My Torah Portion, Genesis Verses 1-6 The B’reishit; The Creation

Each week in synagogue, the congregation reads a portion of the Torah, so that by the end of the year, we have read the first five books, yet again, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Each person at his or her Bar or Bat Mitzvah engages with the Torah portion for the week of his or her Bar or Bat Mitzvah. And so my Torah portion is The B’reishit, the Beginning-- Genesis verses one through six. And this is my drash, a word meaning interpretation. A drash can also be a story that helps elucidate another story. My drash is some of each. 

In the beginning, God creates heaven and earth, and still all is darkness. Then, God calls for light, and as God speaks, our world forms, day and night, sea and grass, sun and moon. God calls creatures into existence, fish and birds, cattle and beasts. An finally God creates Adam, a human. In the Hebrew Bible, Jewish Publication Society edition of 1917, this verse reads: “And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created him, male and female, created he them.”

We don’t usually hear this version of the story, a simultaneous creation of male and female. The story we usually hear is more vivid, and it occurs in verse two, chapter seven. Here, a key word changes. God becomes Lord. “The Lord formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.” Ah, yes, the man in the garden, God telling the man he can eat from every tree except from the Tree of Knowledge. Then, God saying the man should not be alone, so God creates a “help-meet” for the man. Help-meet, a word translated from the Hebrew meaning another corresponding to or equivalent to. Yet, most of us have learned to read this story in a hierarchical manner, that Eve, because she was created afterwards from Adam’s rib, is second to or less than.

Why has this story prevailed? The assumption is that an educated male elite prepared the bible for a male audience. Therefore, mostly male characters are in the foreground and mostly female characters are in the background, giving the impression of the subordination. And often the bible is taught this way. The question for women is: How can we more these women from background to foreground, from periphery to center?

If we look closely at the text we can see that in both stories, the earlier and the later, neither maleness nor femaleness exists before Eve’s creation. What prevails is the potential for both in the human. With Eve’s creation, God brings both maleness and femaleness into the world at the same time. This is a simultaneous creation.

Now, let’s consider Eve in the Garden. So much going on here, a talking serpent who deceives, Eve, who seeking knowledge, chooses to eat, then gives the fruit to her husband, who eats, too. They hear the voice of God walking in the Garden, and like children, they hide behind trees. God speaks first to Adam, asking if he ate from the tree. He blames Eve, telling God, “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat.”

And Eve? She accepts blame, saying, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.”

Supposedly, this is Eve’s downfall, and traditional interpretations say she is responsible for the couple’s expulsion from the Garden. Well, who wants to live in Paradise, anyway? Paradise is bland and boring. I like Eve. No only does she act, she takes responsibility. You might say Eve gives us free will. She also gives us unpredictably, because always with choice we have unintended consequences. And so this story becomes a description of our world—good and evil, joy and suffering. A story of human life as we know it, grand and complex.

Engaging with this text is an essential part of Jewish life. I love teasing out these stories. Some may ask, Why bother? Because this text, in all its translations, has had and still has a powerful effect on Western culture, particularly on the way the culture views women—debates about social services, day care or no day care, debates about health care, coverage for pregnancy, abortion. And sadly, I still hear women and men excusing boys’ aggressive or inappropriate behavior, especially toward girls, saying, as a boy shoves a girl to the ground, “Boys will be boys.”

Years ago, wanting to set the record straight, I created a character I called Bessie and wrote a short story. Bessie is an older Jewish woman, widowed and struggling with a hip replacement. She takes a course on women in the bible, similar to one of the courses I took. Toward the end of the story, Bessie visits Lucy, her granddaughter who lives in California. Lucy is being raised Catholic. In this scene, Bessie, struggling with her new hip and with arthritis, has stayed in bed late. Lucy brings her breakfast.

Bessie places her fork on her plate. “You’re learning about Adam and eve?” she says to Lucy.

“My school has religion class. I’m supposed to go to church, too.”

Sunday morning.

Lucy sighs. “I think Eve’s a nerd, don’t you?”

Bessie tucks her napkin under the rim of her plate and motions. “You’ll put my tray on that desk. Then, you’ll come sit by me. I know a story that if you read it right makes …” Bessie pauses. “What did you say? Nerd?”

“Yeah, like jerk.”

“… a nerd into a smart cookie.”

