by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
New Caledonia, a French-speaking collectivity of our South Pacific stop-over islands on the way to Australia – about 750 miles away — definitely has a “je ne sais crois,” an indefinable special quality. The New Caledonian islands consist of Grande Terre, the Loyalty islands, the Chesterfield islands, the Belearchipelago, the Isle of Pines, and a few remote islets. (I loved Isle des Pins when we stopped there– oh, the nostalgic smell of pine trees for someone born in Canada!) These islands also attract birdwatchers from around the world.
This group of islands was very different from other South Pacific Islands I visited, however. For one thing, it’s noticeable that tropical flora does not have a monopoly on the landscape; trees and plants that are more familiar to the Northern Hemisphere mingle with more exotic varieties here. (I loved Isle des Pins when we stopped there – oh, the nostalgic smell of pine trees for someone born in Canada!) The temperature, too, seemed more moderate when we visited the capitol, Noumea on Grande Terre, an island that has a lot to recommend it.
The residents of Grande Terre pride themselves on being a little Paris of the South Pacific. Most people we encountered could speak English, but the preferred language of this island today is French. The shop windows are fashion savvy and show a high degree of sophistication in the expensive, quality products they display. There are excellent museums, especially the ones that review the World Wars, both I and II. Even the money is French (ah, but New Caledonian French), as we soon discovered when we tried to exchange U.S. dollars for New Caledonian francs (surprisingly, they were worth more than American dollars) at the island’s main bank.
You see, the island’s policy is not to accept any foreign money at all, not even U.S. dollars. Every visitor must change the money of their country of origin to New Caledonian dollars. And if you don’t spend it all, you can’t exchange what is left for your own currency. Since my daughter and I did not have much time to spend on the island, we calculated that exchanging $20.00 US would be ample. We thought that touring the much touted (deservedly) World War II museum would take a couple of hours. That, and a cup of coffee, would consume the time at our disposal before we had to return to the ship.
But we could not exchange $20.00 US. No way, no how. Not at the bank machine, not in the bank. The minimum amount exchangeable was $50.00 US. The museum’s admission price was the equivalent of $2.00 US, so for the two of us, that made $4.00 US. Certainly enough money would remain for a delectable shared French pastry at the corner café and possibly an espresso. Non, non, non. Not possible. It was $50.00 US or nothing.
Americans from the U.S. are not used to discovering that there are corners of the world where their money is scorned. But rejected our dollar bills were. That was the pleasantly-stated decree of the three beautiful, elegantly dressed beauties – coiffed, made up, bejeweled – as they sat on the stools that graced the long front-counter of the bank. The cashier proffered the same opinion from her caged window at the back of the bank; and, despite our pleas, the even more beautiful and fashionable manager finally summoned from her secluded office confirmed what her employees had said. Nothing less than $50.00 US could be exchanged into New Caledonian money. And no remnant of that money could be changed back.
Until …
Noting that the gorgeous manager’s English was tinged with a French accent – not any old French but quite obviously Parisian French, we began to converse with her in French. New Caledonia reminded us so much of France, we enthused, even of Paree. Oh, yes, we had visited Paris, and, mais oui, of course we spoke French because we were born in Montreal. A French city. So much in common. Suddenly, she was willing to make a one-time exception. The bank would exchange 20 American dollars for us. We exchanged smiles and little pleasantries along with the money. In well-tutored French all around.
New Caledonian money in hand, there was still time for us to enjoy the World War II museum. It is truly a wonderful museum. With considerable artistry and modern technology, it depicts, not only the course of this war as experienced in New Caledonia, but also how such a diverse community, made up of so many different nationalities and ethnic groups, especially the aboriginals, were knit together by war. The population of these islands is a mix of the original inhabitants (the Kanaks), people of European ancestry, Polynesians, Southeast Asians, and those few descended from the Pied-Norand Maghrebans. Periods of slavery (“blackbirding”) were also part of their history. The two hours my daughter and I spent at the museum were not enough to completely integrate all this information.
