Category Archives: Observe & Ponder

Happily Even After

Observe & Ponder

As a wordsmith, I know that one word can change a life or a sentence.

One word. That’s all it takes.

In this case, it took two:

EVEN and EVER.

It all started this past Sunday afternoon while hosting my daughter’s BRIDAL SHOWER.

The day had challenges, but I think it turned out okay, EVEN though the food was COLD,

which was a crying shame because it was yummy.

Just iced-COLD.

But I stayed calm. I didn’t yell or carry on. I stayed positive because it was my daughter’s special day.

Also, my favorite cake was being served: ITALIAN RUM CAKE with vanilla and chocolate pudding, extra Rum flavoring, “dressed” with snow-white whipped cream. (The BAKER used the word “dressed,” and as soon as I heard it, I vowed never to use the word “topped” again.)

When I ordered the cake, I asked the BAKER to adorn it with the couple’s engagement photo and then, underneath the image, to write the words:

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

It’s too long of a story to tell here, but I’ll tell it anyway. When I went to pick up the cake, the BAKER was surrounded by many—too many—undressed cakes, mine included…

I waited patiently for the BAKER to finish “dressing” my cake, and when he shouted twice that I was making him nervous, I twice skulked to my car to while away my precious time.

And because he was late, I was late. So, when the BAKER nervously presented the ITALIAN RUM CAKE to me, camouflaged by a glass display of Italian pastries, I said, “It looks fine,” EVEN though I couldn’t see it.

I’m not making excuses here. I’m just saying.

At the BRIDAL SHOWER, everyone enjoyed introductions, music, and mingling, and seeing my daughter so happy was pure JOY.

JOY.

That’s not a word you’ll hear coming out of my mouth very often.

Okay, not EVER.

But I’ll say it loud and proud. I was experiencing JOY.

And the BRIDAL SHOWER was going better than EVER.

Games were played, prizes were won, and then the COLD food came out.

The PARTY POINT PERSON tried to heat up that COLD food with chafing dish candles, but the air conditioner vent kept blowing out the flames.

Four employees, including the bartender, hovered around the food, investigating the situation, but to no avail; we all ate COLD food.

And because the food was COLD, the PARTY POINT PERSON said she felt bad and would put out more food. I told the PARTY POINT PERSON it wasn’t necessary to put out more food because everyone was full.

And everyone was full because they had already eaten,

COLD food.

I also told the PARTY POINT PERSON that if she were to put out more food, she might want to move the buffet server station away from the air conditioner vent duh. (I didn’t say, “duh,” because of the JOY thing, but I thought it.)

The PARTY POINT PERSON took my station relocation suggestion to heart because she immediately moved the buffet servers to another wall and then put out more food,

which was also COLD.

At that point, I was still determined to fill myself up with JOY, so I feigned serenity and was now totally and utterly dependent upon the ITALIAN RUM CAKE being the best ITALIAN RUM CAKE it could be to make up for the COLD food.

The almost-groom arrived at the BRIDAL SHOWER with a stunning bouquet at 3 pm, and the cake-cutting/photo op was scheduled for 3:30.

When the PARTY POINT PERSON brought out the cake, my daughter and I were aghast at the inscription:

HAPPILY EVEN AFTER

My daughter thought it was hilarious while I stared in horror.

My doctor friend, who was in attendance, promptly grabbed a knife and meticulously performed surgery on the N, turning it into a near-perfect R.

Well, not an R…an r.

!!! Thanks to Dr. Andrea, the ITALIAN RUM CAKE now said:

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

And EVEN though we righted the BAKER’S wrong, the original inscription on the ITALIAN RUM CAKE was a ginormous hit.

It was such a hit that the BRIDAL SHOWER guests took more photos of the botched cake message of:

HAPPILY EVEN AFTER

than photos taken of the soon-to-be-married couple cutting the surgically amended version:

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

!!!

Once the EVEN was punctiliously changed to EVER, the ITALIAN RUM CAKE was couple-cut and served.

FROZEN.

So FROZEN that it was difficult to cut.

And also, I almost broke a tooth on a hard candy pearl that the BAKER had strewn all over the “dressing” of the cake. Those suckers were lethal. That ITALIAN RUM CAKE should have come with a warning:

HAPPILY EVEN AFTER you break a tooth on the hard candy pearls.

