Category: A California Jew

Posts in this category express some aspect of my life as a Jew in Northern California. We are a unique community in Jewish history.

Update: The Lucky Ones

We’ve been without power for 24 hours and I must say this is a very strange experience. I’ve never seen anything like this windstorm: there is no rain, no clouds, but the wind comes in ferocious gusts which tumble patio furniture and rip stressed trees to bits. It truly is a storm, only with sunshine.

I titled this “The Lucky Ones” because I have to acknowledge our good luck. So many people around the region are now under evacuation. They won’t know if their homes were spared until they are allowed back. Some know their homes are gone. Some survived only with the clothing on their bodies and maybe a dog or cat.

We’ve tried to make the best of the quiet here at home. I finished a knitting project during the daytime, and tonight, like last night, I’ll go to bed early. I’ve checked in on friends via text message, but had to cancel my afternoon online class. I have no Internet, and trying to teach from an overcrowded Starbucks… no, better to wait!

Such situations as these fires raise theological questions. Why do some people suffer, when others are lucky? Why does God allow these destructive winds? Did we do something bad? Are we being punished?

Jewish tradition has lots of different answers to these questions. The book of Deuteronomy seems to suggest that bad things happen only to people who deserve them — but you and I both know that that can’t be right. Bad things happen to both the innocent and the guilty.

Every human being will experience tragedy sometime in their life. These days every Facebook feed seems full of good luck and virtue, but if you look deeper than the PR, pretty much everyone has troubles. Many people have pain they don’t advertise.

And yes, some people seem to enjoy boundless luck. It isn’t fair. All I know to say is that we never know as much as we think about other people’s lives.

Jewish tradition teaches us that the relief of suffering is OUR job. Waiting around for miracles isn’t likely to succeed – miracles are very, very rare. God does not usually fiddle with the laws of nature.

So if you feel lucky, look for someone to help. If you feel unlucky, look for someone else unlucky and help them. If you feel grateful, express that gratitude by helping someone.

We are God’s hands in this world.

Fire Season

Image: Sunset over San Francisco Bay.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area we are in the midst of another fire and weather emergency. Another fire burns up in Sonoma County, to the north. A dry, hurricane speed wind is lashing us all over the region. Because of that, the utility company has turned off the power to many homes, including mine.

Frankly, I do not begrudge the power outage. It is inconvenient but if it can lower the likelihood of a firestorm in my neighborhood, I am grateful.

Don’t worry about me. My family and I are ok. There are thousands of people displaced by the fire, and a number who have lost their homes. There are firefighters putting their bodies on the line, fighting the Kincade fire. They are the ones who need our support and our prayers.

I’m posting using my smartphone, and I need to conserve power. I will post as I have the power to do so.

It Was 30 Years Ago Today…

Image: Aerial image of the collapsed Cypress Structure in Oakland (USGS)

The engineer who came to take a look at my house said to me lightly, “Well, I wouldn’t trust it in a major earthquake, and you really ought to get that foundation fixed, but it isn’t an emergency.” I had called her in to check out a crack in our basement wall. That conversation took place early in October, 1989.

When the shaking began, I was working in my home office. One child was upstairs playing, and the older, a first grader, was chatting with a friend on the kitchen telephone. The longest 19 seconds of my life began with that jolt. All I could think was that I had to get the children out of that house.

I scrambled to the kitchen, snatched the phone out of Aaron’s hand, and threw him out the front door onto the lawn. Then I ran back to get Jim. I remember that the frame of the house was groaning, and the china cabinet was shuffling away from the wall in the dining room. Jim was strolling down the stairs, singing, and I grabbed him up. We ran out into the yard just as the shaking stopped.

Car alarms were going off. A few people came out of the houses, looking around. I clutched my children and whispered to the house, “OK, you can fall down now.” It didn’t, but it would be two years before the repairs were finished just in time for the Oakland Hills Fire.

That was the beginning of a long, tense evening. Linda was missing. This was before cell phones, and she should have been on her commute home from SFO. My heart flipped over when the radio said that the Bay Bridge was “down.” It would be more hours before we heard about the horror of the Cypress Structure.

Turns out, Linda had an appointment at the eye doctor’s, and had just had her eyes dilated. It was a while before she could see well enough to drive home. We were lucky, though: the optometrist’s office was in downtown Oakland, so we were all on the same side of the Bay. Other couples were separated for days because with one bridge down, the other bridges suspect, BART halted, and no ferries in operation, there was simply no way home.

Over the following days, we found out about all the dreadful things that had happened around us. Ours was the most-damaged house in our immediate neighborhood, but it was nothing compared to the pancaked Cypress Freeway, where 42 people died in their cars, or the entire Marina District of San Francisco, which burst into flames when the ground liquified and gas lines burst.

