HOW GOOD DO WE HAVE TO BE? By Rabbi Harold Kushner

 

In chapter 4 of his book “How Good Do We Have to Be, Rabbi Harold Kushner writes the following: “The hardest part of writing this chapter for me was facing up to my memories of my own parents, now both deceased, and the buried resentments I still carry toward them for the mistakes they made.” As a reader, this sentence was for me the most significant of the entire text. I have deep admiration for authors who self-disclose their own emotional difficulties and don’t try to be experts in any matter. Author sincerity induces the reader to reflect on his or her own emotional journey, and that is exactly what happened to me. My parents were part of the Italian war generation who fled Italy for being deeply antifascist. They were lucky enough to end up in Argentina which, at that time, was a paradise for immigrants. Needless to say, Peron had not yet started to intervene in politics. Because my father had been raised by a very strict parent, when he became a father, he decided to raise us in the only way he knew: by being demanding, emotionally distant, and expecting his children to do exactly as he said. Needless to say, his parenting skills reflected that in that area he was far from being an expert. As a result of his lack of competence, my childhood at home was not a happy one. Although my brother and I never lacked anything, our many friends were our real source of comfort. However, despite all his parenting mistakes, my father was a responsible man who took care of his family the best he could. He also taught us to be responsible, honest, and generous. So, when I read Rabbi’s Kushner statement, I started asking myself if I also felt resentment against a too strict and distant father. I started analyzing if expecting that our parents should be expert caretakers was not being childish on our part. When we grow up and become parents ourselves, we understand how difficult it is to raise another human being without expecting him or her to comply with our image of the perfect son or daughter. However, our children come to the world with their own temperament and their own journey to follow. It goes without saying that we need to guide them to the best of our knowledge, but at times we also need to understand their need to learn from their mistakes. So, going back to my father, it is true that I would have liked to have a more tolerant father, but I understand that his own childhood prevented him to be that way. Do I feel resentment for all the moments he was emotionally distant? Although I feel sadness, I am not resentful because I know that in his own way, he loved me deeply. Not only that, he made sure that my life was much more comfortable that his had been. In other words, he did the best he could. RIP

ODA AL NUEVO DÍA

 

A veces cuando suena la oscura medianoche

soñamos que se nos va la vida de las manos,

empapada de soledad, falsedad y sinsabor,

nostalgia, desesperanza y más dolor.

 

Nos miramos las manos vacías de amor

cual aves quejumbrosas y hambrientas,

nuestras desoladas manos abiertas

deseosas de abrazar nuestra próxima jornada.

 

Porque aquello que hoy se está alejando

dejando tras de sí un recuerdo acongojado

no es sino el umbral nítido e inesperado

de esa comarca sagrada que nos está esperando.

WHAT IS FORGIVENESS? DO WE HAVE TO FORGIVE?

 When I entered the second half of my life and started working on becoming my true Self, I could not avoid facing the issue of forgiving those who had hurt me. So, I decided to research what the sages and mystics of the world had to say about the matter. Unfortunately, for some reason none of their explanations for forgiveness satisfied me. The following is an example: “Love and do good to the offender. Romans 12:9.” Unless the Bible was written for saints this commandment makes no sense whatsoever. I don’t know anyone who can love and do good to people who offended or hurt him or her. Does forgiveness depend on the seriousness of the offense? Perhaps. In my case I was often able to forgive and forget when the offender was a very good friend of mine; we all make mistakes and I did not want to ruin a relationship that had lasted for many years. Furthermore, it makes a big difference when the offender apologizes and asks for forgiveness. Unfortunately, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for some of us to admit we were wrong. That is why it comes a time when even the most significant relationships of our lives need to be reviewed and discarded; and often the hurt we were inflicted in those situations will not be forgiven. When I look back over my life and I revisit some very difficult situations I was forced to face, I know that I will never be able to forgive those who proved to be my nemeses. Why would I? Feelings of forgiveness cannot be created; we either have them or we don’t. This does not mean that what I feel is the need for vengeance. I know that life will take care of those who have made damaging choices. It always does

SYNCHRONICITY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CHANCE

Although it was Sunday and I usually go to the beach on weekends, with each passing hour the morning had become gradually somber and rainy. After walking the dog under the trees in order not get too wet, I came back home knowing that the rest of the day would be spent at home. After five months of coronavirus and aloneness, some memories had become ever more frequent. Like for instance the memory of the friends I had left behind when coming to the United States in 1977. Those are the friends of youth that I usually meet once a year when I travel to Patagonia, in the south of Argentina. Those are people that I met when I was twenty something and with whom I had a deeper intimacy than with my own parents. Those are the friends I have sometimes called in the middle of the night when things in my life did not go well and I felt desperately vulnerable. But going back to that Sunday afternoon, I felt a deep nostalgia of that circle of people who were no longer part of my life. With no doubts, immigration has to do with loss and one of the worst losses is leaving behind the first friends of our life. That day, with a long day ahead of me, I decided to finish reading the book I had just started. The book dealt with Jung’s meaning of synchronistic events, which in a few words are “meaningful coincidences” with no causal relationship. If a causal relationship answers to the laws of cause and effect, a synchronistic event has no cause to be detected. While I was pondering on the lines I was reading, my cellular phone rang. It was one of my dearest friends from Argentina who, feeling as lonely as I, had decided to give me a call. By all means, a synchronistic event generated by the mind because the mind is limitless. I needed a friend and my mind had contacted one of them, the result being that I finally grasped the fact that distance does not mean forever gone.

