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.

This past Shabbat at Beth Israel, we had the second of two planned programs we called Brunch and Learn. Instead of gathering for a kiddush lunch after the service ended, we took a break in the middle for some Torah study and a kiddush brunch which was followed by a Musaf service. In many ways, Shabbat is all about routine but I think it does us good every once in a while to vary that routine and perhaps discover a new way to enjoy Shabbat.

Our Torah study this week was a continuation of our series on Jewish Perspectives on Health and focused on the subject of sleep in Jewish tradition. Traditional texts address just about every subject imaginable and sleep is no exception.

There is a tension in Rabbinic texts concerning sleep. On the one hand, sleep is considered to be a waste of precious time to study Torah or to observe mitzvot. It is considered to be a sign of the difference between ourselves and God- according to one midrash, the angels were able to differentiate Adam from God only when God put Adam into a deep sleep- and thus could be viewed as a sign of weakness.

And yet, the Rabbis also recognized the critical role adequate sleep plays in our lives. It is interesting to me that actions which are prohibited on Yom Kippur are actions which focus on our human needs. We try to be “angels” on that day, turning away from our drives to eat and drink, engage in sexual activity and our attention to our physical bodies. And yet, there is no prohibition on sleep. I believe this reflects our Rabbis’ understanding that while it is possible to think seriously while being hungry or thirsty, one couldn’t engage in serious teshuva, serious repentance and prayer without being sufficiently awake and alert.

So, there are texts which praise sleep as providing the rejuvenation necessary to do our best as human beings. The Talmud records that people were discouraged from taking a vow to stay awake and Maimonides indicates that sleeping 8 hours a night is sufficient. He doesn’t discourage people from getting that amount of sleep which many say is the appropriate amount for an adult.

Sleep is a precious commodity in our lives today. So many of us find ourselves struggling to get adequate sleep and keeping long hours is only one of the issues. I know that for many, this is a serious medical issue and one which should be referred to a physician. But, for others, it seems to be a matter of choice. With so much emphasis on being “connected” today, it seems increasingly difficult to allow ourselves the luxury of being out of touch for 8 hours a night. And yet, we need, all of us, to try harder. We know how dangerous lack of adequate sleep can be. Perhaps, to go back to the midrash I referred to earlier, we should  admit that we are not all powerful- that we are not God- and that the world will survive well enough without us as we get a good night’s sleep. In fact, the world will be better off as we will be more equipped not only to study Torah but also to engage in the acts of Tikkun Olam if we can keep our eyes open during the day.

Yesterday, we read the Parashat Vayetze which contains the story of Jacob’s dream of a ladder rising up to the heavens with angels ascending and descending. There are many Rabbinic interpretations of the dream but my favorite among them is the tradition that what Jacob was witnessing was “the changing of the guard” as the angels which accompanied him inside the land of Canaan were going back up to the heavens and those who were going to be responsible for him outside the land were coming down to take their positions.

This is an important interpretation as it reflects the intention of the Torah to teach that God is a universal God and not tied to one particular area. Jacob needs to be shown, as he is on the border of Canaan about to go to Haran, that he will be protected by (and responsible to) God wherever he goes.

It strikes me as a bit troubling however that the angels are referred to as “olim v’yordim”, ascending and descending the ladder. I would have preferred the opposite, “descending and ascending”.  Usually when we think about a “changing of the guard”, we envision the new guard coming to replace the old guard with an overlap between them. Whatever it is that they are guarding is never left unprotected, even for a moment. Thus, if the angels were  “olim”, ascending, before the others were “yordim” descending, Jacob would have been left alone in the interim.

I promise you I haven’t lost sleep over this linguistic issue (pardon the pun) but it occurs to me as important because we do speak of overlapping angels in another place in our tradition. When we sing Shalom Aleichem on erev Shabbat, we are welcoming in the “Shabbat angels”. The last verse of the song is “tzaytzchem l’shaom”, go in peace. This is sung, according to many interpretations, to the weekday angels who are taking leave of us as the Shabbat angels take their positions. We don’t ask them to leave until the Shabbat angels are already in place.

