I Still Got It

While I on my morning walk last week, I pushed the stroller with one hand and kept my cell in the other. 

Luke and I had somehow ended up going from light chit chat to a fierce Biblical debate. He was of the opinion that if Moshe had not hit the rock, history could have been different. If the Jews had his leadership in the Land, he argued, instead of Yehoshua's, things could have gone another way.  

I was of the belief that the punishment was merely that he could not be buried in Eretz Yisroel, as he was not supposed to lead them into the Land in any case. Moshe was the leader of miracles, who had to teach a nation to cast off the shackles of slavery and become free men. Now, with their liberated mindset, they had to leave the miraculous existence and fight for the land. Because one only cherishes that which is fought for. The way we fight for the Land today and cherish it all the more for it.

Luke kept insisting I was denying bechira, while I countered that Moshe was punished with burial outside the Land, not death. Prior, he could have been buried in the Land, but now he could not.

I walked amongst the newly sprung vegetation, everything vibrant and green, the way it was supposedly on Har Sinai. 

I'm guessing he finally, begrudgingly, heard my argument because after a motley of somewhat incoherent voice notes, he ceased on that topic, and started quoting Lord of the Rings instead. 

I felt a rush of exhilaration during this exchange, and bounced along cheerfully as I headed home.  

This past year has been rather sleep-deprived, and I haven't been able to read dvar Torahs without nodding off. I can't really listen to shiurim; Ben insists on nursery songs. 

But now I know that I haven't lost it, and that I can reclaim it again when I am allowed to do so.  

A few hours later I was talking to Ta, and told him over my conversation with Luke. Of course he corrected me, that Moshe was punished that he could not enter the Land. 

But Ta was able to add the reason why Moshe was not buried in the Land. When the daughters of Yisro are rescued by him, they identify him as an "Ish Mitzri" to their father. Yosef, however, was described as an "Eved Ivri" by the Saar HaMashkim. Yosef identified himself as a Jew, while Moshe was perceived as an Egyptian. Yosef was zoche to be buried in the Land; Moshe was not allowed. 

Ah, geshmack. 

Alone But Not Alone

This Pesach will be a lonely holiday for many of us. It will be a long one as well, three days for us chutz l'aretz folk. 

For those who will have to be alone—as in alone alone—for Pesach, there is the concern that what sort of Seder could they possibly conduct? Ask the Mah Nishtana to oneself? Answer the questions oneself? 

Especially if one has happy memories of previous Sedarim surrounded by multitudes. Or at least one other person to share the experience with. 

A lot of our mitzvos have to be practiced in solitude nowadays. This isolation is a major adjustment for our communal programming. We are so used to Jewish practice along with our tribe that for some, it's akin to an identity crisis.

But I wonder: Have we forgotten the point? Sure, it's fun to do things with others—davening,  rituals, celebrations, meals, etc.—but the point of these practices isn't always the company.  It's service. Avodah. Which, in the end, is between Hashem and the individual.  

There is an article by Rabbi Pini Dunner that is circulating, telling over a story of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, as witnessed by Rabbi YY Jacobson. 

My Zeidy had been chummy with the Rebbe, and while not chassidish, he was quite the fan; this story confirms why. The Rebbe was an Eved Hashem. He could have a solitary Seder—by choice—because he saw it as a mitzvah, as opposed to a family dinner. 

Browsing through the Mishpacha Magazine website, I came across a story called "Night Light" by Michal Marcus, printed in 2016. The story is about a teenage girl who is feeling lost. Her parents have recently divorced; her mother is no longer frum, her father is tired and preoccupied,  her sister is newly married and wants to escape into her new life, her brother is away in yeshiva. There's only so many times she can knock on her friend's door. 

Shabbos now involves takeout and awkward silences with her father. Without the home-cooked meals, the warmth of family, the joyous flair, she struggles to hold on to Shabbos. 

The one person who is attuned to her predicament is her teacher, and after a disastrous Shabbos by her mother, she finds herself at her Morah's apartment.  

Her teacher lives alone, no family nearby. She explains to her student that she tried to get Shabbos right—while she didn't have the husband and kids yet, she could go to other homes and get it right there. But it still wasn't hitting the mark. 

She made Shabbos for herself. She felt odd busily preparing for one, eating for one, singing alone.

“And it hit me: Shabbos wasn’t about the challah and wine. It wasn’t about the husband and kids. It wasn’t even about zemiros. Shabbos was about Hashem. It was about His creation, all of it — including me. It was about all the beautiful things I enjoyed, and all the difficult ones I couldn’t understand. It was about finding the Source.”

She falls silent. The candle sputters. The room is draped in peace. “Once I realized that, it was fine having a meal alone. Do I wish my Shabbos was different? Of course. But the core I have. No one can take that away. Shabbos — all of life really — is just about the two of us: Hashem and me.”

