The Zeitgeist

The 747 in My Sukkah;

Captain Sully at My Shabbat Table

(Note: This article appeared during the first week of November 2014 in The 5 Towns Jewish Times and deals with some very hyper-local NIMBY issues in my neighborhood)

When the rabbis who wrote the Talmud set forth all the intricate rules for the construction of a Sukkah, including how its roof is to be partially open to the sky, they knew about rain, wind and cold, but no had idea about jumbo jets screeching overhead.

If it’s raining, extremely windy or bitterly cold, we are in fact enjoined from eating in the Sukkah because we’d be uncomfortable. But what about deafening noise pollution? Would this detract from the performance of the mitzvah of Sukkah or provide a legitimate excuse for relocating indoors? If you can’t hear yourself (or anyone else) talk, if the heavy noise would cause headaches, make you irritable or even rattle your bones wouldn’t this be on a par with being rained on?

As fantastical as these questions may sound, over the past six weeks in many parts of the Five Towns, this has not been hypothetical or theoretical. Sections of our area have been bombarded with an aural blitzkrieg that at certain times of the day and evening make our neighborhood seem like it’s situated atop the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Since Rosh Hashanah the southern and western ends of the Five Towns have been under unremitting and unrelenting air “attack” at some of the most inconvenient hours. Planes have routinely been careening across our nighttime sky from 10:30pm to 12:30am. Naturally, these are the hours when most people are trying to go to sleep. This is seven days a week. The planes have been coming over about every 90 seconds or so without pause. If you went to the Woodmere Town Dock at the end of Woodmere Blvd, you’d have seen dozens of planes all lined up in their descent to JFK just a few hundred feet apart from one another. No end of people coming to New York.

The planes resume their auditory assault at about 5:45am running past 8:30. This is also every day. Who needs an alarm clock or 1010 WINS when you can know exactly when the midnight flight from Tel Aviv crosses over your house? It could be argued that the FAA is concerned that we make it to the 6:30 minyan or that the kids all catch their buses, but the time we arise in the morning ought to be our choice, one shouldn’t be jolted out of bed by the sound of jet engines while in a semi-somnolent state.

On the weekends, having a Shabbat shalom can be difficult to say the least because the planes have been coming over uninterruptedly day and night.  Saturday and Sunday afternoons have been a nonstop jet scream fest. Because on Saturdays most of us have no electronic media options to masque the noise, we have planes as our Shabbat companions. Again, I’m sure the FAA, in its own way is urging us to sing plenty of zmirot at the Shabbat lunch table to improve our ruchniut and drown out the cacophony. Plenty of food and alcoholic drink will be necessary for that Shabbat nap if your consciousness is to contend with the planes screeching overhead as well.

Because this time of year we’re not using air conditioning, there are fewer noise buffers. If you want to open your window, the noise gets louder and louder yet. Interestingly, it’s actually less noisy while in the plane or at the airport as the planes and terminals are girded with heavy noise insulation. Not so most of our homes.

The planes come in across Hewlett Bay, fly over the southern streets of Woodsburgh and then continue on over parts of Woodmere, Lawrence and Cedarhurst. Why the planes can’t fly over Reynolds Channel (or the Atlantic Ocean) and then make a right turn to the runway after bypassing the Five Towns, I have no idea. At La Guardia the planes take some sharp turns to make the runways, why can’t they at JFK?

Our villages don’t allow construction work or gardeners before 7;00am or after dark or on Sundays in most of our neighborhoods, why then is JFK permitted to send planes over about every 90 seconds late at night and before dawn day in and day out? This materially detracts from our quality of life.

We just had elections a few days ago A lot of our local elected officials were running for reelection. There were a slew of candidates looking to fill vacant seats in Congress, the Assembly and elsewhere. Yet air noise was not high on the agenda of folks on the ballot. It seems as though from candidates to residents, everyone has become resigned to the notion of living with intense levels of noise pollution, kind of like the way a lot of our ancestors in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries made their peace with pogroms by the Cossacks. Why all the candidates weren’t championing this key quality of life issue is mystifying. Why we weren’t pushing them (and our sitting officeholders) about it is ridiculous.

Equanimity in the face of a major diminution of our quality of life is no virtue. (Apologies to Barry Goldwater). One of the few elected officials not on the ballot last week has been just about the only one who has taken these complaints seriously and has actually tried to do something about it. I’m referring to Senior Town Councilman Tony Santino.  When alerted by yours truly to the deafening situation he got on the phone with the FAA and sent strong letters out to our US Senators and Congresswoman. Unfortunately, it’s resolved anything yet. According to one of Santino’s staff people: “It's a constant finger pointing game between the FAA -- who controls flight patterns and approach and landing routes (a federal matter under their jurisdiction)  and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who administers the number of aircraft slotted to takeoff and land from gates at JFK (LGA and other area airports as well).”

