Wisdom Dialogue from Classic Films (1948-75)

Wisdom Dialogue from Classic Films (1948-75)

A Hard Day's Night  (1964)             The Beatles/Richard Lester

Man on train: Don't take that tone with me, young man. I fought the war for your sort. 
Ringo: I bet you're sorry you won.

John: We know how to behave! We've had lessons. 

Catch 22   (1970)                    Mike Nichols, director

A bombardier in World War II tries desperately to escape the insanity of the war. However, sometimes insanity is the only sane way cope with a crazy situation. Catch-22 is a parody of a "military mentality" and of a bureaucratic society in general.

Yossarian: Let me see if I've got this straight: in order to be grounded, I've got to be crazy and I must be crazy to keep flying. But if I ask to be grounded, that means I'm not crazy any more and I have to keep flying.

Dr. 'Doc' Daneeka: You got it, that's Catch-22. 
Yossarian: Whoo... That's some catch, that Catch-22. 

Dr. 'Doc' Daneeka: It's the best there is. 

1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: We're gonna come out of this war rich! 
Yossarian: You're gonna come out rich. We're gonna come out dead.

Maj. Major Major Major: Also, Sergeant, I don't want you coming in while I'm in my office asking me if there's anything you can do for me. Is that clear? 
First Sgt. Towser: Yes, sir. When should I come in your office and ask if there's anything I can do for you? 
Maj. Major Major Major: When I'm not there. 
First Sgt. Towser: What do I do then? 
Maj. Major Major Major: Whatever has to be done. 

First Sgt. Towser: Yes, sir.  

Dr. Strangelove   (1964)        Stanley Kubrick

President Merkin Muffley: Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room. 

[Turgidson advocates a further nuclear attack to prevent a Soviet response to Ripper's attack]
General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless *distinguishable*, postwar environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed.
President Merkin Muffley: You're talking about mass murder, General, not war!
General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Colonel... that Coca-Cola machine. I want you to shoot the lock off it. There may be some change in there.
Colonel "Bat" Guano: That's private property.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Colonel! Can you possibly imagine what is going to happen to you, your frame, outlook, way of life, and everything, when they learn that you have obstructed a telephone call to the President of the United States? Can you imagine? Shoot it off! Shoot! With a gun! That's what the bullets are for, you twit!
Colonel "Bat" Guano: Okay. I'm gonna get your money for ya. But if you don't get the President of the United States on that phone, you know what's gonna happen to you?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: What?
Colonel "Bat" Guano: You're gonna have to answer to the Coca-Cola company.

[after learning of the Doomsday Machine]
President Merkin Muffley: But this is absolute madness, Ambassador! Why should you *build* such a thing?
Ambassador de Sadesky: There were those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. At the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we had been spending on defense in a single year. The deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap.
President Merkin Muffley: This is preposterous. I've never approved of anything like that.
Ambassador de Sadesky: Our source was the New York Times. 

                   

Dr. Zhivago  (1965)                David Lean

Komarovski: There are two kinds of men and only two. And that young man is one kind. He is high-minded. He is pure. He's the kind of man the world pretends to look up to, and in fact despises.

Zhivago: You lay life on a table and cut out all the tumors of injustice. Marvelous. 

Pasha: The private life is dead - for a man with any manhood. 
Zhivago: I saw some of your 'manhood' on the way at a place called Minsk. 
Pasha: They were selling horses to the Whites. 
Zhivago: It seems you've burnt the wrong village. 
Pasha: They always say that, and what does it matter? A village betrays us, a village is burned. The point's made. 
Zhivago: Your point - their village. 

La Strada  (1954)                    Fellini

Fellini's "La Strada" is memorable, atmospheric, entertaining, thoughtful, and many other things. It is often sad, not even so much because of the things that happen, but simply for what it reveals about the human condition. It is sometimes surreal, not in a bizarre visual sense, but in the unexpected combinations of emotions that it sometimes evokes. And it is always human, commenting on individuals and humanity as a whole with a keen eye and with cinematic skill.

The Fool: Maybe he loves you?
Gelsomina: Me?
The Fool: Why not? He is like dogs. A dog looks at you, wants to talk, and only barks. 

The Fool: What a funny face! Are you a woman, really? Or an artichoke? 

The Fool: I am ignorant, but I read books. You won't believe it, everything is useful... this pebble for instance.
Gelsomina: Which one?
The Fool: Anyone. It is useful.
Gelsomina: What for?
The Fool: For... I don't know. If I knew I'd be the Almighty, who knows all. When you are born and when you die... Who knows? I don't know for what this pebble is useful but it must be useful. For if its useless, everything is useless. So are the stars! 

