Dream of Dying 12-13-09

I had a dream:

I was in a car in the back seat.


We were parked waiting to leave when suddenly the Earth moved and I thought it was an earthquake.



But the movement didn't end. The sky began to move around





......I thought something was wrong with the gravity. The sky began to turn to the right as if the car was falling. I closed my eyes as I knew it was the end of the world.....


I held the hand of the person I was sitting next to, and repeated to myself, "We are in God's hands now." I was not afraid. Then I woke up.

This dream symbolizes the following for me:

My own death
My faith in God


That we are all one
Death does not happen to me alone
That Death will feel like the loss of gravity
When it happens to me, I will not be afraid

Will I See You in September? Poem by Linda Koplovitz

Will I See you in September? (9/11 Tribute)
Will I see you in September on a sunny afternoon?
Don't you remember that you promised that, one evening late in June?
I've waited so long to see you and I was so happy when you said, that
even though you were far away, you'd see me, your letter read.
Your job took you on a journey that college prepared you for.
And in September, I will rush to see you at your door.
Please remember, Mother, I love you even though,
I can't see you till September when my business here is slow.
Please remember, Dad, I love you even though
I can't be with you right now, but soon I'll make a show.
Please remember, Darling, that this business trip won't be long.
I'll be home before you count to ten and sing your favorite song.
Please remember sweetie, that Mommy has to go,
but Daddy will give you your bath, kiss your boo-boo, that you know.
Please remember Darling, I promised till death do us part.
In September, my job will be over and I'll rush to my dear heart.
But September eleventh came and went and I could not visit you.
September eleventh came and, "Mommy, where are you?"
September eleventh came and I haven't heard a thing.
You promised you'd see me in September; I keep looking at your ring.
Mother, Father, Daughter, Son, Sister, Brother, IT IS DONE.
Aunt, Uncle, Husband, Wife- You're the importance of my life.
Cousin, Lover, Fiance, Friend - I can't believe that this is the end.
September eleventh came and went; I won't be seeing you.
God take this pain away from me and tell me what to do.

Our Nation by Linda Koplovitz

One Nation Under God
is what we hear in school,
But did you know that "Under God"
originally was not the rule?

Do you know that "Under God"
does not mean "Under Jesus"?
And if you think it does,
Let me tell you of these reasons.

Did you know that America
is not a 'Christian' Nation?
It was founded by people who were persecuted,
and wanted no Dictation.

In the sixteen hundreds a group of people
established themselves in Rhode Island.
They finally found a land that was free,
that wouldn't be a problem.



Free to worship and pray
with no one telling them what to do.
In other nations they couldn't stay
So over the ocean they flew.

These people, shop owners and tradesmen
helped fund the Revolutionary War,
George Washington to them,
no better friend in all the world.


So who were these people, during America's prologue?
Who are the people, the most Red, White and Blue-ish?
They are proudly from Tsouro Synagogue,
And they happen to be Jewish.


You might think this nation was started by Christians alone,
But I know it's a nation started by Jews who wanted a free place called home.

Our Nation, our people, are free to believe
in any way they choose,
or they are free to leave.

Rosh Hashana from Hell by Linda Koplovitz

09-19-09

For the last 26 years, my spiritual leader has been Rabbi Kenneth Block. For some unknown reason, everything out of his mouth inspires me to be a good person, a better Jew and when he left the Synagogue that I attended, I never went back. I followed him.

Unfortunately, his new congregation has been for the last 11 years in Centerville,Virginia, a good 2-hour drive from my home, which makes it almost impossible for me to attend weekly services. But I do manage to attend a once a month Adult Learning Class, which Rabbi Ken holds in my home town of Bel Air, Maryland.

As I stated before, Rabbi holds services in Centerville, Virginia in the historic ST. John's Episcopal Church where Temple Beth Torah shares the space. Every once in a while I feel the strong need to take the pilgrimage to Centerville to hear and participate in Ken's Rosh Hashana Service along with the rest of Rabbi Ken's congregants. This year I felt a strong need.


