“Only because of the spirit..” (Rak Biglal Haruach..)

Two months ago my little sister joined the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). There’s a 10 years gap between us and still, although allegedly there’s a distance of half a generation between us, she is the best friend I could ever wish for. For a long time now I haven’t written anything in my blog. That’s not because I don’t have what to say but because I couldn’t find the right words to say it. After my sister was recruited to the IDF I was overwhelmed with many mixed feelings, and maybe dealing with them and with the routine of life that has changes made me silent for a while.

 In the day of her joining the IDF, we all came together to the army base where the new soldiers are being welcomed and given all they need (BAKUM), I saw in front of my dozens of families, standing and hugging their loved ones, knowing that soon they will go on a bus that will take them in one moment to mature life, and will put aside their youth. Mother’s wiped their tears, fathers who couldn’t stop hugging, everyone look in pride mixed with sadness. And I? I stood aside, and could not stop smiling. True, whoever knows me, known I smile when embarrassed, happy or sad just the sane, but here it was a smile full of happiness. Happiness from the bottom of my heart. The only thing I could think about that minute was how great it is that I’m here, with my little sister who I love so much, and how great it is that I get to see here in this moment in her life. The happiness that swooped over me that moment was amazing. I knew I had another achievement – I was at the day she joined the IDF. I had a present role of that stage in her life.

 

On the way home, and a few days later, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About those dozens of people who shared that same moment with me, technically, who were there, and as far as I can tell – came back home sad, tired, emptied. I was thinking to myself how many times during our lives we are in events that remark something for people who are close to us, and are supposed to make us feel only happiness, but in reality – it turns out to work differently. In reality there are mixed feelings sometimes, pressure and anxiety (like when you are planning a big event) and actually at some point the happiness and the goals are hidden and even seize to exist.  When we get into a crazy roll coaster that includes everything, totally everything. Except for being present and let our body be swamped over with that sweet feeling combined with a slight chill.  Too quickly we start dealing with the practical side of our new reality: “what will happen now?”, “what’s next?”. And too little we stop and dwell on the event as it’s happening. Our head won’t let us rest. And so, we found ourselves in an unsatisfied condition, where our energies are being wasted and at the same time we feel just a bit happy or even not at all.

 

I wonder to myself, is it because we are too busy to stop for a moment and experience life, because we don’t know how to do it, or because we forgot and we think it’s a lost cause for us.
Do we let ourselves be sucked into the conception that this is how things are supposed to be, that’s how we are supposed to feel, instead of coming to try and create for ourselves the reality and emotions in which we want and are willing to live. Where is the line between accepting life as they are and between trying to create what we want out of the, what we aim for, Should there be such a line drawn. 

In the last few years my world turned over itself a few times. Some will say too many times. In the age of 29, I need to equip myself with what professionals call “mental strength” in order to keep turning my life into what I want it to be. I call it “simplicity”. I don’t think it’s mental strength, but rather innocent and simple look at life.  Out of choosing life, and loving them, I find myself soaking in the happiness in the life events that in the past I used just to skip over; meaning I was just present at them and nothing more than that. It’s not that I find suddenly the meaning of life, but I learn how to make life more meaningful. It’s not that I learn how to use the mental strength that’s in me, but I learn to feel my body and what he needs in order to exist. It’s not that I find the “light” or the “secret” for long good life, but I deal with leaving it, and enable it to be good. To decide life is good, and make them that way.

“Only because of the spirit” is not a satisfactory saying to me. I broaden it and say that thanks to the spirit I keep on going. And because of the passion to life I act and I give meaning and content to my life. And so, I will keep create my own reality and will act. Because now, after my sister was recruited to the IDF, there’s a new goal. To be there in the day my 3 years old nephew joins the IDF or finishes his high school. 

A 100 but feels like 20 years old

63 years. 63 long and good years. This number marks the number of years my grandma and grandpa are married. They married in Persia, when my grandmother was 19. She says my grandfather was the man she choice. She did not agree to an arranged marriage, which was so usual at that time in the mountains of Kurdistan. But my grandmother did not agree to that norm. She waited for the right person. It was David for her. And ever since, 63 years, they have been together.

