Building Bridges

I have an idea and I need your help.

As Chanukah concludes, I’m deeply taking in miracles, gifts, blessings, and the symbols of this particular holiday. Fire, as symbolized by the oil and candles burning into the dark winter night, is an element I think about constantly. Fire lives in the third chakra, manipura, above the navel region. It largely defines the strong Pitta dosha in Ayurveda, of which I very much am in lots of ways. Fire allows us to get shit done, to burn underneath our butts so we can get up and be motivated to act. Fire is reactive, it can be angry (anger, when seen and used wisely, can spark tremendous change and motion). I have had chronic ulcerative colitis since childhood; inflammation of the intestinal tract. Again, flames in the center of my body. Fire transforms everything it touches, so it’s a really powerful natural force that brings forth powerful change. Fire is alchemy, melting and liquefying substances into whole other elements. We’d die without fire yet it must be handled with extreme caution. Fire is a messenger; many cultures and traditions offer up sacrifices to the gods via fire. Fire burns things away. I think about this each Friday as I light Shabbat candles, asking myself what needs to be burned away for the coming new week. Life demands constant releasing, tweaking, refining. We are given endless opportunities to burn away our emotional and mental excess. When this great gift of possibility goes ignored and the call to burn away our stuff goes unanswered, the heart feels so heavy, the mind locked into weariness. I have a feeling you know what I mean. Accumulation can be very suffocating whether it’s tangible or not.

I don’t know much. Does anyone, really? It seems that billions of humans are bumping around doing different things, trying to shape these mysterious lives and bodies we wound up in. We grasp for positive experiences and push away the negative, seeming to define all things as “good or bad”. There’s an astonishing caveman simplicity to our preferences. This: me like. That: me no like. So many of our likes and dislikes have been passed down to us, even since in utero. There are literally certain preconceived biases we have energetically ingested through the umbilical cord. Inherited family trauma in the womb is a very real thing. Almost every family system has their own brand of inherited inter-generational trauma. These families are what make up communities. Communities, and the families within them, usually do a constant dance of passing unhealthy habits back and forth. So many ideas that we each carry around aren’t even ours; they became ingrained after years of repetition. At some point it becomes consciously or subconsciously easier to just agree. And then there are the times we pause to think for ourselves and really do agree, though some inner part of our soul knows there’s more to these societal agreements than the brain can grasp. Like, if what we are complying with isn’t helpful, then what? How do we pivot (the word of 2021) to a fresh, healthier approach despite all we’ve ever known? Is it possible to steer the ship in another direction, even though our whole lives we’ve been warned that any other path is treacherous and deadly?

