Abacaxi Mamão

In the waning hour of the 10th of the Hebrew month of Shevat, I just want to acknowledge that today is my maternal grandfather's third yahrzeit, may his memory be for a blessing.

I had a strange dream about him over Shabbat. My grandfather appears in my dreams almost every time I visit my grandmother, may she live and be well, in California. In those California dreams, he appears in the house doing very normal things, and I know that he's dead and that I can't possibly be seeing him still alive, but there he is. Soon after his death, my dream narratives usually involved him somehow not having died, and that's why he appeared to be alive. In more recent dreams, though, I've been quite aware of his passing, but can still see him. Over Shabbat, one of these dreams involved me trying to ascertain if anybody else in the house could see him. They could not and they were upset at me for suggesting that I could see him. I found it very frustrating, since I knew and acknowledged that he was no longer alive. He didn't do anything in that dream, though, and that wasn't the weird one.

The weird one was that I was in Palo Alto with my grandmother and assorted other relatives--aunt and siblings, I think, although my mother may have been there as well--and it was time to say kiddush on Friday night. My grandfather wasn't there and it was clear that he had died sometime in the semi-recent past. Now, my grandfather always read kiddush off of photocopied sheets. I have no idea why, or where they came from, but when it was time for kiddush, he always put on a shiny satin kippah, fished one of these sheets out of the buffet drawer, and read kiddush off of it. This, despite the fact that the same buffet drawer was full of benchers that no doubt also had kiddush in them and despite the fact that he definitely knew kiddush by heart. In the dream, something had happened to these kiddush sheets. Maybe they had one too many run-ins with spilled wine. There was only one sheet left, but it was ripped, and you could only see the beginning of kiddush.

Someone tried to read kiddush off of it, but when they got to the part where the words stopped, they couldn't remember the end even though they normally knew kiddush quite well. Someone else tried--same problem. We tried to find a siddur (there are many in the house) from which to say kiddush, but kiddush had disappeared from all of the siddurim. I said, "This is ridiculous, I know Friday night kiddush by heart. I'll just say it from memory!" I started, but when I got to the part where the words stopped on the torn kiddush sheet, I could not, for the life of me, remember the rest. It was utterly gone from my memory.

Then I woke up.

It was really sad and somewhat freaky.

Maybe the dream was reminding me that when someone dies, we lose things that seem like they should be right on the tip of our tongues or sitting in full sight on our bookcases, but they've disappeared with the person.

Labels: In Memoriam, life

(Speaking of sustainable vs. disposable clothing...)

1. One long floral skirt, purchased at Machaneh Yehuda in the summer of 1996, during my first trip to Israel. It probably looked okay on me then. I was skinnier. In college, I wore it with a purple t-shirt from K-Mart that I still wear regularly. I only wore it a few times, though. Not more than four times, I think, in the past ten years. The truth is, it wasn't such a flattering skirt even then.
2. One long floral skirt, purchased for $2.50 at the Hadassah Bargain Spot, circa 1995. Worn on many, many Shabbatot, up to and including two summers ago. Not worn since then, because I realized that even though it is very, very comfortable on both hot days and not so hot days, it is incredibly unflattering. I still love the pattern, though. It's just got too much elastic to be appropriate for a pretty 27-year-old to wear.
3. One white and red floral pattern blouse, purchased at Sears at a date unknown, worn zero times. Much too large on me. I don't know if/when it ever fit me. It's a size L or XL, so maybe I just bought it without trying it on. Who the hell knows?
4. Two linen skirts from Old Navy, circa April 2004 (purchased for Pesach), always on the larger size, now large enough to fall down with a quick tug. Therefore, no longer appropriate to wear. Anywhere. (I sometimes have trouble getting rid of clothing that's too big on me, since, I dunno, just because I haven't really gained the weight back over the past two years despite periods of little exercise and lots of junk food doesn't mean I might not gain it back sometime. My hard and fast rule, though, is if it comes off with a tug and no unbuttoning or unzipping, I get rid of it.)
   
5. Two linen shirts from Old Navy, circa April 2004, now way too big. They went with the skirts. They often looked wrinkled. Not being a big fan of the iron, they spent a lot of time hanging in the bathroom when I was showering, in the hopes that the steam would straighten them out. Sometimes it helped!
6. A pair of brown dress pants (by which I mean pants suitable for wearing to work). The lining is totally shot (by which I mean ripped in several places). I got them about two years ago, I think, and probably wore them weekly for much of that time. Also, I walk a lot and I think that takes a toll on pants and shoes. I went to get the lining of another pair of pants of similar vintage fixed at the local dry cleaner, and it cost me $25. Instead of getting these fixed, I went and got a new pair of pants on sale for $32. (That's probably what they were talking about in this article. It is much better for the world to get clothing repaired than to toss, or in my case donate, it and buy new stuff.) But these pants are also not that comfortable or flattering, so I'm happy to have replaced them with something nicer.
7. One knee-length A-line jean skirt, worn occasionally. I don't have much occasion to wear jean skirts. This is one of three, and since I only wear them when I feel compelled, for social reasons, to wear a skirt to a casual event on a weekday, they don't get worn much. The other two skirts are much better for a variety of reasons. This one goes. Closet real estate is valuable in these parts.
8. One peasanty purple shirt, suitable for hippy Shabbatot, purchased at K-Mart circa 1998 or 1999. Shoulder is worn out. Also, it looks like something I wore a lot in college. I guess it is.
9. One hideous shiny purple blouse, never worn. Unclear why it was ever purchased. It must have been a bargain.
   
