Yesterday at shul, I taught some texts relating to the well known tradition of drinking on Purim until one doesn’t know (ad d’lo yada) the difference between “Cursed be Haman” and “Blessed be Mordecai”. The origin of the tradition is a single sentence in the Talmudic tractate of Megilla in which Rava says that a person is obligated livsumei bipurya, which can be translated in many ways but seems to have some relationship with drinking wine on Purim ad d’lo yada.

For many, this turns drinking wine or liquor to excess on Purim into a religious obligation. I do not have any problem with those who can drink alcohol doing so on Purim and there were a couple of Purims when I was younger when I clearly drank too much. But, the idea that this “mitzvah” to get drunk on Purim means offering liquor to kids  below the drinking age or not taking into account the danger of driving under the influence of alcohol is offensive and dangerous. This is not just a modern concern. Rabbis throughout the ages have tried to find ways to tone Rava’s statement down a bit: to claim that he meant something different or to lower the threshold for how much alcohol consumption fulfills the responsibility.

There are many different approaches to the question. Maimonides wrote about the need to drink just enough to insure that you sleep soundly because while asleep one certainly can’t tell the difference between “Cursed be Haman” and “Blessed be Mordecai”.

Other commentaries point out that the numerical values (gematria) of the words arur Haman (Cursed be Haman) and baruch Mordecai (Blessed be Mordecai) are in fact identical showing that one needs to have a clear mind to be able to distinguish between the two. Likewise, the difference between blessing and curse and between good and evil is sometimes very narrow and even the slightest amount of alcohol might dull our ability to tell the difference. Thus, one need only have the smallest amount to drink before one has fulfilled Rava’s teaching.

Then there are those who say that there was a long piyyut, a religious poem, from Rava’s time for which the chorus of each verse was either “arur Haman” or “baruch Mordecai” and that one needed to be very clear thinking in order to say the verses correctly. Thus, once you started garbling this rather complicated song, you stopped drinking.

But, of all of the answers my favorite is that which says that the text in the Talmud doesn’t have to be read: “one gets drunk on Purim” but “one gets drunk with Purim”. The letter bet in Hebrew can mean either on or in or it can mean by means of. So, some say Rava’s tradition is that we need to become intoxicated with the joy of Purim until we lose sight of the difference between Haman and Mordecai.

I like that interpretation the best because while it doesn’t eliminate the idea that one would choose to celebrate Purim with feasting, which is entirely appropriate, it stresses that it is the holiday itself which should be the focus not the eating and drinking. And, it also reminds us that on occasion any celebration can get out of hand. The moment that we lose sight of right and wrong, the celebration should stop. That is true whether we are talking about losing sight of the messages of the holiday or when Purim’s playfulness and mockery begins to hurt people. We need to celebrate but we need to never lose sight of the difference between good and bad and right and wrong.

One way to remind ourselves of that is to observe the fourth of the four mitzvot of Purim. We need to hear the Megilla being read, celebrate, give gifts to friends (shalach manot) and to make sure to engage in an act of charity (matanot lievyonim). That final mitzvah is mentioned in the Megilla. Mordecai tells the Jews of Shushan to celebrate the first Purim by giving gifts to friends while when he speaks of future Purim celebrations, he makes sure to add that they should give tzedakah as well. Perhaps that first Purim celebration was just a bit too self-indulgent and Mordecai wanted to make sure that for future years, Jews would keep in mind that our celebrations need to be moderated and one way to do so would be to give charity to make sure there was good that come from our celebration. 

Enjoy this happy month of Adar and enjoy a happy, meaningful and safe Purim!

I often joke with people that I love contemporary music but that, for me, contemporary music means any music which dates from approximately 1967-1980. It’s not to say that I don’t appreciate the music of today or the last few years but I will confess that those voices I listen to and  find myself most connected to are the ones I grew up with, listened to and loved as a teenager and a college and graduate student.

So many here and throughout the world are mourning the death of Whitney Houston whose talent was so great and who was a favorite of so many.

I would not profess to be as familiar with her as perhaps I should have been had I not been living in the past musically but in listening to the retrospectives and hearing her marvelous voice, I understand how she touched the hearts and souls of people throughout the world. I also understand how deeply she will be missed by those who loved her performance and her talent.