This was the message the girl needed to hear. That even though there was no longer a happy, complete family, she still had Hashem, and Shabbos is their day together. 

Hashem redeemed all of us from Mitzrayim on Pesach. Pesach is not about the cute four-year-old lisping the Four Questions. It's an opportunity this year to dig deeper, to discover new insights, to reaffirm our connection Above, when we are cut off from those besides us.

Learning Kindness

I'm wondering when I'll finally get over having been an "older single." I still identify as such, even though I officially left the moniker behind more than two years ago. 

I have recently been filled with feelings of . . . well, I'm not sure how to put it. 

I was single. I was dating for over a decade. Han showed up when he was supposed to show up. 

So, I could have spent those years feeling the way I wanted to feel, that Hashem has my man tucked away somewhere and when the time is right He'll produce him. In the meantime, therefore, I should simply be.  

But that wasn't allowed. Because whenever I tried to invoke Him, I was told, "No, you have to do your hishtadlus." Yet, what is hishtadlus? It means different things to different people. 

1. It means cold-calling "shadchanim." 

2. It means going out with every guy who's suggested. 

3. It means going to singles events. 

4. It means tackling every male within site and demanding marriage or else they will never draw breath again. 

When I executed as much "hishtadlus" that I felt comfortable with, and was still single, we moved on to other territory: What I must be doing wrong.  

I wish I could say I was confident enough to ignore the naysayers, but I wasn't. I would blog about it, listing proofs as to my normalcy, pleading with my audience to concur that I wasn't a freak, right?  

Either way, finding a spouse was on me: I wasn't doing enough hishtadlus and/or I was a nutter who cleaned her toes during a lobby date. 

I could have been more chillaxed in that time, instead of battling breathing-into-a-paper-bag anxiety. I could have seen my life as more than "pathetically single" and, perhaps, have utilized my time differently. Maybe I would have gotten into sourdough earlier. 

I'm doing that annoying 20/20 hindsight thing. Based on parental hopes alone, I would have still been a nervous wreck. But did others have to rub it in? To make me feel like you-know-what? 

Sigh. 

I suppose one thing I have certainly learned is that whenever that judgy inner voice starts piping that it's "their fault," I shut it down. Or try to, at least, which is more than I used to do before. I think I have become a kinder person after being subjected to wagging fingers for a decade. Everyone has their own burdens. Whether it's their fault or not is besides the point. 

So let's be kind.

How to Stay Sane While Dating: IX

We like to think we are above petty jealousy and envy. But we are sooooo not. At least, I'm not. If you are, move along. You'll glean nothing from this post, and you are awesome. 

Once, in my single days, I was walking down a Manhattan street and I passed a frum couple. His arm was around her shoulders; they were smiling blissfully at each other.  

A shot of envy surged through me, so violently painful that my head, of its own accord, jerked away. Seeing such joy, so out of reach, was like a knife in the heart. 

It wasn't much different every time I heard of an engagement. If the couple was "older," then I had the graciousness to be happy for them; if younger, I was a tad despondent. 

Chevi Garfinkel, bless her, addresses such reactions to others' bracha by advocating "dancing in others' rain." Rain is bracha. Marriage, she reminds us, isn't an achievement. It's not from one's efforts. It's a bracha. Ergo, if someone is so blessed, rejoicing with them, while they are showered in bracha, means you will be showered too. 

We aren't all the same, Chevi reminds us. We each have our own paths, our own twists and turns, our own milestones. Someone getting married before me has nothing to do with me. That's their path. Mine is another. 

Luke asked me if marriage was worth the wait. I can say, looking back, that YES. I may be a decrepit 32, but yes, it was totally worth it. My time on my track, learning, changing, progressing—if we had met when I was 20, or 25, heck, maybe even 30—it would not be the same. 

I know of a woman with an older single daughter. But every time she hears of an engagement or wedding she smiles with true happiness.

Did I achieve that madreiga in my single years? Heck no. I knew, cognitively, that my envy was my enemy, but I couldn't quite let go. But I tried, and when I tried, I certainly stayed sane.

The Coils of Humblebrag

When did humility get so cocky and vainglorious? I remember the first time, around 15 years ago, that I heard someone describe herself as “blessed.” An old friend of my boyfriend’s came to visit and spent the evening regaling us with stories of her many blessings. She wasn’t especially religious, which somehow made her choice of words worse. Every good thing in her life — friends, job, apartment, decent parking space — was a blessing: i.e., something deliberate, something thoughtfully picked out for her by a higher power. It took a while to put a finger on why it got on my nerves. The problem was that she couldn’t just let herself be lucky, because luck was random, meaningless, undeserved. Luck was a roll of the dice. She had to be chosen.—Carina Chocano

This connects to a previous post—about those who simper at their good fortune while claiming humility.  The above is from a series that analyzes current jargon ("First Words"). 

