The Merriam-Webster dictionary describes courage as “the ability to do something that frightens one.” Iâ€d give it a slightly different definition.

Courage for me, as Iâ€ve discovered over the past year coping with chronic cancer, is not about choosing to jump out of an airplane or bungie jump off a bridge near Katmandu. Rather, itâ€s doing something you really donâ€t want to do but know you have to.

It was courage I needed when my next immunotherapy appointment came close.

I finished four months of chemotherapy for my follicular lymphoma earlier this year and am officially in remission. Now I need to go in every other month for an IV of biologic “maintenance” treatment to keep the cancer at bay for as long as possible. Iâ€m supposed to do this for two years. Itâ€s not as bad as chemo, but it still comes with side effects.

As the day approached, I became acutely aware of my resistance to going back under the needle. Part of that was just not wanting to feel uncomfortable – not so much the hospital visit but the fatigue and aches and pains that come after. Part was that each trip to the hematology daycare ward reminds me that I have a chronic, incurable cancer that will be with me for the rest of my life.

But thereâ€s also a lingering uncertainty about whether maintenance treatment is worth it.

According to Dr. John Leonard, a lymphoma specialist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, only 16 out of 100 patients will see an improvement in PFS (thatâ€s “progression free survival,” the number of years before the disease returns) as a result of the kind of maintenance immunotherapy Iâ€m supposed to be getting.

“Moreover, it makes no difference in overall survival,” Leonard adds. He advises most of his patients these days to skip maintenance and simply “re-treat” when necessary – even if thatâ€s sooner than it might have been if youâ€re in the lucky 16 percent group.

Dr. Jonathan Friedberg, chief of hematology-oncology at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, New York, puts it more plainly. “Maintenance therapy is probably over-treatment.”

I asked my own doctor at Hadassah in Jerusalem. She admitted that “we really donâ€t know what maintenance therapy does or how,” but she still recommended it. “Sixteen percent is not insignificant.”

As my appointment became imminent, I tried to think of other examples of courage that fit my definition, to see whether any of those might provide clarity for the decision in front of me.

The first thing that came to mind was perhaps the complete opposite of healing: war. No sane person ever wants to go to war, but sometimes you have to do it for the health and survival of your nation.

Divorce also is a form of courage. Resistance to this kind of major life change can be overwhelming, but if youâ€re in the wrong relationship, you know deep down that sometimes the only way to get healthy again is to get out.

Making aliyah takes courage, as well. My wife, Jody, and I planned our immigration to Israel for seven years. Making a life in the Holy Land was part of the shared values we brought to our marriage.

But when the time finally came to move, I kept delaying. My career was in full swing: I had a great job at a software company, I was teaching at San Francisco State University, Iâ€d just finished a term as president of an international professional association. We had friends, community, two cars and savings.

I knew that aliyah would be the healthy thing for our relationship, for our children, for the Jewish people.

“Making these kinds of monumental decisions takes a special kind of faith,” a friend once told me.

“Faith is not something Iâ€m big on,” I joked in return.

“Then call it a ‘leap of faith†– making an important choice with imperfect information. Gather data then reevaluate. If it doesnâ€t work out, you can always go back.”

Melanie Greenberg writes in Psychology Today about six kinds of courage: feeling fear yet choosing to act, following your heart, persevering in the face of adversity, standing up for what is right, letting go of the familiar, and facing suffering with dignity or faith.

At least four of those six are part of my personal definition of courage. (You guess which four.)

In the end, though, it was not my cognitive deliberations, an appeal to faith or a pithy article in a pop psychology journal that shone a light on how I should decide.

It was an episode of the TV show “This is Us.”

One of the main plot points of the popular NBC series is that the father of the family dies when his kids are teenagers. The harrowing experience of losing their father at such a young age impacts much of how they live as adults.

My own kids are all in their 20s but thatâ€s still young enough that I wouldnâ€t want to bequeath to them any avoidable trauma.

Sixteen percent may not sound like a lot statistically, but I owe it to my family to do whatever I can to stick around as long as possible.

I might feel like crap, temporarily at least, but I know, too, that my long-term health and the health of everyone around me depends on me mustering up that courage – however I define it.

I first defined courage at The Jerusalem Post.

The results from my latest PET CT were good. Excellent in fact. My hematologist sent me a two-line update by WhatsApp.

“No uptake in no lymph nodes! Well done!” she wrote (exclamation points included).

“Uptake” in medical language refers to whether the radioactive material injected into my veins prior to the PET CT had found its way into any of my lymph nodes. That would have indicated that I still had cancerous tumors in my body. It didnâ€t and I donâ€t.

My doctor followed her message with a pair of clapping hands. (Youâ€ve got to love a doctor who communicates using emojis.)

I was less ebullient, however. Yes, I was officially now in remission. But as good as the news was, it was still “expected.” Most people with my kind of cancer respond very quickly to treatment. Moreover, my positive PET changed absolutely nothing. I still had another three chemo treatments to go and then 12 immunotherapy “maintenance” sessions over the next two years.

Thatâ€s because, with a chronic recurring cancer like follicular lymphoma, there are two battles: knocking out the cancer and then doing everything you can to ensure as long a remission as possible before the disease returns.

That put me in a bit of a Catch-22: I wanted to keep friends and family up-to-date, but if I said I was “cancer free” without a caveat, Iâ€d be deluged with “congratulations” and “way to go” responses.

Even worse, my mind had already gone in a different direction. If I was now cancer free, did I still need all the remaining treatments? Maybe I could just stop. And the two-year treatment plan Iâ€d settled on – was it even the “right” one? Could I have achieved the same positive result with less chemicals?

I was ruminating.

Rumination is when you essentially re-play in your mind a decision youâ€re not sure about, maybe even one you regret, to the point where youâ€re not able to be fully present in the current moment.