“In addition to Councilman Santino's continued work to pressure the FAA to alter their flight, departure and arrival patterns ensuring all communities surrounding the vicinity of the airport share the burden of the noise -- and as someone who was there[in the Five Towns] all weekend myself less than a mile and a half from your home, I can concur that this has happened -- it was plane after plane landing as I was at Rock Hall with friends and on Central Avenue yesterday. It's really ridiculous. I believe that when multiple governmental complaints are lodged, the FAA and Port Authority seem to take the concerns more seriously.”

Which brings me back to getting our officeholders and candidates on the horn to the PA and FAA on our behalf. Having our representatives stand up for Five Towns residents to the airport managers would be a direct, tangible benefit that would improve our daily lives.

Last week it was announced that after something like a ten year wait, the Feds finally approved the expenditure of millions of dollars to install noise meters in our area to gauge the decibel levels overhead which means they’ll let the planes continue their patterns so they can compile data for a tome-like study replete with myriad suggestions to mitigate the noise. It’s high probable that implementing those eventual suggestions will take as many years as it did to get the noise meters installed in the first place. The planes fly quickly overhead as the wheels of government grind ever so slowly.

Most of us pay a fortune in taxes to live the suburban dream here and we shouldn’t be victimized by our own government (in the form of the FAA and the Port Authority) by living under bone-crushing noise pollution. Noise pollution is just as bad as air pollution or toxic chemicals. We’d be appalled by the specter of either of the aforementioned forms of toxicity if they were directly upon us and so we should also be angry about crazy, uninterrupted deafening sound levels.

If you’re as upset about the air noise as I am and would like to be proactive, you can call the FAA’s manager at JFK. His name is Jerry Spampanato and his office number is 212-435-3640 and his mobile number is 718-244-4111 (found on the FAA noise complaint web page). You can also email the FAA’s Noise Ombudsman at

9-AWA-NoiseOmbudsman@faa.gov.

In Fiddler on the Roof someone asks the rabbi if there is a blessing for the Czar, and to paraphrase the rabbi’s answer, “may G-d bless and keep the planes far away from us,” so we can enjoy some of the peace and quiet most of us moved out of the City for in the first place.

The Zeitgeist

ISIS or ISIL head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He's no Romeo.

ISIS vs. ISIL. What’s in a Name?

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the Bard of Stratford posited and Juliet articulated “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Juliet, vexed by the danger of a relationship with Romeo by virtue of his family heritage but nevertheless in love with the boy is making the point that who someone is matters more than what that person is called.

On a far less romantic note, way more dangerous than Capulets or Montagues (or Sharks or Jets in the New York iteration) is the Middle Eastern terrorist group alternately known as ISIS or ISIL, against which President Obama has declared war upon.

Thirteen years ago when former President George W. Bush launched the War on Terror, we had no such confusion as to the moniker of our foe, we knew them as al-Qaeda. Today, depending on who you’re listening to, we could be up against two different enemies who are actually one and the same. No, our adversary doesn’t have a split personality disorder – they know quite clearly who they are and what they stand for. We are the ones sowing the confusion.

If you listen to the President, or to John Kerry or to Chuck Hagel or to various members of the defense establishment, we are committed to “degrade and destroy” a group named “ISIL,” which stands for the “Islamic State In the Levant.” However, when watching the news, seeing some members of congress, hearing pundits and talking heads, reading news sites and such we are told that we’re fighting a nefarious organization named “ISIS,” which is short for the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.”

Within any given newscast, we can see Administration spokespeople wax on about ISIL while the anchors, analysts and correspondents keep saying ISIS, sometimes directly to one another within the same conversation. How are we to agree on a long term strategy to eradicate this evil if we can’t agree on what to call them? A rose by any other name, indeed

I believe we should all agree on “ISIS” and push the Administration to change their tune. Here’s why:

● “ISIS” is easy to pronounce, like “Hamas.” It just sounds better. ISIS is a nemesis. “ISIL” always comes across as awkward; it causes the tongue to make an unnatural pause before saying the next word. ISIS makes for better looking headlines, with the final “S” more graphically attractive than looking at an “L.” If we’re to spend a lot of time over the next few years talking about this group, we should make it as pleasant a linguistic experience as possible.