But, without meaning any disrespect to her memory, Whitney Houston’s death and the reaction to it among her fans reminded me of a moment 30 years ago when a tragic accident took the life of my favorite singer, Harry Chapin. I can remember the moment I heard of his death like it was yesterday and when I go back to listen to his music, I still find myself thinking what might have been.

Harry Chapin was a storyteller and a singer who touched the hearts of so many. His ballads were stories of real people, often stories of their disappointment and sadness. But, he also sang of dreams and of hopes not only for individuals but for the world. And, in addition to singing, he was part of the great tradition of activist musicians as he was a tireless worker for humanitarian causes, particularly for causes fighting world hunger.

If you never heard of Harry Chapin or if you only have heard a song or two of his, you owe it to yourself to go to the internet and find video of his performances. I saw him at Brandeis in 1976 and remember among other things, his determination to stay after the concert and sign autographs and shake hands with anyone who wanted to meet him. It was an inspiring evening and inspired me not only to continue to follow his career but to tell my stories from the bima and in print. We all have our songs to sing, our stories to tell.

I want to end this posting with a quote from Harry Chapin and it is difficult to choose which one to use. There are so many songs that touch me so deeply: Mr. Tanner, the story of a man who tried a musical career at the urging of friends only to be humiliated in the reviews; Stranger with the Melodies which tells the story of a singer who broke up with his lyric writing partner and was left with only the melody and no words; There Only Was One Choice, a long rambling autobiographical song which ends with the conviction that we are fortunate if we find a role in life that we seemed to destined to play even if it is frustrating at times and Mail Order Annie, a love song from a North Dakota farmer who meets his “mail order wife” and promises to share his life with her.

But, I’ll choose one which I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately. It comes from a song called  I Miss America in which Chapin lamented the fact that people weren’t dreaming of a better world as much as they used to. He concluded his song with these words:

Well my little boy he told me something just the other night

He whispered it as I kissed him before I turned out the light

And of course he said it simply as only children can

He said: “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy please… I’m ready to dream again”.

Lately, I’ve been listening more and more to Chapin’s music. I find that I need d the inspiration it provides to continue to believe that this world can be a better place and that it is worth it for us to spend our time dreaming and working for better times.  We can never give up dreaming and working for the better world that the singers and the poets have helped us envision.

May the memory of all of those whose voices have been lost be for a blessing.

I’ll start right off by saying I don’t particularly like the name because this isn’t about me or my colleagues. It is about others, people whose experience in life is so different from mine  and who live in a place so different from Ann Arbor. But, we all have a role in this issue and I am proud to play my role even if it means being called a Tomato Rabbi.

I was part of a  group of Rabbis from across the country who spent the last two days in the town of Immokalee, Florida- not the part of Florida many of us have vacationed in but a dusty town in the middle of Florida’s tomato growing region. We came there as the second group of Rabbis brought by T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call For Human Rights to learn about the plight of workers in the tomato fields whose working conditions have been the subject of much attention over the past several years.For many years,clergy have made a similar trip and I am proud to work with T’ruah as part of a bigger picture.

Immokalee attracted the attention of many because of several well publicized, horrendous cases of slavery which took place in recent years. Workers were chained, kept locked in boxcars overnight, charged exorbitant fees for basic necessities and then forced to remain working for the same bosses in order to pay off debt which they never could succeed in doing. The living conditions were barbaric and their treatment an absolute disgrace in any country, let alone this country of freedom. As Jews who remember slavery each Pesach, who know the “soul” of the slave, we are obligated to raise our voices and do whatever we can to see that these types of crimes never take place again in this country- or anywhere.

But, there is more to the story. For even those that are not chained and who receive a paycheck, our faith’s ethical demands for justice and fairness and human dignity compel us to speak out even if the word “slavery” may not be the precisely correct word.

We spent two days talking with farmworkers and with members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an organization which is fighting for those who work in the fields. We saw the destitute conditions many of these workers live in. We heard the stories of the hard, backbreaking work and stood in the parking lot in the middle of the town at 6 a.m. as workers boarded old school buses to take them out to the fields.

And, we learned of the efforts that are starting to make real changes in the lives of the workers because of the dedication of the leaders of the coalition and volunteers who have come to their aid. What has transpired in the past 16 months is remarkable. In October of 2010, one large farm: Pacific Tomato Growers was the first to join with the CIW to adopt a “fair food” agreement which mandated changes in the way that farm work was done. They were joined one month later many others and now 90% of the tomato growers are part of this agreement.

