Category Archives: Life Cycle

A decision that should have been resolved before marriage

14 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Life Cycle

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Nathan’s father died soon after he was born, and before his death he asked his wife to be certain that their son would become bar mitzvah at age 13. His wife Joanne created a warm Jewish home, joined our synagogue, entered Nathan into Religious School, celebrated Shabbat every week bringing an assortment of friends into hers and Nathan’s home, and Nathan became Bar Mitzvah.

I met Nathan when he was six years old. He was, even as a child, smart and thoughtful, kind, talented, and graced with a gentle charisma that drew people to him.

I stayed close to him and his mother, but tragically, Joanne was diagnosed with cancer and died when Nathan was 17. Before her death, she arranged for him to live with dear friends who took Nathan into their home as their own, and I made Nathan pledge to stay in touch with me as I would do with him.

I’ve always believed in Nathan, and once suggested to him during his college years to consider the rabbinate, as he had everything it took to be an effective rabbinic leader. He appreciated the thought and my confidence in him, but explained that since he didn’t believe in God this was a path he could not take honestly.

Nathan went on to become a teacher and worked in the inner city public schools for five years with 4th grade children and their parents trying to help these kids to love learning, to develop strong study habits and to work their way up and out of poverty.

Like many teachers in these circumstances, Nathan burned out. The work was tough and he found himself fighting against a strong current of family illiteracy, gangs and drugs. He wanted to help others, but he had to find a new way. So he applied to law school and now is working as a public defender.

Nathan and I talk infrequently, but we’ve maintained a special bond. He’s now 34 years old and married to a wonderful non-Jewish woman who is generally supportive of his raising their children as Jews, to a point. Three months before the baby would be born he called me to talk about brit milah. He wanted it. His wife didn’t. What to do? I spoke at length with him about this and offered to speak with his wife, but she didn’t want to then. Nothing was resolved.

Four days after Nathan’s son was born, he called me desperately needing to talk. He explained that he was on cloud nine and in the dumps. On the third day of his son’s life, he raised the issue of a brit milah again with his wife, and they had the most alienating fight of their relationship.

He explained that his wife couldn’t imagine taking a knife to her new-born baby. She charged that the circumcision was a form of mutilation, and her maternal instinct wouldn’t permit it.

Once again he explained to her all his reasons why he wanted his son to enter the Covenant of Abraham, saying to her, “I feel deeply Jewish in my guts and I want my son to be Jewish too, that not doing this meant distancing himself even further from the father he’d never known who wanted him to be a Jew, from the mother who raised him as a Jew, and from his Jewish heritage altogether. “

He asked me for wisdom about what to do.

I suggested that he also say the following to her:

“Yes – the bris can be momentarily painful to our child, but mohalim (ritual circumcisers) use wine as a way to calm the baby while the brit occurs. The wound may be sore for a couple of days, but that’s it. Compared to the birth experience, a brit milah is far less traumatic, and it heals quickly. It isn’t mutilation at all. It’s the most fundamental and ancient of Jewish rites going back 3600 years. This is something very deep for me and I am asking you to allow it.”

“Nathan,“ I then said. “Your instincts are right. Those Jewish parents who choose not to bring their sons into the Covenant of Abraham separate themselves and their children from this 3600-year rite of passage and ineffable relationship with God. This is about Jewish identity and continuity. Since you and your wife have agreed to raise your son as a Jew, you must do this.”

We left it there, but I checked back with him a couple of days later. He said: “We had another argument last night with a friend trying to mediate, but she has decided that she can’t abide with the circumcision. I’m very angry, but she’s not changing her mind… I can’t maintain my anger and tarnish what is the happiest moment of my life. I have no choice but to move forward. All of this has reinvigorated my desire to give my son a Jewish education, for him to become Bar Mitzvah. My wife has said that she is supportive of that. She recognizes the huge sacrifice I’m making…I hope my son will some day make a choice to have a brit. Will you perform a naming even without a brit?”

I told Nathan I would. He understands, however, that the naming without the brit milah is half-done.

Nathan’s situation confirms my conviction that this kind of a decision has to be made before marriage even takes place.

I have confidence in Nathan and trust him to do everything he can to raise his son as a Jew. I hope his wife comes around one day on the brit milah, and sooner rather than later. Time will tell.

