Beshert just does not cover it!!

Beshert..just does not cover it!!!

Sunday..I preached two services at a CSI (Church of South India) Telegu church. This is a liberal inclusive Protestant including Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran and Baptist. Several of the students from UTC with whom I had become friendly served at this church. There was a small English service..maybe 50 people, but the 9:30 service in Telegu was packed with several hundred..nearly one thosand, outside watching on two tv screens. The entire service was in Telegu the dialect of Andhra Pradesh…these people had moved to Karnataka but worshiped in their own dialect. I used Isaiah 42:6, a light to the nations. There had been a dinner in my honor from the Biblical Studies dept and then coffee with some profs…then I packed. Needless to say, I did not write a sermon, but gave one…Victor, a wonderful new friend, translated the basic ideas of my sermon, in Telegu…I am certain was better than mine.

Just before the second service began, a German walked into the senior pastors’ office, he had been visiting areas in southern Karnatka which had been devastated by floods. We introduced ourselves to each other, he told me of many Jewish friends. Then he told me how the synagogue in his small town still stood and that he had been privately owned. I asked what that meant..he explained that someone on Stuttgard had bought it for the land and wanted to tear it down. The gov’t of both the state and Republic had denied him the right saying that the synagogue was German heritage. The gov’t paid for the synagogue’s complete rehabbing over 10 years at which point the owner, asked for the key back. The town has been fight him for 4 years in court but he wants a lot of money now for them to buy it. At this point we now need to enter the sanctuary for the service…which was entirely in Telegu…so all I thought about was how am I going to help this Lutheran Pastor and his town save this synagogue. The pastor and his town care for the Jewish cemeteries in the area. They have photographed all of the tombstones…and put them on line…in Hebrew, German and transliteration. After he told me how much he appreciated my sermon..I told him how much I appreciated meeting him and that I promised that I would help him free the synagogue from this legal limbo. Okay…maybe, just maybe, I was SUPPOSED to come to India for 2 months ONLY to meet Pastor Rolf Hoche! I need something else to do…some more $$$ to raise…another passionate distraction, since I don’t have enough. Imagine…helping a Lutheran German pastor acquire the rights to a saved shul…because we met in a Telegu Church in Bangalore! You believe this story don’t you???

I wish that was all that happened today…but after the service, the pastor surprised me by taking me to a Jewish burial ground which is now maintained by two Muslims! Really, I am not making this up. The land was donated in 1904 by the then King of Mysore, the last grave was in 2002. There is ONE Jew left in Bangalore from the original six families. He is married to a Northern Indian woman (not Jewish) but pays for the cemetery to be maintained. We called but he was out…next time! The synagogue once a home, is now a hotel….next time! I said Kaddish in the Jewish Burial Ground in Bangalore India…after preaching in an all Telegu service and meeting a Lutheran pastor who is trying to save a shul in his town. I would believe anyone telling me this story…I could not get the Sunday NY Times…had nothing else to do. Beshert just does NOT cover it.!!!

Shabbat in gardens, Ram Temples, Palaces and Quarries

Shabbat in gardens, Ram Temples, Palaces and Quarries..

Saturday I spent the day seeing Bangalore with a close friend of my brother-in-law, Scott. Charlie does leadership training…though he loves to tell everyone how he dubbed the 1979 film Jesus into 75 Indian dialects. He took me to a famous botanical garden..which happened to be having a fabulous flower show…we walked in short sleeves for 2+ hours. The colors were wonderful and given the winter fury back home it was truly grand.

Then to the famous Ram Hindu Temple…wild monkeys…a very large stone carved ram, Hindu priests offering me prayers-poojah. I thanked them…still had to push their hands away from my forehead. Walking down back to the car, I noticed several NEW cars and a Hindu priest with a fire bowl….that’s right, the rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof blessing Motel’s new sewing machine…and these Hindu priests blessing cars and trucks! Take the coconut throw it on the ground..smashing it, place a small fruit under each of the four wheels, flowers on the hood..take your hands waving them through the fire bowl and then cover your face. Oh and take off your shoes, placing them under the car…then drive the car over the fruit and your shoes. Then place an offering on the plate for the priest…then watch the monkeys eat the sacrifice.

