Daniel Lubetzky

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one
can go."

T. S. Eliot
.

I hate not being able to sleep because of all sorts of questions,
anxieties and apprehensions popping up on my mind all night long about
Oct 18. Did any task fall off the cracks? Have we done everything in
our power to mobilize the big numbers and send the precise message?
We have a bit over 3 weeks to go.
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The guy below is a 6 foot tall basketball player.  These are some of the OneVoice Mandates that Israeli citizens have filled out over the last couple months…

Yizkor happens five times a year, during holy days of Judaism.  During Yizkor prayer services, people who lost their loved ones repeat the Kaddish prayers that they conducted on a daily basis during the first year of their family member’s passing.

For me Yizkor is a time when I go back to the memories of my Dad, and I focus on reminiscing about him.

It terrifies me and depresses me when I feel like the memories of my Dad are becoming more faint and distant.

So I try hard to remember the smallest of details, the most random experiences.

Like when he taught me how to build model rockets that we would then shoot up in the sky. 

Or when he taught me how to melt lead to make tin soldiers, or how to turn on a steam machine. 

Or when he gave me advice about dating my first girlfriend.

Or when he spoke to me about what it was like to be in Dachau and how his father helped him through to survive. 

Or when I last saw him smile, with proud eyes, when I visited him and my Mom on my way out to the airport when visiting in Puerto Vallarta.

Or how he liked to hug his children with unconditional love, and how we fought to lay by his side and hug him even as we got older. 

How he treated everyone with warmth and respect, whether it was the President of the bank or the bank’s janitor. 

How he managed to make everyone whose path he’d cross just a little bit happier. 

How he would organize an "orchestra" with his four children each playing a different kitchen utensil.

here is a link to a poem I wrote about my Dad on the second year anniversary of his passing.  Gentle Tree.

When my Dad passed away, I struggled a lot at the beginning with the concept of doing Kaddish.  Kaddish is a Jewish prayer where one exhalts, praises and blesses G’d.  It is a blessing recited by people who have lost a close relative (parent, child, sibling, or spouse).  The first year after the passing of the family member, it has to be recited on a daily basis, three times a day, at temple.

It was a significant time commitment, but that did not trouble me.

What most bothered me about Kaddish was the seemingly arrogant conceit that G’d would even care about our blessing him.  Why is this even necessary? Why would the all-powerful, omnipresent, life force care about our singing him praises? Who do we think we are?  Why does this matter?

Rabbi Scheinberg from San Antonio, Texas asked me to give this a shot, for one month.  And if I didn’t find meaning in it by then, we’d find something else for me to do to honor my Dad’s memory.  (He also asked me to read Pirkei Abott, which if anyone – Jewish or not Jewish – has not done, I strongly recommend).  My Dad was not religious, but he had done Kaddish for his Father and I felt it was important I do the same.  So I tried.

I found over the course of that month and year, which coincided with the year when OneVoice and PeaceWorks both started growing very fast, that the daily prayers helped me gain strength and focus.  They enabled me to channel my pain at those moments of the day, and then get through the rest of the day.  They also helped me stay grounded and keep things in context.

There is an intellectually interesting Rabbinical theory about the concept of how G’d needs to contract its force and presence in order to let us gain our freedom of choice, and how our prayers – our mental exercises and meditation – help in turn expand the influence of G’d force.  Ying Yang.

The helpful but repetitive book Kaddish by Leon Wieseltier details the political history of Kaddish services, and how they helped communities keep Judaism alive.

Certainly affirming God’s righteousness at a time when you are most vulnerable and upset by the pain of losing those you love the most is a powerful and difficult exercise.

But what is most compelling about Kaddish and all other rites of Judaism related to mourning is how much these are designed to help one cope with the loss, by providing clear moments for introspection but by also requiring us to live our lives, by providing different phases for mourning that help us graduate slowly back into daily life, from the first week (when you sit Shiva at home with your family, cocooned inside under the mantle of your loved one’s still present energy), to the first month (where you cannot cut your beard or hair and still are raw with the pain of loss and the hovering presence of your loved one), to the first eleven months, where you have to avoid "Simcha" or Joys as, it is told, the soul of your loved one rises up to the Shchina, or eternal light…  …throughout all these phases, Judaism is there to help you cope.

I wrote before about Yom Kippur and fasting.  But like all things Jews do, we manage to eat a lot, so the pre-fast meal and post-fast dinner more than make up for the lack of food during the fast.

This is the first year since my Dad passed away that all of our family was able to be together for Yom Kippur.  Since my Dad’s passing I think it has been subconsciously harder on all of us to be all together, because it only highlights my Dad’s absence.  Still, I think this weekend we were able to enjoy each other and remember my Dad by doing so.

My nieces and nephews – the reason why we want this to be a better world (and hopefully soon when I have my own children):

Being in Los Angeles is very different from cramped NYC.  Just to give you an example, I think this salad bowl is bigger than my apartment in NYC:

The Huffington Post published an article I wrote about the imperative of mobilizing to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once and for all, before it’s too late and before Ahmadinejad turns it into a truly intractable conflict.

So Columbia University in its infinite wisdom has deemed it appropriate to invite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at its campus.  Never mind this man has denied the holocaust, and gone on record stating that he would not mind if half of Iran was destroyed if on the way this enabled him to wipe Israel off the map.  Never mind that this man is feverishly pursuing nuclear weapons. Never mind that he is intent on undermining Iraqi reconciliation efforts or Arab-Israeli peace. Never mind that he is a messianic apocalyptic and fatalistic believer that accelerating the coming of the 12th Imam can be brought about through Armageddon. Columbia will give him the stage, confusing freedom of speech with good judgment. 

