Wednesday, March 13, 2024

The Multiverse?

TooYoungToTeach insisted that I read "Life After Life" by Kate Atkinson. Always up for new titles, I plucked it up from the library, only to be disappointed that a lot of it takes place in World War II. I don't like reading about World War II. Or World War 1. Or war in general. War is usually off the table for me. Unless it's by Bernard Cornwell. He does war so well. 

Anywho, the heroine of the book is Ursula, but she is an odd duck. For every time she dies, the clock spins backward to the original moment of her birth, over and over and over.

Some timelines continue with near identical repetition; others vary wildly. But we don't see how those timelines continue beyond her death; we are just hurtled back again to her first day on earth. 

What we see is that one small occurrence can alter so much—it's novelized butterfly effect, or "Sliding Doors." 

It made me wonder if the point was that we live in a potential multiverse, where infinite permutations of reality play out. In Ursula's case, some strictly involve her, others involve world events. Like, saaaaay, how would the world be different today if Hitler had been assassinated in 1930? He's also only one person. But his elimination would have altered EVERYTHING. 

I also continued to contemplate if Hashem is overseeing other realities, other planes of existence. But this quickly got far above my pay grade, and decided to quit before I gave myself a headache. 

I concluded that while there could technically be a reality where certain mistakes weren't made, where all is different, as Jews we also believe that reality is intentional. If something was supposed to happen, it does. There is only so much in our control; Ursula is mostly not the driver of her own life; she is swept hither and thither by circumstance. Bumping into the wrong man (multiple men), for instance, by seeming happenstance. 

While have times in our lives when hashgacha pratis is seemingly so clear, other times when we feel cast about in chaos. But is the chaos also intentional, except we just can't see it? 

Headache brewing. Best to leave it be.  

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Own It

I've always carried with me a constant awareness of my childhood. Like when people say, "I don't like children," I'm surprised, because don't they remember they were a child once themselves?

So here I am, paying bills, running a household, pushing 40, and I don't feel quite like an adult. When did I get to be a grownup? I qualify? 

I came across this nugget by Maya Angelou: 

I am convinced that most people do not grow up . . . We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulations of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias. 

I realize now that I am the same age, if not older, than some of my childhood playmates' mothers. When I was ten, I gazed up at adults at being all-knowing, wise, and capable, but now that I'm there I see how childish behaviors can have a mighty grip on those who should technically know better. For some, adulthood does not necessarily bring on maturity.

There is something to be said for childhood innocence. But what about the wisdom we should be acquiring with age? Ma would sneer with disdain, "There is no fool like an old fool." She had little tolerance for those who should know better. Children can be excused their mistakes; adults should eventually acquire some common sense. 

I saw this quote the other day: 

Maturity is working through your trauma and not using it as a never ending excuse for poor behavior. — Ellis Anthony

Being an adult isn't just supporting oneself. It's self-awareness. It's reflection, as opposed to reacting. It's being able to have a conversation without being threatened that another has a different opinion, and being able to see their point of view. It's about taking ownership for your actions. 

Looking through Beraishis, a good many of the happenings therein is regarding personal accountability. Hashem forgives those who say, "I messed up." Whether the sin was against Him or another mortal, all is absolved. Not only that, there is even reward; because Yehuda took responsibility twice in the record, he becomes King of the nation.

I learned, relatively recently, that taking responsibility for my actions is less threatening that I thought it would be. I used to fight against when I was younger, that "It's not my fault," but even when it technically isn't (like Ben did something when I should have been overseeing his actions), it's still just better all around if I say, "It was my fault." 
 
And everyone, including me, can move on. 

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

"Peony"

I have been quiet this last few months. Obviously, nothing that I've been thinking of sharing has seemed important. The words that usually chase each other in my head have been rather indolent. 

But I would like to summon the interest to begin again, for writing is my . . . thing. 

In the last few months, I was introduced to the book "Peony" by Pearl S. Buck (author of the more well known "The Good Earth"). Apparently, Madame Buck was a prolific writer, having written many, many books. 

"Peony" is applicable to my audience because it has a rather surprising topic: The Jews of China. Apparently, Jewish traders settled in China has early as the 9th century (or even earlier) and established communities. There, they lived in peace, the Chinese having no quibble with them, to the point they intermarried. 

