Qohelet and Dessert

On Sukkot, which began last week, it’s customary to read Qohelet (Ecclesiastes). At first glance, the custom is strange, inasmuch as we’re commanded to be happy during this festival, yet few literary works offer so bleak a view of human existence. Qohelet repeatedly stresses the futility of human endeavor and the fickleness of fate. Several times the author tells us it is better never to have been born. The fate of man and beast, king and vassal, wise man and fool is the same – death. “The dead know nothing and they no longer have recompense, for their memory is forgotten. Their love and their hatred as well, their jealousy, too, are already lost, and they no longer have any share forever in all that is done under the sun” (9:5-6). The only reasonable course, the author tells us, is to enjoy what there is to be enjoyed, while one still has a chance to do so – good food and wine, pleasure in one’s work, and the companionship of a person one loves. “There is nothing better for man under the sun than to eat and to drink and to make merry,” (8:15) for these gifts of God are provisional, liable to be removed at any time. (Translations by Robert Alter, The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. New York: W.W.Norton,2010.)

We're commanded to dwell in booths during Sukkot. These are flimsy, temporary structures, roofed with leafy branches which permit you to see the sky through their cover. You are exposed to the elements. Religiously observant Jews eat in them and sometimes sleep in them too, a reminder of our 40-year wandering in the desert, with its temporary, impermanent dwellings, before entering the Promised Land. Perhaps we read Qohelet during Sukkot as another reminder of our vulnerability during that wandering, since Qohelet stresses the fickleness of fate and thus the provisional quality of the good things in our lives.

But perhaps we read Qohelet now, because, after all, we're commanded to be happy during this period, and Qohelet admonishes us over and over again to enjoy ourselves while it's still possible to do so.

A few days before Sukkot began, my wife and I met four friends for dinner at a Park Slope restaurant noted for its good food and wine. The food and service were exemplary. I can’t judge the wine, for I no longer drink alcohol, but one of our party pronounced the Tuscan wine she had ordered as “lovely.” I won’t go so far as to describe our dinner party as “merry,” although we laughed a great deal, but it was convivial, intimate, and stimulating – not surprising in view of the other participants, two psychoanalysts, one clinical psychologist, and one political scientist, all distinguished in their fields and all gifted conversationalists. When it was time to consider dessert, our waiter described the restaurant’s four offerings. It’s common among persons our age to share a single dessert. But that night, the clinical psychologist told the waiter to bring all four. To this astonishing departure from the norm, no one made any objection, and when the desserts arrived, we made short work of them.

Despite the fragility of our health and the knowledge that death can no longer be so far away (let us hope those rich desserts haven't hastened it), we enjoyed an evening of good food, good wine, and the lively conversation of friends. It doesn't get much better than that. The author of Qohelet would have approved.

2010-2011 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur began at sundown last Friday and ended 25 hours later. For the first time in memory, I not only fasted but also attended all the religious services, attending the opening service Friday night and spending all the next day at our synagogue, Beth Elohim, in Park Slope. As a result, at the conclusion of services on Saturday, when God is said to lock the book in which he has written the names of those who will live for the next year, I felt spiritually cleansed.

It was a strange reaction for an atheist, but then religious experience is scarcely rational. Our newly minted cantor, Josh Breitzer, has a clear, sweet, tenor voice that he used to serve the prayer rather than to show off his virtuosity. The congregation sang almost the whole service. The beauty of the melodies reinforced the sense of the text, particularly those portions that require acknowledgement of our sins of commission and omission during the past year. These sins include those committed by the communities to which we belong, for we are partly responsible for them. As each sin was announced, we beat our right hand against our left chest, an act that increased the solemn drama of the occasion, which was enhanced by the grandeur of the main sanctuary, opened for the first time in two years.