The quotes from “Midrash,” by Sandell Morse, first published in the New England Review. Available at: http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2013/01/65-midrash-by-sandell-morse.html

Midrash on the Shehecheyanu

Perhaps this is a prose poem, perhaps a prose prayer poem. I don’t know. But I’m on track, preparing for my Bat Mitzvah coming up at the end of September. The invitations are in the mail. It’s happening. And this is my midrash, a form of storytelling exploring meaning, on my favorite prayer, the Shehecheyanu.

I imagine a life infused with prayer, the shehecheyanu on my lips when I taste the first peach of the season, the first ripe plum, words to slow me down, to say as my Grandmother Sarah used to say, Taste, Sandella, taste—her mandelbread, her chicken soup, tsmis, sweet potatoes mixed with prunes, the taste of time, her fingers circling shabbos candles, my feet climbing mountains, first with Lucy, my beloved standard poodle at my side, then with Lucy and Sam, Sam a standard poodle, too, now with Sam, time working on all of us—the moments we had, the moments that Sam and I will have, the shehecheyanu on my lips, thanking Life itself for my strength, for the beauty of a wildflower, sky and clouds. Shehecheyanu, Hebrew for who has given us life, parents, grandparents, generations reaching back across a sea into unknown villages. Unknown cities. So many sustain us, grandchildren, children extending our lives with new families, in Yiddish, our machatunim—and our friends.

The shehecheyanu celebrates what is new or what feels new, a hike in the mountains, a baby naming, a Bat Mitzvah—so many moments in which to thank God, the God I do and don’t believe in, the God that means something different to each of us-- that I am alive. If only I could come to each day with that joy. I can’t. I don’t. But, silent or sung, the shehecheyanu can bring me there, Baruch Attah Adoini Eloheinu melach ha olam, shehecheyanu, vikimanu, vihigyanu, lazman, hazeh, Blessed are You, Adoini, for giving us life, sustaining us and allowing us to reach this joyous season, this moment in time.

First Evening in Paris

        First evening in Paris. Bistro Le Temps des Cerises. In a park I have seen blossoms. Cherries? I don’t know. Tulips bloomed. And lilacs, that deep French blue. I have made my way to this tiny restaurant after studying a map. Inside, wooden tables sit on trestles, reminding me of my grandmother’s old pedal Singer sewing machine. The tables are low. I hardly have room to cross my legs. I order wine, a light rose, read the latest issue of Ploughshares, edited by Major Jackson, a poet new to me. In a profile of Jackson, poet Gregory Pardlo writes of Jackson’s double vision, encountering unflattering cultural allusions and still maintaining self confidence and pride within. Jackson’s work is grounded in a sensibility of having an ethical sensibility to his African-American community, and now I’m thinking about my Bat Mitzvah, and my reasons for continuing on my journey. Here in this Paris bistro, I have a flash of recognition. Like Jackson, I want to be responsible and responsive to my roots, my more recent roots and my ancient roots. And this is what my Bat Mitzvah is about, finding connections. This is also what my work is about, the reason I return to France, a country that gives me a glimpse of European Judaism. I could have chosen another country, but I have an ancestral link to France, and I love France, this bistro where I, a woman of certain age, feel comfortable dining alone. My fish arrives, a white fish I can’t name served on a bed of sautéed green beans and mushrooms, all seasoned with parsley, salt, pepper and  finished with olive oil and a balsamic glaze. Dipping a slice of baguette, I savor taste. I am both away and at home. 

Back On My Journey

In the fall when I decided to become a Bat Mitzvah, I also committed to blogging about my journey. I’d envisioned writing a number of short pieces, perhaps once a week.  that I would write more regularly. Easy, I’d thought. That’s not the way things turned out. I’ve been stalled. Family problems have intruded, certain of my sons feeling as if I’ve violated their privacy. I’ve been asked to change names. Perhaps, choose initials. But naming is an essence. I’ve had a hard time adjusting to what I must do. In addition, without regular classes or assignments, I’ve been focusing on other work, a series of essays about Jews in southwest France during WWII. And just this week, my beloved standard poodle, Lucy, died. She was failing, but her death came suddenly. Unexpectedly. And in recent months, I’ve been shadowed by doubt. Why am I doing this? Is my journey relevant? And for whom? I’ve proposed projects that involve my grand children, my children, most of whom—in my opinion—find my journey either a burden or unnecessary. “Why now?” one son has asked.