To be humbled is to be brought low or somehow diminished in standing or stature. Sometimes we’re humbled by humiliation or failure or some other calamity. And sometimes we’re humbled by encountering something so grand, meaningful or sublime that our own small selves are thrown into stark contrast — things like history, or the cosmos, or the divine. . . “Humility in a higher and ethical sense is that by which a man has a modest estimate of his own worth and submits himself to others.” “Others” being God, say, or a grand movement or mission, or just the majesty of your own corporate or celebrity overlords.

I never particularly liked those maselach about downtrodden janitors in freezing Eastern Europe who turn out to be the most brilliant mind and spiritual soul of his generation. "Oh, no, I'm just the lowly shammes" grates. Because that's not what anivus is—the same way "humility" isn't what it is now. It's like the above: Compared to the knee-knocking glory of God, yes, we're nothing. But amongst our own brethren, we must recognize our talents and share them.

In the present-day vernacular, people are most humbled by the things that make them look good. They are humbled by the sublimity of their own achievements. The “humblebrag” — a boast couched in a self-deprecating comment — has migrated from subtext to text, leaving self-awareness passed out in the bathroom behind the potted plant. . . . none of these people sound very “humbled” at all. On the contrary: They all seem exceedingly proud of themselves, hashtagging their humility to advertise their own status, success, sprightliness, generosity, moral superiority and luck.

Humility takes another turns in this article, which is albeit heavily Christian in context: 

Humility is a sign of self-confidence; it means we’re secure enough to alter our views based on new information and new circumstances. This would be a far more common occurrence for many of us if our goal was to achieve a greater understanding of truth rather than to confirm what we already believe — if we went into debates wanting to learn rather than wanting to win. . . 

There are those, ahem, who are insecure in their faith yet put up a front of "knowing." But if one had some anivus, they would also be accepting. 

Certitude can easily become an enemy of tolerance but also of inquiry, since if you believe you have all the answers, there’s no point in searching out further information or making an effort to understand the values and assumptions of those with whom you disagree. 

If we had all the answers early on, what would be our purpose here? We're here to advance, and that can only be done if we are willing to hear and learn. 

Humility believes there is such a thing as collective wisdom and that we’re better off if we have within our orbit people who see the world somewhat differently than we do. “As iron sharpens iron,” the book of Proverbs says, “so one person sharpens another.” But this requires us to actually engage with, and carefully listen to, people who understand things in ways dissimilar to how we do. It means we have to venture out of our philosophical and theological cul-de-sacs from time to time. . . The wiser we become, the more we see how much we don’t know and how much we need others to help us know.

He quoted one of our sources, so it's legit. "Two heads are better than one," Ma always said. Not everything one hears is useful. But one must be willing to hear in the first place. We have to be a little humble.

The Actual Requirement

It's really not my intent to talk smack about my Bais Yaakov. Yet so many years later I'm still untangling myself from the binding knots of misinformation. 

Like what a woman is required to daven. 

Maurice Minkowski

For years I nourished—and that's on me—an "all or nothing" approach to prayer; for years, on weekdays, I only managed Birchas HaShachar, since if I only had a few spare minutes (as opposed to thirty) I believed that saying something as opposed to all was "no good." 

It was only in the last couple of years I recognized my folly, and I made an effort to ram in what I could—at least birchas Sh'ma, Sh'ma, and Shmoneh Esrei—but feeling like a sub-par Yid in the process. 

And then I hear this shiur. 

How could us gals have been so misinformed? Ashkenazi women are only required to say Birchas HaShachar, Sh'ma and Shmoneh Esrei. Zeh hu. Not even P'sukei D'Zimra. 

In the old country, mothers would begin davening on Shabbos from Nishmas. I must shamefully admit that when I first heard this, I smugly thought how "they didn't know better," when, er, they knew far better than me, with my official Jewish education. 

I had learned from the family guru about "skipping"—that if, say, arriving late to shul, it is more important to daven with the tzibbur as opposed to starting from the beginning (while everyone is answering Kedusha). Yet as soon as leining began, I would catch up there. But it would seem that I don't have the requirement to say P'Sukei D'Zimra, so it would be more important for me to listen by leining. 

Of course I shlep around Jewish guilt baggage, what I could do better, how I messed up . . . and all this time, I was beating myself up for something I didn't even do wrong. 

When you know better . . . 

Bad Patient

To this day I have an odd relationship with sick days. 

When I was a child, it would happen from time to time that I would awake feeling crummy. I would crawl into the kitchen, croaking, "Ma, I think I'm sick." Ma would take one look at my woebegone form and say, "Nah, you're fine. Go get dressed." 

Not the ending you were expecting, I'm sure. 

