"Ritual, Ritual, Ritual!"

"You produce a deadly paradox. Government cannot be religious and self-assertive at the same time. Religious experience needs a spontaneity which laws inevitably suppress. And you cannot govern without laws. Your laws eventually must replace morality, replace conscience, replace even the religion by which you think to govern. Sacred ritual must spring from praise and holy yearnings which hammer out a significant morality. Government, on the other hand, is a cultural organism particularly attractive to doubts, questions and contentions. I see the day coming when ceremony must take the place of faith and symbolism replaces morality."—Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

It took me a few re-reads to comprehend what was being said here, but it corroborates (one of) Luke's pet peeves: "Ritual, ritual, ritual!" he repeatedly fumes. 

The Torah is a Book of Law, the Book of Law. But spirituality, in its essence, cannot be dictated into existence. How often are we guilty of executing a presumably faithful act via the stiff confines of boring regulation? We do it because we have to do it, not because we embrace the heavenly aspect of the task.

I bet tefillin takes on a whole new aspect when you're on the front lines. No rote there.

Then we can come to confuse the obscure and exotic yet not required as exemplary spirituality, like my pet peeve, segulos. You know why they are so popular? Because they are new, shiny, and different then all the other monotonous stuff that's been done already, like davening, Shabbos, and being nice to people. I'm really surprised that no one has brought back animal sacrifice yet; it's just begging to be exploited. Maybe because we're more frightened of PETA? 

Anywho, yes, there is merit even in dully fulfilling commandments, but that's not where our ideal religion lies. Remember the meaning, which is, even if we do or do not know why we are doing it: Hashem asked us to. So it must really, coolly, awesomely, be important. He didn't ask us to accumulate enough simanim to make the dining room table to collapse.   

As I typed this, I had not yet ventured into the bug-infested garage and hauled out the succah and schach; hadn't yet struggled with the extension cord to install the lighting; hadn't yet decorated it. I do it every year, happily, and I hope I continue doing it with the same childish excitement as when Ta and Luke graciously allowed me to "help" when I was 5, lamely dragging an idle bamboo branch. 

obiejews.com

But the eagerness, to be frank, stems from the fact that it is a once-a-year outing. But do I really know the reason and emphasis? I was surprised how woefully unaware I was while listening to this enlightening shiur by Rabbi Daniel Glatstein. I'm supposed to be executing this for the sake of the mitzvah, not because it's rarely practiced. (Although, I was now reminded that women are pattur from the mitzvah of succah. I like the Chasam Sofer's reasoning better than the fact that women are not bound by mitzvas asei bizman grama.)

There are so many seemingly small actions are just as important as the succah itself, if not more. Can I be the same excited when I prepare the lachter for Shabbos? When Ta asks me to find him the Time magazine? When I step into Shmoneh Esrei on a typical Wednesday morning? These small actions are just as important as the succah itself, if not more. Why shouldn't they warrant the same exhilaration?

There is a difference between halacha, chumra, minhag, and some new thing that was invented last week. They don't all get the same amount of emphasis.  

One vs. All

I had just been introduced to this woman. Literally, three minutes ago. Upon discovering I am yet unattached: "Well, at this point, you have to be willing to compromise on some things."

I may have gone a little ballistic in expounding on the myriad of matters I have been stupidly "compromising on" since I began dating, never mind recently, before Ma hurried me away. 

When people see a certain situation, and I must confess I am no different, we tend to swiftly manufacture a single cause and a single solution (no pun intended). But not every matter stems from the same cause. Take the art of medical diagnosis; what I learned from "House M.D." is that symptoms can be due to a host of illnesses or conditions. 

 

I don't think of myself as a statistic. I think of myself on my own, personal journey, with my own freedom of will (that can be executed to a limited degree as I am surrounded by occurrences outside of my control). 

That is what I considered as I read David Brooks' "Stairway to Wisdom." 

This academic research offers a look at general tendencies within groups. The research helps you to make informed generalizations about how categories of people are behaving. If you use it correctly, you can even make snappy generalizations about classes of people that are fun and useful up to a point.

But this work is insufficient for anyone seeking deep understanding. Unlike minnows, human beings don’t exist just as members of groups. We all know people whose lives are breathtakingly unpredictable . . .