I think of Rabbi Hillel. “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if  I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?”

As Rabbi Lev has said my Bat Mitzvah will be my Shehecheyanu moment. The Shehecheyanu, that most beautiful prayer I recite often when I hike in the mountains, a prayer people recite at the arrival of any long awaited occasion. Holidays come once a year, as does the first hike in the spring. Life cycle events come less often. Some of us get our Shehecheyanu moments at births, others at weddings. Some never get those blessed moments. Mine will come in the fall, a stopping point along my life’s journey. In the Shehecheyanu, we give thanks to the universe—some would say God—for sustaining us and allowing us to reach this moment, whatever that moment is.

And so, I’m back on my journey, and along the way, I will try to be more faithful to this blog. And I have a new date. Did I tell you? September 28, 2013. Sue Horowitz, musician, educator, friend is my guide. 

Humility

I meet Lev at a sushi restaurant in Malden to talk about my Bat Mitzvah—our last meeting before he will leave for Austin. He looks tired, slow around his eyes. He is applying for nursing jobs, coming off of clinical training which means he’s been up at four every morning. And he’s been teaching—classes in Judaism. And as always, he’s been keeping up with his wide network of friends and colleagues.

I tell Lev I’ve identified my ten Jewish values, values I want to pass on to my grandchildren. Here they are in no particular order: Jewish identity, integrity, honesty, compassion, Tzedakah, forgiveness, love of life, love of learning, awareness, and family stories, what Nina, my granddaughter calls, “dead people’s gossip.” Gotta love it. And just when I thought I’d finished my task, another value surfaced: humility.

In a religious context, humility is easy. One is humbled in the face of God. But that’s not the kind of humility I’m talking about. I’m talking about teaching humility to a generation fixed on devices, smart phones, iPods, tablets. They take pictures of the food they eat, of their faces, sending these images out over the internet, gathering likes. Their Me is large, a blinding white spot in front of their eyes. And so you say that adolescence has always been a time of self-centeredness. And I will say, yes, but, not like today when kids are hardly forced to interact with a larger world. And so I asked Lev: how do I make humility cool? Can I make humility cool?

“Interesting,” Lev said.

Humility and humiliate share a root, and I understand the negative connotation of the word. Humiliation is shadowed by self-effacement, timidity, submissiveness. Yet, humility is positive value, one that opens a person to possibility. One who is humble is self-aware. She keeps her place in this world. And she can correct herself. The opposite of humility is arrogance, pride and self-importance, traits that harden like a shell. There is a softness to humility, a way of leaving space for others. Perhaps, we pass on the value of being humble, by humbling ourselves, visiting the sick, helping those less fortunate, as once again, doing and being become our best teachers.

Outside the restaurant, Lev offers to walk me to my car. I decline. We embrace, do not say good bye. Most people would not describe Lev as humble. I would. Always, he leaves me inspired to do more than I think I can, and he gives me space. 

Faith

A writer’s faith that the blank page will yield; a sculptor’s faith that she will find form inside of wood or marble, a painter’s faith in line and brush. Lev’s faith that the world will give.

My friend, Sue, has had a strong reaction to my blog post, A Bump in the Road. In a word, she is angry. She isn’t alone. Many of my friends are angry, not with me, with my son. Sitting on tall chairs inside the Stonewall Kitchen café, eating salads, Sue and I have talked about our families and our work, pleasant conversation. Now, Sue says, “I have to ask you. Why did you let your son off the hook? I don’t want to say anything bad about him—he’s your son—but what an opportunity this could have been for you and your grand daughter.”

My Bat Mitzvah. My grand daughter’s Bat Mitzvah, the two of us working together.

Sue touches her heart. “I kvell when I think about it.”

Ah that Yiddish word: joy beyond joy.

            But, Sue does not know my family, our past rifts and hard feelings. So many divisive moments. I didn’t want another one. Yet, I do want to become a Bat Mitzvah, a daughter of the commandments, a woman who commits herself to a Jewish way of life. I assure Sue I’m not giving up, but I need to find something that will give my projects and my exploration of values closure. I confess, “Sue, with all that I’m doing. I feel as if it’s not enough. Something’s missing. I’m sure Lev would have figured it out.”

Fork mid air. Sue tilts her head, pausing before she speaks. “You need the Jewish piece. The more traditional piece. One of the nicest Bat Mitzvahs I did….

