Half Changed World

quinoa

I've been making a lot of the NY Times Recipes for Health lately.  They're healthy (although not always low-calorie), usually reasonably easy to make and almost always tasty.  This week I made the Royal Quinoa Salad with Tofu and Sesame Ginger Vinaigrette.  I thought it needed more broccoli than the recipe called for, but otherwise it was pretty good.

Tofu isn't kosher for Passover by traditional Ashkenazi standards, because it's made from beans, which are "kitniyot" -- not really leaven, but sort of guilty by association.  (Either because you can make bread-like foods out of them, or because they were grown in adjacent fields, not clear.)  A couple of years ago, I decided that worrying about kitniyot wasn't particularly meaningful to me -- I won't eat cornbread, but I'm not going to worry about corn syrup, or tofu.

Quinoa's a different issue.  Although it sure looks like a grain, biologically, it's a member of a different family.  More to the point, it's a new world plant, and was totally unknown to the rabbis who wrote the laws about Passover.  So it's kosher for Passover, even for those observe the prohibition on kitniyot.

Passover ended tonight, so we had the traditional pizza for dinner.

Getting ready for Passover

This year, for the first time in years, I'm neither hosting a seder nor traveling to see my family for Passover.  We're going to a friend's house for the first night, and to the community seder put on by our congregation the second night.  It feels odd.

Over the weekend, I made the raspberry flame version of the Chocolate Oblivion Torte from the Cake Bible, and I just sent my friend a few of my favorite Passover readings.  My all time favorite is probably the sermon that Dr. King gave the night before he was killed.  Some years Passover falls right on the anniversary, but it's appropriate any year.

I also like this bit:

Rabbi Michael Lerner teaches that the story of the departure from Egypt was more than a single people's liberation from slavery: it was the revelation of the divine message that the world as it is can be radically, awesomely transformed for the good. That fundamental change for freedom and justice is possible -- this Pesach, in our all-too-frequent dejection at the state of the world, let us remember yitziat mitzrayim, the going forth from Egypt, and remember that if such an event is possible, then hope, not despair, is at the core of the universe.

In the Torah, it is written that the people of Israel “went into the sea, upon dry land.” Then, the Midrash tells us, one man, Nachshon by name, displayed his commitment to freedom by walking into the sea. Only at the moment when the water reached his neck, when he could go no further on his own, did the sea part. Only when the Israelites had taken the first steps, trusting in God, did God intervene to save them. Nachshon's act of faith and courage opened the way from Egypt to freedom. He enabled us all to be reborn into freedom.

Rachel Barenblat has turned Michael Walzer's musings on Exodus and Revolution into verse in her Haggadah.

Standing on the parted shores of history

we still believe what we were taught

before ever we stood at Sinai’s foot;

that wherever we go, it is eternally Egypt

that there is a better place, a promised land;

that the winding way to that promise passes through the wilderness

that there is no way to get from here to there

except by joining hands, marching

together.

TBR: People of the Book

On vacation with my in-laws, I did manage to read a few books for fun. One of them was Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book.  It's fiction, but based on the true story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a rare illuminated Jewish manuscript, which was protected from the Nazis by a Muslim cleric and also survived the bombings of Sarajevo during the wars of the 1990s.

The title of the book is both a play on the traditional notion that Jews are "the people of the Book" (e.g. the Torah) and a description of the contents, as it follows the stories of the different people who were involved with the creation, use, and protection of the manuscript over the centuries.  Brooks uses the story to highlight stories of multi-cultural friendship in a part of the world known for its ethnic feuds. The story unfolds backwards, with each story tied to a piece of physical evidence found in the Haggadah, and at times reminded me of a highbrow version of a James Michener concept.  But Brooks writes very well, and I enjoyed the story as it unfolded.

By coincidence or serendipity, my in-laws gave me a reproduction of the real Sarajevo Haggadah for the holidays -- purchased long before I showed up with the novel.  I certainly appreciated the gift more for knowing the story that went with it.

In writing this review, I remembered that I blogged about another Brooks book, March, a few years back.  I think I liked that one a bit more.

