Big Day for Noah

Tomorrow is Noah’s third birthday, and we were fortunate to be able to share the celebration at his school, which will be followed by a whole family party at Shabbat lunch tomorrow.

At the risk of sounding immodest, how cute is this little guy? He really is as adorable as he looks in the pictures. And he is a true member of our family: he attacked his birthday cupcake with great determination and skill, barely missing a drop.

We also had a chance to stop over at Shaloh House, a local Jewish pre-school of which Simmie is now in her second year as Preschool and Early Childhood Care Director. The school underwent some recent renovations, and we got the full tour. Meeting all the teachers with their glowing compliments of our daughter was total naches! For those of you who don’t know that Yiddish word, I looked it up and the first match provided the perfect definition:

Naches (נחת) is a Yiddish word that means "pride" or "joy." Typically, naches refers to the pride or joy that a child brings a parent.

Have a great weekend!

Love,

Rebecca

An unexpected honor

As I was getting settled in my seat on the second day of Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year), one of our synagogue’s female clergy came up to me and asked if I would like to have an honor during the ritual blowing of the shofar (ram’s horn), namely, to call out one of the series of nine notes for the ba’al tekia (fellow blowing the shofar). This was apparently not the first time that women had been given this honor at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, but, due to health issues, I had not been in synagogue the last couple of years, so I was relatively unaware of it. Moments after I said “yes,” it began to sink in, and I thought “what in the world was I thinking? Can I really get up there and do this?”

By the time we reached that third set of shofar blasts to which I had been assigned, I was in position and, I suppose, as ready as I could be. But what I did not expect was just how emotional a moment it would become. The blowing of the shofar is a key component of the Rosh Hashana ritual and I was about to experience an honor that is only rarely offered to women in traditional synagogues. I am happy to say that I did manage to maintain my composure, and afterwards the two other women and I exchanged appropriate “high fives” and greetings before returning to our seats.

I can only hope that this bodes well for the coming year, that it will be one of many joyful opportunities and milestones for all of us.

Love,

Rebecca

Talk about stuff that makes no sense

This morning we received an e-mail from our bank with the subject line:

Your FICO Score changed, Barry

When I clicked on the link and logged in to our account, I found that our credit score had dropped over the past six months from over 800 (“Exceptional”) to a bit under 800 (“Very Good”). This was followed by an explanation:

Key Factor(s) Affecting Your FICO^® Score:

Lack of recent installment loan information

FICO^® Scores consider recent non-mortgage installment loans (such as auto or student loans) information on a person’s credit report. Your score was impacted because your credit report shows no recent non-mortgage installment loans or insufficient recent information about your loans.

Too few accounts currently paid as agreed

FICO^® Scores consider the number of accounts that are paid as agreed. Your score was impacted because the number of these accounts is too low, or because you've missed payments recently on some of your accounts.

In other words, we are being penalized – penalized! – for paying everything on time and being good and responsible citizens!

I wanted to learn more, so I scrolled down a bit, I found the following in the description of credit scores:

Score Deciding Factors

I was only able to find our monthly credit scores for the past six months, during which time the score has decreased by a bit each month. I recognize that the message we received was almost assuredly the result of an automated system. But would it be so difficult to write code to take into account that there are actually people out there who are blessed to have paid off their mortgages and do not need to stretch out their credit card payments? Believe me, for many years Barry and I were literally barely making it through each month. Now that we are reasonably comfortable, I would like to think they would come and congratulate us for all those years of hard work at our educations and careers and our ability to take care of ourselves.

This reminded me of an old recurrent Saturday Night Live sketch featuring Steve Martin, Theodoric of York. I was able to find a video of “Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber.”

But the skit that comes to mind here is “Theodoric of York, Medieval Judge.” After ridiculous sentences for accused criminals, Mr. Martin turns to the camera and wonders aloud whether, in the future, men will be judged by a jury of their peers, but after speaking gloriously of this system, like the end of the barber skit, says “Nah!”

That congratulatory call from the folks who bring us our credit scores is just about as likely!

Love,

Rebecca

Defending Your Life

Although we really did miss being with our daughters and their families for the holiday, we did have a nice time at home in Riverdale. The services for the High Holidays are led by Dr. Elli Kranzler, who, in addition to being a child and adolescent psychiatrist, is an accomplished singer/composer who regularly leads prayer services at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. The fall holidays are a highlight of the year. This video is from last year’s annual pre-Selichot (special prayers recited prior to Rosh Hashana) concert. Unfortunately, we are no longer able to attend this (among other reasons, it is held very late at night), but it is still terrific to be able to share it from the comfort of my home office.

