconnected essays that grew out of Harding’s work as the senior academic adviser for the award-winning PBS television series Eyes on the Prize. Harding wrote especially with teachers — of many kinds — in mind; encouraging them to use the story of the post–World War II African American freedom movement as a pathway into the deepest meanings of American democracy and the human spirit. It is compelling that the insight and vision rendered here are even more relevant today, nearly two decades later. 

Some years ago, I came across one of the most intriguing book titles that I have ever seen. It was set forth in the form of a question: Is America Possible? Even without delving into its contents, I was struck by the playful seriousness of the inquiry, the invitation to imagine and explore the shape and meaning of a “possible” America, an America still coming into existence. The idea itself, of course, was not new, simply its formulation. But since then, everywhere that I have paused to reflect on the powerful, flooding movement of the black struggle for freedom in America, I have been called back to that title, to its query and challenge. For it is a question that has always been at the heart of the African American quest for democracy in this land. And wherever we have seen these freedom seekers, community organizers, and artisans of democracy, standing their ground, calling others to the struggle, advancing into danger, and creating new realities, it is clear that they are taking the question seriously; shaping their own answers, and testing the possibilities of their dreams. 

Is America possible? Yes, they say, sometimes testifying to their vision with great eloquence: “I have a dream that one day . . .” Sometimes joining their vision to magnificent biblical images, they proclaim, “I’ve been to the mountaintop. I’ve seen the Promised Land.” Or in the marvelously mundane messages of their freedom songs, they express great hope: “If you don’t see me at the back of the bus / And you can’t find me nowhere / Just come on up to the front of the bus, / and I’ll be riding up there.” 

Envisioning very specific expressions of America’s possibilities, they sang, “I’m gonna eat at the Holiday Inn . . . one of these days.” And the great hope and vision were ultimately caught up in the anthem of the movement, in the stanzas that came from the past, as well as in the ones forged in the heat of the post–World War II struggle: “We shall overcome. . . . We’ll walk hand in hand. . . . The Lord will see us through. . . . The truth will make us free. . . . Black and white together. . . . Our children will be free. . . The whole wide world around.” 

Somehow, in a time like our own, when the capacity for imagining appears to be endangered, both by the technology of television and the Internet and by the poverty of public dreams, it seems especially crucial to introduce our students to the meaning of such a question as “Is America possible?” And it is absolutely necessary that they discover the significance of the biblical text: “Where there is no vision the people perish.” Indeed, it is precisely in a period of great spiritual and societal hunger like our own that we most need to open minds, hearts, and memories to those times when women and men actually dreamed of new possibilities for our nation, for our world, and for their own lives. It is now that we may be able to convey the stunning idea that dreams, imagination, vision, and hope are actually powerful mechanisms in the creation of new realities — especially when the dreams go beyond speeches and songs to become embodied; to take on flesh, in real, hard places. 

This is why we turn to the world of dreams and visions that became flesh and blood in the African American freedom movement. This is why we return to Rosa Parks and wonder aloud what visions of black and white together were in her mind and heart as the bus approached her stop on December 1, 1955. This is why we listen and laugh when her friend and mentor E. D. Nixon tells us that his dream of a new America for his grandchildren had eventually changed to a vision of a new nation that he could see and feel and experience in his own lifetime. It is in search of that power of imagination and action that we approach Malcolm X, realizing that the best heroes of democracy’s shaping were constantly opening their dreams and visions to change and were never satisfied to get high on dreams alone. 

Because we need new dreams in each generation, new visions for each time, we ask ourselves and our students about the dreams that moved the fourth-grade-trained Fannie Lou Hamer to challenge an entire political 36 deepening the american dream party and its president and leader, Lyndon B. Johnson. We seek to know more about the visions that kept her working for the poor and the marginalized until she died. Because we believe in the power of the imagination, especially when linked to committed lives — even when the lives and dreams go astray — we look deeply into the eyes of Black Panther founder Huey Newton and understand why a longtime resident of his community, shocked by his murder in 1989, could nevertheless say, “To us, Huey Newton was a hero. The Black Panthers were a thing to identify with, along with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.”2 What a gathering of dreamers! 