According to the historical postscript, Buck was not very accurate in terms of timeline, but it takes place somewhere in the 1800s. While the book is called "Peony," it's really about David, the young man of the household. 

The family is a wealthy one, prosperous traders. The patriarch, Ezra, has a Jewish father and a Chinese mother, a fact that his pious wife, Naomi, abhors. Ezra immerses himself in Chinese culture, while Naomi is a fervent Jew, who upholds all the practices and fiercely maintaining a distance from their Chinese neighbors. David, their son, finds himself caught between two worlds. 

Peony is a bondmaiden who was acquired in childhood to be a playmate for David. A bondmaiden was neither a lowly servant, nor quite a member of the family. She helps run the household, and adores David. 

I had always thought that America was the first time that Jews were accepted, which led to assimilation, but apparently that was not so. Because the Chinese held no primitive grudge against these Jewish transplants, they, too, assimilated. 

Buck also explains why the pull was so great: The Chinese sought pleasure. Why not be happy if that was possible? The Jews, however, espoused what they deemed to be unnecessary restriction, along with a lot of sobbing and moaning. No wonder David struggles so. 

Buck writes simply, and the book is an pleasant read until it takes a horror movie turn. Additionally, it shouldn't be expected that Buck should have an accurate understanding of Jewish law. For instance, it is written more than once that "Jewish men do not have multiple wives," when that rule was established by an Ashkenazi rabbi, and considering how Ezra is most definitely not a descendant of an Ashkenazi lineage, that wouldn't be an issue. 

Also, the matter of matrilineal descent; many who identify as Jews in the book would not be considered halachically Jewish, but according to the postscript the Jews of China went by patrilineal descent. These descendants still exist today in China, and they are proud of their Jewish heritage, even lobbying with the newly founded Chinese government to be considered a minority people. 

I don't want to provide any more spoilers, but I do recommend it as a fascinating read about a topic that is not common knowledge.    

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

We Shall Live

So, how's everyone holding up? 

Not too good? 

Yeah. I can relate. 

I've been thinking out loud with Han—who mostly listens politely then returns to his perpetual doomscrolling—about what is the takeaway here? We've been slammed between the eyes with horror, sadness, fear for our trapped families . . . 

I managed to listen to two shiurim last week. The first was redemption of captives via the strict lens of halacha. What is allowed, what is not. I liked it. It kept to clear guidelines, made by the elders of the past, in times when captivity was definitely more common than today. 

The second . . . to preface, I usually enjoy this rabbi's thoughts. I'm often very taken with what he has to say. But this time, I was left unsettled. 

He made sure to open that we do not judge. No one can say why some were killed and others were spared. But he brought a myriad of anecdotes about how keeping Shabbos seemingly saved a number of individuals. Either they would have been at the rave, or within the kibbutzim themselves, they were ignored by the terrorists. 

We should learn, the rabbi said, that we should be upholding Shabbat better. We aren't judging those who were killed! Not at all! But we should still learn from this. 

This bothered me. I figured out why. 

The rabbi is from a Sephardi community that has a different background than those of Ashkenazim. This community, as a whole, has been slowly progressing in better observance over the years. Nor did they experience the war the way European Jewry did. 

That is what I kept thinking. What of the Holocaust? My great-grandparents were all observant. They lived in towns, not vast, cosmopolitan cities, full of impious distractions (the way I practically do). They kept Shabbos. They kept kosher. They kept everything. 

Straight to the gas. Along with children and grandchildren.  

This Sephardi rabbi doesn't have this history. He doesn't have this narrative. Maybe some Sephardim shrug to themselves that the Ashkenazi Jews had it coming with their Reform movements, with their attending theater on Friday nights. But six million people weren't all the same. Chassidic movements were completely wiped out. Reb Elchonon Wasserman, murdered. Along with my great-grandmother, who would say Tehillim every chance she had. Along with my great-aunt and her six children. Along with my Zeidy's wife and little girl. 

Additionally, it's not like the terrorists were from an alien planet. They knew it was Shabbos. They knew it was Yom Tov. They chose that day, specifically, for its sleepiness and relaxation. They knew people's guards would be down. 

Third point: Lasting change does not come from fear. Embracing mitzvos must come from a place of free choice. Otherwise it will not last. 

So what is, the takeaway, then? 