Freedom of Speech is a vital strength of our American system, one I would fight for any time.  Freedom of speech means you should not stop anyone from the liberty to express themselves.  But it should not mean giving the megaphone to evil bigots.  There is nothing sensible about this dumb decision.

That said, if I can make it there, I will want to ask Ahmadinejad:

How come every major conflagration between Israelis and Arabs in 2006 took place a couple days before Iran was being referred to an international body?

How come Nasrallah’s unprovoked incursion and attacks in the North of Israel happened four days before Iran’s nuclear efforts were scheduled to be discussed at the UN Security Council?  Does it have anything to do with Iran’s wholly funding of Hezbollah?

How come the hijacking of Gilad Shalit in Gaza by the militant wing of Hamas – which derailed the Olmert-Abbas prisoner release they had announced they were working on, and which derailed the Abbas-Haniyeh national unity government discussions – took place a couple days before Iran’s intransigence against nuclear inspections and bans was scheduled to be discussed at the IAEA?  Does the fact that Khaled Maashal gets his funding from Iran have anything to do?

How does a secular Jew relate to prayer? What is the meaning of Judaism, particularly in the modern world? 

What I love about Judaism has always been its overarching emphasis on striving to become better human beings.  The golden rule stems from Judaism: Do onto others…

I particularly admire the concept of “Tikun Olam”, that we are here in this world to make it better, to heal it.  I was raised in my Mexican Jewish school reading stories from Isaac Bashevis Singer and other Yiddish writers about that humble Rabbi’s unassuming good deeds in the shtetl (the little village in the farmlands of Eastern Europe).

Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people.  It is not a day for celebration, though, as much as for introspection accompanied by a fast (so, instead of telling a Jewish person “Happy Yom Kippur”, you may want to say “Have an Easy Fast” or “Gmar Hatima Tova”, which means, may you be inscribed in the heavenly book).

When Yom Kippur comes, I try to use prayer as a way to meditate on how I can improve as a human being.  These are some of the reflections and areas I thought about – and will work on – improving:

Try to be more patient.  Try to be more patient with my Mom.  Try to be more patient with my team.

Try to be more empathetic and understanding.

Strive to be a better son.

Strive to be a better partner to Michelle.

Strive to be a better brother.

Strive to be a better friend.

Strive to be a better team member, mentor, CEO, colleague.

Be on time.  Be on time.  Be on time!

Fight all instincts at arrogance, conceit, self-importance, superiority, and haughtiness.

Treat every human being with respect and as an equal.

Be a better coach, be more supportive of my team, empower my team more, be better at guiding, trusting, strengthening.

Expect nothing from anyone, fight any sense of entitlement, never feel any support is not enough or not acceptable, be genuinely grateful for any support any person gives to the OneVoice Movement.

Never speak bad of others, never criticize people behind their back.

Give more time to my team at the company, and be thankful to them for their understanding for the time I have judged I need to give to OneVoice.

Strengthen and support my team for their professional and personal growth.

Be tolerant of errors, and guide team to excellence in a positive way.

Strive for justice, equality, peace, progress, light, prosperity, respect, humanity.

Fight terrorism, fight fundamentalism, fight to extinguish all forms of violent extremism.

Reject, uproot and actively fight any form of crime, abuse, mistreatment, cruelty, or injustice.

While prayer some times contains allegorical words designed to take you to a place where you can ponder and reflect on your role in the big scheme of things and on the importance of keeping in perspective what we each are in the grand design of life, some Yom Kippur prayers are actually quite poignant in teaching all of us to recognize we are far more imperfect than we would like to acknowledge.

Here is an example of prayers about sins we seek absolution from, from the seemingly mundane to the truly wicked, which I would not have thought about in my singular reflection but which all congregants probably realize we need to work on:

For the sin of the mocking voice,

For the sin of the clenched fist,

For the sin of the deceitful smile,

For the sin of spoken falsehood,

For the sin of enjoying violence

For the sin of causeless hatred….we seek forgiveness.

Somehow the way these are written, it makes you come to terms with your imperfections and failings.  "For the sin of spoken falsehood" – yes, nicer way to put it but I guess I’ve lied at some point in the course of last year, and I regret that…

And also the following:

We have sinned against you by polluting your earth

We have sinned against you through evil thoughts

We have sinned against you through false pride

We have sinned against you through wanton glances

We have sinned against you by envy

We have sinned against you by committing iniquity

We have sinned against you by hardening our hearts

We have sinned against you by being stubborn

We have sinned against you by perverting justice.

The above are NOT verbatim or in order, just to the best of my recollection, and from cryptic little notes I took…against the edict of not writing during Yom Kippur…

Here are the type of people I really like and admire: doers with a heart and a purpose, without inflated egos, with a can-do attitude and the resourcefulness and creativity to get things done and not allow anyone to stop them.  Imagine all of this and you get Laura Ziskin.

Laura produced the 3 Spider-man movies (with Avi Arad), as well as last year’s Oscars, among other things.

But as of yesterday she is now to be best known as a new member of the OneVoice Movement’s Trustee Advisory Board.

Adee and I were impressed at her level of commitment and resourcefulness yesterday.  My favorite part was when she brainstormed that Larry King should cover the OneVoice Summit, and she just picked up the phone and cold-called to pitch the story to the producer, who she did not know.  She did not even mention who she was or throw her weight around.  And when the producer somewhat roughly indicated he was on deadline and didn’t have time, she matter-of-factly took a pen and agreed to just drop him an email.  Please understand she is a very powerful producer, but she is successful because she is Laura, the doer, and instead of wearing her accomplishments on her sleeves, she just continues to get things done.

She continued to brainstorm on several other BIG ways in which she was committing to help advance our efforts for October 18th.

And by that night she had cranked out six poignant emails following up on everything she promised – and more!