Lawrence of Arabia  (1962)    David Lean

General Allenby: I thought I was a hard man, sir. 
Prince Feisal: You are merely a general. I must be a king. 

General Murray: I can't make out whether you're bloody bad-mannered or just half-witted. 
T.E. Lawrence: I have the same problem, sir.

General Allenby: I'm promoting you Major. 
T.E. Lawrence: I don't think that's a very good idea. 

Tafas: [talking of Britain] Is that a desert country? 
T.E. Lawrence: No: a fat country. Fat people. 
Tafas: You are not fat? 
T.E. Lawrence: No. I'm different.

Mr. Dryden: If we've been telling lies, you've been telling half-lies. A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it. 

Prince Feisal: You, I suspect, are chief architect of this compromise. What do you think? 
Mr. Dryden: Me, your Highness? On the whole, I wish I'd stayed in Tunbridge Wells. 

Mr. Dryden: [to Bentley, on a meeting between Lawrence and Allenby] Well, I'll tell you. It's a little clash of temperament that's going on in there. Inevitably, one of them's half-mad - and the other, wholly unscrupulous.

One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest  (1975)     Milos Forman

McMurphy: I must be crazy to be in a loony bin like this. 

McMurphy: What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin'? Well you're not! You're not! You're no crazier than the average asshole out walkin' around on the streets and that's it. 

Cheswick: Rules? PISS ON YOUR FUCKING RULES! 

McMurphy: But I tried, didn't I? Goddamnit, at least I did that. 

McMurphy: I can't take it no more. I gotta get outta here. 
Chief Bromden: I can't. I just can't. 
McMurphy: It's easier than you think, Chief. 
Chief Bromden: For you, maybe. You're a lot bigger than me. 

Chief Bromden: My pop was real big. He did like he pleased. That's why everybody worked on him. The last time I seen my father, he was blind and diseased from drinking. And every time he put the bottle to his mouth, he didn't suck out of it, it sucked out of him until he shrunk so wrinkled and yellow even the dogs didn't know him. 
McMurphy: Killed him, huh? 
Chief Bromden: I'm not saying they killed him. They just worked on him. The way they're working on you. 

Sunset Boulevard  (1950)           Billie Wilder

Joe Gillis: [narrating] Well, this is where you came in, back at that pool again, the one I always wanted. It's dawn now and they must have photographed me a thousand times. Then they got a couple of pruning hooks from the garden and fished me out... ever so gently. Funny, how gentle people get with you once you're dead. 

Betty Schaefer: I've been hoping to run into you.
Joe Gillis: What for? To recover that knife you stuck in my back?

Joe Gillis: You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.
Norma Desmond: I am big. It's the pictures that got small.

Norma Desmond: [to newsreel camera]  You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!... All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up. 

The Treasure of Sierra Madre  (1948)        John Huston

Howard: I know what gold does to men's souls. 

Howard: Ah, as long as there's no find, the noble brotherhood will last but when the piles of gold begin to grow... that's when the trouble starts. 

Fred C. Dobbs: You know, if I was a native, I'd get me a can of shoe polish and I'd be in business. They'd never let a gringo. You can sit on a bench 'til you're three-quarters starved... you can beg from another gringo... you can even commit burglary. You try shinin' shoes in the street, peddlin' lemonade out of a bucket, and your hash is settled. You'll never get another job from an American.
Bob Curtin: Yeah, and the natives would hound and pester you to death.
Fred C. Dobbs: Some town to be broke in.
Bob Curtain: What town isn't? 

Rosh HaShonah 5773 (2012)

Dear Beloved Family, 

Although I may not have been a very good Jewish father or role model over the years, there still is within me a strong, abiding attachment to this ancient religion, its teachings and the spiritual longing that they inculcate within the soul.  No matter these many decades living in the land of Vishnu and the Buddha, with all the regard and respect I have for these divinities and their teachings, my heart is still drawn to the words of the Hebrew Torah and its prophets.  

At this time of year, the start of the Jewish New Year, Rosh HaShonah, and the Day of Atonement (at-one-ment) on Yom Kippur a week later, always in September and October (like Desain and Tihar) those atavistic, religious longings reappear deep in my heart's core.  Curious, of course, having come so far away from the land and lessons of my forefathers, but there it is, the 'crie de couer' (cry of the heart) that comes, at times, when least expected.  

Who among us is to explain the longings and passions of the human soul?  Not me, certainly, possibly other teachers, gurus, rimpoches and rabbis.  Not me...