To this day, I never know if I am sick or if I am imagining it. I take polls if my forehead is hot. I experiment if my legs can support me. I peer into the mirror to analyze my skin hue—pale green, perhaps?

Luke had it differently. There were mornings he would cheerfully boom, "Ma, I think I'm sick." 

He would be bundled back into bed with a cup of hot cocoa. 

Ergo, my firm belief that I was adopted. 

I remember once leaving my bedroom, attired in the atrocious polyester uniform skirt, walking past Luke's room. He was merrily burrowing under the covers, thermometer leisurely swirled in his hot cocoa, sending me off with a smirk and a jaunty wave. 

Now, what was Ma's thought process? 

She knew that missing a day of school is no simple matter. The concepts taught in those few hours never take root the way it does if one is there to learn it firsthand. On some level, one just cannot catch up, especially when the whole class has had a shared joke about something that happened in one's absence and, well, "You had to be there." 

Since I was a good enough student, Ma thought it was worth it for me to be nudged. Whereas Luke . . . she had already kinda given up on him. He spent his class time spacing out, bringing home meh grades, so if he isn't paying attention anyway, what the heck, let the kid have a sick day. (He surprised everyone later on when he shot to the head of high school classes and became a pretty smart cookie.)

It was only in college when I comprehended Ma's logic. In those years, if ill, I made the choice to heave my diseased self on the subway, clinging to the pole for dear life as fellow commuters nervously edged away. I could never find a classmate whose notes were more than four words and doodles; mine, by comparison, were four pages of closely written script. I knew then what a difference a missed day makes, and I was adamant, even if I collapsed trying, to get there.

Now, I have a job when I can take a sick day. But I still hesitate to do so, associating it still with opportunities missed.        

Work For It

In my parents' day, high school graduates got jobs. While Ta was in college, he taught math and science in his yeshiva. Ma, like the rest of her classmates, got a secretarial job in Manhattan. (Zeidy thought such an opportunity for a young girl to easily earn money to be near miraculous.) That's not really the current default today, which is a shame.

A job—any job—is an education. The first time I babysat for the neighbor across the street—I was eight, with my parents in yodeling distance—I was crushingly aware of responsibility. For that hour while the mother had to quickly run out, I stood ramrod straight clutching the cordless phone while the little(r) girls played peacefully at my feet and the baby gurgled at me from the crib. 

Working is an invaluable experience that many of our youth miss out on. Children can have an over-inflated sense of self—which is mostly due to underexposure—which is crushed the first time they screw up on the job. Bosses aren't going to humor them, or give them a pass. They expect results. 

It is a bleak moment when one realizes that the more one knows, the more one doesn't know. 

At the same time, employees can discover their own capabilities, realizing what is truly worthy of admiration, and feel that soft, fuzzy glow of a paycheck well-earned.

Those memories of my first jobs came back to me as I read Leslie Jamison's response to the question, "What early job later informed your work as a writer?"

Jamison dabbled in many different fields, but she greatly enjoyed her time in a bakery, even though she didn't have quite the knack. 

 . . . Messing up in a kitchen taught me more about “constructive criticism” than any workshop ever had. . . 

I was humbled by that job, over and over again: humbled by how much I needed to learn, how much I needed to keep learning; how I needed to keep practicing what I kept getting wrong. Just because I had published a book, just because maybe 500 people had bought it, didn’t mean I wouldn’t show up (at 7 a.m.) and suit up (in my apron); and it didn’t mean I wasn’t held accountable to my production list, stuck to the walk-in cooler beside the more ambitious lists of my colleagues.

This is one truth that hasn’t gone away: Whatever happens in my writing, I still have to show up for the rest of my life, whatever that entails — 100 gingerbread cookies or a boyfriend with the flu; a student’s last-minute rec letter or my daughter’s musical.

But it was another truth — the humility of that kitchen, confronting what I didn’t know — that has felt most resonant across my writing life. As my work has evolved, it has demanded uncomfortable, new kinds of capacity: learning how to pursue a difficult subject; how to seduce her in an interview; how to get corrected by fact-checkers; how to live in archives.

Writing hasn’t felt like getting progressively better at a single task; it’s felt more like stumbling toward the bewildering call of each new project, learning how to be a person who knows nothing; how to arrive on time, put on a batter-smeared apron and show up for whatever happens next.

In work, there will be times when one messes up. There will be medicine: criticism, humiliation, but learning. And the next day, with all the residue of the previous day's snafus still twinging, one still has to show up. There is no sick leave for goofs. One clocks in, and keeps on truckin'. 

"Eighty percent of life is showing up," Woody Allen might have said. Yup.

 

Jews kinda know that it's not necessarily the end of the world if they trip up in an aspect of observance. Jews are supposed to keep on truckin', knowing they can do better and going doggedly after it. There isn't much glamor, mostly batter-smeared aprons. But there is a great satisfaction nonetheless.

Ivy League ≠ Success

He was a Brooklyn yeshiva boy, brighter than most. Following his marriage, he attended college at night. He eventually made it to Columbia Law. 

"You know," he said in surprise, "there are a lot of smart goyim out there." Feeling a little humble?

 

Malcolm Gladwell, for all his success, did not attend an ivy league school. A child of a professor and therapist, he went to the University of Toronto. Not having been raised in the U.S., he finds the American fascination with higher echelon colleges to be perplexing—a needless expense and potentially damaging. Frank Bruni echoes the same sentiments in "How to Survive the College Admissions Madness." 

Consider the Law & Order episode, "Haven." The body of a well-known black community leader is discovered; he was bludgeoned to death. The trail eventually leads to his protégé, a black boy in a high-level college. 

This young man had graduated from his high school with high accolades. However, the standard of education in that institution was so low that he was completely unprepared for the ivy league, no matter how hard he tried to catch up. His self-esteem suffered tremendously, and he wanted to drop out. 

But his mentor refused to let him, insisting that he had become a role model, that the community had raised the funds for his textbooks; if he left school, he would be letting "everybody" down. 

While under cross in court, McCoy pushes him to snap: "I just wanted them off my back!" The pressure was too much; he had grabbed a baseball bat. 

That example goes a wee bit too far, but the point is this: Higher-tier colleges don't guarantee success. Peter Hart, cited in Bruni's article, had a glorious experience in the University of Arizona after being rejected by more prestigious colleges, and ended up in the same business position as his classmate who went to Yale. 

My Bais Yaakov had pretty much taught me what I needed to know to do well in college. I even knew more than many of my classmates, which was gratifying. I was where I felt academically comfortable.

My policy, when it came to education, was not to freak in elementary and high school. I had a classmate who was valedictorian, but after spending so many years cherishing her GPA she allowed it to choke in her meh college. Her self-made business never required a stellar college education. 

Rejection sucks, in all its forms. It's when we dust ourselves off and plod on that we find our self-worth, and where our own "success" thrives.  

Quiet Resolve

In preparation for the upcoming yontif, I've been listening to a set of CDs by Rabbi Yisroel Reisman on Megillas Rus. We've had them for years, and have played them repeatedly, but he never gets old. 

On the first CD, Rabbi Reisman discusses the debate about the permissibility of a Moabite convert. In the times of Rus, there still wasn't the later clarification that a woman from Moab was permitted to enter into Bnei Yisroel; "Lo yavo Amoni u'Moabi" (D'varim 23:4) was considered, by some, to also apply to the women. 

The megillah, it is said, was written by the prophet Shmuel, who was the contemporary of Rus' descendant, Dovid. Dovid's validity as king was questioned based on Rus being a Moabite; Shmuel established halacha, and sealed Dovid's claim, with this sefer. 

Consider, Rabbi Reisman said: Rus is a Moabite woman, and not only a convert, but a convert without established halacha backing her up. To add insult to injury, according to the commentaries, Boaz died the morning after their wedding. 

 

How often does it happen that when something happens—a natural disaster, an untimely passing, a drop in the economy—people profess to know the reason why? The "reasons" I've heard for the horrific earthquakes in Nepal defy belief and Judaism: We are forbidden from claiming to know what Hashem's motivations are. But we do so anyway. 

Let us play a little game of imagination, shall we? 

There is a new lady in town, lovely, really, but she comes from a background which may be forbidden to enter into the Covenant. Then she has the gall to wed the wealthiest and most prominent man in town. Two strikes. 

He dies the next day. 

What would we be saying?

Not only that, how would she be treated for the rest of her days?

Rus abandoned all she knew and devoted herself to Na'ami, following her instructions without question. But that also meant abandoning acceptance and respect for a life sentence of loneliness and recrimination. She was not vindicated until many, many years later. 

None of us are permitted to cloak ourselves in the robe of judge—for only the Eibishter is the Judge. He granted Boaz extra years just so he could fulfill the mitzvah of yibum with Rus, the most noble of women. 

According to Rabbi David Fohrman, "Eshes Chayil" is a song of praise to her. For she remained firm in her resolve to continue her husband's name, to be a servant of God, to be a comfort to her mother-in-law, while being ostracized and blamed.

Lessons: 

1) None can claim to know God's mind. 

2) No one can mistreat any one.  

3) If you are doing what you know, in your heart of hearts and brain of brains, to be right and true, let none gainsay you.      

Are You There, God? It's Me, Spock

I have an embarrassing backlog of articles I plan on linking, and with Shavuos in our sights, I've still got stuff from Chanukkah-time. 

Disclaimer said, here's David Brooks "The Subtle Sensations of Faith." He quotes rabbis throughout. 

My family (well, at least Ta, Ma, Luke, and myself) consider ourselves "Rambam" in mindset: Rationalist Judaic. Brooks quotes: 

In his famous fourth footnote in “Halakhic Man,” Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik writes, “The individual who frees himself from the rational principle and who casts off the yoke of objective thought will in the end turn destructive and lay waste the entire created order. Therefore, it is preferable that religion should ally itself with the forces of clear, logical cognition, as uniquely exemplified in the scientific method, even though at times the two might clash with one another.”

He says it much better than I ever could. To be religious does not mean delving in mysticism alone. Luke was describing to me the lengths a certain tree frog exerts itself to ensure the continuity of its offspring (he's watching this series). Nothing otherworldly about it, and it gave me the ghostly shivers.

Brooks concludes: 

All this discerning and talking leads to the main business of faith: living attentively every day. The faithful are trying to live in ways their creator loves. They are trying to turn moments of spontaneous consciousness into an ethos of strict conscience. They are using effervescent sensations of holiness to inspire concrete habits, moral practices and practical ways of living well. . .

Insecure believers sometimes cling to a rigid and simplistic faith. But confident believers are willing to face their dry spells, doubts, and evolution. Faith as practiced by such people is change. It is restless, growing. It’s not right and wrong that changes, but their spiritual state and their daily practice. As the longings grow richer, life does, too. As Wiman notes, “To be truly alive is to feel one’s ultimate existence within one’s daily existence.”

My perception of Hashem and His workings, and how I relate to Him, has morphed over the years. As I learn, seek, and question, I feel my consciousness transcending, while maintaining my "rationalist" standpoint. To find God does not mean disavowing reason. If anything, without the brains that He gave us, we would be lost. 

"Thou Shalt Teach Them Diligently"

"Down a sunny dirt road, deep in Bear Country . . ." 

So went the first days of Pesach. I own nearly every The Berenstain Bears book (I recommend classic Stan & Jan over later Mike versions), and was doomed to read them all. 

But how could I be remotely irritated when two cuddly little boys are snuggled into my sides, immobile, rapt? Us three were tucked beneath a down cover (that I thoughtfully fetched) on that chilly day for quite some time. My childhood memories of my siblings' rattling monotone when they would read to me ensured that I availed my voice of inflection; I made sure Farmer Ben was reenacted with a Southern drawl. 

"Lea read us a billion books!" one excitedly informed his mother. 

"A billion and one," I corrected. 

"Lea's so cute," he cooed fondly. 

On the second days, Luke's near-three-year-old discovered the stash of sturdy "board books," and he, too, sagged into jelly on my lap as I read and read and read. 

A few weeks ago there was an Op-Ed piece urging women to donate their breast milk to mothers who are unable to provide it, especially in light of studies showing higher academic achievement amongst those who were breast-fed. But, there was a letter from a pediatrician. She wrote that while it is a nice idea, the financial resources needed to screen and distribute the milk would be better spent encouraging mothers to read to their children. 

With scarce national resources for many families in need, and while recognizing that “breast is best,” increased intelligence and opportunity might be facilitated more effectively by community support of the extraordinary nutritive factors in the close, exploratory contact engendered by reading between mother and child.

There is more than one way to increase a bond and to pump up intelligence. The Berenstain Bears are available on Amazon. I have not yet met a child who didn't like them, mussar regardless.    

Friday Links

1) As a the only idiot who volunteered to sweep the classroom during lunch, I think that our schools, which tend to hemorrhage money, could kill two Stormtroopers with one laser blast by following the example of this private, faith-based school in Tennessee.

For one thing, students wouldn't make the mess in the first place if they are the ones who have to clean it up.    

2) David Brooks, one of my favorite thinkers/writers, came out with a new book called The Road to Character, which I plan on purchasing in the immediate future. He was interviewed in a number of places, including Charlie Rose. He quotes Rav Soloveitchik, giggle.

  

In the first few minutes of the interview, he talks about moments when one's heart opens up, "when time stands still, when reality overspills its barriers, and you experience a wave of gratitude . . . you become aware of a higher moral joy that is better than anything you get in career." 

For him, it was when he arrived home on a beautiful sunny day and sees his children playing on the green lawn; for me, it was a beautiful sunny day last summer, when I held Luke's son near a fish pond so he could watch the shimmering orange movements beneath the water. 

The sunshine touched his straight golden hair with a tender hand as he, a small toddler, stood enraptured by the surface. My nose pressed against his ear, I felt such happiness, and completion, in that moment. 

I remember it still, and appreciate it.  

"Excellent Sheep"

A seminary rabbi told over this story: There was a girl who was seminary perfect in every way. Attendance, grades, attire—the Mary Poppins of seminary girls. 

When she returned home, she confessed, "I am living a lie." 

David Brooks, in "Becoming a Real Person," references William Deresiewicz's book Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life.