10. One long, straight, light blue linen skirt. Purchased for a summer wedding and worn once after that. Reasons for donating: (1) not flattering (2) susceptible to wrinkling (3) couple to whose wedding I wore it is now divorced.

To be turned into rags:

1. One purple t-shirt, purchased on the street in Manhattan for $5 in the summer of 1997. Long since relegated to the pajama pile, but now holey enough to be turned into a rag.
2. One grey t-shirt, from OCS (Office of Career Services) at Harvard, acquired for free in September 1998. It has the periodic table information for oxygen, carbon, and whatever "S" stands for on the front spelling out OCS (selenium? sounds familiar from Tom Lehrer's "The Elements"; never mind, it's sulfur), and "Finding your element" on the back. Worn for a year or two as a regular shirt, then relegated to the pajama pile. Currently falling apart.
3. One Disneyland t-shirt, silk-screened with four images of Mickey Mouse, purchased circa, shoot, I don't know, maybe junior high. When did we last go to Disneyland as a family? I think when I was 13. That would be, um, the summer of 1992. Yeah, that sounds right. I've only worn it for sleeping in for, I don't know, the past seven years or so. Maybe longer. It's finally starting to fall apart. Mickey is as clear as day, but holes are developing on the shoulder seams, as they will tend to after, um, fifteen years.
   

Decided to keep:

1. A blouse from the Gap, purchased circa 1998. Worn only a few times. I have no idea why I didn't wear it more. It looks great. Like new! I think I might have thought it was too tight once upon a time, but it really isn't.

And that, my friends, is that. Looking over this list, it is clear that this purge of unsuitable clothing ought to continue.

I have whole drawers of clothing that is probably mostly appropriate to wear while painting a house. Seriously. Nobody needs as many t-shirts as I have. Nobody. It's partly that I still have a lot of shirts from high school and college, when I was a jeans and t-shirt and sneakers kind of gal. (Except in high school I wore some sort of skirt instead of jeans.) I don't really dress that way anymore--even when I wear jeans, which is whenever I'm not at work and it's not Shabbat--I usually wear something a little nicer than an over sized t-shirt. So I have drawers of t-shirts and drawers of "a little nicer than a t-shirt" and drawers of "things only good for exercising" and drawers of "things only good for sleeping in," and I should probably combine some of these categories, or at least have less of some of them. How many "things for sleeping in" does one need? Not as much as I have.

It's not clear why I didn't do this a long time ago. Well, that's not quite true. But, still, now that I've started I should not stop until it's all gone. All the unflattering, tattered or torn, too large or too small, or from high school, clothing should be donated, or, if truly in shreds, turned into rags. Pronto. Or as soon as I get around to it. After I'm done with this, then I can get to all of the paper that I've been traveling with all of these years.

Labels: life

[Part 1 of this series is here.
Part 2 of this series is here.]

I'm clearly overdue for a third, but I'm sure you'll forgive me, as I've been busy blogging about more interesting things. Still, I think that this is sort of interesting, too, although it is by no means scientific or thorough in any way.

...by Googling "Why does eye strain occur when working form 6pm to 5 am?" My December 2005 archive was the second hit.

...by Googling "Zoroastrian view on birth control," you hit this post.

...by Googling "בנות ירושלים" someone in Haifa arrived here. I think this may be the first time someone has Googled something in Hebrew to arrive at my blog. It's a nice thing to google and get to me through!

...by Googling "female brain chocolate center" someone in Boston landed here.
...by Googling i want to convert to zoroastrianism in london (without quotes) someone in London landed here. I don't know if it's possible, but best of luck! It does seem like a kind of cool religion.

...by Googling male gaze (without quotes), you got here. Surprisingly, it was on the 13th page of links (it was the 121st of 4.9 million links--not too shabby!). If you Google halacha male gaze, that post is #1. [Updated to add: When I originally wrote this post in October, that was true. Now that post is #2. Yes, this one has beeen sitting in the draft pile for awhile.]

...by Googling "NYC" "superficial women," you arrived here. I don't know why I find it amusing that someone got to my blog by searching for superficial NYC women, but I do. (That person was Googling from within NYC, by the way. So it seems that they were Googling from experience, possibly seeking some useful advice. Like people-watching, Google-search-watching can lead to entire elaborate constructions of people's lives and motivations.)


People who come across my blog and live in unusual places:

• On September 26th, 2006, someone from Makkah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia read my blog. Freaky.
• On September 28th, 2006, someone from Shahid Sadoughi University, Iran, read my blog. Freakier.

Normal ways of finding my blog:

Sometimes, people actually look for normal things, and my blog provides answers. How cool is that?

• Search for "study that leads to action gemara" led to this post.
• Search for "ABACAXÍ meaning" led to, well, this is obvious.

Labels: meta

This website with resources for Israelis in the US was the "sponsored link" on an e-mail I got. I often get interesting ads when e-mails arrive that contain Hebrew. I didn't look at the website extensively, but I did learn that the way to say "FAQ" in Hebrew is "שאלות נפוצות." The website reminds me of all of the resources for Americans in Israel.

