"So Am I, Let's All Go In And Have A Cup Of Tea"

Could it be that when we mourn the death of someone we are really mourning a loss of part of ourselves? If this is true is it a bad thing? Does this say that humans are selfish by nature? Or is it just the way it is because there is not much tragedy for the one who passed on because cliches are sometimes true and they go to a better place; we're the one's here and without them.

The Google people are geniuses. They take ideas that already exist and make them better (smart this is, moral - I don't know). They did it with a search engine (anyone hear of Yahoo?) and with free email (anyone hear of Hotmail?) and more. Now they out Facebook Facebook. The pitch below was written with people in mind, people like me who approach Facebook with one big question mark.

"Among the most basic of human needs is the need to connect with others. With a smile, a laugh, a whisper or a cheer, we connect with others every single day.

Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools.

In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.

We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests. And so begins the Google+ project..."

The details on their blog sound scarier. And yet.

A friend just had to postpone plans due to unexpected sad stuff and explained that this wasn't planned. My response was to say that bad news is never planned.

Do you have dreams over and over again? I do. I have that old cliched one that everyone seems to have some version of (not everyone, but it is common) which involves school. In my version I owe some courses and can't finish college due to technicalities relating to what I owe but can't make up. It feels so real every time, even though sometimes in the dream I remember having dreamt about it, but I think - this time it's real. I also have a recurring dream involving Israel, usually the Old City and often including Rav Nachman Kahane. In one version there is a beach that you enter via the Old City. Sometimes I'm leaving Israel and there are technical ticket difficulties relating to leaving and also the fact that I haven't bought presents for people. Usually there is a finding of meaning and spirit at the Kotel, though it's generally not an easy trip getting there. Last night I had another one of my dream remakes. This was the one that involved driving-not driving. I dreamed I drove somewhere and then it got dangerous as I couldn't keep my lane and so I pulled over (long story short).

In 1988 I had a hard time hearing a friend tell me that to be a poet I had to read poetry. Now I know that he was right. As often as I can - and thank G-d for summer - I try to discover and inhale new poems. Here's a poet fresh off my heart:

The Three Oddest Words

By Wislawa Szymborska

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.

True Love

By Wislawa Szymborska

True love. Is it normal
is it serious, is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?

Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason,
drawn randomly from millions but convinced
it had to happen this way - in reward for what?
For nothing.
The light descends from nowhere.
Why on these two and not on others?
Doesn't this outrage justice? Yes it does.
Doesn't it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,
and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.

Look at the happy couple.
Couldn't they at least try to hide it,
fake a little depression for their friends' sake?
Listen to them laughing - its an insult.
The language they use - deceptively clear.
And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines -
it's obviously a plot behind the human race's back!

It's hard even to guess how far things might go
if people start to follow their example.
What could religion and poetry count on?
What would be remembered? What renounced?
Who'd want to stay within bounds?

True love. Is it really necessary?
Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,
like a scandal in Life's highest circles.
Perfectly good children are born without its help.
It couldn't populate the planet in a million years,
it comes along so rarely.

Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there's no such thing.

Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

There's no such thing as on time, you're either early or late. There's no such thing as staying the same weight, you either gain or lose. "Udelo mosif yaseif."

A blessed woman: "Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light." ~ Mary Oliver

In preparation for Tamuz/Av I bought Erica Brown's book, In The Narrow Places - Daily Inspiration For The Three Weeks. She begins by stating that the book was written in an expansive rather than a constricted context, and that perhaps this causes her capturing of loss to be flawed. Nevertheless she is grateful to the publishers, editors,grant providers, family friends, community, and colleagues. She states that the book honors the memory of her relatives who were murdered during the Holocaust in the Polish town of Zakrzewek and that this "is that closest touch-point" that she has for the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem.

Dr. Brown begins her introduction by pointing out that Tisha B'Av and more-so Shiva Asar B'Tamus and the three weeks in between are generally neglected and go unrecognized. Many Jews don't observe the rituals of this time and many of those do keep the customs of this period view it as an inconvenience rather than getting into it in a meaningful manner. She writes that "the Jewish community at large has not embraced Tisha B'Av despite the fact that it is a day which is nationally cathartic. She suggests that American Jews like most Americans place comfort as a high priority and that causes them to hold Tisha B'Av at bay. She notes that American Jews do mourn for the destruction Holocaust because the recent loss of millions of Jewish people is more easily understood and felt than what people perceive as the inaccessible loss of a building that never meant anything to them in the first place. Brown points out that sadly people don't realize that what we mourn for in the days approaching Tisha B'Av and on that day itself is "the loss of an aspect of our relationship with G-d."

Citing Cicero Dr. Brown develops the idea that a mature person is a person who has a sense of history and that the reverse of that assertion is true as well. Unfortunately in America today there is little sense of history, she points out, reminding us of what we all see with our own eyes - that "American holidays are generally commemorated without a historical context." The problem is made worse by the youthfulness worship of American culture, which poo poos looking back.

Happiness, Brown points out, is all the rage in America today - as illustrated by the approximately 17, 000 results that come up when you go to Amazon and search "books on happiness." However, people suffer by neglecting suffering because "suffering humanizes us." And when people morn communally for a tragedy they have in common "they form intense and unique bonds."

Tisha B'Av provides us with words and time to feel and express our pain, Brown explains. She says that this period of mourning provides the glue that can hold us together as a people.

So far I am finding the book meaningful. After the introduction, which is 25 pages long, there is a thought for each day of the 3 weeks of mourning (and one for the day after). Each of those pieces average about 4 pages in length. From what I can tell this book can be very helpful during this time of year.