Evil Eye-Yetzer Hara

I just read in The Forward that the evil eye is a capability in all people. You can cast it yourself on those you dislike for whatever reason may plague your peace of mind.

It is my sense, however, that giving into your yetzer harah and turning your evil eye on and enemy is clearly bad Karma, and will result in the evil eye being cast back on you. I must be strong, and keep my yetzer harah to myself, even though there are two people who clearly deserve some bad luck. Let the universe take care of them, I say.

Story

I am going to write a story about a deeply disturbed, highly ambitious woman.

Can get some satisfaction

Blogging can be damaging to a career, no doubt, but it is deeply satisfying sometimes, nonetheless.

The Depression

She was a rich girl, sad as an old dog. Her father was a gambler and her mother, just plain crazy.

She spent the days at school hiding from bullies and her nights at home listening to her mother screaming at her father. Defenseless, her father explained that his gambling losses were unsuccessful investments. In a fury of frustration, her mother howled that because he couldn't control his appetites they would soon be as poor as were their parents in the tenements of the old Lower East Side.

Her mother tore at her clothes, causing rents in them as if she were in mourning, which she was. They all were. They were in a depression. It was 1930, and butter and happy dreams of family life and joyous dancing at weddings were things of the recent past. Now there were lamps with dead bulbs, and an ice box with margarine and hoarded milk. Once there were crystal chandeliers and lovely roasts and bootleg champagne.

The crying and screaming went on into the early morning hours. Sometimes her mother exhausted from emotion, would come into her bedroom and lie down next to her, and gently hold her. Then there was a bit of comfort. But the morning light broke through the lace curtains. It was time for mean girls, hard-eyed teachers, and a fearsome haze of chalk dust.

Flower-strewn, butterfly-flecked meadows and cool gray swimming holes and best friends were for someone else's childhood.

In Nafplio with Sukey

Off the bus blaring bazouki music, Sukey and I wandered up and down sun-lit streets. A soft breeze was blowing in from the Adriatic. Flowers spilled out of window boxes. Steep white-washed steps curved up bright alley ways not revealing their end. I was so happy I had to sit on a step and just let the sun fill my eyes and the breeze brush my hair. Thank you, thank you I said.

Remembrance of Friends Past

I am remembering friends from college. I recently read in Columbia College Today that Jeff Rosecan died two months ago. I remember the last time I saw him--outside the Gold Rail in 1977. He was married to Iris Fass, who I last saw that night also. He was sitting in a car I got in to talk to him. He noted that he smelled alcohol on my breath. I was embarrassed about the telltale odor but not drunk. He said, that's ok; I'm a doctor interested in drugs.

I also remember Steve Dworkin and Patricia Benoit and Michelle Friedman and Colin Petz and Warren Cook and Simone Barbet.

Necropolis

In Thessaloniki, where in 1870 Jews numbered 50,000 out of the total population of 90,000, today in 2008 there are 1,000 Jews out of a total population of 364,000. The Nazis killed 96 percent of Thessaloniki's Jews--almost 60,000. Most of the synagogues were destroyed. The Nazis also destroyed the Jewish cemetery which held the bones of 500,000 dating back to the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, and donated the grounds to their Greek collaborators. On the ruins of this cemetery Aristotle University was built.

This necropolis in southern Europe recalls the necropolis in eastern Europe that is now Poland.

Ten hours, forty-five minutes from Athens

Yesterday in the plane from Athens to Philadelphia, I sat next to a man who had nothing to do but chat. No books, no headset, no pen. He just talked. We did not exchange names. And when the passengers were deplaning he left without saying goodbye.

Letters and Other Writings of James Madison By James Madison

Letters and Other Writings of James Madison By James Madison: ""

A visit to Atlanta

Carrie and I surveyed the vast expanse of Atlantan urban desert, and decided not to walk. There are some landscapes that need to be driven through, we decided. We drove through downtown, passing few pedestrians and no homeless street-campers. Driving and driving, we missed a number of signs that might have pointed to places of interest. We stopped and parked when we reached a park where a hundred men were playing chess. Out of the car, we walked by the chess players and looked for the Ebenezer Baptist Church on our map. A street preacher was condemning lust and short skirts and not sitting pretty. A girl in a short skirt with thigh exposed crossed legs was taking notes. Thirsty, we got up and walked around looking for a cafe and found an entrance to an underground shopping mall to which you descend via a very long escalator. Downstairs, we walked past all the Barack Obama paraphernalia until we got to an Orange Julius stand. It was dark and hard to see the shops in the gloom, but there were lots of shoppers there, which was strange because the mall was as dingy and and dull as Hades. Also the Orange Julius wasn't very good, a ghost of what it was in my memory of the Orange Juliuses from the stand on 110th and Broadway in the seventies. Then we got into the car again to find the Martin Luther King historical district. We drove a long way through more quiet streets. At the church and the monument, we turned around because it was blazing hot and treeless location with not a single person in sight. Carrie, who doesn't like museums, suggested we skip the art center and go to Target instead, where she bought bath products and I had an Atlanta Coke.