Recent articles of interest from the New York Times--I originally wanted to write a whole post about each of these, but quickly realized that I won't have time to do so in the near future.

• Can Polyester Save the World?
• Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome?
• The Voices in My Head Say ‘Buy It!’ Why Argue?
• Small Wonders: Understanding the Way of the Warrior Sperm
• Do You Believe in Magic?
• Why Are There So Many Single Americans?
  In addition to the interesting points made in this piece, note that the recent NYT report [original NYT article] that stated that 51% of American women are single looked at women from the age of 15 to, I don't know, eternity. So they're counting both the neighborhood paper girl and your grandmother who was married for 50+ years before her beloved husband died, living her a widow.
  

And, finally, this article makes me feel like an old geezer. When I was a kid, we used to sit in the hot sun selling lemonade. (Actually, I think my brother sold lemonade and I sold hand-painted cards and hand-crafted jewelry.) Really, I've had regular access to a computer since I was six, but I still feel like a different generation than these kids. Am I? I mean, most of them are only 10-15 years younger than I am. But, geez, they sure do think differently than I did!

Labels: links

From CNN.com. (Now, go back to talking Torah or gender or something.)

Labels: links

This may be of limited interest to most of my readers, but I'm finding it perplexing. I think it interests me for two reasons:

1. it concerns something that I say every morning and am somewhat fond of, but have never given all that much thought to
2. it calls into question all similar attributions that I have heard, and accepted prima facie, in the past

To reiterate and clarify the problem as described in an earlier post, we have this passage that appears in the morning prayer service, which is attributed, in at least one siddur (prayer book), to the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat 127a.

These are the precepts whose fruits a person enjoys in this world but whose principle remains intact for him in the world to come. They are:

1. the honor due to father and mother [Shabbat 127a]
2. acts of kindness [Shabbat 127a]
3. early attendance at the house of study morning [Shabbat 127a]
4. and evening
5. hospitality to guests [Shabbat 127a]
   
6. visiting the sick [Shabbat 127a]
   
7. providing for a bride
8. escorting the dead
9. absorption in prayer [Shabbat 127a]
   
10. bringing peace between people [Shabbat 127a]

—and the study of Torah is equivalent to (“k’neged”) all of them.

Yet this prayer contains words that don't appear in Masechet Shabbat, and omits words that do appear there, including ones I particularly like, such as והמגדל בניו לתלמוד תורה והדן את חברו לכף זכות. Similar lists appear in Tractate Gittin 39b and in ילקוט שמעוני תהילים רמז תשכב, but it turns out that they don't actually add anything that's not in Shabbat 127a. Specifically, providing for a bride and escorting the dead don't seem to appear anywhere, nor does staying late in the beit midrash (house of study). I misspoke in my last post, saying that "השכמת בית המדרש" was omitted, but that does appear slightly earlier on the page in Shabbat. Thanks to Rebecca M's suggestion, I searched http://www.responsa.co.il/. JXG suggested I try the Tosefta in the first chapter of Peah, and that's what I looked for first, but came up with nothing.¹ I did find this in the mishna in Peah:

Okay, well that doesn't add anything at all. Then I found these using http://www.responsa.co.il/:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Well, not nothing, just not what I was looking for. I did find the following in the Tosefta in Peah, which I thought was interesting:
Does "לשה"ר" mean what I think it means?

2. I checked out Ketubot 17a, just for the hell of it, and found this Gemara, which I recently heard quoted but had never read in the original. Those rabbis--gotta' love 'em!
You can find a translation of this passage here.

The somewhat-related part of Ketubot 17a is: "תנו רבנן מבטלין תלמוד תורה להוצאת המת ולהכנסת כלה" (my clumsy translation: "The Rabbis taught: One sets aside Torah study to remove the dead and to bring in the bride"), which is interesting in light of our "the study of Torah is equivalent to (k’neged) all of them" in the morning prayers.

Labels: Torah (broadly defined)

No, there's no punch line. The story is here.

This is one of those stories that some enterprising kiruv professional will no doubt turn into evidence that being Shabbat-observant will lead to a financial windfall. What I learned from it is that you shouldn't try to cheat your real estate broker out of her commission just because you're a celebrity, have deep pockets, and think you can get away with it.

Shabbat shalom!

Labels: New York, real estate

[I suppose that this could be considered the second in a series. First source sheet here.]

I have a few thoughts about this question, but first, are some traditional thoughts on the matter. (Thanks to EL for pointing me to these sources. All errors are my own.)

1. Torah Study and Freedom

אמר רבי יהושע בן לוי:.."והלחת מעשה אלקים המה והמכתב מכתב אלקים הוא חרות על הלוחות" (שמות לב). אל תקרא חרות אלא חירות, שאין לך בן חורין אלא מי שעוסק בתלמוד תורה. --מסכת אבות, פרק שישי, משנה ב'

And it says: “The Tablets are God’s handiwork and the script is God’s script charut (engraved) on the Tablets.” Do not read “charut” (engraved) but “cherut” (freedom), for you can have no freer person than one who engages in the study of Torah. -- Ethics of the Fathers 6:2