I guess I realized that there isn't one. This is the Jewish experience. We can sit and parse our logic and facts, but I just remember that scene after the pogrom in Anatevka, when the wedding party begins to sadly clean up the damage, and Tevye looks to the sky, asking God "Why?" 

Then he continues on, the same Jew, enduring. Like Dara Horn said.

Or maybe it's just b'damayich chaii—by your blood, you shall live. These words I invoked at my sons' brissim. This phrase can have more than one meaning, I realize. For the more they persecute, the more we proliferate. 

As Obi-Wan Kenobi said, "If you strike me down, I'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

But . . . I'm still so sad.   

Thursday, September 28, 2023

Shhhhhhh

Be private. Travel and tell no one. Find a partner and tell no one. Live happily and tell no one. People ruin beautiful things.

I saw this on IG, and . . . well, this is something I can get behind. 

Social media has its pros, and lots of cons. I don't follow people whose whole purpose is to display their lives through the editing lens to the universe. I would fall for their bushwa so fast. 

I follow informative accounts instead, and if one bikini shot goes up, one gender reveal, I click unfollow. I should not be privy to something that should be private. 

But that's an extreme. Sometimes we share too much socially, to the people we consider our friends. 

There is something to be said for privacy. The quote above didn't say, "don't post it." It says, "tell no one." We like to think, "I can tell my friends. They'll be happy for me!" 

But maybe they won't. Would you? Some people can carry that generosity of spirit and be truly happy for someone else's good fortune, but even then, they could still be struggling with jealousy. 

After I had Anakin, it was with a sinking heart that I texted a friend, who I haven't seen in years but still sporadically keep up with, the news. She was married before me and still does not have children, and I know she longs for them. She had to be told, but I could not, and did not, expect her to be happy for me. She had managed to be gracious by Ben's birth, sending a gift and attending the bris, but this time, she did not respond to my text. I understood. 

When I was still single, I attended many vorts and weddings of those younger than me. When I received the news that my cousin's daughter was engaged, I angrily stomped to that vort, slapped a smile on my face by the door, then went in and gushed mazel tov to the giddy 20-year-old. It was bad enough I was being pitied; I didn't want to appear pitiable.

Then, when I got engaged to Han, I felt no need to announce it anywhere. 

It's very hard to be happy for someone else, especially when they acquired their blessings with seemingly little effort. The quote finishes off, "People ruin beautiful things." Others ruin things out of envy, out of sadness. No need to put a stumbling block in their path.

The blessings we have are for us alone. Bracha comes to quiet, private places. In this age of oversharing, perhaps we should become reacquainted with discretion. 

Thursday, September 14, 2023

Grief is Allowed

I've been reading It's OK You're Not OK by Megan Devine, and frankly, she sounds pissed

She was actually a grief counselor before she lost her husband in a horrific accident, but found herself unequipped for what followed. But she notes that there was the pain from her grief, and then there was the pain that others inflicted on her. 

People are often quite clueless about the ravages of grief. They also exacerbate the pain with cliches and irritation that the griever is so distraught. 

This was highlighted for me recently when I finished was Han refers to as a "lady book," or chick-lit. I shan't name the book, since I'll be spoiling galore, but it follows multiple characters. 

One is a woman in her 50s, whose husband dies of a heart attack in front of her. 

Another is a woman in her 20s, whose fiance calls off their wedding three days before the shebang. 

Obviously, both take to their beds. 

However: 

Approximately six weeks after her husband dies, the widow's friend demands that she has to get out of the house, she has to move on, come to a get-together. The widow begrudgingly agrees, and drags herself outside and has a good time. 

The jilted bride wallows in her misery, to the point where she no longer follows her friend's lives. When she surfaces, she finds herself begging her friend for forgiveness as said friend chastises her for being so "selfish" by falling off the planet. Almost bride is chastened and apologizes. 

Both of these situations annoyed me. 

Grief comes in multiple forms. There's losing family, and there's losing a dream. Even people who develop celiac disease experience the grief of a future life where they can't mindlessly eat in a public setting. 

But grief is not allowed. 

Six weeks is not a long time. That's not even the span of a season. A widow is expected to process and file away the loss of her husband of 30 years in a few days? Heck, my mother's been gone for over six years and I'm not remotely over it! 