However, the museum exhibition did help us understand how for years and years, the island had been batted back and forth between so many foreign empires, and why it was so important for the islanders to maintain their independence from foreign influence. These deeply-entrenched feelings extend to their money. Their economy is strong (they have some of the largest deposits of nickel in the world), which give these islands prosperity and financial independence). New Caledonia will therefore conduct its affairs in NEW CALEDONIAN money.
After our museum visit, there was insufficient time for a French pastry or café-au-lait before returning to our ship. But we had gained a valuable understanding. The left-over New Caledonian dollars that remained in our wallets now had a special significance: New Caledonia was no longer a colony of any foreign power. Its non-exchangeable dollars stood for freedom – and unity.
by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
When I moved in 1985 to Toronto, Ontario from Montreal, Quebec, where I was born and lived most of my life, I was surprised to find that my beloved IBM Selectric typewriter would no longer suffice. Not if I wanted my copy to present a current image. So I was kindly informed by a colleague who wanted to help me “integrate” into the Torontonian professional milieu.
Not long before, I had toured the offices of a major Montreal newspaper with a writer’s group. There was still only one computer in the news office, which we regarded with great respect as we were given an informational talk on how the newspaper’s environment (still full of typewriters just like mine) would not only soon become replete with computers, but it would also become paperless. Shock and awe!
But in business-like Toronto offices, the computers were already there. Everywhere. It didn’t take long to become “hooked.” How had I lived for so many years without a computer? Clueless at first, I had taken reciprocal lessons from an Israeli computer genius who needed English lessons for his young (hyperactive) daughter. So we traded expertise.
At that time, I was learning on a WordPerfect 3.I program that my genius teacher installed in the second-hand computer I acquired from him, and I still appreciate the invaluable advice he gave me: “Don’t read a manual,” he said. “Never. Learn from the machine. Press all the keys, one by one, and it will teach you everything. Don’t be afraid. Nothing will happen. If you make a mistake, you can fix the code.” In those days, the visual miracle of Windows with its drop-down menus had not yet arrived on the personal market. Before Windows, you still had to press “Reveal Codes,” and lo and behold, a mathematical vision appeared on the computer screen. The code underlying the keys. So you learned to “fix” things by learning to read the code to a degree and deleting the mistakes you had made. (Who knew then that in the 21st century some people would be cyber-hacking into computer codes for nefarious reasons?)
Then around 1990, everything changed again. The Windows program was the new imperative along with that world-changing vehicle, The World Wide Web. Now I could put my writing business on the Web, and suddenly people all over the world could access it. The Internet. Accessible with a few keystrokes. Who needed an office any more?
Twenty-seven years had elapsed by the time I found myself, in 2017, Guest Staff Rabbi on a cruise headed for the South Pacific. I couldn’t imagine life without my computer and cell phone. Neither could my daughter who, putting her own business on hold, had accompanied me. Sadly, even though there were supposed to be “hot spots” on the ship, and even though my daughter had invested in an Internet package, it was almost impossible to “connect.” Even when occasionally we did, the expensive connection was so slow that we couldn’t finish a single email before it was “lost” once again. Other passengers had the same problem. No Internet. No cell phone. And you can’t go to an Apple store for help in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
We didn’t exactly have a funeral for our lost access, but we did have to adjust to life unwired, however temporary. It was a 47-day cruise.
And then we landed on one of the 80 islands of Vanuatu, 65 of which are uninhabited. These once volcanic islands are located in Oceania between Australia and Hawaii. In fact, they are about 1,000 miles east of Australia, and closest to New Caledonia, the Fiji islands, the Solomon Islands, and New Guinea. Over the years, the Vanuatu islands have been plagued by large earthquakes, danger of tsunamis, and repeated cyclones. But they are gorgeous, surrounded by turquoise waters, and fine sandy beaches. It’s small wonder that when the first people arrived there some 4,000 years ago, they stayed. Unfortunately, they were decimated by disease once the Europeans arrived. In 1606, the Portuguese explorer, Pedro Fernandez de Quiros sighted these islands, which he called Espiritu Santu. By the time Captain James Cook found them in 1774, he renamed them the New Hebrides. In the 1800s, traders arrived to exploit the island’s fragrant sandalwood. Then, for a long time, the New Hebrides were under British and French control. With the advent of World War II in the 1940s, the Americans arrived, and in the 1980s, the Republic of Vanuatu emerged as a parliamentary republic.
