More Stories for Hanukkah

CHAINS OF CARING

A Collection of Memories for My Children and Grandchildren
Hanukkah 5775/2014 

by Yehudit Goldfarb

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Table of Contents

Preface:  “Generations:  A Pantoun"

First Night of Hanukkah:  Chesed
    Passover Seder behind Grandpa’s Store

Second Night of Hanukkah:  Gevurah
    The Scar on My Knee

Third Night of Hanukkah:  Tiferet
    Talent Night at Cal Camp

Fourth Night of Hanukkah:  Netzach
    Hitting Jeffrey with the Hammer

Fifth Night of Hanukkah:  Hod
    Piano Lesson

Sixth Night of Hanukkah:  Yesod
    Meadow Lake

Seventh Night of Hanukkah:  Malkhut
    Being Danced by the Dance

Eighth Night of Hanukkah:  Zot Hanukkah
    My Encounter with Doubt

 Coda:  "Sparks of Light"


The Kabbalistic Tree of Life (definitions and correspondences for the Sefirot)

List of Photos within the Text


 
These stories are meant for people of all ages to be read during Hanukkah, and all year around, for each day of the week corresponds to a sefirah on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.  I originally wrote them earlier this year (2014) during a Memoir Writing class taught in Tzfat by Esther Rubinstein.  Many of them were inspired by Nitsan Gordon's Beyond Words classes which I attended during the same time period as I was participating in the writing group.  The stories have been revised and compiled for my children and grandchildren for Hanukkah 5775, and are meant to be shared with extended family and friends, with the hope that they will provide a glimpse into some of my early formative experiences,  as well as give another perspective on the qualities of the sefirot on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and the journey toward maturity. 

Preface

“Generations:  A Pantoun” *

Generations move through time in chains of caring
If parents let their hearts speak truth
When large blue eyes smile at me beneath long lashes
All the world melts into love

If parents let their hearts speak truth
Children would know that the Divine flow never ceases
All the world melts into love
At the touch of a tiny finger newly emerged from the moist womb

Children would know that the Divine flow never ceases
If they are permitted to express their natural wonderment
At the touch of a tiny finger newly emerging from the moist womb
The silky skin of an aged face can glow with the same Divine Presence as a newborn

If children are permitted to express their natural wonderment
Hashem's embrace would  be evident even to the scoffer
The silky skin of an aged face can glow with the same Divine Presence as a newborn
Both reflect the angelic beings surrounding and supporting them

Hashem's embrace would be evident even to the scoffer
If he or she paused to notice the textures of life's containers
All reflect the angelic beings surrounding and supporting them
Generations move through time in chains of caring

* “Generations:  A Pantoun” was published in the English language edition of the Jerusalem newspaper Yated Ne’eman in 2004.  It was originally written on October 12, 2004, during a workshop taught by Ruth Fogelman on “The Pantoun" (or Pantoum) at the Tzfat Writers’ Conference for Women.

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First Night of Hanukkah:  Chesed

"Passover Seder behind Grandpa's Store"

I am all dressed up in my best dress and black patent leather shoes.  My hair is neatly curled in ringlets.  Dad says I look like a little blond Shirley Temple.  I am happy.

We have driven in our car–a large dark green Buick–to Grandpa's store in the Richmond District of San Francisco.  As we walk through the front door, I turn aside to the left to the comic book rack.  I can't read yet, but I like to look at the pictures.  I get to stay there for a long time while the  grown-ups gather in Grandma and Grandpa's apartment, which is through the swinging door at the back of the store.  I look through several Donald Duck comic books, absorbing each story from the multicolored pictures.  My brother Marty stands next to me reading other comics.

Then we hear Mom call our names:  "Martin! Judy! Come into the back for the seder."  We walk through the narrow aisles of the grocery store to the doorway behind the counter.  I like going behind the counter.  I feel privileged when I come close to the cash register and see the shelves underneath.  This time we pass quickly though the swinging door and see a long table with a beautiful white table cloth and ten settings of shining porcelain dishes and polished silver.

The room is warm and cozy, with heavy dark furniture along the walls.  We take our seats.  I am between Marty and Mom.  Dad is on the other side of Marty.  Grandpa sits near Mom at the head of the table in a large chair with side arms and two large fluffy pillows behind his back.  Across from us sit Uncle Jerry (my mother’s brother), Auntie Lee, and my two cousins, Jeffrey and Joel.  Grandpa looks imperial at the head of the table, and Grandma’s chair remains empty while she continues to move to and from the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on the table.  She brings the last of the tall-stemmed crystal wine glasses.  We children all have smaller wine glasses filled with grape juice.