At the conclusion of the service, our rabbi, Andy Bachman, told us that even then our thoughts were turning to secular concerns. And of course he was right. Just as I know, after visiting my dental hygienist, that the fresh feeling in my mouth won't last for more than a few hours, when I eat again, I knew that not much time would elapse before the exigencies of everyday life, in collusion with my own weakness, would lead me to act in way discordant with my ethical ideals. Still, the practice of Mussar, taught by Gary Shaffer, a fellow member of our congregation, a practice which encourages us to be conscious of our behavior, to be more fully present to what we’re doing and thinking, may help reduce the number of misdeeds I have to consider on the next Yom Kippur.

Professor Ehsan Yarshater

“The encylopedia of erotica” caught my ear recently as I half listened to an NPR program. “What a good idea,” I thought and then idly imagined a kind of Varieties of Sexual Experience in several volumes by an unbuttoned William James. Reality soon intervened, however, when it became clear that the encyclopedia was devoted not to erotica but to Iranica. (http://www.npr.org/2011/09/26/140807176/37-years-and-halfway-through-encyclopaedia-iranica) It aims to present, in English, a definitive and comprehensive view of Iranian history, language, and culture over several thousand years in the Middle East, Central Asia, and India.

More interesting to me than the encyclopedia was its founder and editor, Professor Ehsan Yarshater, the director of Columbia University’s Center for Iranian Studies. He began work on the encyclopedia 38 years ago. Now, with about 6,500 entries by almost 1,500 contributors, it’s only half completed. One of the reasons for the work’s slow progress is its painstaking checking of each entry and Professor Yarshater’s insistence on securing “the best person in the entire world” to write about a given topic. Also, many of the articles require original research. They are not simply summaries of existing knowledge. Professor Yarshater wants to complete this great work but he realizes that he won’t be able to do so within his own lifetime. He has chosen his successors. He is 91.

No stranger to large works, he edited a 40-volume translation of the tenth-century Persian historian al Jibari’s Annals; he’s the founding editor of a series on Persian history and language. And he edited a 20-volume collection of Persian literature. “That was when I realized I was suffering from a kind of disease,” he told the Times in a recent interview. “If something is to be done, I have a feeling that I should start doing it.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/books/ehsan-yarshaters-encyclopedia-of-iranian-history.html) Even now, he regularly works 12-hour days. He no longer takes a nap after lunch because there is so much work to be done.

Perhaps my hearing erotica for Iranica wasn’t so far off the mark, inasmuch as Professor Yarshater’s devotion to Iranian language, literature, and history has been and continues to be a passionate labor of love. He’s fortunate in being able to maintain his passion, in continuing to be profoundly engaged in his work, so deep into old age. Few of us are similarly blessed. When passion of that sort flags, there’s no help to be found from Viagra.

Adorable!

The other day, my wife and I met our children and grandchildren for dinner at a midtown restaurant, where we had reserved a table for ten. I had dressed up for the occasion, wearing gray flannel trousers, a pink buttoned-down shirt with a darker pink bow tie, and a dark gray tweed sports coat, in whose breast pocket I had tucked a red silk square. I looked pretty good, I thought, as I approached the maitre d’ and gave him my name. He smiled, adjusted my bow tie, and then said “adorable!”

I like to wear bow ties but I find it hard to keep them straight. This is not an unalloyed disadvantage, however, inasmuch as women like to come up unasked and adjust them for me, an attention I enjoy. But for a strange man to do so is another matter, particularly when accompanied by the pronouncement “adorable!” No doubt he meant well, but I didn’t know whether to feel insulted or amused. Somewhat stunned, I murmured “thank you,” and as we were ushered to our table, I decided that after all it was pretty funny. The maitre d’ didn’t see a stately emeritus professor and family patriarch. He saw someone with the status of a six-year-old. I suppose I should have been grateful that he hadn't chucked me under the chin.

Earlier that day, on our way to the restaurant, we boarded a crowded subway car, where a man offered me his seat. I thanked him but declined his offer, telling him that we were getting off at the next stop. His gesture, reflecting respect for age, was pleasing, whereas the maitre d’s behavior, reflecting condescension, was not.