We all slip into the general patterns of psychology and sociology sometimes, but we aren’t captured by them . . .To move the next rung up the ladder of understanding you have to dive into the tangle of individual lives. You have to enter the realm of fiction, biography and journalism. My academic colleagues sometimes disparage journalism, but, when done right, it offers a higher form of knowing than social science research.

By conducting sensitive interviews and by telling a specific story, the best journalism respects the infinite dignity of the individual, and the unique blend of thoughts and feelings that go into that real, breathing life.

I must confess, again, I am guilty of such a simplistic thought process. What was my perspective of the state of "older" singlehood when I was a youthful 21? Shamefully pat and judgmental. (I believe that is known as "karma.") 

This premise of "one size fits all" is even evident as "older" singles marry, then profess to apply their own experiences to the world at large. But then again, your story is not my story. 

The upside of my position: I like to think I have become more empathetic, as well as more willing to see the individuality, not the generality. 

Fire in the Hole!

Shadchanim nowadays seem to be leery of their profession. Since redting is currently based quite often on an e-mail attachment that floats about and lands in various inboxes, sometimes erstwhile shadchanim redt without knowing more than dry stats. 

While they cannot claim to know the fellow in question, they want to suggest him to a gal but cannot really summon the persuasive enthusiasm usual shidduch-redting would require. It's all in the art of the sell, but lately I have been receiving e-mails like this: 

I don't know him, but here's his information. Remember, I don't know him. 

It's like they're gingerly pulling the pin of a grenade, lobbing it into my general vicinity then running like heck, fearing that if this suggestion seems offensive, they won't be associated with the aforementioned bomb. 

It's all the more puzzling when the profile depicts a clean-cut accountant with a steady yeshiva background. Do you know something I don't?

One of the problem with this sort of mentality is the shadchanus aspect. We have the tradition of compensating successful shadchanim in an expression of gratitude, since bringing a successful shidduch about is usually exhausting. 

But they want all the glory with none of the guts. To actually redt a shidduch, one has to actually talk. And convince. And persuade. And woo. And gush. And stand by their suggestion.

Where You Come From

David Brooks on "Going Home Again": 

“If you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are, and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong.”—Terry Pratchett

Honor

He was about my father's age, his kind face the type one trusts implicitly. His mother, a smiling elderly woman, unsteady on her feet, had her hand securely linked in his. 

His father, more spry but definitely harboring nervous tendencies, was carefully picking out plums, emitting querulous demands every minute, to which the son tranquilly responded. 

"Yes, Dad, I've got Mommy. Dad, take a look at these beautiful white peaches! Yes, Dad, I've got Mommy. Would you like some grapes, Mom? Yes, Dad, I've got Mommy." His voice remained the same, steady and soothing, no matter how many times he reassured his father.

The little group made a slow yet thorough tour of the fruit store, meticulously selecting a few items of whatever was deemed attractive enough to the patriarch's eye. The son pacified his father whenever he became agitated; he lovingly supported his mother as she tottered along. He and she would pause occasionally and simply beam at each other. His face—how his face glowed with love and respect.

At the checkout line, while they did have more items than the next customer, she hurried backward, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, letting them pass. The father fretfully suggested that he go ahead to the restaurant next door, and the son, probably for the umpteenth time that day, calmly and considerately phrased the best possible response to ease his father's anxiety.

I dazedly observed this vignette, near tears. How lovely! 

How I am lacking. 

I witnessed this for a reason. I can be a better daughter. I know I can be. I cannot ignore this reminder of opportunity.   

Healthy Love

I am a self-professed broken record when it comes to health (oh, you haven't noticed?) I expound on the wonders of vegetation and the horrors of the processed. I speechify about the side effects of medications, and how if diet and exercise can rectify a medical condition, dear Lord, do the diet and exercise. Smoking? Are you kidding me? 

A usual argument is an anecdote about "someone" who ate right and exercised had a heart attack and died walking the dog. Or that "someone" puffed a pack a day and lived until 112. 

Your argument is invalid. I've got Rambam on my side. 

Another reason for taking care of yourself: Chances are, a human being is loved, at least by one person. Or at least by a dog or cat. If someone cares about you, isn't one obligated to do the whole tedious "eat your broccoli" thing for his/her sake? 

That's what Tim McEowan realized when he had his heart attack ("In a Small Bag, She Packed All Our Hopes"). His original policy had been hedonism, which led to the aforementioned crisis. While his girlfriend remained calm and resolute in packing an overnight bag while waiting for the paramedics, he had been initially annoyed that she wouldn't "free" him, let him die in peace.

But what Sarah did in packing that bag for me, the quiet hope her act spoke to — that was the reason I listened to my doctors, took my medication and even quit smoking. As much as her intention was affirming and positive, it also exposed my own selfishness, the pettiness of giving up on life just because sometimes life is hard. It embarrassed me the way being caught in a lie is embarrassing. Love doesn’t afford us the luxury of caring, or not caring, only about ourselves.

How love reveals itself is sometimes a slow process, the gradual accretion of all the seemingly mundane acts of kindness, sacrifice, mindfulness and even bad behavior two people share. Sarah’s act was an instance of what love looks like, stripped of all the usual bells and whistles. To have the opportunity to witness that, regardless of the circumstances, left me feeling like a fortunate man.

It also made me want to match the level of commitment she so clearly demonstrated. Sarah had raised the bar for me in a way I could not ignore.

Human beings are wired for love and connection (Brené Brown). Parents, spouses, children, dear friends. If we don't have those, we get, at least, a goldfish. But love is a two-way street; if an unhealthy lifestyle has "imminent demise" plastered all over it, does one really love?

One thing I am sure of is how badly I have misused the phrase “I love you” over the years. I have used it as an emotional lever and said it as something expected of me. I even have said it because I needed to hear it echoed back. These days, though, the weight of those words is something new. I understand that phrase anew, just as I now have a fresh appreciation of the phrase “near-death experience.”

I had lost the connection between saying “I love you” and meaning it when I started to allow the fear of loss in my life to overwhelm me. I would adopt a scientific remove to insulate myself from life’s uncertainties, particularly uncertainties surrounding love. As a result I became emotionally stunted, less likely to engage with people I cared about. I was smart enough to see how things had to end, but I was not smart enough to know how to live with that truth.

Love means doing hard stuff, like quitting daily donuts and taking up salads. Love means trying as hard as one can to build a future with another. If the kale and jumping jacks didn't do it, well, one did one's best, and can't outsmart everything. But there was hishtadlus, no?

The inevitable heartbreak built into lifelong commitments is that one of you is likely going to watch the other die. The idea of a Sarah-size hole in my existence used to be more than I could manage. But when Sarah faced that possibility, she didn’t blink. She had every opportunity to back away from her commitment but instead decided to stay, to deal with the uncertainties and potential sorrow common to any relationship of real value.

Back to Brené Brown: It a huge gamble to love others, because we don't have the control to keep them safe. Losing them is a possibility. But is living without love a viable alternative? We must accept the presence of uncertainty along with love, yes. 

But in the meantime, step away from the fries.  

Frankenstein's Monster

After quite a few dateless months, suddenly three "yes"es were plopped into my lap. But unhappily, I only liked one aspect of each. 

Bachelor 1 had the similar background;

Bachelor 2 had reliable employment; and

Bachelor 3 was a local. No long, grueling journeys! 

But the rest of their information failed to ignite any sort of flame of hope in my chest. I wasn't saying "no" to any of them, yet Ta was still trying every which way to pique my interest. Except, he couldn't decide who to focus on. 

"You know," he would suddenly say over his morning breakfast, "about Bachelor 1, it's not a terrible thing that . . ." 

By dinner, he would pipe, "And after all, regarding Bachelor 2, you can't hold it against him that . . ." 

At a commercial during The Big Bang Theory: "As for Bachelor 3, it's not unheard of that . . ." 

"Ta," I asked dryly, "do you intend for me to marry all of these guys?"

"Well," he grinned mischievously, "there's a thought . . ." 

Or I could sew various parts of them together.

We were made for each other!

Pay It to Get It

"Why didn't he say hello to me?" he groused. 

As casually as I could, I shuffled sideways. 

Did you perhaps consider, sir, that if it means so much to you to have an interaction with this "he," there is the option of, say, hello-ing him first?

If I feel the smart of injustice (I am thin-skinned, so it happens rather often), I try to recall the Chofetz Chaim: One cannot change others. One, however, can change oneself, which, in turn, can inspire others to change themselves. 

In "The Science of Paying It Forward," by Milena Tsvetkova and Michale Macy, the theory was put to the test: Who are the ones who are driven to be more generous, the ones who witness or the ones who receive generosity?

If it was minor generosity, then the observers were motivated to help more. But when "wow-bang" generosity was executed, the witnesses felt as though they had nothing to give following such grand gestures. 

But what did guarantee galvanization was being generous to the study participants themselves, which also in turn reinforced the influence of observing generosity.

What did we find out? The bad news was that the willingness to help suffered from what social psychologists call “the bystander effect”: When participants observed a low level of helping, it increased their own likelihood of helping; but when they observed a high level of helping, they did not themselves help — they appeared to feel that their own sacrifice was no longer needed. This finding was consistent with many previous studies of “social loafing,” “free riding” and “diffusion of responsibility.”

The good news was that receiving help reliably increased the likelihood of being generous toward a stranger, and that participants who benefited from generosity were also less susceptible to the bystander effect when they themselves observed high levels of helping in their group.

We conclude that observing an act of kindness is likely to play an important role in setting a cascade of generosity in motion, since many people can potentially observe a single act of helping. But we found that it was receiving help that sustained the cascade as it spread through the group.

Our research suggests that the next time you stop to help a stranger, you may be helping not only this one particular individual but potentially many others downstream. And who knows? In the end, maybe what goes around will come around.

To get the world to be nicer, be nice first.

The pure righteous do not complain of the dark, but increase the light; they do not complain of evil, but increase justice; they do not complain of heresy, but increase faith; they do not complain of ignorance, but increase wisdom. 

—Arpilei Tohar (1914), p. 2. Rav Avraham Itzchak Kook 

Battle of the Bulge: Food Combining?

When I first discovered LT, reportedly based on the principles of the Rambam, I was expounding on it fűnek fának (Hungarian phrase which roughly translates as: "She told it to every tree and every blade of grass"). 

As I was enthusing the concepts to my sister-in-law, she nodded and countered, "Sure, sounds like Fit for Life."

"Right!" Ma said. "A friend of mine lost a ton of weight years ago on that." 

To pad my knowledge database, I requested the one lonely copy from my library. Since I am incredibly gullible, I was relating the Gospel of FFF until I did a wee bit of googling . . .  

The basic premise of LT and FFF is food combining, which is also present in Aryudevic and Chinese medicine: Certain foods should not be consumed with other certain foods. FFF describes the reasons for it having to do with digestive enzymes canceling each other out when attacking proteins and starches. According to contemporary medicine, that is not so. Officially, FFF has been discredited.

Yet the ancients were unfamiliar with the pH levels churning around in our guts, but they still advocated food combining. I have noticed a difference, too, in how I physically feel when I eat fruits alone, and when I don't regularly combine proteins and starches. 

I few weeks ago I began to heartlessly combine once again, and even though I was being quite aware of portion size I noticed a difference as opposed to when I do keep my chicken and potatoes separate. 

But on the other hand, various systems classify certain items in different categories; LT considers beets and carrots, for instance, as medium-starchy vegetables, while FFF views them as starches. Then there's what Aryudeva thinks.

There is no clear consensus! 

But there are some easily quantifiable conclusions: Since food combining bans protein and starch at the same meal but grant carte blanche to vegetables with either, more low-cal green goodness is consumed—always a good thing. 

It's not that any food (except for junk) is forbidden, it's just that they shouldn't be eaten together. Because one is aware, one ends up consuming less calories in one meal. "I can't eat this now, maybe later or tomorrow." Self-control and delayed gratification is vital to weight maintenance, and they both result from food combining consciousness.

LT has really helped me with weight maintenance; I lost yontif poundage without going hungry, a sensation which I had always believed to be necessary in order to shed some digits. It's not that I can never have cereal with milk or a slice of pizza ever again, just that it's only for when I have already reached my ideal weight and I keep it to one portion (unlike FFF, which bans the combo completely). 

There are enough proponents as well as detractors of food combining to leave it a murky topic. (Marilu Henner confused me even more by saying that protein can be eaten with starch as long as there are legumes or vegetables; I gave it a whirl as well.) 

But you know what? Food combining works for me. And for Ma. I'm gonna go with Marilu's "laboratory" method (check out Part 1 and Part 2 of her segment); I'm "collecting data," and that concept is a keeper. 

Die Hardly Working

 

For those of us out there who still have overactive imaginations.