Then to one of the three palaces of the last King/Maharajah of Meysore who died in 1974. His son still lives in the palaces…has five very nice cars…but no title. The palace was built in 1860 with lots of European details…okay, I saw it.

My host and his wife wanted to eat at a Pizza Hut…okay, I was treating. I had an Indian pizza not much different. But the people in this new upscale restaurant were all young upper middle class professional Indians…interchangeable with any suburban group in America…dressed the same…kids dressed like little Americans..not sure how I felt about it until about 45 minutes later.

Charlie ended my quick tour by taking me to a very large granite quarry at the edge of town. I was not sure why I needed to see this…until I got there. I stood at the edge and looked down into a pit where human beings…mostly women and children were hitting the large granite boulders with hammers, steel rods and other rocks. Women, many of them Banjara women from Andhra Pradesh were throwing the smaller broken rocks into a trailer that would later be pulled by a tracker. When the trailer is filled the family gets 500 RS, a bit more than $10 for their work. These are bonded servants…slaves, rural peoples who caught in the draught of the last year..borrowed money they could not pay back. The loan was then sold plus interest to the quarry owner who takes the family as workers with additional threats I am told. They are given coconut-thatched huts, 3 X 6 feet for the entire family. I saw several and the gates with locks that prevent them from leaving…though there really is nowhere to go. I stood and watched a little girl play with an empty plastic bottle…the sun was very hot…no safety measures. Charlie told me that many get very sick long before the debt is paid…their hands cut and hardened…limbs damaged even severed. I found myself in disbelief..looking away..trying not to think about the foolish assumption that slavery is over. I remembered that Deut 5, a repetition of the 10 commandments, teaches that Shabbat reminds us of having been slaves and freed. It was Shabbat afternoon in Bangalore…I had walked through gardens, palaces and temples, I was free to even eat at a Pizza Hut with people from an India that was radically different than the one at the bottom of the quarry, it was very difficult to rejoice in my Shabbat.

Shabbat in gardens, Ram

Shabbat in gardens, Ram Temples, Palaces and Quarries..

Saturday I spent the day seeing Bangalore with a close friend of my brother-in-law, Scott. Charlie does leadership training…though he loves to tell everyone how he dubbed the 1979 film Jesus into 75 Indian dialects. He took me to a famous botanical garden..which happened to be having a fabulous flower show…we walked in short sleeves for 2+ hours. The colors were wonderful and given the winter fury back home it was truly grand.

Then to the famous Ram Hindu Temple…wild monkeys…a very large stone carved ram, Hindu priests offering me prayers-poojah. I thanked them…still had to push their hands away from my forehead. Walking down back to the car, I noticed several NEW cars and a Hindu priest with a fire bowl….that’s right, the rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof blessing Motel’s new sewing machine…and these Hindu priests blessing cars and trucks! Take the coconut throw it on the ground..smashing it, place a small fruit under each of the four wheels, flowers on the hood..take your hands waving them through the fire bowl and then cover your face. Oh and take off your shoes, placing them under the car…then drive the car over the fruit and your shoes. Then place an offering on the plate for the priest…then watch the monkeys eat the sacrifice.

Then to one of the three palaces of the last King/Maharajah of Meysore who died in 1974. His son still lives in the palaces…has five very nice cars…but no title. The palace was built in 1860 with lots of European details…okay, I saw it.

My host and his wife wanted to eat at a Pizza Hut…okay, I was treating. I had an Indian pizza not much different. But the people in this new upscale restaurant were all young upper middle class professional Indians…interchangeable with any suburban group in America…dressed the same…kids dressed like little Americans..not sure how I felt about it until about 45 minutes later.