This is merely to say how much I love all of you, how my life has been dedicated to all of you since we first met in this world.  In many ways, long before we met, too, when the idea of you was so palpable and present in my thoughts as a younger man seeking my truth, my sustenance and my grounding.  You all, each in your own way, has given me so much to cherish and remember in this world.  My life would be so much emptier and lonelier without each of you.  In truth, you have not only given me my present, but my future and built upon my past.    

So, as we approach this most sacred time of the year for the Jewish people, people who carry the values, the history and the heritage of this unusual tradition, I want to share the message below, as it, too, speaks of the meaning of this sacred time of the year for each of us in our own lives, our personal growth and our simple devotion to family.

There are lessons to be found everywhere in the world, echoes and reflections from the quiet of the evening sky, the dew in the morning, the afternoon light sparkling off moving water.  As Joshu knows, this pantheistic nature of the world calls profoundly to each of us.  

And yet, only the human voice can put words on paper or in the air to reach out and communicate more complex and tender thoughts.  Nature can free our souls, but cannot always explain to us how best to live with our neighbors, or friends, or loved ones.  For that, at times, we turn to those wiser and calmer voices who know the depth of our struggle as human beings, our hurts, our vulnerabilities, our wounds, our hopes.  

We need, at times, those voices who teach us to forgive, both others as well as ourselves.  Those who know the words of peace, not only among nations -- but among individuals, family and cultures.  Those sage voices who seek to heal the world person by person, friend to friend, neighbor to neighbor, husband to wife, wife to husband, brother to brother, colleague to colleague, father to son, son to father, other to me, me to the other... in all the binary relationships we have created in this world.  

As a rabbinic commentary for the sacred time of deep reflection during this new year states: 

"We direct the search-light of scrutiny upon ourselves -- rather than focusing it on the shortcomings of others.  We do the intensely personal work required on Yom Kippur without being distracted... since changing the way we regard and speak to one another is a prerequisite to changing society and the world."

I simply wanted to take a moment to wish you all a Happy Jewish New Year, as there are never enough new year celebrations in any year for all of us.  

We are fortunate in Nepal to celebrate many new year blessings -- the Nepali, the Newari, the Tibetan, the Tamang, the Tharu, the Western -- for each day in our brief lives that the sun rises anew, afresh, alive, above, again offers us each opportunities for thankfulness, forgiveness and the offering of love.  

your husband/father/friend/colleague/me

Geoffrey's Death

“All of this talk about holiness must be the start of the latest style.  Is it all books and words or do you really feel it, do you really feel it…”

Joni Mitchell, ‘Woman of Heart and Mind’

to a friend...

your deep, passionate, honest and revealing voice is so rare and rich and wondrous that it should be speaking at the conference on pilgrimage i will be attending, as well as at both the democratic and republican conventions, so that the american people can open their hearts and energies to the wealth of a world they see too often anxiously and antagonistically.  

your writing flows with an abundance and care and concern and energy that could power the lights of kathmandu if they would ever let women take charge of their bureaucratic and self-serving ministries.  your mind embraces all in your tantric way, taking in the higher elements and the earthen soil  in ways that mystify and purify our own actions-reactions-reflections.  i love it.  

alas, i am so sorry to hear about the passing/death of your dear musician friend.  i saw the news on emil's FB and immediately googled him, as i knew that he was a brother spirit to the soul of our dear friend.  of course, immediately, that gentle Vedic, melodic spirit emanated from his website with that balinese staircase to heaven greeting the first time visitor.  

there, the tropical nature g-ds implicit in our love of the garden of bounty and botany around us.  the recognition of a path that can carry us higher to visions of release, rejuvenation and restoration.  some of the pure agnostic, non-deistic visions of the spiritual world that have drawn us to the wealth of asia and kept us here over time.

yes, you, as well, more than most, are drawn to the shaivite world of pashupati and the cremation grounds from where the frail spirit is released.  it's a powerful ground of being, sans doubt, not for the meek or weak in mind or spirit.  maybe too strong and elemental for me in some ways.  

for it has its rough edge that tears away the complacency and quietude of the modern religious world, the secular theologians, protestants and reform jews, who prefer to deal with the social and political ambitions of man, not the darker currents of blood, lusts and decay that we have passed on to the darwinians and freudians of our recent century.  

yet there is power in these dark, elemental, sacred places.  we feel that.  the 'spiritum tremendum' of deeper energies, unseen forces and raw connection.  no images or names or academic rituals need to be conjured to know that the spirit lies sanctified in those stones and soil and substance.  

i felt it at vajra yogini the first time i visited on the edge of the kathmandu valley and in the cave under the dome of the rock on jerusalem's ancient and sacrificial hillock.  