In the middle of each plate is a colorful little book with lots of pictures.  On the  pages that don't have pictures there are two columns of writing, one with dark thick Hebrew letters and one with thin English letters.  I can't read either language yet.  I like to study the pictures, especially the one of baby Moses in a basket on the river.  Two arms are placing the basket into the blue river.  Tall reeds on the river bank hide the body of the person lowering the basket.  I feel sad about the baby being left all alone.

As my grandfather begins to read the Haggadah in Hebrew, I study the picture and let myself become immersed in the sounds of the words.  I don't understand what he is saying, but I like looking at the dark shapes of the Hebrew letters.

When we get to the part with the four questions, I am asked to say them in English.  I have memorized them.  I am not the youngest child.  My cousin Joel is two years younger than me, but he is too young to recite the questions.  My brother says the four questions in Hebrew after I recite them in English.  He too has memorized them since he can't read the Hebrew.  Then Grandpa resumes his recitation.

I like the part when each of us dips our little finger into our wine glass and removes little drops of juice or wine onto our plates as we say strong words.  We recite the words in Hebrew and in English.  They are the ten plagues and the picture in the books shows all of them in a single drawing.  Later we come to the first of the three songs our family sings during the seder:  "Dayanu."  It is hardly a song, but at the end of each verse we chant the word Dayanu with a slight lilt.  The page opposite the song shows Moses leading the Jewish people on a path between two columns of large foamy waves that rise very high on either side of them. 

Soon after the song we eat our meal, the favorite part of which for me is the chicken soup with the long irregularly shaped noodles.  And then, after we have had many homemade macaroons and small pastries for dessert, Grandpa asks for the afikomen.  My brother, my cousins, and I all start to giggle.  We had watched Marty steal the white napkin from behind Grandpa’s pillow while he was out of the room washing his hands.  We all know where Marty has hidden it.  The bargaining begins.  He offers us a dime for the half piece of matzah wrapped in the napkin.  We look at each other and shake our heads.  He offers a quarter.  Then a half-dollar.  We keep giggling and shaking our heads.  Finally he says:  "This is my final offer, a silver dollar,"  and he puts down on the tablecloth in front of him four shiny silver dollars.  We look at each other and nod our heads up and down this time.  Marty goes to the drawer in the side cabinet behind his chair and pulls out the white linen napkin with the half piece of matzah inside.  He hands it to Grandpa, who then gives each of us children a large shiny silver dollar.  I hand mine to my mother to keep for me until we get home when I will put it into my little pink safe with the combination lock.

After we each eat a small piece of the afikomen,  we listen to more Hebrew.   We sing another song with a long series of statements after each of which we recite a short melody which is almost flat but ends with an emphatic drop:  "Ki L’olam Chasdo!”  And then we finally come to the song I love best, the one with the picture of a boy carrying a little white goat.  In this song the recitation of the statements gets longer and longer with each verse, and after each one we all join together for the refrain:  “Chad Gad-yo, Chad Gad-yo."

When the seder is over, Mom puts my coat on me and leads me out to the car for a ride to our home on the other side of San Francisco.  I fall asleep on the way, and Dad carries me into the house, gently wakes me enough so I can go pee before Mom helps me to undress and put on my pajamas.  She then tucks me into bed and kisses me goodnight.  Dad comes in for a very short tickle session and kisses and hugs me good night.  And then I easily fall fast asleep visualizing images from the Passover seder at the long table in the apartment behind Grandpa's store.

Second Night of Hanukkah:  Gevurah

"The Scar on My Knee"

I wake up in my room with a feeling of excitement.  The sun is shining through my window onto the hardwood floor.  I can see the branches of the cherry tree just beyond the window, and I remember that I want to check to see if there are any cherries yet.  I want to pick at least one before the birds eat them all.
But today is not a day for climbing trees.  We are going to Calistoga to visit my grandmother Bobo's sister Annie.  My cousins Jeffrey and Joel will be there with my Auntie Lee and Uncle Jerry.   Bobo will be there, of course, and many of my mother's cousins.  It will be an adventure.  I am happy that  I get to wear my pretty new dress with the flared skirt.

I get up and call my mother to help me reach the dress in the closet.  Meanwhile I put on the layered petticoat that goes underneath and makes the skirt stick out like a ballerina's.  Mom comes to help me, and I get dressed for the trip, even though we are not going to leave until after breakfast.  Marty teases me about getting ready so early.  "After all," he says, "don't you know we are always late?"