With me was my husband Irv, my oldest son Yale and his fiancee Janet, and my youngest son Jeffrey. In order to attend, first I had to purchase seats in advance. At $50.00 a seat, well, just to listen to my friend Rabbi Ken this year, the minimum was $250.00 for all of us to attend.

We had to get up around 6:30 am to leave around 7:30 am to pick up Yale and Janet from their apartment, make the 2-hour trek south to get to services by 10:00 am. When we arrived at Yale's place, they weren't out of bed yet. I should have guessed by this omen that the rest of the day would be down hill. But after waiting outside their door in our car for 15 minutes, it was a world's record that they bounced out of bed and got dressed so quickly, that we were on the road by 8:05 am. It was a Miracle!

Traffic going South around the outskirts of Washington DC, wasn't too bad. We made it down to Centerville, Virginia just as we had planned. The Service was beautiful.




Rabbi Ken's Sermon was about listening to the voice of the Shofar. Listen with your whole being, not with just your ears, for deaf people can feel the voice of the Shofar and do not have to listen to it. I guess the Shofar is a reminder to all of us to listen to the voice of God with our whole being and not with just our ears.

As usual it was just the kind of sermon I needed for a fresh start and new inspiration to being a good person. After saying our goodbyes around 12:15 pm, we went back to the car and as we were driving, we noticed that the Air Conditioning wasn't working and then the car began to overheat. Luckily there was a service station right there at the time we noticed the car's trouble. We pulled in and sat there for a time to cool the car down. After a few minutes we noticed no improvement so we went in to discuss our problems with the Service Station Mgr.

He was very nice and after about 45 minutes or so, he found the $4.00 part that we needed and after laber of about $200.00 and another 2 hours of hanging around Centerville, we would have a workable car. The Service Station Mgr, Tuan, offered to lend us his Toyota Van so that we could go down the road to the Fair Oaks Mall and have some lunch and do some shopping as we waited for our car to be repaired.

So now it was $450.00 so far for the day, $250.00 for the seats and $200.00 to repair a car. At the Mall, I purchased shoes, boots and socks for me, and a pair of shoes for Janet. I purchased slippers for Yale. We had lunch for all of us. Lunch and shopping tabulated to about $151.00, added to the previous $450.00 already spent came to $601.00 total for the day, not including cost of gasoline.

Ken Block, just has no idea how valuable he is to me.



The reason why I call this trip the Rosh Hashana from Hell, is that traveling with Yale, my oldest son, has never been easy. On the way back, after our car was mended, the traffic was horrible, like a nightmare. On the road, we were supposed to be going about 55 miles an hour on Interstate 495 going East and instead we were bumper to bumper for an hour and a half, going about 3 miles an hour. Yale complained the entire time that I was stepping on the brake too often. I kept telling him that if I didn't step on the brake we would be hitting the car in front, in a terrible accident and dead on the road. But that didn't matter, the complaining never stopped. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God" are the words out of his mouth that annoys me to no end.


I will have to think long and hard before I invite Yale to another Rosh Hashana Service in Centerville, Virginia.



Finally the traffic started to ease as we approached Interstate 95 and as we noticed the beautiful Maryland Sunset, we were only about 5 hours late by the time we got home.




The Beautiful Day with it's Inspirational Services were ruined by a broken down vehicle, rotten Washington DC traffic and Complaining Children. Yes, even Jeffrey, my good natured youngest child complained.

You know how we always say "Next Year in Jerusalem" around Passover? Well, if this year Rosh Hashana in Centerville was so difficult, then why would anyone even think about going further. Maybe we should just stay home, save our money and wait for Rabbi Ken Block to come out with a DVD of his sermon. I'd pay for the DVD and as long as the DVD is less than $600.00, I'd come out ahead.

Woman First - A New Bible by Linda Koplovitz

Preamble: This guidebook is written by a Woman for Women. (The following information is gender specific; however, the gender in the following text maybe substituted for the opposite gender as necessary. )

It was woman who put Moses in the basket to save his life. It was a woman who brought forth Jesus. Without the Woman, there would be no religion. It's about time we make our own religion. This Bible is dedicated to Women everywhere.

