Consider the Name Ralph
Friends, I share this with you in great love.
When Rabbi Urecki eulogized my Father, he mentioned Torah, but he was exegetical in referencing my Father’s favorite songs. I will follow suit and hope you can find the lyrical correlation in each section. The reflections come full circle.
I write this in my Father’s memory.
All the lonely people, where do they all come from/All the lonely people, where do they belong?
-The Beatles, Eleanor Rigby, Revolver
It is one year later.
Next week, the first year mourning cycle ends for Dad. Seven months later to the day, the same will happen for my Brother. To express my humility through my own words would be insufficient. My thoughts are among these quotes from songs I remember my father singing, often without realizing I was listening from another room. I will never, ever forget the sound of his voice.
If my experience does anything for this world, I hope it can help someone else grapple with tragedy, grief, and tenderness.
So why do I start with a song about loneliness? To say this year has been traumatic would be an understatement. There have been so many opportunities for all of you to be scared, to run from my darkness, to fear my pain, to ignore my struggle. It would have been easier for you to do that.
Rabbi Naomi Levy writes in her book, To Begin Again: Pain does have an end...and strangely enough, as we gain more distance from it, we will also come to appreciate the darkness and the invaluable lessons it has instilled in us”.
Though I don’t see an end to my pain yet, I glean lessons from it every day. One of such is that I have no clue where all the lonely people come from or belong. I am not among them. I have very little in common with them.
What I do know is my community, my kehilla, is wide. And I have not gone a moment without feeling others hold me up. Thank you for holding me when I almost broke, making me drink water when my body and soul were in shock, answering the phone at 3 a.m., and laying on the kitchen floor with me at 6 a.m. when I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t quit crying, and couldn’t stand up.
In a world we need to share/it’s not enough to stand and stare.
-Pink Floyd, On the Turning Way, Delicate Sound of Thunder
For some of you reading this, you may have merely been a distraction for me in my pain; you have not seen it in its full glory. Maybe you drove or flew long distances to be there when I needed you. You sacrificed for me.
You may not have seen how I almost broke Meredith’s hand at my brother’s funeral, pulled me away when I started screaming at his graveside, or sat on my porch with me during my brief encounter with chain smoking. Some of you saw my mania, the fear, the confusion, the racing thoughts. And then you saw me as I transcended those dark moments.
Some of you held me when I wailed at the news that Dad passed away, that moment of vocal grief and no tears. Disabled physically and incoherent, you helped me with my shower, you packed my suitcase. When Marty died, some of you drove from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to care for me at the airport, or left your job to simply be there. You told me you were not going anywhere.
Some of you wrote songs by the bonfire two days after my Father’s burial. Or you watched me demonstrate the grace and elegance of a *certain feminine beauty ritual* in the middle of our living room (clothed demonstration) with 30 other people.
Maybe you have been there through all of these years when I deconstructed the meaning of family, and reconstructed it with all of you.
Those moments, in the most intense dire straights, brought me the hardest laughs of my life and the most humble moments. Those moments were there exactly when Hashem intended them to be there. You were also there at the exact moment Hashem intended you to be there.
In this world, we need to share. We can not be passive participants through all of life. We can not be there when it is convenient and comfortable.
We must share in those hard, true laughs. And we must hold each other in the late hours of the night as we weep on our kitchen floors.
The Song That Has Been Left To Us To Hear/ The Knowledge Of G-d Is A Search, Constant And Clear
-Yes, The Revealing Science of G-d, Tales from a Topographic Ocean
And so we go on. For some of you, my distance and silence might have been hurtful. It may seem that I am wallowing, or obsessing, or being too slow to move forward. But I finally discovered the quiet places in my life. And I need the quiet to balance the loud moments The solitude is a blessing.
And it is in the quiet and solitude that I have heard some of the songs in my life that have been left for me to hear. My organic, unique search for G-d in this has been easy. But the quiet is imperative to that search. It is how I listen.
Earlier in the summer, Rabbi Karmi Ingber sat across from me at my kitchen table while others sat in my living room. The art wall had not yet started, and I had not yet started writing. My mind was scattered and busy and so, so loud. I was on the edge of madness.
And I couldn’t cry.
Friends, I share this with you in great love.
When Rabbi Urecki eulogized my Father, he mentioned Torah, but he was exegetical in referencing my Father’s favorite songs. I will follow suit and hope you can find the lyrical correlation in each section. The reflections come full circle.
I write this in my Father’s memory.
All the lonely people, where do they all come from/All the lonely people, where do they belong?
-The Beatles, Eleanor Rigby, Revolver
It is one year later.
Next week, the first year mourning cycle ends for Dad. Seven months later to the day, the same will happen for my Brother. To express my humility through my own words would be insufficient. My thoughts are among these quotes from songs I remember my father singing, often without realizing I was listening from another room. I will never, ever forget the sound of his voice.
If my experience does anything for this world, I hope it can help someone else grapple with tragedy, grief, and tenderness.
So why do I start with a song about loneliness? To say this year has been traumatic would be an understatement. There have been so many opportunities for all of you to be scared, to run from my darkness, to fear my pain, to ignore my struggle. It would have been easier for you to do that.
Rabbi Naomi Levy writes in her book, To Begin Again: Pain does have an end...and strangely enough, as we gain more distance from it, we will also come to appreciate the darkness and the invaluable lessons it has instilled in us”.