Did she say? Did I hear? I don’t let her finish. “You do Bat Mitzvahs?”

Why didn’t I know that? Sue is a Jewish singer, songwriter, musician. A Jewish educator. Often she collaborates with Rabbi Lev. Of course, she does Bat Mitzvahs. Would she? Could she?

 “Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” Sue says.

And it is as if Rabbi Lev is here at our table, giving us his sideways glance. He has the most mischievous grin. And he has faith that if you get our of your own way and make room in your heart for possibility, possibility has room to breeze in. 

Visit Sue's website: Modern Jewish Music http://www.suehorowitz.com

A Bump In The Road

On the speaker phone, my middle son’s voice fills my car. I’m driving north into the mountains, my husband beside me in the passenger’s seat. My son is seventeen hundred miles away, shouting, “You had thirty years before this. You have ten years afterwards.”

He’s measuring my life. Until what? Senility? Death?

He’s furious because the date I've chose for my Bat Mitzvah is close to the date of his daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. Why is he exploding now? I’d explained. Mine is not a traditional celebration. I’m looking inward, exploring Jewish values, planning projects with my four grandchildren, cooking, mapping, reading. No synagogue. No Hebrew. August eighteenth is the only day, Rabbi Lev is available. He’s moving to Texas, coming back east that one weekend. How will I work with him? Celebrate with him? My oldest son wished me well. He and his daughter would be with me that morning. The rest of my family went mute. I sent another email. Both my youngest son and his wife answered. They would attend. My middle son’s wife answered, saying the family would do the best they could to be with all of us. I’d assumed she’d spoken for my son.

“You’re selfish,” my son rails. “You’re stealing Raina’s thunder.”

I’m driving a country road, watching dusk fade into darkness. Headlights blind. I don’t want to steal Raina’s thunder. I want to be a stepping stone. We are a family. This is not a competition. Yet, in that place where truth rubs like a rash under skin, I’d worried about the closeness of our dates. Particularly about going first. I’d talked with Lev, talked with my husband, then, silencing my own doubts, I went forward. Meekly, I send my voice into the car. “I thought about that.”

His retort is quick, his tone metal cold. “Well, you didn’t think hard enough.”

I know that tone. It lives inside of me. It lived in my father: Every thing. I give you everything. Dancing lessons. Piano lessons. What do I get? Nothing. You should be grateful. Not you. You’re selfish. You hear me? Selfish.

Decades peel away. I am a young mother raising three sons, screaming out my frustrations. Can’t you listen? The answer is no. Final the end.

But it wasn’t the end. Bitterly, our arguments circled.

“I cannot support you in any way,” my son says.

My heart is collapsing, filling with sadness. These last two months we have talked happily on the phone, mailed and received Hanukkah gifts, planned a ski trip. How was I to know that for those same two months he’d harbored resentment?

“I always say yes to you. Well, this time, I’m not.”

I grew up with anger, distance and dissonance. Even with cruelty. We all do in varying degrees. Trembling, I speak softly. “I’ll work on this. I’ll get back to you.”

Silent all this time, Dick shifts in his seat. He speaks slowly. “I understand how he feels.”

I take a breath. “Why didn’t you say so before?”

“I hoped it would work.”

My eyes fix on the road, the white line dulled by grit and salt. On the shoulders remnants of last month’s snow storm. When I began my journey toward a Bat Mitzvah, I wanted to pass down, not just words or even beliefs, but lived values. If I believed in God, I’d think God had sent me this confrontation as a test. Perhaps, as a gift. I know my son will accept nothing less than capitulation. So hard for me. After all, we are cut from similar cloth. Pulling into a Shell station, I ask my husband to drive, then sinking down into my seat, I close my eyes, as if to see more clearly.

           

That night, sitting across from Dick at a table in the pub of the inn where we are staying, I lift my wine glass. Dick lifts his. “I can do this,” I say. “I didn’t think I could, but I can.”

And my mind’s eye, I am seeing my grandson. He and I are exploring the streets of the Lower East Side where he lives, where my maternal grandparents had lived. I am baking with my grand daughters, using recipes I’ve found that I hope will duplicate tastes of my childhood, tastes of villages I’ve never seen. My grandchildren and I are reading books, emailing, talking, visiting. I won’t call what I’m doing a Bat Mitzvah. I wont have a celebration, not on August eighteenth. Not with Lev. Will I have a celebration at all? I don’t know. I’m feeling both full and empty, full because I will spend time with my grand children in a meaningful way, empty because I will not have my moment in the sun. But isn’t one of the values I want to pass on, the ability to consider another’s concern as my own? And doesn’t love force concession?