Rumination is not the same as reflection. Thatâ€s where you return to a decision but, rather than get lost in it, you evaluate it objectively in order to learn something new. For example, letâ€s say you sold your car for a certain price without doing a lot of research and later found out you could have gotten substantially more. Next time youâ€ll know better what to charge.

My worst case of rumination happened in 2011, when our family set out on a two-week trek in Nepal for my 50^th birthday. One of the highlights of the hike was a pre-dawn 350-meter climb to a place called Poon Hill from which you could see all of the spectacularly snowy Annapurna range at first light.

But I was worried about being too tired to handle the long trek we had planned for the rest of the day. So I passed on Poon Hill.

As we hiked towards Tatopani, though, I couldnâ€t get what I imagined I would have seen atop Poon Hill out of my mind. With each of the hundreds of steps to the hot springs awaiting us at our destination, I beat myself up, over and over, missing out on the breathtaking real-time scenery unfolding all around me.

I needed some rules for rumination.

The key is separating what goes into making a decision with what comes after.

Iâ€m a naturally analytical guy – thatâ€s perfectly fine. If Iâ€m going to buy a new smart phone, Iâ€ll look at every possible model, listing all the pros and cons, prices, features and functionality.

But once Iâ€ve bought it, assuming it works, looking back will only cause unnecessary pain. I can reflect (“next time, Iâ€ll buy more storage” or “Iâ€ll get the one with the better screen”), but rumination and reproach (“I should have bought the model with the bigger screen,” and “Iâ€m such an idiot”) are off-limits.

That doesnâ€t mean you have to stick with a decision when new data becomes available. Letâ€s say you choose to go to a concert or a movie. Half way in, you realize youâ€re not enjoying it. Do you have to wait it out just because you paid for the tickets?

I had a clean PET scan – did that qualify as new data such that I should reevaluate? How about my physical response? After several months of treatment, I could see how my body was handling the chemo. Did that suggest a change of direction? Had the neuropathy – a common chemo side effect – been too intense?

Those kinds of discussions are entirely legitimate. Whatâ€s not OK: obsessively second-guessing whether the original decision was a mistake.

Another way of looking at the difference: reflection is looking back at a situation. Rumination is more like taking an actual step backward.

When I was debating whether to climb Poon Hill, I was worried I wouldnâ€t sleep that night. Guess what? I didnâ€t anyway – I was too busy “pre-ruminating.”

Years later, when my wife Jody and I took a similarly adventurous trip to Sri Lanka, one of the top recommended outings required a 4 am wake up.

I reflected on Poon Hill, deflected any rumination and we did it.

It was glorious.

I hope I can make a similarly glorious, non-ruminative decision on the coming months of my cancer treatment.

I first created my rules against rumination in The Jerusalem Post.

My daughter Merav is a proud Zionist. But even Zionists get scared sometimes. And living for the past two years in the Gaza border community of Sderot, where sheâ€s studying at Sapir College, thereâ€s been a lot to be frightened of.

In a heartbreaking post thatâ€s been circulating on social media, Merav described the weekend of July 15, when 150 missiles were fired from Gaza. One landed just a block away from her apartment. After the hundreds of incendiary kites and balloons that have turned the air outside Meravâ€s idyllic student dorm room into a smoky hell, that was the straw that broke this Zionist camelâ€s back.

“We grabbed our backpacks and started stuffing them with whatever was near, threw them in the car and hit the gas, driving 140 km an hour through the eerily empty streets of Sderot, as though we were being chased,” Merav starts her piece. “I didnâ€t breathe normally until we passed Bror Hayil, a kibbutz outside the immediate radius of the current missile attacks.”

Itâ€s not like Merav and her husband Gabe didnâ€t know what they were getting themselves into when they moved to Sderot. After four years of mostly calm following the conclusion of Operation Protective Edge, they knew that violence could return to the region. But they found the laid back lifestyle of Israelâ€s south enticing.

Theyâ€re not alone.

The Israeli communities adjacent to Gaza have been booming. Hundreds of families have moved to the regionâ€s cities and kibbutzim since 2014.

Some come for idealistic reasons: to fortify the vulnerable border. Others cite the natural beauty (although the fire kites have blackened that), affordability compared with Jerusalem or Tel Aviv and the child-friendly atmosphere. One new resident interviewed says that, despite the violence, he feels his kids “are safer here than in the big city.”

In the last year alone, eight new homes have been built on Kibbutz Nahal Oz and another 12 houses are being planned – “no small feat for a community overlooking Gaza,” reports journalist Amir Tibon.

The same pioneering spirit pervades the student body at Sapir. Merav and Gabe live in a college community called Ayalim, part of a national organization that recruits young people to move to student villages across Israelâ€s periphery. Ayalimâ€s 22 campuses provide low-cost accommodation and scholarships in exchange for community service.

In Meravâ€s first year, she volunteered with Holocaust survivors. Last year, she mentored a teenage girl.

Ayalim (and Sapir as a whole) remind me of my own college days in the U.S. – thereâ€s a real small-town campus environment, unlike Israelâ€s bigger universities which have a high percentage of commuters. The students make Shabbat dinner together and run a local pub. Thereâ€s a fantastic humus place nearby (owned and operated by Ayalim graduates).

The city regularly invites top Israeli musicians to perform; most recently Sderot hosted its first Blues Festival.

If I were going to college in Israel, Iâ€d want it to be in Sderot.

All that changed when the Hamas-fueled demonstrations broke out along the border and rockets returned to the skies.

A study which appeared in the Journal of Adolescent Health a few years ago found that half of middle schoolers in Sderot suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Others put the number at closer to 80 percent.

When Merav asked the teen whom she mentored last year how sheâ€s been coping with the situation, the young girl simply shrugged, her anxiety cloaked in denial.