2. Torah Study and Peace

אמר רבי אלעזר אמר רבי חנינא תלמידי חכמים מרבים שלום בעולם שנאמר (ישעיהו נד) וכל בניך למודי ה' ורב שלום בניך אל תקרי בניך אלא בוניך (תהילים קיט) שלום רב לאוהבי תורתך ואין למו מכשול (תהילים קכב) יהי שלום בחילך שלוה בארמנותיך (תהילים קכב) למען אחי ורעי אדברה נא שלום בך (תהילים קכב) למען בית ה' אלהינו אבקשה טוב לך (תהילים כט) ה' עוז לעמו יתן ה' יברך את עמו בשלום:

Rabbi Elazar said on behalf of Rabbi Haninah: Torah scholars increase peace in the world, as it is said: “And all your children will be students of God and your children will have peace” (Isaiah 54:13)—do not read “your children” (“banayich”), but “your builders” (“bonayich”). “There is abundant peace for the lovers of your Torah, and there is no stumbling block for them” (Psalms 119:165); “May there be peace within your walls, serenity within your palaces. For the sake of my brothers and comrades I shall speak of peace in your midst. For the sake of the House of the Lord, our God, I will request your good” (Psalms 122:7-9); “God will give might to his nation, God will bless his nation with peace” (Psalms 29:11) ­-- Bab. Talmud, Tractate Brachot 64a

ומפני דרכי שלום כל התורה כולה נמי מפני דרכי שלום היא דכתי' (משלי ג) דרכיה דרכי נועם וכל נתיבותיה שלום

And for the sake of the paths of peace is the whole of Torah. Here too [in the case at hand] is it promoting peace, as it says, “Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are paths of peace” (Proverbs 3:17). ­-- Bab. Talmud, Tractate Gittin 59b

3. Torah Study and Positive Actions

These are the precepts whose fruits a person enjoys in this world but whose principle remains intact for him in the world to come. They are: the honor due to father and mother, acts of kindness, early attendance at the house of study morning and evening, hospitality to guests, visiting the sick, providing for a bride, escorting the dead, absorption in prayer, bringing peace between people—and the study of Torah is equivalent to (“k’neged”) all of them. ­-- Daily morning prayers (culled from various Talmudic sources)

Irritatingly enough, this passage from the traditional morning prayers does not appear anywhere in the Mishna, Talmud, or anything else I could find online. I believe that it is a combination of:

• Tractate Shabbat 127a [the Rinat Yisrael siddur attributes the passage to Masechet Shabbat 127a, but that's incorrect]
• Tractate Gittin 39b
• ילקוט שמעוני תהילים רמז תשכב

Plus, clearly, some other stuff. None of these three sources mention the following as mitzvot about which it is said "תלמוד תורה כנגד כלן":

• עיון תפלה
• השכמת בית המדרש
• providing for a bride
• escorting the dead

So I don't know where these four come from, especially the latter two, which don't seem to be mentioned anywhere at all (not that my check extended beyond Googling, but still). The first two are mentioned earlier on the page in Masechet Shabbat. Does anyone have any thoughts?

And one final source about Torah study and positive actions:

וכבר היה רבי טרפון וזקנים מסובין בעלית בית נתזה בלוד נשאלה שאילה זו בפניהם תלמוד גדול או מעשה גדול נענה רבי טרפון ואמר מעשה גדול נענה ר"ע ואמר תלמוד גדול נענו כולם ואמרו תלמוד גדול שהתלמוד מביא לידי מעשה

Rabbi Tarfon and the elders were reclining in the house of Nitzeh when the question was asked of them: “Is the study of Torah greater or are actions greater?” Rabbi Tarfon answered that actions are greater. Rabbi Akiva answered that study is greater. Everyone [finally] answered that study is greater, because study leads to action. ­ Bab. Talmud, Tractate Kiddushin 40b

My thoughts about Torah study are not all that complicated at the moment.

Mostly, I really enjoy learning Torah. Not always. (Certainly not in shul on Shabbat morning. I have an irrational dislike of divrei Torah given in shul. I much, much prefer to hear divrei Torah over lunch.) But I enjoy it, so I do it. I learn with BZ, I try to go to a Gemara class on Sunday mornings, and I putter around putting things like this and this together and sifting through paper and online sources in pursuit of answers to questions I have, because it makes me happy. It provides good grist for the ever-churning mill of my brain. Above and beyond that, I like the feeling of connection that it gives me to past, present, and future Jews. So, in summary, two reasons that I learn Torah: for the sheer intellectual joy of it and for the sense of community and belonging it provides.

The question I asked, though, was not why do I do it, but "How does it affect my life?" The answer is that it makes me happy and it connects me more strongly to Judaism and the Jewish community, as well as to a subset of the Jewish community ("learners" or whatever you want to call them--people who actually find Torah interesting, as opposed to people who engage in Torah study because they feel that they are commanded to do so). Perhaps more on commandedness another time...

I like the idea of Torah study promoting freedom, peace, and good deeds in the world, but I'm not sure I buy it. I'll have to think about it more.

In the meantime, Shabbat shalom!

Labels: Torah (broadly defined)

Overall highlights from LimmudNY here.

At LimmudNY, I heard Rabbi Yitz Greenberg (who, incidentally, is surprisingly hilarious) speak about people being created in the image of God, what that means, and what that means for human sexuality and Jewish sexual ethics. What I got out of it is not directly about sexual ethics, but rather a more simple message that should be obvious, and might be obvious to others, but was just on the brink of obviousness to me. This pushed the nascent, recently-developed thought over the edge into unalterable reality.