At the Amtrak station waiting for my 8:15, I shook my head in wonder: Hundreds of people were milling about in expectation of the Northbound Crescent--the train that runs from New Orleans to Chicago with stops that include Charlotte NC, Washington DC, Newark NJ, and New York City. Were they refugees? I was sad to leave Carrie there, but I bet there are a lot of wonderful things in Atlanta that are reserved for Atlantans. If there are, she will probably miss them, being too busy practicing law in the Decatur legal aid office to seek out the secrets of the new South.

Replacement Geneology

In a Darwinian world, a woman with grown daughters has been replaced. Well, at least it seemed that way to me when last week withing a couple of days of each other, one daughter declared that she was a much better cook than I am, and another stated for some existential record that she cleans houses much better than do I. For that same record, let me declare here that I always thought I was a fairly decent cook and housecleaner. However, they both pointed out to me I do these chores half-heartedly and lazily. When I protested, saying that I used to do them energetically, they said, no. No. I never was good at cooking and cleaning and I always did these things resentfully, implying that they do these things joyfully. Thinking about how as in other areas of life, I am an under performer in the domestic arts, I feel a bit bereft. But as one does whenever a child passes some milestone, I just stick out my chin and say, "God bless 'em."

In Carolina campaigning for Obama

"It's just the idea...." Sitting in his old Accord, the young man with the beautiful face and bright tattoos incised up and down his large-muscled arms, paused to gather his thoughts and emotions. His voice choking, he tried again: "It's just the idea that makes you feel...." He stopped again and looked helplessly at Erika and me. "You know what I'm sayin," he said. We nodded our heads, and looked up and down the street of homes with neatly mowed lawns and old screen doors and broken doorbells. It was late lunch time and residents were coming home from work to eat or to wait for their grandchildren, whom they cared for after school. We were two middle-aged white Jewish women, but we did understand. We did and it was good. The beautiful tattooed man gave us a weak smile. " Thanks for helping he said."

"Thank you for helping," we said.

Discovery in fiction

Just finished writing the non-fiction book for hire. Now I will go back to the novel, which probably will never be read by a soul. Still, I persevere. Why? Well, without the constraints of fact, I like the way your conscious and unconscious mind can roam in fiction. And the way you can discover feelings, and memories, and ideas you didn't know you had. And the way you see objects as if you had just come upon them. And people from your past--the way you can understand why you hate or love them. Fiction shows you how your mind is a brave, new world.

Tuning in and turning off

A self-important and bumptious history professor was just speaking on the radio about polling. Blah, blah, blah, as if he knew what he was talking about. Unlike his unlucky students, I was able to reach over and turn him off.

What we have in common

It is perhaps best to understand that life is a club in which all individuals are temporary members. And good health, a temporary blessing. And ill health, rather than what distinguishes the well from the ill, our common denominator.

Why she was crying

Past: My mother not sometimes but often would quietly cry during movies and while listening to music. I used to wonder what she was thinking about when tears would bubble out of her swollen eyes and wet her sad face.

Present: April, the cruelest month. Listening to IPod. First, Placido Domingo singing Morgenlich Leuchtend Im Rosigen Schein. I thought of my grandparents. I don't know why. They were born in the U.S. into Yiddish and German speaking households. I imagined them listening to this music, and felt an unearned nostalgia. Second, Stephan Grappelli and Yehudi Menuhin playing "My Funny Valentine" together and I thought of my father, who liked popular standards and jazz. I imagined him listening to this on his old, dusty record player. Third, Chopin Nocturne, Op. 9, No. 2, I don't know who was playing it. I remembered my mother playing this music, and I imagined her at a concert in Alice Tully Hall listening to it. At this point I was boo-hooing, not quietly like my mother, but with snotty sobbing. Still, I think I know what she was crying about.