Most frightening of all to me was the aftermath in Santa Cruz, near the epicenter of the quake. Robin Ortiz worked behind the counter at the Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company. Her co-workers escaped the building as the un-reinforced brick structure collapsed, but she was missing under the rubble. Rescue workers toiled for hours to find her, but gave up late in the evening, convinced she was dead. Her partner of five years, Ruth Rabinowitz and their friends begged the workers to keep going and eventually police were called to pull them away from the wreckage.

What chilled me was the way the media treated Robin’s partner Ruth. She was portrayed as a nut, a hysterical lesbian fruitcake. A widow would have been a tragic figure: hysterical perhaps but understandably so. This “friend,” as they kept calling her, was just a nuisance, as were her friends. Police arrested five people, including the widow. Robin’s body was found late the next day.

It was a sobering lesson in second-class citizenship. The message was clear: our relationships were not real in the eyes of the public or the law. It would be 24 years before same sex couples in California would enjoy the protection offered by civil marriage.

Thirty years have gone by, and a lot has changed. The Cypress Structure and similar double-decker freeways are all gone from the landscape. The new eastern span of the Bay Bridge is a thing of beauty. Ferries now crisscross the Bay every day, revived in the wake of disaster. And since 2013 same-sex marriage has been legal not just in California, but all over the U.S. When I refer to “my wife,” nobody even blinks.

Rest in peace, Robin Ortiz.

From the Sublime to Whatever This Is

Image: I’m glad that knitting requires no electricity! A knitting project in progress.

I hope that each of you had a meaningful Day of Atonement. Services at Temple Sinai were beautiful today, and I am full of post-Yom-Kippur energy.

I am writing to explain that things are a little strange in San Leandro tonight. We have been warned about a possible power shutoff, because high winds are predicted.

At the moment there is almost no wind and two shutoff times have passed by. In short, I have no idea what is happening. My desktop computer is unplugged to keep it safe from surges, and I’m posting this from my phone.

I’m unsure when I shall post again.

Whatever happens, get ready for Sukkot. If you have a sukkah, put it up. If you want to learn about Sukkot, this blog has a search function. I will be back soon, I hope.

L’shana tovah umetukah! To a good and sweet year!

Online Rosh Hashanah Services!

Image: Temple Sinai, Oakland, CA

Not everyone can get to synagogue for Rosh Hashanah services. Because of my health issues, I will be able to attend in the daytime, but the evening services (in a hall where the chairs hurt my back) are impossible.

However, my synagogue streams services, and I invite you to join me for the evening service Erev Rosh Hashanah, Sunday night, Sept 29!

Services will stream at the Temple Sinai Community Facebook Page beginning at 7:30pm, Sunday, September 29, Pacific Time. I will be watching from home as well, so we can wish each other a “Shanah Tova!” before services begin.

The next morning, Rosh Hashanah services will stream at the same Internet address (see link above) at 8:30am and 11:30am Pacific Time. My wife and I will attend the 11:30 service in person, so I will not be watching the service from home.

Watching long distance is not ideal, but a whole lot better than nothing! I hope that some of you will join me in watching and participating from home on Sunday evening.

Insight on White Supremacists, and an Action Plan

Image: Dayton police released photos of the weapon and drum magazines used in the attack on August 4, 2019. (From CNN.com)

There is a remarkable article in a recent issue of The Atlantic. Yara Bayoumy and Kathi Gilsinan interviewed Christian Picciolini, a reformed white nationalist. They wrote A Reformed White Nationalist Says the Worst Is Yet to Come.

Picciolini joined a neo-Nazi hate group more than 30 years ago. Now he works to help people leave such groups. In the interview, he made some connections that I found really helpful in understanding what we are up against. I recommend you read the article, but here are some high points that stuck with me:

  1. The standard against which the violent white nationalists gauge their success is Timothy McVeigh, the anti-government terrorist who blew up an Oklahoma City federal building and killed more than 100 people in 1995. High body count is the point. In Dayton, the attacker used the equipment pictured above to kill 9 people and injure 27 within 30 seconds – more than one person hit per second.
  2. Revisions in the gun laws will help to limit the violence, but they will not solve the problem. Right now guns are the easiest way to kill large numbers of people. McVeigh used a car bomb and Islamic terrorists have used cars and airplanes as weapons, to name just a few deadly options. We need to get weapons of war away from hate groups, yes, but we also need to recognize that they will adapt.
  3. Racism and white supremacists have been part of the USA from the beginning, but conditions have changed. With the advent of the Internet, it is no longer necessary to recruit new members in person – young men looking for meaning in life find this philosophy online, and radicalize without ever meeting anyone in person.
  4. When we watch the videos with the attached ads, we are funding the hate groups. Many of these groups and individuals make their operating funds via advertising attached to their videos. So think twice before clicking on their websites, their videos, and any other such media.
  5. People who leave white nationalism behind do so because they have an emotional experience that changes their perceptions. For instance, they get to know someone from the targeted group. Arguing with racists does not change their minds, no matter how many facts are at hand. Experiences and time are what open hearts.
  6. Picciolini says, “There aren’t programs being funded to help people disengage from extremism.” In other words, our government is doing exactly nothing to counteract this movement and its ideology.