It was at the most southern of the islands of this Republic that our cruise ship docked. Popularly called Mystery Island, it is uninhabited, and its real name is Inyeug (which is close to the main island, Aneityum). Islanders refuse to live in Inyeug because they believe it is inhabited by ghosts. Even today. Although a few entrepreneurial islanders will come to sell trinkets to tourists by day, at night they have all vanished. The tourists have returned to their cruise ships. It’s eerily dark on Mystery Island.
Of course, our ship arrived there in daylight. When we disembarked, we were informed that we could walk around this entire island paradise in less than an hour – 45 minutes perhaps. So I set out with my daughter, and as we “oohed” and “aahed” our way around the flora of this beautiful, empty place, her phone pinged. A ping in the middle of an uninhabited island in the South Pacific? Did we hear right?
Amazed, my daughter picked up her cellphone. “Hello,” said the person calling her from California. “Good to hear your voice.” What??? There was reception on the island??? There must be a cell phone tower somewhere nearby. How could it be?
That’s when, halfway around the island, we noticed that a modest grass airstrip ran along one part of the beach to the other side. Planes could land here too! As my daughter continued her business conversation with the U.S., we learned that some of the islands of Vanuatu had been used for the remote locations of the popular television series called “The Survivor.”
Mystery Island was a mystery no more. Modern civilization had been here. It pinged.
By Rabbi Corinne Copnick
Although most of the residents of this upscale retirement home were Christian, a few Jewish residents had asked the Pastor if a Rabbi could give a sermon there. And that’s how I happened to be addressing about 50 or so Seniors at their Vespers service on a Sunday afternoon. “You can talk about the Pentateuch or the Psalms or the rest of the Old Testament,” the Pastor had advised me, “but please don’t talk about God.” I think he really meant that I should not talk about theological differences, but I agreed. “Okay, I won’t talk about God.” I didn’t share with the Pastor that in Israel today, there is a “movement” of Jews who don’t believe in God. They call themselves Secular Jews.
But that afternoon, at the elegant Senior Residence, I was addressing believing Christians. So, after a memorial prayer for the three Israeli teens and one Palestinian who died so violently, so needlessly, recently, and an expression of solidarity with their families, I taught this Christian group the simple words of the song, “Hine Ma Tov,” in Hebrew (the words are taken from the first verse of Psalm 133, a short prayer of gratitude, which reads “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”), and then I preceded the discussion of the scriptural portion for the day with a few remarks.
“The scriptural portion of our service (Numbers 22:2-25:9) for today,” I said,
“comes from the Pentateuch, which is Greek for “Five,” and refers to the Five Books of Moses, which in Hebrew is called “the Torah,” which means “Instruction.” You probably know that the entire Old Testament was first written in Hebrew, and then it was translated into Greek, which was called The Septuagint, and then it was translated into Latin. And from the Latin, it was translated into English and, eventually, many other languages.
“That’s why it is useful to study Hebrew, because, after all those translations, the meaning of the words may not be exactly the same in English. Added to that, the original Hebrew words did not have any vowels. It was all consonants, like text messaging. The reader has to figure out the rest. So the meaning also depends on the vowels you give to the words. There are many Christian scholars studying Hebrew today – online at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and elsewhere — exactly for that reason: to check out what the words are really saying and read the Bible in its original language — and to understand that there are various meanings possible for many words.”
“So I’d like you to think of studying the Bible,” I said, “as if you were playing the piano. If you’ll notice, there are both black and white keys on the piano. We could play some nice music on the white keys alone, but we wouldn’t have the nuances that the black keys, the sharps and flats, would give the music. If we just played on the white keys, it would be like reading the Bible literally, in C Major all the time. So as a soon-to-be rabbi – the word “rabbi” means “my teacher” — my job is to add the interpretation, the sharps and flats.