Lucy

Lucy stands behind the 7 foot tall unpainted picket fence and looks blankly to the unfenced world beyond. Then she barks, and keeps on barking in a strident-urgent way--like a baby crying-- until a human does something about the barking--usually luring her inside with a treat.

Every once in a while she will escape the fence or closed doors. Then she runs-- like the wind, a brown and black streak of high spirits and unbound energy--around houses, up and down front stairs, onto porches and through gardens. She does not stray far, staying within smell or sight of the house she lives in. Finally, tired and thirsty, she comes to rest by the door through which she escaped, offering herself up to captivity.

Irony

In 1961, my father believed that the United States was heading for a market crash and a depression. For the next 30 years, he had huge short positions that lost him a fortune. Until he died, he believed that the banks would go bust through risky investments especially investments in consumer debt. He died in Manhattan on September 17, 2001. At that time the markets had begun crashing in response to the attacks on the World Trade Center. Disabled by untreated diabetes and resentment, he died alone, unable to sell Bear Stearns short.

Visit to Israel

At 55, I had never visited the 60 year-old Israel—until last week. George and Carrie and I decided not to visit Yad Vashem, knowing the Shoah so much better than we knew the country born of it. Instead, we walked along Mediterranean beaches, and floated in the Dead Sea, and listened to the Hebrew of daily life, and prayed at Ha Kotel, and sat amid tropical flowers planted in gardens overlooking Lake Kinneret. It was in the Gallil that we heard about the shooting of eight children in Jerusalem’s Mercaz HaRav yeshiva. There in that bright Jewish resort above blue waters, we met what we had tried to push away—the living tragedy of the Jewish people, of the Middle East, of life on our pretty blue-watered planet.

Israel’s tragedy rends the heart. Somehow, out of the broken heart pours pure love. L’shana ha’ba’ah bi’Yerushalayim.

Dearly Beloved

Is there any sight more poignant than an old woman arm-in-arm with her old mother? They walk along without conversation, enjoying the company and touch of of the dearly loved other. Not many more walks are in their future. But the day is pretty, and that is a blessing.

Too Old to Give a Damn

Doris Lessing said about receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, "I couldn't care less." She is peeved that the Nobel committee waited so long. "I think they were probably thinking they'd probably better give it to me now before I've popped off." " she said. She may be less angry at the committee than at the fact that she is so old--she's 88.

I know a 93 year old who says he doesn't get out of his pajamas any more because he doesn't get out of bed any more. He doesn't get out of bed because he hurts. He used to hobble around. He used to drive here and there. He used to bring roses to women who used to work for him. Before that he had important jobs. He gave money away. He was appreciated for his generosity. His wife is dead now and the money is gone and so are the friends. He has one neighbor who tells him to get out of pajamas and stop acting like Hugh Hefner.

The gentry of Europe stay indoors when they are old. What do they intend by their seclusion? Is it like the old practice of secluding pregnant women? Are they hiding the unseemliness of their old age? Or do they just not give a damn?

End the War Now

"End the War Now" reads a sign in the yard of divorcing couple. This is a cri de coeur if I ever heard one.

Midrash--Eve and Adam

With the flaming sword spinning in a bright blue sky and winged cherubim flying in circles above the trees and chomping their gaping, snaggle-toothed jaws, Eve and Adam ran through thickets of briar and low-growing pine. Branches and thorns tore at the stinking animal skins that they wore. Their feet began to bleed. But still they ran. They had to get away from that sword that hung above their heads and the monsters that swooped over the skies of Paradise.

All of sudden, as they were preparing to leave the garden, these things had appeared in the empty heavens. In spite of what they had heard with their ears--the words of God saying that they would be cast out into a world full of hard work and pain-- and in spite of a beautiful world suddenly turning ghastly, they could not believe that they were to leave the place from which they had sprung into being. Maybe, they thought, they could stay after all. Maybe God would forgive their mistake.

Later, sitting around a small fire in a cold cave, far from Paradise, they discussed what had happened to them.

“Are you sure that was God talking to us before we had to leave the Garden?” Adam said. “It sounded like the serpent.”

“Well it must have been God,” said Eve. “After God spoke to us, everything changed. One moment there was that sweet scent of jasmine, and the blue sky. And that soft breeze. But then came the horrid things in the sky. The animal skins that suddenly covered our naked bodies. You blaming me for it all. These were God’s work.”

“You are bitter,” Adam said.

“Aren’t you? God says don’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and then sends a snake to persuade us to do just that. God wanted us out.”