“Itâ€s no biggie for me,” she told Merav. “Itâ€s definitely better then when we lived in Ashkelon and didnâ€t have a safe room in the house and had to go sleep in the stairwell.”

Merav wishes in some ways she could be more like her student.

“When people ask me how itâ€s going living where we live, I so badly want to say ‘you know, its life. We handle it, weâ€re Zionists and we are brave!†But I donâ€t. I feel sad and scared.”

When the explosions intensified, Merav says she felt every one of them – on both sides of the border. “It was like our house was lifting off the ground,” she writes of the night before she and Gabe made their decision to leave for Jerusalem.

You might think at this point weâ€d be advising Merav to get out. There are other colleges in Israel. Does she have to be such a Zionist?

Merav is having none of it.

“Iâ€ve never been one to quit anything,” she states. Describing her fellow students – as well as herself – she adds, “We are the reason our country still thrives, because we donâ€t leave, no matter how scared we are. Because we know how to weigh the enormous benefits of life in the periphery against the equally enormous challenges.”

How does she do it? I donâ€t know if I could.

Merav says she closes her eyes and imagines “the hot summer afternoons, the DJ jamming in the main square of the campus, the popsicles that the student union passes around. I remember the first Sderot marathon a few months ago where the entire city – including me – came out and ran alongside the fear.”

School is on break until the fall. Maybe this time, a cease fire will hold. In the meantime, Merav writes how she no longer takes things for granted.

“Every day with no siren is a gift.”

Thatâ€s not a lesson Iâ€d wish anyone would have to go to college to learn. But Iâ€m so proud that my daughter has learned it anyway.

I first wrote about Merav’s life in Sderot in The Jerusalem Post.

Iâ€m looking out at the sprawling Peace Wood stage, a generous grassy lawn, dotted by august Eucalyptus trees, that slopes down towards a well-equipped performance platform. Much of the plot is covered by large cloth tarps that provide shade from the mid-May sun and can swing wildly when the wind kicks in.

The stage itself is flanked by a towering speaker system with enough intensity to get a crowd of 3,000 on its feet dancing while still respecting the aural sensitivities of the older generation.

Itâ€s Jacobâ€s Ladder 2018 and, as you read this, the merriment at Kibbutz Nof Ginosar on the Sea of Galilee is well underway. The annual indie, folk, country, blues and bluegrass festival has been a home away from home for many of the tens of thousands of Anglos (and an increasing number of Israelis) who have pitched a tent here over the past 42 years.

My family and I are relatively newbies, coming to Jacobâ€s Ladder only for the last decade or so. While our kids still sleep under the stars, my wife and I gave up camping for the luxuries of a simple rented room on the kibbutz with a spartan bed, a shower with passable water pressure and a functional air conditioner.

When we arrive, we have our Jacobâ€s Ladder rituals. First, we find a spot at the Peace Wood space to lay out our mat and plant our low rise folding chairs. Itâ€s not a simple decision. Are we fully under the tarp? Which way is the sun moving? Would it be better to be further back with a clear view or close up but with that tree in the way?

Fortunately, once everythingâ€s in place, Jacobâ€s Ladderâ€s reputation as Israelâ€s “friendliest music festival” is confirmed with this unwritten but critical rule: You can leave your stuff out all day and all night and no one will steal or move it. If someone does sit in your seat, you can nicely ask and theyâ€ll vacate without a fight.

Next, itâ€s off to get our Jacobâ€s Ladder t-shirts, exchange cash for “scrip” (the Jacobâ€s Ladder funny money with which we pay for schnitzel from the food court and vegan chai from the tea shop) and a quick visit to the Kinneret to check how far the shore has receded.

The Peace Wood stage is just one of four set up to accommodate all the acts at Jacobâ€s Ladder (there are 37 this year). The eponymously-named Lawn Stage is the most laid back. The Hermon Hall inside the kibbutz hotel building is the most chill (in that itâ€s usually frigid from the powerful a/c). And the Balcony Stage is where overseas guests, Italyâ€s “Ukus in Fabula,” will be leading a ukulele workshop.

For much of the past decade, the festivalâ€s main act has been the Abrams, a country-pop Canadian boy band that exudes evangelical love for the Holy Land. This year, the Abrams are elsewhere, replaced by home-grown Tarante Groove Machine who promise an hour of energetic world music – a very different vibe that will undoubtedly go down well with the legions of dancing teens who have created their own Jacobâ€s Ladder “mosh pit.”

I asked Yehudit Vinegrad, who produces Jacobâ€s Ladder with her husband Menachem, if choosing Tarante to headline this year was a nod to the next generation of festival goers. “Definitely,” she said. “Though we want the 71-year-olds to dance, too. Our aim is to cater to all ages.”

And to an ever widening demographic.

“The festival originally attracted mainly the English-speaking immigrants who came in the 1960s and 1970s,” Vinegrad told me. “In order to carry on the festival, we need to sell enough tickets, so we do our best to attract Hebrew speakers too.”

Another change: a special Thursday through Friday afternoon-only ticket for the growing number of religious attendees.

My musical tastes tend more to indie than Irish fiddling. As a result, Iâ€m most looking forward to two young bands. One is the six-piece Forest, who mix up psychedelic klezmer, progressive rock, chanting, shamanism, storytelling and prayer.

The other is Kim in the Sun, a new configuration for Mika Sade who I praised as one of the breakout artists from Jacob Ladder 2017. Vinegrad was impressed enough with Sade and her Minnie Riperton-esque trills to move her to the Peace Wood stage this year. “Mika Sade is unique, original and overflowing with talent and surprises,” Vinegrad said.

Vinegrad also suggested I donâ€t miss the Ukrainian band, Spiritual Seasons, who focus on North European folk music; Itamar Haluts, with his infectious power pop originals; English folk music devotees The Fine Marten; and Richie and Bel, who came to Vinegradâ€s attention after the lead singer “bought a ticket last year and stood on one of the main pathways and played. Lots of people stopped to listen to her.”

When the last band winds up the final notes of the traditional Jacobâ€s Ladder closer “Good Night Irene” Saturday afternoon, a group of stragglers who canâ€t get enough will head down to the Sea of Galilee where, gingerly anchoring the legs of our white plastic chairs in the rocks and gently lapping waves, weâ€ll hold one last jam, piloting the virtual Chevy to the levee along the City of New Orleans and already dreaming of 2019.

I “previewed” this year’s Jacob’s Ladder originally at The Jerusalem Post.

“Whatâ€s your Hebrew name?”

That was all the text message said. No empathetic opening like “I heard about whatâ€s going on” or acknowledgment of “that must be really tough.”

I knew exactly what the sender was getting at – he wanted to pray for me and needed the mystical equivalent of my teudat zehut (my Israeli ID number).

This brief WhatsApp exchange was just the first in a series of awkward moments Iâ€ve encountered since telling people I have cancer. As much as the diagnosis was a shock to me, itâ€s been an even bigger one to friends and family who were not privy to the repeated pokes and scans and blood tests that preceded the final verdict.

One thing Iâ€ve learned in the relatively short time Iâ€ve been living with follicular lymphoma is that people donâ€t know how to respond when they first hear about someone whoâ€s sick.

I understand that much better now. You really have to have been through a life threatening condition – either personally or by caring for a loved one – to truly “get it.” And even then, every individual responds differently to his or her illness, so the compassionate thing to say to one person might come off as uncaring to another.

I decided to write down a list of the most appropriate words Iâ€d want to hear. Then I found that Letty Cottin Pogrebin had already done the same thing.

Pogrebin was a founding editor of Ms. Magazine. Her most recent book of non-fiction, “How to be Friend to a Friend Whoâ€s Sick,” was written after the author was diagnosed with breast cancer several years ago.

Pogrebinâ€s book is filled with valuable insight. Asking “How are you?” for example, is a loaded question for someone whoâ€s ill, she writes. In normal discussion, itâ€s meant as a breezy placeholder for a longer conversation to be held later, where the questioner is expecting just a quick “Fine, how are you?” in response.

But for a sick person, that simple salutation triggers a fairly complex decision-making process, where one has to “decide on the spot, questioner by questioner, friend by friend, situation by situation, how candidly to respond,” Pogrebin explains.

Here are a few tips Iâ€ve picked up during my own bout with cancer.

Wishing a sick person refuah shlemah – a “complete recovery” in Hebrew – is a standard formulation in Jewish circles that does the job succinctly without descending into platitudes or clichés. Itâ€s much better than faux encouraging lines like “Everything happens for a reason,” “Youâ€re so brave” or “Weâ€re all going to die someday. You could be hit by a car tomorrow.”

Similarly, while itâ€s true that my cancer may very well “change me for the better,” that sentiment is better off coming from me, not from someone else, however well intentioned.

“Let me know if you need anything” sounds comforting but it actually puts the onus on the sick person to proactively reach out for assistance. In her book, Pogrebin suggests that a more helpful response might be “How can I help?” or “What can I do?”

Another from Pogrebin: Do your best to suss out where the sick person is at before engaging in conversation. A chipper “Tell me all about it!” might not be received as supportive by someone in pain. Sometimes itâ€s appropriate to change the subject; other times, the best thing to say is just “cancer sucks” and leave it at that.

When it comes to giving advice, itâ€s fine if the sick person initiates. “Hey youâ€re a nutritionist, what do you know about sugar and tumors?” But otherwise, that YouTube video you saw about how your favorite holistic therapy can cure cancer may come across as pushing an agenda I might not be ready to hear.

“But youâ€re so healthy. You work out, youâ€re always hiking, you donâ€t smoke. And your wifeâ€s a vegan. How could this have happened?” But it did. And science doesnâ€t know what causes lymphoma. It could be genetics. It could be overuse of antibiotics. It could be the environment. Or all of the above.

These last two points underlie what I think is behind many of the comments people make: fear. Itâ€s terrifying when someone gets cancer because it forces you to confront not only your friendâ€s mortality but your own.

Siddhartha Mukherjee writes in his best-selling book The Emperor of all Maladies that, in the United States, one out of every two men and one out of every three women will develop cancer during their lifetime.

So, if you can create “categories of exclusion” – “Yes, he exercised, but he also ate meat” or “I had that same ultrasound and it was clear” – then you can feel “safe” (at least for the time being) that you wonâ€t get it too.

That, I propose, is whatâ€s behind the “Can I pray for you?” question. Itâ€s not so much that youâ€re helping me, but rather that youâ€re calming your own dread by doing something – anything – in the face of the alarming possibility that the universe is, in fact, random.

I understand that concern – I feel it too. But, as regular readers know, Iâ€m not a big believer in the efficacy of prayer. So Iâ€ve begun to suggest an alternative action when someone asks for my Hebrew name.

“Instead of praying, the next time youâ€re walking down the street, smile at someone you donâ€t know or just say hello to a stranger,” I explain. “And when you do, please think of me.”

I first suggested smiling at a stranger at The Jerusalem Post.

Man in prayer image from Ori Lubin [CC BY-SA 4.0 from Wikimedia Commons]

What do the following have in common: A magical psychologist who can send his patients back in time, a 5-year-old with autism, a tawdry affair, and a dysfunctional Jewish family where the former patriarch is transgender?

Yes, theyâ€re all quick descriptions for recent television shows. Theyâ€re also the programs weâ€ve watched as part of our weekly “TV club.”

Never heard of a TV club? Well, itâ€s like a book club in that group members all read (or in this case, watch) something together and then discuss it afterward. So the subject matter chosen needs to be on a topic that will generate lively debate, stimulate insights into human nature and in general keep participants on their intellectual toes.

Our TV club started nearly 5 years ago when we were watching the first of the programs on my list, Being Erica – a superb Canadian drama about a Jewish thirtysomething woman whose life is falling apart.

When we first meet her, Erica has been fired from her job, her boyfriend has dumped her and she lands in the hospital from a peanut allergy. While there, a mysterious “Dr. Tom” visits. He has the ability to help her deal with her traumatic childhood through time travel that allows Erica to revisit pivotal moments from her past.

My wife Jody and I watched the first few seasons alone. But then we thought it would be fun to invite some of our therapist friends (for some reason, a number of the people with whom we are close are in the helping professions) to join us and analyze each episode.

It was such a success that we didnâ€t want to stop. We expanded the group beyond psychologists. But Erica ended so we searched for another drama that would keep us talking. Amazonâ€s Transparent fit the bill.

Nominally about the transition of Mort to Maura, the award-winning series is more about the characters†overall family dynamics.

Sometimes we get through an entire episode without stopping, but most of the time, we wind up pausing every few minutes so we can chat, fume, pontificate or learn. (It helps that one of our friends is a sex therapist; “Transparent” is so full of teachable moments.)

I havenâ€t heard of other TV clubs, but the idea makes a lot of sense in this era of “Peak TV,” when the best actors, writers and directors have moved from the big screen to the home entertainment center. And itâ€s more of a social activity than a book club, which is primarily a solitary affair punctuated by the occasional in-person meet-up.

Our TV club serves another critical function for the group, all of whom are immigrants to Israel: itâ€s a mini-family.

None of us have family in Israel beyond our own children. We have friends outside the TV club, of course, but getting together with the same people on a weekly basis (outside of, say, Shabbat) is a big deal and something we didnâ€t do before TV club.

We donâ€t just watch and discuss. Jody always makes popcorn and puts out tea. One friend brings cake, another a variety of multi-colored organic gluten-free vegan chips. And we share about our lives. Whatâ€s happening with work, kids and – lately – health.

When I was diagnosed with cancer a couple of months ago, the TV club was there for me – at first to listen as I juggled treatment options, then to offer help. I knew I could count on every member of the club. That goes way beyond TV.

At this point, we probably spend more time talking and less time watching TV when we get together.

There are some excellent shows that we wonâ€t watch in the TV club. Anything with too much violence is out. I wanted to try Fauda with the group. We watched the first scene until I noticed at least half the group was shielding its eyes from too much tension.

TV has been my go-to screen for years, since I became too frustrated with the movie-going experience in Israel. Iâ€d rather be at home with a few friends than with a bunch of strangers texting and talking throughout, even if the screen at the theater is bigger and I donâ€t have to worry about annoying our neighbors if we crank the sound system up too loud on our new TV system. For new TV options you can look here.

Plus, at home, I get to hold the remote control.

Weâ€ve watched two other series over the years. The Affair (co-created by Israeli Hagai Levi who was behind HBOâ€s In Treatment) has given us lots of opportunities to yell at the screen. (“No, donâ€t go back to his house! What were you thinking!”)

Our most recent TV club show, The A-Word, also has Israeli roots – itâ€s a British remake of the Hebrew drama Yellow Peppers. Both revolve around an extended family coming to terms with the main coupleâ€s son, whoâ€s on the autism spectrum. (The 5-year-old boy in the British version also listens exclusively to late 70s punk and early 80s New Wave, which is an added bonus for this fan of that musical time period.)

Now weâ€re at a crossroads. The A-Word has ended its two-season run. The Affair doesnâ€t come back until the summer. And the future of Transparent is unclear now that actor Jeffrey Tambor has been ousted from the show for sexual harassment.

What should we watch next? You know our criteria. We are open to suggestions!

I first wrote about our TV club in The Jerusalem Post.

“I heard Ben broke up with his girlfriend. Iâ€m sorry.”

“Donâ€t be.”

“Why not?”

“They werenâ€t good together. They were always fighting.”

“Well, thatâ€s a relief, I guess.”

“Not really. Heâ€s got a new girlfriend. Sheâ€s even worse.”

“Whatâ€s wrong this time?”

“Sheâ€s not Jewish.”

“But do they get along?”

“Oh yes, they are very compatible. Iâ€ve never seen Ben happier in fact. They want to get married.”

“So whatâ€s the problem?”

“I told you already. Sheâ€s not Jewish.

“But do you like her?”

“Of course. But Iâ€d rather he was unhappy with someone Jewish than happy with someone whoâ€s not.”

This is a composite of a real conversation Iâ€ve heard many times over the years in the Jewish world. Itâ€s always struck me as wrong-headed. If you were to substitute a different ethnic or religious descriptor for “Jewish,” you would be immediately (and rightly) called out for prejudice.

Just think of the 2017 hit movie “The Big Sick” where Kamil, a Pakistani Muslim, falls for Emily, who is white. Kamilâ€s parents, who spend much of the film trying in vain to arrange a marriage for their son, donâ€t approve. Itâ€s not hard to guess which side weâ€re supposed to root for.

But in the Jewish world (and for other groups where tribal continuity is a key religious or national value), combatting intermarriage is so important we check the moral outrage weâ€d have for other groups at the door.

Thereâ€s a word for this: endogamy. Merriam-Webster defines endogamy as “marriage within a specific group as required by custom or law” and adds that the practice is “characteristic of aristocracies and religious and ethnic minorities in industrialized societies but also of the caste system in India and of class-conscious non-literate societies such as the Masai of eastern Africa.”

How is it, then, that highly-educated Jews in the 21^st century still advocate for endogamy?