Charlie ended my quick tour by taking me to a very large granite quarry at the edge of town. I was not sure why I needed to see this…until I got there. I stood at the edge and looked down into a pit where human beings…mostly women and children were hitting the large granite boulders with hammers, steel rods and other rocks. Women, many of them Banjara women from Andhra Pradesh were throwing the smaller broken rocks into a trailer that would later be pulled by a tracker. When the trailer is filled the family gets 500 RS, a bit more than $10 for their work. These are bonded servants…slaves, rural peoples who caught in the draught of the last year..borrowed money they could not pay back. The loan was then sold plus interest to the quarry owner who takes the family as workers with additional threats I am told. They are given coconut-thatched huts, 3 X 6 feet for the entire family. I saw several and the gates with locks that prevent them from leaving…though there really is nowhere to go. I stood and watched a little girl play with an empty plastic bottle…the sun was very hot…no safety measures. Charlie told me that many get very sick long before the debt is paid…their hands cut and hardened…limbs damaged even severed. I found myself in disbelief..looking away..trying not to think about the foolish assumption that slavery is over. I remembered that Deut 5, a repetition of the 10 commandments, teaches that Shabbat reminds us of having been slaves and freed. It was Shabbat afternoon in Bangalore…I had walked through gardens, palaces and temples, I was free to even eat at a Pizza Hut with people from an India that was radically different than the one at the bottom of the quarry, it was very difficult to rejoice in my Shabbat.

Shabbat in gardens,

Shabbat in gardens, Ram Temples, Palaces and Quarries..

Saturday I spent the day seeing Bangalore with a close friend of my brother-in-law, Scott. Charlie does leadership training…though he loves to tell everyone how he dubbed the 1979 film Jesus into 75 Indian dialects. He took me to a famous botanical garden..which happened to be having a fabulous flower show…we walked in short sleeves for 2+ hours. The colors were wonderful and given the winter fury back home it was truly grand.

Then to the famous Ram Hindu Temple…wild monkeys…a very large stone carved ram, Hindu priests offering me prayers-poojah. I thanked them…still had to push their hands away from my forehead. Walking down back to the car, I noticed several NEW cars and a Hindu priest with a fire bowl….that’s right, the rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof blessing Motel’s new sewing machine…and these Hindu priests blessing cars and trucks! Take the coconut throw it on the ground..smashing it, place a small fruit under each of the four wheels, flowers on the hood..take your hands waving them through the fire bowl and then cover your face. Oh and take off your shoes, placing them under the car…then drive the car over the fruit and your shoes. Then place an offering on the plate for the priest…then watch the monkeys eat the sacrifice.

Then to one of the three palaces of the last King/Maharajah of Meysore who died in 1974. His son still lives in the palaces…has five very nice cars…but no title. The palace was built in 1860 with lots of European details…okay, I saw it.

My host and his wife wanted to eat at a Pizza Hut…okay, I was treating. I had an Indian pizza not much different. But the people in this new upscale restaurant were all young upper middle class professional Indians…interchangeable with any suburban group in America…dressed the same…kids dressed like little Americans..not sure how I felt about it until about 45 minutes later.

Charlie ended my quick tour by taking me to a very large granite quarry at the edge of town. I was not sure why I needed to see this…until I got there. I stood at the edge and looked down into a pit where human beings…mostly women and children were hitting the large granite boulders with hammers, steel rods and other rocks. Women, many of them Banjara women from Andhra Pradesh were throwing the smaller broken rocks into a trailer that would later be pulled by a tracker. When the trailer is filled the family gets 500 RS, a bit more than $10 for their work. These are bonded servants…slaves, rural peoples who caught in the draught of the last year..borrowed money they could not pay back. The loan was then sold plus interest to the quarry owner who takes the family as workers with additional threats I am told. They are given coconut-thatched huts, 3 X 6 feet for the entire family. I saw several and the gates with locks that prevent them from leaving…though there really is nowhere to go. I stood and watched a little girl play with an empty plastic bottle…the sun was very hot…no safety measures. Charlie told me that many get very sick long before the debt is paid…their hands cut and hardened…limbs damaged even severed. I found myself in disbelief..looking away..trying not to think about the foolish assumption that slavery is over. I remembered that Deut 5, a repetition of the 10 commandments, teaches that Shabbat reminds us of having been slaves and freed. It was Shabbat afternoon in Bangalore…I had walked through gardens, palaces and temples, I was free to even eat at a Pizza Hut with people from an India that was radically different than the one at the bottom of the quarry, it was very difficult to rejoice in my Shabbat.