Grandma Zipporah, is a very special person. For those who do not know her, a short conversation is enough to understand that she is an extraordinary personality, a person that shows out and also full of love, desire to give and help as much as possible, independence, and unparalleled wisdom. It’s true, she is a grandmother, and I know all these things might be true regarding many other grandmothers, but there is something that can not be explained about Grandma Zippiy’s irresistible personality. Simply can not be.

A few weeks ago we ate together Friday night’s dinner. After dinner, we played with my nephew with his toys scattered everywhere. I saw grandpa holding grandma, and helped her to stand, when suddenly revealed to me a thrilling and amazing sight: grandpa, who is 85 years old, saw there’s a toy on the floor disturbed grandmother's walking path. He just bent with the little strength he has left, and took the toy away so that grandma will not fall on it. That was the only thing that was important to him at that moment – to move the toy and keep grandma safe. His wife for the last 63 years.

This week, on one day, my grandma did not feel well. When I talked to her she told me she had fallen asleep in the living room, and grandpa slept all through the night on the little sofa next to her and did not move. He held her hand, so if she needed anything he could hear and help her, at any time, at any part of the night. 2 nights they spent that way, she felt asleep on the big couch in the living room, and he on the small couch next to her, holding her hand, and ready to help her as needed.

When my grandma told me about it, my eyes were wet for a moment. I smiled a bit embarrassed and happy. I heard her voice, and all that I could think about is how amazing it is, that after 63 years together, grandpa will not sleep without her even for one night. He wants to be there all night next to her so if she needs anything, God forbid, he will be there for her. I thought to myself how many times we are talking and writing about the little moments of happiness in our life, and searching for the meaning of life. We are looking for the next big car, dream house we want to build, with a yard, a garden, a dog or a cat, about eating in restaurants, surfing the web, going abroad, seeing the world, traveling, fulfilling ourselves, to develop as a person, to go to the pub, see a movie. All of these things make us seemingly happier and at certain moments better and more complete.

My grandparents came from Persia in 1951. They had nothing. They lived in transit camps, like many other good people. They were content with the little that they had. They didn’t eat no luxury food, they didn’t fly abroad, they had no internet and they did not know what a car was. They did not eat in restaurants, and they raised four wonderful children. 14 grandchildren. 7 great-grandchildren. They are so happy. If you ask them, they will tell you. If you look at them, you will see and understand immediately.

I wish for myself and to all of you, that in 40 years from now, we will be here, and we'll have someone to hold our hand when we sleep, someone that will move the toys out of our way, and will love us so much. I wish that we will know to identify those people in our lives, and hold them tight and be better and more complete with what we have. Even if sometimes it seems we don’t have much.

This week my grandma is celebrating another birthday. Another year of her happy life. Dear grandma and grandpa, my wish to you is for many more years of good and long life together. Thank you for all that you taught us, all that you gave and all that you do for us, and that you are just you: role model, an example of how people should be even in the more challenging moments of life, and when it seems that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. You are the light for all of us. You always were and always will be.

Little moments of happiness.

What is the biggest fear in our lives? What motivates us to actually get up and do something? What motivates us? Are we afraid that we will not be truly happy? That we will spend our lives in vain and will not fulfill the full potential that we know we have in us? What happens to us when we really believe these fears, making them another reality and not just another unfounded concern? And how to prevent this process from happening?