The Measure of Our Success – D’var Torah Vayigash

26 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Beauty in Nature, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Life Cycle, Quote of the Day

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As 2014 comes to a blessed close, our world continues to escalate in brutality, is more politically fragile, religiously challenged, and morally confused than ever before. In times such as these it is worthwhile to consider once again who we are and how we might measure our personal, societal and international well-being. In this I am reminded of Churchill’s words that a successful person will “be… able to go from one failure to the next without losing enthusiasm.”

This week’s Parashat Vayigash has something to teach us about the importance of our attitude. In these closing chapters of Genesis we come to the climax of the Joseph narratives. The crown prince meets his brothers after 20 years of exile and reveals himself. As they cower before him, he forgives them and makes peace. Then he settles his father Jacob in the land of Goshen.

Pharaoh meets Jacob and one old man asks another: “Jacob – How many are the years of your life?”

“The years of my sojourn on earth are one hundred and thirty. Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the life-spans of my fathers during their sojourns.” (Genesis 47:8-9)

This seems an odd response given Jacob’s manifold blessings. Recognizing Jacob as a kvetch, the Midrash (B’reishit Rabba 95) brings an incredulous God into the conversation:

“Jacob: ‘I saved you from Esau and Laban; I brought Dinah back to you, as well as Joseph, and you complain that your life has been short and evil?’ [If so] I’ll count the words of Pharaoh’s question to you and your response, add them together and shorten your life [by that number of years – 33] so you’ll not live as long as your father Isaac, who lived to 180.’ Jacob lived 147 years.”

What happened to Jacob that he should be so negative at this point in his life? After all, he had 4 wives, 13 children and many grandchildren. His son Joseph had become the second most powerful man in the world, and he himself had encountered God twice, in a dream and at a river, but Jacob could only complain!

Where was the gratitude? That this conversation with Pharaoh should come just after Jacob had been reunited with Joseph, his favorite son, is disheartening and disturbing.

Truth to tell, we all know people like this who see their lives through a negative prism – parents who fixate on their children’s weaknesses and failings; marriages that dissolve because one partner won’t let go of past slights; people who refuse to see the half-full glass and always negatively spin whatever happens to them; others who refuse to overcome disappointments and predict instead a negative future on the basis of past hardship repeating the familiar cynical refrain regardless of new opportunities that could be very different were they not so stuck in their approach and negative attitude to the world.

In his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey concludes that the most well-balanced, positive and proactive people, who live happily with others at work and home, are successful because they balance four dimensions of their natures: the physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional.

We may need to care more for our bodies, eat better food and less of it, drop excess weight, get sufficient rest, keep stress and negativity at bay, and exercise more.

Perhaps we have closed our hearts and souls to the experience of mystery, awe and wonder.

Maybe we are intellectually stagnant, our curiosity suppressed and our minds inactive.

Possibly, we’ve become jaded and numb to feeling, focused too much on ourselves without bothering to empathize with others.

The Midrash surmises that Jacob’s negativity and propensity to complain, despite his many blessings, shaved years from his life. Writing 1500 years ago, the rabbis anticipated what psychiatrists and scientists know today, that some illnesses and even some early deaths can be avoided if we take better care of ourselves in body, mind and soul, and paid more attention to those relationships of meaning and trust that we have with one another.

Robert Louis Stevenson described a successful life this way:

“A person is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent people and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his/her task; who leaves the world better than s/he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best s/he had.”

Wiser words have not been uttered.

Shabbat shalom and a happy, healthy, meaningful, balanced, loving, and peaceful New Year!

[Note: This is an edited d’var Torah that I posted here in December 2011 and in re-reading it, I realized that nothing substantially has changed in the world or in the lives of multitudes in that time – hence, its reprise.]

 

When Hearing An Ambulance Siren & Thoughts About Healing

12 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Life Cycle, Quote of the Day

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Following Kabbalat Shabbat services this past week a young woman, Hannah, asked me a question that had never been asked of me before. She wanted to know what blessing was appropriate to say when hearing an ambulance siren.

Hannah explained that she worried about the well-being of the individual for whom the ambulance was intended even though she had no idea who it was, and she wanted to be able to call upon whatever powers that be (e.g. physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual) that could possibly help the individual survive and cope with his/her ordeal.

The shortest prayer in the Hebrew Bible immediately came to mind – “El na r’fa na la – Please God heal her!” (Numbers 12:13) Moses had offered this five-word blessing on behalf of his sister Miriam after she had become leprous, and the Torah relates that Moses’ blessing was efficacious in Miriam’s healing.