Now we are in the car riding on a winding country road between rows of tall eucalyptus trees.  I like being in the country.  Even though our house is on Mount Davidson and there is a forest right across the street where I can follow trails through large green plants and tall trees, I still live in a big city, in San Francisco, and we have to travel a long way to get to open spaces where there are rolling hills and wide valleys, and fields upon fields of grapevines.  We are all sitting in the wide front seat of the dark green Buick which, when I was younger, I used to insist was black not green.  Now that I have turned four, I can see that the color of our car is actually a very dark green.  I am next to Dad, who is driving, and Marty is seated between me and Mom.  I like to look out the large front window and ignore the conversation in the car.

Finally, I see that we are driving down the main street in Calistoga.  There are shop windows on both sides of a very wide street, and I even spot some iron posts where people used to tie up horses.  Dad turns onto a side street and soon pulls up in front of an apartment house with a long gravel driveway.  Other cars are parked up and down the street.  I can see that my cousins have already arrived.

I get out of the car and start to run up the driveway toward them and my grandmother Bobo.  I trip and fall hard on the small sharp stones that form the gravel.  My right knee starts to bleed profusely.  The open cut stings, but it is the blood pouring down my leg that stirs the grown-ups to action.  For a short while I am the center of attention.  I don’t like being the focus of everyone’s concern.  I try to stop the bleeding with my hand as I sit on my mother’s lap while Bobo walks calmly to get a bowl of water, a wash cloth, and a gauze bandage from Annie’s apartment.  After cleaning the wound on my knee, she tells me to straighten my right leg so she can wrap the gauze tightly around the knee.  It stops the bleeding, and I am told not to run.  I have to walk around with a straight leg for the rest of

day.  On the way home I sit alone in the back seat so my right leg can remain straight, propped across the black leather.  The wound doesn’t take long to heal, but it leaves a shiny scar just below my knee bone, a reminder of that afternoon in Calistoga and my being challenged to curb my natural exuberance.

Third Night of Hanukkah:  Tiferet

"Talent Night at Cal Camp"

Tonight is Wednesday night.  This is Talent Night, the night when the grown-ups present skits on the stage behind the campfire.  I have looked forward to this night from the time we first arrived at Cal Camp.  On this night even we four-year-olds get to stay up later than usual.  And although it is still daylight when I walk from our small log cabin among the pine trees to the campfire area, Mom has made sure I have my flashlight because it will be dark when we head back after the end of the program.

I can sense my mother's excitement as we leave the cabin.  Dad and my brother Marty are at the lodge and will meet us at the campfire area.  Mom and I find seats in the amphitheater facing the stage.  There are many semi-circular rows of pine logs buried in the dirt and cut in half so that people can sit on the flat part.  Mom puts a wool blanket on a log near the front for us to sit on, and we add a second blanket to save seats for Dad and Marty.  Mom holds several pieces of paper in her hand.  I recognize her small handwriting on them.  I saw her writing on the paper while I was dozing off for my nap in the afternoon.  When I woke up, I asked her what she was writing, but she only said, "Wait until tonight.  I am going to read it on stage."

"Please, please read it to me first," I pleaded, but she stood firm.

Now I see first Marty and then Dad coming from beyond the trunk of the large pine tree near the left side of the stage.  I wave my arms wildly in the air so they will see us.  They do, and they soon sit down, Dad next to me and Marty on his other side.

The program begins with camp songs, but although I usually love to sing the camp songs, tonight I feel restless.  I want to hear what Mom wrote.  There are many funny skits and songs before it is Mom's turn, and I get caught up in each one so I almost forget what I am waiting for.  I am surprised when the man on stage announces Mom's name:  "And now, Juliet Lowenthal."

Mom climbs the warped steps up to the stage and then positions herself at the center of the wooden platform.  She is wearing her blue jeans and a short-sleeved red, yellow, and brown plaid shirt.  She announces in a loud, clear voice:  "The Ballad of the Chemical Can."  As she reads her long poem about the out-houses which we all frequent several times a day, I am taken on a journey by her words.  I am very pleased that there is frequent laughter from the audience.  Much of the time I cannot understand why the grown-ups are laughing, but I feel good because they obviously like her and what she is saying, and at the end of the reading I can see that she is smiling with pleasure as she listens to the long applause.  She even gets a standing ovation from Dad and many other adults. 

I feel happy for Mom and give her a kiss when she returns to her seat next to me.  The excitement past, I begin to sense how sleepy I am, but I want to stay awake for the rest of the performances.  I focus very hard on each set and snuggle up to Dad to ask him questions when I don't understand something.  This keeps me involved, and I manage to stay awake.  Dad is very understanding and whispers in my ear answers to all my questions.  He is pleased by my curiosity and persistence.  He is very patient with me. 