“A rabbi’s sermon is called a “derash,” an interpretation,” I continued. “What is written down in the Pentateuch is called the ‘Written Torah.’ And the interpretation is called the ‘Oral Torah,’ much of which has been transmitted from generation to generation, although new commentary is continually added. So ‘[r]abbinic language contains numerous layers of meaning. The Talmud [a compilation of centuries of rabbinic commentary on the Torah] frequently attempts to uncover the hidden meaning of a word… thereby revealing new understandings of the … teaching.’ That is why we need both – the white keys and the black keys too – to fully understand the intent, the background, and the underlying story.
“Our scriptural portion, which this week is from Numbers 22:2-25:9, is the story of Balak (the warlike Moabite king who is fearful that the Jews will become too numerous and overrun his kingdom, and thus he wishes the Jews harm), and it’s also the story of Bilaam (the prophet whom the Moabite king hires to curse Israel), and the third character is Bilaam’s talking donkey, who turns out to have more sense than either Balak or Bilaam. The prophet, Bilaam, is supposed to be a visionary, but it turns out that his Donkey is the visionary. It’s the Donkey – and the Bible specifies that it’s a she-Donkey, presumably even more sensitive than a male donkey would be — whose acute animal senses enable her to see Angels along the road, warning that Bilam should not curse the Israelites. What’s wrong with human beings? the Donkey complains, in effect. “You ride on me all day, and then you beat me? Angels keep telling you to stop, three times – don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it — and you don’t hear, Bilaam!” Finally listening to the Donkey, Bilam promises that the only words he will speak are the ones that the Eternal One puts in his mouth. And when Bilaam glimpses the Israelites camping out in the desert, the words that do emerge from his mouth are those of admiration and blessing. “Ma Tovu.” “ How Good!….
These words flow out of Balaam’s mouth from the top of the mountain that overlooks where the Hebrews are encamped. It is the third time that King Balak has tried to get Balaam to curse the Israelites, and yet, miraculously, out of Balaam’s mouth comes a blessing. What was supposed to be a curse is turned into a blessing. The Bible story teaches us that, with God’s help, human beings do have the power to transform a curse into a blessing. And that words of peace are better than acts of war.
“And there is more. Remarkably, generations later, the biblical Ruth, a Moabite woman who became a Jew-by-choice, was actually the great-granddaughter of King Balak – and, by her marriage to Boaz, she was also the great-grandmother of King David (from whom it is foretold that the Messiah will come). And that is how a curse became a blessing, and an enemy became part of the Jewish family.
“Today, Jews still sing the words of Balak’s emissary, Bilaam, as part of the liturgical morning blessings: Mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov, mishk’notecha Yisrael, “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel” (Numbers 24:5).
“This dramatic scene from Numbers 24:5, is traditionally coupled with one of the most quoted passages in the Bible, the few lines from the prophet Micah (6:8) that sum up what we are each commanded to do to be a blessing every day:
“He has told you, O man, what is good,
And what the Lord requires of you:
Only to do justice
And to love goodness,
And to walk modestly with your God;
Then will your name achieve wisdom.”
by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
Before I travelled to Brazil, it never occurred to me how much hard work it takes to get less than a handful of nuts from the nut tree (nuts do grow on trees). They look a lot different in their natural state than they do included in a delectable chocolate bar. First someone agile has to climb the tree; then he (usually) has to chop down the large husk, which falls to the ground. Next the thick, hairy, husk is smashed open (it takes considerable effort – and precision – by a man or woman, a lot more than, say, opening a jar with elderly hands when you can’t remember where you put the jar opener). Inside that inner shell is the core of the husk, and inside that core lies its heart – perhaps four Brazil nuts. That’s why they are so expensive when you buy them in a North American supermarket. They’d be a lot more expensive if agricultural labor in Brazil were not so poorly rewarded.