“You. The snake persuaded you,” said Adam.

Eve tore at her clothes. “Look what has happened to us. We were one person. Now we are two. You blame me for our falling out of favor. And think yourself to be blameless.” She stood up and threw a rock against the wall of the cave. “You are not blameless,” she hissed. “You took the fruit. You ate it.”

Adam considered what she said. “Like you said, we were one. You wanted it and I ate it.”

“We were such dolts,” she said.

“So what are we now?” he said.

“I am a breeder of children and you are a tiller of the soil,” she said. “And we are separate. God separated us like he separated light from dark. And land from water. And us from the Garden. I don’t know you any more. And I don’t trust you.”

“I don’t trust you either, but we will have to try to work together, if we are to live.”

In the coming years, sometimes Adam seemed to Eve like a beautiful, irresistible fruit. And she seemed the same to him. Then they would come together. At first she bore sons. The first two were as disconnected as two beings could be. They hated each other because of their differences—Cain was a sensual, brutal boy, and Abel was soft and loved his mother. Cain killed Abel, and buried him by the only fruit tree in the surrounding forest.

After taking care of his brother, Caine came before his parents. They were covered with bruises and scratches and insect bites from their day of work. They were about to sleep.

“Abel has been killed by a tiger,” he told them. “I have buried him to spare you the sight of his injuries.”

Eve and Adam gasped at the news. They both began to weep—quietly at first, then in great, gusty howls of pain.

Finally, Adam said, “You are a good boy. Thank you for taking care of your poor brother.”

Caine ran outside. The wind was blowing. The dry leaves on trees and on the ground hissed in the wind. Cain felt hot and dizzy. Blood pounded against his temples. Bright flashing jagged lights appeared before his eyes. Then he heard the voice of God:

“Where is your brother, Cain?”

“How would I know? Am I my brother’s keeper?”

“Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the earth.”

In punishment for the murder of his brother, Abel, God separated Cain from his mother and father and the place they lived and the ground that he and his father cultivated. He wandered the land. He founded a city. He took a woman for a wife, lived hundreds of years and made hundreds of children.

Adam lived to be 930 years. He tilled the soil until his hands could no longer grip a hoe and his feet could not support his body.

Eve lived 929 years. She bore so many children that when she stood her insides were loose inside her body. The day she died she said to Adam, “I guess I am being punished less than you after all.”

When he was dying, Adam said to his son Seth, “After a thousand years, I am going back to the earth from which I was made, knowing very little of good and evil, understanding little of the world and of my Creator. I am glad to be going.”

Adam grasped Seth’s hand. “I don’t know much, but I believe a few things:

“I believe that good and evil are not completely separate. There is some of each in the other.

“Nor are man and woman completely divided. Nor are we so different from our brothers and sisters and children as it may seem.

“And though Paradise is guarded by beast and sword and we are separated from it, there is unity in the moments when we understand each other. In these moments, the Garden is near.”

One-State Two-Step

The land of the bible, home of Jews and Arabs has always been a politically disturbed region of the world. Like Gan Aden, there are flower blooms. Like the world after the expulsion of Adam and Chava there are enmities so profound that they tax human ingenuity to resolve them.

The one-state solution, the solution of Greeks, Romans, and Turks has been tested and has failed. Why should Arab rule work in Palestine? Those who propose a one-state solution are either politically naive or politically shrewd. In a united Palestine would not the fate of its minority--Jews--be the fate of the Jewish minority in all other Arab states? For the Jews to become again a minority may be our fate in the Middle-East as it is in the rest of the earth, but for us it would be a tragic although familiar endgame.

In a Bubble

Reeboka is a writer facing a deadline. While time rushes by, her life comes to a standstill. Daughter home from Central Europe and poised to commence a year in the Middle East--neglected. Although living in the same house, their conversations occur on Google Talk.

Writing away as if in a big soap bubble, she is carried away by the currents of time, carried away swiftly past the beloved ones. As she sees them receding into the distance, she hopes that when the bubble bursts, she has not missed too much.

Fearful Symmetry

In the beginning were just you and your mother. So, where is she at the end? Shouldn't there be some symmetry in being born and dying? We know that you are not born alone. Why should you die alone? Is this what they mean by the pointlessness of existence?

But maybe she is there beyond the point of recall, when you are giving up the ghost, when you are grave and becoming more distant than ever you were in your most intense states of self-preoccupation. Perhaps we shall not want after all.