Divah World

Returning to Blogger

I'll explain at a later date, but I'm back to blogging and blogging back on Blogger. Appropriate on the first of Elul, the Hebrew month of Teshuvah, of return. So you can now find me at the other DivahWorld site - www.mdivah.blogspot.com I"m going to try to keep this going, writing at least once a week. So change your bookmarks, and I'll see you there.........

It's not just steroids.....

I've stayed away from talking about steroid use in baseball. It's not that I don't have thoughts about the issue--I don't think you can be a baseball fan and not have a stand. But I'm more concerned about how sports seems to enable behavior that not only puts the players at risk, but all those around them. I've written about this before in a post The Hard Reality of Sports. That was about sad stories that showed up in the Digest column of the SF Chronicle sports section. In today's Digest, more sad, upsetting news.

The first story involved former NFL running back Lawrence Phillips, who has been charged with 7 counts of assault with a deadly weapon, 2 counts of child abuse and 1 count of hit and run. Prosecuters in Los Angeles say he drove a vehicle into 3 teenagers who argued with him following a pickup footbal game. Police in San Diego have also been looking for Phillips for "allegedly attacking his girlfriend twice, once choking her into unconsciousness."  In a related story, you can read some details his trail of violence. In 1995 he pleaded no contest to assaulting his girlfriend while still at school at Nebraska. In 1996 he was drafted 6th overall by the St. Louis Rams. I remember being so appalled at the time that I refused to watch any Rams games, even when they were playing my beloved Giants. A small gesture, but something I could do. And as you can read in the article, the trail of violence continued.

The second story involved former Raiders center Barret Robbins. His problems are so deep, it's scary. He's in a Houston psychiatric hospital since his arrest on a marijuana possession charge. But a judge in Florida revoked his bail and wants him back to face charges of attempted murder stemming from an incident involving burglary and and attacking police officers. He has well documented bi polar issues, but the reason he was finally released from the Raiders was because he tested positive for steroids.

The third short blurb in the Digest that caught my eye was about Dwight Gooden--former star player for the Mets. He was called "Dr. K" in honor of all the strike outs he got. You can find a longer version of the story here.  He is being sought by Florida police on a felony warrent. Allegedy, he drove away from an officer when he was stopped on suspicion of drunken driving. His history of drug abuse and addiction is also well documented.

I'm not saying that the issue of steroids in sports is not serious and should not be dealt with--it most certainly should. But we need to also look at other kinds of behaviors that seem to becoming more and more prevalent in the sports world. Do we need to wait until someone dies, either by their own hand or at the mercy of an out-of-control personality. We may not be able to save all the troubled souls, but with treatment and help and most of all recognition of the problem, we might be able to save lives. Not only the lives of the players, but of those around them. How long can we just enable this behavior in the name of entertainment??

Gaza Heartbreak

Like my friend Danya, I know I should say something about the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, but I don't know what to say. It is so painful. Israeli forces had to seize control of a synagogue using force. A settler kills four Palestinians with no regrets and hopes that someone kills Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

So much violence. Jews fighting Jews. Terrorism on all fronts. Again, like Danya, I can only pray that somehow peace will come.

It just seems so far away right now.......

Rabbi Gavi

Shabbat at Beth Sholom doesn't end with services and kiddish. Todd, Tracey, and their daughter Gavriela have graciously made their house a gathering place where we eat, drink, discuss and generally continue the joy of Shabbat--a day not just of rest but of taking time to just be without any outside influences or pressures. It's a gift we give ourselves and to our children--and something that is not easy to find in this over-scheduled 21st Century existance. There's no work, there's no soccer, there's no shopping. We pray together, sing together, connect with each other. It's something that fuels the rest of the week.

Yesterday, at Gavriella's urging, a group of us played "Torah Charades," an original game that Gavi created. The rules are simple--you act out a scene from anywhere in the Tanach - the Torah, the Nevi'im (Prophets), the Ketuvim (Writings). You can't use words, you can use props. The rest of the group has to guess what you are portraying. The group consisted of 3 girls, ages 9 - 11, and 4 adults, women ages 25 - 62. As you can imagine, the girls did most of the acting. In fact, the only adult who acted out a scene was--no surprise here--me. I've got to tell you, these girls know their Tanach!! One scene they did was Moses passing on the leadership to Joshua before dying; another was Jacob tricking his father into giving him the blessing instead of his brother Esau and then fleeing. And they could guess mine, one of which was Moses at the burning bush. I'm not sure my acting was great, but as soon as I took my shoes off, they had it.

I've written before in the post L'Dor V'Dor about the gratification I feel when I see girls involved in Judaism and given the same opportunities as boys. It was so wonderful to see these girls have such an affinity for their Judaism. But the best part for me came when Gavi's grandmother proudly asked her (knowing what the answer would be, of course), "Gavi, what do you want to be when you grow up?" And without hesitation and somewhat matter-of-factly, Gavi answered, "a rabbi."