It says in the Mishna in Tractate Sanhedrin 4:5:

להגיד גדולתו של מלך מלכי המלכים, הקדוש ברוך הוא, שאדם טובע מאה מטבעות בחותם אחד, וכולן דומין זה לזה, מלך מלכי המלכים הקדוש ברוך הוא טובע את כל האדם בחותמו של אדם הראשון, ואין אחד מהם דומה לחברו

"...to proclaim the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He, for when a human being strikes many coins from one mould, they all resemble one another, but the supreme King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, fashioned every man in the stamp of the first man, and yet not one of them resembles his fellow."

Adam and Eve were created in the image of God and we were all created from Adam and Eve. Yet, miraculously, we are all different from each other. No two people are alike. Our uniqueness and our Godliness are one and the same, since they come from the same place.

What of this uniqueness? Who cares?

When we love people, when we really connect to people, we love them because of their unique identities. We love them for precisely the things that make them different from everyone else we know. When Rabbi Greenberg said that, I realized that it was true in my own life, about all of the people I love. I know that I certainly wouldn't love them more if they were more like someone else.

Therefore, the person who will ultimately love me more than anyone else is also going to love me for what is uniquely me about me.

Ergo, it is absurd to hide or alter my essential one-ness, my essential uniqueness, for the sake of finding a lifelong partner. (I don't think I ever actually do this, but I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't help move things along in that department.)

I also realized that I only want to end up with someone who will love me for my singularity. I don't seek perfection in a potential partner by any means, but anything less than someone who loves me for who I really am is not acceptable.

Clarification: I'm not suggesting that someone has to love me for my singular ability to be late or for my singular ability to let papers accumulate until the piles are too high for words. No, what I mean is that I want someone to love me for all the things that I love about myself, even as I strive to fix the things that I don't love about myself.

Likewise, I want to find someone to love for all of the things that make him him, for all the things that he likes about himself. (I think that this is part of why it's so hard, or perhaps impossible, to fall in love with someone who loves nothing about himself.)

I think that I may be getting to a place where I can finally say that I like x, y, or z about myself, without worrying that that's a bad, egotistical thing. And for that, I am extremely grateful.

All in all, not a bad set of realizations for one weekend! Thank you, LimmudNY.

[Cross-posted to Jewschool.]

Labels: dating, life, Torah (broadly defined)

At the risk of blowing my (semi-anonymizing) cover, I am pleased to report that I am currently at LimmudNY. I want to blog about this more soon, but just so I don't forget...

• I am so gratified that I have gotten to the point where: (a) I know myself well enough to know when I need to skip a session or two to get some exercise and (b) I am fit enough to convert that urge into a 25-30 minutes run on the treadmill, after which I actually feel good. I've had two good treadmill runs and two decent walks since I got here. Tonight, I am blogging instead of running, which I think is a fair trade, since the urge to write is as strong as (or stronger than) the urge to get my heart pumping.
• I had a great time singing Shabbat zemirot after dinner on Friday night, with a bunch of other people who enjoy singing, led by Rabbi Mimi Feigelson, but partially hijacked by a young kid (college student?) who mostly wanted to sing annoying shaloshudos songs or things like "Dror-Yikrah-to-the-Sloop-John-B." Yech! Despite this small problem, I had a great time. This might be what I miss the most about no longer being in college. I've tried to initiate singing at my own Shabbat meals, but people would inevitably rather talk. I mean, people will humor my desire for a song or two, but then they begin to groan. Incidentally, Reb Mimi gave a lovely dvar Torah (short, the best kind!) about how Shabbat reminds of us the world as it should be and of us as we should be. We may get "schmutzy"during the week, but on Shabbat, we wash ourselves clean, take a deep breath (or a few deep breaths), and remind ourselves of what it means to live as a human being created in the image of God. We spend time eating good food leisurely with friends, we sing, we sanctify time, we try to approach the Divine with words we know and words we don't know, we take naps, read books, and through 25 hours intentionally, consciously, we imbue both it and ourselves with holiness. Her words moved me and really helped set the mood of Shabbat for me. I also hope that I will be able to remember them and reflect on them on future Fridays following frenzied weeks. More on being created in the image of God in a separate post to follow. But first...
  
• The demographics of Shabbat mincha service attendance at the "mechitza minyan" at LimmudNY were thus: No women over the age of 35, and a disproportionate number of men over the age of 55. There were some younger men there, but at least half or maybe even two-thirds were over the age of 55. I knew a lot of both older women and younger men who were at LimmudNY, and none of the older women and very few of the younger men (by "younger" I really mean people under 35) were present. Why? It is true that in the Orthodox world, it used to be, and maybe still is, relatively rare for women to attend Friday night davening or Shabbat mincha. In many shuls, one only sees younger, single, child-less women at these tefillot. I would assume that this is either because of a cultural predilection to see communal tefillah as a "male thing" or because, by necessity or convenience, someone needs to stay home with the kids, and that person is often the woman (not just among Orthodox Jews--in the world at large). I wouldn't think that either of these would hold true at LimmudNY. The "older" women who were present that I knew were accomplished Judaic scholars or teachers of other kinds, i.e., not the type that I would imagine would relegate public ritual to men. There was a lot of childcare, also, which would presumably negate the child-care argument. I have a lot of thoughts about the Orthodox community as a sociological entity and the role that gender plays in it, but that's really another post.
  
