“I know I’m not the best person socially. I know I’m not. Asperger’s has this tendency to make people who have it not the best people socially.   I can only be one person – me.” Danny Klein wrote these words in one of the many journals he kept in high school and college. In April 2015, Danny committed suicide.

At our Na’aseh program last night, Danny’s courageous parents shared these and other words with fifty OJC teens. As part of a learning unit entitled “I am Enough,” we were learning about the inclusion of people with Asperger’s, what is today referred to as people on the spectrum.

Five years ago, Danny attended every Tuesday evening at Na’aseh. Often wearing a cool hat with earflaps that he himself had crocheted, Danny was an active participant. Kind, generous, and social, Danny wanted to be in the midst of whatever was happening. But unless his older brother Jared was at Na’aseh that night, Danny was never actually at the center of things. Danny was never excluded or teased or bullied. He was always tolerated. Last night, Rabbi Craig Scheff told the teens that tolerance is not good enough. We taught the teens of the OJC the value of inclusion.

Danny’s mom Judy explained all about Asperger’s, how it shaped Danny’s life and affected the entire family. Asperger’s is primarily a communication disorder that manifests as having difficulty with the back-and-forth flow of conversation, reading non-verbal cues, and understanding sarcasm.   Judy told the teens, “What I saw was a kid who desperately wanted a circle of friends, who had so much love inside to give, who was prepared to be the best friend you would ever want… I saw a kid who held it together all day at school and then came home and asked me to help him figure out what was going on in social situations that he didn’t understand because people didn’t always say what they really meant.”

Judy concluded her remarks, “When I started typing this on my iPad and autocorrect didn’t recognize “Asperger’s” yet, it corrected to ‘as perfect’. Actually, my iPad was right. Danny was just as perfect and as imperfect as every one of us, just another good kid, and every good kid deserves friendship.”

How do caring adults teach teens the necessity of going beyond their safety zones to include others when every teen himself or herself is struggling with finding a place? We offered them the opportunity to listen, ask questions and participate in a variety of learning experiences. The Klein family’s participation was at the core of their ability to feel safe asking and processing the evening.

After Rabbi Scheff and I framed the evening and Judy introduced Danny’s story, I had the privilege of interviewing my friend Zahava Finkel in front of the group. Zahava is a 29-year old woman with Asperger’s who told her story with honesty and humor.

She and I facilitated an activity that she brought to our program. Everyone wrote their name on a piece of masking tape and put it on their shirts. Zahava then read statements that began with “I have been made fun of for…” and finished with “the way I look” or “my athletic ability” or “asking lots of questions when I don’t understand.” If a sentence rang true, a piece of tape was torn off. One teen said, “Every put-down diminishes our sense of who we are.”

In small groups, we considered Danny’s own words, allowing each teen to process the difficulties and triumphs that were Danny’s too short life.

When showed an interview of Danny with his psychologist, Youth Director Sharon Rappaport fielded questions from the teens that were answered by Danny’s parents and brothers. I was reminded of what the evening was really about when one teen asked, “What did you love about Danny?”

For me, the most important take away of the powerful evening is the generous spirits of the Klein family. They are experiencing an unimaginable loss and their grief is palpable. But all of us who love them watch in awe as they channel that sorrow into activism. In Danny’s name, they are determined to make a change in our world so that people who struggle as Danny did will have champions among their peers.

At the close of the night, Judy told our teens, “I know that you are learning about what it means to say ‘I am enough’ but I want you all to know that you aren’t just enough. You are all way more than just enough.”

May Danny’s name always be for a blessing.

Rabbi Paula Mack Drill

During eight years of social work in a Jewish geriatric center, I gravitated to Barnhard Pavilion for residents who lived with dementia. I sat with elderly men and women, talking quietly, feeding them breakfast or singing show tunes from the 1950s. Most often, they remained locked in their own diminished world. But if I sang “Shalom Aleichem” or brought a lulav and etrog to shake or lit Chanukah candles, the frail resident would come alive in that moment, often joining in the words of the song or the blessing. Those words would emerge from a deep, hidden place. I call that place the soul.
Zachor! We are commanded as Jews time and again to remember. Jewish ritual, study and celebration are anchored in national and personal memory.
Can Jews who live with Alzheimer’s or some other form of senility still participate in Jewish life? What happens to the souls of Jews whose memory has been robbed by dementia of some kind? And more importantly, how can the family and friends of a person who has lost some or all memory find their loved one within the person before them?
We are commanded “You shall rise before the aged and show deference [v’hadarta] to the old.” (Vayikra 19:32) Poet Danny Siegel plays on the Hebrew word v’hadarta and translates this verse: “You shall rise before the aged and allow the beauty, glory and majesty of their faces to emerge.”
The answer at a theological level seems to be that the soul of a person is still within. Soul is somehow separate from intellect, emotion or memory. The pure piece of God implanted within every person remains as long as breath remains in the body. In rare and gentle moments, the soul shows itself.
The answer to the question about coping at a personal level, however, is very different. Theology does not help when long, painful days of coping with a loved one’s losses are our reality. A fleeting moment in a heartbreaking flow of hours, days and weeks is not enough to sustain most of us. The mourning process is excruciating for those who have lost a person even as that person sits before them. And yet, I still encourage families to seek those moments when the beauty and majesty of the face emerges, the moment of soul.
My Nana could not remember which grandchild I was during the last three years of her life, but she would snap to attention when I asked her for the chicken soup recipe that delighted her family every Friday evening at her Shabbat table. The Cantor who lived on Barnhard Pavilion for four years could not tell me where he had lived before the nursing home, but he could lean back in his chair and sing Kol Nidre as if he were in his sanctuary once again. I felt privileged to recognize their souls in those moments.
My friend Charlotte Abramson’s daughter Adena wrote a a prayer-poem for Yizkor this year. Adena wrote about her father, Rabbi Robert Abramson, my friend and teacher. I share it here with Adena’s permission, in the hope that it will bring recognition and succor to those of us coping with dementia in a loved one and that it will encourage all of us to reach out today to someone who is living the long grieving process of a family member of someone with senile dementia.
You are still here, but I remember.
I remember when your mind was connected to your voice.
I remember when your mind and body acted as one.
When with two words you could cut through all the noise or cause the room to burst in laughter
When your eyes sparkled green and were clear with focus.
Is it too early for me to start remembering?
You are still here. Your heart still beats. You are kind.
Do you experience joy?sadness? fear?
Is it still there?
So, I remember because you cannot, and by doing so, I feel all.
Adena Abramson

With blessings, Rabbi Paula Mack Drill