It makes sense when youâ€re in the thick of it. If you believe that Jewish tradition is beautiful and valuable, then sticking to “oneâ€s own kind” may be the best way to ensure that continuity. And certainly, over the years, itâ€s been a highly successful ethnic strategy.

Itâ€s less of an issue in Israel with its Jewish majority, but itâ€s not entirely absent either. An interfaith candle lighting at the First Station in Jerusalem for Hanukah last year was repeatedly disrupted by protests from Lehava, an extremist group whose name is a Hebrew acronym for “Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land.”

Most Jews would agree that support for endogamy sounds outrageous when applied to other groups. Moreover, itâ€s totally out of sync with todayâ€s Millennials where endogamy is an absolute no-go.

That includes Millennial Jews in the Diaspora where dating someone whoâ€s of a different faith is not just a demographic reality but a politically-correct imperative.

Anti-endogamous Millennials can argue that, now that we know more than our ancestors did about genetics, in-marrying is a biological mistake, leading to a greater chance of propagating DNA mutations and depleting genetic diversity.

Endogamy conflicts with the liberal American values I grew up with. And yet, Iâ€m conflicted. I love being Jewish so I married a Jewish woman.

But that muddled message is increasingly falling on deaf ears. You want to win the intermarriage battle among Millennials? You canâ€t – at least not without promoting what comes across as racism masquerading as religion.

Move to Israel like we did as a solution, where our children have a much more likely chance of marrying another Jew? That might work for some, although these days, most Jews making aliyah from Western countries are those already supporting endogamy.

Embrace both patrilineal and matrilineal descent where a child is considered Jewish if either the childâ€s father or mother is? That increases the pool of Jews but still doesnâ€t address the core liberalism vs. endogamy dilemma.

My colleague Dan Libenson has been thinking about this too. Dan co-hosts the podcast “Judaism Unbound,” which tries to imagine what the future of Judaism, particularly in North America, will look like.

Judaismâ€s deep-seated cultural attachment to endogamy has made Jews “who marry non-Jews feel ‘less than†in the Jewish community and it makes them less likely to get involved,” Libenson says. Itâ€s a self-fulfilling feedback loop that works against the Jewish communityâ€s objective of increasing meaningful Jewish engagement.

If Judaism is defined around an idea “that intermarried Jews and their families cannot by definition achieve, they are going to be more likely to see it as something that is not for them,” he adds.

Libenson imagines that if Judaism adopted an anti-endogamous position, that message would eventually fall by the wayside. “It might take a few generations and we may see decreased Jewish practice in the children of intermarried couples in the meantime, but that doesnâ€t necessarily mean it will stay that way.”

More than that, Libenson doesnâ€t think the communal aim “should be ‘easy continuity.†I donâ€t see ‘some Jewish practice continuing through the generations†as a worthy goal. Endogamy is basically a way to avoid the hard work.”

The argument against endogamy is, for the Jewish Diaspora, much like the case Iâ€ve made in previous columns for a Jewish future in Israel driven by datlashim (formerly religious Jews). Both involve extraordinary struggles for the soul of our people and will require intense creativity. But we canâ€t avoid either.

Can we wish Ben and his partner a happy life together? Can we afford not to?

I first put into words the case against endogamy in The Jerusalem Post.

Whatâ€s fueling the growing phenomenon in Israel of datlashim – the Hebrew acronym for formerly religious Jews? And how big is it in real numbers?

Based on surveys conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Chotam religious lobbying organization found that, among the national religious public, only 46 percent of those who defined themselves as religious in 2002 remained so ten years later.

Jewish educator Aryeh Ben David has been trying to make sense of the numbers – both on a personal and professional level. The director of Ayeka, a Jerusalem-based institute that offers training in “soulful education,” Ben David says that too often religious parents blame themselves. That includes Ben David, whose own sons have left the religious path.

“If only we had sung different songs, practiced different rituals, or followed different halachic opinions, maybe things would have turned out differently,” he writes in a recent soul-baring column.

But what is happening now among religious teens and twentysomethings “is way beyond any individual tweaks we think we should or should not have done,” he continues. “The issue is systemic. Traditional Judaism is not working for this next generation.”

Ben David says we are in the midst of a “radical disruption” prompted by the establishment of the State of Israel itself. Growing up as a ‘powerful majority,” he says, has been transformative. “For this generation, Jewish continuity has never been in doubt. Jewish existence is simply a fact. Individual Jews may slip away but the fear of the Jewish People not continuing is a worry of the past.”

That creates a new reality where “obedience is no longer a prized value.” Strict adherence to Jewish Law is all about sustaining, Ben David emphasizes. “This generation does not know from obedience.”

Aryeh Ben David is a friend; a deep and honest thinker and that rare religious educator who dares to confront his and his communityâ€s core assumptions without having already defined a path to a future that gives him comfort. His analysis is precise and insightful. But it also misses the elephant in the room.

Itâ€s not just that living as a Jewish majority gives young religious Israelis an “out” from following the traditions of their parents. Itâ€s that Jewish Law hasnâ€t been speaking to Jews for a long while.

Indeed, as soon as the gates of the shtetl opened to the outside world, Jews rushed to drop observance. They set up secular Yiddish-speaking societies, opened theaters and made art. Some immigrated to Israel and became kibbutzniks and soldiers. Those who moved to America gravitated towards frameworks with less stringent forms of Jewish expression.

And while some did remain observant, itâ€s their turn now to drop out. In that sense, the modern datlash phenomenon is not unique. It is simply the second wave.

But thereâ€s a fundamental difference between todayâ€s datlashim 2.0 and their historical counterparts. Datlashim in 2017 are seeking to create their own forms of spirituality, just not those centered on “obedience.”

