I had intended for this month’s blog to be about Eliel’s travels in China over the summer. I was planning to share a few of his stories and make some connections between anthropological research on pilgrimage, which I find fascinating, and Eliel’s explorations of table tennis’s epicenter on this planet. Eliel was in China as a member of the US Team competing in the World University Games. Originally scheduled for 2021, the World University Games in Chengdu were first postponed due to COVID-19 and then postponed because of a conflict with the summer Olympics, which itself had been postponed and rescheduled. Eliel’s tales from the World University Games and subsequent roaming through China could fill a book. Indeed. After his return, we spoke on the phone for two hours and he barely finished describing his flight to Chengdu. As a competing athlete, he was treated like royalty before he even arrived in China, so he wanted to convey every detail. And admittedly, it was a very long flight. Over the past two months, in phone and Zoom calls, he has recounted myriad stories of his adventures, and I have a feeling he will continue to relate other tales of his four-week trip in the months ahead. I do hope to report some of those anecdotes in this blog space; his trip to China was partially sponsored by many generous souls in the table tennis community, as well as our extended family, and their kindness, if nothing else, deserves a few good stories. So, no stories from China this month, but I think I will pick up on the theme of kindness instead.
Why I am delaying details of Eliel’s excursion to the Orient may be obvious, yet in case it is not, I will clarify. The trip was such a joyous experience for Eliel, but with the current state of the world it is too difficult to convey joy right now. I simply am not in the frame of mind to tell amusing tales, at least not cheerfully, as Eliel’s once-in-a-lifetime experience surely warrants. I guess the conventional cliché is that I’ll save the account of Eliel’s travels for a rainy day. But we aren’t living in conventional times. So more appropriately, I’ll save his tales for a sunny day, when the world feels warmer and brighter, and I can narrate them with the humor and delight they deserve.
That said, I promised this blog would be lighthearted and playful, so I will do my best to keep up my end of this bargain. Understandably though, with a war impacting so many people I know and love, mirth has been in short supply lately. While I can’t offer the light of Eärendil—a light for dark places, when all other lights go out—I will share three recent moments in which I was reminded of human kindness and goodness. As it turns out, they were much needed reminders.
A few days after the war broke out I noticed I had missed a call from a table tennis friend whom I had not seen or spoken to for probably seven years. My goodness. I just paused to reflect on what that means. Seven years ago I had a house full of hungry teenagers. Now, I’m an empty nester—well, sort of…more on that in a moment—with kids in their twenties, which means they are not really kids at all. Seven years ago we lived in a pre-pandemic world, I had never heard of Zoom, masks were something we wore on Halloween, and so forth. I can barely remember such a life. But this friend obviously did.
When I saw the missed call on my phone my heart sank—something must be terribly wrong, I assumed. Maybe a mutual friend was in need, or in the hospital, or even worse, had passed away. I quickly dialed his number, fearing the worst. Before I could even figure out how to appropriately ask why he had called, he exclaimed, somewhat breathlessly, “Oh Rich, thanks for calling me back. I was so worried about you and Eliel. Are you and your family and those you know in Israel okay?” It had never dawned on me that I was the friend in need. I nearly burst into tears. I assured him that those we knew in Israel were safe, although the truth was I had still not heard back from many close friends. I also failed to mention that I had been sleepless, anxious, heartbroken, and deeply troubled by the events unfolding in the Middle East. The point of his call, though, was a simple act of kindness; the details of my inner life were beside the point.
Using a pseudonym, I had written about this table tennis friend in The Ping Pong Player and the Professor. I had mentioned his broken English, which, as our conversation progressed, I began to regret since I was amazed at how much his English had improved since I had last spoken to him. Seven years is a long time. Thankfully, in The Ping Pong Player and the Professor I also highlighted his kindness. In addition, I expressed my awe at the life he and so many of my table tennis friends had built as immigrants in the US. What I didn’t mention in my memoir was that I knew the challenge of this experience firsthand: almost two decades ago I was an immigrant in Israel.