We were invited to join friends for lunch on both days, so there was an abundance of delicious food and enjoyable conversation. Although I am the only vegetarian in the group, both hosts prepared sumptuous dairy meals which everyone else clearly enjoyed as well.

On the second day, after catching up on everyone’s children and grandchildren (and, in one case, recent marriage), part of the conversation related to the meaning and significance of the holidays. That got me to thinking about the 1991 movie written, directed by, and starring Albert Brooks, “Defending Your Life.” If you have never seen it you really should.

In the movie, Brooks plays Daniel Miller, a young advertising executive whose distracted driving results in a fatal accident. In the afterlife he learns that he must defend his actions on earth in order to ascend to a higher place of existence. While undergoing his “trial” (hence the title), he meets and falls in love with Julia (played by Meryl Streep). Julia is probably about as perfect as a human being can be, and her own “defense” is simply inspiring, with incident after incident of her life full of courageous good deeds. Not surprisingly, the “judges” overwhelmingly deem Julia ready to move on to the next (presumably much better) world, while Daniel is to be sent back for another crack at life on earth. But this is a very upbeat movie, and I don’t think it will spoil too much to say that, in the eleventh hour, Daniel has an opportunity to prove himself worthy and the judges overturn their decision. The movie ends with the two of them riding off into the sunset towards a wonderful next phase of life.

Jewish tradition tells us that during this season we are judged for our deeds over the past year. All those hours of prayer are to focus ourselves on improvement. We repeat many times over Yom Kippur a list of sins we have committed.

אָשַֽׁמְנוּ	We have become guilty
בָּגַֽדְנוּ	We have strayed
גָּזַֽלְנוּ	We have robbed
דִּבַּֽרְנוּ דֹּֽפִי	We have spoken slander
הֶעֱוִֽינוּ	We have caused perversion
וְהִרְשַֽׁעְנוּ	We have caused wickedness
זַֽדְנוּ	We have sinned willfully
חָמַֽסְנוּ	We have extorted
טָפַֽלְנוּ שֶֽׁקֶר	We have accused falsely
יָעַֽצְנוּ רָע	We have given evil counsel
כִּזַּֽבְנוּ	We have been deceitful
לַֽצְנוּ	We have scorned
מָרַֽדְנוּ	We have rebelled
נִאַֽצְנוּ	We have provoked
סָרַֽרְנוּ	We have turned away
עָוִֽינוּ	We have been perverse
פָּשַֽׁעְנוּ	We have acted wantonly
צָרַֽרְנוּ	We have persecuted
קִשִּֽׁינוּ עֹֽרֶף	We have been obstinate
רָשַֽׁעְנוּ	We have been wicked
שִׁחַֽתְנוּ	We have corrupted
תִּעַֽבְנוּ	We have been abominable
תָּעִֽינוּ	We have strayed
תִּעְתָּֽעְנוּ	You have let us go astray

This is not to say that all of us or even any of us have done all of these things, but if we are honest with ourselves, it does not take long to check off a lot of those boxes. It is certainly overwhelming!

A few years ago, Rabbi Binyamin Holtzman, of Kibbutz Ma’ale Gilboa, composed a complementary confession that was adapted by Rabbi Avi Weiss (Hebrew Institute of Riverdale) that we might consider a more positive list of things we have done over the past year and things we hope to continue to do in the coming year:

אָהַבְנוּ, בֵּרַכְנוּ, גָּדַלְנוּ, דִִִּבַּרְנוּ  יֹפִי
We have loved, we have blessed, we have grown, we have spoken positively.

הֶעֱלִינוּ, וְחַסְנוּ, זֵרַזְנוּ
We have raised up, we have shown compassion, we have acted enthusiastically,

חָמַלְנוּ, טִפַּחְנוּ אֱמֶת
We have been empathetic, we have cultivated truth,

יָעַצְנוּ טוֹב, כִּבַּדְנוּ, לָמַדְנוּ, מָחַלְנוּ
We have given good advice, we have respected, we have learned, we have forgiven,

נִחַמְנוּ, סָלַלְנוּ, עוֹרַרְנוּ
We have comforted, we have been creative, we have stirred,

פָּעַלְנוּ, צָדַקְנוּ, קִוִּינוּ לָאָרֶץ
We have been spiritual activists, we have been just, we have longed for Israel,

רִחַמְנוּ, שָקַדְנוּ
We have been merciful, we have given full effort,

תָּמַכְנוּ, תָּרַמְנוּ, תִּקַּנּוּ
We have supported, we have contributed, we have repaired.

