I used to be able to spend decades not thinking about my own demise, although as a teen thoughts of mortality were a constant companion. But in recent years, watching the death and dying of family members and friends, the mortality thing seemed to dominate absolutely everything else. Still, ‘my own demise’ is a fairly…
Category: essays
Mira and Erin writing on themes of death, dying, grief, ritual, music, listening, Kaddish, Lev Kogan’s “Kaddish,” and so on.
how to play Rook Wanamingo style
A kaddish for all my Norwegian-Minnesotan relatives who played the most cutthroat game of Rook you can imagine.
a kaddish for the music man
A kaddish for Bill McDonald, The Music Man, the guy who finally taught me trumpet for marching band several years after teaching me horn against his better judgment. A kaddish for the guy who led a whole community through its seasons for six long, exhausting years.
the sjsu parking garage shooting — a kaddish —
I’ve never worried about the SJSU parking garages. All these many years of night classes, of colleagues and students getting police escorts back to their cars at night — I’ve never once seen the necessity. And I don’t see it now, either. And yet, last night, while I was heading for my own car in…
a kaddish for hindy nobler
The funeral was so fast! Her brother was leading people off to head for a gathering at the house, one last time. One of the chapel people, said “Stop — we haven’t said a kaddish!” Some of us had been waiting for a kaddish. But he was adamant — she wouldn’t want a kaddish. Just…
a kaddish for the happiest couple in america and really bad books
That’s what he called them. “The happiest couple in America.” And as soon as the words were out of his mouth, the spell was broken and she was gone. I mean, where do you go from there? Repeat cycle? Which would mean more of the same. And if there was more of the same, would…
the tzaddik and the negotiator — a mother’s day meditation
Malkah was in such awe of the tzaddik that she spent most of her time with him asking questions, and nodding at the wisdom of his responses. Of course, his responses generally started with the need to do more research. Look things up. Even go to the library, when he was stumped. But most of…
closure, or something like it — a kaddish for milton g. nobler
People say you need closure. But does that mean that there are no more stories to be told? I woke up this morning with two imperatives: 1) a sense of real or imminent closure, and 2) the need to tell this tale. It’s a tale biofather told me, and I’m pretty sure he never told…
on the transmigration of souls (jewish deli style)
You wouldn’t think that the Jewish tradition was big on transmigration of souls — but it is. I’m not even sure this concept is taught much anymore in more mainstream non-Orthodox and Hassidic circles. But what do I know? I’ve not set foot in a shul for a very long time. And even then,…
a kaddish for Osama bin Laden
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم The goal of building (or rebuilding) an Islamic State is something as yet under-appreciated in the West. Do we in the West ask what kind of State is it? Or do we just assume it’s the oppressive, misogynistic monolith that we have dubbed it? Do we even ask ourselves if there…