They may spend a decade smoking pot and eating treife, but eventually, as they have children of their own, they consider ways to fuse their pasts and presents in a way that looks foreign to their parents but may very well be the future of the Jewish people.

For example, Trybe is a new age Jewish group in Los Angeles and New York that sponsors lavish Friday night “parties” that mix challah and blessings with haute cuisine (think honey-roasted kabocha squash dolloped with ricotta, braised short ribs and cauliflower rice). Its Yom Kippur services are pitched less as prayer and more as “spiritual restoration and communal vibes followed by a superfoods menu.”

My initial thought when I read about Trybe was: “How is this Jewish?” Or as Mattie Kahn, who wrote about Trybe in BuzzFeed News, asks, “Is ‘Shabbat Shalom†the new ‘Namaste?â€â€

But that was the old religious me talking. My datlash self could imagine that if I were a Millennial in America, I might really dig a Trybe Shabbat.

Closer to home, the “Shalom al Lechem” project of the Jerusalem Village organization describes itself as a “social concierge and strategic matchmaker,” placing young Jews of differing practices at the same Shabbat table. Donâ€t know how to cook? No worries. Shalom al Lechem provides its own gourmet chef and a portable kosher kitchen, all expenses paid.

Yet, thereâ€s another elephant in the room, and itâ€s one that threatens to spoil the post-denominational party. That same Chotam survey also found that the number of pupils in ultra-Orthodox schools had tripled in the last decade, seemingly offsetting any gains for datlashim.

Do the haredim hold the key to the future of religious Judaism? I ask Ben David.

The comparison isnâ€t fair, he replies.

“Itâ€s hard to survey the haredi world because no one there is honest,” he tells me. “I personally know families who have exiled their children from their homes when they became non-religious. Itâ€s ironic: Judaism was the first religion to get rid of child sacrifice. Now we are bringing it back. Families are sacrificing their children in the name of religion.”

Ben David isnâ€t haredi and he would never dream of kicking out his non-observant kids. Still, “I thought that God wanted my sons to be a continuation of myself,” he writes.

For Ben David, his familyâ€s new reality is a painful realization. For me (and for my own datlash children), itâ€s the energizing start to a transformative, authentically Millennial and radically Israeli dialogue.

I wrote about the future of datlashim first at The Jerusalem Post.

Picture in article from a Jerusalem Village event.

“We found Mom. Sheâ€s safe.”

That was the text message I received from my brother in California. It came out of the blue.

We were at an open air concert in Rishon Lezion and I hadnâ€t read the news. So I didnâ€t know about the massive fire that was devastating Northern California and the city of Santa Rosa in particular, where both my mother and brother live.

The smoke alarms at the Oakmont of Varenna senior retirement community began to blare around 12:30 am. The staff was soon banging on doors, waking up residents and telling them they had to get out – now!

Thatâ€s how, in the early hours of the morning, my 86-year-old mother found herself hurried out of her home with nothing but her pajamas. She didnâ€t have time to grab her purse or her meds. She had no identification, no cash, no credit cards, no cell phone.

It took my brother and his girlfriend several hours to find her at one of the cityâ€s many makeshift evacuation centers and then even more time to drive out of town through gridlocked roads.

Two agonizing days later, there was good news: The main building at Varenna, which included my motherâ€s apartment, had been spared. My brotherâ€s neighborhood on the other side of town was OK, too.

But everything around Varenna, up and down Fountaingrove Parkway, had been utterly destroyed.

Once the danger had passed and we knew no one in our familyâ€s life was at risk, I had time to reflect on the nature of possessions and “things.”

What would have been the impact if everything my mother had owned had been wiped out? Not so much the furniture or pots and pans or shoes and clothing, but the memorabilia.

My mother has all the family photos. Theyâ€re all in albums; the older snapshots faded and yellowing, but still a cache of nostalgia.

Another irreplaceable treasure: my fatherâ€s boxes of clippings – the thousands of articles he wrote over a 35-year career as a journalist in a time before there was a public Internet. Other than what might be stored on microfiche in the Hearst newspaper archives, these were the only copies of a lifetime of work.

Should we invest in digitizing our familyâ€s visual and written history? I wondered. Itâ€s expensive but not impossible. Iâ€d already started such an ambitious project in Jerusalem.

A few years ago, when my old Hi8 camcorder died, I realized I had no way to access the hundreds of videotapes Iâ€d made of my own children growing up. I found a firm in Ramat Eshkol that charged around NIS 25 a tape to convert everything to files. Now we can watch them whenever we want from any of the computers in the house. (And, yes, we do that from time to time, especially when the grandparents visit.)

What about other personal paraphernalia – the diaries I kept as a teenager, my diplomas and awards, CD-ROMs and even old floppy disks Iâ€ve saved since the 1980s? Should I pay to back that all up to the cloud? And then pay whatever it costs year after year to keep it accessible?

I like to imagine my children will value such an investment; that they will regularly peruse this time capsule of their fatherâ€s creative output and will appreciate that I didnâ€t bequeath them boxes of physical detritus.

But will they? Or will the annual storage fee become an unnecessary financial burden that they will eventually pull the plug on, whether ceremoniously or with great anguish?

My friend, journalist Michele Chabin is making the choice for her children. She posted on Facebook that, prior to a temporary downsizing while her home is being renovated, she tossed out thousands of articles, saving a mere 150 in total.

“Sadly, I didnâ€t have the time or energy to scan or even photograph them, so theyâ€re just gone,” she wrote.

For the hoarders among us, though, there may be significance in our saving psychosis.

“Nostalgia is crucial for finding meaning in life and for combatting loneliness,” writes Ben Rowen in the June 2017 issue of The Atlantic.

Nostalgic memories can trigger a release “of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and other neurochemicals that make us feel good,” adds Slateâ€s Mark Joseph Stern.

