It’s been about 3 months since I shaved my head to raise funds for pediatric cancer research. You can still donate to the fund by clicking the link, and I and a bunch of rabbis with funny hair will be deeply grateful.
Growing my hair back has been a surprise too. Who would have guessed that I wouldn’t want it back?
I have kept growing it this far for dear friends who wanted me to have hair – my own hair, not a wig – under their chuppah. They are officially married now, and I fulfilled my promise. I held off on going to a barber today because (1) I had to drive to Boston and didn’t really have time to go find a barber and (2) I thought I might have second thoughts.
Nope. This scrubby hair with its weird widow’s peak is making me crazy. It’s long enough now that I get (horrors) HAT HAIR. Off it goes, as soon as I can find someone to do it.
Funny thing about mitzvot: you never know where they’ll take you. I had no idea I would like being bald.
A little over a month ago, I wrote about shaving my head at the “36 Rabbis Shave for the Brave” event in Chicago. A group of rabbis, mostly but not all Reform, shaved our heads in an effort to raise consciousness and cash for pediatric cancer research. Our inspiration was the life of a little boy who did not survive leukemia, the eight year old child of our colleagues, Sammy Sommer.
The experience has given me one surprise after another.
It turned out that it wasn’t much of a sacrifice to shave my head: I actually felt freed by it, and after fulfilling a promise to a friend this summer, I intend to get rid of the hair again. I liked the bald look: elegant in its own way, and striking.
In the meantime, I’m walking around with what looks like a bad crew cut as the hair grows out. My hair is about half an inch long. If I put on a hat, my scalp itches. Every day, I’ve gotten a little more upset when I looked in the mirror, and today I finally figured it out.
I had gone out today without makeup or earrings. While I was pumping gas, I caught sight of a reflection in the car window. The image looked to me like a middle aged man with a bad crew cut. “Who IS that guy?” I thought, annoyed.
Then I realized: That guy is me.
My next thought was: Never, ever leave the house again without lipstick.
I am quite aware that just as shaving my head was nothing like having cancer, this tiny bit of gender discomfort is nothing like the reality facing transgender people. On the other hand, it does seem that there may yet be more to learn from this experience, especially since now I know why the clerk at Staples seemed to be looking at me funny, and hesitated in speaking to me.
So – if you would like to join me in supporting childhood cancer research, you can still donate here. Truly, it’s a good cause.
And if I learn anything worth passing along about being mistaken for a middle aged guy with a bad crew cut, I promise to print it here!
On April 1, 2014, I and more than 50 other rabbis are going to shave our heads:
in solidarity with children and their families who suffer through cancer and cancer treatments
in protest against the lack of options available to those children and their healthcare professionals
in memory of Samuel Asher Sommer z”l, who died last December after an 18 month struggle with cancer
and to raise funds for research so that future cancer sufferers will have more and better options than did Sam.
Did you know:
Worldwide, a child is diagnosed with cancer every three minutes.
Most childhood cancers are not related to lifestyle factors – they can’t be prevented by “living well.”
In 80% of children, by the time the cancer is discovered, it has already spread within the body.
More than 90% of survivors of childhood cancers will have lifelong conditions from their cancer treatments.
Only a tiny percentage of federal cancer research funding goes for treatments for childhood cancers.
We can’t save Sammy, but we are raising funds to bring about better treatments for the children who will be diagnosed in the future. Current treatments are brutal and too often ineffective. Research dollars go to look for more effective treatments that do less damage to children.
I am asking you, my readers, to participate in this drive by donating through my page at the St.Baldrick’s Foundation. Even the smallest donation will make a difference; I checked, and the website will accept a donation of even $1.
St. Baldrick’s, by the way, is not a religious foundation. “St. Baldrick” is a combination of “bald” and “St. Patrick’s,” a reference to the fact that the first fundraising head-shaves took place on March 17, 2000. St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a good steward of the funds you donate; Charity Navigator gives it a coveted 3-star rating.
If my words have ever been useful to you, or if the story of Superman Sam has touched your heart, I beg you to give, if not through my page, then through the page of some other rabbi you know. In these months of Adar, when “joy increases” let’s do something concrete to increase the years in young lives, and the joy in the lives of young families.
My brother John & me. The family resemblance should positively shine after my prayer in March!
This March, I am going to pray in a new way: I’m going to shave my head.
The backstory:
Sam is a eight year old with acute myeloid leukemia, the son of two of my colleagues, rabbis in the Midwest. He has been through a year and a half of horrific treatments, and recently doctors informed his parents that the disease is back but all of Sam’s treatment options are exhausted. The leukemia is going to take Sam’s life, despite all he and his family have suffered.
Many of us who have prayed and watched with breaking hearts as this drama unfolded have struggled for some response to this. We have learned some startling things: that only 4% of federal funding for cancer research is earmarked for children’s cancers, that many of the treatments available are hideous and, bottom line, too many children go through those difficult treatments and still die of cancer.
I saw some of this first hand a few years ago when I was a chaplain intern in the Bone Marrow Unit at City of Hope in Duarte, CA. Bone marrow transplants can sometimes work miracles, but even the success stories are harrowing. Following Sam’s story brought back memories and nightmares from that internship, and I was not a patient, only a chaplain.
This March 31, at the national convention of Reform rabbis, 36 of us are going to shave our heads in solidarity with the children and the families that are devastated by cancer. We’re calling it 36 Rabbis Shave for the Brave. We do this as a prayer: a prayer for more research, a prayer for more effective, less destructive treatments, and a prayer that the children and their families will know that we stand with them as they face these terrible diseases. We will do it as a prayer of lamentation for young lives that know too much pain, for young lives cut short, for families who have to watch as little children suffer.
But this is an active prayer, and we ask others to participate. Here’s the deal: I’m going to shave my head. You, dear reader, can participate by donating to the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a fundraiser for children’s cancer research. All you have to do is click the link at the bottom of this post and donate what your heart suggests. In exchange, I will send you a nice thank you note with an “after” picture of myself, bald as my baby brother. You will also have a tax deduction and the knowledge that you have not stood by while your neighbor bleeds – or goes bald. (Leviticus 19:16)
During the Civil Rights Movement, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said that he “prayed with his feet” at Selma. I am going to pray with my hair. Please, join me in prayer by clicking on the link and joining me in speaking up for children with cancer. We cannot save Sam, but this we can do.