Producing the chocolate (made from cocoa or cocoa beans, which also grow on trees) for the bars is also a lengthy process. The beans, which are the basis of chocolate, have a leathery rind, and they beans inside have to be extracted from the rind, fully fermented, and dried. Because the seed has fat, cocoa butter also can be extracted.
I visited one rural village where the chocolate beans were broken down in the old-fashioned way by a donkey hitched to a small mill. The donkey provided the power as he went round and round as directed. Round and round over and over. Using more modern methods, the industrialized production of chocolate from cocoa beans is big business today.
I have now visited nut plantations, cocoa plantations, coffee plantations. Some of the processes involve roasting in an open flame oven as well. The number of different products that can be made from these agricultural materials is amazing. But my personal affection is reserved for the coconut. One caveat: if you sit under a coconut tree when the nuts are ripening (that is, no longer green), it may be your last day on earth should a coconut fall on your head, something that is quite possible. So while you can sit under an apple tree romantically in North America, beware the coconut tree in South America for shading yourself, a seductive option in the tropical heat, to say the least.
As with the Brazil nuts, it’s also quite a job to climb a tree and hack down and then open a coconut. However, it’s worth the effort because every single part of the coconut can be used. Think of all the ways in which a coconut and its foliage contribute to society.
Actually, it was not in Brazil but rather in one of the Fiji islands in the South Pacific (there are some 330 of them, only about 110 of them inhabited, plus 500 islets) that my love affair with the coconut began. Many of the islanders have very frizzy hair, and some of them still let it grow out wild and bushy. My own hair, which is pleasantly curly in dry Southern California but grows to frizzy proportions in a humid tropical climate, can actually look quite presentable, even pretty, with daily applications of coconut butter, a product I found commercially from a Fijian company that ships its products all over the world. I slather the coconut butter (really intended as a skin cream) all over my face too. Some of the creams intended to protect your skin in from climactic wear cost a lot of money. A word of advice: try coconut.
The people of the Republic of Fiji (for a long time, from 1879 -1970, they were a Crown Colony of Britain) are warriors by nature. Even on their main island, Viti Levu, their small dwellings huddle defensively close together in their villages, despite the fact that there is lots of surrounding land. They maintain a large standing army, of which they are proud – native Fijians have served in major wars and continue to partner with their allies in democratic countries. As small memorials attest, they are proud of their patriotic service.
For many years, Western countries trod lightly when dealing with Fiji – that is, explorers and missionaries avoided going there because of Fiji’s history of aggressive cannibalism. In fact, an early missionary’s leather shoes that refused to soften in the boiling vat are still on display in the Fiji museum, along with the impressive sea-going vessels that the Fijians crafted to sell (despite the fact that they were not sailors).
Eating their human enemies ritually gave them their enemies’ power, they believed. They had special long forks by which they fed their priests in symbolic rituals. This human food did not actually touch the priests’ lips – it just slid down their throats. I’m ashamed to say that I bought a tourist version of the ritual fork for my grandson. Better a chocolate bar with Brazil nuts. Or aromatic Brazilian coffee. Or coconut butter face cream from Fiji for his hair (it’s curly too).
No one eats another human in Fiji today — and given the multiple benefits derived from the coconut and the from the surrounding sea, they really didn’t (and don’t) need this kind of protein. As a matter of fact, Fiji has one of the most developed economies in the Pacific, with extensive forest, mineral, and fish resources. I must admit, though, that as a first time visitor, I felt a little queasy when I considered that the cannibalistic history of these vigorous islanders was less than a couple of hundred years behind them. As history reminds us from time to time, even in 2017, civilization can be a thin veneer, indeed.
by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
The Amazon River in Brazil boasts 2,500 varieties of fish. I wouldn’t recommend putting a hand in its opaque, café au lait colored waters, however. They’re not the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas where you can see right down to the white sand. While these waters of the Amazon derive their color from the sandy banks and dense plant life that surround them, they are treacherous. Forget swimming if you are not a native. In fact, the Amazon River abounds with flesh-eating predators. There are, for example, fearsome black caimans with large heads and avaricious appetites (often 20 feet long, they have been called “alligators on steroids”); they’ll tackle anything as food, a leg here and an arm there, they’re not specific). Numerous other dangerous water species abound — ever-hungry fish or reptiles that would be be happy to take a chunk out of visitors to their territory (Source: Matthew Wells, “10 terrifying Creatures of the Amazon”).