Needless to say, there was a lot of ITALIAN RUM CAKE left, so I took it home. And once it thawed, it was fabulously delicious.

Despite the COLD food and the FROZEN ITALIAN RUM CAKE, I think the BRIDAL SHOWER was a success.

But I still haven’t been able to get that darn inscription

HAPPILY EVEN AFTER

out of my head.

I might EVEN like it better than “dressing.”

Four Thousand Weeks

Observe & Ponder

In 2021, Oliver Burkeman wrote a brilliant bestseller, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.

Four thousand weeks equates to 76.923 years. If Burkeman is correct, this leaves me with a little under five years to get sh*t done.

Some Jewish scholars, particularly within Kabbalah and Hasidic Judaism, believe that souls return to human form to complete an unfinished life or to rectify past actions.

So maybe I have more time than Burkeman thinks—assuming I return as someone else, my time might be indefinitely infinite.

And if there is any truth to what these Jewish scholars believe, I have a list of souls who may or may not be lurking around me—some who died too young and whom I miss terribly, and others who most definitely owe me some rectification.

The concept of “Gilgul,” the Hebrew word for “the transmigration of souls,” refers to moving a soul into another body upon death. This concept is also a central belief in many religions and philosophies, including Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism.

It kind of creeps me out, but I also love it because it makes me hopeful that I can return to the beginning once I get to the end. Plus, I have a few past actions I would love to rectify.

Burkeman’s four-thousand-week theory, combined with Gilgul, reminds me that I need to make the most of the here and now because my time is quickly running out.

But rectifying past actions by returning to another human form sounds easier said than done, so I have a few questions:

  • What would a future apology by a future other body look like?
  • Plus, if my apology was already rejected, how would moving into another body change that?
  • And anyway, how does one choose another body? Does one simply stumble upon it, or do we have options?
  • And finally, whose body would I want to morph into? And what if this body I’m eyeing is already spoken for?

In Hinduism, karma determines what form the soul will take in the next life, so maybe I won’t have a choice. And karma can be tricky. You know what many say about karma being…

I probably have too much time on my hands, but the question of whose body I would like to morph into has given me a lot to think about these past few days.

After much thought ( I know I need a life), I decided that whatever is unfinished or needs rectifying, I need to do it soon and not rely on some other future body to do it for me.

As a control freak, I’m not leaving anything up to fate or karma, so I’m going with the Buddhist perspective: My actions in this life will eventually decide my fate in the next one, so I better get busy.

Lamentations

Observe & Ponder


I had recently returned home from a trip to Israel three weeks before the barbaric assault by Hamas against innocent people in Southern Israel on October 7, 2023, when I had a dream about writing scripture.

In my dream, reams of paper and holy words were spread before me as I assiduously read them aloud. I woke up thinking it was an odd and possibly ungodly supposition to think I would even dream such a thing.

Only when my husband left an article on my desk about Lamentations, the 25th Book of the Old Testament, did I remember the dream from months earlier.

The article was about two October 7 female survivors who each wrote a lamentation about their harrowing experience.

I immediately Googled the word “lamentation.”

Lamentation: a passionate expression of grief, sorrow, mourning, or regret—a weeping.

My Googling got me thinking that maybe I misinterpreted my dream—that perhaps I hadn’t been writing scripture at all but instead was obsessed with some other lament. But what?

The Biblical Book of Lamentations is a collection of sorrowful poems—five chapters or elegies that focus on the extreme pain and misery of the people of Judah following the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. In Lamentations, the city of Jerusalem is depicted as a grieving widow, and the imagery is incredibly and heartbreakingly powerful.

Now, I don’t propose that I know anything about anything when it comes to the Bible. I’m just trying to make sense of my dream and how it might relate to writing my own lamentation, so please feel free to contact me with any corrections regarding what I have written here today.

Theological studies of Lamentations have long been fascinated by its literary acrostic device, how and why the poems are built around the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and whether or not the author was the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah. I will leave the tenor of the structure and the presumed author(s) to the experts.

My fascination with Lamentations is in the beauty, the sorrowful ache, and the level of sophistication in every line of verse. And how it hauntingly relates to my current life situation.