When I was a girl there was a time that if someone asked me that question, I would have said "a rebbitzen." That was before I found out to that to be a rebbitzen you had to marry a rabbi. There were no women rabbis when I was a girl. I'm not sure what I thought a rebbitzen did, but you can see where I wished I could go.

Hearing Gavi's answer, my heart soared. It gave me faith in the next generation---l'dor v'dor.

My Kind of Closer

The beginning of my baseball season was grim. On May 27, I wrote "With the A's in a horrible downslide, I can see it's going to be a difficult season for me."

That was then, this is now. The A's are now the hottest team in baseball. At the beginning of June, the wild card looked far away. Two months later, the A's are looking at taking the division.

On thing that's been missing for me in these past years, even the successful ones, is what I consider a quality closer. I know Jason Isringhausen and Keith Foulke were touted by the media as aces, but they were not popular with me. I did not have confidence when they came in with a one run lead. I seem to remember them letting a lot of players get to first base. Ken says that I am spoiled, since Dennis Eckersley was the A's closer in the early years of my fandom. I got too used to a closer who was basically boom, boom, boom game over.

But now, the A's once again have what looks to be my kind of closer - Huston Street. He's young, just out of college, but he's got the stuff. In today's game against the Twins, he struck out the side in the ninth. My kind of guy.......

Doing the DivahPod shuffle

As I sit to do some office work, answer emails, etc. I decided to plug in my iPod to my computer, put it on shuffle and see what that was like.

I've made my own mix tapes before, but then, of course, I had control of what music was and in which order it played. That can still be done easily with an iPod, but I wanted to experience this random shuffle of my music. With a lot of different genres input, would it work for me?

The answer is......emphatically, yes.

Once again, I have to say....pretty cool.......

Divah Pod

I am now the proud owner of an iPod, and I have to say, I can see what all the fuss is about. I remember when Sony first came out with the Walkman--somewhere, I even have a somewhat early version. To be able to take music with you as you traveled was great. You could buy tapes, or make compilations of your own. Last year when I went with the Beth Sholom 7th graders to LA, all the kids had a small CD player--their Walkman. Same concept, for sure, with more music available because CDs are more compact that tapes.

The iPod is similar to those technologies, definately the next step. But the difference about the iPod is that it changes how you can listen and what you listen to. To quote Kenny Altman,  "this might sound corny and cliched, but this has completely revolutionized the way I listen to music." He's so right. It's not just that you travel with your music, but you have access to so much of it in any order at any time. (Okay, now I'm beginning to sound like that Qwest commercial--and aren't they one of the companies that was all smoke and mirrors??)

I've been transferring music. I have almost 1,000 songs input, over 50 hours of music, less than a third of this iPod's capacity. It's somewhat mind boggling to me. In years past, if you were going to take music along in your travels, you had to decide before hand what you would want to listen to. Now you can just figure it out as you go along.

I know at some point this will all be old hat to me, but for now, I'm still in awe........

Truck Tipping??

Coming home from Oakland this afternoon, I was stuck in a huge traffic jam--one of those highway into parking lot experiences. Luckily, I wasn't on any specific time frame and there was a baseball game to listen to, albeit a losing effort on the part of the Giants.

Near the toll plaza, at the point where a lot of different roadways merge and circle around, I saw this sign. You can click on either photo for a larger view.

What does this sign mean? What are they warning us about? Should I worry about trucks tipping over on my car? Should truckers worry about their trucks tipping over. And now that they've gotten this far, what can they do about it?????

Any light that can be shed on this matter would be greatly appreciated.......

Birthday Presence

I've come to the realization that the later decades in life take more preparation for adjustment than the earlier ones. Turning forty started at thirty-nine and took until forty-one to take hold. The preparation for fifty started at forty-nine and today, as I celebrate my fifty-first birthday, I think I can begin to have a handle on this half-century decade.

I think that as we get older, we gain more of a capacity to live in the present. The past is basically gone--it lives as part of our present moments, but loses it's own identity. The future has more of a finality to it than ever before. You begin to realize that you're not really sure how much future you've got left. So life becomes more of what is happening now, in the present.

As a meditator, and one who leads meditation groups, I talk a lot about the gift of the present--a gift we rarely give ourselves at any age. But it's one thing to be present in meditation--as hard as that  can be--and quite another to keep living life in the present.

That is the gift of age--the realization that everything we've done up to this point leads to this present moment. We need to revel in that moment without too much concentration on what lies ahead. By concentrating on the present moment, we build what ever the future will hold. We can still have some semblance of control over the present---what will happen in the future is anyones guess.

So as you move through your life, whatever age you are at, don't overlook the present. It incorporates all that has past; it will be a part of all that lies ahead. It's where we live our lives.

When being present becomes difficult----just stop and breathe---it is the most present thing we have.

....but it's getting harder to imagine

Two items from today's news:

"Car bomber kills 28 near US convoy in Baghdad"  - the bomb detonated as a group of children were gathered around the vehicles when the bomb went off.

"Sharon orders reprisals for bombing" - more Israeli/Palestinian violence, more people killed as revenge for people being killed.

Seemingly, the cycle of war and bloodshed in this world just will not stop.......