I am still awake when everyone stands up to sing the Cal Anthem at the end of the program.  The words of the song are projected on a screen at the back of the stage, but I can't read yet so I listen closely and say the words half a beat behind everyone else, or just hum the melody.  I feel proud to be a camper at the Lair of the Bear, the University of California Alumni Camp.

I carry my own flashlight as we walk back toward our cabin, stopping on the way to take a pee in the "chemical can."  Dad helps me climb up the ladder to the top bunk, above Marty, and Mom zips me into my sleeping bag.  Each kisses me good night as I wrap my arms around their necks and kiss them many times.  Then I curl up inside my sleeping bag and am soon fast asleep.

Fourth Night of Hanukkah:  Netzach

"Hitting Jeffrey with the Hammer"

Running, running as fast as I can.  Jeffrey is chasing me.  We are the same age, but he is much bigger and stronger than I am.  I can't let him catch me.  He is angry.  I don't even know why.  I run into the house and up the stairs.  No one is around.  My grandmother Bobo is across the street supervising the construction of her new house.

I get to the landing and go through the nearest door, into Bobo's bedroom.  I shut the door behind me and look around for something to defend myself with.  Bobo has left a hammer lying on top of the large feather quilt on her bed.  I quickly pick it up and go back to the door and push myself against it to keep it shut.  Jeffrey starts banging on the door:  "Open up! Open up! I'll tell Bobo on you.  Open the door!"

With the hammer raised high in my right hand, I begin to turn the crystal doorknob with my left hand.  I feel as if I am acting in a slow motion movie when I open the door inward and the weight of the hammer moves my hand downward until the hammer lands on top of Jeffery's head.

His brown eyes open wide in astonishment.  He screams, turns, and runs down the stairs crying loudly.  I feel stunned.  I cannot understand how my hand with the hammer lowered itself onto Jeffery's head.  I close the door and rush to the window.  Jeffery is running across the street to the construction site, intermittently crying and shouting to our grandmother:  "She hit me.  She hit me on the head with a hammer.  Judy hit me with a hammer."

I retreat into the bedroom and look for a place to hide.  I see the door to Bobo's bathroom just to the right of her wide dressing table which has a built-in circular mirror that extends almost to the floor.  I glance at myself as I pass the mirror on my way toward the bathroom.  I feel and look very small.  I am only five years old.  I am wearing my blue summer dress with the short flared skirt.  I see the shiny scar on my right knee which I got when I tripped on the gravel in front of Bobo's sister Annie's apartment on the other side of Calistoga.  My parents had been with me then.  Now I am the lone girl left in Bobo's care with my older brother Marty, and my two cousins, Jeffrey and Joel.

I go into the bathroom and turn the key in the door.  What will Bobo do to me for hitting Jeffrey on the head with a hammer?  "It just fell of its own weight," I keep saying to myself.  "I did not purposely lower my hand to strike him."  I decide to stay in the bathroom where no one can reach me.

Eventually the sounds of the sawing and hammering from across the street stop.  I begin to feel hungry.  I have been sitting on the lid of the toilet seat for over an hour and no one has come into the bedroom.  Finally, I decide to unlock the door and go downstairs.  Bobo is putting dinner on the table.  Marty, Jeffrey, and Joel are sitting in their usual chairs.  I pull out my chair and sit down.  No one mentions what I did to Jeffrey.  Bobo tells us that the country fair has opened and offers to walk us to the fairgrounds after we finish eating.

To this day, I am haunted by the sensation of the hammer falling as if by its own volition.  On the other hand, Jeffrey once told me that he has no recollection whatsoever of the incident.

Fifth Night of Hanukkah:  Hod

"Piano Lesson"

It is a foggy Wednesday afternoon in San Francisco as I walk slowly up the steps alongside the garage of the two-story white stucco house on Stanyan Street.  I am nine years old.  I was dropped off at the house after school rather than driven to my home across town because today is the day I have my piano lesson.  My brother Marty used to come with me, but he now goes to Aptos Junior High School and has stopped taking piano lessons. 

I feel his absence.  I no longer will get to sit through his lesson before my own.  Now, once I enter the house, I will be alone for my lesson with Mr. Rodetsky.  I feel unexpectedly shy.  Mr. Rodetsky has always been kind, but he has a gruff manner.  He is very straightforward, a no-nonsense person.  He is a close friend of my parents and comes to our house with his wife, Wallie, every New Year's Eve to celebrate the beginning of the year with several other couples who are part of the Haskalah Club, some of whom, like Mr. Rodetsky, had fled from Russian to Harbin, China, and then to America before World War II.  Mom and Dad call him Sam, but I address him as Mr. Rodetsky.  During the New Year’s Eve parties, I like to listen from inside the glass door of my bedroom when he plays on our Steinway baby grand piano.