Dick and I touch the bowls of our wine glasses. "Terrific," he says. 

"What's terrific?" I say looking over the rim of my glass.

"That you can still do it."
Can or will? 

Sentience

Awareness. Is awareness one of the ten values I will name preparing for my Bat Mitzvah? The word feels strange on my tongue. Aware meaning cognizant, conscious, alert. Ness, a suffix attached to an adjective or a participle to form an abstract noun that denotes a quality or a state. Such as: goodness, kindness, darkness. A synonym of awareness is mindful; an antonym, oblivious.

Last Friday, before the snow that fell over the weekend, I drove home, pulled into the garage, and as I stepped into the kitchen, Dick said, “How do you like your fields?”

He’s like that. No hello. A quick question. After all these years, I still can’t take a breath. I blurt. “What fields?”

“Out by the driveway. Didn’t you notice them?”

I’d asked to have those fields cut down at the end of summer, but neither Paul nor Matt, the two men who run the lawn crew had managed to get the job done. Then, Matt had a stroke, and the fields became unimportant. I figured someone on the crew would cut them down in the spring. But Paul arrived. Probably, he’d listened to the weather report. I hooked the dogs to their leashes and walked outside. Tall stalks of dried grass lay on the ground like pick up sticks, small birds foraging. 

To be aware. To notice. To take in. That’s my job as a writer. So why, when I’m not in my writing space—space being both a state of mind and a place—do I check out? Because awareness is hard. To be present, cognizant, conscious, alert. That is one edge of the knife blade for a writer. The other is a kind of drifting inside that space, what I call space around the space.

But back to my drive along the driveway. What had I been doing inside my car? Listening to a C D of George Eliot’s Middlemarch, a book I’ve wanted to reread for years, and knew I never would, so I borrowed the tapes from the library. My attention was focused on listening and on watching where I was going. Perhaps, awareness is inward as well as outward, a sifting of stimuli. And what of complete inattention, a moment last summer, sitting on a weathered wooden bench at the edge of the sea, dogs at my feet, the scent of salt, the squawk of gulls, my mind as open as the sky? Perhaps, that, too, is awareness.

Still that word, awareness, chafes. Is sentience my word? An online dictionary defines sentience: feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception or thought. No, that doesn’t work either. Perhaps what I value is sentient awareness, a place where unknowing and knowing intertwine. 

Let's Talk

What makes a value Jewish? How can Judaism claim what many of us value, Jewish or not? I shift in my chair. Face Lev. This is another moment in that Starbuck’s in Winchester when we met. In front of me, a display of red and white mugs, wrapped with red bows. Outside, the white lights of Christmas. Lev gives me a knowing smile. “So, Judaism gives us this, these values and it (Judaism) includes anybody who has these values.”

So because I am Jewish, exploring values such as my love of learning or my commitment caring for others, those less fortunate or those who are sick, in a Jewish context, those values become Jewish. Is that what Lev is saying?

“Yes,” he says.

And here I am—it seems—exploring a constant theme in my life and my work: Jewish identity. When I began my writing life as a fiction writer, none of my characters was Jewish, and many of my stories lacked an authenticity, something intangible that shone through certain characters. I, the writer, was wishy-washy, refusing to declare an essence. Was that character Jewish? I, the character and the reader needed to know. But in real life, I could pass, and I did, sometimes declaring I was Jewish, sometimes not. I hid behind a wreath on my door, a Christmas tree in my living room. The only Jews in our rural New Hampshire town where I was raising my family, I truly believed I could live inside the landscape of a Currier and Ives print. Walking into woods behind our house with my husband and my sons, we would choose a tree, chop it down, drag it home through snow.

Those romantic images of country life have an underside. When I began teaching language arts to fifth through eighth graders in my town, the two most hurled insults on the playground were the N word and Jew. I denounced both, told my class I was Jewish. A sixth grade boy brought me a book: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Published in 1902, The Protocols is a anti-Semitic rant, purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. It is a forgery. That same sixth grader asked to see my horns. I’d thought such myths associating Jews with the devil had died out with the middle ages, but he year was 1972. I taught tolerance. At home, I told myself, I could do both, turn on the lights of my Christmas tree and light my Hanukkah menorah. My children were wiser. “Mom, it’s too confusing,” Richard my oldest son said. “Can’t we just celebrate Hanukkah.”