whether we are pulled to these places of divinity b/c there is something originally in the land that ties our frail coils to the earth or there has accrued the ancient authority from our frail aspirations, i cannot say.  

but for those with their hearts in their heads and their minds in their blessed murtis, they know.  

simply know.  

i am sure it was good to go to such a site for geoffrey's passing.  death is the final ritual in this world.  there are no words, only actions and even those are manifestations of the inner connections that protect us, embrace us, guide us, soothe us as our lives swiftly course down the river of life.

for that, we also sit profoundly at the feet of aural muses, like beloved joni, who express so poetically and musically (like your friend geoffrey...) the deepest truths of our dreams, our loves, our lives...

oh, death, you inspire us as you destroy us...  

as life fulfills us as it leaves us...

The Transition from Russia to America

I'm at home under the monsoon skies, occasionally out in the garden digging out my proverbial rock garden, listening to Van sing about the "Philosopher's Stone".  Perfect!

Most of the day, and last night til 1:30 am, I am laying out the facts of my great-grandfather Morris (Moses) Rose's immigration to the US.  Maybe it was reading 'The Hare with the Amber Eyes', about another European family's personal narrative, or simply wading through Dad's scores of scrapbooks when I was home at Mom's and Claudia's this summer, or simply that time in life... I have the urge for going once again...  only this time it's not out and about in that glorious world outside, but deeper inside the stories of my family and our late 19th C. transition from Russia to America... 

As I say, 'from the shtetl to the suburbs'...  from Russia with love...

For me, there lies in this passage an epochal transition in history and culture, of not merely in our individual lives, but in the whole Jewish and even modern experience.  That ocean voyage was the start of the deeper journey from the 19th to 21st centuries; from our great-grandparents to our children.

Of course, I can't capture that in a few pages of a family histoire, but it seems that between the specific chapters on my historical family members, there is a need to step back, occasionally, to reflect on what transpired to us emotionally as individuals and on a larger scale culturally and historically... 

This is what I wrote this morning... 

The Transition from Russia to America:

The transformation of a young man born as Moses Lifshcitz in the traditional Yiddish world of orthodox religious Judaism and the autocracy of the Tsar’s Imperial Court to the mature, patriarch Morris Rose living comfortably in the United States, speaking English and voting in democratic elections marks the historic transition of a centuries old lineage of Jewish rabbis in Eastern Europe to Jewish doctors on the East Coast of America (at least in my family). 

This was the culmination of the 19^th C. Jewish immigration from the isolation and insular Russian shtetl to the openness and wealth of the American suburbia. 

This was the great challenge for the modern Jew of how to reconcile his devotion and respect for his parents and heritage with the opportunities, freedom and social diversity of his new world across the ocean from the old.  How to maintain the traditions and identity that had anchored and centered the Jewish community for millennium when his new society offered the opportunity to chose not to be as thoroughly Jewish or to continue to live in a tightly regulated religious community.

Not only could these new Jewish immigrants to America chose to leave the faith of their forefathers behind and create a new identity, a la the Great Gatsby (who may, indeed, have been Jewish).  They could also transform their Jewishness to a more urbane, cosmopolitan and less doctrinal identification.  No longer was the rabbinate the only profession available to these shtetl kids, but they could aspire to become professionals in the attractive and monied secular world around them.

Although inter-marriage outside of the Jewish community was rare among the first-generation immigrants, the widespread assimilation of cultures in the American urban environment and increasing immigration meant that such opportunities became more plentiful and accessible.  After another generation, among Morris Rose’s grandchildren, inter-faith marriage became a much more common and, even, accepted reality. 

The prescient question posed by Baruch Spinoza, the Dutch-Jewish philosopher, in the 17^th C. (1632-77) became even more poignant two centuries later for the educated Jews departing Eastern Europe for the United States.  In a modern country more tolerant socially, culturally and economically, as well as in personal religious affairs, how could one remain an observant, practicing Jew? 

Spinoza disputed Maimonides's optimistic belief that for Jews reason and faith could be reconciled. Spinoza asserted that as biblical texts were believed to have been inspired by G-d, they were supernatural, i.e., beyond reason. Therefore, Spinoza felt that religious texts could be interpreted only through faith or reason -- but not both. Spinoza was one of the first Jewish intellectuals to raise the growing contradiction between Jewish community values and secular liberal ones. He posed a question that remains relevant to this day: Is it possible to be a true liberal and a traditional Jew?