Over a relatively short life, I have had many roles and positions. I was a dedicated officer in the IDF, in the corps that is purely all about education, for more than five years. I was a Shlicha (emissary) of the Jewish Agency in Washington DC area. An international relations student at the Hebrew University and also an assistant to the Director of the Jewish Agency. Every position unfolded within it great responsibility, self-fulfillment and especially - personal development and giving for a cause I saw fit. In every point in time, in the past ten years, since I graduated high school, I did what I wanted. I chose and I followed a path that seemed most appropriate. I have no regrets about anything, have no thoughts of what would happen if, as I enjoyed this path. The only thing I wonder to myself about, looking back, is weather I used and enjoyed enough my experiences as they happened, or did I just cherished it later on. "Do we really know how to take those moments that life gives us, and enjoy them when they happen? How many times do we find ourselves longing for the past thinking things were so good back then, actually forgetting what we have suffered at that point, when it actually happened. How many times we do not understand why we are not happy and do not good about ourselves in the ‘here and now’, because on the surface, looking at the facts, we have the recipe for happiness in hand. If so, why? Why do we fail to realize and enjoy those great moments in life and make it part of our way of life, at the same moment as it happens?

I think too often we look at the past with nostalgia and at the present with dismissive and fear. This reflects in the small things - we keep waiting for things in our life to get better, we think about how to improve our lives, check out what we need for our lives to be better. We tell ourselves that we need a just little better income and a bit more tranquility about our children or a good marriage or good friends, or a good job. “If we only have this and that”, we say to ourselves, “only then we will become truly happy”. This sentence is a sweet illusion. We totally ignore the present when we constantly depend our happiness in what we need yet to achieve, and if that happens, then everything will be fine. The real problem is, that this way, we will never truly be happy. Because even if you suddenly will have good relationships, and you will gain tranquility about your children – you will always think of something else that you are missing. What we need. What is the next big thing we want to achieve. Because human nature, if you ask me, prevents those thoughts about what is missing, as allowing it to aspire and think forward, about the future. That thinking and aspiring, they give us a sense of the future, of expectation, of hope. Because we have learned that without this hope for a better future, we will have to make do. And then we think, if what we have now is the best that we can have - what kind of life is this? Is that all that life has to offer us? How can it be the best and most of life? And from this point, we start to dig, and think, and be confused. And we examine about ourselves - what more has to happen will be happy, because current reality does not give us that happiness we are looking for. Because we lack ... This creates a trap, a vicious cycle, and we find ourselves drowning in the ‘honey- trap’ of life, instead of trying to come out and just lick the honey and savor the sweet.

I read once, regarding facts we do not know about the little things in life, that if you are ever stuck in a swamp, the way out of it is not by fighting it and raving around, but to lift up slowly one leg and steadily you will get out of it.

When we are constantly dealing with what is missing and what could be better, and what we need to do to make us better, we actually continue to struggle in the swamp instead allowing he good things that we already have to flow in our blood and overwhelm us. We, with our own hands, bring ourselves to a state of ongoing suffering and refuse to recognize and see the good when he is already here looking at us and tries to get inside us. All we have left to do is just to open the door and let him be. Let us be. This ’here and now’ that is stronger than anything else. In the end of the day, we forget that our future is actually the present that is over, and in order to allow ourselves this happiness in the future, we need to know to embrace the present with both hands, before it becomes the past.

I know, it is important to strive and get better all the time and to move forward. It is important to work and engage around targets and the things we believe in. This aspiration is part of the human fabric of what makes us better and more successful. But this does not contradict, as soon as we know to distinguish these two points: one of ambition and personal development and the other of suffering and self-flagellation, then we can focus on those real things that keep us from being happy. We could distinguish between the main issues and secondary in importance. As long as we mix things from these two groups, we invest energy on the wrong things, and so, we will drown in the swamp of quicksand, thinking that if the struggle against it, we can get out. We will continue to be part of a honey-trap, like living our lives in a cage of gold. The real question is, in the end, is do we have the will and the strength to get out of this situation, and to move ourselves to a state of prosperity, joy, and happiness. If we want it and decide that this is the way. Our way. And whether we are willing to go through the personal process to get there, with very challenging experiences that will lead us even if we don’t want to, to gain insights about life.

If so, the main question is, will we know to enjoy and be happy, without going through a terrible sorrowful way that will make us understand all this. What shall we do with it. Because in the end of the day, we all want is simply to be happy.