Among them are the green Anaconda, reputed to be the largest snake in the world (29 feet long), who prefer the shallow waters where they can constrict and suffocate their victims; the Arapaima, with scary armored scales – and whose tongue also has teeth; Giant Otters, often referred to as “river wolves”; Bull Sharks whose powerful jaws make them one of the most feared attackers; Electric Eels who really kill their prey (hopefully not you!) with jolts of electricity; and Piranhas, primarily scavengers known for their feeding frenzies when they are really hungry. The most insidious fish, however, are the Candiros. These are small, parasitic, freshwater catfish. Do not, however secretly, urinate in the opaque waters of the Amazon, or these little demons will swim right into your urethra and lodge in the urinary tract. Since they have spines on their backs, it takes surgery to get them out.
Of course, not all of the fish in the Amazon River are predators. Lots of them are prey (a subject I described in an earlier post). Amazingly, despite all the water creatures eager for human food, from time to time, locals can be seen fishing from the shore. If you gotta eat, you gotta eat, I guess. Or maybe they are familiar with the times when the carnivores will most likely be hungry. Sometimes the long arms of a favorite pet of the region, the furry sloth, will be hanging from the necks of these indigenous people. A human, it seems, is just as good as a tree for hanging out.
In any case, there are lots of fish in the Amazon river, and most of them are not flesh-eating. Lots of them prefer seafood to people. Actually, the many diverse species come from the merging of two or more rivers. This merging –when two bodies of water meet (sometimes one of them is a tributary) and then join to become one river — is called a confluence. In the case of the Amazon River in Brazil, the meeting of the waters provides an amazing visual display – it is truly spectacular –as the two streams resist mixing their colors. As they approach one another, the contrast is striking: the dark-hued Rio Negro and the coffee-tone of the Amazon. They seem to like their own colors and don’t want a mixed marriage.
The Rio Negro is not really a black river, as its Spanish name would proclaim, but it is a dark color, classed among the blackwaters of the world. It is also a large body of water, in fact the largest tributary of the Amazon. As it enters the Amazon from the left, the Rio Negro insists on keeping its own dark color. So does the pale sandy Rio Solimoes, which continues to flow from the upper part of the Amazon River. They are so stubborn, these rivers. I watched in amazement as the two rivers continued to flow in their own streams, at their own levels (the Solimoes flows beside and below the Rio Negro), in their own preferred colors, without mixing. They maintain different temperatures, different speeds, different water density. The Rio Negro flows at near 2 kilometers per hour at a temperature of 28 degrees, while the Rio Solimoes flows between 4-6 miles per hour at a temperature of 22 degrees. They are different in the movement of air masses
Not only do the waters continue to be separatists in the same Amazon river for about six kilometers (3.7 miles), but they also contain different fish – different species — in each of the two streams. They do not mix either; they maintain their own levels in an “us” and “other” situation. If I were a joker, I would say “fishuation” that is very Talmudic since each “side” has a different point of view. The Talmud is full of rabbis disagreeing and maintaining their own position. Usually they find a middle ground.
But if they can’t, the Talmud also teaches that when two forces maintain an oppositional view and refuse to compromise, a third force is needed to “lift them up” from their folly. Two oppositional ideas can generate a third choice that they haven’t previously considered. That’s what happens in the Amazon River. A huge natural blockage, some six kilometers past their first meeting place near the Brazilian city of Manaus, impedes the river’s flow and crunches the two streams together like an oversize mix-master. After that, there are no more distinctive plumes traveling at their own levels, temperatures, and populations. The unfazed Amazon continues its journey – it’s one of the longest rivers in the world, rivaling the Nile — as a churning, united muddy brown. In its own way, it’s a beautiful, flowing middle ground.