In addition to mandating better working conditions for the pickers including guaranteeing them minimum wage even if they do “piece work” and other important changes, the agreement raises the price paid by corporations for the tomatoes one cent a pound with that one cent passed along to the pickers. Now, a 32 pound bucket of tomatoes earns the picker 82 cents instead of 50 cents, still a low wage but an improvement.

We had the honor of having a tu bishvat seder with Jon Esformes, the owner of Pacific Tomato Growers, members of his staff and members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. He spoke of “doing the right thing” and that is what this is really about. And it is what it is all about for many of the large corporations which have agreed to the one cent increase and to buy only from those farms which are part of the agreement. McDonalds, Taco Bell, Subway, Whole Foods and many more (you can see the whole list at ciw-online.org)  have “done the right thing”. ‘

The one major fast food company that has not joined the Fast Food Agreement is Wendy’s. Wendy’s has consistently refused to be part of this effort and now buys their tomatoes from Mexico where workers are treated even more poorly than they were in Immokalee before the agreement took effect.

I am proud to have participated in this trip but I am such a newcomer at this- I had never been to Immokalee before this week and hadn’t heard of the whole struggle until a few months ago. Yasher Koach to all who have worked so hard for so long as another milestone is reached.

I was deeply moved not only by the sadness of the difficulties faced by these workers but also by the optimism, the progress, the glimpses of “redemption” that these two days offered. The issue is difficult, with many different angles but the most important one is that, as Jews, we are obligated to care for those who work for us. While we are not their “bosses”, we are the ones who reap the benefits of the picking that is done in Florida and we are responsible for doing what we can to improve the situation.

I will speak on this issue at Beth Israel during a Shabbat morning to come and we will plan a program to discuss this issue in more depth. Thanks to the miracle of modern communication, I’m writing this message on a bumpy flight home from Florida. In a world, in a country, where such “progress” is taken for granted, we can never take for granted those who work for us, those who put food on our tables.

To those in Immokalee, both the brave workers and the owners working with them- hazak v’ematz- be strong and courageous.  May we all “do the right thing”.

I can’t resist this one this morning. Let me tell you about a teacher of mine. When I was in Hebrew School, our Junior Congregation leader was a man named Harry Kraft z”L. Mr. Kraft was a tall, imposing man (although I suppose everyone looks tall at that age). He stood above us pointing out the words on the page with a gentle firmness which I can still remember as if it was yesterday. He taught us melodies that I still know and still use.

I never knew my grandfathers and Mr. Kraft was as close as I came to that at that age. He was so patient with all of us but could get us all singing with spirit and with meaning. I have never forgotten his songs, his manner and his presence.

And when his son, Robert Kraft, accepted the AFC championship trophy yesterday and pointed up to the heavens to remember his dear wife, Myra, who died last year, I thought of her legacy of philanthropy and dedication and I thought, immediately of Mr. Kraft’s love of teaching and learning.

I’m glad my Patriots are back in the Super Bowl for a lot of reasons that you probably can figure out- but one additional reason is  that it gives me a chance to remember Harry Kraft Z’L and thank him again for all he taught me.

Go Patriots!

So, in the previous two postings, I told most of the story. Of course, we should have looked at the Yad Vashem Archives of Holocaust victims. We would have found Shael’s name there had we known he had moved to Preili. We would have found Haim’s name there (he apparently moved back to Daugavpils) but we didn’t know his name. So, we might not have located the information. But, now with more specific names and places, we found the family members listed on the Yad Vashem site.

One of those records belongs to my second cousin, Sora, with her married name. But her entry in the database was different from many others because it included the “testimony statement” submitted to document her death. It was filled out in Hebrew by a man who said he was a “ben-ir”, a person from the same town. It documented the date of her death and was signed and dated April 18, 2010 (that would have been my father’s 89th birthday). The form listed the name and address of the man in Israel.