If we dare, it may still be possible to encourage such audacious — and necessary — dreaming on behalf of a more just and humane America today. With some encouragement, our teaching may yet find a way to engage the centers of imagination and open visions of a possible America in places where no one ever expected to find them. (As we have seen, we can do this by entering the dreams of those visionary workers who have gone before us, hearing and speaking their words, singing their songs, exploring the hope that moved their lives, and finding the mysterious connections that exist between them and our own deepest centers of creativity.) 

Exploring the world of the African American freedom struggle, we might grasp firmly one seminal statement of vision, one powerful answer to the key question “Is America possible?” and walk with our students into the depths of that experience. Considering Octavio Paz’s description of poetry as “the bridge between history and truth,” it would be exciting to explore a classic poetic statement of the archetypal African American dream of democracy and see if it can help bring some fundamental truth and hope to the life and times of our students; especially in this decade of awesome transitions. If I were to choose such a vehicle, it would be Langston Hughes’s magnificent poetic summons, “Let America Be America Again.” Such a work could easily occupy us for days or weeks as we touch all its levels, entering all the hope and receiving with gratitude all the visions shared by Hughes well over a half century ago. 

To provide a setting, to mix poetry with biography and history, someone (not necessarily the teacher) might explore what America was like in 1935 when the poem was written. What was it like to be black in New York or on lecture tours through the South or on troubled waters somewhere, far from tours and cities and help? In the midst of a profound national depression, how could a black man dream? Indeed, we are pressed to raise the larger question: What is it that makes for dreams, for visions, for some audacious movement beyond the “is” to the “ought” even in the midst of the most desperate and dangerous situations? But is america possible? returning to the specific context before us, we can best respond by looking more closely at Hughes himself. We see his Harlem-based, world-traveling life. We grasp the remarkable span and fidelity of his work. And everywhere, we recognize his firm belief in the life-giving purpose of dreams, as well as his sense of responsibility for sharing that belief with those who were younger. In a thousand ways throughout his work, we hear him say, as he did in “Dreams”: 

Hold fast to dreams 
For if dreams die 
Life is a broken-winged bird 
That cannot fly. 
Against that background, we can approach the larger poem, “Let America Be America Again,” as a way to strengthen our own wings and to speak to our students through song. As we use the poem to encourage an experience of flight in us all, it may be good to go right to the heart of the work. Invariably, I have found students of all ages responding deeply and fully to this poem, opening themselves both to its larger vision and to its implications for their own apparently dreamless lives. Sooner or later, it becomes clear that they have not been encouraged in the nurturing of dreams and visions. Or they have closed themselves against the most personal levels of their being. Even more frequently, they have been taught by word and example that they have no role in the dreaming of America, in the work of storming the impossible. Once they feel permission, once the life-giving power of their own imagination is touched at some vital point, it is amazing how quickly and how well they find their voices and their visions. 

Of course, my own experience is not a substitute for each teacher’s own path of discovery. Rather, it is simply offered as a word of encouragement. In the same way, these brief reflections on this poem provide only an idea of what has proved helpful when I have shared Hughes’s call — from maximum security prisons to Sunday school classes. In many ways, the poem is its own commentary and encouragement, its own faithful reflection of the central dreams of so much democratic struggle in this land: 

O, let America be America again— 
The land that never has been yet— 
And yet must be— 
The land where every man is free. 
So we begin with a marvelous and stimulating set of ideas and images for our students to explore. What does he mean by these two lines: “The land that never has been yet— / And yet must be—”? Already we are offered a sense of vision, of hope, of dream, of a land that does not yet exist. On one level, it is a familiar approach to the entire American hemisphere, as conjured up in the minds and hearts of those who have come here, voluntarily or enslaved. But Hughes takes it further than the usual semipassiveness of inner dreams. For he encourages us to recognize that this nation is still in process, still coming into being, still on its way to the fulfillment of its best self. And once that image is suggested, then the natural question flows: What would America’s “best self” be like? 

