Jacob's Ladder

 "It was the best of times ... it was the worst of times,  it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

In high school I didn't read much Dickens, but I always remember those opening lines of from his novel, A Tale of Two Cities.

The quote came to mind this Thanksgiving 2025 when everyone collectively paused with family and friends to think of all we are thankful for. But with hurt and fear viscerally affecting so many now across the land, it's hard and perhaps Pollyanna-ish to engage in that exercise. If you hold fast in believing we are truly in the season of darkness, consider this ...

In this same season of 1863, in the midst of the Civil War with Rebel sons sometimes fighting Northern brothers and the Union on life support, President Lincoln proclaimed going forward there would be a national day of thanksgiving.

Crazy, no?

Even during those worst of times Lincoln wanted his countrymen to recognize their blessings. Acknowledging the good motivates the soul to respond with gratitude. The President believed that despite darkness and despair, it is always a season for hope, light, and gratefullness.

Abraham Lincoln was known as a brilliant orator and master storyteller, but as far as I know, he wasn't a Torah scholar. Yet his remarks over 150 years ago echoed the corresponding Torah portion of this past week - the story of Jacob's ladder (Genesis 28: 20-22).

In this passage, we find Jacob on the lam. Previously he schemed with his mother Rachel to take advantage of his father's failing eyesight and steal his older brother Esay's birthright. Realizing the robbery, Esau goes ballistic. He with his men, 400 strong, then set out to get Jacob who has just made a hasty exit from biblical 'Dodge'. Exhausted by his desperate flight, Jacob drops into a deep sleep somewhere in the desert wilderness. During the night he dreams of a ladder ascending the heavens. Jacob's vision can be seen as a way upward to overcome life's challenges and connect with all that is good. But as in Wenceslas Hollar's 17 century artistic depictions of the dream, angels are shown going down as well as up. The ladder is a two-way thoroughfare providing rungs to journey heavenward but also steps to fall back to the uncertain times in the earthly realm.

So here's the $64 question - will the ladder help you up, inspiring to see a better place, or lead you down to remain wallowing in despair?

It's your call.

Isaac getting inspiration along with a snack

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Photos © David Greenfield

Lincoln - St. Gaudens Nat'l Historic Park, Cornish NH

ladders - Poverty Lane Orchard, Lebanon NH

Isaac getting inspiration - Arlington MA

Jacob's Ladder Artwork - Wenceslas Hollar 1607 - 1677

How Sweet It is!

 

Has feeling the pain of our citizens who lost SNAP benefits during the government shutdown and didn’t know how they would feed their families continued to gnaw away at you? How about seeing images of ICE agents pulling people out of cars or being rounded up at workplaces and put into detention just because the agent judged the shade of their skin to be too ‘non-white’? 

It gnaws at me and I needed a remedy, at least short term. Perhaps something funny on the telly would work.

Then for some inexplicable reason, I thought of Jackie Gleason.  Don’t ask me why.

Jackie as Ralph Kramden (Etsy photos)

During his illustrious television and film career,  Gleason’s signature line was, “how sweet it is!” In his 1950s Hollywood heydays he brought joy and awe to viewing audiences by portrayals of busdriver Ralph Kramden on the ‘Honeymooners’ TV series and as the gentleman pool aficionado Minnesota Fats in ‘The Hustler’, just to name two.

Temporarily putting aside what I, what we, can do about the tsunami of heartless, hurtful policies emanating from Washington on a daily basis, I needed some of Gleason’s ‘sweetness’,  something to warm my insides, brighten my horizon, and put a smile on my face. 

Maybe you need that too. 

In pondering a ‘one size fits all’ fix I conjured up a sure-fire winner, baby faces - pure and innocent. Just the idea of it immediately began to work. Unless you’re made of stone, maybe it will work for you.

So, to bath our ailing psyches with a short term soothing salve, check out this collection of babes and see if you won’t start thinking, ‘how sweet it is!”

photo credit - Jonathan Dunn and Emily Jewel

Is the 'salve' working for you yet?

How Sweet It Is!

Pathway to Citizenship

 

America was always viewed as the ‘City on the Hill’, a beacon of freedom and democracy. People from around the world looked to it and aspired one day to call it their home, become a citizen, and raise their families there. 

Pathway to citizenship is termed ‘naturalization’, a process that is ……… natural. It was the pathway my parents and I  once traveled on.

Rachela, David, and Josef

But the day I officially became a citizen, not only as the minor child of naturalized  parents, was anything but a natural day. 

How come? Here’s the story of events leading up to that day. 

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Rachela Bunis along with an older sister, and Josef Grünfeld along with a younger brother were the only survivors of the Holocaust/Shoah from their families. Before the war, they lived in different parts of Poland, but afterward, as with other Jewish survivors whose families and homes were decimated, they were gathered by the Bricha* from all over Europe and resettled in various Displaced Persons (DP) camps. Once relocated, the survivors’ goal was to move on and find new homes in Palestine or other parts of the world ready, for the most part, to accept Jewish refugees. 

Rachela and Josef met in one of those DP camps in Austria. They fell in love, married and gave birth to me. From Day One in camp they also turned their energies into finding a new home. Initially their sights were on Palestine to be part of the movement to re-establish a Jewish homeland after 2,000 years of dispersion. The British, who held the mandate for Palestine had other ideas. The Brits didn’t want more Jews to emigrate there and create turmoil for them with the local Arab population. Despite several attempts, the Bricha was unsuccessful in its underground smuggling operations to get us into Palestine. But all the while my father was writing to relatives who had previously settled in the US. Could they help bring us to the States? 

