March, 2022 Megillah
RABBI'S NOTES
I was a little coy in my last Rabbi’s Notes alluding to family illnesses, and now it’s time to tell my dear community—if you haven’t already heard—that Mickey has pancreatic cancer. My sister Barbara also has breast cancer. That’s the family medical story.
Mickey wasn’t feeling so well for a stretch of time, and finally he decided he needed medical attention. His father and brother both died young of pancreatic cancer, so it’s always been a lurking possibility.
Still, we who know Mickey know him to be a paragon of health and vitality. So this abdominal discomfort was a cause for concern.
It’s taken a long time to get that discomfort fully diagnosed. He’s had a CT scan, an MRI, another kind of MRI, an endoscopy and biopsy. We knew in our hearts early on what the outcome would be. But for a long time doctors still spoke of it as the “‘cyst” or “growth” on his pancreas. The biopsy verified what we already knew. Now we enter the long process of figuring out what kinds of options, if any, are available for treatment. Then there will be choices to make.
Barb is a little further along in the treatment process, but still has hoops to jump through. She’s brave and straightforward. I hope very much that she will have many healthy years ahead.
I will save the medical details—they are Mickey’s (and Barbara’s) to share. I have made sure that Mickey is comfortable with me sharing even this much. What I want to say is about what this time has been like for me, particularly as Mickey and I undertake this journey together.
Because the process of diagnosis has been so slow, we have had plenty of time to wait between tests, results, consultations and so on. Lots of time to just be with each other and the growing clarity that he has the same illness that took his father’s life in ten days and his brother’s in 16 months. Lots of time to talk. Lots of time to talk about death. Lots of time to reminisce. Lots of time to contemplate all the unknowns and the one known ahead for both of us.
It’s been a very tender time. Lots of tears. Lots of quiet. Sometimes we tear our hair out because we are expecting a call at a certain time and it doesn’t come, or someone forgot to send something somewhere. But not so much. There’s a fair amount of pain management to deal with, and pain management has its own complications, but there are hours between doses. Sometimes we sit outside in the yard. Sometimes we go to a friend’s house for a while. Sometimes someone comes over here. Sometimes we drive down to the coast to watch the sunset.
Friends have been checking in, and that’s been lovely. The ones who know us really well know just what we might need in the moment, and they are showing up in beautiful ways. Earlier today I was cleaning the fridge and couldn’t get the shelves back together, which led me to a crying, swearing fit. Immediately afterwards I sent a text to a friend, who knew just what I needed: a phone call stat and a quick laugh about the whole thing. Many others are sending loving notes, offering to help when we ask. We’ve had luscious and loving gifts of food and too much chocolate. We don’t need a whole lot on the material plane, not yet. I expect we may in days to come, and it is a great comfort to know that we will have—already do have—the loving care of such a generous and supportive community.
When I began my sabbatical last October, I wanted to slow down, to reflect, to feel my own pulse after some years of helter-skelter. I wanted to reconnect with what is deepest and most real. I was looking forward to having time to be in the Mystery.
However, as I wrote last month, my invitation into the Mystery was, as it should be, completely different from what I expected. It’s tempting to write that nothing prepared me for this moment of Mickey’s illness, but that’s not exactly true. I recently got together with two beloved friends to sit together in silence and prayer. We were on a deck overlooking the ocean. I closed my eyes and the sounds of the waves and the cars on Highway 1 mingled into a roar. Then, one after another, the teachers of my life came to me. The people I love who have died, those who have taught me Torah, Moses in his last hours of life, texts and teachings that have sustained me over the years. Each sat with me for a few minutes, whispered something into my ear.
Ein od mi’l’vado ADONAI hu ha-ELOHIM—There is nothing else but the Mystery. This Hasidic spin on a verse from Deuteronomy (4:39) keeps wafting into my head, in a melody I learned not to long ago from my friends Julie Batz and Maggid Jhos Singer. I’m humming it a lot these days, with the English second line my friends taught me: “Love is all there is.”
I am looking forward to returning to my rabbinic role with all of you in April. I’ve missed seeing all of you and I have also missed the rhythm of Shabbat gatherings, holidays, cups of coffee, elders in conversation, the touchstones of our Jewish and communal life. I don’t know what the trajectory of Mickey’s illness will be or what will be called for. I know that you will support me, and both of us, to be in this time as best we can, with you, with each other, with love, and with open hearts.
In terms of particulars I don’t know, and can’t know, how completely present I will be able to be to MCJC at any given time. I am grateful beyond words for the myriad ways that people have come forward during my sabbatical to center every aspect of Jewish life here with such brilliance and care. Even if Mickey weren’t ill, I would be looking forward to collaborating more, soloing less, sharing the joy and responsibility of leadership more than I have in the past. (Why didn’t I figure this out 30-plus years ago???) Now I know that I will need this collaboration and that you will all continue to benefit from it. Our beloved Board of Director is committed to helping me explore how to re-enter under these new circumstances. I’ve already talked with some of you who have been leading services, conversations and more. Everyone has responded with such generosity and care. We’ll figure it out, I know. As specifics get ironed out, the Board and I will keep you up-to-date. If Mickey and I need help with food or rides or those kinds of things, I know that someone will reach out on our behalf.
I will make one specific request: I would rather not hear anecdotes about people that you know of who have beaten pancreatic cancer or who lived for decades after diagnosis. Obviously, we would love for that to be the case for Mickey. If it is, we will be grateful beyond imagining. But it’s not likely, and we both need to find peace with more probable outcomes.
For Mickey and me I anticipate that March will bring lots of doctors, lots of information, lots of decision-making. And more time to sit in the yard (maybe even in the rain), to love each other, to talk and to try to rest and renew when we can. All in the context of the second month of Adar, when merriment is the order of the season. Purim, with its laughter in the face of annihilation. An equinox. Longer days, later sunsets. Rain, I hope. A kind of hidden joy amidst it All. Love is all there is. I love you all.