This question, too, informs the passage of the Rose-Lifschitz family’s migration from the shtetl of Eastern Europe to an America cleansed of history.  The fervent anti-Semitism of the old world with its deep-seated hates and prejudices were more subtle and less virulent in the States.  Although the United States was clearly a dominant white, English-speaking Christian culture, there was not the same influence of centuries of anti-Semitism, Jewish regulations or religious separation in the new country.  The horrors of the 20^th century in Europe, by and large, remained on the other side of the Atlantic.

Yet, without a voice to speak or children or grandchildren with long memories, it’s impossible to know exactly what was in the minds of Morris and Deborah Rose when the made the decision to leave Oshmyany, Russia and set sail for a fresh future in America.

Did they have relatives or friends who were already across who wrote letters encouraging them to come.  Did they actually think that the streets of New York were paved with gold?  What were their visual or emotional images of the world they were heading toward?  Who paid for their journey?  Did they, as is said, travel second class, above the multitudes in steerage?  Did they travel with others from their community or family? 

Did they have an idea of how they would support themselves once they arrived in America?  Did they have a home to go to upon arrival or were there refugee or immigrant centers where they could stay until finding work?  Who would have been the friend or family member who would take in a Jewish family of five with no job, no home and, no doubt, limited facility to speak English?   Would we?

How apprehensive were they about this journey?  What were Moses and Deborah saying to each other those weeks leading up to the journey?  What were they saying to their young children, Anna, Jack and Samuel?   Did they have the blessings of their parents?  What was the orthodox rabbi father, Meir Ezekiel, saying to his son as he left, possibly never to see him again?  Was the great Gaon Rabbi Baruch Mordecai still alive?  Did he say a last blessing on his grandson the Shabat they shared before sailing to America? 

Was Moses (Morris) the first of Baruch Mordecai’s grandchildren to leave the landscape of Russia and head off to start his life across the ocean?  Had other grandchildren already moved to the burgeoning cities of Western Europe by 1892?  Were they able to travel freely from the Tsarist Empire to either Berlin or Vienna or even beyond to Hamburg, Amsterdam or even America?  Who authorized their travel?  What served in place of a passport or a visa? How was the distant travel arranged?  Were there brokers who came to the towns and villages promising wealth and opportunity on the other side of the world?  Had others come back, like in the villages of Nepal today, to tell of the money that could be made working for the ‘foreigner’ in a foreign land? 

What did Deborah and Moses (Morris) pack to take with them to America?  What was in their home in Meriden, CN, then on Henry St. on the Lower East Side, that they carried from Oshmyany?  Were there Jewish ritual objects?  A menorah?  A Yiddish prayer book?  Morris’ father or grandfather’s prayer shawl?  Photographs of the family and homes left behind?  A scrap of a Russian or Yiddish newspaper?  The tickets from their passage over from the S.S. California?  Their Russian Imperial travel documents?  The birth registration certificates for their children?  Legal documents regarding any family property in Oshmyany or their original citizenship papers?

This was a passage of exceptional courage and perserverence.  No matter that millions of other Jews may have been making the same voyage.  For each person, it was their life and the lives of their family members who were about to be tossed on that ocean of change.  Few could have left for such a momentous journey without some trepidation mixed with their hopes and anticipation. 

For us, Moses-Morris and Deborah (Bogad) Rose were our grandfather or great-grandfather and our grandmother or great-grandmother.  If not for their evocative decision, our lives would have remained in towns between Bialystok and Vilna, along the contentious Nemen River, the traditional boundary between West and East in Europe – not along the more placid Hudson River in New York.

In retrospect, knowing the history of the 20^th Century, few of us would probably have survived the coming cataclysms that were to follow during the First World War and then the final destruction of these traditional Jewish communities that lay fragilely and dangerously between the growing military might of the German Reich and Soviet Union during the 1930s and 40s.   

If not for their decision to find a new life in America in 1892, it is quite likely that no one would be here writing this story, nor few left to read it.

Morris Rose's Speech on his Golden Wedding Anniversary, August 26th, 1923

For me, the hand-written speech below was a bit of a revelation. 

I'd seen the B&W photographs of Morris Rose (my mother's father's father) celebrating his golden wedding anniversary to his wife, Deborah Bogad, in NYC in 1923.  Already a few years before my parents were even born.  But never knew of this speech celebrating that occasion. 

Fortunately, my brother, Bruce, had carefully kept the original hand-written letter he received from our father (who wisely collected everything). 

Over the past week, Bruce and I have carefully transcribed Morris' handwriting so that this historic speech is easier to read (with a few footnotes, as well).