Judaism understands that the human being is an integrated whole including body, mind, heart, and soul, and that all belong to God. As God’s “partner” in creation, Judaism obligates us to help others heal from injury and illness. (see Healing and the Jewish Imagination: Spiritual and Practice Perspectives on Judaism and Health, edited by Rabbi William Cutter, Jewish Lights, 2007)

I have written a Guide called “On Healing and Recovery” as part of a Transitions & Celebrations series of Jewish Life Cycle Guides that is available on the Temple Israel of Hollywood, Los Angeles website –

http://www.tioh.org/images/Worship/ClergyStudy/on%20healing%20and%20recovery.pdf 

In this guide I respond to many “Frequently Asked Questions” about recovery and healing and what to do and not do when someone becomes ill. I list relevant Jewish laws and traditions concerning the mitzvah (commandment) of bikur cholim (visiting the sick), as well as a glossary of relevant Hebrew terms and concepts and a list of resources for further inquiry.

I offer here a few reflections drawn from Jewish and world literature on the theme of healing:

“Rabbi Chiyya was suffering, and Rabbi Yochanan gave him his hand. Rabbi Chiyya was lifted.” (Babylonian Talmud, B’rachot 5b)

“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.” (John Burroughs)

“In the end, medicine will always be about one patient and one physician [or nurse] together in one room, connecting through the most basic of communication systems: touch. In an age of breathless innovation, this system is almost antediluvian. But medicine simply cannot be automated beyond this point.” (Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD – in Jewish Stories From Heaven and Earth: Inspiring Tales to Nourish the Heart and Soul, Edited by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins, p. 47)

“Abayei said, when a person comes out of a privy, that person should say: Blessed is God who has formed us in wisdom and created in us many orifices and many cavities. It is obvious and known before Your throne of glory that if one of them were to be ruptured or one of the blocked, it would be impossible for a person to survive and stand before You. Blessed are You that heals all flesh and does wonders.” (Babylonian Talmud, B’rachot 60b – Also in Asher Yatzar, a prayer in the morning liturgy)

“The Torah gives permission to the physician to heal; moreover, this is a mitzvah and it is included in the mitzvah of saving a life; and, the physician withholds such services, that person is considered a shedder of blood.” (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 336: 1)

“It is a positive rabbinic commandment to visit the sick, comfort mourners and serve in a funeral escort.” (Maimonides, Mishnah Torah)

“God’s word is the Source of all true life. Know and understand it. The word can heal your soul and unite it with its Source.” (Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav)

“Rabbi Abba son of Rabbi Hanina taught: The one who visits a sick person, takes away 1/60 of that person’s pain.” (Babylonia Talmud, Nedarim 39b)

“A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.”
(Spanish proverb)

“When one helps another, both gain in strength.” (Ecuadorian proverb)

“May the One who dwells in this place comfort you.”  (A message inscribed on Kings Gate in Jerusalem)

“The soul is healed by being with children.” (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

“Be a lamp,
or a lifeboat,
or a ladder.
Help someone’s soul heal.
Walk out of your house like a shepherd.” (Jalaluddin Rumi)

“Sickness is a separation from God – Healing is returning to God.” (Shirley MacLaine, Out on a Leash)

Why I Don’t Want to Die

05 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Health and Well-Being, Life Cycle, Poetry, Tributes

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My ailing mother and I had a conversation yesterday that broke through the fog of her dementia enough for her to express her greatest fear as she confronts the end of her life.

My mother is 97 and suffers from serious macular degeneration, deafness and dementia. She still knows my brother and me, though at times I have to persuade her that I am, indeed, her son. She is mostly able to communicate what she feels and thinks, though her vocabulary has become more and more limited and her confusion has increased. She has little short-term or long-term memory left.

When I arrived at her assisted living home yesterday, the aids told me that she had had a very bad morning, had broken a piece of equipment and wanted no one to touch her. They had medicated her to calm her. She sat alone appearing still agitated.

She can’t do much of anything by herself anymore. She needs assistance getting out of bed, using the bathroom, getting dressed, and moving anywhere. For the first 95 years of her life she had been independent and self-sufficient, so her frustration at her incapacities is now severe.

For some time now she has told me that she wants to die, that since all her brothers and sisters are dead, and most of her friends, this is no way to live.

Seeing me yesterday after several bad hours changed her mood. I let her vent and kept touching her and asking her direct questions – “Are you in pain?” “Does anything hurt?” “Do you need to use the bathroom?” “Do you know who I am?” “Do you need anything from me?”

