“How do you know that your blood is redder than his, perhaps his blood is redder than yours?”
(Rava in Sanhedrin 74a, Talmud)
by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
I didn’t know yet that the Talmud teaches each and every life has value. I learned it by example when I was eleven years old from an animal, from my pet cat, Buttons. She was a beautiful Persian cat with piercing green eyes and fur so glossy and black it seemed to have purple highlights. Naturally she attracted the attention of some of the neighborhood Toms, and soon we noticed that Buttons seemed heavier around her middle.
Then one evening as I was taking a bath, I heard sounds behind the tile bathroom walls, faint sounds. Mice? No, they seemed to be mewing sounds…behind the wall. Wrapping my towel around me, I rushed to the cupboard just outside our bathroom. Sure enough, the cover to the opening of the wide pipe that ran behind the bathroom wall had been chewed off. I put my ear to the pipe and listened. Yes, those sounds were alive, and, oh, the heated air was warm in there.
With eleven-year-old valor, I reached my hand in as far as I could and touched…wet fur. That is how I lifted out, first one, then two little kittens. But I could still hear a faint mewing. Stretching my arm to the limit, I reached in once more and lifted out a third kitten. Jubilant, I carried them all downstairs to our warm kitchen and settled them comfortably in a basket lined with soft towels. My little sister instantly named them Spic, Span, and Rainbow. Spic was white, Span was black, and Rainbow was multi-colored.
I thought Buttons would be so pleased to see her kittens safe and sound in the basket. But she was not pleased. No, she was frantic as she touched each of them on the nose and paused. And then again, she counted noses. Then she rushed up the stairs to the bathroom closet and squeezed into the warm pipe. She soon emerged with one kitten (Blondie, we called her because she was a strawberry-blonde), and then with another (Tawny, the color of café au lait). She carried them down one by one to the kitchen basket, and when all five of them were settled, she counted their noses with her own nose. ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR-FIVE. And then again to make sure. That’s how she took her own census. I didn’t know that cats could count, but they do if it concerns their own children. Finally, she settled contentedly into the basket with her furry kittens – like the biblical Joseph’s coat, a magnificent blend of many colors.
That’s how I learned from one of God’s small creatures – a black cat with diverse children, each of whom she loved — that every life counts. As the Torah teaches, and poets have always known, each star, each grain of sand, each human life matters. Everywhere.
And for the precious gift of our lives, we owe it to God and to ourselves to make every minute, every hour count. To use it well for ourselves in the time that we have – something we especially appreciate as we grow older — and to use it well for the rest of the lives that have been created, for humanity and for all of God’s creatures.
By Rabbi Corinne Copnick
All my grandchildren are teenagers now, learning to make their own near-adult decisions. One is already away at college; another is thoughtfully filling out her college applications; a third is entering high school. Time for choices.
When I moved into my own teenage zone so many years ago, my mother explained that I was old enough to learn how to make decisions on my own. “You make two columns,” she explained in her high-pitched, school-marm’s voice (in her salad days, my mother had been a school teacher with 58 immigrant children in her fifth grade classroom. In those old depression days, jobs were scarce for new graduates without experience, so my spunky mother took a job in a rural school where she taught eight grades in one room. After that, she was able to get a position in an overcrowded city school. So she certainly felt qualified to teach her budding daughter how to make an important decision).
“You head one column with the word ‘PRO,’” she continued. “That’s the column for all the reasons you should something.” I dutifully wrote “PRO” at the top of the first column.
“And then you put ‘CON’ at the top of the second column. That’s where you put all the reasons why you shouldn’t do something.” Respectfully acceding to her instructions, I wrote “CON” at the top of the designated column.
“What do I do now?” I asked.
“You think,” she replied. “You think and think.”
Immediately I started thinking, but I wasn’t sure what I was thinking about.
“Now,” she instructed, “you start writing down all the reasons why you want to do something.”
“What is it I want to do?” I asked.
“Think of something,” she replied. “Something important.”
“Okay,” I replied. I want to play hooky from school and just laze around. For a week. I’m tired of studying.”
“Hmmm,” she said. “Now put all the reasons why that would be a good idea in the PRO column.”
So I did. Only one reason to a line. That was the rule. It was a good thing I had ruled paper. I ended up with 25 PRO reasons.
“Next,” she said. “It’s time for the CONS. Write down all the reasons why you shouldn’t play hooky in the second column.”
I was having a hard time filling up the CON column with as many reasons as the PRO column, but my mother threw in a dozen or so suggestions because you should try to have a reasonably equal number. What you have to do then is balance them. She didn’t mean balance them on a scale. It was more the way a juggler juggles balls. Only you have to juggle them in your mind. Until you make a decision.
I had a sneaking suspicion the CON column made a lot more sense. But I got tired of juggling and chose the PRO column anyway.
That’s how I learned to make a decision. You balance the PROS and the CONS.
So, from then on, every time I had to make a decision, my mother would say, “Why don’t you PRO/CON it?”
This is a tough one,” I complained. “I have to write an essay for school. About capital punishment.”
“Capital punishment?” she gasped. “You mean, when the judge decides a murderer should be executed?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Whether they should do it or not.”
“Oh,” she offered sympathetically. “I’ll help you.”
So together we wrote out lots of PROS and even more CONS, but at the end, even though my mother juggled and juggled in her mind, she couldn’t decide which column carried more weight.
“I have to choose,” I exclaimed. The essay is due tomorrow.” She threw up her hands in despair. So, all by myself, I chose the PROS.
“That’s impressive,” she said, relieved that she didn’t have to make a choice. “I think you made a good decision.”