Perhaps it’s just as well that my amour propre suffers a little puncture now and then. It’s a healthy reminder that not everyone sees me as I like to see myself.

2010-2011 Anchises-an Old Man’s Journal All Rights Reserved

Walter Hautzig and Chopin's Ballade in G Minor

Last Sunday my wife and I enjoyed the privilege of attending, at Steinway Hall, a concert given by our friend, Walter Hautzig. With this concert he was celebrating his 90^th birthday. He has been a Steinway artist for almost 70 years, a tenure exceeded only by that of Arthur Rubinstein. Our friend may beat this record yet.

In recognition of his extraordinary career, the president of the Steinway Company presented him with an engraved walking stick, only the second ever given by this venerable company. (The first was given to Henry Steinway, also on the occasion of his 90^th birthday.) Walter Hautzig walks without the aid of a stick, but he is, after all, ninety years old, an age at which one appears to be more spirit than flesh. Nonetheless, his hands and fingers have retained their strength, and his musical intelligence remains unimpaired. He continues to have few peers.

The concert in itself was of course a treat but it was also notable for the love and affection with which the audience showered the artist. Standing ovations, the first given when he walked into the hall and approached the piano, were the rule. Students, friends, and fans from Japan, the Philippines, and Europe - indeed from all over the world - came to the concert to honor him. Among the distinguished personages at the concert was his friend the King of Tonga, who had flown in from his island kingdom especially for this occasion.

Before playing the last piece on the program, Chopin’s Ballade in G minor, Op. 23, Walter Hautzig told the audience that when he was 16 years old, he was scheduled to play it in a student recital at the Conservatory in Vienna. But then the Nazis marched in and, with so much now changed, the concert never took place. His mother and sister were arrested. He was arrested. It wasn’t clear from his story how long they were detained, but five weeks later, he summoned the courage to return to the Conservatory. He found soldiers encamped there, their rifles on the pianos.

Depressed, he went home. Then he sat down at the piano and began to play the Ballade. As he played it he thought to himself, “whatever happens, they can’t take this away from me.” May he play it until he’s 120.

2010-2011 Anchises-an Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

A Maturing Wine

Recently our daughter and son-in-law celebrated the sixteenth anniversary of their marriage, which made me think back to our own sixteenth anniversary. That was in 1979, when we were living in New York during my first sabbatical from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At the time, I thought of myself as long married, but now that we’ve been married for 48 years, I look at that time as just the beginning of our marriage.

I’m happy to say that I’m easier to get along with now, less compulsive, less driven, less judgmental, and more willing to entertain the notion that my wife’s ways of doing things are not necessarily worse or less efficient than mine. Just as I’m not the same person that I was in my twenties, as I wrote in a recent post, I’m not the same person that I was on that first sabbatical, when I was 48. At least, that's the way it feels.

Is, then, the continuity of our identity an illusion, fostered in part by our memories, or is there some unchanging basic core that differentiates us from others? A recent article in the Times (September 20, 2011, p.D3) (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/health/20amnesia.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Lonni%20Sue%20Johnson&st=cse suggests that there is a basic core. Four years ago, Lonni Sue Johnson, an artist and illustrator, fell ill with viral encephalitis, which severely damaged parts of her brain. She remembered little of her life before her illness. “At the beginning of Ms. Johnson’s recovery,” reported the Times, “She had to relearn to how to walk, talk and eat… She did not recognize purple, black and orange, and could not put pen to paper.” But she now paints again, although her art is simpler than it was before. The article quotes Michael McCloskey, a professor of cognitive science at Johns Hopkins, who has studied her case. “Here you’ve lost an awful lot of what makes you who you are – what’s left for art? But you see in her art that she’s very much the same person. She is not an empty shell. There is something about your identity that’s distinct from memory.” Although her art is now more childlike than it was before her illness, it has retained its uniqueness, according to Barbara Landau, another Hopkins professor involved in the research. “You can recognize it’s Lonni Sue. Her personality is preserved.”