Then she said, despite her past readiness for death, “I don’t want to die!”

“Really, Mom? That’s a change,” I said. “Why do you not want to die now?”

“I don’t want to leave you and everyone,” she answered.

I knew that was true, but I had the sense she was really saying something else, something deeper, trying to tell of a fear about dying that she had not expressed to me before.

I asked on a hunch; “Mom – are you afraid that I will forget you?”

She looked at me (I always sit very close to her with about a foot between my face and hers so she can see and hear me), and then with a clarity she had not had since I had arrived – “Yes!”

I took the opportunity to tell her a fundamental truth about my life, despite her having been a very difficult personality for both my brother and me throughout our lives, the following:

“Mom, let me tell you something. Even now, where ever I go, you are with me, in my heart. After you die and are gone, you will still be here with me in my heart. You have taught me so much about loyalty to family and generosity to everyone, about love and kindness, about giving back to others and trying to make a difference in the world, about making a contribution. That is what you have always tried to do and I believe you did it all really well. Just as Daddy has been with me every day since he died [56 years ago], as I know he has been with you and has been with Michael [my brother], you will be with me always too. Don’t worry about that. I cannot nor do I wish to ever forget you. I love you and am grateful that you are and have been my mother!”

She smiled at me for the first time that day – “I love you so much, John.”

I stayed a while longer. She was convinced that she was holding something in her gnarled hands and she wanted to put it onto a tray sitting on her dresser. I assisted her for a while and then just took her hands in mine and rubbed them and asked her to flex her fingers for exercise. The “sandy” sensation that she had tried to release went away.

It was lunch time, and I left her with her aids. As I walked to my car I was reminded of the concluding verse of one of my favorite e e cummings poems:

…here is the deepest secret nobody knows
here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life
which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide
and this is the wonder that keeps the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Until Death Do Us Part – How Couples Successfully Sustain Their Marriages Over Time

23 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Life Cycle, Tributes

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For the past twenty-five years on the Shabbat evening in Pesach my congregation has celebrated the Biblical Song of Songs as well as “milestone” wedding anniversaries of members of our community.

I have offered hundreds of blessings – once to a couple married for 70 years, twice to couples married for 65 years each and three times for 60 years. Many have celebrated 55 and 50 years continuing in descending integrals of 5 years each that we arbitrarily designate as “milestone anniversaries.” It is a joyous Shabbat including children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Given the 50% divorce rate among American Jews (now equal to the general American population) I ask each couple as they come forward for a blessing:

“How have you done it? What has sustained you for so long?”

Responses vary; some are hysterically funny and others wise from experience:

“She talks; I listen.”

“I agree with everything he says… especially when I don’t!”

“I let him think that every major decision went her way!”

“We laugh a lot!”

“We’ve learned to be patient and we forgive.”

“We don’t sweat the small stuff!”

“We communicate constantly.”

“We adore our kids, but they know that our marriage has always come first.”

“We love family time!”

“We fight fair – we are never nasty.”

“We value each other’s privacy and know when to leave the other alone!”

“We have our separate interests but we spend a lot of time together.”

“We’ve never let anyone come between us.”

“We share many good friends.”

“We’ve resisted temptation and stayed faithful to each other.”

“We trust each other as we trust no one else.”

One bold forty-something wife announced this past Shabbat before 200 people, “We have great sex!”

Over the years I’ve also learned that long-term happily married couples don’t take each other for granted. They tell each other frequently that they love one another. They hold hands. They bring each other unexpected gifts at unexpected times. They accept each other’s differences and have long since stopped trying to change the other. They don’t harbor resentments and they avoid blame. They respect each other’s talents, viewpoint, opinions, and feelings. They cherish each other in ways large and small. They compromise. They share their economic resources as equal partners (money being just one dimension of their partnership) regardless of who earns the most or who brought the most into the marriage. They give generously to each other and there’s never a quid pro quo.

No marriage, of course, is perfect. No marriage has all the above going for it. Every marriage has challenges, difficulties and moments of tension. However, successful and happy marriages are those in which both partners work hard to understand and accept the other as well as accommodate the other’s needs.

Marriages fail for all kinds of reasons. Some die natural deaths when one or both partners grow apart; when one or the other stops caring; when there is disloyalty and unfaithfulness; when injury is left unaddressed and unresolved; when one or both cannot own and apologize for bad behavior; when spouses are rigid, uncompromising, and insistent that things be their way; when one person must always have the last word.

