Maurice Sendak R.I.P.

Many people will no doubt express their sadness at the news just in that the writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak has died. It is always sad when a creative talent leaves our world. Read, however, his point of view as reported in the Times last year:

"On the sun-dappled road, Sendak’s mood is far from bucolic. “I think the whole world stinks: everything is decaying, the lack of culture depresses me most. I’m happy that my career is over and I can do what I like. I don’t want to be part of anything. I like where I live, what I read; I’m still doing my books, people are still purchasing them.” Is he happy? “Who’s happy? What does that mean? Of course I’m not, I’ve nothing to be happy about. I can’t complain about my life, I’m just a little bit nervous about how it’s going to end.” Does he think about dying? “Constantly, constantly. It’s time to go, it’s time to get the f*** out — it really is — but look how pretty it is here.”

His family and friends have died (only his sister Natalie lived beyond 83). “I’m old enough to die. I despise religion in all forms, so I have no hope of an afterlife. If I saw my mother and father again, I think I’d kill myself.” We both laugh at the idea of killing yourself when you’re dead. “I will be nothing and nowhere, and that will be such a relief. To be something and somewhere is very tiring: the good times are so few.” However, Sendak has found depression “an awful waste of time” and alleviated it by reading, walking and listening to music (Mozart, Haydn and Gluck are favourites)."

If you have a subscription to the Times, you may read the whole article here. We will miss him. I hope he's surprised by what happens next!

nooooooooo! ... death of a panda

xiang xiang in 2006

just saw here on yahoo that xiang xiang, the first panda bred in captivity that was released into the wild, has been found dead after less than a year out there.

""Xiang Xiang died of serious internal injuries in the left side of his chest and stomach by falling from a high place," Heng Yi, an official from the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in Sichuan, said in a telephone interview. "The scratches and other minor injuries caused by other wild pandas were found on his body," he said. "So Xiang Xiang may have fallen from trees when being chased by those pandas.""

that is so sad. on the other hand, ya ya at the memphis zoo (been there, got the t-shirt. actually, i was wearing it just the other day) is pregnant. apparently, female pandas are fertile for only 3 days a year. and even then they are not always in the mood. ya ya was artificially inseminated.

nu - what would YOU do?

did you see the story this week about the death of the everest climber?

a british mountaineer named david sharp collapsed along a well-travelled route to the summit. they think that about 40 people walked right past him. a couple stopped to check on him, and said that he was about to die and there was nothing that they could have done. one group gave him some oxygen.

so there you are, climbing the mountain. conditions are very difficult for you, with the lack of oxygen up there, and all the dangers inherent in such an expedition. you see someone by the side of the road. they are clearly in trouble.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

the article i read on yahoo noted the following:

a. sir edmund hillary (who with sherpa tensing was officially to first to make it to the top of this mountain in 1953) said it was "horrifying" that a climber would leave a dying man.

b. lydia bradley, who in 1988 became the first woman to reach the top of this mountain without extra oxygen, said that "if you're going to go to everest ... i think you have to accept responsibility that you may end up doing something that's not very ethically nice ... you have to realise that you're in a different world"

c. apparently, trips up the mountain have become so commercialised, and climbers pay tens of thousands of dollars for their trip of a lifetime, so that the guides are under extreme pressure to get their clients to the top.

finally, a guy from the team that stopped to share some of their oxygen said "the trouble is that at 8500 metres it is extremely difficult to keep yourself alive, let alone keep anyone else alive".

so, nu, what would you do?

my instinct is to say my god of course i would stop. at the same time, i have not been in that position, so it would probably be more accurate for me to say that i hope that i would stop.

next i turn to the texts of my tradition. two stand out immediately:

there is the concept of pikuach nefesh - that saving of life is an obligation that over-rules commandments connected to the sabbath and other festivals. and thus, all the more so when it is an ordinary day!

however, the talmud does state that if it is a choice between one's self and another, it is permissible to choose yourself.

secondly, there is the teaching from the talmud that to save one life is as if you have saved the world, and to destroy one life is as if you have destroyed the world. i believe the wording is almost exactly the same when you read this teaching from the qur'an.

falling asleep ... will continue later ...

last will & testament

yesterday, my mother e-mailed me a text she had just found, a text from 42 years ago. it was a will my father had written, when we lived in nyc, and i was a few months old. my mother thought it might give me strength to read it. perhaps it will for you as well ...