Looking back, Morris and Deborah began their lives in a small town in the Pale of Settlement along the Russian-Polish-Lithunian borders.  But, like many others of their generation, they chose to cross the Atlantic with their small children sometime in the 1880s to make the uncertain passage toward fresh opportunities and inchoate dreams within America. 

No doubt events in Russia (particularly the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 and the anti-semitic pograms that followed) motivated their decision to leave their home, like millions of Eastern European Jews at the turn of that century, to make a new life in the US. 

Morris and Deborah's decision to uproot from one known traditional world to the unknown 5,000 miles away has been the foundation for hundreds of other lives in the secular United States.  

First, in Russia, then Connecticut and NYC, they birthed their five children (Anna Sophie, Jacob, Sam, Boris Max, Ben-Henry) between 1881-97.  Then their children, all immigrants to America except my grandfather, Ben-Henry, found their ways to survive in the new world, married, and brought to life a score of grandchildren (among them my mother, Priscilla) who then, in their turn, married and through their special loves brought into the world dozens of great grandchildren (that's me & us) -- each of whom has striven to fulfill his or her own ambitions, hopes, dreams and karma, while adding scores more great great grandchildren (including our Joshua, Ezra and Leah Rose) across the seasons of our lives and decades of the 20th and 21st centuries. 

I can't say about others, but for me it's hard not to feel a certain wistfulness and inexplicable emotion to hear this man, my unknown great-grandfather, long gone from this world, through these words express his thoughts in what was most likely his second or third language (English) with such clarity, simplicity and love. The touches of Hebrew or Yiddish in his formal speech with references to his Jewish life give his pre-war world a stability, consistency and reassurance that has passed away for many of us.

Maybe because of that there are some old world expressions spoken by Morris Rose that were beyond the capacity of Bruce and me to understand.  Someday, we hope that others may help us to better understand those idioms.  If we're fortunate, some distant relatives will find other forgotten hand-written letters or typed communications in their files or boxes from those distant generations.

Their world is long gone, but for those of us who find meaning in personal narratives, the earned wisdom of our elders and shared family history, there is much to appreciate and reflect upon in this 90 year old speech.  

For me, these words vividly and affectionately express the joys of a life begun 140 years ago when two innocent yet remarkably mature 17 year olds, Morris Rose and Deborah Bogad, stood before their respected parents in a traditional Jewish marriage ceremony far, far away from our world today...

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TELEPHONE ORCHARD 2633

MORRIS ROSE

INSURANCE

119 HENRY STREET

NEW YORK CITY

My Speech Delivered on my Golden Wedding

August 26^th, 1923

Mr. Toastmaster, beloved Children, dear Friends!  Deeply moved I stand before you today, my heart filled with gratitude towards God, love and tenderness toward my beloved ones and with the Psalmist, I wish to cry out: this is the day which this Lord hath made, We will be glad and rejoice here on.  Would, I have the power of words to express all that I feel, but, oh! How could I?  Like a wanderer who climbed a high mountain and looking back from the summit upon the ways he has gone, marvels the fair fields stretched before him, so am I standing before you to day, look upon 50 years of married life, life made beautiful by my faithful and dear companion, and with our sages I do confess: a Virtuous wife is the Crown of her husband, greater than pearls Is her worth!

Fifty years!  It is quickly said, but takes a long time to live them!  And yet, once passed by, they seem no more than a day to live them.  As it was yesterday, I vividly see myself again…  a boy of sixteen years of age.  How different from that boy, this American boy of the same age is as I know him today.  The American boy is still a mere child, school and school life fills his mind, and if he has any worries at all is perhaps about that proper moment when he shall change his knickers to the first long pants, whether the Giants will win or the Yankees. To me at sixteen there came quite other ideas, quite other aspirations.  I fervently wanted to get married, I even remember I composed a special prayer imploring the help of God to find a faithful and good wife and whenever a prayer was heard it was certainly that prayer of mine.  The Talmud says if you can influence your son give him a wife and sages knew the best thing for a young man were the duties and responsibilities of married life.  These duties strengthen his character and give him ambition and give his whole life as it were an anchor and distinct aim.  Just so it was with me.  When I was seventeen I was engaged, and the bride I had chosen, or more correctly speaking, the bride which was given to me, was no other than the golden bride you see here at my side.  We had by no means what we call a love afair (sic), it was a Shadchan[1] or marriage broker who brought us together, but I can frankly say that we never regretted it.  Did we Dear?  Instead of a love afair (sic), we had a life afair (sic) and believe me a life afair (sic) is the real thing, the only one worthwhile. 