Whether we take the idea of angels literally or not, the idea is beautiful: that Shabbat overlaps the weekdays, beginning before sundown and ending after sundown. There is an easing into Shabbat and an easing out of Shabbat as well.

But, it is interesting that we never say: “tzaytzchem l’shalom” to the Shabbat angels when Shabbat ends.

Shabbat is a day of ideals and dreams and a sense of holiness. We dream of a day when the world will be “kulo Shabbat” when all that we wish and all that we feel on Shabbat will be permanently a part of our redeemed world. The only way that that can happen is if we take the spirit of Shabbat and allow it to permeate the days of the week. Shabbat is when we dream. The weekdays are when we can put those dreams into action, making them a reality in the world.

We should seek to keep those angels around throughout the week, never allowing them to leave.

The call came last Wednesday afternoon. I was walking into the barber shop for a pre-Thanksgiving haircut when my cell phone rang. I looked at the phone and asked myself who would be calling from Washington DC. I went back on to the street and answered it to hear the caller identify himself as calling from National Public Radio: “I imagine you know why I’m calling”.

Yes, I imagine I did. After years of entering the “Sunday puzzle” contest on NPR, never expecting to be chosen to play the puzzle on the air,  I was the “randomly chosen entry” from the more than 900 puzzlers who had correctly answered this week’s challenge. More than 900 of us who were able to figure out that the food item “Mayo” could, when subjected to the proper rearranging of syllables lead to the expression: “Yo Mama” and the celebrity: “Yo Yo Ma”. I had come up with that answer within a minute or two after hearing the puzzle and had forgotten to submit my answer, remembering to do so only an hour before the deadline. And now, two hours  later, I was faced with the reality that I would have the opportunity to be heard by millions, many of whom I’m sure would be ready to pounce on any hesitation  screaming out: “Oh come on,what’s the matter with this guy? ” while another person in the house would say: “Give him a break, it’s harder when you’re on the air”. (I know that conversation very well, we go through it almost every Sunday in our house.) But, there was no escaping fate.

Imagine having two days to prepare for an exam but not having the slightest idea what the subject would be? Each puzzle is different so there was no preparation except getting lots of sleep (yeah sure), deciding  where to talk on the phone away from the animals and other distractions and calming myself by thinking that no one really cares about the puzzle anyway.

On Friday, at 2:45 p.m. the call came in and I found myself surprisingly calm having rehearsed my answers to what I imagined would be the first questions asked by the host. I mentioned my daughter as I had promised her I would and we dove into the puzzle which, thank God, turned out to be easier than I expected it would be. When they stopped taping, they thanked me, told me I did fine and I hung up and only then did I announce on my facebook page that I was going to be on the air on Sunday.

Right away, I realized that my assumption that no one cares was dead wrong. The reactions to the Facebook announcement started coming in immediately  and after the show aired, the fun really started. Two phone calls came in within 30 seconds of the end of the broadcast, one from an Ann Arbor friend, one from a friend in New Jersey who sounded like he had almost driven his car off the road when he heard my name mentioned. Then the emails started: a former camper from Camp Ramah who is now a Rabbi, a person whom I hadn’t been in contact with for almost 40 years since we lived in the same dorm at school, friends of my parents from Boston who sent me a note telling me how they bet my parents would have been proud of me (he would have been but he would also probably have corrected my grammar and my mother would have told me I should have spoken up louder), two other Rabbis who had previously been on the air welcoming to the small club of Rabbis that had achieved this distinction, a few dozen friends from Ann Arbor and, most surprisingly, people I had never met who found the synagogue website and wrote congratulating me and asking me what the secret was to getting picked. It really was a great day and even today, the emails are continuing to come.

All in all, it was a bit more than the 5 minutes of fame I expected and it truly was a lot of fun. I’ve been doing puzzles of all kinds since I was a kid and I do believe that as we get older, this idea of “mental calisthenics” becomes even more critical to keeping our minds sharp. I’ll keep playing the NPR puzzle but knowing that I won’t get picked again, I imagine I’ll be a little less motivated. But, the thrill of being on the air and the fact that it connected me with so many people really made this a special weekend.