I went to the Internet and found that Israel telephone information had a record of a man by that name living in his city but at a different address. Still, there was a phone number and after a few days of hesitation, I decided to call. I hoped for an answering machine. I didn’t trust my Hebrew in an emotional conversation but a man answered and I asked: “Was he the one who submitted the form for Sora?’ He said, yes, he lived in Preili and knew her. He asked me why I wanted to know. I said, using the Russian pronunciation, that my name was Dobrusin. He said; That was her name before she was married. I told him that her father was my grandfather’s brother. I asked him if knew him and he said words I will never forget.

He said; “Shael Dobrusin was the Gabbai (the assistant to the Rabbi) in the old synagogue in Preili”. I literally felt my knees shaking. It wasn’t so much that he said he was the Gabbai. It was that he said his name. Here was a man in Israel telling me he knew my great uncle and called him by his name. I was stunned, at the same time so happy that his name was known, so sad at all that we had learned.

And the mystery continues… my grandfather had listed his place of birth on his naturalization papers as Sumach, Russia. We can’t find any record of that place but the Latvian records said that my great grandfather was born in a place called Shumyachi quite a distance away from Latvia, near the Ukraine. One website I consulted says that one of the alternate spellings for Shumyachi is Sumcahi. Could this be what Julius was referring to? If so, it is not clear why he would have misrepresented his birthplace (the records say he was born in D’vinsk) but that made me wonder. So, I went back to the records of Yad Vashem and saw that there are many Dobrusins listed as having been killed in the holocaust, many from Shumyachi.

There are many Dobrusins in this country that I have met or been in contact with over email and none are related to us closely. Most of them claim they are from the Ukraine. And so, I wonder, and will continue to investigate, if they came from near Shumyachi, they might be family members Itzik left behind when he came to D’vinsk. More distant cousins. More of the family.

This has been a fascinating 2 weeks as we have been piecing together material about my father’s family (and my mother’s as well, see previous posting). It was fortuitous that I was given the name of the woman in Latvia to help. But, I have to clearly say that my cousins (both 1st and 2nd) and my uncle and my father had laid the foundation for all of this information. They worked tirelessly on this investigation for years. I’m glad we are able to come up with some answers.

May their  memory be for a blessing.

The picture of my grandfather’s family was sent to me by another one of my 2nd cousins. We had never seen this picture as my grandfather didn’t keep any family photos. My cousin had, like my father and my uncles, undertaken some serious work to find more information about the family. She knew the names of the other children. That’s Rebecca, the youngest on the far left and Shael, the oldest sitting next to his wife and holding their children. Their names were not known to us and neither was their fate.

Julius, my grandfather, had traveled to Latvia in 1931 on a trip that he took to Europe and Palestine. My father remembered that Julius met his brother Shael and his family and we also had heard that Rebecca had died although the circumstances of her death were a matter of question. But, all other genealogical research seemed to reach a dead end. Specific details were known in some cases but there was so much that we didn’t know and couldn’t find out.

Just as the discovery of my second cousins started with a coincidence (if you believe in coincidences…) as my friend found her husband’s picture, this part of the story also starts with a chance discovery. Every few months, I would do an internet search on Daugavpils Jewish community sometimes throwing in the name Dobrusin to see if we could get more details of life in that town. This time, though, I saw a story about the rebuilding of a synagogue in Daugavpils and the story mentioned a name I knew well. One of the people involved in that project was a friend who used to live in Ann Arbor whose father was born in Daugavpils. I called him and we talked for a while about what he knew about the city and then I told him of our genealogical quest. He gave me the name and email of a researcher that he had been working with in the Latvian state archives. He told me she might be able to help.

Sure enough, she responded with a willingness to search the archives and for a small fee (try wiring money from Michigan to Latvia- it’s not so easy), the search began.

A few weeks later, I received an email from her asking me if I knew the name Schewel Dobrusin who was living in the area in the 30s. I assumed Shael and Schewel were the same person and she told me that she had some information for us which would be coming in the mail.

On a Shabbat morning, when I was on vacation and happened to be home, the mailman rang the bell and told me he had a registered letter for me from Latvia. I took the envelope and took several deep breaths, holding onto it, knowing that it was possible that it contained answers to questions which had plagued our family for decades. I thought about my father and my uncle and how they might have reacted to what was inside.

I opened it and our family history was all there. My great grandparents Itzik and Hilta, their five children, Schewel (Shael), Jewel (Julius), Laizer(Louie), Hannah (Annie) and Rivka (Rebecca). Birthdates, address in Daugavpils, occupation- all of it was there.