● “ISIS” sounds like the name of some ominous and dastardly group, like “Kaos” from Get Smart. Would Agents 86 and 99 have made any headway against “Kaol?”  All evil and violent NGOs have cool names.

● “ISIL” on the other hand sounds like the last four letters of some cholesterol, diabetic or cardiac pharmaceutical – the kind that gets advertised all day on CNN, Fox and MSNBC. Is it ennobling to be up against a pill, even if most of these medications warn you of the danger of heart attack, stroke or death?

● The “L” in “ISIL” is for the “Levant,” an old-world word that stands for the Middle East, particularly for the area between the Mediterranean and Iran. Most Americans wouldn’t know where the Levant was if it fell on them – also – why give this group regional status? Isn’t it the President’s objective to bomb them back into some corner or Syria anyway?

There’s a scary-looking black-clad guy named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who is the head of ISIS (or ISIL). Perhaps when our team of Navy Seals eventually gets to his lair in Syria, just before we pull the trigger, we can ask him which English-language acronym he prefers? After all, a Caliph should be able to write his own epitaph. Maybe we could send a message to his YouTube account asking him to clarify this debate for us before his next televised beheading?

My bet is al-Baghdadi will go for ISIS as he and his group seem to be very image conscious and media savvy. But in all seriousness, the American people will soon be clamoring for an end to the ISIS-ISIL ping-pong, especially if we’re being asking to support another trillion-dollar war effort. Juliet may not have cared much about names and labels but the American people deserve an adversary whose name is easy to pronounce and as we know from the play, ultimately the names did matter, which is why I’m “pro-ISIS” and “anti-ISIL.”

The Zeitgeist

Portrait of my late mother, Alice Barbanel at 21.

The 90 Day Post-Mortem Mourning Report on Mom

Or, How Kaddish Helps.

I don’t know where to put Mom. Not Mom in actuality, but her portrait. Mom passed away roughly three months ago and my conundrum is where to hang a wonderful painting of her as a 21 year-old. The portrait had been languishing in my parents’ basement in a rotting frame and after her demise I rescued it (because I couldn’t rescue her) and had it remounted and reframed.

It’s not that I have a dearth of available wall space in my house, it’s that I have no idea where would be most appropriate – how often do I want to see this painting and how prominent a place do I want to accord it?

It’s not as though Mom isn’t in my heart and mind enough already. I miss her terribly and have been not just since she passed but also for the last year and a half of her life when she was afflicted with a serious case of dementia that in many ways stole her away from all of us long before she drew her last breath.

Grief is palpable, like a thick fog redolent with mist and oppressive humidity. It weighs on you by day and by night.  King David, author of many of the Psalms wrote in Psalm 6 that “I am wearied with my sigh, every night I drench my bed, with my tears I soak my couch.” My grief for Mom typically washes over me (and then exits) in a few 30 to 90 second tsunami-like waves of intense sadness and despair in the mornings and evenings (when I’m not working) and in all kinds of nightmares that pop me out of bed at 3:30 a.m.

There is no escape from the Angel of Death, we will all meet up with him eventually. The Sons of Korach, authors of many outstanding Psalms put it bluntly in Psalm 49, “Shall he then live forever, shall he never see the grave?” and “like sheep they are destined for the grave.” And so it was for my mother, notwithstanding her ferocious will to live, the Lord had other plans for her soul.

Dealing With It

Left behind in addition to her children and grandchildren is her spouse of more than five decades (no small accomplishment in this highly disposable modern world), my Dad. Unlike many in my generation, Dad has never lived alone before. He went from his mother’s house to my mother’s house. Dad loved my mother and he fought tooth and nail to keep her alive, but no man, no matter how determined and no matter how many resources he brings to bear can ultimately stay the hand of eternity.

Being a card-carrying member of The Greatest Generation, Dad may be heartbroken but he is not bent. He is resolutely steadfast, stoic and determined to still be a lion, even in winter, because he’s the patriarch of the family, a role he takes very seriously. Recent angioplasty? Handled with aplomb. Figuring out meals? No problem. Contemplating the acquisition of a new car and a significant other? Looking forward. Wallow in grief? Not his style. Got to keep on keeping on, even at 87.

Me? I’m not made of my Dad’s kind of tough stuff. My personality is more like my late mother’s for the good and for the bad (our parents are just human beings, they have their strengths and weaknesses like everybody else) which makes me a bit more sensitive to loss and the ramifications from that.