Becoming the Rav of Bangalore

Becoming the Rav of Bangalore…

Teaching for me has always been a means of finding new relationships and of risking new ideas about old topics. The classes and meeting I had at UTC were all exceptional experiences in which there was little I could really prepare for the questions and surprises. I spent a great deal of working with the actual Hebrew text, trying to help students see what the text REALLY says.

I explained to everyone in as many ways as I could, that I understand why they choose to use the term, Old Testament, but if they are serious about Jewish/Christian Dialogue, I would prefer Hebrew Bible. By the end of the week, both faculty and students were using the term, correcting each other and promising me that they would continue after I left. It’s a small beginning…who knows maybe they will go out to their churches and say Hebrew Bible and then have to explain it.

My two special lectures went very well…at least from my sense of peoples’ reactions. I was fortunate to find a student from Hamburg, a woman studying in a Lutheran seminary who is at UTC for a semester. I asked her to come to the session during my Luther paper she agreed. During the paper, I suggested that the issue of Luther’s anti-Semitism is actually not a Jewish issue, but a Christian burden especially at the largest liberal Protestant seminary in India. Then I asked Ann if as a 25 year old Lutheran Christian she lived with the burden of these writings…yes, of course, our seminary acknowledges them but refuses to ever read or discuss them which she felt was worse than denying their existence. No one in a room of about 35 students, clergy and professors had ever read Luther on the Jews. I was pleased but did not smile, really, I promise I did not smile…much!

Friday late afternoon I gave my “public” lecture on Finding God in Between: Jewish-Christian Dialogue. More than 125 people came, I was very surprised and exceptionally pleased. I had a great time…lots of people ‘laughed’ and interacted with my shtick..and I taught them by doing a Midrash…taking three texts and opening them and working them the text…back and forth. Several professors told me that they loved it and had always wondered what rabbis did…I explained not to judge the rabbinate by me!

Friday evening I ate at the home of one of my hosts, a professor from the Biblical Studies dept who did graduate work at St Andrews in Scotland and wrote an exceptional article on the Midrash on Psalm 22, comparing Esther to the Dahlits in rural India. So imagine my surprise when I sat down at the table with he and his son and asked where his wife was sitting…he looked at me and said, wives serve meals to their men, it is their honor, they eat later! WOW! I tried to imagine our Shabbat table…ONLY men…Yeah, right!

Even sophisticated and highly educated people follow cultures that simply don’t fit. At the end of the meal, Jesuthram asked if I would bless David, since I was not home to bless my children…it was very touching. David, 16, asked if he could call me Rabbi Joseph instead of Dr. Joseph…it was a great Friday

If There are NO trees in the forest..should you discuss whether IT would make a noise?

In 37 years of being a rabbi..I have had my share of being the "first"...teaching at Union Theological College in Bangalore, India has been AN amazing experience of being the "first" rabbi, the first Jew...and for most of the students and faculty...the ONLY Jew and rabbi they have ever met...talked to...and questioned....and questioned....and asked to preach in their daily chapel and asked to meet with the master's and doctorate students...

This is a very sophisticated seminary...Indians from all over the country come here, Church of South India, Methodists, Orthodox (Syrian), Lutheran, Anglican, Mennonites, and Presbyterians.