I have to close with a puzzle: What is the next letter in this series: O T T F F S S E N _ ? Feel free to respond with your answers to my email address at rdobrusin@bethisrael-aa.org  I can’t offer you a lapel pin but it will keep you in good form if NPR calls.

There are holiday songs I look forward to singing each year: Ma’oz Tsur when lighting the Hanukkah candles, Adir Hu at the Seder. But, last night, a few weeks before Hanukkah and months before Pesach, I had my one chance to sing publicly one of my real favorites. It brings back such warm memories of childhood, inspires me with a beautiful melody and always leaves me on the verge of tears.

Last night, the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County held its 17th annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Celebration, an event I look forward to each year. This year’s program was marvelous as presenters shared songs from various religious traditions, readings from sacred scriptures and inspiring words and the gathered congregation joined in responsive readings and in two hymns. I like the 2nd one, Life is the Greatest Gift of All, but the first one is the one I look forward to year after year.

I learned it in elementary school back when, for better or worse, it was possible to sing a song with clear religious content. When I learned it, the song began: “We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing…” At our Interfaith Celebration, different words are used to allow for comfort for all: “We sing now together our song of Thanksgiving”. But, the melody is the same one I sang as a kid on the day before Thanksgiving and the thoughts move me so deeply: that this is a time to give thanks not only for what we have in our lives but for the vision and hope that “the prophets, the teachers, and dreamers, designers, creators and workers and seers” have provided for us. And, last night, in one small way, we were all and teachers and dreamers and seers and that song, and the others brought us together to commit ourselves to working together for a better community and a better world.

I’ve been involved in interfaith work since my first week in the Rabbinate and I continue to believe that it is important, holy work. I have learned so much and received so much inspiration from my colleagues of other faiths and I know they have gained greater respect for our faith through my involvement. But, it goes beyond that. These occasions provide an opportunity for all of us to stand together and work with each other to overcome the hatred and bigotry that, sadly, religious faith can  cultivate.

In the face of extremists of all faiths who bring violence and hatred to our world, I am proud to work with the Interfaith Round Table and I’m grateful that I have the opportunity to sing my favorite song with so many others of so many different faiths. It may sound a bit naive or perhaps a bit “corny” (I searched for a better word but couldn’t find it) but Thanksgiving strikes me as a “corny” holiday in many ways- and that’s why I love it so much.

Happy Thanksgiving and let us always sing together our song of thanksgiving.

The stories coming out Penn State University are horrible. They infuriate us and well they should. These alleged actions are unspeakably horrendous and the failure of so many individuals to step forward is inexcusable. Our focus should, as has been said, be on the victims and on committing ourselves without question to fulfilling the Torah’s command that “we not hide our eyes” from what we see especially when what we see is harming children. This was the general tenor of my sermon on the subject this past Shabbat and the sermon will be up on our website soon.

But, I found a piece  in the New York Times this morning thought-provoking and challenging. In his op-ed piece, David Brooks writes that it is not as easy as it seems that it should be for people to commit themselves to being better than the people we are condemning in this situation. Brooks asserts that there are many natural tendencies that result in people not acting on what they see. I don’t read his piece- http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/opinion/brooks-lets-all-feel-superior.html?ref=opinion- as justifying any of these tendencies or making excuses for them but merely stating that they exist and that this isn’t as simple as saying: “If I had seen it…”

I admire him for writing this essay. There is no way to justify the actions of those who didn’t stop or didn’t sufficiently report the alleged abuse. But, Brooks’ call for us not to feel so superior is a serious call to listen to. We all like to think that had we known, had we seen, we would have done what others didn’t. But, would we really have done so?

Occasionally, when I watch a tv show or a movie that I have seen many times before, I find myself switching the channel when something bad is about to happen, when there is an act of violence or a character I’ve grown to know is about to do something disappointing.  That’s cause for thought because sometimes  we do this in real life. Sometimes, we really don’t want to see.