What was most important was that the records indicated that Shael and his family had moved to another town, Preili, with his wife, Luba and their three children Haim, Sora and Moisey.

The little boy in the picture on his father’s knee is Haim, my father’s first cousin. My father’s name was also Haim and presumably they were both named for Hilta’s father whose name is recorded in the archival material. The little baby is Sora. Moisey was not born yet and, sadly, there is no more information about him.

But, Haim grew up to marry Maria and they had a child Joseph, my second cousin.

Sora, grew to marry a man name Avram Ya’akov and they had a daughter Luba, named I assume for her grandmother, Shael’s wife who had died in the early 30s.

Then, the piece to the story which was inevitable. Schewel, his children and his grandchildren all were killed in mass exterminations by the Nazis in Preili in the summer of 1941.

That statement I had always made: “We don’t have any close family we know of who died in the Holocaust” is now obviously untrue. Truth is, we knew all along that it was likely that any family members who survived to the late 30s probably did not survive the Holocaust but without names, without proof, it was not real. Now it is. And now, while Yom Hashoa, Holocaust Memorial Day, was always a sad day, now it is sad in a personal sense. I do not know how  I will feel. But, I will light yahrzeit candles not for the Holocaust victims as a whole but for Shael, Haim, Maria, Joseph, Sora, Avram Ya’akov, Luba and for her two younger siblings whose names are not known as they were born after the census of 1935 but who are recorded as having been killed on that horrible day in 1941 in Preili.

I had plans to go to Israel on a study program this summer. Those plans, I think, have been put on hold. I want to go to Daugavpils and Preili. There are no Dobrusins to meet and one would assume no evidence of their having lived there. But, I want to stand where they stood, mourn their loss and let them and everyone know they are not forgotten. There is one more piece to the story which I’ll save for part 3.

This is  a picture of my great grandparents, their children and grandchildren taken in D’vinsk, now Daugavpils, Latvia around the year 1900. My grandfather Julius is in the back row on the right. He stands next to his sister Annie and his brother Louis. These three siblings came to America. The others remained. Before I tell any more of this story, I must remember and say a prayer of thanks:  had they not come to this country, there would be no one to tell the tale.

My grandfather was a carpenter who became a building contractor. He was a hard working and extremely intelligent man. He was thoroughly steeped in the Jewish tradition but clearly was a “rebel” in the finest sense of the word. He rejected religious tradition, held onto his identity as a Jew, studied Yiddish, was active in the Arbiter Ring, the “Workmen’s Circle” and when we would ask my father what his father would have said if he knew that two of his grandsons were Rabbis, my father would say; “He would have argued with you like crazy and would have loved it”. My grandfather Julius died when my father was a teenager. He never knew his grandchildren.

The stories we hear of Julius are, quite frankly, not the most positive. Julius had a temper, did not have a very loving relationship to say the least with my grandmother and somewhere along the line was directly or indirectly responsible for a rift in the family. We never knew his sister Annie’s family. We only knew her name.

A few years ago, I heard from an old friend from college. We hadn’t been in contact in years and I was surprised to suddenly hear her name. She called with an interesting story. She was looking through her husband’s old family photos when she came upon one which had a name on the back. It was a picture of a young woman and written on the back: Annie Dobrusin. She asked her husband and he said that he understood that that was his grandmother’s maiden name. She knew that Annie was from Boston and so she called to ask if she was related to me. I told her what I knew to be her married name and she confirmed. This Annie, her husband’s grandmother, was in fact my grandfather Julius’ sister. Her husband and I were second cousins.

That began a long and wonderful story of a group of 1st and 2nd cousins meeting over email, telling family stories, trying to unravel family legend. And, on an unforgettable Jerusalem evening in June, 2007, I walked into the Little Italy Restaurant on Keren Hayesod Street in Jerusalem with my son Avi to meet one of my 2nd cousins in person for the first time. She recognized us the minute we walked in the room: “I would know a Dobrusin anywhere” and we sat and talked and laughed and theorized about the rift that had kept us all apart.

Two years later, I was back in Israel and this time my visit coincided with the visit of two other 2nd cousins including the one whose picture started it all. We have a beautiful picture of the four of us which hangs in my office.

In Jerusalem, two generations later, the descendants of Julius and Annie sat and smiled and hugged, something the grandparents could never have imagined. It’s a wonderful story but it is only the beginning.