The quote that knocked me off my feet was this:

Typically what I found is, people hate other people because they hate something very specifically about themselves, or are very angry about a situation within their own environment, and that is then projected onto other people.

– Christian Picciolini, quoted in A Reformed White Nationalist Says the Worst Is Yet to Come , in The Atlantic, 8/6/19, accessed 8/10/19.

If this is true, then the meanest haters out there are filled with misery and/or anger. Nothing I say is going to persuade them of anything, because they will simply read it into their narrative. Dealing with actual violence or plans for violence is a job for law enforcement, and we need to insist that law enforcement step up their game.

Finally: some action items for myself – feel free to join me in any of them that appeal to you:

  • I am going to write and call my elected officials and ask for funding for research and programs for helping people untangle themselves from extremist groups.
  • I am going to insist that my representatives press the FBI to put a priority on white nationalist domestic terrorism.
  • I will continue to contribute money to organizations that track hate in America.
  • I will control any urge I have to make snarky comebacks to any such people I encounter on social media. Nothing I say in that environment is going to change their minds; it may serve to harden their position. Instead, I will work to encourage the good I see, taking as my inspiration from Hillel’s advice below.
  • I will correct false information I see spread about, but I will do it calmly and politely. I will not engage.
  • I will continue to search my heart and my behavior for my own racism and participation in racist systems.
  • I will maintain my awareness that all of us who are hated by white supremacists are in this together. I will not let that awareness be disrupted by side-trips into other political issues.

Hillel used to say: be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving mankind and drawing them close to the Torah.

– Pirkei Avot 1:12

Shabbat: After One of Those Weeks

Image: Pouring a cup of tea. (Photo: dungthuyvunguyen /Pixabay)

It’s been one of those weeks. My personal list of small woes includes a broken tooth, a twisted knee, a forgotten AC adapter for my computer (oops – no power,) and a blood pressure spike. These things are all related, and they are all manageable, but still, it’s been a week. It wasn’t the week I planned, that’s for sure.

Those are just my personal mishaps. The news feeds have been full of horrors: more people dying in the border camps, a crowd at the president’s rally shrieking racist chants, an Israeli government official telling us what he really thinks about diaspora Jews, a ghastly story about a pedophile who may be or have been buddies with the president, building tensions between the US and Iran. There’s more, but that’s enough!

Such weeks are not unusual any more. I spent some time this week on an effort to be empathetic, imagining what it would be like if I had different feelings about politics, and I think it’s probably been a crummy week for them, too. I take no joy in that.

So in a few hours it will be Shabbat. I’m going to turn off the news. The computer will turn itself off, until my replacement AC adapter comes, and I’m going to choose to see that as a good thing. I’m away from home, in a pretty comfy hotel, and I’m going to stay “home” this Shabbat. I will not try to navigate an unfamiliar synagogue.

For Refuah (Healing): to allow my knee to heal and my blood pressure to subside under my new meds. (Which is not a crisis – I’d been on the same old low dosage meds since 1997.)

For Anivah (Humility): I will let go of all things over which I have no control. Anivah, humility, is a valuable middah (virtue.)

For Tefilah (Prayer): I’m going to spend some serious time praying for the people trapped at our border, and for the souls of the people guarding them. I will listen for inspiration: what I could do that I’m not already doing?

For Menuchah (Rest): I’m going to let my body and soul breathe a bit. Sleep more, stress less.

For Ahavah (Love): I will call the ones I love and touch base, reassure them that I’m OK, listen to what’s happening with them, and tell them I love them.

An ideal Shabbat? Maybe not. But it’s the Shabbat I’ve got, and I’m going to make the most of it.

How was your week? How are your body and soul doing? What’s your plan, this Shabbat?

I wish you healing and prayer, rest and love. Shabbat shalom!

Korach LIVE: film at eleven!

Image: A red sign saying “Breaking News” (BestGraphics_Com / Pixabay)

Two massive earthquakes and a swarm of aftershocks tore at the soil of Southern California this week. Cracks gaped open in the earth, not just in asphalt but in the raw sod itself. Gas lines broke, houses burned, and it was pure luck that as far as we know, there have been no casualties.

The news this week was on-target for the Torah portion, that’s for sure. Surely I am not the only person who quailed at the thought of two major earthquakes on the week of Shabbat Korach?