I  believe without question that those who looked the other way at Penn State did not do their job as human beings and we need to stress that clearly and they deserve the strongest criticism.  But,  upon thinking a bit more, I do believe that opening our eyes and acting on what we see may be a harder job than we think sometimes. Still, that’s no excuse. We were created as human beings to do what needs to be done, no matter how difficult it may be.

I have always been fascinated by the concept of traveling in time even if I find it impossible to comprehend how such a thing might be possible. I love TV  shows (remember The Time Tunnel?), short stories and novels which are based on the idea of time travel and am fascinated by the way each author handles the ramifications of even the slightest change in history.

So, I couldn’t wait to buy the latest installment in time travel novels: 11/22;/63 by Stephen King. The book is about a man who travels back in time to try to stop the terrible event in Dallas, Texas on that day. The Kennedy assassination has always been a subject of great interest for me and I have dozens of books and videos concerning the horrible moment in our history. Add to that the fact that I love many of Stephen King’s books – usually the books which are less based on  “horror” such as The Green Mile- and I bought the book the minute it hit the shelves.

That was 2 days ago and I am already halfway through this 700 plus page book. King’s books can be quick reading but for the first time in many years, I found myself sitting at the kitchen table at 3:00 a.m. reading another chapter or two of a new book.

I won’t ruin the story for you but one of the ideas that keeps resurfacing in the book is that the past is stubborn and doesn’t want to be changed. On numerous occasions,  the time traveler finds obstacles which he interprets as being proof of this fact. He struggles to continue on with his quest despite this and while I don’t know yet if he succeeds (and I wouldn’t tell you if I did), it is fascinating that King presents the idea that the past wants to hold onto its place in our consciousness the way that it is, not the way that we want it to be.

As we read the Torah this week and especially when we read stories that are difficult- such as the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, the destruction of Sodom and Amora and the binding of Isaac- we often wish we could change the story so that it would be a bit more palatable. But, the past will not give itself up so easily. We can do midrash. We can interpret. We can question and challenge but we can’t travel back in time and change the stories. They are part of our past and we need to deal with them as they are.

And, what is true of the stories of our tradition is true of our lives as well. Unless and until someone figures out how to change the past- and I do not believe that they ever will nor should- we need to work with who we are and where we have been and work on changing the present and the future.

Shabbat Shalom.

Yesterday, I visited our son at college for the first time since we moved him in.  I’ll leave thoughts about the  emotional aspects of our  “reunion” for another time and instead write about one less personal part of the experience.

Our son had only one class during the day:  Introduction to Chemistry. I went with him expecting to enjoy the feeling of being in a college classroom again but not expecting to either understand or care about the material. I am interested in some scientific disciplines but chemistry is really not one of them and I really thought it would all escape me completely.

But, surprisingly, I found myself interested in the content of the lecture about the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of certain materials or compounds and actually followed the formulas and concepts.

At the end of the class, the professor demonstrated how water (in the form of steam which had been heated to a very high temperature) could actually light a match. When he succeeded in doing this, he let out a shriek of joy and satisfaction and  expressed a clear respect for the amazing property of this most basic of compounds, H2O.

That’s when I realized why I was so interested in the lecture. It was clear through the whole presentation that to this teacher, this was more than formulas, more than scientific principles, more than a particular discipline. He passed along a sense of wonder and excitement about the entire scientific enterprise. While I have no idea if he is a “religious” man,- and I really don’t care- he clearly looked at what he had taught as being miraculous and wondrous. I heard his  “Wow” at the end of the lecture as if he had said “Halleluyah” and meant it literally.

I sit on a committee of scientists and clergy which meets to talk about the intersection of science and faith. There are so many ways that that connection takes place. One way is when we, as spiritually minded individuals recognize the beauty of God’s creation and appreciate science as a reflection of God’s wisdom in creating the world. Another is when a scientist expresses wonder and awe when considering his or her work.  I’m so glad I sat in on that class.