After my engagement I was invited to the house of my bride, and for fully three weeks I lived there as a guest.  Imagine a modern boy staying 3 weeks in the house of his fiancée.  How many potting (?) parties, how many secret and open kisses, dances and other going-ons there would be.  We, I believe, we never touched each other’s hand.  We were so shy, so young, so timid, and when we were permitted to take a walk together, her parents sent their little boy of 8 years to watch us.  Yes, my friends, time changes and we, we change with them.

            We were both but 17 ½ years and as a matter of fact my bride was 6 weeks older than I was when we married and meshpokah (Yiddish) to the modern boy, it did not make any difference to me.  I was happy to become her husband and this happiness has lasted, Heaven thanks through out fifty years!

            Staying here at the festive table, surrounded by our beloved children and dear friends, quite naturally the wedding table of 50 years ago arises before my mental eyes, then I had to deliver a real old-fashioned Droshe (Yiddish), a Talmudic discourse sophistical.  It was always expected of the groom, who had to show on this occasion that he was a Talmudic scholar, and for this he was rewarded by the wedding guest right on the spot with so-called Droshe Gershank.[2]  My Droshe Gershank consisted of 253 rubles.   Though this sum may not be over much today but at that time it represented quite a tidy sum for the ruble then had an entirely different value.  There were some of the guests who tore a ruble into 2 halfs, and while either of those two halfs were presented separately the Badchan[3] or jester would call out a friend of the bride Mr. so and so presents a ruble Madom Ledroshe (?)!   The russian would surely call this Shzid  Maohenik (?)!  but tonight I will not get any Droshe Gershank ,consequently I will spare you the learned Talmudic discourse all I want to do is to express in a few plain, simple American words, my deep gratitude and heart felt appreciation for being permitted to live up to this day and together with my family celebrate this happy occasion.

            I would surely love to tell you much of the by gone 50 years, but looking backwards I feel, important and full our life has been to us, after all, is nothing but the everage (sic) life everage (sic) people with Koheleth[4] I may say the sun arose and the sun went down, one day followed another, and that was about all.  As years passed by, our married life grew into even greater happiness and contenment (sic) as we learned more and more to love each other truely (sic) and sincerely. 

            True, we have had our little quarrels, our little controversies, but they did not last long and the reconciliation that followed afterward was so sweet so delightfull (sic) of delicious compensations that I would advise any young couple to have now and then a like-tiff in order to taste the sweetness of the making up, Dos uberbesen (?).  Dos uberbesen is the most wonderfull (sic) thing in married life!

            As our material life is concerned, we had like most of the people our ups and downs, perhaps more downs than ups, but we were satisfied with whatever we had.  We found always our greatest happiness in our children, whom, after all we managed to give a good education and who have repaid us with true love and filial affection.

            I sincerely thank our dear guests who have assembled here for their good wishes and their great pleasure they give us with their presence.  Furthermore I would like to thank my friend D. Tarlow for his kindness to act as Toastmaster and who fulfilled his task to perfection.

            And at last but not least I thank admirably my beloved children for their wonderfull (sic) and thoughtful gift in entering our names in the Golden book of the Jewish National Fund.  Mrs. Rose never fails to put a few coins in the National Fund before lighting the candles every Friday night.

            One more word

            I wish to tell you, we are celebrating to night not just our golden wedding but another happy anniversary.  It is twenty years today my beloved daughter[5] has been married to Mr. Finkelstein and as they are both ardent Zionists I take this opportunity of presenting them as a token of parent love with a Dunem Lund (?) in that fertile valley in Eretz Israel in Palestine.  May they be as happy as we wish them to be and may they celebrate their Golden wedding in some Jewish hotel in that beautifull (sic) city of Tel Aviv, the Atlantic City of Eretz Israel.

            The Talmud says it is the duty to know the Woman well before one marries her.  I am afraid that I failed to fulfill my duty 50 years ago, and I do it now, binding myself in a golden wedding ceremony to the one woman I know best in God’s world her years of lore and devotion will never be forgotten.  Happy is the man whose lot and position has been cast with a wife like her, and with our sages I confess the truth of the sacred proverb: House and wealth you inherit from your parents, but a good wife is the gift of God!

---

[1] Shadchan ‫ is a Hebrew word for matchmaker and refers to people who carry out Shidduchim as a profession within the Orthodox community. Shadchan can also refer to anyone who introduces two single Jews with the hope they will form a couple. A matchmaker is familiar with both sides and in a position to introduce the interested parties.