As for our almost wife? Um, yeah, she's allowed to move into bed and go dark. No, no one died, but she had her heart ripped out, the future as she saw it dissolved, and she had the humiliation of explaining to her friends and family that the wedding is off. 

Then her friend tells her off? Her friend didn't even go through what she did. So who is she to cast judgement? 

What was even more surprising was that the author's note in the beginning explained that she herself had lost her husband recently. Sooooo . . . she should know what grief is. She should know that grief is allowed, that there is no set time period, and that those in active grief should be cut some slack. 

There are times in life when we have to adjust to a new reality, which will sometimes involve grief. It's allowed.

Thursday, September 7, 2023

The Old Heroes

 Another takeaway from Picard 3: 

For those who actually have an interest in watching it, I'll try to keep it vague enough not to cause spoilers. 

The whole intent of this Season was nostalgia. They brought back the original TNG cast, threw in some DS9 villains, and featured a couple of Voyager characters. 

*Sniff* It was perfect. 

Enough time has passed that our TNG peeps are parents, like LaForge and Riker. This brought a new dimension, seeing them as family folk, no longer willing to risk their lives every Tuesday for the heck of it. 

Yet they are also, quite clearly . . . old. The youngest actor is Levar, at 66—everyone else is close to or above 70.

Yet it is because of their age and experience that they end up saving the galaxy. 

There was this tweet a few years back by Kathryn Ivey: 

Why is "the chosen one" always a teenager? We're really gonna put the fate of the universe on someone with an undeveloped prefrontal cortex? Give me a story with a chosen one who is a 42 year old mom that has already seen some s**t and is totally out of f**ks to give

She has a point. The "chosen one" is usually a clueless child that has this insane burden thrust upon him. He doesn't need life experience, because he was selected to be an unwitting tool for forces beyond his ken. With regard to general fictional teenage heroes—adults are the clueless ones who need saving. 

It sort of reinforces the trope that adults "don't get it," and yes, while that may be true for some people who were stupid their whole lives, most adults, due to their age alone, are "it-getters" (credit to Jon Stewart). 

So while it may be that I am watching the last vestiges of my youth trickle through my fingers, it is also with the dawning horror that the kids today will find me irrelevant for my inability to take a decent selfie. 

But there is more to life than technological savvy. 

There was a scene in Picard where Jean-Luc is dining in a bar near the Academy, and he is besieged by starry-eyed cadets begging him for background details of his exploits. Jean-Luc has become an icon, a once hero. But he's not a relic of the past. He's not done yet. It's his experience that keeps him from becoming obsolete.

Ma would get so frustrated when she told us to do something a certain way and we wouldn't listen. She wanted to save us the trouble, that she had learned the right way to go about it, so couldn't we just listen?! She was usually right.

Moshe Rabbeinu is the closest we have to a "chosen one," and he didn't start leading until he was 80. He had life experience first as a prince, shepherd, husband, father. Because we don't believe that being chosen means you magically get there with no effort. The chosen people were chosen to bring our excellence, and we failed to such an extent that we were persecuted and murdered for 3,000 years. 

Moshiach is gonna be old.

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Vic Fontaine

I have a confession. 

While this blog is vaguely Star Wars-themed, the truth is . . . I'm a Trekkie. 

Luke raised me on The Next Generation, and watching the Picard, Season 3, reboot, I nearly cried seeing the beloved characters of my childhood. Especially Worf. He's my favorite. 

Yet Luke was not so passionate about the other iterations, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, so I never watched those through properly. I've been rectifying that error now, finally getting through the last few episodes of Season 7 of DS9

I've been pleasantly surprised at how excellent this series is. The first few seasons could be eye-rollingly cheesy, but then it morphed into an absolutely brilliant show, complete with episodes that had me sniffling. They pushed the TNG envelope, and pulled it off. 

There was a line from one episode that I thought about. 

A character in the show is injured in combat. He's young, an ensign, and this experience rattles him. There is a program in the holosuite which has a self-aware holographic character, Vic Fontaine, and he ends up becoming a central player in a number of episodes. Vic owns a casino in Vegas in 1962.

So the ensign loses himself in this program, refusing to leave, enjoying the safety of the fantasy. Vic even enjoys the company, but at some point realizes that this isn't healthy, and tells the ensign he has to leave. 