While nothing can compare to the Biblical text of Lamentations, over the generations, more lamentations were later written in response to the horrors and suffering Jews experienced over time and place: The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the massacres of the medieval Crusades, the public burning of the Talmud in the 13th century, the unspeakable Spanish massacres of 1391, the Spanish expulsion of 1492, and on and on and on.

As I grabbed my Bible and read through Lamentations, it was 2:15-16 that gave me October 7 déjà vu and chill bumps. The words took on more significant and profound meaning because since October 7, I have been horrified by the antisemitism on college campuses and elsewhere, and I would dare say seemingly everywhere these days.

The recent hissing, gnashing, and Jew-baiting by the hateful has caused me to rethink how I feel about others I once had sympathy for. Those suffering people I aligned with and protested alongside for years, have me looking at them in another light. I am now suspicious in a way I was never before. I no longer wear my Jewish Star for fear of getting punched in the face or worse. And all this hatefulness has reminded me of the hate against me from those I once loved and, in many ways, still do.

Lamentations
2:15
All who pass your way
Clap their hands at you;
They hiss and wag their head
At Fair Jerusalem:
“Is this the city that was called
Perfect in Beauty,
Joy of All the Earth?”

2:16
All your enemies
Jeer at you;
They hiss and gnash their teeth,
And cry: “We’ve ruined her!
Ah, this is the day we hoped for;
We have lived to see it!”

So here it is:

What was my dream about? Was I supposed to write a lamentation?

After much soul-searching, I have decided that—YES—a lamentation is in my near future, so stay tuned.

He Had Me at Humble

Observe & Ponder,

Rabbi Marcus’ article in the latest issue of Chabad Magazine was titled “The Humble Girls of Jerusalem,” but the word “humble” was what caught my eye, and prompted me to read his piece.

His article was adapted from Likkutei Sichot, Volume 24, page 57.

Likkutei Sichos is a series of 39 volumes that contain the teachings of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, also known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The Hebrew title, Likkutei Sichos, translates to “Collected Talks” in English.

According to Rabbi Marcus, this particular teaching by the Lubavitcher Rebbe about humble girls explains that we all come from different lifestyles, families, religions, and socio-economic backgrounds but that “…fundamentally, it boils down to two types of people.”

“The first type takes credit for their genes, good looks, family heritage, and parents’ wealth.”

“The second type, the poor, unattractive girl, can’t boast family or wealth. Instead, she demonstrates that she’s self-made, knowledgeable, capable, and, most importantly, understands what it means to struggle. This poor G-d-fearing, ‘daughter of Jerusalem,’ is not ugly, and she knows you’ll see her beauty once she can afford a decent haircut, a new dress, and some essential jewelry.”

I found the words of both Rabbis to be incredibly stirring, and having been brought up in humble beginnings, I related to the poor, unattractive, God-fearing girl.

I honestly never heard of Likkutei Sichos before, but the Rebbe’s teaching about the humbleness of one’s importance touched and uplifted me.

The article also brilliantly connected Chasidic teachings with the moon.

I don’t know about you, but I’m obsessed with the moon and spend an abundance of time gazing at and adoring it in stupefied wonder.

Speaking of the moon, Jews primarily use it as the basis for their calendar because Jewish tradition dictates that their calendar should be lunar-based.

Dating back to ancient times, the Jewish calendar follows the moon’s cycles—with the new moon marking the start of a new month. As stated in the Talmud: “Israel counts by the moon,” while other nations count by the sun, which is why the Jewish holidays begin at sundown.

But I digress.

According to Rabbi Marcus, in Chasidic teachings, the moon serves as the perfect example of humility and humbleness. The words he used to describe the moon’s connection to these selfless qualities were beautiful and incredibly inspiring:

“…the moon…gracefully lets everyone know it’s just a reflection of the sun’s light…the moon shows us how to be a graceful receiver, shining a beautiful light that’s not its own.”

Rabbi Marcus’ words about God, humility, humbleness, and the moon touched my religious senses in a way I had never before been moved.

And I can’t imagine I will ever look at the moon the same way again.

Rabbi Marcus ended with: “You could be rich, beautiful, and from a great family, but your true power comes when you lift your eyes and see where it all comes from.”

Amen to that.