spoonicus19

Conversation Between Two Tripping Kids

2011-01-28T23:06:00.000-08:00

Girl: (offers boy a cup of ice.) Here, take some.

Boy (looks confusedly at the cup of ice, and then back at the girl.) What is it?

G: It's ice.

B: (continues to look confused)What?

G: Ice.

B: Are you sure?

G: Yes. Here. (puts some ice in his hand. Boy looks at it flabbergasted.)

B: But what is it?

G: It's still ice.

B: Really?

G: Uh-huh. I swear.

B: What do I do with it?

G: Put it in your mouth.

B: Why?

G: It'll feel good there. Really it will. Trust me, I would not lead you to falsehood. (maniacal giggle.)

B: But it's ... cold, and wet ...

G: Yes dear. it's ice.

B:It's a solid but also a liquid! It's amazing!

G: Yes, ice does that.

B: What did you say this was again?

G: Ice. It just keeps on being ice. Well eventually it will be water and then vapor, but for now its still ice. Barely.

B: I just... I just don't know.

G: I do. It's ice. Put it in your mouth. It's good for you.

B: Are you sure?

G: Very sure. Remember I would not lead you to falsehood! Not intentionally, anyway.

B: (takes deep breath) Ok, here I go. (puts ice in mouth, face lights up with joy) Oh wow, you were right! This is so awesome!! What is this again?

G: It's ice.

B: It's amazing!

G: Good. Here have some more.

B: (hesitates) ... are you sure?

So

2011-01-05T03:39:00.001-08:00

So, I think I'm gonna start a new religion. Kinda just your garden variety functional morality, with some neo-hippy glitter. Lots of music and substances of various kinds and love and joy and frolicking, and volunteering in homeless shelters and orphanages. Kind of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance meets the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. If any of ya'll are down for joining up, let me know; we're gonna be doing some festivaling come spring. :)

I am a starball of Awesome. You should be too!

Conversations With Me Father

2010-10-25T21:53:00.000-07:00

F: Did you know that watching too much tv smooths out the wrinkles in your brain and turns you into an orange?
M: An orange?
E: Brain wrinkles?
F: An orange!Brain wrinkles! It's true! You know, take out the sound and basically you're sitting there, staring at a box!
M: Yeah, but - an orange? I mean, there's a pretty large genetic discrepancy between people and fruit....
E: Yeah I'm pretty sure that's physically impossible...
M: To begin with, oranges don't have brains.
F: It's true! Did you read the study?
M: Did you?
F: I made up the study. I couldn't read it because it hasn't been published yet.
M: Oh, well, as long as the scientific data is verified and reliable, sure. Oranges. Yeah.
F: Oranges. It's true.

Hell

2010-10-13T01:20:00.000-07:00

My current vision of hell involves wandering endlessly between terminals 3 and 8 of JFK, intermittently sprinkled with 5 hour spurts of Russian karaoke. To quote my friend Chanie: This is what an aneurysm sounds like.

Also: I'll be in NY until Sunday. I'm considering moving here. Or maybe Philly. If anyone is around and wants to get in touch, give me a holler! Or, since I won't actually be able to hear that, let me know in the comments.

Turkey''s Moral Authority

2010-09-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

So: Turkey genocides an entire people, and illegally occupies the north of Cyprus for some 36-odd years. But they are the voice of morality when it comes to Israel and Gaza. Maybe? I mean this is just a thought, but maybe? They should shut up until they get the fuck out of Cyprus and set up an Armenian State.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus#Ethnic_cleansing

A Note

2010-08-30T17:52:00.000-07:00

So, thought I'd give anyone who's still out there a bit of an update. It's been 4 and 1/2 years since I started this blog (ishly) which is kind of cool, and it makes me sad that I haven't written much lately. There are many reasons for that. But I do hope to start posting with some sort of semi-regularity again because, to be honest, all I've ever wanted since I was a little girl was to have my own publication in which to put rants and nonsense and poetry. Blogs are kind of 10-yr-old Miri's wet dream. Also, abandoned warehouses, but I am as of yet unable to realize that one. So it's a shame not to exploit this opportunity more than I do. And since in the near future I intend to have a spate of free time in which to create more nonsense, because there really isn't enough in the world, this seems like a good method.

Also, I started this blog when I was making aliyah, and I am now leaving Israel for awhile. I have to go home and earn money. And also .... I just need a break. I have spent 23 years in a world that is only a fraction of what this planet has to offer and I think it would be healthy, prudent and wise of me to step out of context for a bit. Shift the perspective. See some mountains. That sort of thing.

Part of me knows that I need this, that I've been needing it for about five years. But I've paid my dues, (almost) won my degree, been the good girl, and it's time. It's time for me to be who I need to be, and not who everyone else needs me to be. In short, I have absolutely no idea where I'm going or what I'm doing next. And like all unknown things, that's scary. But the possibility implied is so immense. What would you do if you could do absolutely anything? (within the parameters of reality, according to the laws of physics and whatnot.)

That's the question that's been keeping me up nights these days. Although, past a certain point, who knows what is the cause and what merely an amusement with which to pass the time? As things go along it gets harder and harder to tell.

Oh! And also, I'll be spending some time with the family, which is usually fodder for blog silliness. So stay tuned.

The Carnival Was Here

2010-03-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

the house itself is barely there, concealed above the street
the garden hovers behind, a shy child in his mother's skirt
and while the wild festival weekend of drums and feasting
begins to politely take its leave of us
in perfumed shades of blues, greens, and purples

priests and acolytes gather in a garden that floats over the alley
and suffuse it in the haze of a holy rite

the herbs dance haphazardly around the ring

glancing over the spindly ironwork

that suspends us all in the least of likely corners

and dusts the faces of the congregated with the intimacy

of an open secret
sanctifying and sacred

we palace children exulting in privilege
embroider the evening in song and lace it with laughter
insolently entreating the festival to remain an hour more
and though we cannot keep her from slipping demurely away
she consents to tag the gathered pilgrims with a kiss

A Friend In Need

2010-03-07T14:45:00.000-08:00

So I've come to an odd realization about myself. And that realization is, there are certain things I don't talk to anyone about. This may not seem like a strange realization, but one has to consider the following things: 1) that I come from an extremely verbal family, in which everyone is more or less accustomed to saying pretty much whatever is on their mind, as loudly and verbosely as they can, usually everyone at once. 2)that I am and have always been an intensely introspective person, hyper-self-analytical and self-aware 3)that there is a predominant impression in American culture (especially among girls) that friends are there for you to talk to, people to whom you can go with your problems for advice.

I did not realize this about myself until a few things pointed it out to me recently. The first was when my therapist asked me if there is anyone I talk to about my depression. And I realized, not really. Which is to say I have told several people of my issues and had discussions about it, but more in the "hey, you're a close friend of mine and we keep each other posted on stuff, so this is maybe something you should know - just a head's-up" kind of way. Not like we have regular discussions on the topic but more importantly what my therapist was asking me was this: when you are having an episode is there anyone you can go to to help talk you through it? And the answer to that was a decided no. Not ever. At all. Well, when it got really bad at home I would go cry on my parents' shoulders, and that was extremely comforting and helpful. But described in avid detail, told them exactly what was going on in my head? Not ever. At all. Until recently, when I started to realize I should maybe talk to someone. And then I went to a therapist. So.

The second circumstance happened with a gentleman friend of mine. I mentioned something about seeing a therapist and he said "Huh. I always thought that was what friends were for, and why pay someone for that?" He also offered to listen if I wanted to talk about it, which was sweet but no, for a number of reasons, I absolutely did not.

I do remember a time, before and during high school I guess, when I believed in that theory of things. And I got to wondering how that changed and why. I don't know. But I do know that I don't believe in it anymore. Friends are busy. They are also not trained psychologists (anyway most of them aren't) which means that they can't actually give you clinically useful advice. Why would you burden them for hours on end with problems they can't do anything to solve? I know that in theory sometimes just getting things off your chest is useful, but that has never seemed to be the case with me. After I talk about things that upset me, I am upset. And now I have made someone else worried about me, and senselessly since they can't do anything about it. So essentially, talking about it just seemed to make everything worse.

So then I thought, well, maybe I should blog about it. Not that many people read this anyway (really almost no one I think) so I wouldn't be burdening anyone and it's a good forum for getting things off my chest. But I do run into some of the same issues here, namely writing about it makes me deal with it. Which of course I don't necessarily want to do. It's easier to ignore it, distract myself with something else, and hope it goes away in the meantime. But that hasn't proven an especially effective tool thus far. Also.... really it's not bloggable stuff. Stuff for a horror film, yes. Stuff for a blog, not so much. (I have also come to the realization that I might be able to exorcise some of this by putting it in a horror movie. Which is ironic and disturbing because I hate horror films and always have.)

Ok that's enough for now. To be continued. Maybe.

An Attempt at Rationalization or An Exercise in Procrastination

2010-02-20T12:48:00.001-08:00

Hm well that's interesting. I was just experimenting with the title and accidentally posted a post. Who knew such things could be? I guess that's why G-d invented the trial-and-error system of things.
Anyway, I haven't posted in awhile, and I have to say Ive been a little out of touch with the blogosphere for awhile. It takes so much effort to stay current you know? It's hours every day.
So, Purim is coming. And because Purim is coming and I have nothing in particular to say at the moment I am going to publish here for public consumption a poem I wrote for Purim in Israel last year. It's fun stuff. Enjoy, and let me know what you think, please.

Shushan Purim
Touch of the fairy about the angel's wings
and of the student in the ripped blue jeans
but in the champagne mists of a festival town
gone mad with wine and song
fairies, angels
butterflies and lampshades
all look more or less the same
and the Jesus dancing in the streets instructs:
take you some of this green thing
from this golden town
on this golden day
and fly over Judean hills in a spinning speeding bus
which winds into the penultimate moment
towards feasting and frolicking and a bearded wizard
in an emerald robe
and destiny waiting in a den of dancing hippies
to mix the wine with herbs and triangles
where in the giddy revelry
no one can tell the difference

A Blurb - aka, Favor for a Friend

2009-11-25T17:01:00.000-08:00

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Why Jewish Education Fails

2009-11-10T07:15:00.001-08:00

Tobie and I were recently swapping war stories from our high school days with our friend Elisheva who went to high school in an Israeli ulpana - which is, for those who don't know, an Israeli daati-leumi high school for girls, frequently but not always including a dormitory (in her case it did) - and I have to say she held her own pretty well. Which is impressive, but also more frustrating than anything else, since high school education in this country is my chosen profession.
(side note - if you find the term "war stories" inappropriate you have never attended a Jewish school, for I assure you these institutions are indeed the sites of daily battles between the students who try desperately to establish some sense of self, and the teachers who are constantly and senselessly trying to crush them.)
As the years go on, I find myself more and more offended as a person and as a Jew by people who claim to be Torah educators. A prime example is this courtesy of Chana. Chana does a pretty good job of eviscerating this speech, so I won't do it again here, but it really has come to a point where something needs to be done.
When did it become ok to make turning people trying to establish an intellectual dialogue into a joke? Why are we trying to squash every piece of intelligence, personality, scholarly striving, why have we made these things things which need to be removed from the community? Why does Rabbi Orlofsky have to make fun of a girl who is trying to get some sound halachik opinions on an issue that is important to her? Which by the way she did not get. What she got was a lot of nonsense from a "Rabbi" who does not know his sources and moreover DOESN'T CARE that he doesn't know his sources but beyond even that, DOES NOT CARE TO KNOW THE SOURCES. And does not feel that Jewish soul striving for some clarity has just been eternally damaged by his so called "sense-oh-humor." Respected members of our communities, people who we pay lots and lots of money to educate us, people who are held up as examples of middot and learning and the Jewish ideology personified deal callously, casually, without respect, knowledge, wisdom, or even a grain of common sense with children who genuinely want to know things all the time, and then they turn around and claim that there's a crisis with kids who are "going off the derech" and they just don't know why or how it happened.
To be perfectly honest, I look back on the things that I and many friends of mine put up with all the time from these people and it is a miracle to me that we remained religious at all. Thank G-d for all that arrogance they accused us of having, it actually saved our relationships with G-d, can you imagine? I knew there had to be a reason He created that one.
Anyway, clearly all I can do at the moment is rant on a voiceless blog with almost no readers, but this has to be said in a public forum and this is the only one I have:
These people are ruining our children. They're hypocrites and liars and the worst thing of all is that they don't know anything and they encourage more people to not know anything. That's how you manipulate mobs - by discouraging individuality, discouraging learning, discouraging any form of achievement, and being laitzanim about the people who actually care about these things. Just in case you weren't clear, I'll say it one more time - Jewish schools are ruining Jewish children, and they will be the ruin of the Jewish communities. It's not assimilation this time around guys - Sharansky had it wrong. We're self-destructing from the inside out. And the disturbing thing is, that seems to be just fine with all the people who claim that they care.

An excerpt.

2009-10-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

Tobie and I are in the process of writing a novel. How far along with it we will get remains to be seen. The fundamental storyline is that of a young Jewish girl and her search for a shidduch. Told in the language and style of Jane Austen. :) We're having quite a bit of fun with it.

Originally, we were having difficulties getting the dialogue properly Austenian, so we wrote it more or less colloqially. We have mostly translated the dialogue into Austenian at this point, but the original is fun in its own right, so we thought we'd print it here for you're viewing enjoyment.

Character Sheet:
Shoshana Friedman- (21) Heroine. Bais Yakkov lichol dvar viinyan, with an unfortunate congenital tendency towards thinking. Works as a teacher at the local girls’ high school, and is assistant producer for the school production.
Batya Friedman Glass - (23)married older sister with a six month old girl (Hadar); accountant; daati leumi, lives in the neighborhood.
Benny Glass- (26)husband of Batya father of Hadar; patent lawyer.
Avi Friedman - (24) Oldest child; learning full time at a very prestigious local yeshiva/college program, getting a degree in education.
Ariella Friedman- (16) Youngest child. Social and peripherally intellectual rebel; insane; goes by “Spike.’ (Playing Reb Yid in the school production “Hidden Majesty.”) Wears all black when not in uniform.
Motti Scheinberg- (24)Son of the head of a prestigious kollel for marred guys and is head of an important regional hechsher out of town; Avi’s chavrusa and best friend, eats at their house all the time (ben bayit.)
Devorah Samber - (21) Shoshana’s best friend; secretary at same high school. Has brother with Downs’ Syndrome.
Joe/Yosef Friedman- (54) Father to everyone else named Friedman except for his wife. Baal teshuva, spiritual, into gematrias; floaty.
Estelle/Esther Friedman - (55) Mother to everyone else named Friedman except for her husband. Baalat teshuva,; more young Israel oriented except she never goes to shul ; not so into the whole thing bichlal, kinda just goes with the flow.

The Adventures of Shoshanna Friedman, Chapter 1:
The men returned from shul that Friday night to find Batya and Shoshana in the midst of one of their habitual debates. Batya and her husband Benny had just begun a chavrusa with the new daf yomi cycle; about which Shoshanna found it difficult to mask her disapprobation.
Batya was sweeping in from the kitchen with a stack of plates to set the table. “First of all - first of all- it’s crazy fun, and extremely intellectually stimulating, and yes, I do connect to Hashem through my mind. Second of all, when was the last time you asked Avi whether or not he finds the gemarrah thing spiritually fulfilling? Third, since when do we measure the significance of a mitzvah by its spiritual fulfillment? Do you feel spiritually fulfilled when you’re on your hands and knees scrubbing under the refrigerator two weeks before Pesach?”
“Actually,” Shoshana responded as she chopped vegetables in the kitchen, “I’ve always kind of connected to cleaning for Pesach; you know, because it’s getting rid of the chumetz shebieesa which is the yetzer hora. It’s like Yom Kippur really.”
“Yeah,” Batya retorted, gesticulating with a fish fork, “and for me, gemarrah is like, you know, Torah, which is all holy and stuff.”
Avi, who was lounging against the doorframe and watching the by-play amusedly, jumped in with “But what about ‘kol hamilamed bito torah kiilu milamdah tiflus?”
“These words of Talmud! They burn my ears!” muttered Spike as she wandered by with the challah board.
“Actually,” Motti interjected as he wandered by on his way to pick a sefer off a shelf, “ in context of the sugyah in Sotah, it’s takkeh not the best rayeh- “
“Ayn hachi nami, but if you look at the rishoynim…” here the boys faded off into the living room, already immersed in their own argument. Batya and Shoshana blinked and turned back to their discussion.
“Of course it’s Torah,” Shoshana admitted, “it’s just not so shayich for a women’s tafkid, you know? It’s mammesh another mindset-”
“Says the woman who’s never looked at a daf,” Batya grinned.
“The gedoylim have learned more than enough dafs to make that decision for us!” Shoshanna protested.
“Yeah and they know a woman’s mindset if anyone does,” Spike smirked, wandering out with the Kiddush cups.
“Have you girls finished setting the table yet?” Mrs. Friedman called from the kitchen. “All this yelling between rooms is really not making my headache any better. Are we ready to start?”
“Just about done Ma,” said Batya. “Should I get the boys?”
“Yes call them. Where’s the baby?”
“Upstairs sleeping. Benny went to go check on her when he came in; I’ll go up and get them.”
“Ok, you do that, Shoshana can call the boys from the living room.”
Shoshana entered the living room where Avi and Motti were now poring over a Rash in Masechet Sotah, three other huge sefarim lying open on the table. “We’re ready for Shalom Aleichem, Avi. Where’s Tatti?”
Avi glanced up and reoriented himself with the living room. “Um, still outside?”
“He ran into Reb Leibl on the corner, and they started talking gematriah. You know how they get,” said Motti, glancing up at Shoshanna as he finished the sentence with a shy smile. Shoshanna smiled back but her middos were too good to allow for eye rolling. Just as she was formulating a sentence in her head that was polite and acknowledged the humor of the situation without being bold enough to be perceived as too forward and also duly respectful of her father, she was saved from the mental gymnastics by her father himself blowing in the front door that moment.
“Esther!” he called out as he came in, “Reb leibl just told me the most wonderful gematriah from this week’s haftorah -”
“Yosef, we’re just ready for Sholom Aleichem. Come to the table.” his wife responded.
The slow movement of many people towards a table began as Batya and Benny were descending the stairs with baby Hadar.
“Benny, can I ask you a question?” Batya was saying. “Have you found my feeble female intelligence an obstacle to any hope of intellectual equality in our chavrusa experience?”
“Yes, dear,” Benny responded, wiping some spit-up off of hadar’s six month old chin.
“Benny!”
“Truthfully,” in a more sober voice as he turned to face his wife, “not only in our chavrusa experience, but in the rest of our marriage as well. But don’t trouble your pretty little head about it.”
“Give me my baby,” Batya demanded.
Avi chimed in from the living room, not lifting his eyes from the sefer which he was bringing to the table with him, “Takeh, it’s not such a clear inyan. There are mamesh differences between men and women you know, it’s not just a spiritual thing, even science agrees.”
“It’s been medically proven and everything,” Spike contributed cheerfully. Motti grinned.
“And everything,” he added.
During this exchange, husband and wife Friedman were communicating via eye signals. Mrs. Friedman was saying “Nu? Table!” And Mr. Friedman responded, “I’m trying! Kids will be kids.”
At which point, he tentatively began a “Sho-lom- a-lei-chem- “ only to be interrupted by Batya
“- and if torah shebaal peh is off limits, why are you learning rashi? He brings gemarrahs all the time!”
“Batya, you know that’s not the same thing!” Shoshanna protested and Motti jumped in to agree.
“Rashi does bring gemarrahs, but it’s hardly the same style of learning as looking at a daf.”
“ Because, you know, it’s not one,” Spike expounded.
Mr. Friedman tried once again to begin shalom Aleichem, but didn’t get past the first syllable before Batya burst out with - “Style shmyle, you’re just figuring out what people are saying! It’s not like the difference of style make the learning that much harder -”
“Are you saying you learn daf the same way you learn Rashi?” Avi interrupted.
“No, I’m saying that women aren’t dumb. Why would you want to marry someone who you assumed was less intelligent than you are?”
“So maybe intelligence isn’t the most important quality in a wife?”
Batya went thin lipped and mimed stabbing Avi with a spoon.
“Of course intelligence is important,” Shoshanna remarked, “but middos are at least as important.”
Here Mr. Friedman, who was hungry, belted out his last effort at shalom Aleichem in a tone that would brook no resistance, and Avi and Motti fell in line. Discussion ceased until after washing, except for a remark from Spike on the way to the sink (“I know I look for both intelligence and middos in all of my women,”) which was silenced by a poke in the back from her mother.

A preview. Let me know what you think.

Phillip Update

2009-09-18T02:51:00.000-07:00

For all of you who remember Phillip, my father's pet plastic bag, I'd like to inform you all that he is alive and well, happily neurotic in his hatbox of a home. For those of you who don't remember or don't know, see here and here.

I was inspired to think of Phillip this evening/morning (depending which end of the bedtime you're on; my mother, sister, brother, and I were still wide awake and fully functioning when my Dad strolled down to the kitchen for breakfast at 3:20 a.m. He's nervous about making it on time to the vasikin minyan - he takes the Judgement Day very seriously,) when my father mentioned casually that the turkey sitting sadly in our kitchen sink waiting to be stuffed had been named Ratliffe. In reaction to this, the story continued, my Mother had named a local gnat. On inquiry as to the specific moniker, he responded "Nat," which he considered rather clever, and was appropriately appreciative. This resulted in a couple of minutes of "Who's on first?"-like explanation, and then he briefly considered naming two dead flies. When he couldn't come up with anything better than Dead and Deader, we let the conversation slip and he wandered off to bed. I mentioned this conversation to my Mom later, and she told me that in fact she had named the gnat "Gnat" and not "Nat," and that she was being sarcastic, not cute. We then continued with the baking.

The above paragraph more or less sums up my family life. Happy honeying to all!

Musings on Mortality

2009-09-09T03:16:00.001-07:00

Hello, people who are still out there.

I'm flying back to Chicago tomorrow, and as usual this event has brought on another bout of depression and unhealthy obsessing over the apocalypse and mortality in general. You might wonder why traveling does this to me; and there are a number of reasons, most of them due to intensely high stress levels, and a shortage of both sleep and proper nutrition. In any case, I freaked myself out pretty bad the other night. I was trying to sleep (not entirely sober, I suppose I ought to mention) and all I could think of was the many many ways in which it is possible to die, or even worse, to not-die.

A couple of months ago, while trying not to study for something, I came upon a video of one man telling about his "near-death experience." He was Israeli, and at the time of the events of his story, he was completely secular. By the time he's telling the story he's completely chareidi - long beard, black hat and coat, the whole thing. I think he might have been a chossid, but I don't remember where to find the video. Anyway he was describing all this stuff he saw and went through in Heaven, and it was reasonably convincing until he got to the part about all his spilled seed calling him a murderer. That was where I went skeptical. So Tobie and I discussed it a bit afterwards, and in her opinion, "near death experiences" are mostly brain cells misfiring as they slowly begin to expire. Which made me wonder a lot of scary things. People who are in comas for extended periods of time, are they having those kinds of experiences in their heads during all that time? What about people who aren't exactly brain dead, like they're technically awake, but mentally vacant, like old people in nursing homes? And then I thought, how awful must it be to be conscious, but incapable of doing or saying anything, completely dependent and at the mercy of those around you? And I realized that most people who live to a ripe old age end up in one or another of these kinds of experiences eventually, no one really ends happily; I mean, forget dying in a nuclear blast, or worse as a survivor in a post-nuclear world, or at the tortuous hands of some enemy who only wants to cause as much pain as possible during the killing process- nobody dies happily. And it really really scared me. I'm not saying it here as vividly, as viscerally as I felt it at the time, but I came really close to having a major anxiety attack. I managed to talk myself down, but was actually worried that I might not be able to. It was almost enough to make me believe in G-d again. I really really wanted to; I swear I really tried. But I am not capable of choosing what to believe in, and it didn't work. It was the first time I understood to any extent what it means to consider ending one's own life as a serious possibility. Luckily my terror of death will probably always rescue me from that.

Anyway, those are some pre-Rosh Hashanna thoughts for all of you. I do sincerely wish you all a good year, filled with health and success and good things. I hope these things come to all of you, and more importantly, that they stay.