Here is the story, straight out of the Torah:

Korah gathered the whole community against them at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. Then the Presence of the LORD appeared to the whole community, and the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, “Stand back from this community that I may annihilate them in an instant!”

But they fell on their faces and said, “O God, Source of the breath of all flesh! When one man sins, will You be wrathful with the whole community?”

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the community and say: Withdraw from about the abodes of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.”

Moses rose and went to Dathan and Abiram, the elders of Israel following him. He addressed the community, saying, “Move away from the tents of these wicked men and touch nothing that belongs to them, lest you be wiped out for all their sins.”

So they withdrew from about the abodes of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Now Dathan and Abiram had come out and they stood at the entrance of their tents, with their wives, their children, and their little ones.

And Moses said, “By this you shall know that it was the LORD who sent me to do all these things; that they are not of my own devising: if these men die as all men do, if their lot be the common fate of all mankind, it was not the LORD who sent me.

But if the LORD brings about something unheard-of, so that the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, you shall know that these men have spurned the LORD.”

Scarcely had he finished speaking all these words when the ground under them burst asunder, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their households, all Korah’s people and all their possessions. They went down alive into Sheol, with all that belonged to them; the earth closed over them and they vanished from the midst of the congregation.

All Israel around them fled at their shrieks, for they said, “The earth might swallow us!”

Parashat Korach, Numbers 16: 19-34

If you are unprepared for whatever kind of natural disaster your locale offers, take these quakes as a wake up call. Do you have water? Flashlights? Batteries? Etc? Once the shaking starts, it’s too late to go to the grocery store.

Shavua tov, everyone – have a good and safe week.

Play Ball! A Meditation

Image: A game at the Las Vegas Ballpark, 1/20/2019.

I’m writing tonight from the Las Vegas Ballpark, where the Sacramento River Cats are playing the Las Vegas Aviators.

Never heard of them? This is minor league baseball, AAA to be precise, the world of Bull Durham, if you’re a baseball movie aficionado. The Aviators are a farm team for the Oakland Athletics. The River Cats are affiliated with the San Francisco Giants. Subtext is strong here.

What does this have to do with Torah? Baseball, like Torah, contains worlds. It is a metaphor for everything. In baseball, the home team plays the outsiders – it’s deeply tribal – but everyone’s worst instincts are constrained by the Rulebook (mitzvot.) Bats are for hitting balls, not heads.

Baseball, well played, is a form of meditation. The more perfectly everyone does their job, the less happens. A completely perfect game would go on forever.

Fortunately it is also a deeply human game, and imperfections abound. They keep the crowd from falling asleep, but it is in the workings-out of imperfection that joy abounds.

I love baseball, especially minor league baseball. The ballparks are human size, and admission is cheap enough that whole families attend together. The lady sitting next to me might be 80, and if she had her way the Aviators would win. Alas, they seem to excel only in interesting imperfections tonight.

Blessed are You, Eternal our God, who has implanted in human hearts the love of games!

Climate Change and Torah

Image: A California poppy, in my yard.

Climate change is doing a number on my neighborhood. Today the temperature was over 100°F for sure. If WeatherUnderground.com can be believed, the high was 107°F. I decided not to believe it.

It is June in the SF Bay Area. June is legendarily chilly here. Mark Twain joked that the coldest winter he ever experienced was in June in San Francisco. No more, apparently.

What does this have to do with Judaism? several things:

1. We learn from a midrash that when the Creator entrusted the Earth to Adam and Eve, God said to them, “Take care of it. It’s the only one I’m going to give you.”

2. We are commanded, bal tashkeit, “do not waste.” The verse in question has to do with trees, but our sages expanded it to a commandment to be careful in our use of natural resources.

3. We are commanded to preserve life. The strictest form of that commandment has to do with responding to someone in immediate danger of death. In a heat wave, we are responsible as a community to make sure everyone has water and a cool place to go. Alameda County is doing its best but I am concerned about the huge number of homeless people, and elders.

I hear a lot on the media about why we can’t do anything about climate change. The Green New Deal was pooh-poohed by conservatives, and they talk about what other countries are or are not doing, or they say the whole thing is “fake news.” Environmental advocates have been less than diplomatic in their rhetoric, which I understand but “I told you so” never contributed to progress.

If you have personally never been affected by climate change, there are lots of places where you can see it in action: my house, most port cities, and the farms in the Midwest. Or you can take a cruise to the island nation of Kiribati, which is quickly submerging into the Pacific.

We have made a mess, folks. I’m as responsible as any individual. We need to change. We need to think in terms of what we CAN do. We need to quit using others’ behavior as an excuse. Because as the midrash teaches, this is the only world we’ve got.