            And we did.

            As the years passed, I became more and more visibly Jewish which meant for me, studying Torah, especially the women of the Hebrew Bible. I read and I read, diving down into the wealth of Jewish learning. I brought what was deep inside of me to the surface, memories of cooking with my grandmother as she prepared shabbos dinner, then circled her thick fingers over the candle flames before blessing the shabbos candles. I learned the prayer, moved my own fingers in a circle, and gathering in goodness and light, I blessed the candles inside my grandmother’s brass candlesticks.

So, is Jewish identity a value I can pass on? Although I’d like to do just that, I can’t. Each of us has our own journey toward that philosophic search for self. What I can pass on is a desire to know and to learn. A wealth of Jewish learning trails behind us. Only by knowing where we came from will we learn who we are. 

Judaism is a religion of dialogue. I invite your comments. Let’s talk. 

Grammy's Bat Mitzvah, A Journey

What will a Bat Mitzvah of this soon to be seventy-four year old grandmother look like? I figured I’d have to study Hebrew, learn a few prayers, bless bread and wine, provide a teaching moment, serve lunch, then hugs all around. All in my living room on the coast of Maine where, finally, after all these years, I would become a Bat Mitzvah, a daughter of the commandments.

Lev, my teacher, my rabbi, my friend, my mentor listened. We met at Starbucks in Winchester, Massachusetts, Lev rushing in, hatless, coatless, on this the first day that winter announced itself. Outside, the wind blew strong. Inside, people sat at small tables, some with lap tops, others on cell phones. A group of men talked loudly in a corner. Soon, I would no longer hear their voices. Soon, I would hear only Lev, a man I’ve known for nearly twenty years, ever since he came to New Hampshire, a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Cincinnati. He brought me back to the synagogue. I attended Torah study, began to prepare for a Bat Mitzvah. Then, Lev left. I was bereft. Gone his joy, his spontaneity, his verve, his spirit and his very unconventional approach to Jewish learning. Soon, I left that synagogue, too. But ever since, I've missed a commitment to Judaism.

Now, Lev is studying to become a nurse. Yet, he is still a rabbi and a teacher. In May, he will move to Austin, Texas, and I will no longer be able to meet him at this Starbucks. If I’m going to have a goal, commit to Jewish study, become a Bat Mitzvah, a daughter of the commandments, I must do this now. In my bag, I’ve carried books of beginning Hebrew. That’s where I’ve been for years, beginning Hebrew, over and over. If I study. When I study, I don’t know what the words say. This bothers me. I’m a writer; meaning is my work.

Meaning is Lev’s work. When I talked with him about learning the aliyot, blessings over the Torah, he told me I wouldn’t like the translations when I knew them. I understood, all of those masculine references to God as Lord, King, Ruler. All of that top down stuff. Hierarchy. The doctrine of the chosen. I don’t believe in a traditional doctrine of the chosen or in a traditional God.  I’m about community. Lev is about community.

These last two years, my work has taken a turn backwards in time. I’ve been writing about France during the years of German occupation. I’ve visited France, interviewed number of people, one a ninety-four year old woman who was girl guide, caretaker, in a secret house that protected Jewish children. I’ve been reading and researching. Inevitably, I have found myself with the Jewish dead. My work is freighted, but what I’m looking for is light and life, a seventeen year old girl with beautiful hair, whose drawings survived in a locked suitcase, a Catholic German theologian and philosopher who brought that story to a small French village. These are the things I want to pass on, a love of life and of learning. Lev, spoke to me of an ethical will.  An ethical will, Zevaoth, in Hebrew is the tradition of writing a long letter to your children in which you express your ethical values. But what are ethical values? Can I name mine? Intrigued, I wrote down the name of book Lev recommended: Ethical Wills. 

“Before we leave,” Lev said, “we must set a date.”

Oh my God, this is going to happen.

He pulled out his iPhone. He will be East for a wedding in August. “The eighteenth or nineteenth in the morning?”

I draw a breath. “Either one.” 

He types in both, sets his iPhone on table. "We can decide."