“Holding onto certain possessions may be a way to activate the recall of emotion,” writes Mary Lamia in Psychology Today.

Then thereâ€s this consideration: Like many in the digital generation, I have spent a great amount of time “documenting,” sometimes at the expense of “experiencing,” life. My child is on stage at a performance and Iâ€m behind the camera. Or posting about it on Facebook.

I justify my behavior by telling myself that this “offloading” of memory will allow me to revisit the event later on. But what happens if the digitized memories we spend so much time capturing are destroyed or erased?

The immediate questions about the price of memory, raised in the wake of the Santa Rosa fire, have been kicked down the road a bit. Thereâ€s still time to decide what to do with the family photos and my fatherâ€s clippings. And by the time we get to that point, the technology may have changed entirely (3D virtual “memory movies,” anyone?)

For now, itâ€s important not to lose the plot from this unsettling week. The most important take-away: “We found Mom. Sheâ€s safe.”

Everything else belongs in the digital “to do” folder.

I first pondered the price of memory in The Jerusalem Post.

Rabbi Eli has been a friend of our familyâ€s for almost 30 years. Originally from the United States, heâ€s an aliyah success story – 5 children, 16 grandchildren, all still living here.

Thereâ€s one thing that bothers Rabbi Eli, though: not all of his kids have stayed religious. At least not the way he would have liked.

Rabbi Eli has always been mainstream Orthodox: solidly national religious, not haredi but definitely keeping strictly to halacha (Jewish Law) in an Orthodox understanding.

One of his children however went the “datlash” route – thatâ€s the acronym for dati lâ€sheâ€avar – a formerly religious person. (Dati is Hebrew for “religious.” Sheâ€avar means “in the past.) In the U.S., the more alarmist initials “OTD” – for “Off the Derech” (derech is “path”) – are often used.

Rabbi Eliâ€s datlashit daughter, Naâ€ama, found her way back to the Jewish world recently through a Conservative congregation. That wasnâ€t Rabbi Eliâ€s kosher cup of tea, but he was happy for her.

Until it was in his face: His granddaughterâ€s bat mitzvah was coming up and Naâ€ama wanted her father to participate.

At the bat mitzvah, both mother and daughter would be called up to the Torah and the bat mitzvah girl would read from her portion of the week. There would be mixed seating and the service would be entirely egalitarian.

Rabbi Eli was thrown into a halachic conundrum – one thatâ€s becoming more and more a part of the Jewish world: Can Jews who practice their Judaism very differently still come together for family simchas?

Iâ€ve seen it go different ways. My wife and I were recently at a wedding where the groomâ€s Orthodox family insisted on a traditional chuppah complete with a Rabbinate-provided officiator who mumbled through the Sheva Brachot as perfunctorily as possible, even though the bride and groom were completely secular and seemed eager to move on to dinner and dancing.

On the other end of the spectrum, we also attended the wedding of a totally datlashi couple earlier this year. It was clear that some of the brideâ€s still religious family really had to hold back their judgment as the wedding party danced down the aisle to the music of AC/DCâ€s “Highway to Hell” (an odd if inspired choice). There was no rabbi officiating at all, but plenty of tattoos.

Itâ€s not just the simchas. I know several stories where one side of a family wonâ€t attend another sideâ€s simcha at all (let alone eat the food at the party afterward) because itâ€s not frum enough. And Iâ€ve written in this column about my own frustrations where guests have not been comfortable with me making some of the Shabbat evening blessings.

But thereâ€s a solution. And it comes from my old friend Rabbi Eli himself.

Rabbi Eli decided he would attend his granddaughterâ€s bat mitzvah. He took care to pray the morning service before he got there at an Orthodox early minyan, and he didnâ€t say a blessing over the Torah himself at the bat mitzvah. But he came. He sat together with his wife and family; his very presence gave everyone great nachas (joy).

Afterward, during the celebratory Kiddush, Rabbi Eli and I talked. He told me about how he got comfortable enough to attend the bat mitzvah. What he said surprised me.

“I disagree with pretty much everything theyâ€re doing when it comes to their Jewish practice. But that doesnâ€t make them wrong.”

I thought about that for a long moment. What Rabbi Eli was saying is that we donâ€t have to agree on everything – with the old saying “two Jews, three opinions,” we probably never will – but that doesnâ€t mean that the other side is theologically or philosophically incorrect.

Rabbi Eli wasnâ€t compromising on his personal beliefs. But he opened up his heart to a tiny window of uncertainty, allowing in the possibility for doubt – and coming together with family.

Imagine if that same principle were applied to the religious and political battles that are raging in Israel these days – in the Knesset, the Interior Ministry, the Rabbinate, at the Kotel. If we backed off the hubris and the insistence that one side is right and other must be wrong, think of what this country – what the Jewish people – could achieve.

Agreeing to disagree is the easy part. Usually when we do that, though, thereâ€s still a bit of us that believes thereâ€s an ineffable Truth out there with a capital T – and weâ€re the side thatâ€s got it.

Rabbi Eli went beyond that black and white box. “I donâ€t agree, but Iâ€m not so sure of myself that I can say with absolute certainty that youâ€re wrong. Itâ€s not right for me, but it seems to be right for you.”

Thatâ€s my kind of truth – with a little t.

I gave Rabbi Eli a bear hug right there in the Kiddush, herring and crackers in one hand, the other grasping Eli on the back. If I still were interested in having a rabbi, I thought to myself, Eli would be the one.

As we head into the High Holiday season, with the themes of renewal and repentance rife in the air, Iâ€ll be thinking about Rabbi Eliâ€s words. I hope you will, too. The Messiah may not be picking up the telephone anytime soon, but if she did, Iâ€d hope that this is what sheâ€d say.

I first wrote about Rabbi Eli at The Jerusalem Post.