That identity is distinct from memory makes intuitive sense inasmuch as memory is unreliable. It changes over time, as will be seen if you watch a film for the second time after an interval of 50 years. You will find only a partial overlap between what you remembered and what actually transpired in the film. Some of what you remembered may in fact have never occurred at all.

So if we possess an essential core independent of memory, how can I explain the changes that I’ve witnessed in myself over the years? One factor is age. In the twilight of my life, with a not breathtakingly long life expectancy, many matters that assumed great importance in the past now seem trivial. Since very little now upsets me beyond the welfare of my family and my friends, I find myself more serene than ever before. Also, I’m no longer striving to succeed in my profession or indeed in any other field, another reason I’m more relaxed now than I once was. One more factor is experience of life. Greater experience helps me respond to challenges in a more measured and, I hope, more sensible fashion than once was possible for me.

So if some of my behaviors have changed since my twenties and forties, if some of the less attractive features of my personality have been muted, the essence of the person I was has not changed. I'm not a new creature, a butterfly that was once a caterpillar. A better metaphor might be a wine that’s matured, except that I hope to keep developing. The wine may not be grand cru or even premier cru, but nonetheless I hope that the vintage was decent enough to allow for continued improvement with age. When the bottle is finally uncorked and the wine poured out, I hope that those who sip it will think it good.

2010-2011 Anchises-an Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Moving

Tomorrow we’re scheduled to move out of our temporary quarters, which we’ve occupied since February, and move back to our renovated apartment. This will involve moving back into our apartment the furniture and other goods that we put into storage as well as the few pieces of our furniture, books, and clothes that we’ve been using here in our temporary quarters. We have only one day to organize the latter, since our children and grandchildren, who came from Los Angeles to visit us, returned home only yesterday. Once in the renovated apartment, we'll be confronted with numerous cartons to unpack, and we’ll have to learn how to use our new spaces.

It was, I think, Johnson, sensible and down to earth, who wrote that all change is hard, even from bad to better, and as usual he was right. The oncoming change has made me anxious. But when I try to identify the source of my anxiety, I come up with nothing, clutching only thin air. What’s to worry about? That the renovations won’t be completed in time, so that, for example, the filter for the dryer won’t have been installed? The renovations are currently at a stage that we could live in the apartment as is, and as for the dryer, we can run it without a filter for a day or two. That I might make a mistake in calculating what we owe the contractor? My wife and the architect will help me there and besides, how big a mistake could I possibly make? That the new mattress, blinds, or television or the telephone technician or the cable installation won’t arrive on time? So what? We can manage without them for a short time anyway. That our houseguests, who are expected a week after our move, will find our apartment a bit chaotic? They are old friends and won’t mind. If they wanted deluxe accommodations, they wouldn’t be staying with us. No, there is no reasonable cause for anxiety.

And then I ask myself how such a small matter as moving into a renovated apartment can bother me when many people would be pleased to have that problem. When I read in a column by Nicholas Kristof that the half-starved refugees fleeing from Somalia are routinely robbed and raped on their way to Kenya, I have to ask myself how in the world I can worry about such a trivial matter as moving, especially under such favorable conditions. The Somalis’ anxiety has a basis in a horrid reality. I know I’m fortunate in my problems.

My anxiety, I’ve concluded, is based on the knowledge that this move will, in all likelihood, be my last one. Any move after that will be, as my father used to say, feet first. Well, I won’t have to pack and unpack ever again. That part’s good. But it’s the finality implied by this move that’s making me anxious. It reminds me that the end of life, which once seemed so indefinitely far away, now seems to be around the corner. So if the time is short, that’s all the more reason to enjoy what there is to be enjoyed and to stop worrying about a move from one apartment to another.

2010-2011 Anchises-an Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved