Hanukkah Reunion

There will be no diatribes, fulminations or denunciations emanating from this corner at this time. Hanukkah is a joyous festival, and mine most assuredly was. As readers of this column know, I have two children, son Steve and daughter Lisa, residing in Israel for many years. They both arrived for a Hanukkah visit — the son with his lovely wife Lotti, a Sabra, and a most wonderful two-year-old daughter Dina, my one and only grandchild. With their arrival I had my four children all together for the first time in over four years.

'Only a parent in a similar situation can truly appreciate...'

Only a parent in a similar situation can truly appreciate the whole pleasure and delight of the whole family once again lighting the Hanukkah candles and chanting the prayers together. It was like the miracle of the festival revisited.

Both the maternal and paternal grandparents of my children are still living, at an average age of almost 90, and the spectacle of almost four generations represented in the gathering of the clan was quite memorable. Truly a sight to behold was my 87 year old mother rolling playfully on the floor with great granddaughter Dina as she had so often done with her grandchildren.

As a grandfather deprived of the distance of the warmth of a granddaughter, I made the most of my opportunity. Handicapped as I was by Dina's speaking only in Hebrew, I nevertheless managed to communicate the great love I felt for her. We got along famously, language barriers notwithstanding.

She is a vivacious, delightful child whose self-assurance and adaptability to strange surroundings were a reflection of the loving and supportive (and permissive) parents who are rearing her.

I have noticed that Israeli parents have an uncanny knack of lavishing unstinting love and support on their children while at the same time extracting sufficient discipline and respect in return, so the children are rarely spoiled.

My daughter-in-law Lotti was making her first visit to these shores. She is a warm, delightful and friendly young woman and won the hearts of numerous relatives and friends meeting her for the first time. Wherever she went she felt at home. Her English is somewhat limited, but she managed to understand and communicate quite well. I enjoyed talking to her because she is open, direct and relatively uncomplicated.

It was a revelation to her to see the well-stocked department stores and the mobs of people in the throes of holiday shopping, with seemingly unlimited funds. Quite a contrast to the sparse choices and thrifty shopping which prevail in Israel. It was not the unadulterated pleasure I thought it would be for her as she was confounded by the innumerable choices of merchandise and the extravagant prices.

I have the feeling she went back to her homeland, convinced that while America may be the 'land of plenty,' it is not an unparalleled Garden of Eden.

Son Steve in many ways has always been more at home in Israel than here. He made an irrevocable decision almost eight years ago to live in Israel and has never wavered from this commitment or questioned his decision.

The cultural and economic differences between the land of his birth and the land of his choosing had to create ambivalence within him. He works hard days a week as a school psychologist and remarked wistfully on the 5-day work week and the almost quadruple pay scale for the same type of employment here. But I am secure in the belief that whatever others may conjecture, he made the right decision to make his life in Israel and has never regretted it.

Daughter Lisa was (as always) the matrix who filled-in for everybody in all situations. She speaks fluent Hebrew, and her 4 years in Israel made her more lovely, mature and accomplished in every way. She combines exotic charm and beauty with wisdom, awareness, intuition, thoughtfulness and perception that few 25-year-olds possess. Apparently, the intangible psychic gratification that life in Israel offers her more than compensates for the diminution in creature comforts. I do understand.

When one adds son Adam, home from his first semester away at college, and clinical psychologist son Dr. Kevin to the family swirl for this short visit, one can imagine the tumultousness that at times prevailed. Unfortunately, little attention could be paid to Adam, who undoubtedly had many new experiences at college to discuss and share.

Sure, there was turbulence. Children who leave home, especially those immersed in a different language and a different cultural system, don't come quietly back into the family circle.

The gatherings at the old homestead with mother, father and all siblings all present for the first time in years recreated some of the old tensions and sibling antagonisms even when parents are even-handed in dealing with their children and yet it exists?

If it's the natural outgrowth of instinctual competitive feelings, why does it have to be an inter-sibling thing since there's a big world out there in which to compete? And even if it exists in the family unit, why does it persist into the mature years? Is it the inevitable outcome when children are close in age? Hardly, because there are numerous families in which such sibling conflict is absent.

Is it found less frequently when siblings are farther apart in age? I don't know.

I view the family unit as fundamental in our society and perceive it as the principal supportive entity in a rather unfriendly world. Perhaps I am particularly sensitive in the matter because I miss having a brother or sister. It leaves a void! In my personal life, though very competitive, I was quite protective of my brother who was six years younger. I reveled in his achievements even when they surpassed mine.

With the rearing of my own children I tried to avoid engendering any rivalry among them by dealing with their individual needs in impartial if not necessarily equal or uniform fashion.

Sibling rivalry and its prevalence baffles me, and I have few answers. Perhaps my readers can supply some enlightenment on the subject?

Holidays brought joy, melancholy, sweet memories

I do believe that a lot of festering sibling antagonisms were alleviated, old wounds dealt with, and all of us gained new insights as to where each one stood vis a vis the other family members. At times the chaotic and random gatherings resembled a veritable psychology workshop. What would you expect in a household where the three older children were all psychology majors at college? Hopefully, a lot of detritus was buried forevermore.

Our Israeli contingent has now departed and Adam is back at college many miles away. The ineffable joy of having the whole family together now has given way to melancholy. How quickly the time flew. How many things were left undone. But for the rest of my life this Hanukkah will be a most unforgettable one.