Facebook: the Ongoing Narrative

2009-07-01T05:24:00.000-07:00

There are people in this world who are opposed to facebook. Not
because they're chareidi; because they're kind of anti-technology. Not
exactly of course, but you know what I mean - everyone has a friend
who refuses to get a facebook account for no particularly good reason.
And for those people, I'd like to say something about the facebook
phenomenon, and why I am a fan.
my facebook account was originally activated by a friend of mine, who
insisted on my getting one to keep in touch with. At first, I
regarded it as another technological obligation, and an annoyance.
Then I discovered what so many others do; that it's a wonderful way to
waste time. But even so, I kept myself to certain standards - I ignored
most activations and applications, actually used the damn thing to
keep in touch with people, and, one of my personal facebook prides: I
have no friends on facebook that I did not actually know at some point
in time in real life.
Now as the phenomenon grew, more and more people had facebook and were
getting in touch with me as well - people from elementary school, high
school, camp, seminary, and pretty much every other significant period
in my life- the fact that I actually knew everyone on my friend list
became mildly impressive to me, and I'll tell you why: I got to finish
a lot of stories.
Here's what I mean.
Daily life is an ongoing narrative, that other people walk in and out
of. We all know pretty nearly everything about our own narrative up to
the current point, and those of the few people we see and talk to
everyday and are generally close with. But then there are those people
that you were only friends with for a brief period of time. You might
have been quite god and sincere friends at the time, but now barely
speak. Say you know someone for maybe a year or two. If it's a close
friend, you get a good piece of that person's narrative up til the
point you met them - major life events, basic family details, that
kind of thing. And obviously, you're there for that piece of her/his
progression, so you know what goes on in that piece of the narrative.
But after you two part ways, you do different things, lose contact a
bit. Five years later you get nostalgic and think "Huh, I wonder what
happened next? I wonder what's up with him/her now?"
That's where facebook comes in. By being in touch with people on
facebook, you get to track their narrative in the bits and pieces they
let slip out in daily or weekly increments. Of course, most of the
really interesting details you can only guess at - especially if it's
one of those people you really never talk to, even on facebook. But
there are hints if you know how to read them. And then, the major life
events - engagements and marriages, births and aliyahs and other big
deals- generally are published biphairush. I davka like it more this
way about the people I never talk to. I like being able to follow
their narrative even without talking to them. Cuz I know that they
don't really want to talk to me, and I don't really want to talk to
them - but curiosity over the development of the human drama keeps us
tuned in to each others lives even from a distance. And there's
something oddly nice about that. Maybe something creepy too, if you
think about it too hard. But my fascination with stories, especially
real-life ones about people I know, can't really help but exult in
this. I suppose it is every good storyteller's dream come true; a
treasure trove of material right at your fingertips.The sheer weight
of all that human information is dizzying - kind of like get the feeling you get when walking into a
well-stocked used bookstore.
Anyway, I think what I'm trying to say is, that I love knowing how the
story ends. Obviously, we can't really know how most of them end for
years and years to come. But I like seeing the progression. There's something strangely satisfying in it.

Comedia dell'arte

2009-06-03T17:03:00.000-07:00

Is this, in case you were wondering.

In case anyone is interested.
I went to an Israeli one tonight. The plot centered around a Yeshiva and a theater that were located on the same street. The Rav's wife is in a constant battle with the manager? I guess of the theater - classic chiloni/chareidi conflict. In order to keep some actors from entering the city and performing at the theater, the rabbanit decides to marry off her talmud chacham son to a girl of means; meanwhile he is madly in love with a local freicha. These are the bare bones of the plot, but there are other complications and hilarity ensues. Generally.

It was fascinating to see this centuries old form used in a modern Israeli setting. Of course I love satire in general, and especially on Jewish stuff, but even so, I felt that it was a peculiarly interesting format for this particular kind of a story. The physical comedy could be a little over the top, and obviously elements of the story were caricaturized out of reality, but even so I felt that it was a genuinely fresh and unique idea artistically. Anyway, just thought I'd share that.

And the Battle Continues to Rage

2009-05-10T07:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3712747,00.html

In response to the above article (which I hope linked properly):

"It should make us cognizant of the fact that we are but a creation of a Higher Power and that whatever we can achieve pales into insignificance when it is compared to the Creator of the universe."

This here is exactly where this article completely misses the point. People who do not choose to observe Shabbat generally don't believe we ARE "but a creation of a Higher Power" and there is no reason for them to be forced into a cognizance of something with which they disagree completely. Beliefs cannot and should not be forced on a public that has made up their mind on the issue already. That means that forcing people to do so falls into the category of encraochment upon freedom of religion, of belief, of thought, and of free expression.

Also, the grammar and punctuation in this article is atrocious.

A Brief Rant

2009-04-16T01:29:00.000-07:00

Why are teeny tiny things such an awfully huge deal? I mean really, why?

So, I've been home for Pesach. I know Israel is home - it really is, more and more each time I re-visit America, but Chicago is the place where the same house I've lived in my entire life is, so it's still home, at least until I can be in the same Israeli bedroom for more than a year at a time - and it has been both wonderful and heartbreaking as usual. No, more so than usual. For various reasons.

I've had more old school hometown moments in this one trip than in any other since I made aliyah and possibly before. I've seen more people in a shorter period of time and re-created, without effort, much of things which used to be. But why do people give such a huge honking shit abut superficial and completely meaningless minutia? My sister feels like a rebel for walking out of the house without socks. She is no longer in high school. She attends college, she has a job, she can vote, and smoke and theoretically join the army. Several different armies, in fact. Why should the simple act of choosing her own clothing be any kind of an issue? Why should I be forced to wear a plastic transparent nose stud to avoid the discomfiture of others and controversy? Why should a tiny piece of tin cause controversy? Why? Why? Why? Doesn't the world have enough to worry about without giving a shit about where my neckline is, or the fact that someone's skirt is a centimeter too short, or that someone else is wearing jeans? These things - they simply DO NOT MATTER. And I violently object to being forced to consider them as if they do. I mean my G-d - there is so much evil and ugliness and horror in the world that by some statistical miracle we have, at least until now, managed to avoid. So we have to create needless anger and tension and ugliness? Because of some supposedly religious, but actually societal, standard which is completely baseless? Even within the confines of the tradition they claim to be upholding! It's not even hypocrisy, it's just needless mindless slavedriving that crushes souls and minds and spirits and creates emotionally stunted people, and for what? For nothing at all. We all get old and ugly and sick and end up dead, and why make this experience, when we have been given so much to make it beautiful and meaningful and precious, why would you go to extra lengths to make it narrow and stifling and ugly? Why would you go out of your way to try for that? This isn't difficult enough, let's look for a way to be even more unecessarily insane! I can't take it. I can't even say that I don't understand it, but what I do understand is in the vein of groupthink and mob mentalities and it doesn't make the situation any better. I cannot deny that there is great beauty in religion; and so I cannot understand why religious people work so hard to drum all of the beauty out of it.

Meanwhile, still obsessing about death. Went to go see the Edvard Munch exhibit at the Art Institute - which I highly recommend to everyne, it was wonderful (get the audio guides - they cost six extra dollars but they're great!) - and the man was a powerful artist, but not exactly not death-focused. It didn't help. (Not exactly not a misogynist either, but that is another rant for another time.) Perhaps there will be more this weekend on the nature of art, and why it is the last and only justification I have for still clinging to my belief in G-d. Art and humor. Perhaps two seperate posts. There is too much in this world, and my greatest fear, beynd my terror of death, is that I will never see it all. But of course, it is generally also my only comfort.

Two Nations In One Belly

2009-03-31T13:39:00.000-07:00

A poem. Because, although I have much to say, and hope to one day say it, mayhaps, meanwhile I have no time and so I give you this instead. I refuse to disclaimer it, except to say it is my feeble attempt to go where so many have gone before me; perhaps, if I am lucky, I've done it better than some. Anyway, your criticism is most kindly solicited. If the criticism is good, i may give you another. (Note: this is a working title. I know it's not technically Biblically accurate, but I figured if one could metaphorically call Israel a belly, then it might work anyway. Just saying.)

10)Two Nations In One Belly
raise me up with borrowed wings on broken knees
lift up my bended neck from over troubled breast
these shards of stone and glass won't let me rest
so long as poets and peasants sing for peace

my tiny voice can only fail to justify
a country of two worlds unequally divided
justice is a theory relatively sided
on the sliding gridded scale where truth lies

for ages men asked Questions without Answers
despite beleagured study by those far wiser than I
and yet the stiff-necked youth cannot fail to try
to weave the painful dreams of two nations' rancor

I might not call it hopeless, but for my hate of hope
and where necessity must breed invention
ingenuity brings new genius to old convention
and burning persistence may take solution in its scope

Hi Again

2009-01-11T16:43:00.000-08:00

So if anyone is still reading this blog, which I kind of doubt, I'd like to say that's pretty cool of you. I have not posted in over two months, and they have been very busy, stressful months which has something to do with the not-posting thing. So I figured I'd post again and see if anyone's still out there.

I don't have too much to say though. Or maybe too much to say, which in essence amounts to the same thing. I mean I ought to be able to say something about the war, or the coming elections, or school or work or volunteering. For example, how Shas stole Obama's campaign slogan: כן, אנחנו יכולים. Swear to G-d, it's on all the buses.

Or the air raid drill we had last week. (I volunteer as a teacher's assistant for the English teachers at a local elementary school.) Getting two hundred screaming Israeli kids into a machsan in something like an orderly fashion is scary enough, even without the danger. And if you don't know why, you've never hung out with about two hundred screaming Israeli children at once.

And did you know there are some areas of the Gush from which one can actually see the flaring and the smoke from Gaza? People go to watch it like it's entertainment. On a Shabbat afternoon. Or evening.

And in other news, people have been violating shuls and schools in my hometown. In addition to which, I am suddenly being harassed on Skype by anti-semites.

In between all of this, I've been spending a lot of energy worrying about death.

But, on the bright side, I am learning how to read Sephardic Hebrew cursive. Which is just about the most annoying form of the Hebrew alphabet I have yet come across. Although teaching myself to read is kind of cool. I spend so much time teaching other people to read it's actually kind of fun to do it myself.

This more or less sums up what's been going on in my life in the time between the posts. Except not really, at all, but highlights here and there.

All in all, I think I'd rather be in Florida.

G-d Again

2008-11-08T15:21:00.000-08:00

I have come to the following conclusions (largely based on Leibniz's Monadology, or at least concluded while reading it:)

1) That because G-d is completely perfect, thus encompassing all possibilities; that the existence of evil is not only inherent in the existence of G-d, but also inherently necessary in the definition of G-d's existence.
2) That since G-d encompasses all possibilities, including the possibility that He does not exist, G-d must by definition, simultaneously exist and not exist.
3) This concept is both supported and embodied by the quantum theory of infinite possibilities - that if in an infinite universe, all possibilities must at some point in the space-time matrix of infinite existence be actualized, then, in an infinite universe, G-d must also exist and not exist.
4) That therefor, based on these ideas, existence itself hinges on a basic and inherent contradiction.
And so does G-d.

:)

More G-d Stuff

2008-10-29T17:04:00.000-07:00

I don't follow this one regularly, but I do pop in from time to time. This post got my attention, most notably, this paragraph:

"We are all afraid of Judaism becoming irrelevant. But we are afraid for different reasons, and our hearts sing in different ways. I have a place for feeling in my heart. I have a place for the Hasidism which sings such feeling and makes it true. It is in the way they sing and dance, as Professor Malter told his son. The scholarly world of academia cannot quite sing and dance like that. And as for me, there is something of that lightness in me, something that I would like to retain, that I cannot give up. I will not give it up."

This is my Chabbad background coming up again. (Just out of curiosity, how many of my readers, excluding Nemo, Yoni, and the Sabra, have learned hard core Chabbad Torah? I'm just curious, it would be cool if I could get a head count.) When Chabbad originally got started as a Chassidic movement, it had a mission statement: to combine Litvishe lomdus with all the emotional transcendence of Chassidut. As anyone who's actually been inside a Chabbad community long enough to be able to get at some actual Chabbad Torah knows, this is exactly what they accomplished. The Rebbe's sichot are intensely logical arguments, mostly between the Rambam and the Rashba, and half of Tanya is basically gemarrah. But yet it's mixed with a healthy dose of the Zohar, and laden with niggunim, and back lit by fantastic stories that make up almost as much of our heritage as the rest of it.

It wasn't until I left Chabbad that I realized how many Jews do not mix these approaches. Mainstream trend seems to be, either you're spiritual, or you're logical. The two don't mix. Now I understand that there are lots of people who just can't get into the spiritualism thing. It can get pretty hokey, I'll admit. And I can understand that there are people who basically thrive on air- on love and energy and the food of the spirit, and can't wrap their head around a halachik argument for the life of them. And I don't have a problem with the fact that there are people who can only really do one and not the other. But this puts me in a bit of a pickle.

See, the line between the rational and the spiritual is so stark, the divisions are so black and white, that it takes people a while to realize that the two can in fact intermingle. That a person can reach a truly spiritually transcending moment when learning a daf gemarrah, or a perek of Rambam, or even the kitzur shulchan aruch. The intellectual workings of the mind have always been intensely spiritual for me, and extremely emotionally uplifting. I connect to everything through my mind, so of course that's how I would connect to G-d and Judaism. But this connection is such a spiritual thing. I can't seperate the two no matter how hard I try.

And that's perhaps why I'vebeen having issues lately. See, when your connection to Judaism is all about nostalgia and community and maintaining a cultural heritage, those are things you still connect to even when you don't believe. But when your love is for the text, and the text is found wanting, then where are you? Where is the connection then?

Don't get me wrong. I still love learning. And I don't think, by the way, that the faults in our texts are any faultier than the faults in everyone else's texts, and this gives a certain amount of defendable legitimacy. But the connection is not the same.

Anyway, the reason I brought the excerpt from Chana's post is because we are all afraid of Judaism becoming irrelevant. And clearly different people are having different reactions as to how to prevent this. And I am more than willing to dedicate my life to the re-birth of a rational, halachik Orthodox Judaism that is capable of existing, and being halachik, and orthodox, (and even rational!) without stifling the individuality, or the passion, or the intellect of almost anyone. And I think part of the way towards doing this is by showing others what Chabbad has shown me - that the intellectual and the spiritual do go together hand in hand, and that when this is done properly it is potentially the most fulfilling way of serving G-d.

The problem is - I really don't know that I can do it.

G-d and the Chicago Cubs

2008-10-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

Everyone should go read this. Because I said so. Actually no, because she's an amazing writer, and I think she made a very interesting point, and did it well. It may or may not be known that I have at various points in my life, lived in Chicago; and since no Jew has actually lived on the South Side of Chicago since roughly the sixties, we're all Cubs fans. Except for the obstinate ones who shall not be named but you know who you are. (Midnight Otter, that one was for you and your family in case you missed it. Don't think I don't know where you live....)

I have always wanted to be one of those amazingly cool girls who know everything about sports. I know girls like this, and I think it's cool of them that they know stuff about sports. And don't get me wrong - I can appreciate a good sports game, be it baseball, football, basketball, and even on the very rare occasion soccer. (Golf is completely lost on me. It will never not be boring) And I am a loyal fan of all my local sports teams (the Sox don't count, they're all the way across the city) in a general, city loyalty kind of way. Chicagoans are nothing if not loyal to their sports teams. But try as I might, I really can't get up the interest to memorize stats and nuances and famous plays made by various players. If I were being honest, I couldn't even name you more than two or three of the Cubs. And though yes, it disappoints me every year when the Cubs foul up again, I know better than to get too invested in it to begin with.

My brothers, on the other hand, are a different story. They are true fans. Not only do they know every stat and every play by play, and every trade, everything as it happens, but they follow the baseball season like a second religion. My Mom mentioned something to one of them about I don't even know who it was, I think it might have been the Red Sox, after the Cubs threw the playoffs, and my brother said "Why are we talking about baseball? The baseball season is over." For my brothers, it's over when it's over for the Cubs.

I mention this because even though I'm not a hard core Cubs fan, I know what hardcore Cubs fans are like. And they are a lot like religious zealots. First of all, there's the zealotry. The irrational belief in and hope for a redemption. The cultishness. And perhaps most of all, the beautiful sense of hope at the beginning of every new season, and the warmth of unity and brotherhood shared with at least half a city, just for being a Cubs fan. It's a pretty powerful thing.

Anyway, I was just recently home for the chagim, or part of them. In the course of my visit, I met up with some old and very precious friends. One of them is a long time respected teacher and mentor of mine, and we got into a heated conversation that didn't really go anywhere. The thing was, I knew exactly why it didn't go anywhere, and I couldn't bring myself to introduce the main point of disagreement, the point that would move it forward.

I don't really remember how the conversation got started exactly, but somehow I brought up certain events that occurred in the Beit Shemesh area in the last couple of years. My point was that these occurrences were actually approved by religious leaders, who seemed to be saying that Judaism believes that what these people were doing was halachically sanctioned and not only permissible but correct. Now I don't know about the rest of you, but nowhere have I ever read that it is halachically permissible to harass frum people (or anyone else for that matter, but mind you these people aren't exactly breaking shabbat or anything) because of the way they are dressed. I don't mean low necklines, tank tops, and short-shorts. I mean a kippa srugah, and maybe the mother doesn't cover her hair completely. Anyway, the long and short of it is, the argument my Rebbetzin was making (and she is, by the way, a legitimate Rebbetzin) was that leading a community is incredibly complicated and difficult, and that what the community leader really means or says is very often distorted by others for their own purposes. And that further there are good people and bad people in every community. And these points are of course not only valid but extremely important, and I submit to her superior wisdom and experience in that area. But it had never been a point I disagreed with, and it wasn't the point that was bothering me now. What was bothering me now, and what I could not bring up, was that it wasn't the people I was worried about - it was G-d.

Because no matter how many good people there are in the world, and no matter how many crummy people, and no matter what good or evil who may have done to whom, I cannot help a growing sensation that it matters very little in the end. I think we may end up all equally screwed, and I don't think that it's a license to be evil. I just...it just makes me sad to think of all the people who go to so much effort and have so much faith and are still going to get screwed over in the end. G-d may have a plan that factors us all in, but He's had plans for others before us, people who were ten times as blameless and did ten times as much good, and they weren't happy plans. I know that this sounds like a very typical tzadik virah lo kind of situation but I'm not buying it right now. It's not that I think it's not true exactly, but it's just.... not that relevant somehow. It's too small to answer the question. Like so many Jewish arguments.

Anyway, to get back to the Cubs. I think believing in the Cubs is a little like believing in G-d. And the Messiah metaphor might be more apt, but this one feels relevant too. Every year we hope in the Cubs and every year they let us down. So many people put their trust in G-d and then get slapped in the face for it. But the kicker is, just like Cubs fans, they still come back for another season! No matter how many times it happens, they just keep believing in G-d and trusting in Him. It's like my friend the Rogue Unicorn said - we can't help it. It's in our blood.

And I still can't decide if that's beautiful or just achingly heartbreakingly sad.

Late Night Conversations

2008-09-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

Me: Everybody's got something to hiiiide, cept for me and my MONKEY!
Tobie: Well, I hide my monkey, actually....
Me: Yeah?
Tobie: Well, do you know my monkey?
Me: Does he know my monkey? Bobo?
Tobie: Oh yeah, cuz they're both monkeys so they must know each other. That's so racist of you Miri!
Me: I think you mean speciesist, actually....
Tobie: It's like, he's a monkey, and he's a monkey so they must daven at the same shul!
Me: Well, I've never met your monkey, but I know my monkey davens at the same shul........

Sometimes Jews Are Stupid

2008-09-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

So a friend of mine recently reported a story that sent me into something of a moral outrage. The story is thusly: said friend's mother was walking to shul with a group of friends from shul. On their way, the group passed a house which had a statue of the Virgin Mary out front. People in the group started making fun of the statue and the person who lived in that house for having the statue, and my friend's mother said "I think it's nice that they're proud and commited enough to their religion to be able to display it so openly." (Or something more or less to that effect.)
Someone in the group took my friend's mother aside and said "You should know, you're really not supposed to say good things about avodah zorah. It's probably because you say things like that that your child married a non-Jew."

My friend's mother took it as mussar and tried to accept it gracefully. Because she's an incredibly sweet, gentle, and overall good person, who tries to take instances like this and better herself with them. I however, am not that good a person, so I am completely horrified and intensely angry.

First of all - why is it ok to be making fun of another person's religion? The fact that we don't believe in something does not give us the right to disrespect another person's beliefs. I think it's downright embarassing that a group of religous adults would be caught saying such things out loud, in public, and proudly. That in and of itself disgusts me. The fact that this woman was trying to defend this person is, to me, evidence of her sweet, tolerant, and respectful nature, which is not something I think should be drummed out of a person. Looking for the good in all other people always struck me as the kind of thing we should be pro.

Second, WHAT THE FUCKING HELLL????????? Where does anyone get the nerve to be judging anyone's sins or anyone's family? The fact that there is any person in a community even vaguely connected to my own who has the arrogance and the idiocy to feel they have a right to say such things is painfully embarrassing. A grown person! One adult to another! Where in the world do they get off? By this one story alone I can say that the person who received the "mussar" is a vastly superior person and Jew to the one who gave it.

The fact that the person giving the 'mussar' was convinced that they were doing a sweet, helpful thing- enlightening this ba'alat teshuva in the ways of halacha and opening her eyes to something she should be repenting for- sort of makes the whole thing ten times more repulsive. Even if in their mind, there was a shadow of a justification for warning her away from future sins- how dare they take advantage of this woman's guilt and pain by pinning her children's choices on her past 'sins'? Do they think that she doesn't feel horrible and guilty already about her child? Do you think that's not a spot of personal agony for her already? What do they want her to do, exactly? Take it all back? Tear her clothes? Commit ritual suicide over the agony of her own failures? The thought that they went home that night patting themselves on the back makes me want to scream.

This is not the only example I have of the Jewish community drumming out the things in people I know and care about that are GOOD things, things that are important pieces of who they are, bc of some fake, ridiculous idea of what our religion wants from us. You know what our religion doesn't want from us? It doesn't want us picking at the most vulnerable part of a person's soul and making them feel worse about it. It doesn't want us to drum out every spark of individuality or intellectual creativity in everyone we know. I'd like to say this to all American Jews: Anyone who condones this kind of behavior is the reason why people hate religous Jews. My patience with all of you is wearing extremely thin. It's almost enough to drive a person to secularism. Who would want to belong to a community where such things happen? Where such people think they are right? Where do they get off thinking this sort of thing is ok? Who do they think they are? What gives them the moral authority to be able to pass this sort of judgement? My friend's mother, although she tried to make something good out of it, was extremely hurt that anyone would say something like that to her. My friend was hurt much more on her behalf than she allowed herself to be, and I too am extremely offended by the story. What makes anyone think that they're qualified to give another person mussar? Especially someone who would never say anything to hurt anyone? I cannot understand it. This sense of false moral superiority makes me sick. I'm not that great a person, but at least I know enough to say so. These people who act like they're holier than G-d are destroying our communities and they're destroying Orthodoxy.

JBlogger Convention, Cont.

2008-08-24T17:26:00.000-07:00

So, it seems that there is already controversy involving the topic I wished to elaborate upon, and so instead of writing about it, I will link, bc I am lazy and really, why be redundant? So check out this, this, and this.

I think the best part of this conference so far, besides the fact that it's been about as beautiful and as typical as everyone was hoping it would be, is how much everyone who participated was just so pleased with it. Which of course is because it went pretty much exactly how everyone was hoping it would. It' delightful to know that people are predictable enough that you can realistically imagine a scenario that has never happened before and then it actually happens more or less that way. Life is a beautiful thing because thing like this exist. So I'd like to personally thank Nefesh BiNefesh for hosting it (which is funny only bc no one from NBN will probably ever see this thanks) and please please please make it an annual event!!!

Oh, and please excuse the ignorance, but where exactly in the Bible does Netenyahu's name appear?

The First International JBlogger Convention

2008-08-23T17:48:00.000-07:00

Yeah. We did. And it was kind of awesome. And by kind of I mean a lot.

I do not have the requisite time to do the event its full justice in this post, so this will just be a brief overview of some of the highlights and I will G-d willing give you something more fulfilling later this week.

So first of all? Yeah, there were name tags that had your name and blog on it. Now I know this shouldn't be a surprise because it makes a lot of sense, but it's kind of like going to Poland in the winter and realizing that all the pictures of Poland are black-white-and-brown because those are the colors of the Polish landscape, not just because that's what pictures looked like back then. That makes almost no sense in context. But what I mean is, I had kind of imagined that there would be and it made me giggle, and then they were, and that made me giggle some more.

A lot of things made me giggle actually. Me and Tobie both, because of course we were sitting in a corner and whispering snide comments to each other, because that's what we do at social gatherings, even the social gatherings that gather anti-social geeks together. And believe me, that's what this was.

Ladies and gentlemen, if I may say so, there is nothing in the world more beautiful than getting a bunch of geeks together in a room for the sake of having them revel in their geekiness with other geeks. I mean, I know geek conventions are generally like this, bc I've been to one or two, and they made me almost as happy as this did. (For any and all Jbloggers living in Israel who may be interested and don't know about it - ICon!!!! It's amazing and it's coming up! I highly recommend it. I'll try to find a link.) But this was the first one I've been to with such a specialized demographic- and one that I actually fit into. Everyone there was someone who "asked questions on the story" - you could tell by the tone of their questions. Especially when they were questioning Netenyahu. Yeah that's right - Bibi came, and he spoke, and answered questions, and made fun of people ("Jewlicious?") and got made fun of in turn ("Netenyahu?"). Because that's what this very specific cross-section of humanity does. I think we all got about triple our share of Jewish chutzpah, and we're generally quite proud to show it off.

I'm not sure what to tell you all about it, specifically. I mean, I imagine you people aren't all that interested in the itinerary although some of the speakers were really interesting. But all of the typical blogger jokes were made - more actually than I was able to recognize bc of course I'm not as deep into the blogosphere as many are. There was a laptop charging station :) And there even was that one guy who comments in capital letters with too many exclamation points and absolutely no logical arguments and then hides. ("Excuse me, but this is a Jewish state!") And we made a couple of new blogger friends, and unfortunately did not have as much time to "mingle" as we would have liked bc Tobie and I had to leave early to go meet someone who was in from the States.

There is another side to this event that I would, in all fairness, like to discuss, only I haven't the time to do the research as it is almost 5 a.m. and I do need to sleep someday. So I will save that for the other installment later this week. I hope that this will satisfy curiosity in the meantime.

A Brief and Sober Litany

2008-07-27T14:47:00.000-07:00

I would like to state for the record the following:

1) Socialism, especially as described by Marx, is silly.

2) Bastardized versions of socialism, intermixed with inefficient amounts of capitalism and completely confounded at every corner by beaurocracy, makes the life of a student an absolute living hell.

3) My hands are too small to properly play the guitar. Seriously, I only have so much finger to go around, you know? At some point, there is no more. I mean, it's not an insurmountable obstacle or anything. But have you ever looked at Jimi Hendrix's hands? I swear they must be twice as long as mine. I'm just saying.

4) Moving apartments in the humidity of Tel Aviv without the benefit of a car - twice, mind you, in one summer - is a level of hell almost, but not quite, matched by the situation delineated in number 2.

On the bright side, I have an awesome job for next year, and I may get to America for a bit after all. Now if I could only get to sleep....

p.s. happy 100th post to me! Do these things actually matter to anyone? I don't know, but I thought it ought to be acknowledged. And now it has been.

A Correction

2008-07-02T15:11:00.001-07:00

So,in this post, I credited certain lyrics I heard in a choir competition to a coke commercial. It turns out that in fact, those lyrics were taken from a song "I Wish I knew How It Feels to be Free," sung (I believe chiefly, and I don't know who wrote it) by Nina Simone. So I'm linking to that here, for all y'all's listening enjoyment. (I'm actually ashamed of myself for not knowing this song previously. Why didn't anyone correct me?)

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

2008-06-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

It is things like this that despite everything make me extremely happy to be alive in this world. Thank G-d for ukuleles and the wonderful people who play them.

Coffee Song

2008-06-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

Partly in reference to a previous post; partly for E-kvetcher, as the beginnings of an explanation re an argument we had a little while ago; and partly bc I have a really hard time seeing the defects in this one, and I could use a little criticism.

Coffee Song
with decreased faith comes increased interest
it's an inversely proportional relationship
you see
he who thinks he has all the answers
no longer has the need to seek
but the one who understands he knows nothing
knows nothing but curiosity
and frustration. lots of that
and also, lots of caffeine
but nothing becomes youth less than apathy
although it has come to my attention
that such things are not a matter of free will
as much as destiny
and I know, I know, I don't believe
but contradictions are the essence of struggle, and growth, and love
and better still, of irony

A Little Politics

2008-06-17T01:52:00.000-07:00

I don't usually do this bc I don't really know that much about politics. Not enough to really be able to argue with any sort of credibility. But I just saw this and I don't quite know what to think. Anyone?

2008-06-15T15:45:00.000-07:00

Irony:

the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: - Dictionary.com

a: the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b: a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony- Webster's online

Irony is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity or discordance between what a speaker or writer says and what he or she means, or what is generally understood.

In modern usage it can also refer to particularly striking examples of incongruities observed in everyday life between what was intended or said and what actually happened.- Wikipedia

"Irony is the bringing together of contradictory truths to make out of the contradiction a new truth with a laugh or a smile." - Becoming Jane

The laugh/smile bit isn't necessarily necessary in my opinion; after all, let's not forget the value of a good deadpan. Beyond that, however, I think the last definition is not only my favorite, but, in my humble opinion, the most accurate. What do you think?

Interesting

2008-06-01T16:03:00.000-07:00

This is something my uncle brought to my attention. I'm mildly not actually related to one of the climbers. It's pretty cool stuff though, you guys should check it out.

A Little Bit Of Poetry

2008-05-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of my Father, who occasionally gets bored at work:

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Wallace Stevens (1922)

A Little More Philosophy. Just Because I Can.

2008-05-11T06:40:00.000-07:00

"In a confused way, they (monads) all strive after the infinite, the whole; but they are limited and differentiated by the degrees of their distinct perceptions."

"For all is a plenum...and in the plenum every motion has an effect upon distant bodies is proportion to their distance.....Wherefore it follows that this inter-communication of things extends to any distance, however great. And that consequently every body feels the effect of all that takes place in the universe, so that he who sees all might read in each what is happening everywhere, and even what has happened or shall happen....But a soul can read in itself only that which is there represented distinctly...." - G.W. Leibniz

...some confidence in the character of the enemy must remain even in the midst of war, as otherwise no peace could be concluded and the hostilities would degenerate into a war of extermination. -Immanuel Kant, "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch."

Oh, and by the way? If any person is currently touching fire, it's burning them. Just so ya'll can't say you weren't warned.

A Little Piece of Philosophy

2008-05-11T05:04:00.000-07:00

"All things which are in nature are either things or actions. Now good and evil are neither things nor actions. Therefore good and evil do not exist in nature. " B. Spinoza

Discuss.

Coke

2008-05-05T14:55:00.000-07:00

This old commercial for Coca-Cola has been the spawn of many personal plans and dreams. Mostly dashed by cruel reality, as plans and dreams so often are. Firstly, I ought to to note that the first verse was used, during my shana baaretz, also known as shana aleph, (by which I mean, to those not so fluent in Jewish American post-high school jargon, my first year in seminary, or first post high-school year) in a medley in the seminary choir competition. This is relevant mostly because that's how I was, shamefully, first made aware of its existence; secondarily because I was just listening to the album again (I only ever listen to these things during sfira, bc they're mostly accapella) and since I am supposed to be studying for a philosophy final and there is only so much Descartes a woman can take in one go, I decided a cool way to procrastinate would be to look up the original commercial on youtube, since I'd never actually seen it. (Deep breath.) (Hee, see the reason that's funny is bc I don't actually run out of breath when I'm typing, bc I do that with my fingers. But when you read it you hear a voice in your head which should in theory be running out of breath and so you feel like there should be a deep breath needed at the end. But see, actually, there isn't a deep breath needed, bc of the aforementioned finger thing. So. Yeah. Anyway.)

Anyway, after said concert someone mentioned that actually this was an old coke commercial in which a young women wanders around a busy city street handing out free cokes and singing. And I was all like "Omhigod we should totally do that! That would be so much fun!" Which generated a fair amount of general enthusiasm until we all realized that you couldn't actually do that on a real city street, bc people would probably think you were trying to poison them, or spread some kind of biological weapon or something, and we'd probably just get arrested. Cities have become a lot less fun that way over the last couple of decades or so. Like, for another example, we also had this awesome idea whereby we were totally gonna set up this party on the El (the Chicago train system for poor people) which means basically we'd get on the train somewhere, set up decorations and food and drinks and play music from a boom box and start dancing about and basically just having a party, and whoever wandered into our car would join in. Only the CTA has rules about playing music on public transportation, so we figured we'd probably get shut down before we really had the chance to enjoy it enough so that the endeavor would have been worth the trouble. I think this idea was also based on a commercial. I may or may not have seen this one, but in any case I don't remember what it was for, so I don't think I could look it up. (Anyone? Anyone? (Bueller?) (Sorry. I had to.) No, it's not the Bacardi one, this party was actually on a train.)
Anyway, please enjoy the fruits of my procrastination. Oh, and the coke commercial is accapella, so no sfira worries there. :)

Back to My Beginnings

2008-04-12T15:42:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling a lot more chill lately. Like I used to, way back when. Before high school even. I haven't been quite this tripped out on life since I was a kid. It's been pretty crazy.
I have several ideas as to what might be behind this, and it's probably more of a combination of factors. I don't really care, I'm thanking G-d for giving me back a piece of myself I thought was gone forever.
My parents are joining me in the Holy Land for the Passover festival (first time here since the late seventies) which means I may have fun family stuff to write about soon. Or, I may have absolutely no time to write anything at all until finals are over.

Chag Kasher Visameyach to all.

Prayer for the Holy Land

2008-04-10T06:51:00.000-07:00

So I belong to an "online chabura" on "Eim Habanim Semeicha" by Rav Teichtal. There has recently broken out in it a minor discussion on the prayer for the state of Israel. One individual expressed their opinion that it was obnoxious that congregations in America don't pray for the State, and the discussion continued about the different opinions on whether the State really is "reishit tzmichat geulateinu" or not. I would like to offer an opposing view, supplied to me by Tobie recently. Which is:
Forget "reishit" - what if this is it? What if all G-d really meant by the Final Redemption was giving us our own land and autonomy in it? Pretty ironic scenario in heaven for the chareidim after 120 (reminiscent of the boat mashal) :

G-d: So, why didn't you guys move back to Israel?
Chareidi Guy: What do You mean? It wasn't time! You were supposed to redeem us!
G-d: Dude, I sent you a country. I sent you a government and an army, which, by the way, I protected and saved from the brink of destruction almost daily. What were you expecting? Me Myself to come down and lead you by the hand?

It's an interesting thought. The opposing view, of course, is, well, what if it really isn't "reishit" at all? What if it's just one of those strange blips in history that happen from time to time? As Tobie likewise pointed out, history blips do happen; and it is a little presumptuous, to assume that we know exactly what our place on the time line is since, really, we don't. Still, it does seem wrong not to pray for the protection of half your nation, whether this really is the beginning of the end or not.

An Article of Mild Cynicism

2008-03-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of Tobie's pre-Talia post, I am here including something I wrote several years ago. The backstory to this is the following: In my second year in seminary, me and two of my friends decided to put out a mock newspaper for Adar/Purim, essentially making fun of all things in the seminary/yeshiva world. We actually attempted to distribute it fairly widely among various seminaries and yeshivot, but were only marginally successful. However, every time I come across it and re-read it nostalgically, to myself, it still makes me giggle. There are some things from it which I cannot include here for various reasons; for example, several of the stories are specific responses to specific events in the seminary/yeshiva world of that year, which means far too many people wouldn't quite get it. Other things, like the ads, include sketches which would be difficult for me to re-produce here. So, the story I have chosen to reproduce here is pretty general, although specific to the M.O. yeshiva/seminary world in certain respects. I would like to clarify beforehand that this story is meant as a satire and therefore that any and all caricatures are deliberately exaggerated for the sake of proving a point.

The CIAYGDJI Makes A Statement

Recently, an emergency meeting of the C.I.A.Y.G.D.J.I. (Council of Internationally Assembled Yeshiva Guys Discussing Jewish Issues) was called in Jerusalem to discuss the future of the greater American Orthodox community. It had been previously agreed upon that some unifying course of action for all communities ought, at least in theory, to be agreed upon. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss what, precisely, the unifying action should be. As always, a variety of perspectives on everything in Orthodox Judaism, from halachik observance to the individual's spiritual connection to G-d, were represented by students from various yeshivot around Israel.

The representative from Yeshivat HaOreoes opened the meeting with an eloquent exposition on the opinion of the general Chareidi community. "We need to be more insular," he insisted at one point, standing at the podium before the gathering. "The influence of secular culture is endangering us all. Everyone must conform to a lifestyle wherein our children will be secure from the contaminations of the outside world. No secular literature, including newspapers, or secular music should be allowed into anyone's homes. A higher secular education won't be necessary once all our children are sitting and learning in kollel. "
The representative from Yeshivat HaSrugi took the floor next to respond to this suggestion. "Is such a drastic isolation really required?" he asked the assembly. "We need to be aware of what's going on outside our sheltered communities. It's necessary for us to have a broad life. With Torah at the center of the wheel, all the spokes stemming from it will be channeled for a higher purpose. A higher secular education, and even holding positions in the secular business world or the government can increase the kedusha and kavod Hashem in this world , with the proper kavanot."

At this, the representative from Yeshivat HaSombrero broke into the discussion. "There must be some way to combine the two perspectives, " he insisted. "We can all agree that Torah should be the main focus of our lives. And, okay, I'll admit that maybe listening to Eminem or 50cent may not be the best thing for my neshama. But I know many people who feel a very spiritual connection to the music of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. And how will you ever really be able to understand the teachings of the Rav if you've never read Shelley?"

Squabbling ensued, until the floor was seized by the representative from Yeshivat 770. "Clearly the one thing we all need to be focused on at the moment is bringing the Moshiach now!" he declared. "This can only be accomplished by recognizing his presence and his influence in this world, every day, as we speak."

This was followed by a brief confused silence, after which squabbling of a slightly different nature broke out among all the representatives. Stay shana Hay.

Temporary order was again restored when the floor was taken by the representative from Yeshivat HaNaNachs. "Rav Nachman teaches us that Hashem is with us everywhere, always, even in the deepest, darkest depths of confusion and despair!" he cried out from the podium. "The main thing - the absolute, most important thing - is to always serve Hashem bisimcha!"

"Exactly!" yelled the entire congregation in chorus, each representative clearly interpreting these words according to his own outlook, and thus their own personal definition of happiness. Once it was re-established that everyone still disagreed with each other, despite the euphoric Eureka moment they had all shared just moments before, the assembly decided to call it a night.

"Our official position at the moment," said assembly spokesperson Yankl Shmerlovitch, "is that all Jews should be happy."

A quote

2008-02-29T03:37:00.000-08:00

This is one of the distinctive beliefs of the Catholic hurch that distinguishes it from other forms of Christianity.

"Belief that the Church is the vessel and deposit of the fullness of the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles from which the Scriptures were formed. This teaching is preserved in both written scripture and in unwritten tradition, neither being independent of the other."
-wikipedia.

Fascinating, isn't it?

Also, this chick is amazing. She made a Britney Spears song sound good. That's talent.

Nuch A Kashe

2008-02-20T08:17:00.001-08:00

See here, here, and here. Oh, and also, here. I feel like there may also have been a similar discussion somewhere on E-kvetcher's blog; or it may have been LNM. Both of these wonderful bloggers are far too prolific for me to find said post, if in fact it does exist, and so if it does I would appreciate the link.
Now I know- this all begs the question "am I not making the situation worse?" Which, I probably am. But come on people. Get a grip! If we weren't all so very very self-absorbed, wondering where exactly we fit into things and how other people think we fit into things, this entire conversation would sound ridiculous. Honestly, it already sounds ridiculous, even to me, and I'm Jewish. I'm finally starting to sympathize with people who say "Call me anything you like, but G-d forbid you should label me!" On the one hand, it's a cop-out that I don't believe in; on the other hand, they're probably just sick of the entire stupid discussion already. I know a bit what that's like.

Several points. 1) Human beings categorize everything in their brain in order to understand it. It's called assimilating information into a pre-existing structure. (Or something like that. I'm too pressed for time to wiki the exact wordage.) People naturally categorize other people in their brains because that's how we understand everything.
2) No one likes to think that they are a steryotype. However, most people are, if not steryotypes, at least extremely predictable. "There is nothing new under the sun" means people and personalities too.
3) Everyone is a mix of things today. It's all sociological, really; where you came from in Europe, where you settled post-Europe, who everyone married...things used to be a lot more defined, for example when people were born, raised, and died in the same shtetl without ever going anywhere, save the next village over for their Rabbi's tish. The world got smaller and people got mixed up. It is no longer a chiddush that you are a mix of different backgrounds. Nearly everyone is.
4) I know that categorization is a useful and necessary tool for manipulating and understanding the world, and G-d knows, for shidduchim. But there is a limit people. Really. I am, indeed, all for the whole "be in as many categories as you want! It's fun and confusing!"approach, because it is fun. And confusing. But there is a point at which other people really don't care as much as you do. So, you know. Chill out.

I think this last is very possibly my main point. When you start getting into long-winded, more than thirty word descriptions of exactly who, where, and what you are in the Jewish world, it gets to be a little much. It's like "ok, I get it, you're not the steryotype!" Only, of course, you are.

I mean, look man, all I'm saying is this; I barely have the energy to care about my own issues of identity (which I have, just like everyone else) but I have even less patience for everyone else's issues of identity. Really, we don't care that much. And really? Neither should you.

On Questions of Identity

2008-02-05T10:44:00.000-08:00

No, that's not the name of a class. I'm just being pretentious this time. :) It is however, inspired by a class. So there.

In my Philosophy in Literature class (I know, right? I love being a philosophy major. We take the coolest classes ever,) we've been studying this poem by Zelda called לכל איש יש שם- Every Man Has a Name. (I tried to find the text and failed. Sorry.) The basic gist of the poem is that an individual claims an identity in every aspect of his life, and that all these identities together are what make up the individual. Well, that's my interpretation of it, but I'm pretty sure that's the generally accepted interpretation. Anyway, naturally it started a discussion on the nature of identity - what is the "I" of an individual? And it reminded me of this.

In tenth grade, we had this class once a week called Mechanechet. Essentially, every class was assigned a mechanechet - a teacher who was supposed to be our personal guidance counselor or something. She was supposed to be the one you could go to talk to in case you had an issue. Twice a week she taught us "Machshava" (Or, "how Not to Think") (sorry that was overly bitter; I'm a bad person) and once a week we had a session called "mechanechet" that was supposed to be the whole class together discussing whatever "issues" were on our minds. Like tznius, or....tznius. And then sometimes we discussed tznius. Sorry, really stopping now.

Anyway, this one particular week our Mechanechet wanted to do this activity with us. I came in late and grumpy, bc I always davened too long and never got enough sleep (two completely separate and very long stories) and I was handed this sheet. I don't even remember what was on it, but one of the things we were told to do was to write down what we would miss about a friend of ours if she weren't there. You know, sick or moved away or something, nothing morbid. I spent the entire time staring blankly at the sheet and getting more and more frustrated and upset. I mean, what the hell were we supposed to say? "Her bright and cheery smile." "Her sense of humor." "Her caring nature." "Her intelligent input in daily conversation." I mean, what if she didn't go anywhere, but she got depressed and withdrawn and stopped smiling and laughing and talking to people? Is she no longer the same person? Has she become someone else? Would we still say "Where has Shaindy gone? I miss her!" (I mean one could but that would be obnoxious.) How the hell were we supposed to be defining the essence of a friend in terms of external behaviors? Is that how we were supposed to define people? Is that how we're supposed to define ourselves? And why are we trying to define people anyway?

I tried asking some of these questions and I think exactly no one knew what I was talking about. Which just made it worse, of course. Admittedly I was probably babbling and I think close to tears. (This makes sense to none of you who didn't know me in high school. I was very, very tired. The whole four years.) But the question continued to bother me, and I still haven't figured it out.

What is the essence of a human being? What is the "I?" Is it our mind? But what about when that goes? Our hearts? What does that even mean? Our souls?

I actually had a real problem with that last theory bc if you're operating on the assumption that everyone is a gilgul (which I still was; I was barely two years out of Chabad let's not forget, and Chabbad philosophy tends to be the root of my world view even to this day) then your soul can't be you bc your soul isn't just yours. Oh, right. The reason that's problematic is bc, then what happens at techiyat hametim? Who are you then? What is the eternal, unshifting, unchanging, permanent "I?"

I've only come to a couple of possible very weak and sort of troubling conclusions. The first is that there is no"I." We just think there is bc it's a convenient device for manipulating the world, to think of oneself as having an intrinsic individual selfehood. The second is that we are not one of our characteristics, but the whole mesh of everything together. There is no one single essence, but rather the essence is the sum total of the parts of the individual - all of my qualities, plus my environmental influences, plus my free will. Everything altogether as one. But it doesn't feel right.

Rav Dessler says that man is only his choices - which is to say, only his free will. I can maybe buy that, but it doesn't feel completely right either.

In the nearly six years that I have been pondering this question, that's all I have come up with. Anyone else have any ideas? Cuz at this point, I'm kind of desperate....

On Questions of Life and Death

2008-01-30T05:40:00.000-08:00

I know, great title, right? "Questions on Life and Death" happens to be the latter half of the title of a class that I am currently taking. I can't remember the first half. It is a very long course title. In Hebrew. So. You know.

As a peppy opening discussion for the first class, my professor handed out an article reprinted from haaretz which was about the following story:

A man and his wife, both around the age of 84, both survivors, had apparently made arrangements to commit suicide together. They thought the whole thing through very rationally, and left detailed instructions about how to arrange all of their affairs and what exactly needed to be done after they were gone, and took a bunch of pills. The wife died, but their son found the husband in time to call Madah and he was saved. The court then put him on trial bc they suspected him of murdering his wife.

We were told to break up in groups of three and discuss this. The two questions were: 1) Does man have the right to kill himself? 2) Does society have a right to stop him?

At first I didn't know how to react to the situation. I don't believe in suicide for multiple reasons, mostly bc of the after-effects on family and friends. Killing yourself isn't just making a life-decision for you, it's making a life decision for everyone you know and care about. That's the kind of responsibility that I don't want, personally. It's bound to hurt someone. Plus, I'm not into destruction. I'm into preservation. And if it is in any way possible to preserve something, especially something as huge as a life, I'm generally in favor.

But I realized that there were situations where it might seem rational to someone, where it might seem to be the best option, especially when alternative ones offer ridiculous amounts of pain and suffering. So, I couldn't really judge for the couple in question.I mean, it's not like I have the right to judge people for their decisions in general, but especially when they're in, or are facing, tremendous amounts of pain.

Of course the question involves basic questions of morality - like, is there such a thing and how would it apply here?But I didn't feel like getting involved in that end of it (it's another discussion from another class and I didn't have the energy to re-hash it) so I ignored it.

From the aspect of the law; it always seemed silly to me to make a law against suicide bc come on now. Some one considering suicide is clearly not worried about what the law is going to do to them for it. That's the last thing on their minds. Aside from the very obvious point of the fact that the government can't do anything about it.

From the perspective of the government however, I see why there needs to be that law. Firstly, it is the job of the government and the police force, and any other authoritative body of the law, to protect the people. This is an extension of that duty. Plus, if you don't, it just makes things messy. I mean, how would it look to be pro-suicide? you know, aside from the idea that murderers might use the excuse of "It was just assisted suicide man. I swear, he wanted me to kill him." Which would be difficult to disprove. But making suicide legal is messy in general.

This post was mostly written on a head cold so I'm sorry it isn't more polished and intelligent. But I wanted to know what the blogosphere thought. Anyone?

Family Vignettes

2008-01-13T17:22:00.001-08:00

Editor's Note: I wrote this a few weeks ago. It's been almost four weeks since the surgery. But the time as-was sounded better, so I figured an editor's note was better than corrupting the original text. (Hee! I get to be the author AND the editor! Long live the internet!)

As some of you may or may not now, I recently underwent surgery to have my gallbladder removed, and I've been recovering this last week and a half or so. My abdominal muscles are still sore with the healingness, and the muscles that were sliced into were the ones near the diaphragm, and are responsible for helping me do things like breathing, coughing, sneezing, bending, and walking/sitting upright. The recovery process has been slow and a bit awkward.

The worst part of it is, now that I can breathe more or less normally, it still hurts to laugh. One doesn't realize how much of a problem this is until one has to deal with it themselves. For example, until one is constantly surrounded by people who have singularly ridiculous conversations. Case in point:

Scene: A dinner table. Present are Father, Mother, Brother, Sister.

Mother: I was just on the phone with Brother2. He's buying hamburger meat for the first time.
Brother: So? Isn't he, like, 23?
Father: Yes.
B: Wait, how is this the first time he's ever bought hamburger meat in his life before?? The first time I bought hamburger meat I was fifteen. We used to grill things in the woods all the time.
M: Yeah, no, he used to do that too, but you know it's different when a bunch of guys are throwing things around in the woods.
B: What?
Sister: Ow! Can we stop, please?
M: This is his first time cooking it in his own kitchen.
B: How can that be? this isn't the first time he's had a kitchen before, is it?
F: Well -
B:I mean, I had one in Israel, and then when I came back and lived with my friends, and then I went to college and I had my own kitchen there, and then I had that other apartment-
F: Yeah, he's had his own kitchen before, but he's got his own grill, and it's different when you're grilling it, you know.
S: Guys? Seriously. Please?
B: I'm just saying, it's not like buying alcohol or something. I mean, you go to the frozen meat section and there it is and you take it out and you buy it, it's not a big deal. You don't even need i.d.
M: Yeah but he's just one person, so he's not going to use all that, and he wanted advice on how to store it. Plus, you know, I mean he doesn't cook that much all on his own, and-
B: What do you mean? You wrap it in tinfoil and you put it in the freezer. I mean, if you really want to be extra careful you can go to the supermarket and see how they wrap their meat and take some notes on that, but I don't know, I mean generally it's not that complicated.
S:Ouch!
F: It's always a big deal when a man makes hamburgers on his own for the first time. It's a statement of manhood.
M: And, you know, I mean he's not that culinary, and it's nice to hear him planning out a meal like that -
F: Me man - make fire, eat meat.
S: I think I'm splitting something, guys, can we please-
B: What teenage guy hasn't attempted to make hamburgers at what point or another? This seems like a rite of passage he should've been done with in high school.
M: Plus, you know, he's so far away and he likes to call for advice because, you know it's company-
B: Tinfoil! Seriously. If you want to get fancy, you can wrap the individual patties, but come on now, what else is there?
S: Ouch!

It went on like that for a good twenty minutes. I'm still in pain.

A Question of Philisophical Angst

2008-01-07T00:09:00.000-08:00

This has been driving me nuts, and honestly, since I'm still recovering from having my gallbladder removed, I'm not sure I have the strength to start this discussion. But I will anyway.

I've been reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (Robert M. Pirsig) and, like all good books, it agitated me. There was a bit somewhere near the middle (chapter 11 or 12) where he's discussing Kant and Hume....I was going to take you along with me on the journey that was the evolving thought process which led to this burning question, but I have decided not to. Honestly, it will just confuse things. Trust me that there was a beginning point from which this sprang, and there is a direction in which it is going, hopefully ending somewhere around the idea of formulating a logic proof for G-d's existence. Never mind though.

The question which I am trying to put to you, my fellow bloggers - and I am very very much depending on you all to answer it, bc I need some help here - is this: What is the a priori abstract conception of an idea? You know, kind of like Plato's Ideal chair. Kind of.

In an attepmt at clarification; the idea being that there is this abstract concept of an ideal chair floating out there in the universe, and every physical chair in this world is a representation of that ideal, resembling it as closely as it can. So - there's this abstract ideal floating in the universe that is the ideal "Idea". What is this? What does that mean?

A Note on the Agunah situation

2007-12-27T22:51:00.000-08:00

So, I know the whole agunah thing has been an isue for awhile now, and that there are rabbis trying to take preventative steps for situations like these - for example, encouraging pre-nup agreements (which is what the ketubah was originally supposed to be, it's just that now the monetary amount is no longer enough to really be an incentive.) But I was not aware that there are actually people in the world who work to actually put the heter mea rabbanim into practice. I can't imagine that there are actually 100 rabbis in the frum community who could support this sort of thing. However, such seems to be the case, at least allegedly. So I'm linking to Frum Satire's post here, bc there are more links there.

This is An Excuse

2007-12-25T02:16:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure no one's noticed, really, especially since many bloggers go through many periods of time during which they post nothing. Due to laziness or busy-ness or apathy or exhaustion. Sometimes writer's block. I could go on. My point is, no one is expecting or needing an excuse from me on why my posts have been slow lately. So I guess this is just for me, really.

A lot has been happening with me personally these last two and a half months or so. And I don't blog about personal stuff, generally. So since my head has mostly been filled up with personal stuffs of various natures it hasn't been filled up with stuff I could post about. (And if it is in some other place, then clearly it is not here....) So. Perhaps, as E-Kvetcher recommends, I finally have "enough stimuli" to keep me busy. Although, not at all ironically, not one whit less angsty. Such is life.

An amusing tidbit; one of my bestest friends ever in the world got married this weekend. At the kabbalat panim she blessed me that my life should be simple and without struggles. I honestly did not know what to make of that. But I love her so I said "amein."

What up dawgs?

2007-12-13T19:17:00.000-08:00

Sorry. It gets boring sometimes, having to think of a new title for every post. One has to mix it up every once in awhile.

So, I'm annoyed. Which is not unusual. But the source of my annoyance is multi-faceted. It is also nearly five-thirty in the morning and I have not yet been to sleep. Again, not unusual. Just, a contributing factor to the general madness. You should all be aware.

A relatively recent post on Orthoprax's blog brought this up in a vaguely crystallized form, but the crystallization process has been crystallizing for quite some time, more turbulently in the last couple of weeks. There is no guarantee at all of any of this being lucid or coherent in any way, so I"m just going to rant.

Said post of Orthoprax's reminded me of a favorite quote of mine from Little Women (Louisa May Alcott); which, to paraphrase, goes something like the following; Amy is complaining about the snobby girls at her school who "label" her father for not being rich. Her sister chides her by saying she means "libel" and oughtn't to talk of her father as though he were a jar of pickles.

Words are funny things, aren't they?

I've met quite a few people who leap in terror at the slightest sign of being categorized; "Well, yes, I went to x seminary, y yeshiva, come from z neighborhood, but don't label me!! For G-d's sakes, whatever you do, anything but the labeling!" It is to me both naive and endlessly frustrating.

First: Everyone categorizes. It's how the human brain assimilates information. In other words, everyone does it, and no one can help it. So do you. Deal with it.

Second: Who cares? People are going to think what they're going to think; where you've been tells something about you, even if it's not what everyone thinks it should be. (That sentence really does have a meaning in my head; I think I'm incapable of extrapolating, however.)

Third: Why the intense fear? Seriously. My motto is, fit into as many categories as possible. This confuses people and stymies their thought processes. Which is always good clean fun. I like to think of myself as the steamer trunk George Bailey always wanted to have - covered with as many labels from as many different places as possible, and when there's no more surface room, you pile them on top and make layers. (Like onions!) Not only are you confusing and exotic but also intensely interesting and colorful. Where is the bad in that? (Besides, if you refuse to categorize yourself in any way shape or form, what are you? Nothing. Amorphous vapor passing through people's minds completely incapable of leaving any sort of valid and lasting impression. Who wants that? Seriously?)

It's like William James said (I'd link, but I won't) there are two kinds of philosophers - those who need to know the truth and those who are terrified of being wrong. The first group rushes madly from belief to belief, from idea to idea, only discarding one for another when it is sounded and discovered to be false. The second refuses to believe anything, bc they can never know for sure that they are right.

So, the question is, are you going to spend life living, even if you will inevitably make mistakes, or will you let your fear paralyze you into nothingness and inaction, living frozen and suspended in a strange no-man's land where nothing is ever solid or real?

Also...I just feel like if we all spent a little more time living our lives, our personalities would shape themselves and fall into their correct places naturally. This world of stuffing yourself into one category or leaping away from all of them in intense dread and loathing has a tendency to become mildly stagnant, once you get past all the semantics.

In my personal opinion, anyway. Just saying.

Another Link

2007-11-29T07:10:00.000-08:00

Someday, I will write a real post. Probably not today though. Meanwhile, flying cats!!! Come on, how can anyone not love that?

More Mattisyahu

2007-11-25T11:07:00.000-08:00

I know, I'm obsessed. I've resigned myself to this fact, and I now no longer care.

And EVERYONE should read this, cuz I think it's pretty awesome.

I Finally Got Tagged!!!

2007-11-04T13:12:00.000-08:00

Lubab No More has tagged me in a meme; five somewhat interesting things about you that I will not read in your stupid Frumster profile.

I don't have a Frumster profile, I think they suck the life out of you. Hmmm, interesting. OK.

1) One of my favoritest birthday presents ever this year was a flask. (Thank you, Gabe!)

2) I have been on two cruises in my life; one to the Bahamas, one to Mexico, Jamaica, and Key West. Some of the places were beautiful, but all were very touristy. The rest of it was boring. I do not recommend.

3) I once tried to send home with all my elementary school cohorts a flier composed of utter ridiculousness which involved aliens and toilets and copy machines. It almost worked, too.

4) I took two years of beginners saxophone lessons my last two years in high school. I now possess my grandfather's old saxophone and it is sitting in my room, but I can't really play. I also currently possess a friend's guitar which I also cannot play. But my air guitar is pretty cool.

5) I have a bad habit of starting random independent publications at the drop of a hat. It's kind of my go-to solution for almost every situation. It's hard to explain how that would work which, trust me, adds to the nonsense. This blog has actually been very very good for quenching that need.

And in turn I tag Tobie, Yoni, Nemo, and E-kvetcher.

Maybe People Are Just Sad

2007-10-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

My parents are both baalei teshuva and I've asked them about their stories multiple times. Because I like stories. And because, why wouldn't you ask something like that, providing you're comfortable enough to? And my parents, bless them, like to tell stories. I don't know where they got that from, because apparently, no one else we're related to does. But.

So my father has told me many times; his feeling of emptiness, his sense that there was more, his inability to logically accept what Traditional Jews have adopted as their creed. (A question; it has become my impression that Traditional Jews - a movement somewhere between Reform and Conservative- only exist in the Midwest. Is this true? Has anyone else heard of them? As an American movement, I mean.) The complete story is actually fairly complex and fascinating, but I'm not gonna go into all that now. The basis of it, the beginning, was his sense of lacking and his philosophical nature, coupled with a nice bit of Jewish intellectual elitism.

Here's the thing. So I grew up religous. And I was pretty good with my perception of things up until about two and a half years ago. But even before that, long before, I had the same sense of emptiness and futility. It wasn't my dominant feeling, usually. I did get a lot of meaning and fulfillment out of my Judaism. But I was still existentially sad.

I have to say, it had a lot to do with my zionism, and the fact that I made aliyah. I'm not going to say that I blamed America for my existential depression, because I was too logical and realistic for that, even then. But I saw America as a hollow shell, somewhere that there was no reason to be. I would look out the window - any random window, at any random time - and think "Why? Why am I here? Why?" And the answer was always, "Because I'm still a kid and I can't get to Israel yet." Which was, if not satisfactory, at least true.

The reason I don't cite this as my motivation for aliyah - well there are several actually. For one thing, it's far too difficult to explain in ten words or less. Secondly, people consider you an unrealistic idealist and don't take you seriously. And thirdly because I always knew that Israel would not solve all my existential issues. It's just the right place to be. Which does help. I still can't stand being in America or too long, despite the fact that all my family and half my friends are there, for the very same reasons; the vapidity, the shallowness, the pointlessness. Whatever you want to say about Israel, there's a reason to be here, there is always a point to being here, and that's enough. But has it solved my existential depression? The futility and hopelessness of human existence, G-d or no G-d? Not in the slightest.

So this is my new theory: maybe people are just sad. People who can conceive of something vaguely like what infinity might be, or might not be, maybe people who can think will always just be existentially sad, whether or not they have religion. I mean, religion provides a lot that can make you feel better in between times. But does it solve that ultimate ache which is a lack of understanding, that longing for non-futility? Even if you believe.

The answer is, not really in any way at all.

A Question On A Story

2007-10-10T17:18:00.000-07:00

70th post and over 5,000 hits. I know most of them were me, probably, but still. I think it's kind of cool.

So, you know that whole ladder metaphor they use to tell us that you can't stay the same, you're either improving or getting worse? Spiritually, I mean. They say, "people think they're just fine the way they are, that they can just stay the same and not work on themselves and grow in Torah and avodah etc. But that's never true. It's like a ladder, right? You can't stand still on a ladder, you're either going up or going down."

But the thing is, you can stand still on a ladder. It would be sort of silly to, for an indefinite amount of time, because, I mean, why would you? A ladder is generally a means to an end, not a place to hang out. But it's physically possible. Nothing and no one is really making you get off that ladder, if you really want to stay on it.

Sometimes I like to think that it's flawed metaphors like this that really started all the trouble to begin with....

simchat torah

2007-10-05T02:43:00.000-07:00

why does watching a group of man in black suits and hats dancing around in a circle and being fantastically silly make me feel all warm and mushy about Jews and why I love them? There is absolutely no reason why watching Jews dance should make me love them more. But it does. Why is that?

update

2007-09-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

Things have been going blue again lately. Now that the haze of jetlag has finally dispelled somewhat and I can think without my head going fuzzy, I should try to put things together a bit. But the likelihood of success seems slim to me.

Why is it that every time I come home I feel more and more like a disaffected teenager? Far more than I ever did when I actually was a teenager, and actually lived here. There's something vaguely suspicious happening the minute you recognize in yourself every detatched/depressed-angsty-suburban adolescent character who's ever been in any movie made about disaffected suburban youth. You have to wonder, how much of it is genuine and how much unconsciously deliberate. Another one of those "This is how the movies have depicted my persona, and therefore this is how I should be, therefore this is how I am" situations.

Not that my frustration with my home community is false in any way. The truth is, of course I never really felt like I fit in here, but I used to make the best of it, more or less, I guess because I had to. But I've fallen so far out of sync with these people that it's getting harder and harder to relate to them, even to the extent of basic polite human interaction. I mean, I've never been able to pretend that I was something I wasn't, hence the dangly earrings in shul incident(see below for elaboration); but I guess at this point they've all realized there's no longer any point in trying to save me, so they've stopped caring back. Which is fine, actually, it makes life easier, if perhaps a little less friendly.

It doesn't help either that I seem also to revert to the adolescent role in family interactions. Which is ironic, because I think I was easier on the parents when I was a teenager. I guess it's always easier to be with people when you agree with them most of the time. So in addition to feeling out of place in my community, things are always sort of jarred at home too. It's my fault, really. I should have more patience and more respect. I keep telling myself I will, next time, and then somehow fall back into the same irritable patterns. It's not that I'm not trying, I think, although maybe I'm not trying hard enough. But it just gets so frustrating when I can't seem to make them hear me. Especially since I'd always kind of felt that my parents and I were more or less on the same wavelength, but lately it seems like we speak two different languages...and we mumble them.

It all just furthers the sensation that I no longer quite belong in a place where I once did. It's sort of like living in some weird alternate reality...all the cues are telling you you're home, but you don't feel at home. It's a very vague disorienting sort of a sensation. Maybe if I were here for a longer period of time I'd be able to settle into some sort of a routine, reclaim some of the old in some kind of new pattern. But just being here in bits and pieces only leaves things sort of disjointed, possibly more out of place than they were before. I guess it's a good thing; otherwise it might be too hard to leave.

(Dangly earrings in shul incident: Not sure exactly when this happened - maybe the summer after my first year in seminary? I don't think I was still in high school...Anyway, I mostly only wear long dangly earrings, because I just like them better, I think they're pretty. I have multiple pairs for shabbat, and I've been wearing them that way since at least eleventh grade. Anyway, on this one particular shabbat morning, I was walking home from shul with my friend S, who goes to the same shul as me, has also made aliyah, and is several years older, so she'd already been away from home longer than I. She looked at my earrings and remarked "I have earrings kind of like that; I was maybe going to wear them today, but then I thought, no they're too dangly for shul." (We go to a chassidishe shteibly type shul.) I put my hands up to my ears in surprise because such a thought had never actually occurred to me and said "What? Were these innapropriate?" And she said, "No, it's ok - no one notices it on you, because they know it's just you. But for me...people might have said something." It's not that these sorts of earrings aren't her; but S has a kind of a talent for blending into whatever setting she's in. She's kind of chameleon-like that way. It's more than just the clothes. She has a knack for somehow being appropriate for wherever she is, for just knowing instinctively how to act and talk and do whatever is called for. I've always envied her that actually, because she never seems awkward anywhere; whereas I, who can never be what I am not, no matter what, get into awkward situations all the time. So anyway, people in this particular setting wouldn't expect something like my earrings from her, because she would never dress that way in that setting. I, on the other hand, dress pretty much the same wherever I go. I kind of refuse to do otherwise. So people have just sort of got used to me, I guess. But I think they always thought I'd grow out of it when I grew up and needed a shidduch, and the fact that I haven't confuses and disturbs them. Which of course is just part of the fun.)

(sorry for the hazily written self-indilgen monologuing. we now return you to your previously scheduled program, already in progress...)

This is perhaps not the best recorded version, but the song exactly suits my state of mind right now....

In Transit

2007-09-16T15:26:00.000-07:00

Hey all. So I'm leaving for America in less than 36 ish hours or so; which means I'll be hellishly busy and then on a plane. I hope everyone's chag and tzom were what they were supposed to be, and G-d willing I'll speak to you from the other side of the Ocean. Eventually.

Elul Zman

2007-09-04T16:27:00.000-07:00

So the King is in the fields again. They say we can ask for anything. Tell me please - what is it that you are all asking for?

Last year I wrote about my Yom Kippur experience; and I have to say the same thing applies now if not more so. Here's the thing.
Last year, I cried as Yom Kippur ended. I cried after the sunset, because I was looking at all these trusting, hopeful, joyfully faithful Jews - joyful and faithful despite what these past two years had brought them - and the thought of G-d letting them down again was too much. I couldn't stand it. I hate hope. Sometimes I hate hope more than anything in the world. Its very existence is a set-up and a testament to what G-d's already done to you, and to what He may still do. So I cried when it was too late and all I could say was "Please please please don't hurt them again. Please just spare them, give them some peace." But I was beating against locked gates, and I knew it.
If it was only that, maybe I could have resigned myself to it; but I hadn't done enough to try and prevent it. I couldn't face the coming year and say "Well, at least I did my part as well as I could." Because I couldn't feel any of it. I kept trying to, trying to break past that wall between my consciousness and what was going on inside of me and utterly failing. My head kept saying "Feel something, damnit!" And my insides said "What? What exactly do you want from me? Where do I go from here?" My tears last year were not those of repentance, but those of failure on my part, and hopelessness on the part of my people.

This may all have been irrelevant, except that the year....was difficult. I don't blog too much about really personal stuff, because honestly, I really don't want to tell people too much about my life. But.

I lost two of my grandparents within months of each other....which is of course upsetting, but because I had only met them a few times in my life, and those when I was very young, the personal loss wasn't the most disturbing thing about it. There were other factors, which I'm not going into; but the worst thing was not being home when my Mom was sitting shivah. I kind of have this thing about my parents being upset or in pain. I can't stand it. I hate the thought of either one of them hurting or sad. And it's one thing when I'm right there and can do something, help out with what needs doing around the house, talk to them, be a physical presence of comfort. But being thousands of miles away, not able to do anything but imagine what they must be going through is...well, it sucks. Really really a lot.

There was another death this year, one which I still haven't really talked about, although others have, and more eloquently than I ever could. I still don't understand why it had such a huge impact on me...that's not true either, I do know why.

I grew up with this girl...not close or anything, but seen her around the community... I was in her bunk in day camp this one summer...wow, I just realized that two girls from my bunk that summer are dead now. Talk about a head rush. Most people go through their high school year books and talk about who's married, who's got kids; we do that too, but we can also point out the girls who are dead.

Anyway, when we first heard she was sick, I got up in front of the girls in my sem and did the whole saying Tehillim, dividing up the Torah, stuff in refuah sheleima. I remember the first time...this other girl got up after me and added a name of another choleh. And I was annoyed. Can you imagine that? Being annoyed that someone else asked us to remember another person's suffering. I was so sick at my own reaction. But I got up after she asked it and said (which I'd meant to say in the beginning but forgot to ) one reason I was particularly anxious about this girl( besides her being a friend of mine) was that, in the past eight years or so, there'd been quite a few members of our community who'd died in their teenage years; and that I'd always wondered if we could have davened more, done more, if it would have made a difference. And I wanted to put my all into doing things for this girl's recovery. I think I may actually have started crying in front of them, which would only not surprise those who know me really really really well...And for a long time, I was heavily into the whole thing. But time goes by, very few people have the stamina, or the time, to keep that kind of commitment going, especially from so far away; so of course I continued to daven and say tehillim for her, but the intensity dropped off.
It was a fatal disease, I mean there's pretty much no chance of survival against this kind of thing, so we all knew what was coming. But I still wouldn't allow myself to verbalize the possibility, even in my head. I kept remembering all those stories they told us in Chabbad about people miraculously recovering from things like this with the Rebbe's bracha...he'd say something like "Check your mezuzahs," and the next time the doctors ran tests, the disease would have completely disappeared, as though it had never been. And I thought, hey, miracles happen. One could happen to her.
Anyway, I went to her funeral in Israel. ....as many times as you hear the kaddish being said in shul, it's nothing like hearing it said over a friend. I couldn't get the damn thing out of my head for a week. There's something so desperate and sad about the kaddish... pronouncing His holiness and dominion, submitting to it, in the darkest depths of suffering; saying it but hating it as you say it, protesting against it even though you know you can never believe anything else... something akin to what the rabbis in Auchwitz must have felt when they pronounced G-d guilty, and then went to daven maariv. I don't think that's what her father felt, or her family; she herself definitely did not; but they are far holier people than I, and it was definitely what I was feeling.

These aren't the only difficult things that happened this year, but they were the worst ones. And I still don't have the right to rail against G-d for things; there was so much good that also happened this year, it would be ungrateful. I know it's important to remember that, and I do. I am grateful, I just... have to figure out how to balance everything properly in my head, I guess.

So, it's Elul time again. We're coming up fast on Rosh Hashannah and by Yom Kippur I'll be back in America; my first Yom Kippur in three years that I haven't been in Israel. Now, I probably shouldn't let the good old Jewish guilt get to me and make me feel in some way responsible for...all of the above. Because, at the very least, that isn't healthy. But how do I avoid another Yom Kippur like the last one? How do I approach G-d on the day of Judgement and ask Him for forgiveness when I still can't trust Him? When I don't know what to say or how to act? When I still don't know what to pray for? When, standing in the shadow of my people's pain, my own struggle and individual voice sounds so hopelessly thin and inadequate? I don't have the right to ask for His forgiveness. I don't have the right to speak some sort of defense on behalf of my people. Even now, though this has been the most painful post I've ever written, I can already feel the floodgates of emotion closing inside of me. How do I access that which will give me the right to speak? How do I maintain it? And most of all - will it make even the tiniest shred of difference whether I succeed in this or not?

On Tzniut

2007-08-24T04:06:00.000-07:00

This irritated me so I thought I'd see if I could develop it into a worthwhile rant.

Brief disclaimer; basically none of this is directed at Yoni, since he's already made it quite clear that he defers to females in this area.

To begin, I will recount an anecdote. When I was in high school, we used to have bnei bayit at our house almost every shabbat for meals. Basically family friends, people we grew up with. People who enjoyed arguing, because, in case any of you have missed this, it's kind of an olympic sport in my house. I remember in particular one conversation about tzniut, involving one of these bnei bayit, a well-intentioned male who, it deserves mention, has nothing but respect for womenkind; but although his intentions were clearly respectful, they were also slightly misguided, and I remember saying, essentially, "Dude, how many classes have you had on the subject? How many lectures by guest speakers? How many sources have you read? How many 'informal casual discussions' with teachers? Over the course of your entire education?" He'd maybe had a class (read: single class period), heard a speaker, had a conversation or two with his rabbi. And I said "Yeah, I've had about four to five of each of those things per year since sixth grade, possibly earlier. And we're not even going into summer camp shaiur and extracurricular chugim stuff." Yeah, also this was pre-seminary. (Not to mention, we're (us females) the ones who shop for clothing, and wear the clothing, so we know things like what's available, what kind of stuff looks like what on our bodies, things abut drape and cut and material, etc, which most guys don't know or care about bichlal(excepting possibly Yoni ;))And he said "Huh; ok, so maybe you know a bit more about it than I do."

And that's kind of my point. You guys think you know what you're talking abut? Trust me, we do. At least, those of us with any background in the religous educational system. It's been rammed down our throats since we were old enough to dress ourselves. Mammash? You don't have to lecture us. Girls know what things look like on them. We wear what we want to wear, and we probably know the halachot better than you do. If you have a problem with it, kindly deal. Take it to your shrink. He's the only one who cares what you think about this anyway.

I mean, forget the business about being uninformed; (although trust me, chumrot in place of actual halachik knowledge? Not exactly minimal in this area) why would men make it their business to notice exactly what the women are or aren't wearing, and how that exactly fits in with the rules and standards, and then lecture us about it? Shouldn't they be learning torah and focusing on their own avodah? What exactly do they gain by being so overly concerned about our stuff? And don't you give me kol yisrael areivim zeh bazeh, because if that's what their concern really is, I can point them in a few other directions in more dire need of attention.

The ongoing hypocrisy really gets me. The people who blatantly disregard halacha in so many areas get to lecture people on stuff that isn't their inyan at all? I know not all of the men out there who care about this issue blatantly disregard halacha. But a lot of them do. And I'm sorry. The minute you're a blatant hypocrite is the moment you lose all right to pass judgment on how other Jews handle their religiosity. Not that you ever really had that right to begin with, but whatever, that's not the point.

So that's one point, although I'll be honest, it kind of irked me to have a rabbi lecturing us abut tzniut also. I mean I know he's a man of Torah and good intentions etc, and I appreciate that. But let someone who really has to deal with these issues talk about it man. Otherwise, even the best intentioned, purest-souled, longest-bearded rabbi of them all sounds sanctimonious, self-rightous, and condescending.

But all of that, while yes it bothers me, is not what bothers me most. What bothers me most is the uniformity which is slowly overcoming the orthodox world and expressing itself particularly in clothing. If you remember, I mentioned a discussion Tobie and I had with a madricha in my last post. We were basically discussing women learning gemarah, and particularly how it does or doesn't affect their general avodah. Our madricha was saying how it shocked her that davka the girls that learn gemara are the ones who wear the lower necks, the shorter skirts and sleeves, who cover less of their hair, etc. Tobie said that it has something to do with the fact that mostly only girls from communities where those are the standards of tzniut are going to want to learn gemarah (I know, I know, not Chabbad; I'll be honest, it's one of the things I love most about Chabbad. Their women are just so darn hard-core! It's really very cool.) and I know that sociologically she's right. My madricha was saying, why is it these girls who spend so much time osek biTorah that don't want to fulfill the mitzvot to the fullest?Shouldn't these be the girls who davka would want to dedicate everything in their lives to Hashem and His service?

Look. I get the whole chassid bidavar, going the extra mile, G-d really appreciates the effort, thing. I do. Let's remember I am part chossid. But - one of the main things I love about Judaism is how within the framework of halacha, there can be many different opinions that are all mutar. I know people like to think that being makil means you're slacking off to make life easier and more comfortable for yourself. And I know that for a lot of people that's true. But supposing it gets to the point where all religous people hold by all the same standards? And therefore, no one knows that there is any but one single right way? Because they don't know any better, because it won't exist anymore. I think that the Torah and the halachik framework will lose half of its beauty and more than half of its truth. I think we'll have turned halacha into something G-d never wanted it to be; something narrow and dark and unimaginative. He gave us the Torah bishivim panim in order for it to be something wide and varied and wonderful, full of clashes and differences and color and argument. There are supposed to be a million opinions on everything. Why would we try to destroy that? Why do people assume that G-d wants us to? I think for this reason that there davka should be people who hold by the more makil opinions, just to remind people that they exist, and are in fact halachically valid. If your rabbi tells you that it is perfectly mutar according to halacha to cover only the scalp and the rest of your hair can hang free, then go for it. And if your rabbi says that loose-fitting pants are fine, then great. If he says red isn't really a big deal nowadays, I would buy that the average man on the street isn't going to mistake me for a hooker, although yes, I know there are some chareidi men wandering around who are unclear on this concept and may solicit my services, or stone me. I'm willing to take that risk.

I just want to say that just because there are women who dress this way (and hey! they also learn gemara!) it doesn't mean they don't live a life of Torah, completely dedicated to the service of G-d. Probably all of them don't, but again, how many women who wear the prescribed uniform do we know really live for that purpose? What gives us the right to make that judgment call based on what people are wearing?

One last thing, less about tzniut and more about Judaism in general; these people who say things like, "But nu, you know what G-d really wants from you..." or "Tachlis, what Gd really wants from us all is..."

I'm sorry. Did you install a G-d phone? Is He talking to you while you sleep now? Is there someway that I could get in on that deal, bc there's there's a couple things I'd like to ask Him if I could get the chance.....Tachlis, ladies and gentleman? I have no idea what the hell G-d wants from me. Sometimes I wish I did, because it would make things that much simpler, but mostly I know that THAT WOULD SORT OF DEFEAT THE PURPOSE OF WELL, YOU KNOW, EVERYTHING. So please, people, stop pretending that you and G-d have these one-on-one confabs every night, that you're so sure you know what He's trying to say. I mean, I love your sincerity and your effort, but seriously, when it comes to real truth, you really know just about as much as the rest of us. Please accept that and move on.

Oficially Left Wing

2007-08-18T16:03:00.000-07:00

Here is a test which officially claimed me to be Left Wing Modern O. I'm not sure why since I apparently scored higher (93%) as a Right Wing Modern O, (only 71% as a LWMO,) and I really don't know exactly how the scoring works. But I am insanely proud. Is that sad?
(I'm not sure exactly where that link is going to lead you all, but I don't know how to fiddle with html stuff. Maybe someone can instruct me. Yoni?)

Anyway, the reason this makes me giggle with sardonic and vaguely vengeful glee is a reflection on my weekend.

Thursday afternoon, my madricha from my first year in seminary came to visit me and Tobie. Now, at the time, we were Bais Yaakovers finding themselves in a real, honest-to-G-d Modern Orthodox institution for the first time in our lives, (maybe it wasn't Tobie's first time; still, we were pretty Bais Yaakoved, the both of us, comparatively at least,) and there was a lot to get used to. Like people respecting out intelligence and not actually thinking that wearing knee socks was the 11th commandment. Anyway, at the time, this madricha of ours, who was a major supporter of women learning gemarrah (not all women, the women who for whom it would increase their emunah and improve their avodat Hashem) and as someone who learned a lot of gemarrah herself, seemed pretty to the left of what we were used to. But talking to her Thursday....we realized just how far off the deep end of kfirah we'd really gone.

Like for example, how I don't think that women who wear shorter sleeves, or slightly lower necklines, or don't cover all of their hair, are really actually less religous than I am....or how I actually believe that there should davka be people who hold by the more lenient halachik opinions because if there weren't any it would cheapen what is so beautiful about the halachik system, actually stamp out the reason for its existence......

Or how, I'm not actually sure if G-d cares so much about what we do. Or if He does, how much. And if He does, how much that really matters.....

And the whole thing about choosing the halachik system as the system you decide to buy into. It somehow feels as if there ought to be more of an internal, inherent something pulling you to it....

Plus, there is the whole wanting to get smicha thing.

This Shabbat was spent with good, close friends, two out of three of whom went to pretty much exactly the same educational institutions as I did, so naturally we got to talking about high school, and how much we've changed since then. Highlighted by this: at some point, I remembered a story about the skirt I happened to be wearing. Not a terribly exciting story. It was just that, I had bought this skirt on my first trip to Israel, as a senior in high school checking out seminaries; and in its original incarnation, the skirt had two slits at the sides. They weren't very high slits. I don't think they even reached the middle of my calf. But when I got home I had them sown up. I think it wasn't actually out of frumkeit, and more a question of what to wear underneath....the eternal socks vs. tights on Shabbat issue which I didn't want to deal with, so I just simplified the situation by eliminating the question. Which turned out to be unnecessary, as I no longer wear socks or tights ever, except when it's really cold out.

I mentioned this ironically to one of my friends who said "Wow. You were really frum."

You've got to wonder about those teachers who warn you about going off the deep end. Some of them turn out to be right.....

The Great Orthodox-Jewish Novel

2007-08-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

So here's the thing about Matthue Roth. (I have written previously about this author, and his book, "Never Mind the Goldbergs," here.) I have several issues with his writing, and they bother me for a very good reason; and that reason is, I think he might be the guy to write The Great Orthodox-Jewish Novel. This is something my friend and I have been discussing for quite some time - that someone needs to write the Great Orthodox-Jewish Novel - a novel about the American Orthodox culture that is honest without speaking loshon hora; that is all inclusive and brings in tiny little corners and basement groups of the community that people ignore; that is creative and truthful and beautiful without being sappy and moral-driven. Something that is truly a work of art, and can therefore accomplish things the way only only real art can. We've been talking about which one of us should attempt it and from what angle, and if the world is truly ready for something like it, since high-school.

And then I discovered Matthue Roth and became supremely jealous because I think he'll get there first.

I have two main issues with Roth's work as a novelist:
1)Inconsistencies and inaccuracies; generally details about the frum community that are mis-portrayed or insufficiently described.
2) A sometimes sloppy writing style, which has the tendency to drop in little details or concepts that are muddled and confused to begin with, and which are then never picked up again or explained in any way.

And it's a shame, because if not for these two things, Matthue Roth's work could be that tremendous testimony to Jewish Orthodox life, with all it's nit-picky faults and glorious sub-culture detail, that we've been waiting for.

As a BT, Roth hasn't grown up in the Orthodox community. Which is fine when, for example, in his autobiographical "Yom Kippur A Go-Go," he's describing his experiences in the orthodox community as a BT. It's a little less fine when, as in his novel "Never Mind the Goldbergs," he's trying to describe life inside the OJ community as a teenager. There are a million little inaccuracies in "Goldbergs" that frustrated me, speaking as a girl who did grow up inside the OJ community and can relate to Hava and the struggles she experiences.
And the funny thing was, I related to Hava's struggles as a Jew in a non-Jewish world much more than I did with her struggles as a slightly different Jew within the OJ community. I already ranted about my frustrations with this novel in the post I linked to above, so I won't re-hash that. But.

Roth is very very good at depicting the periphery personalities of the Jewish community. A lot of his characters remind me of people I know. Which, first of all, is exactly what good art is supposed to do; and secondly, makes sense, because that's what he knows. What he's not as strong at is portraying the OJ community from the inside. This would prevent him from being able to write a full-length feature on the OJ community, complete with the wide angle shots and all the tiny little shades, crevices, and details.

There are also the little stylistic issues in his writing; tiny things he sort of drops and then never picks up again, artistic allusions that are never really explained or understood. But that's an editing thing, a matter of cleaning up the prose a little.

But I am a huge fan of his writing. Similar to other authors that I am a fan of (Zoe Trope, Dave Eggers,) Roth's lyrical, honest, rythmic descriptions manage to hit home no matter how much of his work you may or may not identify with. His writing, like Trope's and Eggers', makes me want to live more, write more, be more, as a person with a world at my fingertips to take advantage of. And, of course, makes me want to write the way they do. There are many reasons why I may not be able to write the Great Orthodox-Jewish Novel, and why it should be Roth. And this is why the little things that bother me about his work do bother me.

Because I don't expect that kind of thing from authors like Tova Mirvis, and Naomi Regan, and Libby Lazewnik, or any other author who writes about the OJ community. While they are all, to greater and lesser degrees, talented authors, they're still not going to get it, because they focus on pieces and not on the whole. Or because they don't know the bits of the Jewish community that need writing about. They're too cynical, or not cynical enough. Roth strikes that balance, and he does know that world. And because he has the potential to write that novel, I really wish he would. But he has to bone up a bit on his facts and clean up his inconsistencies. If he would, I truly believe he has that potential the way no Orthodox author of our day does.

Our Music and the Nature of Truth

2007-08-04T17:22:00.000-07:00

So, this is something Nemo brought up in the comments in my previous post. (Ha! I love doing that! Thank you again, Halfnutcase, for teaching me how.) And the timing is interesting, considering all the controversy surrounding this particular issue.

I know a lot of people in the Jewish community object to secular music. It's a distraction from Torah; it comes from places of tumaah that encourages values contrary to what we believe in; it lures us with its glamour and its glory into the dangers of the non-Jewish world, etc etc etc. Further, and a separate point; people even object to Jewish music that's been influenced by the stylings of non-Jewish music. Jewish "rock" is too close to the edge of the secular world that lies so temptingly close to us. Once you start listening to Jewish "rock," a gateway drug, you'll soon be led to listen to non-Jewish rock; and from there it's only one step away from drugs, promiscuity, and breaking the holy Sabbath .

(I'm exaggerating slightly for effect. I do hope that's clear.)

These two points of mine- the objection to secular music itself, and the objection to its siamese twin, "Jewish Rock," are separate but closely intertwined. First, let's deal with the issue of Jewish "rock."

Art is mainly about communication, in whatever form it happens to find itself. Even if the communication is only between the artist and himself (ie, brings the artist to a greater understanding of himself or the world around him) this still counts. If something communicates to no one, expresses no form of truth at all, it is invalid as a piece of art; and if it does, then it is a valid piece of art. At least, in my humble opinion.

Now, no good art, just like man, can exist in a vaccum. It comes in a context, complete with conscious and unconscious influences, commentaries, bits and pieces of the artist and people or things the artist knows, loves, and hates. This is true of all and every art form, for all and every artist.

And as much as we'd love for it to be true that Jews are capable of inventing a completely unique style of music, we have to admit that it's just not so. It' never has been. Niggunim? Old Russian bar songs. Whiny saxaphone-murdering over-sentimentalized whining? Lounge music and bad 80s pop songs. (That's how no one recognizes them.) I mean, let's not even get into Schlock Rock, whose selling point is parodies; or the Beach Boys' version of Dror Yikrah, aka Sloop John B. I mean, it's just never been true. Even Israeli pop music -it's influences are either western pop, or middle-eastern stylings reminiscent of desert wanderers and Mulsim prayers.

That said, exactly what do you expect from us? To not listen to music at all? Not that there aren't halachik opinions to support that view, but try implementing it. No don't. It'll only frustrate everyone and end in blood and ugliness. So that's point 1 - if you want music, it's derivative of some form of non-Jewish music. Period.

Point 2- Why are people so violently afraid of non-Jewish music? Why should you immediately negate anything in G-d's world, if it has potential to teach you something true? Why do we assume that everything secular is the devil? Why do we think that G-d wants us to be so closed off and sheltered and ignorant? Our G-d that loves information, so much so that He created His world out of it? Our G-d that loves the search, that hides from us to drive us farther forward? Our G-d that wants us to advance, to actively create truth and beauty? Is that not why He created us to begin with? To discover and create truth and beauty? Why then do we try so hard to live in a world that is stifling and narrow and ugly? Why do we try so hard to make life as unpleasant and difficult for ourselves as possible? Did not G-d say that it is forbidden to cause ourselves to suffer deliberately? How can we justify suffocating our people, at a time when it is more necessary than ever that we breathe and bloom and expand?

It's vitally important to be culturally fluent, (ie, be aware and informed of as much pop culture past and present, and actual culture, as is relevant) for several reasons. 1) So people don't think you're an ignoramus. 2) So you have some sense of context. Where, when, and why you are; what came before, what is, what might be, and why. Without some sense of where you are in the chain, you're completely ineffectual at having an impact on history. Without context, we miss the big picture completely, and to be completely unaware of one's context robs a person of at least half the truth he's capable of seeing and implementing towards making the world a better place and himself a better Jew.

The fact of the matter is, there's vast amounts of truth in art. That's what makes it art, if you'll remember; if it communicates some idea that people can relate to, that brings anyone to a greater understanding of themselves, others, or the world at large. There's a lot of that in non-Jewish music, because it's something non-Jewish artists understand. To a certain extent.

It all ties into the greater idea of truth being a whole lot more inclusive and complete than most religous people give it credit for. I think I've already tried to make the point that if we were to reach that one final answer we wouldn't have any reason to go on, and that therefore the answer is not the point; or rather not the ending point, because every answer only leads to further questions. If the truth is all-inclusive, then Torah is not the only source for it. Secular knowledge, secular literature, secular music, even, G-d forbid, television, movies and the internet! I just really don't think that G-d would have made us a world this wide and wonderful and full of truth everywhere you look if He didn't want us to take advantage of it. Because when you're talking about life, the universe and everything as it stands today, these other forums should be looked upon as supplementary sources, and sources, I think, that G-d put there for us to utilize, towards becoming better people, better Jews, and better able to serve Him.

This is not to say that all secular music/art is good. Of course some of it sucks. That art should be avoided, but I think it is a good idea to have the ability to be able to distinguish between that which is good and that which is bad.

Secondly, of course I don't mean people should listen to rock music or go to a museum in lieu of learning Torah. I think that it should only occupy spaces that were already blank. Remember, it's supplementary, not substitutional. So, you know, when you're driving to your chavrutah, or if you've already done all your learning for the day, and you need to unwind. I think these things are not only good to stick in those spaces but important, for all of the reasons delineated above..

Mattisyahu Debate Continued

2007-08-01T02:11:00.000-07:00

This interview seems to have sparked a lot of controversey; especially as regards this response. See here, here, and here. (Thank you, Halfnutcase.)

I'd like to say several things. First of all, most of what is being said here I said about a year ago, as probably none of you remember, here. Except not exactly there because you have to scroll most of the way down to get to it, but it's titled The Mattisyahu Debate, so it should be pretty easy to find.

And I'd like to say several things.
1)How can anyone base anything on that interview? It was an incomplete interview, and it sounds, from the way the answers didn't really answer their questions, like the quotes were taken out of context.
2) Chabbad is a really intense community. And they do have a tendency to ignore the existence of other Orthodox Jews; ie, once you're not so Lubavitch, clearly you're not really frum anymore. I can understand how this is limiting to everyone and anyone really, but especially someone whose always exploring. Spiritual searchers do not like final answers. Probably because final answers have little to do with truth.
3)I find that the ease and speed of condemnation is a little contrary to Chabbad's theoretical policy of warm and unconditional acceptance. To have denounced Shlomo Carlebach for breaking halacha is one thing; to denounce Mattisyahu for not really doing anything wrong at all is disturbing.
4)Jews maybe don't drink wine to relax (yeah, that's not true, let's just pretend it is though.) But Chabbanikim drink vodka at the drop of a hat. Which is more healthy?
5) I'm only going to say this once. STOP ENLISTING THE CHILDREN AS AN EXCUSE FOR, AND PRISONERS TO, YOUR SUSPICIOUS AND BASELESS PREJUDICES!!!!! (Just so you know, this goes for Dawkins too.) Entrapping the youth culture and dictating to them what music they can and cannot listen to is fascist and vaguely troubling. I love how people get to take the high ground the minute it's about "the children." G-d forbid we should allow "the children" to think or decide for themselves. G-d forbid we should teach them what intellectual and moral discrimination really is instead of just telling them what to believe. But no matter what the particular brand of dogma is at the moment, whether it be evolution or Chassidut of any form, as soon as you invoke "the children," you've got the upper hand, ethically and morally. Why can't everyone just leave "the children" out of it, and discuss your issues as your own issues?

Sorry, that's been a long time coming; and it isn't 100% logically sound, I know, but I'm getting really pissed off with all this indoctrination. It isn't just Chabbad, it's everywhere...ah well. Another rant for another time.

Meanwhile, I hope Mattisyahu sticks with the yiddishkeit, because that's what makes him so hardcore; and the fact that his music is all about Torah, and life, is part of what makes him such a unique and amazing performer within the secular mainstream. But I have to say, for all those of you out there who are worried about it, I wouldn't say that this article is neccessarily an indication of anything, except a typical frustration with a Chassidic community.

1st Anniversary

2007-07-22T14:14:00.000-07:00

It has officially been a year since I made aliyah, this past Friday.I really ought to make some sort of profound observation about it. However, I have a new life philosophy; profound statements are silly. It's all been said already, so I won't bore you with more redundancies. Mazal tov to me! And an easy fast to all of you.

Where the Carpet Ends

2007-07-15T17:35:00.000-07:00

Pour out of me again, please
Speak, tell me what’s still in there
Because I don’t know anymore, and I kind of think I might need to.
Once upon a time
When I was littler
the outside world had walls where the carpeting stopped
But now
That it’s so much bigger and wider and inclusive and whole
And I can breathe again
I have no clue what’s left on the inside
My inner alleyways and byways and pathways are still where they always were
But they have no destination
No final place where the prize is and I can rest
There is only more road and while I do kind of have a thing for cement,
It’s exhausting and confusing and I don’t know where I stand
Or if I stand
Because honestly, it’s possible that the road is moving along underneath me
And my movement may not be mine and it may not be movement
the walls have been permanently removed and the carpeting goes on forever
And so you see, I really don’t have a clue what the bloody hell is going on
And I’d kind of like to. Cuz, you know
the knowing,
it just might come in handy sometime
Is all.

Blazing Words

2007-06-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

"You say I took the Name in vain
I don't even know the Name
but if I did
well really, what's it to ya?
There's a blaze of light in every word
it doesn't matter which you heard
the holy or the broken hallelujah"
-"Hallelujah," Leonard Cohen

I asked the women for guidance and they told me, "Rejoice in G-d for He is good."
"But what about the rest of Him?" I asked.
And they could not hear me; they were dancing and singing into the light.

And I saw His goodness, but I could not rejoice. Because, see, the flip side of good is evil, and since nothing can exist without its flip-side since nothing can be complete without its opposite, so too His goodness walks hand in hand with His evil. This has always been true; that to be Infinite, to be Complete means to include everything which has always been and always will be even a theoretical possibility; and so the existence of evil is not only unavoidable and unchangable but very very neccessary. But still I cannot rejoice because I therefore cannot see joy without pain, I cannot see hope without despair, or idealism without being hopelessly cynical. I cannot focus on that which praises only His good, because I know that to focus only on the good is missing half of the truth.

".... it doesn't matter which you heard, the holy or the broken hallelujah."

Because they are two essentially fused sides of a single expression - an expression of complete and hopeless submission to His will, in whatever form it may take. They are one and the same; the broken blazes just as brightly, and the joyful is just as bloody. I sit caught between the jubilation and the dancing, which is what I used to be, and the broken and the bloody, which I never quite became. I'm somewhere in a no-man's land between the battleground littered with corpses and the promise of paradise and eternal bliss. I cannot believe the promise and I have no place on the battle ground; yet far from being ignorant of either, I have a clear view of both. I don't know how to meld them into something sane and holy. I don't know how to fuse them. Fusing them is the point, I know, but I'm simply incapable. And once you fuse that which is ugly with that which is beautiful, what happens then? Do they mesh together and become something lumpy and brown, like when you smoosh all the different colored Play-Dos into one giant ball? Does ugliness and beauty become indistinguishable and neutral, finally in some sort of peace and equality with each other? Or does beauty take on pieces of ugliness and ugliness take on pieces of beauty, in some sort of grisly bartering agreement, so that everything is a hodgepodge, the beauty and ugliness distinctive and seperate yet living side by side ? Where do we go from there? How are we supposed to make some sort of organzied order in the world without the polarized distinctions of light and dark?

I've been having trouble praying lately.

I used to have it down pretty pat. I've memorized the things that are particularly important that I ask for when I pray; peace, health, passing my finals. But I've been realizing something about it.

For the longest time I didn't actually know that you're not supposed to make requests of G-d on Shabbat. When I first heard it, I suddenly realized how my concentration during shmoneh esray was almost entirely requests, and very little was thanks and praise. So the bits that were thanks and praise stayed in but I didn't know what else to do with my concentration. For a while I tried to just focus on the meaning of the words, but it's almost never enough to hold my attention and, sof davar, it basically takes me a lot shorter to daven on Shabbat than on any other day of the week.

I used to be able to focus just on the thanks and the praise, on the enormity of His beauty and goodness, once upon a time. But those words sound so empty to me on their own now. And the Kaddish has been haunting me endlessly, reminding me of the ultimate futilityand helplessness that is true submission to G-d. I think I need to find a new way to communicate, because I'm just not getting through like this.

This is a fantastic version of Leonard Cohen's song, although it does not include the above-quoted lyrics. Kol Isha warning; this woman's amazing.

(Yay! My first truly successful link!! I owe it all to halfnutcase.)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-06-05T15:18:00.000-07:00

A word of warning: this made more sense to me the second time around. Try and read it twice. Disclaimer: This is a rant. It hasn't been written out as intellectually sound as perhaps it might have been. I honestly don't give a monkey's behind.

This may perhaps be my first successful link. But it will only take you to the blog, and the post I'm referring to is fairly old at this point, it was posted several weeks ago. it's the
"12 reasons not to live in Israel" post I'm ranting about here.

basically, it frustrated me out of my mind; perhaps it was the glib insensitivity. or was it the glib ignorance? perhaps it was just the general stupidity of mankind. in any case, I'd like to say several things about it.

let's put aside for a moment the fact that this man neither a)disproves b)argues against or c)provides a logical opposing statement for any of the reasons for living in Israel that he is attacking. forgetting all that, plus the fact that he cheerfully ignores certain very signifigant historical trends and realities, (oh, and also that all his reasoning is essentially an expression of the most crass kind of shallow American materialism); what bugs me the most is that this man clearly has no idea first of all what it means to make aliyah, and second of all, that not everyone who lives in America can afford three cars and three trips to Israel a year, bc some of them actually have principles and do things like working in chinuch. you know, for the betterment of the Jewish people and the community? the people who might actually have a good excuse not to make aliyah bc they're contributing something essential and good where they are? these are not the people he's talking about, and these are not the reasons he cites for sitting complacently in a foreign land while his brothers suffer and struggle for the sake of actually trying to live their lives according to how they think G-d wants them to.

I can't re-post the whole post, which is why I attempted to link to it, but the thing that got my goat the most was the final statement:

"And also because you couldn’t make it in the States : ^ p"

Dude, I could go home for a summer - as a girl barely out of her teens, with no degree and almost no marketable skills beyond what G-d gave me as raw talent - and make more money in a summer than certain adults in this country can make in a year. You know those people who called America a land of opportunity? You know why? Because they've got the economy to support the opportunity. You know what economists say about Israel? That the economy in this country should collapse at any minute, and that the fact that it doesn't is a daily miracle. Now it's true that I may have a harder time affording fancy cars and international vacations multiple times a year if I supported myself that way in America, but I'd be able to live. Do you know how many families here have at least one parent that has to fly back to America for work? Do you know how many come here hopeful and idealistic and have to go back to America bc they can't support their families here? I'm sorry, but I really just don't understand what this guy is thinking. It may have been tongue in cheek, but it just sounds really ignorant and out of touch with reality.

This is not going to be an argument about why all Jews SHOULD move to Israel (bc they really should) which would include, among other things, a) it's a mitzvah b)speeding up the geulah c)strengthening Israel's economy, not to mention military and international/political standing d)historical trends and realities, too complicated to go into in depth right now, but trust me, fairly important (come on, man, the people who talked like you didn't get to go out of Egypt, forget the whole galut bavel/beginning of second Temple era business) e)solidarity and many many others which will possibly inspire their own seperate post sometime very soon.

REASONS FOR LIVING IN ISRAEL SHOULD NOT BE MUSHY-GUSHY SENTIMENTAL CLAPTRAP. (At least, not exclusively.) THEY SHOULD BE LOGICAL, REAL, POSSIBLY HASHKAFIC AND MOST IMPORTANTLY HALACHIK.

Remember how it's a mitzvah people? A MITZVAH??? An actual commandment? Like, more so than wearing knee socks or (gasp!) (dare I say it?) a kippah?
I mean, forgetting the fact that it's been the national dream, the cherished hope of all our forefathers since the exile began? (Which would be the sentimental claptrap part.)

I mean, seriously. You have your reasons for staying in the Diaspora, fine. But they should be something you can stand behind with a little more dignity than the "Because in America I can buy a new car every five years," thing. Because honestly? I don't care. And frankly, I think probably G-d doesn't either.

A Brief Response

2007-05-24T16:30:00.001-07:00

The following was a reaction to another old post of Nemo's. I suggest everyone go read it, even though my links don't work, because aside from the issues I raised, it was really a very well written and meaningful post. Here is another futile attempt at linking, which is really just my way of citing the source, since my links don't work:

http://nemosramblings.blogspot.com/

It's the post entitled "The Bitter Old Man," dated, I believe December 22, 2006.

My commenting on this post is silly for several reasons. But I had to. Several of the things you said elicited a visceral reaction, and I couldn't let this go.

"He then presses you for your answer and no matter how deep you dig to give a palatable answer, he spits it back at you. He’s not looking for answers; he doesn’t even care, it’s all part of his little ploy."

This is the thing about the people who have never truly doubted. The people who have never truly doubted, never REALLY asked the questions, will not understand that the answers are not the point - in Torah, Judaism, life. Answers are not the goal, they aren't the source, they aren't the reason or the purpose. WHEN they exist, in whatever form they exist, their purpose is either 1)to pacify those who are satisfied enough not to probe deeper or 2)to further the inquiry and the depth of the search for those people who really ARE asking the questions. The ones who truly ask know there is no end, and that is why there are no real answers. Answers aren't truth. They aren't even answers. They are pieces of a larger and even more troubling question. That is Torah, Judaism, existence, and G-d.

"I don’t speak to him because I think he speaks truth. While he certainly is a man that could rightfully argue with G-d, I don’t need his thoughts to feed my doubts."

I'm not going to get into a silly semantic debate about what truth is or isn't. I'm too tired, and I get tireder just thinking about it. But those who do not see truth in everything will never get the full picture, bc: truth=everything=full picture. Did you get the bit about the everythingness? We only get bits of truth at a time, and never the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help us, G-d. It's physically impossible, that is why the whole truth thing never ends, and why there are no real answers. Honestly, I think the concept of "the answer" is a purely artificial human construct.

(The bit about the arguing with G-d I will have to rant about on my own time.)

I suppose some people might find this idea depressing. Personally, I don't know how I could go on if this weren't the case. It's the only way to grasp a slice of eternity within this limited and organized human existence.

This only touches on my feelings about people's very limited ideas about truth and G-d and lots of other stuff, but it will have to be a starting point.

Quotes

2007-05-24T16:01:00.000-07:00

1) "When your faith crosses your aspirations you are cast dejected to the wayside. There is nothing more dismal than when your desires are quelled by everything that you feel know to be true. You cannot have your dreams because you’ve placed you’ve placed all of your values in certain ideals. That is the risk of faith though, and if we truly have it, it will impinge on our life." -Nemo (http://nemosramblings.blogspot.com/2007/01/those-that-get-it-get-it.html)

2) The Dead Faith

She made a little shadow-hidden grave,
The day Faith died;
Therein she laid it, heard the clod's sick fall,
And smiled aside-
"If less I ask," tear-blind, she mocked, "I may
Be less denied."

She set a rose to blossom in her hair,
The day Faith died-
"Now glad," she said, "And free at last, I go,
And life is wide."
But through long nights she stared into the dark,
And she knew she lied.

- Fannie Heaslip Lea

I know I keep going on and on about this, but I sort of had to. The above poem I found over Pesach in the front of one of my sister's vampire books. Source aside (mind you I know nothing of the poetess) I found the imagery stark, bare, and powerful, and I wanted to share it; but I forgot until it was just recently called to mind by this post on Nemo's blog. (I really hope this attempt at linking works; I'm still just very bad at the linking thing.) Anyway, I thought the two quotes presented an interesting contrast in perspective, and I wondered what others might have to say about it...

Dancing With Flags

2007-05-17T03:00:00.000-07:00

Yom Yerushalayim. Most people in Jerusalem are wearing blue and white; bnei akiva shirts, or school t-shirts, or something vaguely patriotic. Most people are not walking around in an ACDC t-shirt with a naked devil on it. Ah well. So much for tradition. And not offending people.

Jerusalem is in her full glory on these days, the days when her people flood the streets with singing and madness. The traditional form it takes on this particular day is in the Rikud Digalim -Dance of the Flags. People turn out from all over the country, and of all nationalities, shapes, sizes, etc. but mostly young people; the majority of the crowd is probably between 12 and 28ish. Girls and boys gather at two seperate starting points and people give out free Israeli flags. Then everyone marches through the city, down Yaffo, and to the Kotel, with bands performing on vans and trucks and music blasting from loudspeakers and lots of dancing and singing and people doing chorus line dances on the roofs of bus stops. It finishes with mincha at the Kotel and a free concert.

After a very late night that began in town and ended in the Old City (and the early morning hours- I had gone to daven maariv,) I started out the day in Katamon, dressed reasonably traditionally in a long denim skirt and beigish shirt. I wasn't sure what time the parade was supposed to start, so I went back into town in the early afternoon to meet some friends who were there. Now see, at this time of year, post-Pesach, when we're already saying "morid hatal" and everything, Israel isn't really supposed to get rain. So the fact that I hadn't brought an umbrella or jacket with me, even though the morning was gray and lowering, was not unusual. And the ridiculously intense rain that began the minute I got off the bus and continued until something like 3:30 in the afternoon was completely uncalled for. Nevertheless, the situation being what it was, I was completely and thoroughly drenched after walking for about seven minutes unprotected in the rain down Ben Yehuda street to find my friend. Which, I mean, was fun, because playing in the rain is always fun, but because it was Jerusalem rain it was also flipping freezing cold.

The parade clearly wasn't happening in that weather so my friend and I made our way to another friend's apartment, where I was lent various pajama-like clothing to change into. We spent the next couple of hours indoors reading "On the Road" and playing Blokus. However the rain did eventually stop, and the parade was about to start, and I needed clothing to appear publicly in. So my friend and I went out and found one of those cheap stores in the Ben yehuda area where I bought a short wrap around skirt and the aforementioned ACDC shirt. Here's what I was thinking when I bought the shirt, which was one on a crowded rack of black t-shirts with band names on them. It needed to be a band I actually listened to and liked; and it had to be big enough so that the sleeves would cover most of my arm. The ACDC t-shirt was the first one in the rack that was both large and a band I liked, so since we were in a rush and everything, I just grabbed it without looking a the picture too closely and went to pay for it. I didn't actually see the whole thing until I put it on in our friend's apartment a little while later. At which point, I didn't really have too much of a choice. So this is what I was wearing at the Rikud Hadigalim: A shortish wrap around skirt in a red-black-and-tan print, over baggy orange pants, the ACDC shirt, and birkenstocks. Later augmented by a zip-up white sweater that I stole off another friend of ours because I was cold.

And so we descended into the glorious chaos of the streets, dodging and weaving like the expert crowd navigators that we are, ducking under people and around slowpokes and looking over our shoulders every other minute to make sure we were still together. The jubilation of a people reclaiming her city was pretty intense. Nothing like the madness of a jubilee after all.

It's a pretty awesome event, this parade. I'd gone to it when I was in my first year of midrasha, two years ago. But here's the thing. The first time I went, so I was with my seminary, in blue and white with my seminary friends and madrichot, and doing the whole dancing and singing like crazy thing. And the second time, I was just with two friends, and I didn't...let's say, I didn't look the part quite as much. And it was an interesting dichotomy. Because on the one hand, I don't believe in doing the whole wearing clothing just to fit in and defining yourself in tiny little boxes, and I really feel it's important that everyone should be included in things like these. What better way to prove my point than to live it? But at the same time, I was very concious of the dissonance; and while I did enjoy my t-shirt and the random very confused and surprised expressions that I got from complete strangers (not to mention the teenage boys taking pictures of me with their cell phones) I still wasn't completely comfortable. Walking to the Kotel through the Arab shuk, a married Israeli woman walking with her husband and baby stopped me and started quizzing me about my musical interests. She was apparently also an ACDC fan, and wanted to know what my feelings were on Guns n Roses and Judas Priest. ("You shouldn't think I'm such a dossit because of how I dress!") (dossit=frummy=really religous female; vaguely derogatory, usually taken with a sense of humour.) That was kind of fun, and I felt better about the shirt afterwards, especially since no one was really giving me any flack for it. However I couldn't in good conscience daven facing the Kotel with a naked devil on my shirt, so I turned it inside out before I davened and then left it that way the rest of the night.

The other highlight of the evening came when a group of us were hanging out by the plaza behind the kotel, and the music had already started, and people were dancing and singing all about. We made our own little circle with our arms around each others shoulders and then I started jumping up and down to the beat, and then everyone started jumping up and down to the beat, and then we were all doing it going around in a circle, which got a little tricky because of the incline and the ridiculous amounts of people per square inch. Which was fun, and more fun because some Israelis, including a soldier, came and joined us; and also because that got us spotted by a film crew doing a documentary, something about a film maker's six months in Israel, and one of the girls in our group was filmed talking about Yerushalayim and Moshiach and world peace. It was a pretty cool moment.

After that it was pretty much just wandering around, moonwalking in the streets of Jerusalem, exhaustion, hunger, thirst, and more exhaustion,with some measure of exhileration. I am now incredibly tired and absolutely filthy, which is always the earmark of a really good time; so I guess it was a fairly chag sameach for me.

The Lost and the Searching

2007-04-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

It's a funny thing about us Jews. We fall into a few very settled and specific steryotypes and live up to them fully; the Scholar, the Homemaker, the Wandering Artist. Sometimes I think we invented the concept of the steryotype, we do it so well. But it's hard to stick the Searcher into his own category, bc so many of us claim him as our own. Mostly the people who think; I guess those that don't think really don't call themselves Searchers. Those that think usually like to think of themselves that way. (A pretentious affectation? Or an accurate labeling of a slice of reality?)
Ever notice how many of us are obsessed with this home concept? Nationally and personally. I mean, the literature in Judaism - prayers and songs and various teachings, entire sforim - focused, or at least largely driven, by this concept of our lost homeland, the endless search for it, the chronic longing. Very emotionalized idea, especially since the establishment of the State.
And individually; once you leave the house for the first time, it's really never the same coming back. I mean, long-term - year in Israel, first year in college. Living away from home changes something, your parents house is never quite home again. Tom Wolf was right. But that's normal - nature's way of pushing you out into the world, making your own new home and perpetuating the species. But think later on; eventually, your kids move out. And you continue to live in your own home, as long as you can. But eventually, most people can't live on their own anymore and get put into places that are called homes officially which in reality are anything but. And then what? You spend the rest of your life homesick? That's one of the saddest things I can think of, honestly.
I know what my teachers would tell me. This life is only temporary, you can't put too much into physical things, the real world, the real home, is in the world to come. But I can't quite get my head past the home thing. I mean, I don't know what I'd do if the house I grew up in was suddenly gone. I can't quite get over how invested physical thing become, how much of the spiritual, transient lives of people get soaked up within them so that sometimes physical things contain more of actual human life than any one of us. How is something that steeped in reality and life unimportant? How is it something not to be regarded with respect and love?
It's an endless contradiction. That which is unimportant steeped with the essence of the meaning of existence and then completely destroyed. It has something to do with the fusion and the wandering and the wondering but I can't figure out just what yet. Where does it come in?

This Is A Metaphor G-ddammit!!

2007-04-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

so find me already.
I mean, I'm sitting here
and I'm trying to tell you, "I'm lost,"
and you hear "sidetracked," or
"misdirected," or
"slightly confused"
and I'm trying to tell you
"I'm lost!"
I don't know why you can't hear me
maybe it's cuz my voice is fading as I
recede into the sunset
so it's inaudibility makes it indecipherable.
but you keep telling me I'll get there
and when I try to say "I don't want to go,"
you tell me to check street signs
and make a left at the light.
well I'm seeing barns and cornfields now
and I may never find you
because how can you give me accurate directions
when you don't know where I am?

An Excuse

2007-04-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

So I wrote this whole long post the other day that got completely eaten by the internet; I could recreate but I have neither the time nor the heart at the moment, and I am afraid of another like disappearance. It was about fusion and love and the general oneness of things. It was kind of nice. Anyway, maybe I'll re-write it maybe not; just so youknow, I'm not negelcting you guys completely.

Hi

2007-04-01T23:15:00.000-07:00

Life is a crazy place. A hectic, emotional, running around on no sleep and being ridiculously strained kind of place. And also one of spiritual fusion. This is important.

I went to daven at the Kotel the day I left Israel. I was in the room off to the side, and there were only about six or seven of us in the room. One was a little, wrinkled old chareidi lady davening and shuckling at the front, by the Wall. All of a sudden, a cell phone rang, and a lady behind me picked it up. Despite the "shsh"s and the "nu"s from the little old lady, this woman continued to carry on her conversation. When she was still talking even after monosyllabic answers weren't enough to satisfy her end of it, another woman finally asked her to finish it outside, which the lady eventually did. When the conversation ended, she came back in to finish praying. AS she got up to leave when she was done, the little old lady called her over and asked her her name.
"Sorah."
"Vishel Ima shelach?" ("And your mother's name?")
"Batya."
"Sorah bat Batya. Shetihieyh lach rak bracha vihatzlacha visimcha visasson vikol tuv." ("You should have nothing but blessings and success and joy and everything good.")
"Amein, todah lach."

I thought it was sweet. Little ladies like that are my heroes.

There's been craziness since I've been in America; not that I'm going to tell you exactly what, but my head's been spinning since I got here. I suppose I'll sort it all out eventually, but meanwhile I'm coming apart a bit at the seams...

Break

2007-03-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

While I'm in chu"l ( that's "chutz laaretz," for all you who don't live in G-d's chosen land) my internet access will be sketchy at best, since the connection at home is never reliable and my cousins in Monsey don't actually have internet. However if something interesting happens and I get the chance, I may post anyway. Chag Kasher Visameach to all!

The Passing

2007-03-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

To all of you who have been reading my blog for awhile and might be interested to know, Clarence Fitzgerald II, my pet potatoe, has passed on at last.
For the last several days there's been an odd smell near my bed that I couldn't quite place. It suddenly occured to me this afternoon to check out Clarence (who lived and died right next to my head) and sure enough, he was dripping potatoe rot.
He had a dignified burial, and will be much missed by all. As a tribute and kind of obituary, I have written Clarence a poem:

Proudly sits the potatoe
in dignified repose
watching contentedly from his corner
as the world comes and goes
sometimes he hums a little tune
to keep himself amused
but mostly he just sits and stares
and sometimes spouts bits of philosophy
as all good potatoes do.

To Clarence Fitzgerald; a better potatoe I never knew.

An Excerpt

2007-03-21T13:25:00.000-07:00

"The continual motion of matter, therefore, in less than infinite transpositions, must produce this economy of order; and, by its very nature, that order, when once established, supports itself for many ages if not for eternity." David Hume, "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion."

Or, things bump around until they find a self-sustaining order. Sounds like single life in college.

I'm going home in a week!

Wordstop

2007-03-15T19:18:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder why the words stop? Sometimes, they just stop. This is one major reason why I could never get a degree in English or writing (aside from the fact that I think degrees in creative writing are basically bs); bc when the words just stop, you can still make words. They're just really really bad words.

Back in the alter heim, my sister and I have a weekly open mic that we like to go to. It's about equal parts musical performance and poetry. There's this one guy who gets up there every single week and just rants about whatever he feels like ranting about. Bush usually. Artsy liberal leftists. Some weeks its more heavily musical, some weeks it's almost all poetry. Just depends on what the cowd is like that week.

We come for both, being from a family which is both intensely literary and vaguely musical. But I mostly go for the poetry. You get a lot of ammatures, who's work is quite frequently embarassingly painful, but just as frequently, just enough so it's funny. (Mean, I know. Look, I write bad poetry too. I just have enough sense not to read that stuff in public.) And then you get people who are so amazingly talented that all you can do is sit their in awe as the words stream from their mouths in a harmony of rythm and emotion and meaning that just blows you away; so that afterwards you're left turning over the phrases you liked in your mouth, savoring the taste, and so so frustratedthat you will never, ever be able to write anything like that.

It's usually after such experiences that I manage to write my best stuff. Inspiration, I guess.

But it's those long stretches of time when nothing flows, and everything sounds contrived and fake and cliched that get me. I tell myself I'm gathering material, that you can't write a good poem without having anyhing to write about. This is a period for gathering experience, not for being productive.

But it's frustrating as a motherload of maggots when you want dsperately to say something and have nothing to say. I need Divine Intervention: dear G-d, please pour Your words over me so that I may be a vessel for your Work. G-d writing through me, not me actually writing at all, just moving the pen across the page. That's all great poetry really is. That's all great literature really is. Even the atheistic stuff. Sometimes I think G-d wrote all that Himself, in order to bring forth a new aspect of the human condition; which is, after all, a microcosmic metaphor for G-d.

Sometimes I wonder if G-d is an atheist. Wouldn't that be something? A G-d as truly complex and confusing as we are. I know that it makes no sense and sounds like pretentious poser-intellectual babble, which is partly bc that's what it is, and partly bc it's currently after four in the morning. Nevertheless, the more I consider the idea the more I like it.

I should just go to sleep now, shouldn't I?

ad dlo yadah

2007-03-07T14:09:00.000-08:00

so, there's a lot of stuff on the blogosphere about Purim and general drunkeness this week. and I want to say something too but I'm still not sure exactly what. it's all too vague.... but there's definitely something about that place where perception gets hazy and happy, where it's easy to talk to people bc the things inside you that always hold you back are suddenly gone, and you think "why not? why the hell not?" and I'm the first to admit that excess alcohol can turn messy and ugly pretty quick. it isn't, by any means, always pleasant for more than just the individual involved. but there is stuff about it....there is stuff of beauty and truth embedded somewhere in the land of the drunk people, (or people otherwise stimulated) that normally stimulated people don't see. and I personally have made an art form out of getting high on life. or, well, too little sleep and too much coffee, which, trust me, is not totally dissimilar to highs of other kinds. but there is a difference. there is. I just don't know that it's worthwhile defending it....I get so annoyed with all the denigration bc I do think G-d wants us to get drunk sometimes. I think that He wants us to see the world that way sometimes. maybe it's my naivete that still leads me to think that there are deeper dimensions in everything, that everything really does serve some more layered and more interconnected purpose, that everything has a something more if you just look close enough, are open to more possibilities.

anyway, I don't know. I'll end with a pleasant drunk-boy story. I went into Yerushalayim for a seudah in Har Nof with my adopted family, and in the middle of the meal a boy who no one, as it turned out, actually knew, knocked on the door and greeted, and was greeted by, the baal haboss as old friends do. he was invited in, he sat for a bit...couldn't have been more than sixteen, was probably aaround fourteen; very clearly drunk, falling off his chair etc. but all he asked for was some singing, a dvar Torah, and at one point insisted on dancing even though he could barely stand. "rikud rikud! chayevim rikud!" ("a dance a dance! we need to dance!") it was cute. we were all amused. he went off on his way soon enough; I just thought it was cool to see someone that drunk still intent on fulfilling the spirit, not just the letter, of the laws of Purim.

Vacation

2007-02-22T15:55:00.000-08:00

So, I'm back. Sort of. Still in the middle of writing a paper, but I took a couple of days to go gallivanting about this little country of mine, and I thought I really ought to write about it a bit. Two events in paticular actually.

The first was an innocent boat ride. Me and my travel companions decided to go spend a day in Haifa and a day in Netanya, bc we've never been there, and they're only brief train rides from where we live. So we did. I'd just like to footnote here, that trapezing all over the world with only the rules of spontanaiety and chillnes to guide you is fantastically liberating and makes for many adventures. However, these adventures are more soundly appreciated when one has not spent half the night in discussions of theoretical philosophy and theology. That just makes you crabby.

So we made a reservation for a boat ride. And we get there and the nice lady at the reception booth informs us that since we booked our passage at the same time as a group of Arab high school kids, we will be the guests of the captain - go straight up to the little captain's room, hang out with him the whole time, and remain completely seperate from said school group. She repeated the word "nifrad" -seperate- multiple times and with notable emphasis. Or, if we preferred, we could wait another hour for the next ride and go with a group of midrasha girls. (Israeli seminary girls.) This led to a heated private discussion. On the one hand, sharing a boat with a group of Arab teenagers was a thought that made us a little nervous. Then of course, we wouldn't exactly have the freedom of the entire boat to roam, as we may have liked. On the other hand, when are we going to get another opportunity to be the captain's special guests? Plus, when you think about it, are Israeli seminary girls so much more preferable? Also, there wasn't a whole lot to do in the area and waiting around for another hour wasn't quite so appealing.

So we decided for the sooner trip. It worked out well. The Arab teenagers were quiet and well behaved as far as teenagers go; I'd have to say far better behaved than just about any group of Jewish school children, of any age, Israeli or otherwise, that I have ever seen, and I've seen many. So on that head, there was no need for our apprehension. But what really struck me was the attitude of the people who worked there. They were so intent on keeping us seperate from the group. Even at the end, they told us not to disembark until after the group had. I couldn't really quite understand what they were so nervous about. Not only was the group perfectly calm and the kids relatively nice, but they were chaperoned by at least four or five teachers. I really didn't get it. But, we did get to steer the boat, and they were very nice to us, and even gave us a discount bc of the unexpected company.

The second event was, I fell off a horse. One of the things people always talk about doing in Netanya is riding horses on the beach, so we decided to check it out. We found a place that provided this service plus jeeping, both of which we wanted to do, so after a wonderful morning of hanging out on the beach and flopping about (fully clothed, of course) in the Mediterranean Sea, we headed over there. I have to say, to anybody who has ever been obsessed with horses, I definitely get it. They're still too smelly for me to get into on a regular basis, but there is something about riding a horse...they're very cool animals. Something about the power and strength of them, plus the whole "look-at-me-I'm-being-one-with-nature-bc -I'm-riding-an animal" thing. The water was beautiful. It was the last hour before sunset, so everything had that just before sunset golden tinge, and the salty smell of the water coupled with the confident strides of the horses created this amazing sense of power and feedom.

And then my horse got a little too confident.

Here's something you maybe don't know about me; I have this really strong fear of heights, and of falling. Seriously. Standing on chairs and walking down stairs make me very nervous. In general. It's not debilitating, that is to say, I don't let it get in my way too much. In this country, stairs are pretty much unavoidable. Also, I don't like being a coward, so I make myself do things that scare me, sometimes. Like roller coasters. And hiking along thirty foot drops with sharp jagged rocks at the bottom, along a ridge that's maybe three inches across with nothing to grab onto so you have to kind of shimmy sideways, and you're one in a really long line of slow moving seminary girls who have to stop every five minutes to take pictures(just when you're getting your balance and finally thinking it might be over soon without a gory and painful death.) (Ok, maybe that one wasn't so voluntary. And maybe I kind of freaked out. It happens.) And getting on horses.

And it was going well, I was enjoying it. But every time my horse started going a little faster than I was comfortable with, I pulled back on the reins, bc I was more comfortable when he went slower. And then we got to this bit where we all had to be walking more or less in a single file line. And we got a little behind. My horse didn't like being behind, he wanted to be with the group, so whenever he got behind during the course of the ride, he'd start cantering a bit to catch up. Which I let him do, bc he wasn't going too fast, and bc I knew he'd stop when he caught up with everyone else. Only this last time, I guess we were more behind than usual, bc he broke into a run, and when I tried to pull back on the reins I lost my balance. I think I kind of rode the side of the horse for a few feet and then plunged off into some nearby brush growth. I must have screamed, though I don't remember specifically. Sof davar, I was shaken, but not hurt. Nothing broken, I'd been wearing a helmet, etc. So, I got back up on the horse and we continued back to the place. One of the madrichim hung back with me and kept the horse under control and tried to chat with me to calm me down and stuff. He was really nice about it, telling me he'd fallen at least twenty times, and that it was really great that I'd gotten right back up and all that. But I didn't have the energy to be that responsive, and I think he felt bad about it. He was cute too.

Anyway, after that we went jeeping, and that was awesome. They gave us a ride to the train station too. All in all, a very cool day, although I have been sore ever since. Which, I guess, is fine, considering I have nothing to do but sit on my bed and write my paper.

Finals

2007-02-12T05:38:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen, there is in fact a light at the end of the tunnel. Wednesday is my last final - at least until I have to retake them in April - at which time I do plan to rejoin the human race; do laundry, clean up my room, exercise, celebrate a little. Until then, keep breathing, and sleeping, for me, bc I won't be doing much of either....

Restless

2007-02-05T17:08:00.000-08:00

Do you ever fel the need to break out? Break away? Pick a direction, start running, never look back?

I know it's cliche. It's cliche for a reason.

It's all too easy. It's all already been done. This striking out on my own path thing? The whole being original, doing my thing, my non-pre-designated, pre-formulated, pre-approved plan? People tell you to be spontaneous, but the spontaneous things you really want to do you can't do because you are restricted.

Can't travel the world on your own bc, if you ignore the safety factor, how can you possibly wander that long without a guarantee of kosher food? And even if you could get around that, what would prospective shidduchim think of a young frum girl who decided to wander around the world by herself for a year? (Of course, I've already eliminated a good chunk of those people by learning gemarrah, hee hee.)

What if I wanted to publish a book? What if I wanted to write about non-Jewish topics? Forget approval; how many former teachers would scold me for not using my talent to "further G-d's will" in the world?

But what if I write about Jewish stuff? Could I portray the frum community honestly without being condemned for "airing dirty laundry?" But yet, could I justify to myself producing yet another "B.Y. Times" series and perpetuate the lack of decent Jewish art? I could never be proud of such a thing; I could never put my name on such a thing. What's more, I really don't think that it furthers G-d's will in any way, nor do I think it's what He gave me talent for.

What if I wanted to try and work in Hollywod? Who in the world could possibly approve of that? Or what if I didn't want to do anything spectacular at all? What if I wanted to just sit in the middle of nowhere, or somewhere with beaches, like Hawaii, get a few minimum wage jobs, maybe continue my degree, and just be for a while?

Someone my age can't possibly have claimed to have "seen it all..." but the more I see, the more everything looks the same. There are a few different acceptable lifestyles you can choose within the misgeret of the orthodox Jewish world. And each one is equally safe and predictable and tidy in its own slightly variated way. All the precedents have already been set, all the moves already made....I hate that I think "Hmm, twenty years from now..." and I see myself as a person I've seen 100000 times bc it's every Jewish woman ever...if I hear one more person say "The next time I see you, you'll probably be married..." I'm seriously going to scream. In public. It's not that I don't want to get married and have a million kids, bc trust me, I do. I just hate that everyone who knows me thinks they've got me figured out based on a few statistics that apply to about half the female OJ population my age. What if I'm not married by age 21? Further, what if I don't want to be married at age 21? What if I said,out loud and everything, "Hmm, yes a family is important, BUT I'M NOT READY FOR ONE JUST YET?" at my age?? what would people think??

I don't know...maybe I feel it so much more bc of my age. Everyone around me has spent/is spending this period of life mostly getting systemized. I suppose the majority are at Stern/YU Landers/Touro and other similar institutions, but it happens anywhere there's a large collection of American Jewish people of around my age. I used to think my University was exempt, which was a large part of my choosing it; but our community has grown the last two years, and it systemizes more and more with every passing day.And every passing day I get more restless, more frustrated, and the itch to move gets worse and worse...

How am I ever going to know who I am if I can't step out of context? It's not as simple as changing place, bc there are far too many places to go where the situation would be exactly the same. I need to dissapear, shed all shreds of context, all traces of attachment. It's not that I think I'll be someone so drastically different. I'll still just be me...but I'll also be just me, and that is exaclty the point.

vignettes with Tobie

2007-01-23T14:53:00.000-08:00

Me: I think I'm gonna write a novel.
Tobie: Is it gonna be all you?
M: Well...yes.
T: Can't you do something else with it as well? All you gets to be so boring!
M: There'll be other people in it, of course I'm not going to be the only character.
T: Yes but you know; memoirs get so angsty. I like a little fiction in my fiction, you know? Can't you stick a little fiction in there?
M: Ok, I'll put in a dragon.
T: A real one?
M: In the book it'll be real. It can be one of my wacky adventures.
T: No, I mean real fiction, you know, like stuff you don't see every day.
M: You mean like a..like a...
T: Like a fish.
M: Right, like a fish....
T: Well, have you ever seen one?
M: Yes.
T: Miri...you're not helping here...
M: The fish can be the dragon's sidekick.
T: In a jumpsuit?
M: In a jumpsuit.
T: An orange polyester one?
M: An orange polyester one.
T: Jumpsuits are the wave of the future you know.
M: I know, Tobie. I know.

Me: You guys watching the movie tonight?
Chava: No, not in the end.
M: Oh, that's sad.
Tobie: You know what's sad? What's sad is your face!
M: Hey, I don't need your lip! I have my own.
T: Yes but the sad thing about your lip is where you keep it.
M: I keep it on my face.
T: Exactly!
C: Don't you want to know where Tobie keeps her lip?
T: I keep my lip somewhere very safe, thank you.
M: Switzerland?
T: No.
M: A fish?
T: No, not a fish.
M: A squash?
T: No. hey, how do you turn a pumpkin into another vegetable?
(Everyone present rolls their eyes.)
All: How, Tobie, how?
T: You throw it up in the air and it comes down SPLAT!
C: You mean squash?
T: The other answer is that it comes down carrot.
M: Of course it does.
T: It does!
M: I know, Tobie. I know.

Miri: If I had a million dollars
Chava: I'd buy you a green dress
M: But not a real green dress, that's cruel
Tobie: Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
M: Who wouldn't want a monkey?
T: But they're mischeivous and they smell.
M: And they steal spare change for you. Come on, who doesn't want stolen spare monkey change?
T: I want a stolen spare monkey.
M: I just want a normal monkey.
C: I just want a real green dress.
T and M: That's cruel!!
C: With a capital C that rhymes with P that stands for pool!
T and M: Stands for pool!
T: Hey we rhymed. We're poets without knowing its.
M: Well, actually we knew it.
T: You did?
Chava and Miri nod.
T: But I didn't know it.
C and M: We know, Tobie. We know.

Faith

2007-01-16T10:43:00.000-08:00

Faith says she's sorry
she was up all night
knocking on gates for you
but they had all been locked up tight
against everything you'd been told you knew

Faith says she's failed you
she says "just give me
one more chance to prove;
I'll enlist my daughters Hope and Love and
somehow we three may get through."

and with every passing hour
the walls grow taller round the towers
and when their wings failed them
they threw stones but
rocks were turned to sand and dust
and scoffed the trio's mighty powers

Faith says she's sorry
all twelve gates of Heaven
closed their doors on you
they must have changed the password while she was
looking the other way and now
there's nothing she can do

More Feminist Stuff

2007-01-15T14:12:00.000-08:00

I am temporrily exhaustified of the philisophical ramblings of the blogosphere. for the moment no paticularly new ideas are being produced and meanwhile I miss the random silliness of my early postings; so in the near future, to those two or three of you who actually read my blog, don't expect anything too heavy. this will be my last vaguely serious post for awhile.

so I've been doing some reading, for this paper that I'm writing, and I have to say something. Jewish women are freakin awesome. I'm sorry but historically? we just rocked the house. to anyone out there looking for educated, intellectual, and independent Jewish female role models, there are quite a few of them. I was particulalrly impressed with what I read of the women in Enlightenment era Germany; supposedly assimilated (a good number of them converted,) almost completely secular, they formed their own little society of the intellectual and cultural elite in a setting where they were still largely unaccepted by the rest of society. These women express beautifully the anguish of a search for identity in a world that either didn't accept them because they were Jewish, because they weren't Jewish, or because they were women. Despite these restrictions, they wrote, published, spoke publicly, and in some cases organized educational programs for women of similar backgrounds and difficulties. in so many ways, I relate to what they were saying - the alienation and the need for liberty to be able to choose for themselves what to do with their intellectual prowess; the railing helplessly against constraints of a society that refused to recognize them for who they were. It seems that somehow the feminist message never changes. The history and language (translated of course) of Rachel Levin Varnhagen touched me particularly. Somehow there's something passionately universal in her words.

Then of course there are the words of Emma Lazarus ( for those of you that don't know, that poem on the green statue from France? written by a little Jewish girl, that's right. well, except she wasn't so little at the time.) she wrote something perfectly fitting to the continual intellectual upheaval of the J-sphere, but I have for the moment lost it, so that will get put on hold.

Of course, there are many notable women throughout the entire history of Judaism, and many of them learned in Torah to the extent where the Rabbeim of the time recognized their halachik decisions, and who might be better role models morally; but I guess it'll always be the anguish of the lost soul that touches me most.

oh, right. I'm a feminist now. I've resisted it long enough, but there comes a point where one has to stop pretending. it came kind of in tandem with the whole wishing I could get smicha thing.

you say you want a revolution....

2007-01-01T15:07:00.000-08:00

ok, I lied. I'm not going to stop. it just makes me giggle. I am sorry.

I've been contemplating revolution. a full-scale, no-holds barred, blood and guts revolution. I think it's about time. I think we need it now, and I think it's coming. it's on its slow way in, but like all good revolutions, one day it ill burst forth over the general population like a tsunami and change orthodox Judaism forever.

that, at least, is the dream.

ok, so...this is a long rant coming. I warn you in advance.

in response to the insanity with the chareidi educational bans, plus a little personal bitterness based on a very recent experience, I'd like to say something about the education of Jewish females which has always been kind of a pet cause of mine. (see prior post, re: rebellion.) I recently heard of an on-line program through which one could get smicha. the natural prankster in me immediately went "Hey, what if...." which things of course usually work out better if you're willing to stoop to a little subterfuge and dishonesty. damn my personal integrity. or rather my friend's. in any case I did, after some amount of stewing, venture this idea to a close friend and chavruta of mine - what if we could get smicha? or, since we know that Orthodox people don't actually give smicha to females, at least learn whatever the smicha bound people were learning, without getting tested or doing anything official, and thus have an intensive chavruta through which we would simply know a lot of stuff?

which idea got us both very excited, bc we like Torah and we really like halacha, and we thought this would just make us cooler people who would henceforth be two Jews better equipped to serve our Creator by actually knowing some stuff about how to serve Him. etc. the only site we found equipped with this supposed on-line smicha program specifically stated that its smicha program was only for men. there was however a different track for the not-necessarily-smicha-bound ones which did not specify gender. in an attempt to find out more details about the course, my friend filled out the information neccessary to bring us to the next page; in so doing, accidentally submitting her name and contact info to said orginization, which told her they'd get back to her. and get back to her they did. they don't allow females in this program either - which fact didn't really surprise us - but we were advised to check out the kosher kitchen program, which "might be more suited to" us. link included.

Now.

I am not going to say that Orthodox Judaism is ready for female rabbis, of the pulpitting or any other kind, necessarily. nor that it needs them. however, I would like to say something about the current definition of OJ's "smicha", and about OJs standards of education in general. it ain't just the secular stuff anymore people. way back when, in the old countries, when one had to know 200 blat gemarrah by heart to get into a yeshiva, let alone begin to start studying for some sort of a certificational smicha process, to say at that point in time that it was not appropriate for women to be learning for smicha made sense. bc not all men studied for smicha. most people, in fact, did not. time, resources, whatever you want to say was the reason.

but if our standards of smicha have sunk so low that you can get it through an online course? why exactly are we prohibitting women from learning what can be learned through an online course?

If what we expected of our youth to know when they came out of high-school and yeshiva/seminaries even vaguely approached what one ought to know after passing one of those computer generated bechinas, then I might say that of course, smicha is not necessary or appropriate for women. when you at least have a vague idea of what it says in a good portion of the shulchan aruch, it's ok to move on to the whole marriage and babies thing. oh, and the earning a living thing. I forget that one sometimes, bc you know, out of sight out of mind, right?

but in the meantime. why aren't we allowed to take this course? bc this knowledge is only for men? bc women aren't supposed to know as much?why exactly are we supposed to keep ourselves stupid bc the guys are being lazy?

I'd like to for a moment go back to the whole Devorah as national Jewish leader thing. I know, I know - the commentaries say it was a negative thing that a woman had to be a leader. but not bc she did the wrong thing. if the level of male learning is so low that the women had to step up, doesn't that indicate that the men were doing something wrong? doesn't it indicate that the men should get cracking? why is something that is their fault considered a negative reflection on the females?

now, I'm not saying that this fine online program, or those who run it, are necessarily bad. I'm saying it's indicative of the way Orthodox Judaism has let its educational standards slip, how their institutions are crumbling around their ears, and this latest educational ban is just one example of how that whole community is going to tumble into chaos come the next generation.

I used to be worried about the slow take-over of chareidism. I used to be worried that all orthodox Jews would soon be brainwashed into thinking that pure emunas chachamim, in its finest idolatrous form, was the only viable option through which one could move or think. but I see now that I shouldn't have worried. G-d isn't going to let Jews smother His religion; His religion of knowledge and search, and truth, the truth that ever evolves around us and under us as we move and create it. the Chareidim are slowly strangling their communities to death and sooner or later they're going to have to deal with the fallout. they are the ones who will inadvertently cause the revolutions they so hope to stifle. I'm not sure how much longer their own people can bear it, and after all, we are a stiff-necked nation.

the question is, how much responsibility do we have as individuals to make this revolution take place? what is our duty to the next generation? how much can we expect of ourselves, and how much should we?
I want my children to grow up in a world of Orthodox Judaism where skepticims is nurtured, where deviant thought processes are respected, where introspection and logic are engrained, where it is assumed that people are honest with themselves when they think. what would such a world look like? would the acceptance of free thought send everyone away? I rather think that orthodox practice would be strengthened and enriched. what must it be like to live in a society that isn't paranoid at the thought of losing souls to individuality? what must it be like to take for granted that questions don't need answers to have inherent value?

as my friend says, we will never know everything. we may someday know something. one thing's for sure; with the help of my good friends in the online-learning community, I may someday know that which is more suitable to me, like keeping my kitchen kosher.

Rebel Without a Cause

2006-12-24T13:31:00.000-08:00

ok, I know. I KNOW! I have to stop stealing cheesy post titles from obvious pop culture references. it's painful and wrong. but they just scream to be stolen! can I help it if I've finally grown into the corny gene passed down by all Jewish parents and doomed to plague all of us for the rest of eternity? I submit to you that it is not. science and fate combine to create in me a guiltless victim, and that I will hold to.
so, as to the actual topic of this post. I've been thinking about this for awhile, and various recent posts on various blogs have gotten me thinking about it again. I got into a heated argument with a friend semi-recently about the definition of rebellion. now I know you can semantics about this any way you like, pretty much like anything else, but at the core of its actual meaning- what is it that makes someone rebellious? by definition. is the defiance of a rule or standard enough, or does it have to be defiance with a purpose? is it simply a railing against contraints? what about railing against ideas?
as a teenager, the idea of rebellion comes with certain connotations; leather jackets, motorcycles, piercings, illegal substance usage, shoplifting. or, if you belong to the frum community, not wearing socks with a short skirt, a lower neckline, shorter sleeves, dying one's hair; long hair and hemp wear, if you're a guy, and sometimes all black clothing and nail polish...for everyone, staying out way too late and hanging out with people of the opposite gender...plus, piercings, illegal substance usage, and shoplifting. in fact, these earmarks are so easy to identify, it makes it quite a simple thing for teenagers who want to act out to figure out what to do to make that statement. but are they really making a statement?
I have often wondered how many teenagers did things solely because, according to the media promulgated stereotype of a teenager, that was what they were supposed to be doing. or thought they were supposed to be doing. how many of them actually cared or thought at all about it, and how many just didn't want to be the frummy ones.
I have often said that me and my friends in high school were the most rebellious ones there. let me clarify; we were all goody-goodies. a good majority of my class would fit that description. when the teacher hadn't shown up and half the class period had gone by, we were sitting in our seats doing homework. but we all longed desperately to change the system. not one of us was satisfied with the way we were being educated, and a good few of us resolved to go into education just to reform the system. even some of the most Bais Yaakov among us, even those who openly admitted to believing in the system and the hashkafa in general, but still recognized where it was messed up, and wanted to fix it. we discussed it at length -where the flaws were, their causes and effects, and what could possibly be done to make it any different. we went through nearly every day examining all our teachers and authority figures, analyzing what we would take and what we would leave, what we would change around. we wanted to revolutionize from the inside.
meanwhile, the girls who wore too much make-up and too low necklines, who hung out with boys and did various other things frowned upon by our school and by the system in general....most of them straightened up by senior year so they could get into the right seminary and land a good shidduch.
I'm not being entirely clear. since my experience is largely with frum girls, this is the demographic I will speak from. and the so-called "rebellious" ones from this demographic can be broken down into categories.
1) the kids who come from good families (bonus points if parents are on the board/have a lot of money) who decide to screw around and have fun in high school, bc they know they can get away with it, then straighten up either by senior year or in Israel, and get serious just in time for the shidduch market, which will overlook teenage indiscretions if the family has enough money. or if you're a boy.
2) the people who were never down with the system, and made no bones about making this clear to everyone. vaguely anti-social, don't deal well with authority figures, although they may not actually be into any "delinquent" behaviors. will have a very hard time getting a shidduch and will eventually move to NY where they can blend in and live their own lives more easily.
3) people who appear to be down with the system bc they play by the rules, but really hate it intensely, or hate its flaws intensely. will either find another community, or else come back to their own community and try to reform it from the inside out.

which of these people are the true rebels? those that stand for something and try to do something about it? or those who are only concerned with having a rebellious image, or the good time that only rebellious people can have, while planning to fall in with the game plan eventually anyway?

all my life I've been rebelling against the system, partly bc I thought as an intellectual, it was what I was supposed to be doing. and partly bc they got a whole bunch of stuff wrong, in my opinion. but I think in my heart of hearts, I always wanted them to be sort of right, to have basically gotten it. and then one day I woke up and realized that no, no they don't. at best they get about half of it. it's damn depressing to finally be vindicated. so where does that put me in the equation? a good girl, intellectually rebellious, who wanted to fall in with the game plan to reform the system, and now can barely stand to be within the confines of any community at all bc of the neverending predictability? who understands the need for a system while needing to be outside of it? in the infallibly human process of perception, I can't escape categorization, if only out of the need to remove myself from it. but that in itself is a category, the category of all those liberal intellectuals who refuse to be categorized. which is basically a cop-out. in backing away from one box, we inevitably back ourselves into another. there is nothing but boxes, it's an endless maze of box after box after boxafter box.... anyway....the point of all this is...rebellion is another name for another box, another steryotype, already pre-planned and paved, at least the persona is.

so if real rebellion is more than just a persona, a role waiting for someone to step into it, then what is it?

This Used To Be My Playground

2006-12-05T12:18:00.000-08:00

We all started out playing on the same playground. We were happy there, and protected. There was a tall chain link fence all the way around. We were confident of the strength of all the things we touched and played with, the ground firm beneath our feet, always room for just one more on the tire swing. The tire swing was everybody's favorite.

Our numbers began depleting when we got older. A few ran away, claiming a need for escape. Others swore they were chased out. Everyone claimed a reason, everyone had a story.

There was one who was battered and beaten, another was racked with a pain she couldn't deal with any other way, a third was always in and out for her own various and vague reasons. One claimed he'd never been there to begin with, another claimed he was still there when he really wasn't. And then there was her. She had always been tormented by shifting ground, mini-earthquakes that caused her to trip and stumble. But she stayed on the playground bc she didn't know anywhere else, and she didn't want to venture into unknown territory unless she was sure.

I was the strong one. Always so sure, an answer for everything, never faltering for a minute, and completely unable to comprehend the loved ones around me who faded in and out, away and around, without any very concrete explanations. I kept asking people why they were leaving, demanding an argument I could understand, but they were unable to explain.

So I remained secure. Happy and confident in my rightful place, I continued to play in the sandbox, on the slides, the tire swing. The tire swing had always been everyone's favorite.

One day I did slip. I hadn't slept well in days, maybe weeks, and one morning I woke up, and the playground had been vandalized. The fence had been torn down in places, the slides were grafitied, the swings had been all looped over the top bar. There was glass in the sandbox. Even the tire swing had been slashed. I could feel the ground slipping out from under me and everything was just hanging in this weightless, rootless void. The playground suddenly felt homesick and abandoned. It was the first time I had actually seen the possibility that I wasn't in the right place, the safe place.

But then I woke up the next day and everything had righted itself, intact, in place, as if nothing had happened at all. Everything back to normal, with no ramifications, explanations, or excuses, and no damage to control.

And so it continued. While various other former members of the playground gang drifted around, I manned it, held down the fort so to speak, waiting for people to come back and visit, or maybe, I hoped, to stay.

She was always more or less there. She never really went anywhere. But she struggled a lot, just beyond the fence. She figured out various things on her own. Various other things she gave up on. She said she always came back for the tire swing. The tire swing was everybody's favorite.

And then my turn came. It wasn't quite the same as the last time.
The playground wasn't vandalized or destroyed like the last time. It was simply that I was seeing it truly for once. For the first time, I noticed the barbed wire and watch towers that surrounded it. For the first time, I noticed the blood stains in the sandbox and on the woodchip piles. The ground was still there, but it was no longer solid. It was still the right place, and yet no longer safe. The security of the playground was suddenly false - it wouldn't protect me from the world, even though the fence was still there. It was simply no longer trustworthy. It was fallible.

As I searched desperately for a place to sit and hide my face a bit, I noticed her sitting on the swings. I went over and took the swing beside her.
"So," I said.
"Yup," she said.
"This is what you meant the whole time?"
"This is it. Welcome to real life, babe."
"It's really, really cold."
She pulled out an extra sweater and tossed it to me. "I came prepared," she said.
"And it hurts like hell."
"Yeah. That bit gets a little better with time, but it never really goes away."

We sat in silence for a really long time. It wasn't that it was wrong. But it had turned from our little paradise into a prison, and the fact that it was right was partly what made it so. It may be hell, but there was nowhere else to go.

"So...what do we do now?"
She shrugged. "I don't know..." We stared reflectively at the woodchips while I tried to determine by the shade of red exactly how old the bloodstains were. Fifteen years? Sixty? Two thousand?

"We could go play on the tire swing," she suggested.

So that was what we did.

Screw Coherence

2006-11-29T15:53:00.000-08:00

someone wrote in the comments on a blog that I recently read that they "know there's a lot that they don't know but at least they know what it is they don't know." paraphrased. I'd like to expound on that. I know so little that I don't know the extent of what it is that I don't know. I never will. I have always been told that this is what it means to be human, bc humans can't know everything. we don't have the time, most of us don't have the mental capacity to retain all that information, plus a lot of it is really useless stuff like what couch lint smells like, or what the random rice-patty worker in China ate for breakfast yesterday, or who decided to create different types of paper-clips in new and interesting shapes. there is a lot of actually useful and interesting stuff that I also don't know, and which might be helpful in my search for the original breakthrough idea that finally takes existential discussions onto a new plane. but all this stuff I keep reading keeps bringing me to the same old "so.....what?" conclusions.
I'm sorry for being repetitive, bc I know I've said all this already, and I apologize for the fact that none of this is even vaguely understandable bc I'm not going to explain where any of it is coming from. but G-d damn it people! must the ideas always go around and around and around in the same old tired circles again and again and again? can't anyone pick up where someone else left off and break forth into a new concept? I mean, I know I shouldn't be the one to talk bc I haven't exactly been that productive myself, but I am trying.
meanwhile the integral cohesive unity of the universe is buzzing just beyond my reach. I've done a decent amount of searching for new dots to connect, and I've come up with a whole bunch of good ones, now I'm just waiting to draw the squiggly lines in place but meanwhile I'm getting a little fed up.

Thanksgiving

2006-11-26T12:41:00.000-08:00

it's funny. in America, the debate rages wildly - should we really celebrate Thanksgiving along with the rest of the country? Of course we're grateful to America for allowing us to live in peace, for alowing us to excel and live happy, comfortable, Torah-observant lives. Of course we're thankful to G-d for this. but do we really have to take the one day the rest of the country has declared as its holiday, and eat the turkey, cranberry sauce, etc - just like the goyim? Can't we just be thankful every day, and go about our business on this day as if nothing unusual is going on, like we do on Christmas? after all, we are supposed to keep ourselves seperate. adopting the minhagim of the other nations isn't warmly recommended.
I've heard lots of reasonable arguments against this position. my favorite came in a Thanksgiving dinner dvar Torah; why do we get up and say the modim dirabanan with the shliach tsibur during chazarat hashas? bc when we hear anybody praising G-d's name, we have an obligation to jump up and join in that praise. so too on Thanksgiving, when we hear the whole country praising G-d, we have an obligation to join in and praise Him as well.
when you move to another country however, the holiday takes on a whole new meaning. it's ridiculous how many Americans in Israel go out of their way to celebrate Thanksgiving. the best resturaunts are booked for months, tourism is on a high ( bc of all the American families who take advantage of the long weekend to come visit their kids who are in yeshiva or seminary), grocery stores run out of pie shells and cranberry sauce, and it isn't too difficult to find a random get together of expatriates gathered around a turkey. and all the way over seas, the debate changes. the question of it's being frowned upon for doing as the goyim do is no longer relevant since no one is doing it but people like us. many are indifferent to it, or even happy that they forgot - it's a symbol of no longer living in a society not your own.
but I think actually there's a certain amount of importance for American olim to remember the day. yes we are finally home, thank G-d, and we should never know another strange culture. but it's good to remember the roots. what it felt like to be a stranger. keep a certain amount of humility for the fact that after all, it was at least partly America that allowed you to be here in the first place. of course it's all G-d's doing. but the process, the journey, is a tremendously important part of who we are and why we're here. it would be a good thing not to forget that.