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¿QUÉ ME ENSEŇÓ LA PANDEMIA?

Recuerdo cuán distinta era mi vida hace algunos años, cuando el sólo volver a mi casa después de una salida se me hacía cuesta arriba; el silencio que me esperaba al abrir la puerta era agobiante. Es cierto que yo dejaba la luz de la entrada prendida para que la oscuridad circundante no me abrumara; así y todo, no había quien venciera esa soledad de piedra. Luego fueron pasando los años y con cada día vivido las paredes de ese hogar solitario se fueron haciendo cada vez más amigas. Los amigos que me visitaban a menudo comentaban lo bien que se sentían en aquel hogar sólo mío. Fue entonces que empecé a mirar mi casa con ojos distintos; los ojos con los que otros la veían. Y así el blanco y gris de las paredes se me hizo cada vez más acogedor, y el paisaje de las ventanas cada vez más mío. Es cierto que tengo el privilegio de vivir frente a un océano que, a pesar de estar a menudo agitado, es de una belleza incomparable. Pero a pesar de su hermosura salvaje, hubo momentos en que yo ni  escuchaba el rumor quejumbroso de su oleaje. Pero con el tiempo las cosas cambiaron; hoy no puedo vivir sin escucharlo. ¿Qué me enseñó la pandemia? En mis días solitarios aprendí que lo más preciado que tenemos es la serenidad del alma, y que esa serenidad sólo florece en soledad. Es cierto que somos seres sociales y que necesitamos del otro para sentirnos vivos; pero en las últimas etapas de nuestra vida lo necesitamos cada vez menos. Tenemos tanto que recordar, tanto que procesar y ordenar, tanto que comprender, que el otro con sus cotidianos dolores estorba nuestra tarea. Si a veces una cena compartida con un buen amigo es una bendición, otras veces una charla demasiado larga nos perturba profundamente. Y así, a menudo me siento en el balcón de mi casa junto a mi perro Max y reflexiono en todas aquellas cosas de mi vida que aún me resultan misteriosas. Finalmente, el silencio o la música me ayudan a darme cuenta de que todo lo que ocurrió debía ocurrir porque así es la vida. Fue la pandemia la que me enseñó la riqueza de la soledad; también me mostró que, en realidad, nunca estamos solos ya que siempre nos rodean nuestros pensamientos, nuestros recuerdos, nuestros actos, nuestros logros y nuestra visión del universo.

 

POEMAS DEL ALMA SOLITARIA (Amazon, Spanish Edition)

AZULES COMO EL MAR PROFUNDO 

Azules como el mar profundo

son los ojos del hijo que traje al mundo,

ancha como una pradera sembrada

es la sonrisa que ilumina su mirada,

tiernas como flores de montaña

son las palabras con las que me habla,

inmensos como el universo infinito

son los latidos de su corazón querido.

DO NOT WEEP; DO NOT WAX INDIGNANT. UNDERSTAND. Baruch Spinoza

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It was just another Coronavirus Sunday between the solitary walls of my home. Although after several months of isolation I was still feeling able to face what was going on, for some reason on that particular Sunday the idea of spending another day among my thoughts and memories became a little too hard to accept. Sages crave for the loneliness of the desert to face their lives and their visions and understand them; unfortunately, I am not a sage and the lack of social activities makes my days too long and too desolate. Social isolation leaves me alone with the painful events of my life, and when my aloneness lasts too long, I find it difficult to understand the meaning of existence. Despite my reluctance to face another day with myself, I decided to make the best of it and looked for a book that would help me use the time wisely; I decided to use the time to clarify some of my unfinished businesses. It was then that I suddenly remembered Baruch Spinoza, that magnificent philosopher rejected by his Jewish Elders for having understood that divinity is not a Being from another world but the logic order of Nature.  Spinoza said that all phenomena, including human choices and actions, respond to an internal order of cause and effect. He added that Nature processes occur by necessity and none of them could have occurred differently. In other words, it is what it is, and if we wish to avoid hating others or living in desperation, we need to accept what is. In his life Spinoza lived through very difficult situations to the point of almost being stabbed to death by a religious fanatic. However, being a brilliant mind, he reached the conclusion that it is useless to argue with the flow of events. Much wiser it is to understand that everything that happens in life has a cause, and the only thing we can do is to accept the fact that what we are facing is the effect of such a cause. Although most of the time we ignore what the causes of our suffering are, acceptance is an imperative. After closing the book on Spinoza, I decided that the best thing for me to do was to forget about my unfinished businesses and have a nice glass of wine on the balcony.