I had held back my tears when this friend conveyed his concern for me and Eliel, but those tears finally poured out when nearly two weeks later my first non-Israel-connected colleague asked, over email, how I was faring. It is no secret that anti-Israel sentiment is common within academia. What is probably less well known is that anthropologists are among the most outspoken critics of Israel. This past summer the membership of the American Anthropological Association voiced their opinion of the Jewish State loudly and clearly: they overwhelmingly voted to boycott Israeli universities and their professors. Needless to say, I certainly was not expecting my colleagues to support Israel in the current war, but I assumed that politics would be put aside, at least for a moment, and there would be expressions of concern for myself and the five other faculty members in my department who have family, friends, and colleagues in Israel. But the silence was deafening, as they say. When it was finally broken by a thoughtful colleague nearly two weeks after the war began, I cried. A lot. But as an insightful Iranian friend—a table tennis mom, actually—taught me several years ago: some tears are good tears, especially those elicited by simple acts of kindness.
I promised to share a third moment in which I was reminded of human kindness and goodness, although what I wish to relate is not a particular person’s propriety; rather, I want to discuss how furry friends can occasion human goodness. Six hours before the start of Yom Kippur this year, I got a dog. On that fateful day my canine companion arrived from Alabama in a van with forty-seven other dogs, all seeking homes in New England. She was a rescue dog—given up, apparently, because the owners didn’t really want a dog. They wanted a money-making womb. Actually, they wanted a fecund womb that would provide childcare, and Goldberry—yes, that is what I named her—was evidently fertile, but not very maternal.
Before going further, I should say a few words about my name choice as it has elicited responses ranging from “I don’t get it” (my mom, who shamefully has never read The Lord of the Rings—she, too, often wonders how we could possibly be related) to “Goldberg. Um…that’s a nice name for a Jewish dog” (my sister) to “Goldfinger? Cool” (my brother-in-law) to “Goldie! Very cute” (too many to list). I’ve also been told by many that a three-syllable name is too long for a dog, but it clearly wasn’t too long for Tom Bombadil’s bride—did Tom or Frodo ever stumble over her name? (Incidentally, my neighbor’s cats are Frodo and Bilbo. Yes, I live in Middle-earth.). Moreover, my sister is my role model for dog parenting and two of her precious pups are Madison and Valentine. And many years ago, when parents got a dog to either celebrate or fill the void of my impending departure for college, they named her Caviar. Needless to say, I felt I would be in good company with a three-syllable name.
When deciding upon a name, I debated between two names: the winner, Goldberry, and the loser, Chava. The latter is the former name of one of my children, so in effect, it’s a name that has lost twice. Chava, by the way, is the Hebrew name of Eve (and yes, the irony of naming a dog, abandoned by her owners because she lacked maternal impulses, after the biblical mother of humanity added to the appeal). When naming my children, little did I appreciate that Americans instinctively pronounce “ch” as they do in “chocolate” or “choke.” But in Hebrew, the transliterated “ch” is pronounced like you are attempting to dislodge mucus from the back of your throat, or possibly, like you are choking on chocolate. Given this description it sounds like we should have been grateful for the constant mispronunciation of Chava. But that wasn’t the case, so adulthood brought on a new name. Incidentally, this name also gets mispronounced, although less frequently and much less dramatically. When I told my children about naming my new dog Chava—”I always wanted a daughter named Chava,” I explained—I could feel the eyerolls over the phone. Hence, Goldberry. But I have warned them: if they attempt to shorten her name to Goldie or use any other nickname (Goldilocks, Berry…etc.), their newest sibling will be permanently renamed Chava.
In The Ping Pong Player and the Professor I openly admitted that I am not a so-called “dog person.” I’m a cat person, sort of. I had two white cats in college: Salaam and Shalom. And an Israeli-born cat, Jumpy, adopted my family when we lived in Israel. I should pause for a moment and explain something to those who have never lived with a cat: when someone claims “I have a cat” they don’t actually mean they own a cat. Rather, they are saying there is a cat who thinks of them as his or her pet. In other words, “cat owner” is really a euphemism for “owned by a cat.” Cats can’t be owned any more than Americans can accurately pronounce Chava. So, for 17 years my family was owned by Jumpy. But Jumpy passed away in August and, as an empty nester, I was feeling…well, empty. I wanted a companion. Enter Goldberry. As I mentioned, she arrived six hours before Yom Kippur and by sundown, the start of the holiday, I was smitten. She had stolen my heart. Although I spent much of the holiday petting and walking Goldberry, it was the easiest Yom Kippur fast I can ever recall. Incidentally, Yom Kippur is often mistaken as a day of sadness, but it is not. Tisha B’Av is the day of collective Jewish mourning; its only parallel with Yom Kippur is the 25-hour fast. Yom Kippur is a serious day of self-reflection and atonement, but it is a yom tov (holiday, or literally, a good day), a day of celebration. Admittedly, being cheerful can be challenging when you are hungry, thirsty, and more significantly, suffering from caffeine withdrawal. But on this Yom Kippur, with Goldberry by my side, I had no difficulty whatsoever. I couldn’t stop smiling.