But ten minutes after I laid my head on my pillow, she shook me by the shoulder. “Wake up,” she cried. “I think you made a mistake. Big mistake. Maybe you should have chosen the CONS.
So I got up, and being a dutiful daughter, I listened to my mother who, after all, had more life experience than me. I changed the decision to CON.” And went back to bed.
Then, about three o’clock in the morning, I felt something nudging me. Little nudge. Bigger nudge. It was my mother. “I can’t sleep,” she whispered. “I’ve been thinking about it all night. It should be PRO.”
“Oh no,” I cried. “I’ll change it in the morning.”
“Noooo,” she protested. “You might change your mind in the morning.”
I smiled at my mother. “I’m learning to make a decision,” I said firmly. “MY decision. I’m going to sleep on it!” And I did.
In the morning, I was sure that I had made the right choice. I won’t tell you what it was. It’s my secret. I will tell you that, after that, whenever I had to make a decision, I always made two column, just as my mother had taught me, and I filled them with PROS and CONS. But I did all the juggling in my mind myself.
And what I decided when I was a teenager – and I have lived a long time since then, and it is still true – what I decided is this: Whichever column you choose, there are consequences, even when it is not a life or death situation. If you choose to go one way, there will be consequences, and if you choose to go another way, there will be consequences. But you can’t keep juggling and juggling and be a grown-up, and, once you choose, you can’t have juggler’s remorse, even if you were a school teacher in your salad days. You have to choose.
by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
Who would have thought that politically correct terminology would extend to the little penguins of Phillip Island, Victoria province, just a couple of hours driving time from the city of Melbourne? In Australia, where my daughter and I were spending a few precious tourist days, these little penguins were formerly called “fairy penguins” because of their small size. The smallest species of penguin (Eudyptula minor), about 13 inches in height and 17 inches in length, they can be found on the coastlines of Southern Australia and New Zealand. Phillip Island is said to be home to about 33,000 breeding adults, its one remaining penguin colony.
To me, a “fairy” conjures up the delicate creatures with gossamer wings that populated my story books when I was a child. Or the cartoon fairies in Walt Disney movies. But, owing to sensitivity to the LGBTQ movement, in recent years the “fairy” penguins are referenced in public documents as “little penguins.” Their Maori name is korora.
In any case, they are much, much smaller than the Emperor penguins of the Antarctic, whose lifestyles were captured in “The March of the Penguins,” an awe-inspiring 2005 documentary that caught the popular imagination. The Emperor Penguins sported black and white feathers, but these little penguins in Australia are blue and white – blue-feathered, to camouflage them from land-predators by blending into the deep blue sea where they spend 80 percent of their time foraging for food for their babies; and white-bellied to protect them from predators swimming below them in the sea. They are the only penguins in the world with blue and white outer feathers, which they keep waterproof by preening (and adding a drop of oil onto every feather from a special gland above the tail). Their feathers adapt into flippers for swimming.
Realizing how unique these penguins are, Penguin Island officials provide a way for interested tourists to watch the nightly parade of little penguins emerging from the sea – a ritual that occurs only at sunset and always at sunset, every day. Visitors must order tickets in advance that allow them to sit on benches set not too close to the sea in order not to scare the penguins but still close enough to see them well. As visitors, my daughter and I had to arrive and be seated early for the same reason.
Oh, it is so cold and windy out there on the beach. The sea is freezing cold too. The penguins like it that way. My daughter and I huddled up close to one another in jackets and hats and blankets, but the sea mist and the wind cut right through. Our fingers and toes froze. Only a few hours earlier we had been in warm and welcoming Melbourne. But we had come too far to retreat to the bus.
It was well worth it though, the experience of a true natural marvel as we watched the little penguins become partly visible, almost separating themselves from the waves one at a time, looking around to see if other penguins had arrived yet, and then ducking back into the sea to wait for the safety of additional penguin company before they braved the land.
There was reason to be fearful. Predators in the form of large land birds – sometimes there are feral dogs or cats as well — were already circling the shore in anticipation of the penguins’ sunset arrival. So the little penguins waited. There would be safety in numbers. You couldn’t help but marvel at the wonders of God’s world as more and more penguins appeared in ones and twos and threes. Finally there were enough to get into formation.
Instinctively they formed a little, single-file army, one brave penguin leading. One after another, they marched, following the penguin ahead in a straight line, no penguin diverging, and, once back in the grasses that lined the shore, they hurried directly to their individual burrows (little Australian penguins live in burrows). The land birds did not have the temerity to attack such a formidable-appearing force, even if individually each penguin was only a little over a foot tall.
How did the little penguins know where to go once they crossed the beach to the grasses that lined the shore? They were directed by the cries of their babies. To our human ears, all of them seemed to be crying out to their mothers together in one huge cacophony of wails. But just as a human mother somehow recognizes the cry of her own baby, so the penguins could identify the sound of their own. And they went straight to where their male partners were still guarding the babies. It was a moment not to be missed.
How do you tell the girls from the boys? The males have a little extra hook on their beaks. They are the ones that guard the babies in their burrows while the females are in the sea for long days, gorging themselves on seafood so that they will able to feed their babies. It’s an interesting feeding mechanism, kind of like an internal blender with a spout. They simply regurgitate the food from their beaks into their baby penguins’ hungry mouths. Economical and efficient. The wails on Phillip Island ceased.
Little penguins don’t necessarily mate for life; it depends on the breeding success of the couples in producing eggs. (Divorce rates may run up to 50 percent.) Normally, the females lay two eggs (about the size of chicken eggs), with an incubation period of 35 days. Yes, both parents take turns in incubating their eggs. Then the little ones head out to sea when they are between 7 to 11 weeks old. And they know what to do! As if they were touched by a fairy wand!
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