Josef at the typewriter, younger brother Mendus in the back

His aunt Tova, who came to America as a young woman, was now married and established in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. 

 

Tova and Israel

She and her husband Israel eventually provided the necessary sponsorship for our family. So, after four years living in the DP camp, and with all necessary prerequisites in place, we left Austria in February, 1949 for the voyage to New York City.  

Now the mission was to become US citizens. Back then the process was relatively straightforward - after a period of five years, pass a citizenship exam and demonstrate the ability to support yourself. Both parents, now with Americanized names, Rachele and Joseph (Joe) Greenfield, went to night school to learn their new language and my dad secured a stable job as a pattern man* at the Werman & Sons Brooklyn shoe factory. When they earned their citizenship, as their minor child I automatically became a citizen. For me it was easy and ….. natural. 

Now let’s fast forward to the 1960’s.

Soon I would be leaving home for college. My folks felt I should have my own set of citizenship papers. In order to do so, very early one designated morning I had to appear before a magistrate in a courtroom at the Town of Hempstead’s municipal building. Upon taking an oath of allegiance to the US, and answering a few questions, my own papers would be issued. 

 

On the designated day in court I got up really early, much earlier than I usually did on school days, and went to Hempstead. I don’t remember much about the proceeding but I can remember it wasn’t as challenging as getting up so early! You know how teenagers like to sleep in. When I got home I headed straight to bed for a much needed nap. 

The date was November 22, 1963. 

Suddenly, nap time was over. My mother was in my room shaking me awake. 

What’s going on? 

There was breaking news I had to hear - President John F. Kennedy, JFK, the  youngest man ever to become a US president, with a beautiful wife and young children, Caroline and John, Jr., had just been shot while motorcading in Dallas, Texas! By 1:00 PM, he was declared dead - gone. The entire nation, and the world, was in shock. Sadly, that brutal act turned out to be just an opening salvo of the 1960s turbulent decade.  

November 22, 1963 - I may not remember much about my early morning steps along the pathway to citizenship at the municipal building, but I will never forget what happened in Dallas on that day. 

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Bricha - Postwar, clandestine movement that helped Jews emigrate from eastern Europe to Palestine.

Pattern Man - Translates a fashion idea into a practical, beautiful, well fitting shoe. He is at once an artist, a fashion expert, an engineer, and a production man. The pattern man develops the patterns for all sizes and widths. Those patterns are then used to create dies to cut the leather pieces to manufacture the shoe. The pattern man is the ultimate Shoe Man.

Screens

 

The Big Apple is home to countless subterranean Metro stations. Descend the stairs to any and you’ll behold another Wonder of the World - one node of a ‘mycelia mesh’ of iron rails which for a couple of bucks are capable of transporting subway cars to all points in this mega-city. Aside from being awestruck by the sheer complexity of this 24/7/365 functioning network, down there you never know what or who you’ll encounter. 

Perhaps it’ll be an uber-talented busker who with a lucky break could easily be above ground entertaining on Broadway or in Carnegie Hall. If it’s not a performer you’re marveling at, there’s always the default of laying back to savor some prime people watching as hordes of all stripes disgorge from and then cram into the arriving cars.  

But one thing you’ll rarely encounter is a rider with eyes not laser locked  on a screen.

That’s why, while recently waiting for the 181st Street downtown A-train, I was captivated by a nattily dressed gent, who may not even own a phone, smart or otherwise, deeply engaged with his newspaper - yes, a news-PAPER!  

OK you say, reading in subways is not deemed atypical for folks of a certain age, but how about the outlier sight of a commuting GenZer with one hand strap-hanging while reading a book in her other hand, and turning pages ! That’s precious.

Next time you make use of public transportation, glance at fellow travelers. It’s a safe bet almost all will be immersed in their screens. The phenomenon is universal, and not confined to NYC. 

Where is this trend inexorably going, and what are the implications? I was shocked to get a glimpse of what that future might be. I first sensed it last fall grabbing some ‘chill time’ hiking around Walden Pond, a serene oasis in nearby Concord MA. 

The Pond is where transcendentalist writer/philosopher Henry David Thoreau spent two years living a spartan life communing 

with nature. That’s why my communing experience was shattered upon seeing the prominent sculpture of the poet ‘enhanced’ with a prop casting him in a ‘comment about our world’ pose. 

Is Thoreau demonstrating who we’re becoming? Is it also conceivable that if he were here now he too would have sipped the Kool-aid and succumbed to the addition of the screen? 

Another visionary, sculptor Federico Clapis, offered his answer. To get it I first had to travel part way around the world to the MoCo Museum in Amsterdam. 

Federico’s answer is an ominous, ‘Yes’.

Mr. Clapis envisions a frightening endpoint of the constant attachment to our phone screens. He sees it resulting in our digital personae, not our human relationships and interpersonal skills, defining us and becoming dominant in the genes of our species.

He fears we will lose that which makes us warm-blooded, empathetic human beings. He fears we will become our screens. Federico may be on to something.

Perhaps he remembered an episode from his early Bible classes. It’s the story of Lot’s wife, who despite admonition looks the wrong way as she flees the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah and is immediately turned into a pillar of salt, effectively stone.

If we continue on the current path of ‘looking the wrong way’, i.e., overdosing on screens, will we too turn into stone. 

Will you?

images © David Greenfield

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