Pirke Avot tells us to know from where we came and while the intended meaning of the text was likely more spiritual in nature, I find great meaning in this statement in a different direction. To whatever extent we can, we are obligated to know our own personal history through familiarity with our family lineage and the stories that go along with it.

This past week has been an extraordinary week for me and my family as we have discovered over the past week some very significant information concerning both sides of our family. The story of the discovery in our father’s family is long, detailed and dramatic and I will cover it in future postings as I am still trying to put all the pieces together.  But in this posting, let me tell the story a new discovery we have made in my mother’s family which is extraordinarily significant to me.

My mother used to tell my brother and me that we should be proud that we are 5th generation Americans on one side of the family (her father’s father’s family). But, we were never able to confirm that because she had no idea which of her great grandparents had, in fact, lived here. She only knew that he or she was buried somewhere near Worcester, MA. But, she would tell us the story with pride.

In 2002, my mother left Boston for what turned out to be the last time and came to live near us in Ann Arbor. On the last day we were in Boston, my brother and I went to all the cemeteries to visit the graves of her parents and grandparents in various cemeteries around Massachusetts and New Hampshire. While we were standing at the graves of my great grandparents, Morris and Annie, she told us again about the mystery ancestor buried near Worcester.

Last Sunday, after all the information about my father’s family became clear, my son went to a Jewish genealogical website to see if he could find any other details of the new information we had received. He didn’t find any other information on the Dobrusins but sure enough, he found someone who was trying to find out what several family names, including Dobrusin, was doing in the records of her family’s “association” of the 1950’s. I knew exactly what they were doing there because all of the names were names of my grandfather’s married sisters or daughters and since he had 10 siblings, there were quite a few. I also knew the name of her husband’s family because I had heard that name many times when I was young but I didn’t know how the families were related.

It took a bit of investigation and some back and forth emails but we finally figured it out when we realized that the one fact which we had known but others hadn’t was that my great grandfather Morris had changed his last name. At that point, we all realized that the connection of the families was that Morris’s sister had married into the other family.

So, now it was clear that the husband of the woman who had contacted the website was in fact, my 3rd cousin. That’s nice to know. But, what was more important to me was the fact that she told me that in fact, Morris and his sister Jenny’s mother, Rasha, was buried in a cemetery outside of Worcester, MA. Rasha was my great-great grandmother and that was the person my mother had always told us about without knowing the details.

On my next trip to Boston, I plan to visit my great great grandmother’s grave and for a 56 year old American Jew of East European descent, that is certainly unusual. And, for my brother, who is a grandfather, to bring his granddaughter to the grave of her great-great-great-great grandmother would be truly astounding.

So, that’s the story. A changed name, a distant cousin and a family gravesite. All of this has helped me to understand more about where I came from and the next part of the story, concerning my father’s family is still to come.

Many years ago, I was teaching a class about Shabbat when I asked them what would happen if, for whatever reason, the government decided to skip one of the days  or add an extra day in a given week. What would happen to Shabbat that week? Would we observe it in accordance with the calendar, on the day that was called Saturday regardless of how many days it had been since the last Shabbat? Or, would we still observe Shabbat 7 days after the previous Shabbat even if it came out on Friday or Sunday? We had an interesting discussion about the entire issue. Is Shabbat a calendar issue or is it a reflection of the divine commandment to rest every 7 days.

The issue was always theoretical- until today. This morning, as has been widely reported, residents of the island of Samoa are waking up to Saturday after going to sleep on Thursday as the government in principle moved the island to the other side of the international date line in order to have a similar calendar as Asia.

When I read this in the paper this morning, my mind immediately flashed back to that discussion in the classroom many years before. What on earth do we do?

Before I say anything else, I must point out that several authorities have been dealing with this issue not only as a result of Samoa’s decision but in regards to the International Date Line in general which some see as arbitrary. Some authorities have said that there needs to always be a 48 hour observance of Shabbat in  areas near the date line acknowledging the uncertainty of the calendar. You can do an internet search on this question and find many different halachic rulings on the issue.