• I kind of have a lot to say about being Orthodox in a pluralistic setting, and how my feelings about pluralism have changed over the past ten or eleven years since I first started thinking about it in anticipation of my summer as a Bronfman Fellow, but I don't think that now is the time to explicate that. Again, another post.
• I met a lot of nice new people, realized that I know a lot of people already, and got to know better some people whom I had known peripherally before. Growing up in Boston and never having attended Jewish camp of any kind (overnight or day), I always felt out of the Jewish geography loop. Apparently, no longer, baby! I am fully hooked up to the wild and wacky world of Jewish educational professionals.
  

Overall, I would rate this LimmudNY experience quite highly. I've barely touched on all that I got out of it. I don't think I've enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed the first LimmudNY that I attended two years ago (2005), but I think that's probably because:

• the first one was new and therefore inherently more exciting
• the physical space for the first one was better
• there were fewer people at the first one; fewer = less overwhelming for me (others may find larger crowds energizing, whereas I tend to find them exhausting)
  
• there were more "superstar" speakers at the first one that I knew I wanted to go to hear even before I arrived
• I was more involved as a volunteer for the first LimmudNY, and that made the experience richer.
  

Labels: life

Jody at Raising WEG writes about the demise of independent bookstores that the New York Times wrote about two weeks ago. Read the comments to her two posts, too, because they're interesting.

The Abstract and the Particular
Ruined by Reading

I'm tempted to largely agree with her reasoning, even though I do have a very special place in my heart for small, independently-owned shops of all kinds. I love independent bookstores, and I try to purchase books in the following order, all other things being equal. (Sometimes other factors come into play, such as how desperately I need the book, how short I am on money, or where I happen to be geographically.)

1. used from an independent bookstore
2. used from Amazon
3. new from an independent bookstore
4. new from Amazon
5. new from Barnes & Noble or Borders

But since Coliseum Books and Ivy's Books closed, I don't even know where I would find an independent bookstore around here. Actually, I sometimes go to Posman's at Grand Central, which fits the bill nicely. But I don't have a good source for used books in New York City at all, since I find the Strand impossible. (Most of the books that I bought used at independent bookstores were purchased in Cambridge at my much-beloved Harvard Book Store, when I lived there, before that at the also-beloved Brookline Booksmith, or while traveling to other cities since I moved to New York.)

All of this, of course, is a moot point, since I'm trying to stop buying books entirely mostly due to lack of space. (Money plays a role, too, but if you get used to the price of a latte at Starbucks, books don't seem like so much in comparison, especially purchased used.) I find the library to be more trouble than it's worth most of the time, since it closes at 6 pm on most nights and isn't open at all on Sunday. Since I already own a lot of books that I haven't read, I'm trying to read those rather than take other books out of the library or purchase more books. Sometimes I can't help myself, though...


In other news, I think I just chipped a tooth. With my tongue, I feel a new rough spot along the top of one front bottom tooth that definitely felt different before, but my teeth look fine in the mirror. Should I be worried? Is this what I have to look forward to as I age?

Labels: books/reading, New York

Now, this is worrisome. (More than the embryos.)

From the New York Times: Gas-Like Odor Permeates Parts of New York City

From CNN.com: Austin shuts downtown after dead birds discovered

I saw the first headline, from the New York Times (online), this morning, and it freaked me out a little bit, but I dismissed my worries as irrational. After all, "Authorities investigating widespread reports of the smell, which some described as a gas-like odor, said it did not appear to be harmful....City air-quality sensors around Manhattan did not detect high concentrations of natural gas, and officials were 'very confident' it was not dangerous, he said." Also, I wasn't close enough to Midtown to smell it, so I figured that I was safe from whatever it was. (I know, naive, but sometimes you gotta' grasp at straws. Especially after walking through Central Park this morning and seeing a film crew spread snow out on the walking paths, in an attempt to make it look like a proper New York City winter despite temperatures hovering in the 50s.)

Then, I just saw the Austin story, and all I could think was, "Is this what we have to look forward to? Bad, possibly toxic smells assaulting our senses? Birds dying en masse for unexplained reasons? We're screwed." I was no longer reassured by lines such as this: '"We do not feel there is a threat to the public health,' said Adolfo Valadez, the medical director for Austin and Travis County Health and Human Services." First of all, if they don't know what it is, how do they know it isn't a threat to public health? Secondly, anything that kills 60 pigeons and sparrows overnight can't be good for people's health!

And with that thought, I leave you, dear readers. Have a safe and odor-free night! May all the pigeons in your neighborhood be alive and kicking when you awake tomorrow morning...

Labels: New York, science/health/environment

Interesting discussion here in reaction to a Washington Post article about a new embryo bank.

I'm not quite sure what I think. I do agree that embryos ought to be thought of as more than "things," but I am also of the firm opinion that an embryo is definitely something less than a person. I don't quite see what thegameiam fears actually happening. I think it's a far cry from what this embryo bank in San Antonio is doing.

When thinking about this issue, don't forget that "embryo" refers to the potential-person during it's first eight weeks of existence. In this particular case, it necessarily refers to fertilized eggs, grown to between eight and about 150 cells, that have not yet been transferred to anyone's uterus. We're talking 5-6 days post-fertilization at most, and then they're presumably frozen.

