Looking on the bright side of staying young at heart

As I race - literally- across Manhattan's subways and streets to get to pick-up at the very last minute, my mind is clear and I can't help marveling.

Here I am, racing yet again. I am no longer a high school kid late to school, or a single in Berlin dashing into the cold to meet someone for beer. 

I am a well seasoned mom, with some grey hairs, a very established job. I'm someone who cleans dishes every night, looks at bathroom renovations with interest, can't fit into size 6 anything.

But I'm still running to get there. Sure, there is a new desire to stop every few blocks for breath that makes it physically clear to me that I'm also different than I once was, but - as I run through the premature darkness at 5:55 pm on a mild New York November evening- I feel like nothing has really actually honestly changed. 

And because I'm in a good mood today, I want to read that positively. I want to embrace the running-late soul that is deep inside of me and that makes the 41-year-old Rebecca so fundamentally like the 15-year-old one. 

So much around me has changed- starting with the world (the Wall, the presidents, the technology), my context (the job, the family, to some degree my convictions), and my own physical self. 

But some things have not. Likely these include my ideas. But if who-I-am is measured by what-I-think-- it's simply harder to remember to what extent i have stayed constant or changed. Or have I only changed marginally as new experiences have layered one on the other? Is there something like an ethic or an impetus or a vision that stays the same? But if I want to learn, don't I want to change, and so not be like my younger self? The level of ideas and identity is deeply complex. There's nothing intuitive about it.

But some of these most basic feelings and even more, some of those scenes I've been privy to before- I recognize them. I know in my bones what it feels like to run- and to feel for a moment late, yes, but also free in some strange but real way. Free to pass everyone else, to be one with a beautiful night, to move my body as fast as I am able. 

I'd like to capture those moments that are quintessentially me. To read a book on and on and it feels like time is stopping - it will be irresponsible in the morning, but in the middle of the night it's just quiet and endless and all-absorbing. To ride a bike and feel my small revolutions set off larger gears and pull a huge wheel across the road at my bidding. To laugh hard. To run late.

Remembering

A lot of Facebook posts started by reminding people that today is Yom Hashoah, a day to remember. In those words and the subsequent lists of murders and atrocities, an underlying concern seems to emerge: Holocaust survivors and eyewitnesses are dying, and we feel a heavy obligation to hold onto memory and make it our own.

Unlike Passover, which was so long ago that it has truly become a story open to interpretation, the Holocaust is still relatively recent, the harm done still very tangible, and it feels right to stick closer the hard facts. At the same time, we today are blessed with much fortune and find ourselves in a very different situation. So what are the lessons of such brutal suffering today? The answers are very charged, and their implications highly politicized. The mixture can be heavy handed; it's hard to hit an authentic note.

Popchassid posted photos that tried to alter that narrative http://popchassid.com/photos-holocaust-narrative/ in a way that was respectful and thought provoking.

Here are three manifestations of remembering that I find surprising and for which I'm grateful:

1. At lunch today, a friend told me about  her experience with two teachers in the countryside of Utah who had decided to do a unit with their students about the Shoah. She explained that they had little context and wanted to relate through the lens of a religious Christian rescuer. They also knew little about Judaism; when she visited the class, the students' first question was whether Jews believed in Jesus (as a wise man and reformer but not a god, she responded). But she was astounded by the teachers' curiosity, by how much her invitation to Shabbat dinner meant to them, by their interest in learning more and teaching their own children. That interest by others who are not Jewish and have no personal or collective history tied up in the Holocaust is amazing.

2. I'm hopeful about changes in Germany today, not because I think popular option is so vastly more enlightened, but because some people in the subsequent generations really do "get it" and care deeply about creating a better Germany and society, and they are spending much of their life on doing so. They include the friend who teaches people how to effectively counter neo-Nazis, others who work in government, others who write. It's not extraordinary that there are foolish, racist, antisemitic people (sadly), but it is extraordinary that there is such a robust cadre dedicated to a better way and willing to stand up tall and loud for that.

3. And finally, today at JDC our Yom Hashoah commemoration was dedicated to the incredible creative acts that survivors, aka victors, accomplished in the aftermath of the Shoah. That resilience, ability to build on, and incredible creative and generous impulse that inspired so many is the most inspirational of all.