[2] Yiddish: wedding gift, literally speech gift

[3] A badchen or badkhn (a Hebrew word meaning jester Yiddishized as badchen) is a Jewish comedian with scholarly overtones who entertained guests at weddings among the Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe. Today they are found in all countries with Chassidic populations. The badchen was a standard part of the wedding, as de rigueur as the officiating rabbi. An elaborate traditional wedding might also involve a letz (lit. a clown or musician) and a marshalik (a master of ceremonies). The badchen provides the energy for a party before and after the ceremony and to make the transition to a more serious tone before the ceremony. To this end his comedy was not slapstick but rather verbal with many intricate Talmudic references and in-jokes.

[4] The Book of Ecclesiastes originally called Qoheleth in Hebrew.

[5] Morris Rose’s daughter Anna and her husband (Finkelsten) whose name was changed later to Fenton by their children.

Jackson Browne: Looking Into You

Jackson Browne: Looking Into You 

Well I looked into a house I once lived in 
Around the time I first went on my own 
When the roads were as many as the places I had dreamed of 
And my friends and I were one 
Now the distance is done and the search has begun 
I've come to see where my beginnings have gone 

Oh the walls and the windows were still standing 
And the music could be heard at the door 
Where the people who kindly endured my odd questions 
Asked if I came very far 
And when my silence replied they took me inside 
Where their children sat playing on the floor 

Well we spoke of the changes that would find us farther on 
And it left me so warm and so high 
But as I stepped back outside to the grey morning sun 
I heard that highway whisper and sigh 
Are you ready to fly? 
[ Lyrics fhttp://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jackson+browne/looking+into+you_20068547.html ] 
And I looked into the faces all passing by 
It's an ocean that will never be filled 
And the house that grows older and finally crumbles 
That even love cannot rebuild 
It's a hotel at best, you're here as a guest 
You oughta make yourself at home while you're waiting for the rest 

Well I looked into dream of the millions 
That one day the search will be through 
Now here I stand at the edge of my embattled illusions 
Looking into you 

The great song traveler passed through here 
And he opened my eyes to the view 
And I was among those who called him a prophet 
And I asked him what was true 
Until the distance had shown how the road remains alone 
Now I'm looking in my life for a truth that is my own 

Well I looked into the sky for my anthem 
And the words and the music came through 
But words and music can never touch the beauty that I've seen 
Looking into you -- and that's true

Han-shan, Taoist T'ang poet

“the ten thousand things are all reflections
the moon originally has no light” 

----------------------------------------------------------------

“Clambering up the Cold Mountain path,
The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:
The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,
The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass.
The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain
The pine sings, but there's no wind.
Who can leap the world's ties
And sit with me among the white clouds?” 

“I spur my horse past the ruined city;
the ruined city, that wakes the traveler's thoughts:
ancient battlements, high and low;
old grave mounds, great and small.

Where the shadow of a single tumbleweed trembles
and the voice of the great trees clings forever,
I sigh over all these common bones --
No roll of the immortals bears their names. ” 

“Children I implore you
get out of the burning house now
three carts wait outside
to save you from a homeless life
relax in the village square
before the sky everything's empty
no direction is better or worse
east is just as good as west
those who know the meaning of this
are free to go where they want” 

“Clambering up the Cold Mountain path,

The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:
The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,
The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass.
The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain
The pine sings, but there's no wind.
Who can leap the world's ties
And sit with me among the white clouds?”

--------------------------------------------------------------

"Wonderful, this road to Cold Mountain --
Yet there's no sign of horse or carriage.
In winding valleys too tortuous to trace
On crags who knows how high,
A thousand different grasses weep with dew
And pines hum together in the wind.
Now it is that, straying form the path,
You ask your shadow, "what way from here"

------------------------------------------------------------

"You find a flower half-buried in leaves,
And in your eye its very fate resides.
Loving beauty, you caress the bloom;
Soon enough, you'll sweep petals from the floor.
Terrible to love the lovely so,
To count your own years, to say "I'm old,"
To see a flower half-buried in leaves
And come face to face with what you are."


--------------------------------------------------------
"People ask about Cold Mountain Way;
There's no Cold Mountain Road that goes straight through:
By summer, lingering cold is not dispersed,
By fog, the risen sun is screened from view;
So how did one like me get onto it?
In our hearts, I'm not the same as you --
If in your heart you should become like me,
Then you can reach the center of it too."


Cold Mountain
Han-shan


Han Shan was a hermit-poet of the T'ang Dynasty (618-906), who was considered, when an older man, to be an eccentric Taoist, crazy saint, mountain ascetic mystic, wise fool.   Most of Han Shan's poems were written when he lived in the rugged southern and far eastern mountains of Fujiian Province.  He lived alone in caves and primitive shelters in the rugged mountains in an area referred to as the Heavenly Terrace (T'ien T'ai) Mountains.