I really can't see the justification for calling a pre-implantation or pre-transfer embryo a little person, as I'm sure some Christians are wont to do. It's like calling me a Nobel Prize winner. Hey, it could happen! But not without a lot of other stuff happening first.

Labels: science/health/environment

I have all of these interesting posts started--about incentives for being observant of mitzvot, about free will vs. determinism, about whether "beauty" is a natural or artificial state--but I can't seem to motivate myself to finish and edit them.

So, instead, I'll note a few interesting observations from my winter vacation.

Monday, December 25 found me up at the ungodly hour of 3:45 am, after only 1.5 hours of sleep, in time take the bus to LaGuardia Airport to catch a flight to California via Texas. The first notable thing that happened was that as I approached the check-in line, I saw that I was behind a woman and two kids. Then her husband and her third kid joined them (after I was already in line), and the mother said, "Excuse me, we're a big family." I found it quite amusing that she would think that three kids is a big family. Where I grew up (Modern Orthodox middle class America), two kids is a small family, three or four kids is average, and five kids is beginning to be considered a "large family." I am aware that in other places, two kids is a large family (China) or five kids is a small family (hareidi anywhere). Anyway, they went on speaking about how they were a big family, and the advantages and disadvantages. The three girls all thought it was great and a lot of fun. They were extremely well-behaved. More well-behaved than I wanted to be while waiting in line for forty minutes between 5:40 and 6:20 am!

(In general, I find it interesting to observe the highly subjective nature of words such as "liberal," "conservative," "religious," "not religious," "rich," and "poor." I could be considered all of these things, depending on whom you ask, but people often use these words as if they are absolutes. I also think this realization underscores the importance of defining yourself on your own terms, because someone else is always going to define you the way they want to regardless of how you define yourself.)

I saw two little girls on my cross-continental journey who were wearing notable t-shirts--notable either for being offensive or for being unintentionally humorous. Both girls were young enough that someone else purchased these shirts for them. (Maybe they requested/begged for them, but someone else made the purchasing decision.) One said:

Girls
Only
Say
Secrets
In
Public

What's wrong with you? (By "you" I mean "you, the parent.") What is it with dressing little girls in inappropriate t-shirts? I wouldn't call this "Gossip" t-shirt inappropriate, really, as much as not (a) promoting stereotypes of girls that I would want to promote or celebrate, even if there is some truth in them (girls can be very, very mean and catty in middle school) and (b) not promoting values that I would want to promote in general.

The second t-shirt read:

I defy ordinary.
--Abercrombie

Girl, you are ordinary! You're wearing a t-shirt with a company name emblazoned on it! If it just said "Abercrombie," fine! We all wear t-shirts with corporate names on them once in awhile. It was the juxtaposition of the corporate advertising with a claim to be something other than ordinary that made the t-shirt seem humorous to me.

In general, flying on Christmas is a great time to people watch. Flying on Christmas and spending time in airports in New York, Dallas, and San Jose with many families that were flying on Christmas was even more interesting. All the family dynamics and all manner of parenting decisions came out. I mean all of them. Kids being obnoxious. Kids being cute and sweet. Parents snapping at kids. Adolescents ignoring their parents. Adolescents getting along with their parents. Babies cooing at strangers. Babies crying. Toddlers being run ragged at the airport so that they would be able to sit still for the flight. Toddlers consuming Pepsi at the airport (felt bad for the people sitting next to those toddlers on the next flight!). Families that seemed happy together. Families that wanted to be anywhere but in an airport on Christmas.

Warning: Rash generalizations to follow. People are friendlier in Dallas than they are in either New York or California. Overall, it always seems like people are heavier in the middle of the country (Omaha, Dallas, Chicago). I don't know if that's statistically true, or where most of the people in a given airport live in real life, but I always get that impression. (Could just be incorrect stereotyping.) The people in New York seemed somewhat more harried/stressed out than the people in California, but it could have been the 5-6 am hour vs. the noon hour that made the difference, rather than the coast. But I think it was the coast. People in California always seem more relaxed that people in New York. More relaxed and happier. Alas, also far, far more dependent on their cars. The people in California were definitely more wrinkled, on average, than the people in New York. They probably see more sun.

After sleeping for three or four hours combined on two flights, I wanted to jog when I arrived in California! I've written about running before (here), and when the urge hits me, it's best to seize the sneakers and go for it, since the urge doesn't hit often. Perhaps "running" is too strong a word to describe the somewhat geriatric pace at which I jog. I ran 3.2 miles according to Google maps. It took me 30 minutes. You do the math. (Huh...That's actually not so bad. I run at 5.0 mph on the treadmill at the gym when I go, and this is faster than that.) Then I walked .6 miles home. It felt great. This is one of those things, that if you told me at 12 I'd be doing at 27, I would never have believed. When I was 12 I was asthmatic, out of shape, and hated gym class to the high heavens.

On Monday night and almost every night I was there, I watched Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune with my grandmother, something I've been doing for at least fifteen or twenty years. There aren't too many things that I can claim to have done for the past fifteen or twenty years--it was nice to do one of them.