Consider the Bonobo Chimpanzee. I'm not saying that women should have multiple sexual partners as these chimps do, I make mention of these animals to point out that a matriarchal society works for them and they are a peaceful group compared to other Chimps.

The New Comandments

1) The woman is boss. Without the survival of the woman, there would be no family, no society, no civilization. Therefore, the woman must be boss of her own survival in order to maintain the human race.
2) Whatever religions of the past that put woman beneath a man in intellect or capability, must be thrown out. The One God would not have created a religion that would make woman inferior to man. Woman is God's partner in creation and therefore one must assume that all bibles were written by men about God and God's relationship with man to promote man as her superior.
3) Education of Woman is imperative for her survival and her ability to choose her partner in order to create a new family and therefore keep society and the civilization afloat.
4) Family first. Women make families. Everything that helps and promotes the family to exist is good. Men have fragile egos. They want to be boss. They need to be boss. Women have to depend on men to help the family. Therefore it is good for the woman to be understanding and sensitive to the man in the family, the potential father of her children. It is up to the Woman to keep the marriage going and create a smooth working relationship with her man. Should the marriage fail, the woman should not blame herself, for men are basically flawed in the ways of peacetime activities.
5) Children are the future of the planet. It is therefore important that the children understand and learn that the mother is key to their survival and livelihood. The father too is key, however, should the father leave the picture for any reason, the mother will sustain the family unit. Female children must learn to be serious and have self respect. Special attention must be paid to boy children, who must learn self respect and to respect all women. - to be continued

Verizon Sucks!! by Linda Koplovitz

Recently my husband mentioned that he would like to go back to using Verizon because of some promotion that they were having. I literally yelled, "Hold the phone!! Don't do anything!!!!"
I said, have you ever tried their customer service line? An Automated Operator screens the calls. The female voice asks questions so that she can direct your call properly and this female voice will accept everything that you say. The only problem is that (and this has happened to me many times) after being directed by Verizon to the proper party, you receive a recording that says that you may have to hold for 10 or 20 minutes. Then, get this......once a real voice, a real person, answers the phone after being on hold for 20 minutes, the real person says, "You're in the wrong department,"and then you are directed back to the automated voice which sent you to the wrong department in the first place.
It is the worst company in my history of dealing with companies since 1970 that I have ever encountered.

Everytime Verizon's commercial on TV comes on, I laugh out loud at the Sweet Smiling Little Guy with glasses, that has this huge crowd of blue collar workers behind him wearing hard hats. I laugh because of the false advertising and the millions of money this company probably pays for advertising in order to try to sway poor little people like us to trust in them. HA!

I just hope that people read my blog and the next time they see a Verizon promotion, that they run like Hell as far away from it as they can.

And I'm glad to see as I look at the internet that others feel as I do. Misery loves company.

One of the happiest days of my life was when I switched to AT & T. The Verizon Company tried to get me back with a real person, and I gave that person an ear full. All I have to say is Good Riddance!! Now when they call me to try to get me back, I have great pleasure in telling them that they called the wrong department and then I hang up on them.

As I see companies like GM and Chrysler go bankrupt, I feel sorry for these companies and can only pray that Verizon will someday go bankrupt. I pray for the day because the people that run this company have to be the most ignorant people alive.

Motherhood, The New Addiction by Linda Koplovitz

Recently I was told by my daughter that I should stop thinking about her so much and get a hobby. Well, I realized that substituting caring and thinking about her with a hobby would be like trying to cure a heroin addiction with a Band-Aid.

Here's the problem: I became hooked on Baby Kisses

and Baby Hugs, and Curing Boo Boos and how does one substitute a hobby for a hug. I don't think it's possible. One day I have a baby, needing me so much and the next day I have a 28 year old saying, "Get a Life!" Well, I had a life. How did I lose it? My life was my family and working full time. I still work full time. How do I accept that the family has changed.

