"After a minute, HaShem says, 'You know, I don’t find that very funny.' And the survivor replies, 'I guess you had to be there.'"
This brought memories of my interviews with survivors when I directed the fund raising film for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Each interview starte with general facts and histories, then moved into unique regional events. But then, in each case, the interviewee would say, "I've never told anyone this..." And we would proceed to "you had to be there." The gut punch. Sometimes the banal would be most devastating: one interview that recounted the mundane cruelty of neighbors reduced me to sobbing uncontrollably and calling a "time out." (The archived interviews are at the Holocaust Memorial Museum under the "Campaign to Remember" film project.
And you noted...
"...the Tibetan meditative practices I learned during my time in Dharamshala,"
Memories of my private audience with a Tibetan Rinpoche in mountains above Boulder. Nothing remarkable at first glance. He reminded me to breath and sent me off. I paused on the mountain to reflect. A deer, a young buck, came and stood next to me, also reflecting. (You'll understand.) Time opened up and I realized the Rinpoche was repeating a complaint of long duration he had with me. He was not saying "breath" so much as "laugh." Over many lives he had complained I lacked a sense of humor. I was appropriately admonished.
These recalls came together in your concluding remarks. I take the young pine shoots coming up out of "Armageddon" as an analogy for our ability to breath and laugh in the face of worldly horror.
Two of your recollections folded together:
"After a minute, HaShem says, 'You know, I don’t find that very funny.' And the survivor replies, 'I guess you had to be there.'"
This brought memories of my interviews with survivors when I directed the fund raising film for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Each interview starte with general facts and histories, then moved into unique regional events. But then, in each case, the interviewee would say, "I've never told anyone this..." And we would proceed to "you had to be there." The gut punch. Sometimes the banal would be most devastating: one interview that recounted the mundane cruelty of neighbors reduced me to sobbing uncontrollably and calling a "time out." (The archived interviews are at the Holocaust Memorial Museum under the "Campaign to Remember" film project.
And you noted...
"...the Tibetan meditative practices I learned during my time in Dharamshala,"
Memories of my private audience with a Tibetan Rinpoche in mountains above Boulder. Nothing remarkable at first glance. He reminded me to breath and sent me off. I paused on the mountain to reflect. A deer, a young buck, came and stood next to me, also reflecting. (You'll understand.) Time opened up and I realized the Rinpoche was repeating a complaint of long duration he had with me. He was not saying "breath" so much as "laugh." Over many lives he had complained I lacked a sense of humor. I was appropriately admonished.
These recalls came together in your concluding remarks. I take the young pine shoots coming up out of "Armageddon" as an analogy for our ability to breath and laugh in the face of worldly horror.