A Beacon of Light

This week marks the second anniversary of the publication of Quest for Eternal Sunshine—A Holocaust Survivor’s Journey from Darkness to Light, the spiritual memoir I posthumously co-authored with my father, Mendek Rubin. Being able to learn and share my father’s remarkable story and deep wisdom has been one of the biggest blessings of my entire life. Since writing the book, I always feel my dad close to me. He continues to be my teacher, sharing important life lessons as I am ready to receive them.

Emancipation was a huge theme for my father. Just as his physical body had once been imprisoned behind barbed wire barricades, he said his emotional body had been imprisoned behind the barbed wire fences of his psychological makeup. “Suffering of a psychological nature is often harder to bear than physical pain or deprivation,” he wrote. “I have suffered both, and the former was much more difficult. When I was hungry, I knew I could quiet my hunger as soon as food became available. But my psychological hunger could not be appeased…I desperately wanted to be happy, but happiness seemed forever out of my reach.”

My father meekly accepted this painful existence as his fate until he reached middle age, when it seemed as if an alarm clock had suddenly gone off in the recesses of his mind. “Something inside of me could no longer accept the status quo. I knew that my life was not what it could or should be, and that something needed to change. I began to revolt against my unacceptable state of existence. I had to find liberation.”

 
 

A brilliant inventor, my father began to focus his talents onto his own psyche in an attempt to free himself from decades of relentless fear and depression. Soon, his search for healing and spiritual connection became his greatest passion. He wrote, “The most important thing I have ever done is to become an explorer of my mind and heart. I got to know myself as I really am, rather than who I imagined myself to be. No one else could have deciphered the subtleties of my own mind. No one else could have faced my repressed emotions, heartbreaks, and fears.”

Mendek explained that through self-observation, the more objective and mature part of him was able to examine his conditioned behaviors without condemnation, apology, or guilt. He figured out how to change his thought patterns, and created an inner atmosphere of self-love and forgiveness that allowed the fearful child inside of him to be comforted and grow strong. “Over time, I began experiencing the boundless peace and joy that resides in the depth of my being—feelings no one can ever take away from me, because they are not dependent on conditions outside myself. Finally, I was able to taste true freedom. My heart rejoiced. I had come home to love.”

My father searched for love as someone else might search for buried treasure—with everything he had in him every day of his life. The joy he experienced when he emerged from such deep darkness motivated him to share his revelations with the world. Wanting to be a beacon of light for others trapped in suffering, he wrote, “Perhaps our task here on earth includes not only an attempt to resolve the difficulties of our own lives, but also an effort, no matter how small, to change humankind’s pattern of development so that we can all become more harmonious and loving.”

Now, as a grandmother, I feel more blessed than ever before that my father worked so hard to break free from intergenerational cycles of  trauma and despair. His perseverance to reconnect with the eternal sunshine ever-present in this universe provided me and my family with a powerful legacy of awakening, compassion and love.

 

Quest for Eternal Sunshine won four gold medal book awards and was named a top memoir of 2020 by Parade Magazine.

 

The anniversary of Quest for Eternal Sunshine’s publication led me to reread all the wonderful reviews and accolades the book received. Here is an excerpt from the Jewish Book Council that I am happy to rediscover and share today, on the eve of Passover:

“[Quest for Eternal Sunshine] reflects a forty-year inter­nal jour­ney that is often as fraught and coura­geous as the Israelites’ jour­ney through the desert towards free­dom. By the end of Rubin’s jour­ney, he, too, is whole and tru­ly lib­er­at­ed. . . . There is much that can be learned from Mendek Rubin and his life. Though his generation is passing, his wisdom and unabashed belief in the good­ness of mankind should give us all hope for years to come.”

Wishing a happy Passover and happy Easter to all who celebrate those holidays, along with my heartfelt gratitude for accompanying my father and me on this ongoing quest for wisdom, healing and self-discovery.

Myra