"In the event of my death, I name my wife to be sole heir to my estate. I know that I can rely on her judgement in regard to my family. She, and all my family, will also know that my prayers and my love abide with them. If the inheritance is small in worldly goods. I yet hope that the testimony of my life affirms the greatness of human existence created in the image of God. I have found each day rewarding, and have not met anyone in whom I could not discern the touch of God. This affirmation of the goodness of man and God is part of the heritage I leave my loved ones."

the lemoncake lady

last week was the first yahrzeit for my darling father. it is strange, because that is the marker in jewish tradition of the end of the mourning period, and the full return to life. in contrast to that, i feel like perhaps soon my mourning may really begin. the actual day was friday, and i took advantage of my position at the synagogue by using the drash time to acknowledge daddy. i told them i wanted to tell a story about my father, but that most were not suitable for this particular moment. i decided on the story about the lemoncake lady, which might appear to be about me, or about her; but was really about albert, or perhaps themselves.

i was standing in line outside the chapel after the funeral service. it was a bit like a large party, where all the people i'd known since i was a child were passing before me, and once i'd adjusted my vision for their being taller or shorter, thinner or fatter ... and darkened their hair, i recognised them all. a strange woman stood before me. "it's such a pity your father died," she said, " we were due to study together. never mind," she continued, "i'll have a word with him next week and we'll figure something out." a bit woo-woo, i thought to myself, smiled bravely and on she moved.

in the week that followed, my main memory is just of people all the time. e-mails and letters and flowers arriving constantly, and people everywhere. i drifted in and out, wearing jeans and my a-rod yankees t-shirt. i would go into the front room, talk a little, then return to the couch in daddy's study and go back to sleep. meanwhile, noam was running interference for mummy. so many wanted to visit, it ended up that they had to make appointments, so mummy could have some time to rest.

i am called from my repose. the crazy lady is here - you have to keep her away from mummy. she is in the hall, and has a long, narrow cake tin with her. we take it to the kitchen, and i taste what is in the tin. it will never make it into the public domain. for the next hour we all stop by the kitchen and take just another tiny slice. it doesn't last long. it is the most delicious lemon cake we have ever tasted. later, i decide to call her the lemoncake lady because i don't want to remember her as one of the crazies.

we go into the dining room, and sit away from the others, and she begins to tell me her story. she is very jumpy, and ready to flee at any hint. she is well-groomed, well-spoken, clearly intelligent. she also speaks in a way that one would usually say this person is utterly bonkers. i listen to her story. a lot of it makes sense to me. i begin to think to myself that if i change the literal way she speaks into metaphor, she doesn't sound so mad. i read a book written by the rambam - she sits at a table with him and he talks to her and teaches her. different descriptions of a similar process, perhaps. my family keeps trying to rescue me, and the lemoncake lady twitches in her chair. i tell them i'll be back in a minute, and ask her to continue. it occurs to me that the reason she is here is because daddy listened to her. he took her seriously. it occurs to me that i should do the same. i do.

eventually she does leave. and i want to remember the lemoncake lady, because i want a way to remember how to be with someone where they are, and not always make them have to be where i am.

this is not, of course, exactly how i spoke on shabbat. i did note that this was a way my father continues to be with me and to teach me after his physical death. i did suggest that each of us has stories and people that may do the same for us. nice and rabbinical. and of course, after services, several people asked for the recipe.