Their services include the option of God as Mother, even in the Lord's prayer! The Women's Studies courses are full blown Feminist theology.

I have taught, Hebrew, Hebrew Bible IN Hebrew, Bible, Theology...and met individually with students about their many projects....I am weary but thrilled.

Tomorrow, I 'read' a paper during the Post-Colonial Theology conference on Luther's Anti-Semitism...I am the ONLY Jew at the conference...a surprise!

Then I deliver my public lecture on Jewish-Christian Dialogue...much publicity...I am worried about being too popular...too quickly.

I preach two services on Sunday at a Church of South India...one service in English and another in Teleghu...with a student from UTC translation my sermon!

Then on the way to the airport...they are taking me to the small Jewish cemetery in Bangalore! Who Knew?

Not sure what you are supposed to do on a Sabbatical...this is my first...but this has been a blast.. to be the first..and ONLY Jew/Rabbi at a liberal seminary in India...I am filled with hope.

UTC-HUC Redux...42 years later!

I am in Bangalore, Karnataka...at the Union Theological College...100 years old, one of the liberal combined Protestant Seminaries in India. I have been asked to teach..give a public lecture, preach, offer a paper at an international seminar...oh, did I mention teach!

What absolute fun today...it began at 8:30 am with chapel...student run, with a student leading the service he wrote and created...and during which he preached. The faculty sat in the center first few rows...I looked at this poor fellow...his eyes...his voice cracking and I was swept back immediately 42 years to my first year in rabbinical school, the Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles..the old very small campus up in the Hollywood Hills...I remember leading that service, and preaching the first sermon ever in front of my teachers and classmates....it was an amazing instance of memory and complete and utter empathy for this young man! The prayers were by and large inclusive...God was referred to as Father/Mother...!!

I have taught three Old Testament-Hebrew classes! What an absolute blast...the first year students learning biblical Hebrew are using the old...and I mean very, old Weingreen textbooks. OMG! I got an instant headache seeing this textbook!...we studied together and we laughed...I reviewed the 10 Commandments in two classes...they were blown away by what they are not reading! This afternoon I spent 2 hours with 4 Masters Students and their individual projects...tonight after dinner I am meeting with some faculty.

Every day has several classes and pvt meetings..they want to find a way to continue the conversation...several students have asked for my help via e-mail. WOW! This is far more than I expected...could have dreamed of...and surely imagined.

So did you hear about this rabbi who goes into a Christian school in India where they have never met a Jew before!!!! What a treat....

Lots of questions about Israel and the Palestinians...some profs who strongly support the Palestinians who want to ask questions about do all Jews hate them? This will be interesting..and it is only the first day.

Living India's Home of Hope...and Laughing!

Going to Chandrakal...Living India's Home of Hope...where 53 amazing children all infected with HIV...some with full blown AIDS...means your life with be immediately aligned!

These are orphans...their parents dying of AIDS and stigmatized in a society that is already stratified by class (caste), gender, and let me emphasize it again...CLASS/CASTE.

Some of these children were literally abandoned on trains, in the huts where their parent's body was left untouched after dying, in the hospice where they watched as their parent died...and by remaining family who too old, too poor, or too lazy could not and would not care for them.

All of these children are now fed two hot meals every day and have clean drinking water and each has their own bed. Most importantly all of them get the meds that will surely prolong their lives and are treated by physicians who are trained in pediatric AIDS.

Every time we come we are greeted with hugs and smiles. Machelle knows the children better than I do after her many visits...Madame! Madame! When we are with Eve and Talia..they immediately get all the attention. Eve's camera has created a few 'rock-stars' who enjoy seeing the immediate image. Talia brought letters written my her classmates...and sat and read the letters with the children. Next week she will go back and get handwritten letters in simple English for students in Edina, MN.

We brought kites and string for all the children....for most of the kids, it was their very FIRST kite. The kites were paper...and simple wood...the string on little spools...and the life-span out in the field approx. 5 minutes per kite per child. Running...laughing...a few caught the wind and their faces would expand into amazing moments of joy.