Marriages fail as well when one or both partners have an untreated personality disorder, suffer from mental illness, are abusive, or are plagued with addiction problems.

When I meet and talk with couples before officiating at their weddings, I try and identify areas where I sense that there may be conflict that could develop into serious trouble if left unaddressed, such as how the couple communicates, what are their shared values, and how each partner approaches sex, power, money, in-laws, and leisure. I remind them that marriage is dynamic and ever-changing, and that honest and open communication is critically important to their marital well-being.

I remind them as well that no matter how much they love each other now and how good their relationship is, they will certainly experience peaks and valleys going forward. However, if they place the well-being of their marriage and each other above all other concerns (e.g. work, in-laws, children, extended family, and finances), then it is likely that they will deepen their bond as the years pass.

Doing so is always worth it. In this spirit Mark Twain captures the wonder and ineffability of the marital bond:

“A marriage…makes of two fractional lives a whole; / it gives to two…lives a work, / and doubles the strength of each to perform it; / it gives to two questioning natures / a reason for living, / and something to live for; / it will give a new gladness to the sunshine, / a new fragrance to the flowers, / a new beauty to the earth, / and a new mystery to life.”

 

 

Talking About Sex with Our Teen-Age Children – Another Difficult Conversation

28 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Life Cycle, Women's Rights

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One of the most uncomfortable conversations that parents of teen-agers have with their children, if indeed they have this conversation at all, is about sex. Far too many parents avoid the subject altogether out of embarrassment, ignorance or confusion, and assume that their kids will figure it out the way they did or get information from school psychologists and counselors.

Leaving this sensitive and vital area of a young person’s life to others, however, is a missed opportunity for parents to help their teen-age children navigate through rough waters while at the same time keeping open the lines of communication as their children enter young adulthood.

What does Judaism have to teach us about sex that we can discuss with our children, and what thoughts about sex might parents share with their teen-age children that can be helpful to them in our liberal age?

It is one thing for traditionally religious Jewish parents to discuss these issues with their children and quite another for secular liberal Jewish parents to discuss them. I encourage parents to speak with their rabbis, educators and development specialists if they are at a loss about what they should say and how they should say it.

Many traditional Jewish values are affirmed by all the religious streams including Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Reform Judaism, though the concrete behaviors relative to those values differ between the traditional and liberal approaches to Jewish tradition.

All the religious streams affirm the principle that the human being is created “B’tzelem Elohim – In God’s image” (Genesis 1:26-27) thereby endowing each person with infinite value and worth. As such, our bodies are to be appreciated as far more than millions of atoms and chemicals, flesh, bones, and blood. We are, each of us, a k’li kodesh (holy vessel) infused by the n’shamah (divine soul).

Other classic Jewish values embraced by the whole of Judaism, though understood differently by each religious stream, are tz’niyut (modesty) and anavah (humility). Ostentatious display of and exploitation of our bodies, and public sexual behavior are contrary to both liberal and traditionally religious virtues of modesty and humility.

Classic Judaism affirms essentially three purposes for sex – procreation, the establishment of loving and enduring relationships, and pleasure. Though traditional Judaism does not accept the legitimacy of homosexuality, liberal Judaism does, and it regards committed heterosexual and homosexual unions (for orthodox families heterosexual sex within marriage and for liberal families heterosexual and homosexual sex before and after marriage) as opportunities to fulfill Judaism’s three purposes of sex.

What about teen sexuality?

The most common question teens ask is: ‘How will I know when I am ready for sex?’ Planned Parenthood articulates clear and appropriate criteria in assessing a young person’s sexual readiness. It defines a healthy sexual relationship as having seven basic qualities: respect, honesty, equality, good communication, trust, fairness, and responsibility. Further, Planned Parenthood recommends that teens ask themselves these questions before they become sexually active:

  • Do each of you have the other’s consent?
  • Have you been pressured to give consent?
  • Are you honest with each other?
  • Do you treat each other as equals?
  • Are you attentive to each other’s pleasure?
  • Have you protected each other against physical and emotional harm?
  • Have you guarded against unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection?
  • Are you clear with each other about what you want to do and don’t want to do?
  • Do you respect each other’s limits?
  • Have you accepted full responsibility for your actions?

I do not believe that most young teens (i.e. 13 to 18 years of age) are ready for sexual intercourse even if they are able to answer in the affirmative all these questions. Most are too emotionally immature to cope with the power of their sexual feelings and the meaning and consequences of sexual intimacy.

Parents ought to be the first to advise their children to exercise caution by discussing Jewish and family values and by encouraging their teen-age children to ask the above questions about their sexual readiness. Our children need to feel, as well, self-confident that they are able to refuse sexual activity if they feel in any way unready, uncomfortable, embarrassed, demeaned, exploited, or pressured.

Finally, our teen-age children need to understand that they are still very young and that their time will come when becoming sexually active feels and is right.

Note: This is one in a series of blogs I am writing about difficult conversations that come up in families, among friends and in the workplace that we sometimes avoid or do badly. For a complete list, see my blog entitled “Difficult Conversations – January 17, 2014.”

Telling Children that Parents are Getting a Divorce – Another Difficult Conversation

21 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Life Cycle

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Few events are as destabilizing, disappointing, painful, and sad as divorce, and when children are involved the potential for real harm to them is great if parents are not careful about what they say and how they behave.

No matter how contentious the parents’ relationship has become, they should strive to do everything possible to spare their children unnecessary exposure to their anger and disappointment. Since every age of childhood requires special understanding relative to the child’s developmental and emotional needs, child development experts should be consulted to assist parents and teachers in helping children cope with the dramatic changes taking place in their family.

Both parents should agree on how and when they explain their divorce to their children and how they will relate to their children following the announcement. It is best when children are told with both parents present.

Parents should never speak ill of each other to the children, as doing so will be emotionally damaging.

When telling their children, I recommend that they say something to this effect:

“We both love you. We will always be your parents. Sadly, we have decided that it would be better for us not to live together or to continue being married. Our decision has nothing to do with you. There is nothing you did that caused us to end our marriage and there is nothing you can do to bring us back together. We know that our divorce is deeply disappointing and distressing to you, as it is to us, and that you are very sad about it, as are we, but we believe that this change will be better for us, and we hope in time that you will understand. We are both here for you. We both love you.” 

It is a mistake for parents to share details of what went wrong in their marriage with their children. The children may know that there have been problems, but they do not need to know specifics, for that is the parents’ business and theirs alone.

Parents need to remember that their children are watching them. Everything they say and do affects them, and they will learn to cope with their own life challenges by the example their parents set as they cope with the end of their marriage.

Parents need not be stoic in front of their kids, but neither should they show constantly to them how grieved, angry, pained, and disappointed the parents feel.

Parents should strive to keep the children’s lives as normal as possible, should be open to hearing what their kids think and feel, and should not try and convince their kids that they are wrong to feel as they do, that they should “get over it” before they are ready, or ignore the pain they feel. Parents should accept what their kids say on their terms and affirm that their feelings are legitimate.

Parents should hug their children a lot and tell them how much they love them.

It is important that the children of divorcing parents have the support of close family, friends, clergy, therapists, and teachers. Parents should explain to their children how important it is for their teachers to be aware about the divorce so that they can emotionally support them as needed in the classroom.

The time following divorce, like that following a death, needs a grieving period. Shock, denial, anger, sadness, and acceptance are part of what divorcing parents can anticipate from their children. Children might act out in a variety of ways. Some may not react during the first months, and their reactions will vary according to age and respective relationships with each parent. As parents and children move through this transition together, children should understand that they must speak respectfully to their parents and siblings even if they are furious at their parents for this change that has been imposed on their lives.

It is a mistake for parents to over-compensate in what they allow and give to their children. Parents should not attempt to buy their child’s happiness. Among the most important things parents can do is to agree together on their expectations, privileges and punishments. This is often difficult, but if parents, despite their antagonisms, are willing to communicate and coordinate regarding their children, so that neither home is viewed as a sanctuary from the other home, then the stability and constancy children need will be more likely to occur.

I have written a booklet called “When Jews Divorce” that more completely discusses the Jewish view on divorce and other options for divorcing partners. It can be found on my synagogue’s website at http://www.tioh.org/images/Worship/ClergyStudy/when%20jews%20divorce.pdf.

Note: This is one in a series of blogs I am writing about difficult conversations that come up in families, among friends and in the workplace that we sometimes avoid or do badly. For a complete list, see my blog “More Difficult Conversations – January 17, 2014.”