As I ring the bell and wait for Mrs. Rodetsky to open the door, my heart starts to pound.  I check to see whether I brought everything I am supposed to bring to my lesson:  my large red piano book, my sheet music, and the little brown notebook in which Mr. Rodetsky writes the scales for me and any information he wants me to remember.

I see I have everything I need.  Mrs. Rodetsky opens the door and waves for me to go up the carpeted stairs to the piano room on the second floor.  As I enter the piano room, Mr. Rodetsky rises from his chair between the grand piano in the center of the room and the upright piano along the right wall.  I notice that over the summer I have grown to be almost as tall as he is, although he is much broader.  He has a round face with a mustache, is slightly bald, and his hair is beginning to turn grey.  He motions for me to put my coat on the couch to my left and then escorts me to the piano bench in front of the grand piano.  As I sit down with my back to the window which overlooks the street below and place my music on the bench beside me, Mr. Rodetsky asks me how much I have practiced.  I had only practiced for an hour the night before my lesson, and for about half an hour the night before that.  I say softly, ”Almost every day."

"Good," he says.  "Why don't you start with your scales?"

I am relieved.  I did practice my scales, and I feel fairly good about my ability to play them without mistakes.  Toward the end of the hour lesson, Mr. Rodetsky asks me to play a piece that I hadn't practiced at all.  I stumble through it the same way I had the previous lesson.  We go over it several times, and he encourages me to practice it more.  Then our time together is over.  As I get up he tells me what I should focus on for our next lesson the following Wednesday.  I carefully pick up my red piano book, the sheet music, and the brown notebook, and then I put on my coat and head for the doorway.  I voice a soft, "Good-bye, Mr. Rodetsky.  I'll see you next week,” just before I start down the carpeted stairs.

I let myself out the front door, and as I go down the front steps toward the street I think about George Washington and the story of how he admitted to cutting down the cherry tree.  He was honest in a much more difficult situation than I just went through.  He admitted to a big wrong.  Why wasn't I honest about how little I had practiced? I feel badly about my fib.  I want to be honest like George Washington.  I want to have the courage to be honest about what I have done and have not done.

During the week I practice a little more than before, but still not every day as I am supposed to do.  When I come for my lesson, Mr. Rodetsky changes his question at the beginning of the hour.  He asks me:  "What piece do you want to start with?” And after each piece, he lets me select what to play.  I do not have to fudge the truth, and we focus on improving the pieces I have actually worked on.  I am grateful for the change in the question.  I feel I have more control over my fate. 

As I reflect back upon my childhood piano lessons, I recognize that even after more than sixty years it is sometimes a struggle to have the courage to not fudge the truth when someone asks me a question for which I feel an honest answer will disappoint them.

Sixth Night of Hanukkah:  Yesod

"Meadow Lake"

I am sitting upright in my sleeping bag in a little meadow in the forest overlooking Meadow Lake.  I have been coming to Meadow Lake each summer since I was twelve.  I remember the excitement I felt that first summer as we hiked over the hill from California Lake and saw the long deep blue lake with a low dam on the southern end, beyond which we could see Old Man Mountain, the highest and most rugged peak in this area of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.  I had heard a lot about the history of the lake, and, in particular, about the gentle slope we were walking across as we approached an old wooden structure near the edge of the lake.  In the mid-1860s, almost a hundred years earlier, close to five thousand people had lived on this very slope in a thriving Gold Rush town called Summit City.  During my first summer there, some people in our hiking group spotted two metal hoops which had once held together wine barrels.  Others picked up rusted nails, and we all found stones in several spots on the hillside that were grouped together as if they had been part of building foundations. 

My favorite memory from that first visit to Meadow Lake was the inside of the wooden three-room cabin which was rumored to have been built by an outlaw at the turn of the century.  The room at the south end had an old iron stove.  Its walls were covered with 1903 newspapers which I loved to browse during the afternoon rain storms when we ran for shelter in the cabin.  The outside walls had large openings in places where there had once been windows, and there was only one intact door.  It resisted attempts to open it unless approached with determination.  The wood was grey and worn from enduring the many harsh winters at this elevation of 7200 feet.  Meadow Lake was one of the highest lakes within the Tahoe National Forest.

