Hi, I’m Al Rosenbloom, and it’s an honor to speak to you for a couple of minutes.
Four years ago, I retired from a 30-year career teaching marketing and international business at the university level. One of the many things I learned is that students are very honest – especially when it comes to course evaluations. I remember one really, really well.
It read:
“Professor Al. I really enjoyed many of your lectures. (Interesting word “many.”) Many of your lectures were so chocked full of interesting/good ideas that they often made my brain hurt. And to tell you the truth, you can also be a little longwinded, and on those days, the part of my body attached to the seat of my desk hurt even more.”
I took that advice heart. Let’s see if I can make good on not creating any pain and not being too long-winded.
At last Friday’s shabbat services, Rabbi Greene opened the door for me for this reflection. She said, if you are a Hebrew grammarian, you can trace the word “repentance” back to a root word meaning “to return,” “to return to ourselves.” Aha! But it raises the question: Why do we return?
I think we return to things, to people, to situations, to experiences to find new meaning. And new meaning cannot really happen without reflection. Soren Kierkegard, a Danish philosopher, said, “You live life forward. Yet you understand it backward.” To return, is to reflect, to find new meaning, and then in the words of that super great Jewish sage, Michelle Obama, DO SOMETHING.
And “to do something,” in the context of Yom Kippur, is to become a better person, a better human being. To become a better human being means for me:
To live simply
To care deeply
To speak kindly and
To love generously.
Right now, I will make four commitments that will make me a better person in the upcoming year. Two are simple, more ordinary, more about time management. And two are much more personal, more demanding because they involve relationships that I care deeply about.
One: When I retired, I decided that I wanted to learn Spanish. After three years, I am still at the very beginning stage of learning that language. My brain does not easily absorb Spanish. I’ve taken formal classes. I’ve downloaded YouTube videos. I’ve listened to Spanish-language TV. I have Spanish-language CDs. I’ve even bought a bunch of children’s picture books in Spanish to jump start my vocabulary. My progress is slow.
My commitment in the upcoming year is to really, intensively, work on my Spanish. Espero.
Two: Every day, I get a number of emails from my sister, Sue, who is here with me today. We have a great relationship. Most of her early morning emails are links to articles from that day’s New York Times. In the subject line, she puts a cogent, insightful summary. She knows that I am probably not as diligent or deliberate about responding.
So, this “return” is literally about hitting the return button on my computer more consistently with a comment of my own. Upon reflection I now see that I have a wonderfully curated news feed that should give me more time not only for Spanish (veremos) and for other things as well.
Three: I am part of one of Sinai’s “Tables” The Anti-Racism Book Club. We have great discussions. I invite you to join us.
Our most recent book was a memoir by a Black physician and the institutional racism that she experienced in health care. The concluding chapter had one of those “returns” for me for it literally “returned” me to an earlier book on how to be an anti-racist.
I was reminded and reflected on the notion that it is insufficient to just read about the history of racism in this country, to say “I learned something new,” or to inhabit a different perspective from my own through reading novels (big shout out to the novel James). Those are all okay.
But… I must use my privilege and my inheritance, again back to Michelle, and DO SOMETHING. The world is a very unjust place. My commitment today is to find ways in the things that I do to give my power and privilege away, to step aside, and to create opportunities for others so that they can achieve. I do this as part of commitment to Tikkun Olam.
And finally, four: The Torah tells us to honor thy father and thy mother. I had great parents – not perfect – but really wonderful. Dad was an academic optometrist who spent 60 years helping individuals who were near blind or with low vision to see better. He founded the first-of-its-kind in the entire country, Center on Vision and Aging. My “return”/my commitment is to increase my support and involvement in those projects that brings low vision services to communities in need.
Mom – completely different. Mom, Sarah, was an outsized personality. Some may remember a commercial sponsored by EF Hutton. The tag line was, “When EF Hutton Talks, People Listen.” When Sarah talked, you had no choice but to listen.
It’s fair to say, mom only had an outside voice. And that even after Elvis had left the building, Elvis was still hearing her voice.
But at her core was an intense love for her family, which she demonstrated in so many ways. She loved my dad in a curious way, she certainly loved her grandchildren, she loved me and Sue and she loved all of her friends that came from many different walks of life. She was a docent extraordinaire at the Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry.
A line from the poet Rumi stays with me as it concerns how we mourn/how we grieve: “If you love someone only with your eyes, death is final. If you love someone with your heart, you are never separated.”
Mom loved with her heart. So, I hear today her outside voice encouraging me, maybe even nagging me, to reaffirm and to return to the four principles that will make me a better person/a better human being in the upcoming year:
To live simply,
To care deeply,
To speak kindly, and most of all
To really love generously.
Please check in with me next Yom Kippur to see how I’m doing.