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Anne Frank message
Seeing the Divine Plan in my Jewish Plan and that
of other Jews in my generation.
Date: 12/6/2006 12:08:08 PM ( 18 y ) ... viewed 1260 times 9:45 AM
December 6, 06
Had a very successful class last Sunday at
the Day of Jewish Learning with Rabbi Wayne Dosick
and six other teachers.
Sent in a proposal to teach at the International
Kallah of Jewish Renewal last Friday. Just made
the deadline. Spirit told me to call into the ALEPH
office (Alliance for Jewish Renewal) that day.
I am going to put up some Jewish Teachings
here on the Blog.
This is from my book called
"Psalms for Anne"
written in 1995.
It was written on March 21.
That was also the day that my mother died
in 1960. I was 12. Her name was also Ann.
Leslie
___
1. "It is of little worth
what I offer you.
Pluck roses on earth,
and forget me not."
--Anne Frank, 10-years-old
writing in the autography book of
Henny de Bie-Scheerder, her classmate,
March 4, 1940.
On exhibit in the Foyer of Museum
of Tolerance, Los Angeles
March 21, 1995
Dear Anne,
I begin writing to you near the firswt day of Spring 1995. Purim,
the holiday in our Jewish traditiion where we wear masks, is over.
Now Passover approaches with it's universal symbols of questions,
and answers. Now begins the season where our bread contains no leavening.
We, as well, get down to essentials. We do our best to make passage
out of our personal Eqypts.
Forgive me for forgetting you. I feel very sad that it has taken
me so long to be in touch. This morning, for the first time, I saw
the note you wrote in your friend's authograph book. It is on display
near the admission counter of the Simon Weisenthal Museum of Tolerance
in Los Angeles. I didn't have it in me to walk through the whole museum.
I could not contain my unspeakable pain, nor was I ready to understand it fully.
Alan Hier, the manager of the Gift Shop, accepted one dozen of my Passover
Horseradish cards on consignment. Something deep from the past and future came
together in that instand in a silent tear drop. Nearing home, 100 miles
away, my tear was embraced b rain that had fallen the entire day, watering
fragrant roses emerging from winter in my home garden. From this day forward,
I will name my rose garden Anne's rose garden.
The message inside the Passover card reads--"May you find beauty, even in
bitter herbs." How, Anne, this Holy Season, can I, can we all, turn the
bitter experience that happened to you and so many others into something
beautiful? How can we make this Passover this Spring the time of our whole
lives?
Anne, I have good news that sounds bittersweet. May I share some of my
story with you? A lot of our Jewish brothers and sisters died in the Holocaus,
for for some of our parents, the Holocaust never ended in 1945. It kept going.
They passed the Holocaust on to us--through the way they demanded we be Jews.
They had no idea how to love us into being Jews.
Maybe it was the fear of losing one more Jewish child that caused many parents
and teachers to be unavailable and restrictive. Maybe it was their own unspoken
pain that made them appear angry. They brought us commandments. Something
in the joyful deliverance was missing. I was propelled, as many others of
my generation born around 1947, to not deepen love toward Judaism, but run
out the door for dear life. I avoided my Jewish experience, as if it were
one of the Passover plagues.
Faced with a breakdown in my own family, I learned to receive love from
people in other races, creeds, and colors, I learned to see god through
other eyes. I found an oasis of healing experiences. I fully embraced all
these experiences that strengthened me; yet a time came when I no longer felt
fulfilled. Friday nights at Sunset, I did not know where I belonged. I came
home to make peace with my roots.
This is a time when some of our most freedom-loving Jews are returning as
spiritual adults, capable of deep appreciation for Judaism, and all God's
people! We come home to renew compassionate Judaism. We bring visions of a
peaceful earth that we as Jews can contribute to our own people and to earth-
loving communities.
Who cannot say this was not God's ordered plan for many in my generation,
the generation that comes, Anne, right after yours?
In friendship,
Leslie
© 1995, Leslie Goldman, permission to use
O.K., just atribute from
"Psalms for Anne," by Leslie Goldman
Family Tree,
http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=92&i=2058
Article in the Jewish Journal
on Leslie, 2004:
http://www.sdjewishjournal.com/stories/feb04_3.html
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