The experience of becoming attached to Goldberry amazed me. I’m not sure how else to describe it other than as “attachment.” I know many people claim to “love” their pets, but I think I want to reserve that term for my human connections. Anyway, my attachment amazed me because I have been watching humans my whole life; I even do it professionally. I have observed many dog owners, including, as mentioned above, my sister and my parents. I have noted their obsession with their canines and admittedly, I was bewildered by much of it. Most notably, I cringed at their willingness to be licked by an animal. And not just a few light licks—I am talking about full-scale slobbering, and on their faces no less. But life is full of surprises, and before Yom Kippur had even begun I was the welcome recipient of countless face slurps. They even made me smile and laugh. Goldberry hasn’t left my side in a month, and I am not really exaggerating. She accompanies me to work, and although she doesn’t join me in the classroom, she waits for me patiently in my office. Okay, she is probably not waiting patiently, but I try to pretend that she doesn’t miss me too much, otherwise it would be too distressing for me. My graduate students are the ultimate dog sitters and, gratefully, they have been keeping Goldberry company in my absence. I’m considering requiring an afternoon of dog sitting to vet graduate student applicants.
Here is the thing about dogs: they bring out kindness and goodness in everyone, even the worst among us. For how many truly evil men—and yes, it is always men—has it been said, “But he was nice to his dog”? Too many. And for most of us who are neither overly vile nor virtuous—what the Tanya, an 18th century Chasidic text, refers to as a beinoni (an average person)—dogs remind us that giving love feels good. Really good. Goldberry is just a bottomless receptacle for whatever love I wish to shower upon her. And she is appreciative of my kindness, especially if that kindness includes belly rubs. She welcomes my affection when I offer it, and offers her affection whenever I need it. Human loves and affections are so much more complicated! And the amazing thing about the entire experience of adopting Goldberry is that although I’ve been watching people love their dogs all my life, I didn’t really understand the connection people have to their dogs until I had a dog of my own. It’s the best argument for experiential anthropology that I’ve encountered in a long time.
Speaking of anthropology, I’m well aware that our attachment to dogs is culturally specific. Humans have co-evolved with our canine friends, our respective species mutually influencing each other, so there is a universal connection with dogs. And apparently, so I’ve been told, our co-evolution is so extensive that dogs are the one species in which we share a contagious yawn-response (I have yet to confirm this with Goldberry). But co-evolution is an ecologically variable process, and dogs are enjoyed, for a lack of a better way to say it, differently, in diverse cultures. On the atoll in Micronesia where I conducted my dissertation fieldwork, dogs were enjoyed as a rare delicacy at bimonthly feasts. Otherwise, the daily diet consisted of fish (on days of a successful catch), taro, and breadfruit. But even on this atoll, a man had adopted one of the semi-wild dogs as a pet, and he treated her with the same kind of affection I afford Goldberry. Yes, she still provided a meal at the end of her life—protein is limited in this society—but unlike the other dogs that roamed the atoll and were often the object of teenage sport, she was treated with dignity and kindness during her lifetime.
So, are these adoring quadrupeds the hidden solution to the problems of the universe? Probably not. Dogs, lamentably, can’t turn a sociopath into a saint or a murderer into a mensch. Nor can they resolve deadly geopolitical conflicts. But one tail-wagging dog with sloppy kisses, at least, brings a daily smile to an anthropologist who needs it. I’m learning to cherish such small acts of kindness.
Richard Sosis 