Now, at sixteen, I enjoy going back in my imagination to the time before the building of the outlaw's cabin, to images of the community of hardy, independent gold miners who had lived on the hill of the western side of the lake for three hope-filled years, from 1865 to 1868.  I imagine what it might have been like to hear the toot of the horn from the ferry that once crossed back and forth from the town to the north end of the lake where there were hurdy gurdy houses with dance hall girls and lively music.  The music halls were most likely located near the opening in the woods where this summer I have set up my outdoor sleeping quarters for the two weeks we are going to be camping here.  I try to image people living through the winter here, enduring at times as much as twenty feet of snow and getting their supplies and mail every week from a courageous man named Snowshoe Thompson who was the link during the winter months between the many isolated mining towns in the area.  I empathize with the disappointment of the miners when they discovered that it was not economically feasible to extract the gold ore from the quartz ledges in the area, and I can see in my mind's eye the tiny population that persevered for several more years before a fire swept through the many abandoned structures and the remaining residents left.

I like being a link in a long line of people who have loved this lake, situated as it is on a summit, with tall pine trees and incense cedars lining its northern and eastern slopes, and colorful fragrant wildflowers dotting the broad meadow covering the western slope.  All that remains now from previous residents are the deteriorating cabin near the southern end not far from the dam, the small fenced-in cemetery on the dirt road linking Meadow Lake to California Lake, and, from the time when Native Americans inhabited the area, petroglyphs on the surfaces of the large granite boulders above where the original granite stone dam was built in 1858 to make Meadow Lake into a reservoir to supply water to Nevada City and the farmland in the valleys below. 

This year I have come to Meadow Lake as part of a small camp called "The Sierra Safari."  As a camper, I hiked for three days with my handmade backpack to get to the lake, but the director of the camp, Vic York, drove in over many miles of rough dirt roads with a truck filled with two weeks worth of supplies for a group of fifteen teenage campers and a few adults.  Under Vic's direction we built mud-ovens and set up a comfortable cooking and eating space.  We even rigged up a shower by placing a barrel on top of some planks laid across the top of a closet-like structure.  We drilled a dozen holes in the bottom of the barrel and covered the holes on the inside with a large rubber stopper to which we attached a string that goes over one of the planks and then hangs down so the person taking a shower can reach it.   Whenever I want to shower, I heat water on the kitchen fire, pour it into the barrel, and once I am inside the closet-like structure I pull the string when I want to lather up or rinse off.  We are living in luxury this summer compared to previous years.  I have my private space in the woods where I enjoy the birds singing as the sky turns from black to grey to pink to blue in the cool air of the early morning. 

I feel incredibly peaceful and centered as I sit wrapped in my sleeping bag and watch the sunbeams bathe the tree tops in golden light, then move down the broad pine branches with their pointed grey-green needles and dangling brown cones to the broad-leafed crab grass and purple and yellow flowers in the meadow at the base of the trees.  Once the sun is fully over the hill behind me, I can feel a gentle wind on my face, and I watch the ripples on the dark blue surface of the lake.  My lungs expand.  I sense I am free to be fully who I am from moment to moment and from day to day.  I can choose to be part of a group–to join in a crafts project, to paint with oils or water colors the natural beauty surrounding me, to go on a short hike or a long back-packing trip–or I can choose to be alone and read a book, write in my journal, or just sit quietly with my own thoughts.  I feel no pressure to perform or conform. 

I get up and walk to the shore with my toothbrush.  I brush my teeth using the lake water to rinse my mouth, and I splash my face with the cool, clear water.  As I look to my right along the shoreline, about fifty yards to the north I see the small flat-bottomed sailboat which we have named "Rough and Ready" after a nearby mining town.  It has two black and white striped sails.  I am a pretty good sailor, and as I feel the wind pick up from the south, I decide to spend the morning sailing on the lake.  I like to be in charge of the rudder and the sail at the back.  I  enjoy the challenge of tacking back and forth across the lake from the north end to the little peninsula where the old wooden cabin still stands, although the 1903 newspapers no longer line the interior walls.  But most of all, I look forward to turning the sailboat around and having a strong wind carry me all the way back to base camp. 

I return my toothbrush to my sleeping area and start walking toward base camp to find a friend who is willing to join me on “Rough and Ready” and handle the front sail.

Seventh Night of Hanukkah:  Malkhut

"Being Danced by the Dance"

Will and I both hear the music at the same time.  It is our favorite folk dance.  He catches my eye and reaches out his hand toward me, inviting me to the dance floor.  I take his hand and we walk together to join the circle of couples listening for the Yemenite love song that marks the beginning of the dance.  We move into position, his right hand holding my left, standing face to face.  Our eyes lock.  Our lips part to form a little smile.  As the rich, hauntingly beautiful soprano voice begins to tell her story of love, struggle, and triumph, we swing our linked hands forward as we each step with our outside foot in rhythm with the music.  We move together in perfect harmony.  Neither one of us leads; neither follows.  The music moves inside my body and directs each limb through the intricate pattern of steps, dips, rises, and twirls.  Each time the dance brings us face to face, we lock eyes and know we are not simply dancing a dance.  Our bodies have no choice.  We are being danced at every beat.  A force neither of us can resist nor wants to resist directs us, and it feels delicious.  At the end of the dance, when the music finally stops and we again stand face to face, I am in awe. 