They call me Uncle...a term used throughout India for an adult male...so there I am running, holding kites...trying my best to get them up in the air...Uncle...Uncle...Uncle! Then lots of Teleghu...not sure what they were saying/asking...so I would nod and run faster! Imagine me, still 25 pounds heavier than I should be...running...watching...running more...throwing the kites up into the air trying to catch a gust of wind...Right...a 63 year old Charlie Brown!

I loved every minute of it. Some of the older children realized that by climbing up to the roof there would be better wind! And then of course Eve had to climb up too, to capture their faces.

I am used to Fiddlers on the Roof...Now, Kite Flyers on the Roof too?!

It was great...for almost an hour...these were not AIDS orphans in rural India...just laughing kids trying to get their kites to fly. I suppose that has always been our goal...drop their status as poor orphans with an incurable virus....and give them the chance that every child wants every day....to laugh and run into the wind!

The Road Not Taken..An Indian Experience...

We all have heard Robert Frost's classic American poem...The Road Not Taken...too often!

I grew up in San Francisco in the 50's...and had no real experience with two lane rural roads until I lived outside of Chicago, in Michigan City, IN...over the years of living in the midwest, the rural two lane road has become very real...pleasant drives in the spring/summer/fall...the winter was often filled with stress.

Two lane rural roads require MORE than merely driving.

Two lane rural roads require your full attention, NO cruise control!

Two lane rural roads assume that drivers are willing to SHARE the road.

Two lane rural roads encourage that you experience the environment...what is on both sides of the road.

Two lane rural roads have nothing to do with lots and lots of traffic getting anywhere quickly!

There is a new gov't multi-lane highway that is part of the new international airport in Hyderabad. Seeing the highway construction in the daylight made me immediately think of what the WPA must have been...certainly different than I (we) have experienced the recent stimulus public funding.

After 30 minutes of new paved highway...then there is a 4 lane divided highway...the old paved road out of town.

Soon after the divided highway becomes rural paved road...sometimes it seems that it is wide enough for 3 but never 4 vehicles.

As you drive further from Hyderabad....the paving often needs repair....sometimes they have literally ripped up 20-30 feet of the cracked potholes down to the bedrock...quite the speed bump.

Two lane rural roads in India....are ALWAYS being shared by:

Water-buffalo...a few to a herd.

Flocks of goats....usually with a shepherd walking on the side of the paved road.

Three wheel small engine jittneys

Bikes

Motor bikes

Vespas

Motorcycles

Carts being pulled by water buffalo

tractors...pulling trailors filled with people

Very old/wide buses

old buses

new long wide buses

Pedestrians

Sharing a road with no 'shoulders' and NO signs warning you about curves...or speed bumps and NEVER any signs about speed of any kind!

Sitting in the front passenger seat...left front (where we are used to being the drivers) takes some doing for a control freak (ME???)

Hand-eye coordination is an absolute must!

Ignoring anything coming toward you...unless you are in THEIR lane...and always look away from the family carrying a toddler on their motor-bike...seated just in front of the driver...!

These two lane rural roads go through villages...that are crowded with people who ignore the traffic...and walk to-and-fro...with no traffic lights...stop signs of any kind.

It takes a long time to get to Chandrakal on these roads...but you get to see ALL OF THE LIFE in India....rice paddies...cotton fields...humans chopping wood from the dead tree branches..and small huts...tents...homes...and always smiling children.

Two lane rural roads in India...are truly the Roads NOT Taken...and they should be!

Take a Diversion...!

Hyderabad..Jan 12

Got in late last night, the new airport is far out-of-town...and there is a NEW highway being built. It was dark...out in the country...suddenly a sign: TAKE A DIVERSION! In the US it would have been: Detour!...The British influence on the use of English remains...how wonderful that the new highway construction ends and you are required to take the old two lane road...a diversion.