Earlier in the poem, Hughes refers to the essential dream of founders, immigrants, and slaves, of building a “homeland of the free” on these shores. Here he opens up the vision and looks for a land “where every man is free.” (Of course, we stop to wonder if Hughes would use the word man today.) And it is more than academic for us to press on to the question: What does it mean to be free, in America, in the twenty-first century? Constantly tantalizing, nudging, and calling forth, we might inquire, What would this country be like today if we were all free — free to become our best selves (and who might that be) and free to create “a more perfect union” for us all? 

Such questions only begin the conversation, suggest directions for the imagination, and invite a variety of sometimes conflicting dreams. Hughes goes on to contribute more concrete images when he writes: 

The land that’s mine— 
The poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME— 
Who made America 
His owners of America are a fascinating group, similar to many that we have seen in places like the Poor People’s Campaign and the Rainbow Coalition. Indeed, there is almost an echo here of the classic, prophetic, justice-obsessed strands of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Hughes envisions the land, God’s land, as belonging to the outcasts, the workers, the unexpected. Are these really the ones who made America? And if that is so, what are the implications of such truth for the future of the nation? How should it be shaped and directed and governed and cared for, if our country really belongs to poor people, Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and all the laborers “who made America”? What would a country be like that gave its greatest attention, care, and concern to such people? What would a country be like that took its major leadership from owners like these? 

Even as we attempt to play with such ideas and visions, it becomes clear that they may not present the greatest challenge to our capacity for seeing the unseen. For it is possible that the most arresting aspect of Hughes’s dream is not a matter of who owns America but his assumption that the primary owners also have the fundamental responsibility for fulfilling the original dream of a “homeland of the free.” Isn’t this the essential message in these words? 

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, 
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, 
Must bring back our mighty dream again. 
At the center of this vision is a dream of a land that does not yet exist and a vision of its creation placed in the hands of very ordinary men and women. What do our students — and their teachers — think of such a vision? In other words, to whom do we think America belongs, and who has the essential responsibility for its future? Are we prepared to abandon the cynically safe responses to these questions, responses like “It belongs to the people with the most money, the best lawyers, and the greatest access to the levers of political power”? Do we know that such supposedly realistic responses eventually stunt and finally destroy all the dream ports of our spirit, break all the wings of our hearts? And that they warn our students against ever dreaming or ever believing that they can fly? 

Eventually, Hughes also insists that we confront one of the most daunting realities of all dreams concerning the creation of a more just society; of an America more faithful to the truth of our joint ownership. As we have seen throughout the African American freedom struggle and in other movements for the expansion of democracy, all visionaries must count the costs. And the next Hughes stanza reminds us of the ever-present opposition that sets itself against dreams of hope and flights of freedom: 

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose 
The steel of freedom does not stain. 
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives, 
We must take back our land again, 
America! 
Do we know from our own hard experiences or can we recall or imagine some of the names that women and men who nurture such dreams have been called? Communist? Unpatriotic? Crazy? Naïve? Unrealistic? Troublemaker? Agitator? The list is much longer, of course, and if the responses were confined simply to name-calling, they would be easier to take. But as we have seen, in this country and abroad, anyone who vows seriously and publicly to “take back our land” from “those who live like leeches” off the lives of ordinary people is mounting a significant challenge to the status quo. It would be helpful to have our students reflect on what those words might have meant to Hughes when he wrote them and later on when he was “investigated” by a congressional un-American activities committee. What might they have meant to Martin Luther King Jr., or what do they mean now to Diane Nash, Bob Moses, Zoharah Simmons, or Jesse Jackson — or to those unknown, endangered, and courageous people who have vowed to fight the scourge of drugs in their local communities? 

Whatever the meanings, it is likely that many of those people who have worked for the expansion of democracy and freedom in this land would feel the resonance of Hughes’s powerful affirmations: 

O, yes, 
I say it plain, 
America never was America to me, 
And yet I swear this oath— 
America will be! 
In many ways, the first, accusatory pronouncement has always been easier to make for those who have fought against injustice, segregation, and exploitation. They (we) have seen the great distance between the nation’s magnificent potential and its present reality, and they (we) have announced it loudly: “America never was America to me!” But Hughes and the subsequent history of the movement for freedom and democracy have continually made it clear that while such an initial declaration is surely necessary, it is not sufficient. 