Eighth Night of Hanukkah:  Zot Hanukkah

"My Encounter with Doubt"

"But that isn't how it happened," the voice of Doubt scolds.

"I know, I know.  I don't remember how I got there.  I know I made up the whole beginning of the story.  But it's plausible, isn't it?" I plead.  "Isn't there truth in the plausible?" 

I try to convince Doubt to be on my side.  I don't like this unsettled feeling I get when Doubt speaks.  The louder Doubt's voice becomes, the more my original image fades.  Then I hear a rustling from the corner of the page.  Out peeks the head of Storyteller.  Her forehead is high, her hair long and curly.  Her blue eyes shine with confidence as she stretches herself and begins to climb over the edge of the page of scribbled memories.  I admire her slender body and clear skin and watch closely her every movement.  She looks down at the letters and starts to read aloud the words I've written.  She giggles a little, then frowns, then nods her head as if in agreement.  As she stands to the side of the last punctuation mark, I see a teardrop slide down her cheek.  She appears solemn and thoughtful, and then a little smile begins to form at the edges of her mouth:  "This is good!" she says simply and firmly.  "Your story touched my heart.  I think you should publish it so it can touch others."

Doubt stamps his foot and shouts:  "But it isn't true! She even admitted that she made up the whole beginning.  She can't publish something that isn't true." 

I look from one to the other.  I feel pleased that Storyteller liked what I wrote, and I begin to see Doubt as a petulant child who can only see from one perspective and wants everyone to conform to that perspective.  Then Doubt reaches over the edge of the page and grabs a hand.  He helps Honesty come into the picture.  Honesty speaks in a quiet, barely audible voice:  "You know," he says to Doubt, "sometimes the most honest story is one that conveys the essence of an experience.  Facts are secondary to essence."

Doubt looks crestfallen.  He had counted on Honesty to back him up, to tell me that if I can't remember the facts correctly I should not write about my life experiences and certainly not try to publish what I write.  Doubt looks over the edges of the page to see if he can find an ally.  He spots Revision coming toward the page, and at first he is delighted, thinking that Revision will cut out all the imaginative details for which there is no verifiable evidence, but then he remembers that he has seen Revision and Honesty hanging out together at the local health club whose motto is:  "Stay trim.  Let your essence shine."

Doubt realizes that he stands alone.  So he decides to sit down, curl up into a ball, and go to sleep.  I sigh a huge sign of relief, pick up my pen, and begin to write about the night I walked alone on the mountain. 

I feel as if I am seventeen again, struggling to understand who I am and why I seem so different from everyone else I know.

Coda

"Sparks of Light"*

Sparks of light float up into the grey sky
as I walk the narrow paths in Tzfat's ancient cemetery.
Above the graves hovers a lone hawk in total stillness,
not moving forward, nor back, held firmly
within the midpoint of invisible crosscurrents,
as if it has come to collect the good deeds
accumulated by souls whose earthly vessels
lie quiet in separate chambers beneath memorial stones–
stones that honor those who walked the winding streets
of the city on the hill.  I stop to watch the sparks,
an abundance of tiny, shining lights rising, rising
above the newly green foliage between the aged markers.
Minute after minute passes as I witness this miracle of the sparks,
until they are no longer visible in the cold March air,
and the hawk glides south on an upward wave of the wind.

* “Sparks of Light” won Honorable Mention in the 2014 Reuben Rose Poetry Competition and is due to be published in Voices Israel 2015: Poetry from Israel and Abroad, Vol. 41. 