I know that there are self-help books and 12 step programs for addictions, but what about "How not to be a Mother, once you've been one."

Maybe I should write the 12 Step book on how to cure the addiction of Motherhood. That would be a good hobby.

First Step: Go through house and remove all pictures of child. When you are addicted to cigarettes, it is best to remove all cigarettes from the house if you want to stop smoking, right? All pictures have to go.

Next Step: All belongings of said child to be shipped to new address of child. Everything that reminds you of your life together must be eliminated to avoid relapse.

Step 3: Stop listening to music, because every song on the radio, especially music of the '80's will remind you of being with your child. Especially avoid, Rick Astley and Tori Amoss.

Step 4: Remove all Artwork from walls that could possibly remind you of Child.

Step 5: Make a list of Child's favorite foods and stop purchasing those grocery items. Food has a way of triggering the mind to experience a time when you sat across the kitchen table and ate that food with your child.

Step 6: This is the hard part. Tape down phone and don't call child everyday to see if she is feeling ok.

Step 7: Cross off all holidays on the Calendar as to not remind you that it's a time when you possibly could visit your child.

Step 8: Everytime you think of your child, take a leather belt out of your closet and use it to self chastise. Ok, maybe I'm going too far, but you get the picture.

Step 9: Ask doctor for a perscription for an addictive drug, like Valium, to help get over the need to cry all the time.

Step 10: Take Tums to try to get over the nauseous feeling of loss.

Step 11: Put the House up for sale so that all the surroundings will never be there to remind you of the love that's lost.

Step 12: Pack your bag, travel around the world...(Remember not to go to places such as Rome or London.) Leave heart behind, no need for it where you are going.

My experience with Anti-Semitism by Linda Koplovitz

I grew up in Northeast Philadelphia in the late 1950's & 1960's. We were Jewish but my family had always been friendly to everyone. I played with the neighborhood kids no matter who or what nationality or religion they were and one of my parents' closest friends were a couple who had 6 kids. We found out that they were Catholic. The mother looked Italian and the father looked Irish. Well we all gathered together while the parents talked, the kids played.
My sister, brother and I knew we were different only a few times a year. During Easter, we were not permitted to eat their candy because it was also Passover,

with Jewish dietary restrictions in play and during Christmas, they had a tree and we did not. However, I remember being invited over their house on Christmas to watch them open their presents and to share their hospitality in the way of delicious cookies.
My parents were very trusting people, maybe too trusting. My sister was permitted to go away to a 2-week Summer Camp one year. My parents were not told any details with the exception that she would be with friends from school. When she came back, she told me that she was Christian. At the camp, she was not permitted to play at all the camp activites or eat dinner until they all prayed to Jesus. My parents hushed it up and never mentioned it again. But I took it personally that someone could steal my sister's mind and make her believe that she was not Jewish.

I think if it were me and this had happened to my child today, there would have been a huge legal case to deal with. As a child myself, I learned all I could about what being Jewish really meant and I tried to re-educate my sister. But I was only a child myself and not able to cure brainwashing.
For me I never felt the sting of Anti-Semitism during my early years. Later when I was about 18 years old, standing on a corner, waiting for a bus, someone drove by and yelled at me, "Christ Killer!"
I realized then that people do know who you are. People talk and that person, who yelled at me, knew me through his acquaintences and that he and his acquaintences were saying bad things about me behind my back all the while smiling to my face.
It made me think that all those lovely Catholic children that I had played with when I was a child, really didn't like things about me. That was my first hurt and when I realized that people could hate you because of the difference in how you pray or who you pray to, it broke my heart.

That was my first shock. I was shocked because No. 1, I didn't know who yelled at me and No. 2, what does that mean? So I went back to the books to try to figure out why someone would call me a Christ Killer. I had to learn the story of Jesus in order to defend myself.