Always, everywhere, the second statement, the more difficult commitment, must follow: “America will be!” This is precisely the point at which our students and all of us who sense the inadequacies and injustices of the present and past must be encouraged to cultivate not only indignation and anger but also vision and hope. There is no humane future without them. So Hughes is able to predict the coming of a more just and more democratic America partly because, 

An ever-living seed, 
Its dream 
Lies deep in the heart of me. 
The dream, the seed, and the inner vision of a new nation are crucial. And all of us who are willing to hear the call are challenged to be the bearers, nurturers, and waterers of the seed of the tree of democracy that grows deep within our hearts. So the question becomes more urgent: What is the America that we dream, that we hope for, that we vow to help bring into being? If Langston Hughes (and there are many Langston Hugheses) is right, then ordinary people, whose lives still carry the struggle and hope of all the early workers and makers of America, bear the central responsibility for the re-creation of the nation. 

In the 1950s and 1960s, while Hughes was still alive, a generation of African Americans and their white allies took up the challenge, crafted their own versions of the dream, and committed their lives to its fulfillment. Indeed, the work was carried out with such fervor and fullness that one of Hughes’s Harlem-based contemporaries, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., could stand in the midst of that movement and declare, “We are the last revolutionaries in America — the last transfusion of Freedom into the blood stream of democracy.” 

What do our students know of all this, think of all this? What does the name Powell or the Abyssinian Baptist Church mean to them? What shall they do with the idea of an America in process, an America that is not a finished, sharp-edged block of white granite but is instead a malleable, multicolored gift of clay; still seeking, taking, giving shape, purpose, and direction? Even more important, how shall our students respond to the challenge of Hughes’s dream, Hughes’s hope, and Powell’s audacious declaration? Is this call for dream keepers, reality shapers, and life-giving revolutionaries too old and out of style? Is this a time of permanently broken wings? Are we in a place without healers? “Is there no balm in Gilead?” 

Clearly neither Langston Hughes, sainted poet of democracy, nor any of those who made the movement that helped transform the last years of his life, would settle for broken wings or aborted transfusions. Rather, it is fascinating that Hughes, ending his poem in the 1930s, and the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) opening their campaign in the 1950s, used the same religiously charged imperative: to redeem. In this supposedly more secular age, when too many of us tend to be uncomfortable with the age-old memories of a religious spirit that “can make a way out of no way,” we are still faced with Hughes’s last words, his repeated challenge, his call for something resembling religious fervor to rise up in our ordinary lives: 

We, the people, must redeem 
Our land, the mines, the plants, the rivers, 
The mountains and the endless plain— 
All, all the stretch of these great green states— 
And make America again. 
Now, in the early years of a new millennium, when the “impossible” has sprung up live among us again and again, it may be possible to rescue such words from mere sentimentality, to let them call us and our students from temptations toward nihilism and indifference. 

How? Perhaps we begin simply by listening together to the incantation “We, the people,” allowing its vibrations to inhabit us, asking each other about its original source and its meaning in our current setting. Gathering against our hesitation to dream “a more perfect union,” we may begin to play, to imagine, to dare envision some of what Hughes was (and still is) calling for. Gathered together, protected in the sacred circle of our common work from our own fears of exposure, we might ask each other what it would mean to redeem or rescue our land, Mother Earth, from its erosion, from our chemical pollutants, our nuclear waste, our garbage, and our greed. How might the land be rescued from its concentration into fewer and fewer hands, ever more distant from the ordinary owners that Hughes identified? 

The challenge is powerful; especially when we absorb into our beings the ecological, economic, and political developments that have taken place in America since Hughes died in 1967. For now we must place new meaning on saving our mines, recovering or replacing and remaking our disappeared and dilapidated industrial plants, rescuing our dying rivers and our denuded mountains. Indeed, one of the most important responses to the call of the poem would be the projection of our imaginations into the twenty-first century, bringing together the older, valiant dreams with all that we have seen and heard and felt since World War II regarding the struggle for democracy in America and across the globe. 