Helping a Grieving Child after the Death of a Loved One – Another Difficult Conversation

19 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Health and Well-Being, Life Cycle, Poetry

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Death is the greatest destabilizing and shattering of life experiences, and is particularly challenging to children who, for the most part, have not as yet developed the life-skills necessary to effectively cope emotionally and spiritually with this magnitude of loss. They consequently need all the support  that extended family, friends, clergy, teachers, therapists, classmates, and community can give them.

What do children know about death and when do they know it?

Very young children under the age of six years approach death with a kind of “magical thinking.” For example, the coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons is consistently pulverized in his pursuit of the Roadrunner. Yet, after every crushing experience, he is reconstituted, comes back to life and continues his pursuit of the Roadrunner. Cartoon characters do not stay dead, and very young children assume that people who die will also return to life.

Some children believe, from an egocentric perspective, that they might have caused the death, and it needs to be explained to them that all people die and that they themselves had absolutely nothing to do with Grandma’s death.

Children over the age of 7 are already beginning to understand concretely and abstractly the meaning of death. Many are fearful for their own safety and the safety of other close adults in their lives. They need reassurance from their surviving parents, grandparents and extended family that everyone else is healthy and has many more years to live, that this was a very sad and/or tragic experience and that it is likely not going to be repeated for many years.

They need to understand, as well, that most illness is treatable and people recover. Just because someone gets sick does not mean that they will die.

Children need to understand that death and sleep are different in order to keep at bay their fear that going to sleep means they, or their loved ones, won’t awaken in the morning.

Children need to know the truth about what causes death, that the disease that killed their loved ones is not necessarily contagious and that their surviving family members are safe.

If children ask about God, I urge you not to say: “God must have wanted Grandma!” “Grandpa is now in a better place!” “God gives us only those burdens that God believes we can handle!”  Such thinking pits God against human beings rather than offer us a divine source of solace and comfort in our loss. The Kotzker Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Morgensztern of Kotzk, 1787-1859) said that “God is closest to those whose hearts are broken.”

I am moved by the perspective of the French theologian Teilhard de Chardin, who observed that

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

You might share this idea with your children as it may open their hearts, minds and souls to a greater understanding of who they are at their essential spiritual core.

As a practical matter, I do not encourage children under the age of 5 to attend funerals because they do not understand what is taking place and are often distracting to the mourners. Children over the age of 5 or 6, however, should be given the option to attend after understanding what will take place and what will be expected of them.

Children should be involved in helping to make decisions about the funeral and what happens later in the home.

When the child returns to school, his/her friends also need to be prepared to receive them. The child should be greeted warmly by everyone, invited to join a group of kids at lunch, to walk with classmates between classes, to schedule play dates, and to do homework together.

Classmates should acknowledge what has happened by saying such things as, “I am so sorry that your Dad died.” “I’ve missed you.” “I’ve been thinking about you.” “I can’t imagine what it feels like.” “I’m here for you if you ever want to talk.”

For all of us, there is nothing more painful than the loss of the people we love. This unknown poet, offers comfort, perspective and hope:

“Four things are beautiful beyond belief: / The pleasant weakness that comes after pain, / The radiant greenness that comes after rain, / The deepened faith that follows after grief, / And the re-awakening to love again.”

I have written a booklet (“Preparing for Jewish Burial and Mourning”) that describes in some detail concisely Jewish burial and mourning customs. I believe it can be helpful for you and your children in better understanding how Judaism understands death and mourning and why we do what we do. See my synagogue’s web-site:

http://www.tioh.org/images/Worship/ClergyStudy/preparing%20for%20jewish%20burial%20and%20mourning.pdf

 

Difficult Conversations

17 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Life Cycle

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My post “Helping Families Have the Most Difficult Conversation” (December 31, 2013) touched a sensitive chord with many people. In that blog I encouraged adult children and their parents to talk openly about the most difficult and challenging of life’s transitions at the end of life.  See https://rabbijohnrosove.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/helping-families-have-the-most-difficult-conversation/

After reading the first blog, a good friend suggested that I address other difficult conversations as well. I thought he had a good idea, and so in the coming weeks I will address each of these themes below, and where possible, to cite Jewish text and values.

A disclaimer – I am not a psychologist, though working in synagogues over the past 40 years as a student rabbi and then an ordained rabbi I have addressed these issues in one way or another many times.

