CHEMO FOR BULKA
Rabbi to begin treatment
Rabbi Reuven Bulka sounds tired on the phone, lacking his usual spark, in this sombre season of his life.
And next week may be harder still — he begins chemotherapy for the late-stage cancer that has attacked his liver and pancreas.
“We're going to do it in increments and we'll see how it goes,” he said Thursday.
Ottawa's best-known rabbi, a dual U.S. citizen, has left the city to be near family in the New York City area. It is unclear if he'll ever be able to come back for any extended period.
“Right now, the honest answer is, I'm going from day to day. I don't have long-range plans.”
Bulka was at home in Ottawa in December — fatigued and feeling out of sorts — when he collapsed, falling hard enough to break his nose. After being patched up in hospital, he was about to be sent home with a recovery plan when the doctor ordered one more test. It detected cancer, one with a poor survival rate.
“I have no idea how much more time I have. In a sense, we're all in the same boat because we really don't know.”
Bulka, one of the city's most beloved clerics, was born in England on D-Day, June 6, 1944, but spent his childhood in the Bronx, where his father, Jacob, was a rabbi. The elder Bulka was struck with a serious heart attack when Reuven was 16, leading the teenager to begin helping with rabbinical duties.
He was now “in the stream,” one he never left.
He credits a freshly grown goatee with helping him land a job at Ottawa's Machzikei Hadas synagogue in 1967, a position he held until retirement in 2015, and where he stayed on as Rabbi Emeritus. During that period, he became something of a household name from a television and radio program, a weekly column in the Ottawa Citizen and frequent appearances at joint-faith services.
The matter of death and illness has never been far away, professionally and personally. Bulka lost his first wife, Naomi, to cancer in May 2001, and the couple had an infant child pass from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Then his parents died in the same month, March 2006.
Now comes the threat to his own mortality.
“In an ironic way, it's actually made it a lot easier,” he said, saying the only way to offer meaningful advice to a grieving person is to be authentic about the message.
“So, a long time ago, I already confronted this and said, `Look, nobody lives forever, it's going to happen to everyone,' and you can't tell someone else anything that you're not prepared to live by.
“You can't take life for granted. You have to treat every moment and every opportunity as precious, otherwise what you're doing is preaching empty words.”
Three of Bulka's five children live in the New York City area, and he and his wife Leah have a one-bedroom apartment on Long Island. He spends his days with family visits, answering correspondence, taking phone calls, dealing with medical appointments, taking walks if the weather co-operates.
“My kids are here. They wanted me here so they could look after me. They've all been tremendously helpful.”
He was very touched by a virtual prayer service earlier this month and the appearance of prominent political figures (Stephen Harper, Dalton McGuinty, David Johnston) spoke to the breadth of his influence in the capital, over decades.
“One word: overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed.”
(He always has had a keen sense of humour. When asked if all those prayers were going to help, he responded: “It doesn't hurt.”)
Bulka, who earned a PhD at the University of Ottawa, is also the author of more than 30 books, including Turning Grief into Gratitude, written after the death of his parents. It is a theme still close to his heart, as evidenced
You have to treat every moment and every opportunity as precious, otherwise what you're doing is preaching empty words.
by his message to people who are feeling badly for him.
“If it's any consolation to any of them, I don't have any complaints about life. I have no complaints to God. I've been blessed with a wonderful life. If someone said to me, `would you like to have more,' I'd be stupid to say no, but we don't choreograph the endings. All we can do is do our best with what's given to us.
“And I'm grateful for all the opportunities.”