** Dedicated with endless love to my big brother, may you continue to enjoy and identify those little moments of happiness in your life.

“The miracles and wonders” (Al HaNisin VeAl HaNiflaot)

On the eve of the fifth candle of Hanukkah, I sit and try to think and identify what was the greatest miracle of this year for me. Is it the fact that I waded through the chemotherapy while bringing to a halt the spread of cancer in my body? Does the fact that I'm still here, alive, is my big miracle? Or maybe knowing I am surrounded by friends and family that spread so much love and support over me that helps and strengthens me every day? Perhaps my greatest miracle of all is the insights I find out about what life means to me, and what is the right way for me to live them. Can the miracle be knowing that if I survived the cancer treatments so far, and even to get stronger out of them, there’s nothing and no challenge I could not overcome. And could my big miracle lie a bit in every one of the things I just mentioned above, but its main source is due any time. Units of time we measure things. My miracle begins and ends in three words - past, present, and future.

I know. Time is a very abstract and comprehensive term. Past, present, and future are in fact subunits within the term that is called time. The obvious question is how these three words can mean a miracle for me. How come they play such an important role in my life. Someone told me once that the word  ניסיון(challenge) contains in it the word  נס(miracle), for that we will always remember that even when we think that life or reality presents us with impossible challenges, a miracle can always happen. In the spirit of Chanukah – ‘a great miracle’ if you will. To live in the present we need a lot of challenges in life, that if we will overcome them, and prevail, we will create for ourselves our own personal miracle. In each point in time in the present, we are facing these or other challenges. That is the reality. The question is what we do when we encounter them. Do we learn from our past, and implement what we learned for the future, or give up and take a more passive approach. Do we understand that we may now have the option to make the ניסיון (challenge) into a  נס(miracle)? And do we even want to put the effort required to reach a state when miracle can even happen in our lives?

 Cancer brings a different meaning to how these three words and the way they are perceived- past, present, and future. The past is an unchanging unit of time, you know it happened, and will not return. You find yourself clinging to the past in lust and looking at those periods of time that shell not return, the time before the cancer took a hold in your body. Then’ in the past, the things that were in the head and heart were things that to seem to you minor and non-important. But then, when they occurred to you, they had very high significance in your life. You look and see how things were in your past. Then you move to the present. How things are for you today. And even if you're really trying to avoid it, too often you find yourself comparing what between the past and your current reality. "Once I could work 15 hours a day. Today? Today after three hours on my feet I'm tired." Such sentences fill your thoughts some times, and you start to understand that yet you are facing another challenge - the attempt to let go of the past and live the present.

The step of freeing yourself from your past and connecting to your present is a very significant step in the process, if you ask me. Because only after we passed this challenge successfully, we can get to what I think is the greatest miracle. The ability to see and think about the future.

The future is uncertain for us all. No one knows what the next day will bring. And yet, we are making plans, dreaming about the future and want to get out and do things that fulfill and comply with the potential that we know we have or think embodies us. A few months after the onset of cancer in my body, I still could not think in terms of the future. Everything was either under the past, or under present. It was one day when I was in China, during alternative treatment my father took me to, that I suddenly found myself saying: "In Rosh Hashanah I will do so and so....". I saw how my father was filled with pride and joy at that moment, as he explained to me that this is the first time he hears me talk about the future on a practical level, the belief and knowledge that it will come. That the future will come.

  My Chanukah miracle is the success on the personal experience I have experienced in the last year. Experience of being able to connect and see the future of my life. Although, with, and alongside cancer. My miracle embodied in the fact that I see the future, and know it will come. Looking forward and dreaming. I dare. I do. I set goals. I am not constantly afraid of the unknown. I know more, I feel more significant. I plan ahead and enjoy the process and the way getting there 

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I learn from the past, not live in the past.

I live the present, and not live in fear of it.

I think about the future, and not afraid of what the future held.

I wish you all a Happy Chanukah, and may all of you find in his life his own personal miracle, and will produce the most and the best out of the oil jug.