A MOMENT OF JOY

     Of late, the world has been ugly. Garbage that had lain beneath the surface has come to the fore and it is not pretty. None of it. It speaks of a time when men had no respect for women and unfortunately that phrase still resounds today.  We hear the pathetic mewling of men caught - with their pants down - who resent that fact and who seemingly have chosen the man who trumps it all (sorry for the pun) as their champion who cries over the myriad accusations sent his way by his victims. It is ugly and shameful but at least there is progress, be it in the shame of the men, in the realization that they face the consequences, like it or  not, or that 1600 men can sign a page in the Times supporting Ford, or that - we hope - we have finally turned the page and have some Republican senators who will finally vote the right way, vote their conscience.
     But in the midst of all this tawdry business, for me at least, there was a moment of joy, a moment I have been seeking my whole thinking life, a debt owed to history, to my Bubby (grandmother), and a smack in the face to those who would rather this moment had never been, had never been possible.
     Last night, at 7:30 in the evening, a literal door was opened and there was an immediate connection. I - who never do this - reached out to an unknown woman, just as she reached out to me. Why? And why were tears running down this woman's face? Tears of sadness and joy at the same time.
     This woman was my cousin - my cousin!! From Bubby's side, from a family we thought had been long gone, lost to the depths of madness and barbarity of Hitler's insanity. We cried at the realization that her father and my grandmother did not have to feel alone with no one other than their immediate family but alone they did indeed feel as each searched for survivors and found none. This was in the days of no computers and the aftermath and chaos of war and the ironies of fate that had missed moments. But thanks to the computers and the enormous help of caring volunteers and the willingness of my newfound cousin to open herself up to yet one more moment of possible disappointment - we met! And this time was the charm.
     So for two hours we laughed, we teared up, I was profoundly affected when I was told that there was a cousin whom I had resembled. I imagined my Bubby up there now, looking down at this, looking at her great niece and granddaughter and saying the Shehechiyanu, a blessing that we had lived to this moment, thanking G-d for this, appreciating the moment, the importance of it, the meaning of it. 
     Throughout the centuries, enemies, over and over again, tried to wipe us out, burning, killing, drowning, torturing, forced conversions, exiles, pogroms, and the horrific deeds of the Holocaust, and today, trying to disguise the traditional venom of anti Semitism with calls of anti Zionism, the calls to not recognize the rights of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland, to a land at all.
     And yet, despite it all, we remain. We live. We breathe. And we search the world over to find our Shearit Haplitah, the remnants of the tragedies that were forced upon us over the centuries. And last nite I had my own reunion with someone I had never met, with someone who two months ago I never believed existed.
     The joy of last nite is a moment of sadly and badly needed joy, of success, of victory over the forces that would deny me and my people. It opened the door to meeting the rest of the family, to meeting the branch of the family that had gotten to Israel before the war, even as the hatred mounted, who were found by a moment of fate, to get the younger generations to close the ties, to move themselves into the web of family.
     I cannot begin to even try to explain the depths of the emotions which still are roiling my mind and my heart. I so wish I could have given this wish, this moment, to my Bubby, but will carry on in her place and for the moment, will revel in this joy and try to shut out the current ugliness in the world. It is said that we cannot choose our family, but thank you, Dear Lord, for giving me this choice to find the remnants of mine.