This country is a Diversion...modern, the new airport in Hyderabad makes the Mumbai airport seem old and tired. The work is still being done in Mumbai to finish the "fly-over" highway, it has been a decade long project...the modern along side the tent cities and women walking with mud and rocks on their heads in plastic buckets.

I spent time with a pastor in Mumbai who always asks questions about Hebrew in the Bible. He is now excited about a new translation of the Bible in daily spoken Maharati, the dialect of Mumbai, and he wanted to know how far off I thought it would be from the original. We talked about several passages that he knows by heart from the King James English that do not correspond to the Hebrew which was upsetting to him. I suggested that the more translations which begin with a poor translations, the further we get from the nuance of the original. Yes, he said...but the people need to read it in THEIR language even if that distorts the meaning more.

I did not think that arguing the point would be helpful...I promised to send him the most current translation that I use...he said that he would use it when he teaches. I wonder whether the gap between the latest English from Hebrew is compared to daily Maharati from the King James...as big as Detour and Take a Diversion?

Post 12/25/09...on Delta...through Amsterdam!
Okay...security is AN issue. Our plane was delayed 2+hrs in Amsterdam because of an additional security "random" check with dogs! There were also armed Army...and we watched as every single person going on to the plane to clean or cater was 'frisked' by additional security. The security at the gate was very high...every carry-on opened and the most were taken as baggage instead of being permitted on the plane...we were all patted down very carefully.

I noticed that this particular gate would be later used for a flight to Detroit. I wondered if this was THE gate that was compromised on Christmas...as I looked at all the faces of the many people, the many nations...I tried to imagine if any in the room would be willing to die....would be willing to destroy everyone else in the room. I was unsettled realizing that we were actually in the physical setting of terrorism. Too real...too close! The times in which we live are truly difficult to explain to ourselves...let alone solve.

We spent today catching up on sleep...we got to Mumbai at 2 am ...lost a bag..actually it was left in Amersterdam...by the time we got to the hotel it was 3:30 am...exhausted. We leave for Hyderabad in a couple of hours...so tomorrow we will begin our India...adventure.

“Leavin’ On A Jet Plane”…..Mary Travers died in 2009….I knew her for a few days in a former life.

I am leaving on a Jet Plane to Amsterdam…1/10/10….and then to Mumbai…and so begins my 2 months out of America and the beginning of my sabbatical.

Talia, my soon-to-be 15 year old on my left and Eve, my now-21-yr-old on my rt. Machelle is a few rows ahead. Eve is on her way to Aarhus, Denmark where she will study for the next 6 months…photojournalism, the only American woman chosen for the program…and Talia, taking a month off of her freshman year in high school….to see India a second time and visit Europe for her 15^th birthday.

I am teaching in a Christian Seminary in Bangalore for a week…and another not yet finalized…and spending lots of time at Living India’s Home of Hope where we now have 33 boys and 19 girls…in Chandrakal….time to think…write…and then think some more.

Two months in India, in Andhra Pradesh…in Hyderabad…where a new state, Telegana is trying to emerge. I hope to continue to some dialogues with Muslims and new conversations with Hindus…and Sikhs…

I am thrilled to have some time away…to take Eve to her apt in Denmark before she begins her experience of studying in Europe…to travel in Europe with both T and Machelle…to return to Paris after more than 35 years….

To write the chapter of a book on my teacher Paul Ricoeur….to write and teach some Christians who have probably NEVER met a Jew…and certainly not a Rabbi.

I will stay in touch with this blog that Eve set up for me…Leavin On a Jet Plane was the great song of the late 60’s…and no matter who covered it, it was always Mary Traver’s song…she was spoke and sung at my congregation in Michigan City, IN…while I was single…we might have flirted or something…now at 63…sit between my daughters and can’t even hum the damn song correctly…but no matter…I am TRULY LEAVIN’ ON A JET PLANE….

I will be back in the US…give or take a few days on March 10, 2010….

I am THE REBEL RABBI…