I want to give a shout out to Rabbi Noah Cheses of Sharon who reminded us of these wonderful thoughts our own rabbi had penned.

Now I just need a couple of days of rest from all that wonderful food and company!

Love,

Rebecca

You've Got a Friend

Those of you who have known me for a long time know that I am a huge fan of singer/songwriter Carole King. We were not able to be on the Great Lawn in Central Park yesterday for the Global Citizen Festival, but thanks to the internet I can share what I believe was the highlight of her performance, “You’ve Got a Friend.” She also sang “Beautiful,” “Natural Woman,” “I Feel the Earth,” and “Where You Lead”. Her voice is not quite what it used to be but her spirit is still very much in tact. It was particularly inspiring to see all the young people in the audience who sang along with her. By the end I felt tears in my eyes wishing we could all find a little more of that spirit of friendship during these troubling and divisive times in which we find ourselves.

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/carole-king-sings-you-ve-got-a-friend-70182981995

I send this out to all of you who have been my friends and continued to read my ramblings over these past years.

Love,

Rebecca

Apples of my eye

We had a terrific weekend up in Sharon. We had Shabbat dinner on Friday night with Simmie and family, and then joined Dina and family for Shabbat lunch, after which the 12 of us (plus a couple of the children’s friends) gathered for a birthday celebration for Joshua and Aaron. All the food was fantastic. I only wish I had remembered to take a picture of the black and red checkerboard birthday cake Dina created; of course, I doubt there was much left by Sunday.

On Sunday afternoon the whole family went apple picking. Barry and I had never done this before, but our children and grandchildren go every year. I was not quite sure how this would work out for me, and a couple of weeks ago had a lovely chat with the owner of the place where they had gone many times and we were planning to go, who assured me that appropriate accommodations could be made for people with disabilities. Unfortunately, we learned that the place was in an area that had Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE), so they chose a different place that also assured accessibility, Doe Orchards (https://doeorchards.com/) in Harvard, Massachusetts, about an hour northwest of Sharon. This turned out to be a fine choice. I had meant to take pictures of all the apples and peaches we took home but somehow that slipped my mind. Nonetheless, I do have some nice pictures of the children (thanks to Eliana for taking some of these) at the orchard. This is definitely an activity we’ll need to add to our annual fall calendar!

As I was completing this little post, the phrase “apple of my eye” came to mind, so I looked up its origin/meaning:

The apple of one's eye originally referred to the central aperture of the eye. Figuratively it is something, or more usually someone, cherished above others.

Perfect!

Have a great week!

Love,

Rebecca

A reminiscence on forty years of teaching

This week, Barry will be attending the annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) in Chicago. You might be wondering what that “T” stands for, and I found the full history of the name on Wikipedia:

The organization began in 1958 as the American Club of Therapeutic Radiologists.^[1] In 1966 it became the American Society for Therapeutic Radiologists (ASTR).^[1] In 1983 it became ASTRO (the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology).^[1] In 2008 it became ASTRO (the American Society for Radiation Oncology), keeping the acronym ASTRO while redefining its expansion.^[1] The members decided that the term "therapeutic radiology" was outdated and confusing to a general audience and that the new name would better reflect the specialty.^[1]

^[1] ASTRO, ASTRO.org history page, archived from the original on 2013-11-04, retrieved 2013-10-31.

By way of background, I found this on the ASTRO web page:

ASTRO publishes three top-notch journals to bring the latest radiation oncology research to our members quickly. Our flagship journal, the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics, also known as the Red Journal, focuses on cutting-edge prospective clinical research. Its companion journal Practical Radiation Oncology, publishes research such as guidelines and white papers that will make an impact in your practice today. Our newest journal, Advances in Radiation Oncology, focuses on important retrospective work, clinical trial reanalyses, survey analyses and case reports.

A couple of months back, Barry was invited by the editors of Practical Radiation Oncology to share some reflections on his 40 years of teaching radiation biology to residents training in radiation oncology, which was just published and is attached here. 

Teaching Radiation and Cancer Biology to Radiation Oncology Residents: A 40-Year Perspective

Can it really have been forty years? We are certainly getting old!

Love,

Rebecca