But, assuming one doesn’t want to observe 48 hours of Shabbat every week, the choice between a humanly ordained calendar vs. the divine act of creation is a fascinating and complex choice to have to make. On the one hand, one could say that Shabbat is observed every 7 days and therefore Jewish residents of Samoa would observe Shabbat this week on Sunday (and of course every week thereafter). On the other hand, Jews have observed Shabbat on Saturday for however long it has been since the days of a week have been identified in this way and to do otherwise would cause confusion and the upsetting of long standing tradition.

There is a beautiful midrash in which the angels come to God and say: When is Yom HaDin (Rosh Hashana, the day of judgment)? God says: let’s ask the human beings, when they decide it is Yom HaDin, we’ll be there to judge. This is a reflection of the fact that God gave the calendar to human beings and the holidays are very much subject to human decisions relating to uncertainty about the timing of the New Moon or, in some case, relating to convenience (Yom Kippur can’t fall on Friday etc.) But, this did not reflect a teaching about Shabbat which was considered ordained as part of the cycle of creation from the beginning and, of course, the human beings who would set the calendar in the view of this midrash were prophets or Rabbis, leaders in the Jewish community, not in the secular world.

So, what to do? Should Jews in Samoa go along with the rest of the Samoans and observe Shabbat a day early or should they resign themselves to observing Shabbat on Sunday forever?And what would that do to distinctions between Jews and Christians- or if a day was added to the calendar and Shabbat fall on Friday, between Jews and Moslems- would we welcome that uniformity or would we reject it as a compromise of our well established differences?

My opinion? It would be far better to make a change in one week than to be out of step forever with the Jewish world and our teachings. Were I a Rabbi in Samoa, I would make the decision to observe two days of Shabbat this week: Saturday (which is really erev Shabbat) and Sunday (which is the 7th day) but for the sake of uniformity and tradition, I would argue that the following week, Shabbat should be observed on Saturday and continue to be observed that way from generation to generation. Somehow, I think God would understand. I hope so anyway.

 

Shabbat Shalom.

My paternal grandfather, Julius Dobrusin came from the city of D’vinsk, now Daugavpils, in Latvia. We don’t know his whole story.  We know that he was a member of the Workmen’s Circle, anti-religious, socialist and, according to a book our family has, he was an “Agitator”. He also, was, to say the least, not an ideal father or husband. In addition, at some point, something he did or didn’t do seemed to have caused a rift in the extended family. He died when my father was a teenager and now that all of his three sons have died, he remains to us a mystery.

My brother, some of my cousins and I are fascinated by his story and we have been trying desperately over the years to find some more about the family history. One day a couple of months ago, I did a google search on the Daugavpils Jewish Community looking for nothing in particular when I found, amazingly enough, that a good friend had been involved with that community since his ancestors also were from there. I contacted my friend and, through him, found the Latvian State Archives. A few emails and a wire transfer for a nominal fee and they have set out to find what they can about our family.

Today, I received an email back from the researcher in Latvia who told me that they were sending material by mail to me on the family, all the “available records”. I don’t know whether we will find anything new that we didn’t know before or that there will be any insight at all into the man or the family but I can’t wait to find out.

As I wait, I think back to one aspect of the story which needs to be told. As I mentioned, there was a rift in the family and the grandchildren of Julius Dobrusin and the grandchildren of his sister Annie, never knew each other. A few years back, I received an  call from a woman I knew at Brandeis when I was a student there in the 1970’s. I couldn’t imagine why she was calling although it was good to hear from her. It turns out that when looking through some of her husband’s old family photos, she had seen the name Annie Dobrusin on the back of a picture of his grandmother. She wanted to know if I was related to her.  The only thing I knew about my great was that her name was Annie and after a moment or two, we realized that this was her and that my friend’s husband was, in fact, my 2nd cousin.

In an email exchange a bit later, I found out that another 2nd cousin lived in Israel and when I was in Jerusalem in 2007, we arranged to meet for dinner. My son and I walked into the restaurant at the planned time and a woman came towards us saying she would have spotted me as a Dobrusin anywhere. We had a wonderful time and 2 years later, when I was back in Israel, my visit coincided with a visit from my friend’s husband and his brother and we met and talked over old times that we only knew a bit about. Perhaps, some news from Latvia will tell us more of our story. But, whether it does or doesn’t, at least the rift has been ended- we, the grandchildren of Julius and Annie have found each other- and, eaten a meal together in peace- in Jerusalem no less.

I’ll keep you posted.