Though I don’t see an end to my pain yet, I glean lessons from it every day. One of such is that I have no clue where all the lonely people come from or belong. I am not among them. I have very little in common with them.
What I do know is my community, my kehilla, is wide. And I have not gone a moment without feeling others hold me up. Thank you for holding me when I almost broke, making me drink water when my body and soul were in shock, answering the phone at 3 a.m., and laying on the kitchen floor with me at 6 a.m. when I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t quit crying, and couldn’t stand up.
In a world we need to share/it’s not enough to stand and stare.
-Pink Floyd, On the Turning Way, Delicate Sound of Thunder
For some of you reading this, you may have merely been a distraction for me in my pain; you have not seen it in its full glory. Maybe you drove or flew long distances to be there when I needed you. You sacrificed for me.
You may not have seen how I almost broke Meredith’s hand at my brother’s funeral, pulled me away when I started screaming at his graveside, or sat on my porch with me during my brief encounter with chain smoking. Some of you saw my mania, the fear, the confusion, the racing thoughts. And then you saw me as I transcended those dark moments.
Some of you held me when I wailed at the news that Dad passed away, that moment of vocal grief and no tears. Disabled physically and incoherent, you helped me with my shower, you packed my suitcase. When Marty died, some of you drove from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to care for me at the airport, or left your job to simply be there. You told me you were not going anywhere.
Some of you wrote songs by the bonfire two days after my Father’s burial. Or you watched me demonstrate the grace and elegance of a *certain feminine beauty ritual* in the middle of our living room (clothed demonstration) with 30 other people.
Maybe you have been there through all of these years when I deconstructed the meaning of family, and reconstructed it with all of you.
Those moments, in the most intense dire straights, brought me the hardest laughs of my life and the most humble moments. Those moments were there exactly when Hashem intended them to be there. You were also there at the exact moment Hashem intended you to be there.
In this world, we need to share. We can not be passive participants through all of life. We can not be there when it is convenient and comfortable.
We must share in those hard, true laughs. And we must hold each other in the late hours of the night as we weep on our kitchen floors.
The Song That Has Been Left To Us To Hear/ The Knowledge Of G-d Is A Search, Constant And Clear
-Yes, The Revealing Science of G-d, Tales from a Topographic Ocean
And so we go on. For some of you, my distance and silence might have been hurtful. It may seem that I am wallowing, or obsessing, or being too slow to move forward. But I finally discovered the quiet places in my life. And I need the quiet to balance the loud moments The solitude is a blessing.
And it is in the quiet and solitude that I have heard some of the songs in my life that have been left for me to hear. My organic, unique search for G-d in this has been easy. But the quiet is imperative to that search. It is how I listen.
Earlier in the summer, Rabbi Karmi Ingber sat across from me at my kitchen table while others sat in my living room. The art wall had not yet started, and I had not yet started writing. My mind was scattered and busy and so, so loud. I was on the edge of madness.
And I couldn’t cry.
Rabbi told me the great rabbinical sages said tears were the sweat of the soul, and at that moment Rabbi was able to cry. At my table. And I was emotionally sober. And I was numb. And it was two months after Marty was murdered. And I could count the times I had cried on one hand with fingers to spare. And I couldn’t cry. And I wondered what was wrong with me.
Why the wasn’t I sweating?
As time has passed, my stoicism has given way to the backbreaking work of grief. Not a day goes by that I do not cry. It works on a bell curve:
I feel it in my throat.
The tears comes to my eyes.
A few drop.
They give way to a flood.
My breath turns into panting.
Panting gives way to moaning.
Moaning turns in to Why.
Why turns into wailing.
Wailing leads to more questions.
The questions lead the way to some strange sort of peace, a peace that comes with the simple act of asking a question.
The peace slows the tears.
I start to breath normal.
I stop.
My nose is red.
This all usually happens in the morning. I am not sure what it is about the morning, but it is when I am the most delicate.
I hold myself in these moments---but do not misread that statement. I do not hold myself to remain in the moment. I hold myself because I need the holding. And each time that it happens, I am better at doing the holding. (Maybe it is that really loud maternal instinct of mine, serving its purpose internally.)
Most of the time, this happens while I drive. Most of the time, I have to pull off the road. There is a small, select group of people I call and ask to remain on the other line. They all know not to say anything, unless they are reminding me to give myself permission to hurt.
My tears, the sound of my cry. These things have become a song that has been left to hear.
Consider any beauty in the name Ralph.
-Frank Zappa
So, this quote isn’t from a song. But Dad had a special place in his heart for Zappa and I thought this was appropriate.
I could never repay the debt of gratitude I have for each of you. I have learned that in situations like this, the debt can not and should not be measured. It isn’t a debt at all, but simply a glimpse into mystery. Compassion in its purest form is one of the easiest ways to see G-d, but it has caught me off guard.
Your love leaves me breathless.
I doubt I could ever do for you what you have done for me. G-d forbid you ever need this outpouring of intense love and patience.
But I can let you know I love you. Right now, the ways I have to show you that love pale in comparison to what you have shown me.
Consider what has been lovely this ugly, horrible year. Consider the incredible, incredible love that has surrounded me this year. I can not comprehend its magnitude.
Consider the name Ralph. It is beautiful.