Allow me to explain.
There’s not a day I don’t think about the Holocaust in some way. I am grateful for this. I grew up surrounded by survivors, their stories, their renewed love of life and faith, their superhuman ability to take the most unimaginable experience and alchemize it into joy, philanthropy, leadership, inspiration, and continuity. I take the directive to “never forget” extremely seriously. I fully believe it’s my responsibility and honor to memorialize the 6 million plus, as well as to pass this message onto my own children. I am very proud to come from survivors, and so grateful that my childrens’ grandfather is a survivor as well. It’s an undeniably special part of Jewish education. Reading about it, while crucial, doesn’t compare to being surrounded by actual survivors. Out of every reasonable reason in the book, I was taught to hate, separate, fear, and build concrete walls against Germany and all Germans. I completely understand this. It’s first and foremost a protective move. What happened on German soil was unfathomable. We were hunted there. No healthy mind can comprehend it. Anger, hatred, fear, frustration, the instinct to stay the hell away from anything German makes total sense. I, too, have been complicit in this inherited system, as far as my own views and what I’ve taught my own children. Throughout history, Jews have been betrayed by and violently harmed by our friends and neighbors. Time and again we have been taught to trust no one. It’s incredibly sad and painful because separation of any kind is indeed just that; full of deep pain. The soul longs to connect to pretty much everyone. It hates no one. A soul isn’t mired in racism, homophobia, anti Semitism, caste laws, or biases of any kind. It truly isn’t. Our soul is the purest, most childlike part of us that knows it’s mission on Earth is to form loving connections, even if said connection lasts 30 seconds on the coffee shop line. We are here to build bridges. I believe this to my core, and separation of any sort prevents that. It actually hurts. One of the tenets of Buddhism is that every single thing/being/action is completely interdependent. Look up the Net of Indra. Nothing is separate, and any bit of separation is a delusion. I believe this as well. So how can I, at this stage in my life, claim to practice no separation while staying separate from entire countries and the people in them? How can I, as a mother, knowingly encode my own children with inherited hatred, trauma, fear, and separation? It’s like forcing poison down their throats. It conflicts with everything else I strive to be and do as a mother. It no longer makes sense to me. How do I go forth in the world, in this new way of seeing things, in a way that refuses to add more hatred and separation? This has nothing to do with forgiveness or forgetting. The Holocaust, like many other things in the world, is unforgivable. So much of suffering is. I don’t intent to forgive or forget. But here’s where I’m at; this horrific thing happened and now what? I feel faced with the very clear choice to either perpetuate the world’s overflowing sickness of divisiveness, or do my little part to heal it. Every decision made in either direction causes ripples of hate or love, period. This is true for everything, not just wars. It happens innocuously throughout the most mundane moments in our daily lives. Pay close attention and you’ll get the hang of tracking it. The world has seen Hitler and Ghandi. One person’s power to affect change is staggering. Our choices really matter such a great deal. So where will I direct my attention in this particular part of my life? Tikun Olam is the Jewish duty to heal the world. I don’t see how I can begin to embark on this mission if I am committed to separation from anyone. It’s totally conflicting, and the soul weeps from such conflict. There’s a saying that the mind causes huge divides and the heart tirelessly works to close them. Such is the constant battle of the human being. We are in possession of these ever present polarities. It’s not about right or wrong; it’s so much deeper than that. Being right is a very limited reward. It often provides no true satisfaction. It’s an excuse to stay separate.
Another group in society that I never thought I’d have contact with are incarcerated prisoners. Through a particular study group I have been paired with someone in the prison system. I use an alias and a PO Box, which are qualifications that felt safe for me to join the program. I have a very rich, exploratory communication with an individual who is imprisoned. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to connect with this person. Without going into any detail, I can say that this person has generously offered me much kindness, wisdom, and sincerity during our letter writing. It’s an old fashioned pen pal set up. I love getting and sending these letters. It’s amazing how much a pen and paper can accomplish in the way of establishing connection. See? That’s how naturally connection comes when we don’t fight it. I reasonably deliberated before joining this study group. It was totally out of my comfort zone. I had fears and hesitations. During this period in my life in which I was debating this, I was wrestling with a major source of unrelated suffering. I can tell you this much; the day I decided to join the inside/outside study group, the door to this other situation blew wide open in the right direction. I felt it immediately, it was such a powerful energy shift. Something in my heart burst open and I unknowingly cleared the path for this other thing to work itself out. This all happened within minutes. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my breaking down the wall of separation in one area led to a merging in the other area. All is interdependent. One move towards connecting leads to more openings and connections. This is the inner guide leading us home towards the truth of Oneness. I know which way feels better on a cellular level. My cells literally respond with aliveness when I choose to release myself from the pain of separation and isolation. This never means we enter into harmful situations of any kind, or tolerate abuse in the name of no separation. NEVER. Often times this work is solely inner and private. We can break down walls while staying absolutely safe. It boils down to the choice of how we want to experience this life, and what we see as our purpose. We are all here together, that’s a fact. So now what? In Buddhism it’s a form of relational killing to destroy even the idea of a person, or to destroy their chance for building bridges, to deprive them of their own stories and experiences. Denying the reality of another is a form of killing and stealing. I took vows to not do such things. So basically, I’m full of shit if I keep hating all of Eastern Europe for its role in the war.
To my German and Eastern European readers and followers: thank you for being here, for reading my words, and for being interested in my life. I’m so grateful for your presence and attention. I wish to get to know you better. No separation.

So here is where I’m asking for help, if this speaks to any of you. I ask the following with an open mind, open heart, and a commitment to both myself and the world. I am both an individual and part of this web of humanity. In examining my own role in adding to worldly poison, I’m unlearning and deprogramming so much. It’s a constant relearning. I have teachers, guides, and take strong doses of the medicine that is humility. I choke on it sometimes. I am destroying old personal paradigms to rebuild anew. I have done this before in other ways, all preparation for this. I feel a blinding shame at how I’ve participated in hatred and separation, all necessary fuel to follow my inner guide down a new path. Walls hurt. Haven’t we all been through enough?
So here’s my raw and radical question. I never thought I’d ask something like this because I never wanted to. But now I do. Would any of you be interested in being paired up in a pen pal/email partnership, with the intention to get curious about each other in regards to the Jewish/Eastern European/German divide? I see this as a vulnerable space of curiosity, learning, discussion, inquiry, and a mutual reaching out of hands and hearts. This is not unattainable idealism, I know in my bones this is possible. We can plant seeds of connection on dry, infertile lands. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. One tiny jug of oil lasted 8 nights. Righteous Gentiles did the impossible. It’s ok to be uninterested. It’s ok to be hesitant and think about it. But I’d like to offer up my life and my platform as a bridge. If anyone in any part of the world is interested in partnering up, please email the blog with your full name and reason for interest. The writing partnerships can be free form or I will offer up discussion prompts based on my Buddhist learnings. This is all experimental. It’s new. We will learn this together. There is so much the mind clings to, it often overwhelms me. Never Forget. Always Remember what is possible. Always Remember what you were designed for. Never Forget your heart’s deepest truth, a truth to which walls are strangers. Let’s really meet each other.