Deresiewicz offers a vision of what it takes to move from adolescence to adulthood. Everyone is born with a mind, he writes, but it is only through introspection, observation, connecting the head and the heart, making meaning of experience and finding an organizing purpose that you build a unique individual self.

Deresiewicz argues that once, that was the point of college. When one is away from home, becoming exposed to great thinkers, one's mind can expand into something individual and unique.

But colleges today no longer provide that experience. 

Universities, he says, have been absorbed into the commercial ethos. Instead of being intervals of freedom, they are breeding grounds for advancement. Students are too busy jumping through the next hurdle in the résumé race to figure out what they really want. They are too frantic tasting everything on the smorgasbord to have life-altering encounters. They have a terror of closing off options. They have been inculcated with a lust for prestige and a fear of doing things that may put their status at risk.

The system pressures them to be excellent, but excellent sheep.

Doesn't that sound an awful lot like the current dating scene? 

I'm going to make a leap here, but I am going to assume that the seminary girl had had shidduchim on the mind. 

I wonder how many people—male, as well as female—are not doing what they would most like to do in life because it's "bad for shidduchim." Yet, I have not yet witnessed an example of anyone who was so "out there" in their choices that they couldn't get married. But it is still considered a valid explanation. 

Steven Pinker, the great psychology professor at Harvard, wrote the most comprehensive response to Deresiewicz. “ . . . I have no idea how to get my students to build a self or become a soul. . .”

I'm going to be blunt again: Some people are followers. They just want to fit in. They don't want a special calling. They want to do what "everyone else" is doing, and they don't want to stand out at all. That's fine; that's who they are. But I get annoyed when they fall back on "bad for shidduchim," a nice, safe, socially-acceptable excuse for why they lead clone-like existences.

Everybody — administrators, admissions officers, faculty and students — knows that the pressures of the résumé race are out of control. . . But . . . An admissions officer might bias her criteria slightly away from the Résumé God and toward the quirky kid. A student may privately wrestle with taking a summer camp job instead of an emotionally vacuous but résumé-padding internship. But these struggles are informal, isolated and semi-articulate.

Daters, certainly, feel as though we are being rated nowadays. That's thanks to the internet, according to Delia Ephron in "Ouch. My Personality, Reviewed." She thought that she was done with report cards. Ha. 

All those larger-than-life Biblical heroes and heroines who struck out on different paths—none of them were single because they broke molds. But we project our own insecurities on the community at large, blaming it like some sort of Big Brother entity if we desire to "check all the boxes." Sure, there will always be that obnoxious person who will gleefully tell one what one's "mistake" was, but that doesn't make them everyone, nor right.      

Go For Your Own Sake

For most of my life, I was plagued with questions about why I do or don't do certain things, mostly because it wasn't the same as anyone else. 

I didn't like camp, or sleepovers, or floor length denim skirts that prevent movement.  

I liked long words, animals, and history class. 

Every once in a while, someone would ask why I was weird.  

Blessed with a strong ego, I felt no need to change. I just accepted that I was a freak, and left it at that. 

I then attended college after opting out of seminary (my principal wasn't happy, obviously) and spent quite some time (five years) defending that choice as well. Then I find myself explaining my choice of degree, and now my job. 

One day I looked around and noticed: We are free to do what we like. And plenty of people do just that. Then it hit me: We don't have to be the same. 

It's not that I am a single, solitary nutjob; the majority prefer to herd together into indistinguishable mass, but there are others who make their own choices and feel no need to defend themselves.

Rabbi Tvi Hersch Weinreb discussed this. His class was analyzing Avrohom's leaving of Charan. 

. . . a fascinating epigram attributed to the mid-19th century Hassidic sage, Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk:

If I am I because you are you,
And you are you because I am I,
Then, I am not I
And you are not you.

But, if I am I because I am I
And you are you because you are you
Then I am I
And you are you.

I cannot be myself if I am merely imitating you. That's just blind conformity. I have to find what is unique in me, what are my God-given gifts and talents, and I must express them. Then, I am I and can achieve my life's mission.

This is not a teaching with which all Jewish leaders would agree. But this was the view of the very creative Rabbi of Kotzk, and he was neither the first nor the last to assert this teaching.

We are supposed to do our own thing. 

. . . Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, and this is a quotation drawn from his extensive and erudite commentary on the Five Books of Moses:

"Lech Lecha literally means, ‘Go to yourself.’ Find your own path. Be ready to choose the lonely path which will separate you from your land, your birthplace, your father's home. Be ready to separate yourself from all the connections that you have formed to this point. Lech Lecha, go at it alone. If the ideology of the multitude is not true, be prepared to worship God alone. How would we, the Jewish people, have been able to exist, and how can we possibly continue to exist, had we not inherited from Abraham our father the courage to be in the minority, even in a minority of one?"