The Brothers Gibb once queried musically, “how can you mend a broken heart?” In Psalm 147 King David asserts that G-d “is the healer of the brokenhearted and the one who binds up their sorrows” which is one reason why religiously observant Jews say the Mourners Kaddish for 11 months after a close loved one has gone on to the next world. Kaddish is all about the mending.

The Jewish Mourners Kaddish, recited at services three times a day, every day, is not really so much a prayer for the dead or for the benefit of the deceased. It is rather a prayer in praise of G-d and a reaffirmation of the faith for the mourner who recites it – in a sense it’s a prayer for the living, for those left behind. It’s like an Eastern mantra (because it is repeated so often even within a given service) in that its purpose is to impart of measure of transcendental calm for someone who is anything but.

We also say Kaddish to honor the departed in the eyes of the living, as a sign of respect for their lives and the love they gave us, which is one key reason we stand while reciting it.

Until about four and a half years ago I was what could be called a “Shabbat Orthodox Jew,” my Judaism was primarily about Friday night and Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. The rest of the week, not so much. Services every day? Seriously? A huge percentage of my friends were and are still like this, as is a large percentage of my shul (synagogue) so it’s not like I was alone in this lifestyle, far from it. I wasn’t even putting on tefillin (phylacteries) in the mornings. As it is for many Jews, this changes when confronted with tragedy.

It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes. The Modern Orthodox extrapolation of that are increases in prayer and observance when dropped into that aforementioned foxhole. And dropped I was, big time. Concurrent with the then impending collapse of my business due to the recession and all its attendant personal financial challenges, my former wife decided to leave our home and file for divorce – a divorce I absolutely didn’t want. This threw me into two years of steady grief and intense anxiety owing to feeling as though I had part of my very soul ripped out and wondering how I’d put my life back together. It was so bad for a time that my friends and family were seriously worried about me. The stress of it all triggered a raft of serious health issues as well (which thank G-d are now mostly behind me). Confronted with these disasters I took to donning tefillin in the mornings and praying at home for the good L-rd’s mercy and salvation.

Just as things started to ease-up for me after a couple of years and I had a few months of relative tranquility, just then my mother started her two year steady descent into death by dementia, which put me back into daily high anxiety mode, meaning I essentially just spent a combined total of more than four years in a perfect purgatory culminating in my mother’s demise, which brings me to Kaddish.

To say the Mourners Kaddish you have to be a part of a Minyan, a quorum of 10 Jewish men (you can’t say it home alone) and where there’s a Minyan, there’s a service and in these services it is most often the obligation of a mourner to lead the prayers, particularly during the week. That’s going to get you into shul every day.

For me Kaddish works as a grief mitigator. In the Minyan there are folks just like you, who in the words of Bill Clinton, “feel your pain,” because they’re going through it themselves. It’s a Hebrew and Aramaic language support group with the people there also imploring the Almighty to prop you up. By forcing the mourners to lead the services it propels the mourner to publicly overcome his grief and acts as a catharsis of sorts as the barrage of Hebrew psalms and prayers wash over you and move through you. I wish there were Shiva and Kaddish for divorce, as it probably would have helped at the time.

When I was a kid in sleep away camp I remember that at Shabbat services (this wasn’t a religious camp, so what limited services we had were sandwiched in between a steady diet of nonstop sports) we kids would all look on in fascination at who might be saying the Mourners Kaddish, as the notion of this kind of loss was unimaginable to a 10 or 12 year old. Now I’m the guy standing for Kaddish at Shabbat services. In the very large shul I attend, somehow even though there are many mourners at the daily services, on many a Shabbat I seem to be the only person in a room with more than 400 people that needs to say Kaddish, so there I am often on Saturday mornings as the solo point person intoning the ancient Aramaic of the Mourners Kaddish to a hushed hall.  Cycle of life.

Not being married now, or anywhere near close to it and not having had kids I sometimes wonder who will be there to say Kaddish for me? I’m sure my brothers will, but that’s not the same thing.

On my way from shul a couple of Saturdays ago I ran into an acquaintance from the neighborhood who had also recently lost his mother. I asked him how he was doing and he asked me back, “how is the 11-month prison sentence going for you?” “Prison sentence?,” “Yeah, all that Kaddish for a year.” He was viewing it as something of a punishment. I told him that it’s actually been helpful for me but most significantly, I said that “my mother was always there for me, always. For sure I can be there for her for 11 months, it’s the least I can do.”

And so, in line with that, I have to find a place in my home to hang that painting of her, because that and Kaddish publicly demonstrate what I felt for her and my gratitude for all she did for me.