I wanted to fight this bad feeling that I had and pick up a sword like Joan of Arc and defend myself and my people. But in the 1970's that's a bit too dramatic. So instead, everyone I met who was not my religion got an education because the minute I became someone's friend, I got it all out. I'm Jewish, I believe in the One God. The same God that Jesus prayed to, I pray to. We do not pray to Jesus because if Jesus lived, he would have been a man, not a God and Jews feel that Jesus, if he were real, he would not have been any different than any other Jewish child of God and that no one child stands above any other. That was the short lesson.
After knowing me for awhile, one might get the lesson that, "All religions are a mythology and the Jewish People are united by the common mythology and the Study of the Torah. We do not even believe that there was anything called Jesus. It's just another fairy tale like Beauty and the Beast or another story like Hercules, the son of a human woman and Zeus."
But even though my friends got an education, my acquaintences still talked about me behind my back.
After my husband and I purchased our very first home in a sleepy little town in North New Jersey,

we were invited to an annual party of the Real Estate Agent, who sold us our house, to thank all his customers. A stranger walked over to me and told me that if I had lived in his neck of the woods, they would be burning a cross on my lawn.

Well, by then I was experienced, so I was no longer shocked by Anti-Semitism; I was empowered. So I said, "In my neck of the woods, we would have fed you to the lions!" and I walked away feeling pride that I could combat a nasty remark with a retaliation of an equally nasty remark. But the idea that my Real Estate Agent talked about us to his other customers always made me a little sick to my stomach when I thought about it.
I understand now why some people, less confrontational might enjoy living in a Ghetto of sorts. I now understand why the Jews of Israel might enjoy living with their own kind. Imagine a nation of all the same type of people, where your neighbor doesn't secretly hate you for being different. I can understand why Israel has always been so important to all Jews everywhere. It's a place that we can go to, a haven, if we are tired of fighting the outside world.
Once I had children, I was fearful for them. How could I protect them from Anti-Semitism. One day, my daughter came home from Kindergarten and said, "Mommy, we learned about the birth of God today." Well there it was. The Elephant walked into the room or should I say the 3 camels. My first battle over my child having to learn about Anti-Semitism was Christmas in a public school. That's not only Anti-Semitism, it's Anti-American. We have something in this country called Separation of Church and State. In 1985, public schools were not supposed to teach religion. I immediately called my Rabbi and asked him, "What can I do to stop this." He more or less told me that there was nothing I could do except ask to go to school to teach about Chanukah. So that's what I did and every year I would go to school with a Prayer Shawl, a Chanukah Menorah, Candles, Dreidels (Toy Tops) and Chunukah Gelt, (Chocolate Gold Coins). I compared Judah Maccabee to He-man Masters of the Universe and the bad Syrian King that took over the Jewish Temple as Skeletor. I told the story of Chanukah whereby Judah and his brothers fought the first battle in recorded history that defended religious freedoms. And maybe Christmas couldn't be celebrated today if it were not for the Jews who fought for those basic Freedoms.

Once my daughter told me that the little girl across the street told her not to tell

anyone that she was Jewish because they won't like her. Well I told my daughter to go back to that little girl and tell her that "Jesus was Jewish and everyone liked him."
To this day, just like during the time of Judah Maccabee, I still feel that Jews are fighting for basic Religious Respect and Freedoms.

Woman a poem by Linda Koplovitz

And God said, Let there be light.

Light meaning awakening of new life.

And God after seeing Adam, knew that this imperfect being, would require guidance and love.

So God created Woman.

And, I, God, will give this new creature gifts.

I give her, what I possess and love most. Life!

I give her the gift of bringing forth life and loving life as I do.

And I give her the talent to manipulate Adam so that his strength does not over power her.

For all her strength will be needed to populate the Earth with Life and Love.

Let Adam be her servant, to lift what is heavy and to shelter her from storms.

For she is the nurturing being of all.

And let Adam not be jealous that I prefer her wisdom and compassion.

So I bequeath Woman a new gift,

to satisfy Adam, as no other creature can,

as to hypnotize him into submission.

Since I, God, love all my children,

even the imperfect beings on Earth,

I will not cast Adam asunder,

but give him the ability to learn from Woman.
Let the evolution of man begin.