And Again

Rabbi Yisroel Reisman finds GPS to be a wonder. No matter how many wrong turns one makes, a voice—a female one, yet!—dispassionately states, "Recalculating." No impatience, no annoyance. Simply a bland "Recalculating." 

I thought of this as I read "To Siri, With Love," by Judith Newman. Newman's son is autistic. Siri is his dearest friend. She could not be more thankful. 

Gus had never noticed Siri before, but when he discovered there was someone who would not just find information on his various obsessions (trains, planes, buses, escalators and, of course, anything related to weather) but actually semi-discuss these subjects tirelessly, he was hooked. And I was grateful. Now, when my head was about to explode if I had to have another conversation about the chance of tornadoes in Kansas City, Mo., I could reply brightly: “Hey! Why don’t you ask Siri?”

Children can be persistent, autism aside. Adults can be annoying, too. Sometimes it takes every ounce of self-control to maintain a calm register as I'm repeating the same statement for the fifth time. "Recalculating," I remind myself. "Recalculating. I am a mellow GPS, cruising down a highway . . . " 

What I found amazing is that Siri is not only a fount of information for the tirelessly inquisitive, she expects proper behavior, and so reinforces politeness. 

She is also wonderful for someone who doesn’t pick up on social cues: Siri’s responses are not entirely predictable, but they are predictably kind — even when Gus is brusque. I heard him talking to Siri about music, and Siri offered some suggestions. “I don’t like that kind of music,” Gus snapped. Siri replied, “You’re certainly entitled to your opinion.” Siri’s politeness reminded Gus what he owed Siri. “Thank you for that music, though,” Gus said. Siri replied, “You don’t need to thank me.” “Oh, yes,” Gus added emphatically, “I do.” 

Since Gus doesn't speak clearly, and Siri's voice recognition is not the best, Gus is forced to enunciate—an exercise which will certainly benefit him when he wants to communicate with humans.

“See, that’s the wonderful thing about technology being able to help with some of these behaviors,” [William Mark] added. “Getting results requires a lot of repetition. Humans are not patient. Machines are very, very patient.” 

I firmly believe that most things are neutral in nature; it's how people utilize and perceive those things that makes them either positive or negative. While technology tends to train social individuals to turn inward, for socially-impaired souls, it can provide the magic link to the outside world by teaching communication skills. 

Yet, patience is a virtue, and through patience, as Mr. Marks said, there will be results. So I am trying to let the GPS and Siri teach me a lesson or two.     

"For the Scoffer There are No Answers"

Michael S. Roth's article, "Young Minds in Critical Condition," made me recall my college years.

Via roguemedic.com

A professor like Roth really is a rarity. Most hound their students to analyze, which in turn usually means overcomplicate. In literary classes, I heard two completely differing perspectives on Kipling's "The White Man's Burden"; it was impossible that both were right.

In campus cultures where being smart means being a critical unmasker, students may become too good at showing how things can’t possibly make sense. They may close themselves off from their potential to find or create meaning and direction from the books, music and experiments they encounter in the classroom.

Once outside the university, these students may try to score points by displaying the critical prowess for which they were rewarded in school, but those points often come at their own expense. As debunkers, they contribute to a cultural climate that has little tolerance for finding or making meaning — a culture whose intellectuals and cultural commentators get “liked” by showing that somebody else just can’t be believed. But this cynicism is no achievement.

The dates that have to shred every comment to triumphantly reveal what I "actually" think: Dude, I told you what I believe. I'm not going to defend my point all night. I have work in the morning.

Of course critical reflection is fundamental to teaching and scholarship, but fetishizing disbelief as a sign of intelligence has contributed to depleting our cultural resources. Creative work, in whatever field, depends upon commitment, the energy of participation and the ability to become absorbed in works of literature, art and science. That type of absorption is becoming an endangered species of cultural life, as our nonstop, increasingly fractured technological existence wears down our receptive capacities.

As a Bais Yaakov student, I can appreciate a good analyzation of the texts. But at some point, if one doesn't stop delving, one forgets the message—one fails to see the forest for the trees.

Via tiferesbaisyaakov.com

Sometimes, a couch is not a reflection of the main character's need for psychological evaluation. Sometimes a couch is just . . .  a couch.

I have a niece, the Wise One, who really enjoys a good yentitz. You could never really tell, though. 

At the Shabbos table, her face is a blank. Her eyes appear sleepy, the gaze vague, as she slowly, carelessly dissects her gefilte fish and shnitzel. Because she doesn't seem to be paying attention, the adults go at it. After all, she's not listening, right? 

But as my little actress cackles, "I know sooooo much." 

She is a sponge, indiscriminately soaking up material; whether it is useful, intelligent, or plain stupid—well, we'll figure that out later. In the meantime, she absorbs any sort of knowledge, without judgment or critique. 

That is a great quality.