The ensign explains that he's not ready to face reality again. Vic tells him: 

Look, kid, I don't know what's going to happen to you out there. All I can tell you is that... you've got to play the cards life deals you. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But at least you're in the game.
It made me think of how our religion says that being living is the ideal, that we can do, that life is always the best option. Life may be disappointing at times, or worse, but at least we're in the game. 

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Inherent Value

NYTimes featured a rather long article about Greta Gerwig and her Barbie movie. In the very end of the piece, there's this bit from out of nowhere: 

She told me that when she was growing up, her Christian family's closet friends were observant Jews; they vacationed together and constantly tore around each other's homes. She would also eat with them on Friday nights for Shabbat dinner, where blessings were sung in Hebrew, including over the children at the table. May God bless you and protect you. May God show you favor and be gracious to you. May God show you kindness and grant you peace. Every Friday the family's father would rest his hand on Gerwig's head, just as he did on his own children's, and bless her too. 

"I remember this feeling the sense of, 'Whatever your wins and losses were for the week, whatever you did or didn't do, when you come to this table, your value has nothing to do with that,'" Gerwig told me. "'You are a child of God at this table. And that's your value.' I remember feeling so safe in that and feeling so, like, enough." 

Sometimes we need the perspective of an outsider to make us see the values of our own world. 

This bracha I would usually associate with pomp and circumstance, when the kohanim would seriously remove their shoes and hide themselves beneath their talleisim. 

Yet that same bracha is accessible to the common man, for any father, outside of the priestly class, to bless his children. For me, the Sabbath Blessing in Fiddler on the Roof always sends me bawling; I would sing it to Ben as a baby (he finally realized I can't sing and he doesn't let me anymore). 

 

There is this pressure on us to do, to achieve, to accomplish. Yet we can't always sustain that. Sometimes our victories don't look like much of a victory. 

But it doesn't matter. Because the world was created for each and every one of us, as we are. For as a parent loves their child unconditionally, so to God loves us.

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

None Can Escape Grief

Before we start, please read this, by the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks.

I read it a few weeks ago, on the Shabbos of the applicable parsha, and I found it hit so many important points. 

As someone who has personally experienced the grief of losing a loved one SIX YEARS ago, I'm still unprepared for the welter of emotions I continue to experience. My next door neighbor has been motherless for seven years; we just understand each other. Grief has its own unspoken language. 

Rabbi Sacks provides a simple yet brilliant explanation for why Moshe hit the rock: He was grieving for his sister, who had been like a mother to him. 

MIND BLOWN. 

What continues from this idea is that even the greatest of our ancestors were HUMAN. The same humanity we experience, so did they. They loved. They lost. Then they became lost themselves. 

The education system they I went through, which emphasized the vast difference in madreiga between ourselves and our forebears, did me a disservice, I believe. We do know that they didn't always have the answers. They didn't always do the right thing. They were often torn between their hearts and their faith. 

They were not angels. The Torah was not given to angels, but to stumbling humans. Mistakes are a part of being human. We just have to go forward knowing and doing better. 

Then: 

What the parsha is telling us is that for each of us there is a Jordan we will not cross, a promised land we will not enter. “It is not for you to complete the task.”

What I took from this was: We each have our own task. It's not necessarily the same as someone else. Some of us have feelings of inadequacy, because they are incapable, for a myriad of reasons, of doing what another can with seeming ease. That is because we each have our OWN task. 

What @iwassupposedtohaveababy took it a step farther. 

In response, God has [Moshe] take a step back. Moshe is told he shouldn't be the one to lead the people into Israel. God knows that Moshe is about to lose another sibling and God understand that Moshe will need the coming time to grieve his losses. 

Although it may feel that Moshe is being punished for expressing his pain, this moment is more like a mentor telling you, "Hey, I see you have needs that aren't being met. It's time to take a break." 

It's okay that you're not okay. 

Moshe bore a lot in his life, and perhaps he reached a point when it became too much. Hashem then said, "It's okay. You're just one man, who did more in his life than ten men combined. Someone else can continue your work." 

I have my limitations, and I try to recognize them. I have a set time every night when I cease my labors. If I'm not feeling okay, I allow myself to rest when possible, even if I "should be" doing something else. Because I am only human, I'm not a machine, and I need to recognize when I'm at my breaking point.

We are all—ALL—too human.