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THE KABBALISTIC TREE OF LIFE

(Definitions assembled in descending order by Yehudit Goldfarb)

The Sefirot

Upper Three Sefirot:

Keter (Kamatz):  experiencing reality beyond ego and sense of self, awareness of the All-illuminating Eternal Now
Chokhmah (Patach):  intuitive wisdom, holistic insight, unifying vision, divine intellect
Binah (Tzere):  understanding, differentiating, analyzing, noticing the multiplicity

Lower Seven Sefirot listed with the corresponding days of the week:

Chesed (Sunday, Segol):  lovingkindness, openness, abundance, flowing expansiveness
Gevurah (Monday, Sh’va):  strength and power, setting limits, honoring boundaries, making judgments
Tiferet (Tuesday, Cholam):  beauty, harmony, compassionate balancing of the limitless and the structured, surrendering to a larger all-encompassing perspective
Netzach (Wednesday, Chirik):  sense of purpose, endurance, awareness of eternal structures, decision-making
Hod (Thursday, Kubutz):  splendor, empathy, refining the vision, aesthetics, ritual
Yesod (Friday, Shuruk):  relationship, intimacy, communication, connection, bonding, the foundation  
Malkhut (Shabbat, The Breath):  being present, centeredness, sense of sovereignty, consciousness of being breathed, grounded holiness

Levels of Soul

Nefesh:  appetitive functioning and awareness, creative imagination, vitality

Ruach:  emotional awareness, intentionality (linking the physical and spiritual), song
Neshamah:  intellect, spiritual manifestation, creative thought, inspiration
Chayah:  divine integrative life force (The Living One), life-experience connected to source of Eternal Life, will to live
Yechidah:  uniqueness (The Unique Single One), holographic unification with Hashem

Descriptions and short movies of how to dance the movements for the nikudot (Hebrew vowel signs whose names are listed above next to their corresponding sefirot on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life) are available on my Otiyot Hayyot website:  www.otiyot.com.  You can view me performing the movements for the nikudot from Keter to Malkhut in descending order on my youtube channel:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjrxaCnfIQk.  The descriptions for the "Dance of the Nikudot" can also be found on this blog, along with other writings, including my Tree of Life Tales: A Collection of Stories for Hanukkah, which I originally compiled in 2013 and have revised and self-published as a work-in-progress.  Spiral bound copies of both Hanukkah collections are available upon request:  maorhalev@gmail.com.

 List of Photos within the Text

Title page: 
1.  Hanukkah candles at my mother Juliet Lowenthal’s home on the occasion of her 79th birthday, December 24, 1989.  That year, my family celebrated both “Grandma’s Birthday” and the 3rd night of Hanukkah at the home where I grew up, 850 Rockdale Drive in San Francisco.

Preface:  “Generations–A Pantoun”
2.  Juliet with Martin and Judy in the backyard of 850 Rockdale Drive, April 1945.
3 and 4.  Reuven and Yehudit as parents to newly emerged Elishama Hesed Goldfarb, born at home on Sunday, January 4, 1981, at 1:01 am, 2020 Essex Street in Berkeley.
5.  My mother’s mother (“Bobo”), my mother, and my daughter Maya, 1810 Bonita Street., Berkeley, January 1964.

Passover Seder behind Grandpa’s Store
6.  Portrait of little Judy (born as Judith Dana Lowenthal on March 22, 1944, in San Francisco, the birthplace of her parents, Morris and Juliet) shown here with curls like Shirley Temple, probably late 1946 or early ’47.
7.  Grandpa (Sol Blumenfeld, my mother’s father) and Grandma (Alice, my mother’s step-mother), visiting in Southern California, probably in late 1940s.

The Scar on My Knee
8.  Formal picture of my mother’s mother "Fanny" (Frances Blumenfeld AKA “Bobo”), probably in the 1940s.
9.  A very young Martin and Judy with cousin Jeffrey Blumenfeld, probably 1946.

Talent Night at Cal Camp
10. Judy on father's lap at Cal Camp, probably 1948.

Hitting Jeffrey with the Hammer
11.  Jeffrey, Marty, and Judy, probably 1950 or ’51 (a year or two after the time of the story).
12.  Joel Blumenfeld waving, Judy behind him, 1950 or ’51.
13.  Joel, Jeff, Judith, Marty at the Blumenfeld Family Picnic, Tilden Park, Berkeley, Aug. 1983.

Piano Lesson
14.  Judy playing Steinway baby grand piano at home (850 Rockdale Drive), December 1952.

Meadow Lake
15. Teenage Judy in the Sierras, probably 1960.

Being Danced by the Dance
16. Yehudit embodying the Alef at Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, Jerusalem, summer 1990.

My Encounter with Doubt
17.  Judy Lowenthal (17) with the Hasidic Rabbi Zalman Schachter, Brandeis Camp Institute, August 1961, shortly before taking the walk on the mountain mentioned at the end of the story.

Coda:  “Sparks of Light”
18.  Yehudit in front of the Holy Ari’s grave in Tzfat cemetery, November 13, 2013, shortly after returning from a visit to the graves of the Hasidic Rebbes of the Ukraine, my spiritual ancestors.

Chains of Caring © 2014 by Yehudit Goldfarb