Brother's Keeper

2006-11-22T14:31:00.000-08:00

So, at the moment I'm suffering from an intense and angry attack on my throat, otherwise known as strep. this particular strain of mine is so fiercely painful that I cannot sleep unless drugged on some 1600 mg of Ibeprofen or something similar. so as I wait for the drugs to kick in so I can finally fall asleep, I thought, what better way to kill time than to blog?
There was a rally in jerusalem for Darfur this week...it wasn't as big as they'd hoped for, and got little to no press at all, which was kind of the point. anyway, people have been talking about it a lot these last few days, so it's been on my mind.
I was in Chevron this past shabbat, (Chaya Sorah) which was amazing, and while we were there (we were with a Betar group) we heard various talks about Chevron and the importance of conquering the land. and this one guy who was speaking made a couple of points that bothered me. He was talking about how when community leaders tried to go and onvince FDR to let the St. Louis in, and how FDR told them "not to make this a Jewish war." and from then on, he claims, silence from American Jewry. But you look twenty years ahead, and who's marching and getting killed alongside the blacks in the battles of the civil rights movement? look around any American Jewish high school today, and what are they all doing? fundraising and public awareness about Darfur.
I think his point was something along the lines of, Jews stick up for the underdog only when it doesn't directly affect our comfortable living situations; let's not turn America into the next Germany, so we need to keep a low profile.
but he neglected several important points. firstly, American Jewry didn't exactly sit back and do nothing. It's true they were prevented by the American government from doing as much as they'd have liked to. that wasn't for lack of trying, nor was it our fault. when the President tells you he's not going to do anything for you - or when he simply refuses to meet with you entirely - there isn't a whole lot you can do from there, you know? "The buck stops here," remember?
second point; both the civil rights movement and Darfur came post- Holacaust. bc G-d forbid we should actually learn somehting from being persecuted all our lives, such as, I don't know, it shouldn't be done. or allowed to be done. Never again didn't just apply to us as victims; it also applied to us as bystanders. we vowed not to be those people who simply didn't get involved bc it wasn't us. that was something of the point.
thirdly, he ignored a few other things; for example, how many Jews protested when the Turks were genociding the Armenians? I was too young to remmeber but I never heard about anyone protesting violently on their behalf. so I guess maybe we do pick and choose our battles a bit.
and then, what about the Jews of Soviet Russia? was this man aware of how many Jews risked their lives by smuggling themselves into that country for the sake of rescuing and teaching the Russian Jews? or smuggling Russina Jews out from behind the Iron curtain? so maybe occasionally, we do stand up for ourselves as a people, even when it is a little uncomfortable.
none of these things were really the point of his talk which is why I let the issue go for the time being. but this is my point about Darfur. we have a responsibility, as a a light unto the nations, as victims of genocide, as people who are supposed to be spreading a message of love for our fellow man which is, after all, at least according to Hillel and Rabbi Akiva, the heart and soul and crux of the Torah.

So The Truth Is....

2006-11-19T12:12:00.000-08:00

This was at least in theory supposed to be a coherent, thoughtful, insightful sort of a post. I don't want to be repetitive, or redundant, or, you know, to say the same thing over and over again in different words. But the fact is, this one is sill percolating, and I think it's going to be for awhile.

Okay, here's the thing. First of all, I'm going to give a little bit of background. I went to a Chabbad elementary school, and my family isn't Chabbad. So from the beginning of my thinking career, I've been trained to not buy everything I was told in school. Or, by anyone for that matter, given the fact that arguing is one of my family's favorite pastimes, and it's difficult to argue and yet agree with people at the same time. (although, being Jewish, we still manage.) It's also where I learned to argue in class in order to focus my attention; and in focusing my attention, I learned to love learning. And Torah. (Chabbad, just for anyone who doesn't know, learn some crazy cool Torah.)
For high school, my mother forbade me going to Chabbad, for various very justified reasons. So I went to a Bais Yaakov, a hashkafa that sees many things sort of the opposite from the way Chabbad sees them. It was kind of a culture shock, spiritually and intellectually. My experiences at this high school were largely enjoyable, mainly because I found a group of similarly minded Zionist-intellectual kofrim, and we stuck together. But again, the only way to focus was to argue, which the school made all too easy for me to do anyway, since I disagreed with them on many many things.
From here I spent two years in a modern orthodox seminary, again very very different from Bais Yaakov, and Chabbad. Here I spent less time arguing in classes and more time formulating foundations for building a life philosophy. Which happened also through arguing but...about different stuff this time. Mostly politics.

Here's the point. I've spent my entire life viewing things from different perspectives, then turning these perspectives on their heads and shaking them for spare change. I'm still not done figuring things out, I don't think there's a point where you're supposed to have figured everything out...but I've been doing some slow slow thinking lately. I've started turning new ideas inside out, and finding that there might be merit in some of them, but after all my experience with turning things inside out here's the only concrete thing that I've discovered; the fact that an idea has merit doesn't make it a whole truth. It makes it a piece of truth. There are lots of pieces of truth all over the place. (I've been collecting them for a collage to put on my wall.) But the fact that you found a new one doesn't mean that everything else you've learned or found before loses any of its truth.

Here's the thing about intellectual honesty. If an individual is being truly, gut honest with themselves, they'll be smart enough to realize that they'll probably never have enough pieces to make a whole picture. Which means that you can't come to a conclusion, because a conclusion is where the search ends, and the search never ends. There wouldn't be a point if it did. I used to think that the ultimate unification of everything in the universe made everything simple. I think now that it means everything is more complicated than we like to give it credit for.

This isn't really meant to be particularly groundbreaking stuff. At least it isn't for me. I guess I just needed to reiterate to remind myself why I never take any idea for granted.

hmmmm

2006-11-06T14:04:00.000-08:00

so....I've been thinking about writing a serious post for awhile now. but....I guess the thought process is still thought-processing. you know how sometimes you mull things over and over and over again, trying to break new ground but still moving in the same endless circles? and then it starts going foggy round the edges of your brain until everything looks sort of dim and murky and you're not sure what the thoughts themselves are anymore? so, that's where I am. which is frustrating bc my brain is doing the work, but the results are minimal. this is the annoying bit of the process; the bit where I get stuck. getting stuck is not a good thing, that way lies discouragement. but I'm no longer in an environment where this line of thought grows naturally. that seems ironic for one in a university setting, but I suppose I'm not using my resources properly. rather, I know I'm not. I need more information. I'm stagnating. so, still working on the real post, but in the meantime, any new thoughts on truth anyone?

Clarence

2006-10-26T15:48:00.000-07:00

hello again blogoshpere! it hasn't actually been that long, but feels like forever. I'm sure nobody noticed, but I suppose that's my problem.
so I'd like to tell you all about a new friend of mine. his name is Clarence and he is currently curled up on my desk (actually half falling off it) wrapped in his leash, sleeping in blissful and peaceful repose. (he's so cute when he's sleeping!)
Clarence is my new pet potatoe. a good friend had promised me one, and made good on his promise several weeks ago. His full name is Clarence Fritzgerald II. The first Clarence Fritzgerald was my good friend's former pet duck.
I know what you're thinking;
"But potatoes grow eyes!"
"but potatoes go mushy!"
"but you EAT potatoes!"
"don't keep him in the dark too long!" etc.
oh I have heard it all before, but I do not care. I reuse to listen to the cold hard cynicism of all you cold hard cynics. No one is eating Clarence - when he expires, he will be respectfully interred in the ground, probably alongside Phillip. I trim his eyes when they start to grow. and the fact that he likes to escape from his leash on occasion is perfectly normal in any adolescent potatoe. he is a happy fellow;he likes to frolic and whistle and things of that nature. he gets nervous when people pet him on the wrong end. really, he's just like all his peers. excpt for the leash. and the fact that he's not being eaten.
he has gotten pale lately.probably normal in a healthy, hardworking potatoe. at least I don't have to worry about skin cnacer with this one.
that's about all that's new with me lately, except for the fact that G-d decided to give us a little taste of the Flood this weekend; something wrong with the pipe in our shower and everything got wet. makes for good conversation at least.
(potatoes are no good when everything is drowning.)

Judgement Day

2006-10-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

I know I know; the title couldn't be more cliche. please bear with me, I'm only an arrogant college student with pretentions to greatness.

the sun sets, Yom Kippur settles slowly over the land, and immediately panic sets in. there's only twenty five hours left before it's all over. twenty five hours to change the fate of humankind by sheer force of will. will we do it this year? could this be the year our voices crying in unison are enough to shatter the iron curtains of Heaven, like the trumpets bringing down the walls of Jericho? or are they doomed to shatter against the cold rusty metal and dissolve unheard into the atmosphere?
I have to admit, I wasn't feeling it going in, and that's never a good sign. I know it's my fault; I didn't prepare myself properly, I didn't ready myself enough. I am willing to take full responsibility for that - my lack of connection wasn't anyone's fault but my own, not this time. but I wasn't sure, really wasn't sure what to go in armed with this round ...I am slowly being stripped of all my armor. realizing oneself in the larger picture is so much more more hopelessizing a thing than I'd expected.
last year I went in armed with Gush Katif. I could tell G-d, look - your people joined together with love instead of hatred at the moment of its highest tension. isn't that teshuva for the sinat chinam which destroyed the beit hamikdash? doesn't that make us worthy of geulah?
but this year we had Amonah, the antithesis of Gush Katif, so all my arguments were thus destroyed.
I wanted to say, give us back our brothers in captivity. but if it will lead to the captivity, perhaps the death of countless others, is that a fair trade to bargain for?
I wanted to ask, let my people no more suffer. but if no one suffers this year, does that only push off, and perhaps worsen, eventual inevitable suffering? if there is so much suffering that needs to happen to this people and I stop some of it, does it make things worse on the other end of the equation?
what am I supposed to pray for? for the sick to be healed - that they may now even greater pain? for the nation to be spared - and thus lack a level of cleansing they might have otherwise had? how am I to know which threads need to be continued and which others snapped off? I know that G-d knows best and isn't going to stop something from happening which needs to happen just bc I asked Him to. but it does leave me a bit at a loss, and so so helpless. if we cannot pray, then we have no weapon, and if we don't now what to pray for, what can we say that has any weight?

maybe I'm not trying hard enough. maybe I've gotten lazy, or given up out of exhaustion. none of this is particularly useful rumination. but I'm tired of being tired. I'm frustrated with being frustrated. have I finally gotten jaded and apathetic? burned out, worn down, ragged and unsteady? I can't even see the point of crying anymore. in the end it all just leaves me cold.

and yet I'm not allowed to walk away. I can never, will never, walk away. like the angel who's doomed to stick around while armaggeddon falls, desperately attempting to save the last stray few as they stumble off towards they're inevitable doom....

I was afraid for the Judgement Day this year, but I was ten times more afraid for its end, and I'm scareder still now. the very thought of what this year may hold for us makes me tremble. someday it will all be over, but is that day yet too far in the future, or too near?
and Moshiach's still not here, which means I failed again. there is always next year, or even mayhap sooner. but how much can still happen before then? how much more can He do to us before He has to save us at last?

more writing stuff

2006-09-21T04:42:00.000-07:00

this post has actually been in the boiling process for over a month now, but it reaches a new timely relevance with Tobie's latest posts...
so I'd like to tell you all a story, which may explain somehting abt how I relate to my characters, when I write fiction.

one Shabbat, several of my friends and I were staying at a sister's apartment, and all three of us were in one room. somebody said "Hey, it's like a slumber party! we should tell ghost stories!" only the other two punked out and made it my turn. so I attempted to tell the only ghost story I remember with any real clarity from my childhood, and botched it in the following manner.

most of you should be familiar with the tale. lone youngish Guy driving down a deserted highway late one night, sees a young Girl walking along the side of the highway and offers to drive her home. bc you know, not safe to walk along the deserted highway alone at night; you might get picked up by a random stranger. so, he sees she's shivering and gallantly offers her his jacket, which she gratefully accepts. drives her up to a nice old hoiuse and drives away, only then realizing she's still got the jacket. "No big deal," he thinks, "I know where she lives, I'll go back for it tomorrow." he goes back the next day, and a little old couple answer the door. when told the story of the girl and the jacket they insist they're daughter's been dead for ten years. "But that's impossible! I drove her home last night, I tell you! the girl's got my jacket!" they send him to the cemetary for proof, and sure enough, there lies his jacket on her grave.

but it had been awhile since ghost story days, and the way I told it was this. so, Guy is driviing along the road, late at night, sees Girl, offers her a ride. he takes her home and -wait, the jacket....oh yeah, something about the jacket, that was important...ok, so she left her jacket in his car. I don't know why, I guess..she..got..hot? bc of the heating in the car? bc the night was definitely dark and cold..at this point in the narrative I can feel the dead Girl sort of turn around and give me a look like "why am I wearing a jacket? and why am I taking it off and leaving it here?" but she does as I, the omnipotent narrarator, have forced her to do, glancing at me askance as she walks up the walkway to her house. Guy thinks it a little odd also, but he doesn't know why yet, so he just sort of shrugs it off. anyway, a little while away, Guy realizes she's left her jacket in his car. he thinks, no big deal, I know where she lives, I can go back tomorrow and return it. so he goes back the next morning and knocks on the door and the little old couple answer, and he says "Hi, I gave your daughter a ride last night and she left her jacket in my car." and they look a little confused bc they're not supposed to know anything about a jacket, and what is the jacket doing there? the jacket looks sort of confused too, but it can't lift its head to look at me funny. the little old couple insist that their daughter is dead and has been dead for ten years, as they're supposed to. Guy is now getting frustrated as well as confused. "But I drove her home! look, I have her jacket! I'm just trying to return the jacket!" but the couple doesn't know why he wants to give them this jacket, and he doesn't know why he's trying so hard to give the stupid jacket to a little old couple who clearly don't want it and the jacket doesn't know why its in this scene at all, since its entire creative purpose was destroyed the moment he got left in the car. the characters struggle thusly for a bit - "Take the jacket!" "Our daughter's dead!" "Just take the jacket!" "our daughter's dead!" - until I finally realize they're kind of in a stalemate, so I have the old man say "look, just - I mean if you don't believe us, why don't you go to the cemetary and see for yourself?" and slams the door, thus effectively moving guy to the final frame of the story where he's supposed to be although no one is sure why anymore. so he goes to the cemetary and sure enough...she's dead.

and that's how I end the story, with guy all confused, first abt the deadness, and second abt the jacket, which he eventually frustratedly leaves on her grave, bc he senses somehow that that is where it was supposed to be and nothing else made any sense anyway.

we all had a good laugh at my expense once I figured out where the story went wrong and fixed it. I guess the point is that sometimes I do make my characters do things, but they usually don't like it if it's not what they're supposed to be doing. and that never works out well for anybody, in the end.

Heresy, and Other Favorite Children's Pastimes

2006-09-10T06:04:00.000-07:00

I apologize in advance for the length of this rant. but please read the whole thing before posting comments.

The more I explore the blogosphere, or at least that area of the blogosphere which is comprised of the musings of various young Jewish philosophers -disenfranchised, disenchanted, frustrated and struggling, intellectual, searching, and running around in semantic circles like chickens with their tongues cut off- the more agitated and frustrated I become. When will you realize you are all falling into exactly the same patterns as every Jewish thinker (read: Jewish person who has thought)that ever came before you? you are still defining your areas of thought by the same rules, restrictions, codes and guidelines as everyone you're trying to break away from (read: everyone who has ever thought seriously about Judaism.)I can feel you guys trying to break into new territory, an undiscovered concept, an original perception, and almost getting there, then at the last minute falling back into the same inevitable loop you have been falling into since the entire thought process began.

I'm sorry; I really don't know why I'm so bitter about this. I just keep feeling like it's all been said before, and yet each new person who says it afresh feels like it's a personal and irrevocable revelation without a resolution.

I cannot resolve anything for anyone, and I won't pretend to try. I'm not even going to pretend that I've got some new concepts here, because honestly, I haven't either. but at least I can recognize my struggle for a newer, fresher sphere. at least I can tell myself that just bc I'm frustrated doesn't mean that this is all there is. I'm still struggling, just like the rest of you, only I'm straining upwards, trying to shatter the glass ceiling with a broom pole. I know it's going to be bloody, but it's way the hell better than sticking around in the same endless track of Jewish thought (read: thoughts thought by Jews) that have been restricting, defining, and strangling especially the Orthodox Jewish movement for way too long now.

I should probably clarify at least a little bit what it is exactly that I'm trying to say. I apologize if I fail; sometimes high emotion and frustration make me eloquent, and sometimes they make me stupid.

when I talk about defining your areas of thought by the rules of the so-called opposition (or, the "They" if you prefer a specific title,)I mean that you define them the way they define you - two dimensionally, on the surface, looking only at the outlying characteristics rather than the full view of the community. I don't mean to say that any Orthodox Jewish community won't have its faults bc every community everywhere has its faults; and I won't say it's not frustrating to grow up within a system that insists you try to be something that you're not. but it's just as frustrating to hear you lump them all together in one group - they're all delusional, believing for the sake of the warm safe feelings it gives them at night. what about those people who never wanted to believe at all, but were forced to come to it on the strength of their intellectual honesty? what about those people who've had their faith challenged to the point where they feel like they've been completely abandoned, where they simply can no longer trust in a G-d which includes Evil in His list of character traits, but who won't let go bc they refuse to be beaten, even by the Master of the Universe? you fail to include, in your derisive lists of the delusional Orthodox, the people who are religous not bc of the warm fuzzy feeling of "I finally found truth!" but who live every day with the cold, hard, desperate realization that truth isn't just light and beauty -it's also evil and ugliness, it's shadows and obstructions and shadings and complexities - it's depth and depth perception. it isn't as simple and easy as it sounds. I'm not even talking about the people who've suffered innumerable tragedies in their lives. I'm talking abt those who maybe have suffered nothing physically, but who want to scream every time their older siblings assume that they believe what they believe simply bc it's what they've been told. some of us, even those of us who went through the system, did not simply accept everything on the silver spoon that was placed in our mouths. some of us fought to the death for every belief we hold. some of us had to break the system down piece by piece, from the inside out, to come to the realization that truth is not really as simple as anyone wants it to be - not the Orthodox, and not you who so disdainfully scorn them.

and then what about you from within the Orthodox world? honestly, some of you guys really try, and some of you do a pretty good job. but even you still fall into the same old traps - generalization, oversimplification, apologetics. Judaism was never meant to be a factory system. there will always be those of us who do not fit into your mold, no matter how wide it is. there will always be those of us who choose to see the world through a slightly different colored lense; but one that came with a prescription from the same eye doctor. If G-d wanted us all to be alike, He wouldn't have given us twelve tribes, each with its own place in Eretz Yisroel, each with its own bracha, each with its own strengths, weaknesses, characteristics. Judaism was always supposed to be a jigsaw puzzle - you fit in here, I fit in there, and together we make an entire picture. if we're all trying to fit into the same places, several things will result - 1)some of us just won't fit and 2)the picture will never be completed. I'm sorry, but the ever strengthening of the Black Hat community, reaching up and encroaching on even such MO bastions as Stern/YU and certain seminaries and yeshivot in Israel who shall go unmentioned, disturbs me almost more than anyting else in Orthodox Judaism today. there is no one right way. I will say for the last time, "Shivim Panim liTorah" actually does mean something - it means that Torah and Torah life are vibrant and dynamic, subject to debate and discussion. there's a reason there's a steryotype about the argumentative Jew. Jews are meant to argue - with each other about Torah, and with G-d, about Torah. of course only within the confines of halacha (bli neder, if anyone posts saying something to the affect of "but that's the reform movement, you can do whatever you want to!" I will break something, and it may be expensive and not belong to me, or it may be my hand, bc you clearly are misunderstanding everything I'm trying to say here.)and, which is included within the term "confines of halacha," since it is a halacha, that INCLUDES the concepts of "VIHAVTA LIRAYACHA KAMOCHA" and "KAVOD HABRIOT." I really don't want to get into the analogies to end of Second Temple Era politics here, but I will if I have to.

why can't there be Orthodox Jews who have honestly had their faith thoroughly and completely routed, yet hung on from sheer intellectual honesty and willpower and come through with a more intact, broader, more grounded and true faith? why can't there be Orthodox girls whose Gemorrah learning improves their middot, halacha observance, tzniut, and avodat Hashem, and leaves them just as fit to be baby-makers who can raise more ovdei Hashem as well as any shallow, hypocritical Bais Yaakov "rebel" who put on a button-down shirt and some tights to get a good shidduch? why does there have to be a black, white, and gray? why can't there be yellows and blues, and greens, and even a little red once in awhile?

look, I really think it's awesome that all you guys are talking and stuff. I just wish you'd communicate more. For all you disenfranchised youth - if you guys have reached your decisions regarding G-d and the universe, fine. go break Shabbat, eat pork, whatever. But if it bothers you enough that you're still so bitter about it, and still ranting and whining on the blogosphere, clearly your journey is not over. and if you're journey is not over, you are failing yourselves to give up so soon. I don't mean to minimize the intensity of your search. but it's not over till it's over, and only quitters give up before it's over. to all the Orthodox who try to help - it's awesome that you care. and you make a lot of good points. but you of all people should know that it's never ever over. remember that moshel about the ladder? going either up or down but never standing still? just because you guys "have found Truth" doesn't mean you get to stop searching either. Truth isn't a platitude, it isn't a sefer or a Rav or a psak, it's a process, and it is the process of everything that never ever ever ends. EVER.

so I'm just trying to say. I'm exactly like all of you - the disenfranchised and the Orthodox. I believe, firmly and irrevocably, in Orthodoxy and EVERYTHING (note the emphasis please) that it has to offer. but I'm also still searching and always will be, because I believe that the Torah is meant to be a battleground, brutal and draining and soaked with the blood of all the warriors who have ever come before us.

and again and again and again....

2006-08-29T10:13:00.000-07:00

so, reflection on a previous post....I currently find myself in a similar situation with regards to the kidnapped soldiers. I asked, in said post, should I have really been praying for the end of the war? and I ask now - should I be praying for the return of the soldiers?
if it means one thousand terrorists will be freed, that x many more Jewish soldiers, children, tourists, journalists will be captured and held hostage again, that x more ppl will die in suicide bombings, be evicorated in random Arab cars, or even stabbed within the gates of the Old City at night, that x mothers, y father, q friends, z girlfrieds, and w related people who weren't even that close but knew the victims from just around the community will be affected....
what are the cost-benefits here? what am I asking for? what should I be asking for? the lives of a few vs the potential lives of many? is that even what they want from us? and from G-d?
but it hurts that they're not home. I don't even know them, but it hurts all of us, and the ache grows a little worse with each day that passes without our knowing what their fate will be.
It's arrogant to think that whatever I ask for in my prayers will be answerd just bc I asked. I know G-d's not going to change the course of history bc I asked Him too, foolishly and without knowing or understanding the consequences.
but they pray five times a day, and we only pray three, which means they've got a head start on us to begin with, and I need to do something to help bring up the team average a bit, whatever I can. that's what being a part of the Jewish community is really about, right?
so I ask again, what in the world am I supposed to be asking for?

and again....

2006-08-22T04:37:00.000-07:00

I had a few extra minutes, so I thought I should post. but now I have to say something.
I'd like to pose a challenge to my fellow bloggers; during a discussion with friends recently, the topic of comparative humor was bandied about, and it's been on my mind. (I didn't get to the challenge part yet. be patient.)we were discussing German humor vs American, vs British, vs Jewish; and I was wondering what exactly it is that makes Jewish humor what it is.
I heard Rav Asher Wade say that all Jewish humor is about either the Jew and his G-d or the Jew and...something else. the Jew and his environment maybe? that seems to make sense...Darn, this would be a lot more effective if I could remember how the entire phrase went. anyway, I think I disagreed with him, bc Jewish humor is more a style of humor than a running punchline. the style has been shaped by our experiences, history, and the effects of these on the Jewish condition,; bitiing, sarcastic,slightly paranoid and very often political, but it's not always the same.
also, bc I think he was mainly talking about Jewish jokes and then I found a few that didn't conform to the formula or something.
in the context of a cultural humor though....bc think about it. what is funny? that which catches us by surprise via contrast of what you expected to happen with what actually happened. which makes us happy bc it's a reflection of truth, which insight makes us more complete...but that's my own personal philosophy. for another time.
so then the difference in cultural humor would be bc different cultures have different expectations? different paradigms for what ought to happen and what ought not to happen, or what does and what doesn't usually?
thus my challenge to you: what is it that seperates Jewish humor from other types of humor, and what is it that marks the differences in the humor of various cultures?

(my challenges aren't usually met with much enthusiasm so as incentive, I offer to the winner...a cookie. but if you live in a different country, you have to buy it yourself.)