Purim, Medical Ethics and Life Building

The sun burned off the haze that hung over Jerusalem when we returned four days ago. The budding branches outside our windows promise a return of privacy and the renewal of our side terrace as a tree house. Kids have emerged as cuckoo clocks and snowmen, and IDF soldiers, Queen Esther and evil Haman. This morning a caravan left Jerusalem to bring mishloah manot, the traditional Purim packages of treats, to people under daily Kassam landings in Sderot.

We managed to avoid or ignore jet lag the day after we arrived to be with "Zeke" Ezekiel Emanuel at Hadassah Hospital for the first lecture in his honor on Medical Ethics and Health Policy. Having just met Zeke in DC it was nice to be greeted so warmly by him and his family and to meet his eldest daughter Rebekah doing chaplaincy at Shaarei Tzedek Hospital who will soon, I hope, be with us for shabbat.

The next night, granddaughters Noa and Yarden came with me to deliver Purim gift packages to the rooms of mostly poor and elderly Russians living out their days in the Diplomat Hotel in Talpiot, converted to a residence for them. Noa, 12,smiled her way into their hearts; Yarden, 7, was dutiful but ready to leave. As well as giving, the girls received candies. Noa charmed them with Russian words learned from her Latvian babysitter.

The same day, Leon Furchgott-Roth came for supper and a few good hours of talk about Princeton, physics, politics, being back in Jerusalem. He's visiting with a few Princeton friends along with their Chabad rabbi for Easter break. Other than our own family, there are hardly any people I find more important to be with than young adults embarked on and building meaningful lives. In Abraham Joshua Heschel's words quoted in Alex's book (Alex--Building a Life): "Let [young people] remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Let them be sure that every deed counts, that every word has power....And, above all, let them remember to build a life as if it were a work of art." (television interview 1972)

DC to Jerusalem

We are on our way in a few hours. It's never pleasant for me to anticipate flights. Once I am on the way I stop thinking about the bad guys who might decide a British Air Plane on its way to Jerusalem is a fine target. Landing in Israel, life again feels normal and safe.
It's been a good 6 weeks except for two weeks of low energy from a bug--maybe bronchitis, not the killer flu that's floored some people. Setting up this blog was one small accomplishment that may lead to some compensation for not writing on assignment or by my own initiation. People have been the point for me of most of the time in DC, NYC and Tupper Lake. Satisfying to continue important friendships and to spend time with friends who want/need to share tough times.
Alex's book in Hebrew has focused a fair amount of my computer time. More to follow immediately when I return to act on the potential that I am sure it has for Israelis.
Then there is the family, much missed, who will be jumping into Purim shortly after we arrive.
Feeling grateful for all.

Murder at the HaRav Yeshiva

Strangely, although we still sit in Washington for another week and our sons and their wives and kids are in Israel, we have not yet spoken with them about the murder of 8 students yesterday in Jerusalem as they gathered to celebrate the arrival of the joyous month of Adar Bet.
What is there to say? We know that bad news about our family would have come immediately and we know where our families live and what they do and, thank G-d, we have no grandson learning at the HaRav yeshiva. So we sit here feeling the too familiar pain, disgust and anger that follows after inhumane murders.
Rabbi Danny Landes, rosh yeshiva at Pardes, sent a message this morning. When the news came of the murders, Pardes was remembering that five years ago two of their students, Ben Blustein and Marla Bennet, were murdered in the cafeteria at Hebrew University. This shabbat Rav Landes will spend at the HaRav Yeshiva, which had been his yeshiva, and then he will return to Pardes to respond with the community with learning and acts of chesed.
We are eager to be home. Grieving, remembering and carrying on are better done in Israel. So, too, is being angry and seeking to find the leaders that Israel sorely lacks today.

BB King and Benjy

When Benjy, our youngest son, was a teenager in DC, he and his friends talked about, heard, collected tapes of BB King. So when Strathmore, the new music center on Rockville Pike that's an exciting rival to the Kennedy Center, sent me an email about a BB King concert I asked Benjy if we should go to hear the famous 82-year-old blues guitarist and singer. "YES, YES, YES" came back to me. So last night we did. Sitting higher up than Max liked, we saw the great man who came on stage in a gold jacket after the warm up by a pianist and by his own seven-man band. He sat himself on a chair center front and for two hours controlled the band and us with a rambling mix of stories, songs, and appreciations of each of his musicians. He allowed his age to come into it all and to do little riffs on viagra and "ladies" and how much he loved them and how he did not like what today's rap and blues singers say about the ladies. He is a superb artist and performer. It didn't feel like a farewell appearance and he said it was not. But maybe it was and maybe it would be our only time to experience his magic. So thanks Benjy for this and so much more.