I did nothing of consequence on Tuesday, except walk 1.9 miles to a salon and 1.9 miles back to get a haircut. (See: dependent on cars. It was fine. I like to walk. But I don't really drive and someone else had the car and I can walk 1.5 blocks to get my hair cut in NYC.) I love doing nothing on vacation! I got a fabulous (and inexpensive) haircut from a woman who didn't really look like she knew what she was doing, who told me that she would rather be doing fashion merchandising than cutting hair. It did not inspire confidence!

On Wednesday afternoon, I took the train to San Francisco to poke around Chinatown and a few bookstores. I love San Francisco, and it was a beautiful day to be there. I walked from the Caltrain Station to Chinatown (a bit over two miles, I think), where I happily picked up some cheap paper fans that will make my stiffling hot summer subway rides much nicer. I always see old ladies with fans, waiting in the station for the trains in the summer, and envy them. Now I can be one of them!

When I told my mother and my uncle that I'd walked that far, they were shocked. I think that's kind of funny. I walk two miles to work on many mornings. I walk a mile to the grocery store and back probably at least once a week.

After Chinatown, I went to the City Lights bookstore, where I bought A.B. Yehoshua's highly-recommended A Journey To the End of the Millenium. I never buy or read Israeli literature in English, because I always hope that one day I'll be motivated enough to read it in Hebrew. Of course, I never am, so I end up woefully under-exposed to Israeli literature. It's time to remedy the situation even if it means admitting to myself that I'll probably never get around to reading it in Hebrew, unless I fully immerse myself in Hebrew literature at some point and become much quicker at reading in Hebrew. (It's not so much the words I don't understand, although it is that, too. It's mostly the plodding pace of reading in Hebrew that dissuades me from even trying. And, yes, I know I would get faster if I just did it a bit.)

On Thursday, I spent the day with my mother. We went to Muir Woods, which was beautiful, and then to the Marin Headlands, which were less beautiful but we both wanted to see the ocean, so we were glad we went. I was horrified to see someone breaking off part of a tree branch at Muir Woods (in Muir Woods?), but then I went off the path a bit at the Marin Headlands, to get a better view (I wasn't walking on any plants, just on a dirty/sandy natural path, but still), so maybe I'm not much better than the woman who broke off a small branch. But, still! Who breaks off part of a tree in a National Park? I mean, isn't it entirely clear that that is a thoughtless, selfish thing to do? Why would anyone do that?

It's like when I see people throwing trash on the streets. I mean, who does that? I was once babysitting for my five-year-old cousin and we were at the playground. A classmate of her's showed up and was chewing some gum. She threw the wrapper on the ground and I asked her to pick it up and put it in the trash, which wasn't that far away. I always wonder about that. I know that some parents are touchy about other people correcting their children (I've gotten the "eye" from at least one mother when I asked her kid to stop physically pushing me in line). But I think it is reasonable, if you see a five-year-old throwing trash on the playground, to ask her to put it in the garbage. If she had said, "No," I would've picked it up and disposed of it myself. (She was there with her older brother and sister, not a parent.)

This past Friday, I was at Starbucks, and a 9 year old girl and 6 year old boy (possibly wildly incorrect estimated ages of a sibling pair) were sitting at a table while their mother was at the counter buying drinks. They each had a closed umbrella and they were fighting with the umbrellas, fencing-style. Or maybe sword-fight style. Could go either way. The motherly voice in me arose out of nowhere and I wanted to say, "Stop it! You'll put one of your eyes out!" or "This can only end one way--in tears." They were both to blame, but, of course, I blamed the older girl more than the younger boy. She probably could have ignored and he would've stopped. Of course, they were also both clearly having fun. I didn't say anything. Then, of course, the girl hit the boy in the eye with her umbrella and he started wailing. Wailing! He was probably okay, but it also could have hurt him. (Reflexes are pretty quick and he probably closed his eye before the umbrella touched it.) The mother, embarrassed, came back to the table and separated the kids, bringing her son to the front of the store. Then she hussled both of them out of there as quickly as possible. Should I have said anything? I think it was okay not to say anything, but if one of them had actually gotten hurt, I might have felt bad. On the other hand, I was fairly sure that one of them would end up crying but that neither one would end up seriously hurt, and kids will be kids, and they're going to fight with umbrellas at one time or another, and who am I to interfere? The older girl clearly felt both shame and embarrassment over having hit her brother in the eye, and maybe she won't engage in such games in the future. Unlikely, but possible.

Thursday night, December 28-Monday, January 1 is all a pleasant blur of shopping (new soft sheets from Macy's!), packing, unpacking, sleeping, eating, and going to shul. A highlight was the wine, cheese, and board game party I hosted on New Year's Eve. Plus, I'm boring even myself by now. So, to wrap up, during the rest of my vacation, I:

• Watched a football game that I didn't really understand with my grandmother and uncle. Cal won. That was the important thing. Go, Bears!
• Watched a lot of TV.
• Ate a lot of good, home-cooked food.
  
• Finished reading two books.
• Read a magazine.
  
• Read a few more chapters of another book.
• I made a big pot of mushroom barley soup. Yum!
• I made a big stir fry with fake meat and a pot of brown rice to go with it. Yum!
• I ate a lot of ice cream. Yum!

And now, alas, I am no longer on vacation.

Labels: life, travel

# posted by Abacaxi Mamao : 1/07/2007 09:27:00 PM  6 comments