Life Begins at Ninety #22 Courage

Nika’s Blog Life Begins at Ninety    #22 COURAGE

As we know, the Wizard of Oz doesn’t exist and cannot give us courage, a heart, or a brain.  In that case, when we grow up we have to find out where the quality of courage is and how to acquire it.

When you are very young you have no power.   When you become a teenager or young adult suddenly situations arise where you have to fight for something. Nothing comes by itself. Or, you have the choice just to let things go as they are, and then either complain or accept it. To find out who you really are only happens through adversity, I think. When you see injustice, do you look the other way or object to it, or fight for what you believe in? I believe this courage and strength to fight and challenge and object for what you believe is right stays with you the rest of your life... this strength. That also fits when you are married; fighting for your children.  e.g. In Europe and Switzerland, punishments are pretty old fashioned.

Here is a small example from our family life. When my son and daughter were in Gstaad, Switzerland, in a kinderheim (“children’s home” boarding school or summer camp) as young children, the supervisor punished my son, then 6 years old, by putting him to bed during the day. These mademoiselles took care of children for many years, as this was a very established boarding school year round.  I asked myself if I had the courage to tell them they are wrong.  I decided to fight for my son.  I said,

“I do not want to teach you your business, but there are many ways to correct a child.  I love my bed, and I don’t want him to hate his bed forever.  Could you find a different punishment?”  So here is what came of it – my son was put to clean the mud from 30 pairs of hiking boots.  I must congratulate the lady in charge. Instead of being angry she said, “I never thought about it that way. Thank you.” 

Daughter Alicia adds:  “I’ll never forget that morning at the kinderheim coming to breakfast and not seeing my little brother in the dining room. I searched, and finally found him down in the cellar where they kept all the hiking boots lined up, caked with mud from the last excursion.  There was Willy, a tiny 6 year-old in a bathrobe, with a brush and cloth, cleaning off the hard mud from rows of heavy boots.  He looked up at me with a pitiful expression, and my heart melted. But he finished his task, and came up to breakfast, proclaiming that he now knew how to shine boots the very best way. I was proud of how he handled it.  I never knew that our mother had talked to the mademoiselle in charge (she was a bit frightening, at least to us) to alter the punishment.  We did have fun there most of the time, learned some French, took incredible hikes in the surrounding mountains, and adjusted to what we thought were odd customs, like how to hold one’s fork and knife; keeping the same cloth napkin in a ring for several days, taking naps every day outside after lunch….  By the way, I was always careful to scrape mud as much as possible off of my boots when returning from a hike after that, although Willy never had to shine them up again.

During their growing up years these situations came up often in the children’s regular school, and you have to pick your battles….not complain about everything.  But I found that I had fought injustice since I was little. Now... does one learn this or is it an innate quality?  I am convinced that everything we have is in us; only the situation calls for action and then you find out who you are... brave or afraid.  I have a feeling this also applies in business and in every relationship. To stand up for what you believe in takes courage... and yet you also have to know when to bend and have a sense of humor... what is important and what is not.   It is easy to blame other circumstances and people when one doesn’t succeed in some effort... it could be because you lacked courage. Never blame other people.  Rather, look inside of yourself.

When the Yom Kippur War broke out in 1973 in Israel, my husband Fred wanted to send a ticket for Alicia to return home, as she was living and working in Jerusalem at that time.  I said, “We shouldn’t interrupt her decision-making as an adult.  She has to experience real life.  I forbad him from sending the ticket.  Remember he had lost a wife and child in WWII. My daughter as an adult had the right to make a decision. 

Daughter Alicia adds:  If you can believe this, I felt almost a sense of relief when that war broke out.  Now, I was much much safer in Israel than my mother had been in Poland during the Second World War, but it was a war nevertheless.  In some unconscious way I had been paralleling my mother’s life in my mind.  When I was 18, I went off to college, but somewhere in my mind I was aware that these were the years my mother was in the shadow of war.  When I was 25 and already a teacher of French in an upscale Connecticut high school, I asked myself, “At this age, my mother was liberated, came to the US, started a new life after losing her whole family, and here I am teaching rich kids French.  What am I doing for my own people?”  A few months after that, I made arrangements to spend six months on a kibbutz, learning Hebrew and exploring what life is like in Israel.  At the end of the ulpan work-study program in Israel, I moved to Jerusalem, signed up for the government tour guide course, and began work at the one Israeli television station that existed at that time.  When war broke out in October of 1973, I telexed my father at his office that I was staying.  I cut my hair short, took over several jobs at the TV station since most of the men were called to the front, helped the mothers with their children in the apartment building where I lived, cleared and prepared the safe area under the stairwell in case of air raids, and felt that finally I was proving myself. After that I felt I was an adult, and ready to marry.  In 1974 I did marry Itzhak Magal who left the kibbutz and worked in TV and film.  We had two children in Jerusalem before moving to Los Angeles in late 1978. I showed a different kind of courage from my mother, and am still learning on which occasions to stand up for justice, in our family, congregation, community, and larger world issues.

- Nika Fleissig

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