\”Don\’t wish for fish, fish for fish.\” These words of sage advice were taught to me by my Grandpa Manny. He was a man of action. He was filled with exuberance for life with a twinkle in his eye and a word of encouragement and inspiration for everyone.
The grocery store used to be a painful place for my 10-year-old son. He has trouble making decisions when there are too many choices. Hence, when in search of an after-school snack, Ralph\’s became his private, post-modern, market-driven hell. \”Okay Aaron, what\’s it gonna be?\” I\’d ask, with the largess of a dad secure in the knowledge he can afford anything in the store.
With the simple act of lighting a candle, you can illuminate an entire room. Add a mirror, and you have twice as much light. So, too with people. We all carry internal sparks, rays of light within. But sometimes it takes another person to show us how to release them to ourselves and to the world.
Write a letter. Address it to those you love — your spouse, your children and grandchild, your friends, your community. Put into this letter what life has taught you: What you learned from childhood, from growing up, from your education. What you learned from marriage and raising children. What you have learned from work, from your triumphs and successes in the world, from your failures and disappointments. What you have learned from the death of loved ones, and the path of mourning and grief. What has life taught you? What is the meaning, the lesson, the wisdom of your life? What is your message?
Isaac submits without struggle to the twisted leather straps that bind him. He is a helpless partner in this odd dance of death. Abraham reaches for the knife to slit his son\’s throat when mercifully, an angel calls out to stop the slaughter. A ram is to die instead of the boy.
Today, the National Jewish Coalition for Literacy has more than 3,500 participants, including doctors and teachers, teenagers and retirees who volunteer to tutor one child at least one hour per week. The program has reconnected assimilated Jews to the Jewish community and Jewish suburbanites to the inner-city.
My brother, who at 70 is younger than me by two years, has a world-class collection of the mysteries of Agatha Christie and a complete set of the novels of Anthony Trollope. They are being joined, gradually, by the Greek historians and Galsworthy\’s Forsythe Saga.
About 10 years ago, give or take a year, I was invited to director Arthur Hiller\’s home to attend a reading of a work in progress. About 80 to 100 people turned out and listened raptly as two wonderful actors, script in hand, read the work in progress. It was a play called \”The Quarrel,\” written by two friends, David Brandes and Rabbi Joseph Telushkin and based on a short story by Yiddish writer Chaim Grade. I mean no exaggeration when I say that everyone seated in Hiller\’s spacious living area knew they were listening to a play that was special.
Some years ago, the American Booksellers Association\’s holiday advertising theme was the phrase: \”Give a gift of love; Give a book.\” Jewish Book Month, scheduled in November, anticipated the gift-giving season. This year, as always, a fresh crop of children\’s books appeared for the holiday. Consider choosing one of these instead of toys that beep and break:
When she was 16, KCRW General Manager Ruth Seymour was captivated by her studies with the Yiddish scholar Max Weinreich. \”Yiddish is magic,\” he told her. \”It will outwit history.\”
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