Because we have been given years that were not his, it may be that one of the greatest challenges of the poem is to dream beyond its creator: to recapture the best dreams of Ella Baker, Huey Newton, and Harold Washington and to join forces with the dreams of Angela Davis, Jim Lawson, Grace Boggs, and Myrlie Evers. We need these dreams badly. They are marvelous sources of advanced ideas about democracy. They would likely ask us to nurture the living seed within us and imagine how our cities might become safe, enthralling, and nourishing places, especially for our children. They would ask us to look somewhere between the isolation of the suburbs and the desolation of so many inner cities to dream a way of housing our people in places worthy of human dignity and community. They would encourage visions of a health system that would care for the needs of all our citizens. They would invite us to dream of schools and neighborhoods where children of all races, cultures, and economic groups are taught together to become responsible, compassionate citizens in an ever-expanding democratic society. 

Taking up Hughes’s unmentioned concerns, those living beyond him in a struggle for a new America might ask us to envision a nation free from the scourge of drugs, in both our personal and collective lives. They might nurture dreams of a society in which training for nonviolent peacemaking took priority over military “preparedness.” They might call us to a time when our relationships with other nations would be more neighborly, more mutually supportive in the great multinational healing tasks we have to accomplish. Remembering King, we know these rainbow warriors would urge us to dream a world in which our country will work with others to seek economic justice for all the basic-goods producer nations who are now broken and exploited, a world where the United States takes the path of peace with all who are now threatened by our immature and unwise search for military-based “security.” 

Continuously, persistently, I hear all the heroic voices of struggle joining Hughes in a common message. It says loudly that the work of discovering, exploring, and developing this true America is our work — we, the people, are in charge. Is it too much to ask our students to consider their role in this life-seeking action, both as dreamers and as workers? Are there noncoercive ways in which we may invite them to live beyond their presently defined self-limits, to participate in the re-creating tasks that await; beginning with themselves and stretching out to all “the endless plains” and the wounded cities of our land? To dream such dreams, to grasp such visions, to live lives anchored in great hope is certainly to develop ourselves and our students in the best traditions of the freedom movement, of all movements for justice, compassion, and democracy. Eventually, we might discover that it is also the path to our best personal humanity. 

Once, in the midst of the African independence struggles of the early 1960s, I remember hearing a poet of that continent say, “I am a citizen of a country that does not yet exist.” Perhaps this is the paradox into which we must allow Hughes to move us. Together with those we teach, we are officially citizens of the America we now know, but we need to give our greatest energies to the creation of the country that does not yet exist. Hughes calls us to envision it, to encourage our students to use all the magnificent but underdeveloped faculties of their imagination to begin to bring it into being, and to share that work with those who have gone before. Ultimately, Langston Hughes spoke both for our personal lives and for our nation when he wrote: 

Hold fast to dreams 
For when dreams go 
Life is a barren field 
Frozen with snow. 
It is a message for all of us who are committed to teach. We are the nurturers, the encouragers of all the dreams and seeds deep in all the hearts where the future of a redeemed and rescued land now dwells. So we must hold fast and see beneath the snow, calling others to recognize their own magnificent possibilities, to see and plant and join our hope with theirs. Today, we are called to sing in our dreams and say with our actions that America (the America of Langston and Malcolm and Ella and Anne Braden and all the marchers and mourners and organizers) is possible, is necessary, is coming. 




Rabbi Peter S. Knobel 
Beth Emet the Free Synagogue 
1224 Dempster St. 
Evanston, Il 60202 
O 847 869 4230 
H 847 982 9559 
C 847 644 1881 
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At Thought for Elul By Jack Layton

The Canadian politican Jack Layton died last week. He recently won a great political victory after many years of trying only to succumb to a reoccurance of his cancer. He wrote a letter to his supporters, to his family and friends and the Canadian people.