Here are the issues (to be addressed in no particular order) that I will discuss going forward:

·       How to best discuss death, divorce and sex with children

·       How to talk about God with children whether we are believers or not

·       How to share bad news

·       How to tell those who behave unethically and mean-spiritedly the truth about what they do and the impact they have on others

·       What to say to those with addiction problems

·       How to deal with the person who is always right, never wrong, and resistant to apologizing when wrong

·       How to be a friend to those with serious illness

·       What to do and say to those who self-reference in every conversation

·       What to say when others make racist, sexist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic comments in a business or social setting, or to you personally

When the time comes, I invite your insights and wisdom. You can post your comments directly on my blog.

I hope these blogs will stimulate us to address those difficult interpersonal issues and issues that come up among friends and in the workplace that we have avoided or done badly.

 

Helping Families Have the Most Difficult Conversation

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Life Cycle, Uncategorized

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Over the weekend I listened to a moving interview on NPR by Linda Wertheimer of former Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman concerning a project that Ms. Goodman helped to establish to encourage adult children and their parents to talk openly about the most difficult and challenging of life’s transitions at the end of life. It is called “The Conversation Project.” Its home page says that

“It’s time to transform our culture so we shift from not talking about dying to talking about it. It’s time to share the way we want to live at the end of our lives. And it’s time to communicate about the kind of care we want and don’t want for ourselves.”  [See: http://theconversationproject.org/about/]

Most people, Ellen Goodman says, have not had that conversation and therefore are unprepared for the inevitable, though most elderly parents have clear ideas about what they want at the end of their lives. They don’t share their wishes with their children, however, because they fear burdening and worrying them, and adult children don’t raise the matter with their parents because they fear upsetting them.

Goodman notes that as unsettling an experience as a parent’s death is, surveys indicate that when conversations about it take place there results less depression, less sorrow, less guilt, and less regret felt by everyone. The conversation can be among the richest and most intimate that we ever have together.

When there is no conversation, however, children often feel lonely and uncertain about what to do when their parents die because they do not know what their parents would have wanted. If adult children, in trepidation, fear and/or denial avoid the inevitable and suppress conversation when their parents want to talk, their parents feel cut off and likely never will have the opportunity to make known what they really want to their children.

The Conversation Project has conducted surveys showing a substantial gap between what people want and what they have shared with those closest to them:

  • 90% know it is important to have these conversations, but only 30% are having them;
  • 60% say that it is “extremely important” that families not be burdened by tough decisions, but 56% have not communicated their end-of-life wishes;
  • 70% say they prefer to die at home, but 70% actually die in a hospital, nursing home or long-term care facility;
  • 82% believe it is important to put their wishes in writing, but only 23% have done so.

The Conversation Project’s “Starter-Kit” offers a workbook of questions that needs to be clarified and shared, and acknowledges how difficult it is for many people to know how to begin the conversation. The Project organizers suggest starting by completing this sentence: “What matters to me at the end of life is…..”

They offer other questions for parents to ask themselves and then share with their children for discussion:  

  • What is most important to me?
  • What can I not imagine living without?
  • What are my greatest worries at the end of my life?
  • Who do I trust to talk to about my desires and wishes?
  • What milestones do I want to meet before I die?
  • What do I want to know about my health?
  • What do I want my loved ones to know about my health?
  • How aggressive should the treatment be in the last stages of my life?
  • Who do I want involved in my end-of-life care?
  • What do I want my loved ones, doctors/nurses and clergy to understand about my wishes?
  • Do I wish to be alone or surrounded by my loved ones when I die?
  • What do I want my loved ones to do when I die?
  • What affairs do I need to get in order now?
  • Do I have a will/trust set up and an Advanced Directive (AD), Health Care Proxy (HCP) and Living Will in place?

The Conversation Project is a gentle, thoughtful and loving prod to help open the hearts, minds and souls of parents and children to each other as the end of life approaches.

See Wertheimer’s and Goodman’s NPR conversation here:  http://www.npr.org/2013/12/28/257822206/helping-families-have-the-most-difficult-conversation

To assist Jews in thinking about Judaism’s traditions concerning terminal illness, death, funerals, burial, and mourning, I have written a 45-page life-cycle guide called “Preparing for Jewish Burial and Mourning”  in an easy-to-use format that addresses most of the questions Jews concerning end-of-life matters, as well as a practical step-by-step guide to prepare for it. See: http://www.tioh.org/images/Worship/ClergyStudy/preparing%20for%20jewish%20burial%20and%20mourning.pdf or http://hillsidememorial.org/images/Jewish-Lifecycle-Guide.pdf.

Don’t put off thinking about these matters, putting your wishes in writing, and discussing them forthrightly with the people you love the most. The time is now.