The last line of letter is worth pondering as we enter Elul and as we contemplate the state of the work

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. "

Reflections on Preparing for the High Holidays Yamim Noraim High Holy Days

Reflections on preparing for the Yamim Noraim (The High Holy Days)

 Last year for the first time since 1965 I did not have to prepare sermons, check musical cues , think of topics to  teach and get all bent out of shape worrying about the quality of worship experience of the various congregations that I served from my student days until 2009. Because our plans to go to New Zealand were cancelled because of Elaine’s illness we decided it would be best to worship at congregations other than Beth Emet. We felt it was important to allow Rabbi London and the congregation the opportunity to engage with each other without us. Rabbi London was extremely generous and invited us to attend all of the services and even though we declined we will always be deeply grateful for her sensitivity and support

What is like to sit in a congregation and not conduct High Holiday worship after forty four years of not experiencing as High Holiday service at which I was not officiating? It was both relaxing and disconcerting. The relaxing part is obvious. There were no worries about how well things were going. Our experience was positive. The sermons were good and I was especially moved By Rabbi Steven Mason’s sermon on Israel. The disconcerting part was that there were Issues  that I wanted to address and I had no forum. In addition as beautiful as the services that we attended were, we were not at home. We were warmly welcomed but it was not our place. I missed the familiar music and seeing familiar faces and being in familiar surroundings. We did attend the Afternoon, Yizkor and Neilah service at Beth Emet and it felt very good. Beth Emet is a special place and being away from it only served to remind us of something we already knew that  we are blessed to be members of such a great community.

This year I am preparing to conduct services at Beth Shalom in Auckland, New Zealand.  In my conversation with the ritual committee in at Beth Shalom they offered me the honor of singing Kol Nidrei.  In spite of great temptation on my part I suggested strongly for domestic bliss at home and the welfare of Beth Shalom they should give the honor to someone else.

Preparing for the service will be complex because I will be working different individuals who will provide the music, do some of the reading etc and I will be following the customs of a different community. It is exciting but a little nerve wracking. I am being to write my divrei Torah. I have decided that I will recycle one sermon from my last High Holidays at Beth Emet. It is the letter to my grandson Oliver. In addition I working on sermons on Israel, the prayer Unetaneh Tokef, (Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die), the story of Hagar and Yishmael which is the traditional passage for the first day of Rosh Hashanah and for Yizkor  a reflection immortality. The congregation uses Gates of Repentance but I will also bring pdfs of an experimental edition of our new High Holiday prayer book which I hope will engender meaningful feedback for the editorial committee.

I am new to writing a blog and at the moment it seems very self- indulgent.  I eventually will share my thoughts on the my experiences Down Under and my thoughts on other topics.

If you have a topic you want me to address please let me know.  Elaine and I our six grandchildren Oliver, Lily, Heather, Alana, Stephen and Leah, my children Seth and Dara, Alyssa and Jeremy wish you a healthy,prosperous and peaceful  5772.

Welcome to Kiwis and Koalas!

Elaine and I have some exciting news to share:

As many of you know, last year we were supposed to go to New Zealand for an extended stay where I would have served as the interim rabbi at the Reform congregation in Wellington. In addition, I would have participated in the introduction of a special edition of Miskhan T'filah which was created for the Reform congregations of the Pacific Rim. (The Pacific region of the World Union for Progressive Judaism was also celebrating its 75th anniversary). Sadly, our plans were cancelled because of Elaine's stroke. She has made magnificent progress and we are deeply grateful for the strong support we have received from our Beth Emet family.

On September 10, Elaine and I will depart for New Zealand where I will serve as visiting rabbi for the Reform congregation in Auckland through Simchat Torah. We will then have an opportunity to travel in both New Zealand and in Australia, where I will also have the privilege of speaking at some of our Reform congregations. In November, we will return to the congregation in Auckland, and I will serve as the rabbi of the congregation for another month. We are very excited.

A number of years ago Beth Emet generously granted me a sabbatical and Elaine and I spent five months in the United Kingdom where I was the interim rabbi at the North West Surrey Reform Congregation in Weybridge outside of London. It was an eye opening experience. I shared my impressions with the congregation in a monthly column entitled Somewhere Near the Thames. I intend to do something similar with this blog.

Elaine and I, our children and our grandchildren wish all of you a sweet, healthy and prosperous new year.