Fimian and abortion

I went to the homeowner's association meeting tonight and, as is their custom, a number of politicians and their representatives were invited to speak.  Connolly and Fimian were both at a previously scheduled event, but they both sent people to speak on their behalf.  Connolly's representative did a generally solid job, though he went on for too long.  Fimian's representative was a young man, perhaps 20 years old, who began his speech by admitting that he usually spoke to groups of high school student and this was a step up for him.  It was pretty painful listening to him, as basically the entire pitch was that Fimian's not a Washington insider and he knows what it's like to be us.  Since we had just recognized Tom Davis for his years of service to the district, this was perhaps not the best note to hit.

At the question and answer period, one of my neighbors tossed him a bit of a softball, asking about the mailings that she'd been getting about Fimian, and weren't they just accusing him of being Catholic?  (Note that Connally is also Catholic.)  He responded with a long answer about how they were making these accusations based on links on the Legatus website, even though the webpage includes a disclaimer that they didn't constitute an endorsement.

Well, this ticked me off, because it sounded to me like Fimian was trying to hide his strong social conservative positions.  So I asked him about the info from Left of the Hill, that Fimian's company amended its health insurance plan to exclude coverage of abortion, even in cases where the health or life of the mother was at risk.  (I found this via Anonymous is a Woman.)  The speaker had no idea, and so we moved on, but I found myself arguing with my neighbor about how common this is.

When I got home, I started googling, and I found this 2003 Kaiser Family Foundation survey that found that 46 percent of firms that provided health insurance included abortion coverage.  (I checked, and while KFF conducts this survey every year, they seem to have dropped the question about abortion coverage.)  Large employers were far more likely to provide abortion coverage than small ones.  Interestingly, 26% percent of employers did not know whether their insurance plan covered abortion, which makes me think that this is usually a cost-cutting provision rather than an ideological one.

What I can't tell from this is whether plans that don't cover abortion generally have life and health of the mother exceptions.  I can't find this online -- anyone have a source?  Or, if your plan doesn't cover abortion, can you look it up in your benefits handbook?

Talmudic wisdom

The background for this story is that we went to Simchat Torah services tonight. Since it's a weeknight and lots of people were coming straight from work, the congregation ordered pizza and we had dinner before services.  And while we were getting ready, the half dozen or so kids in attendance were chasing each other around in circles.

One of the members of the congregation gave me this learning as a gift.  R said that he had been studying a section of talmud with a partner, and that they had worked through a long section about what you should do if you're praying, and need to use the bathroom.  In particular, the rabbis addressed the question of if you're wearing tefillin and you need to use the latrine, what should you do with the tefillin.  If you wear them into the latrine, it seems disrespectful, but what if you leave them outside and they're lost?  The rabbis concluded that it was better to somewhat disrespect the teffilin than risk that they be lost.

So, R said, he and his partner were trying to figure out what lesson they could take from this section of talmud.  And they concluded that maybe the children of the congregation were like the tefillin.  Better that the purity of the ritual be somewhat compromised, than risk that they be lost from the community...

and on Yom Kippur it is sealed

Annika's getting a new liver right now.  It's been a long time since I blogged about her, but I hadn't forgotten her.

I don't believe in the kind of God who would decide whether or not to let a little girl make it based on how many people are praying for her.  (And I know Moreena doesn't believe in God at all.)  But I'm praying for her nonetheless.  I firmly believe that prayer is a positive thing to do, even if no one's exactly listening.*  If you're so inclined, you might spare a prayer or two for Annika, her family, and the brave family that donated the liver.

*Earlier this month, I decided that I felt more or less the same way about political canvassing -- I'm not sure I changed anyone's votes, but it made me feel more hopeful about democracy.

Updated: And if you're looking for something more concrete than prayer, blood donation is always good.

5769

We had a truly delightful Rosh Hashanah.  For the first time, my parents came down to spend it with us, so I was able to both share it with my family, and with my home congregation. 

On Monday, I went to D's classroom and read them the story of Engineer Ari and the Rosh Hashanah Ride (which we discovered from the PJ library) and shared apples and honey with the class.   It was a nice chance to meet his classmates and the teacher. Unlike his old school, I don't think D's the only Jewish kid in the whole school, but he's certainly the only one in his class. 

At services, the rabbi said that today is the birthday of the world, and N asked me how old the world was.  I told him we'd talk about it later, and at dinner we talked about how it was the year 5769 in the Jewish calendar, but that science indicates that the world is a lot older.  Somehow wound up promising the boys that we'd take them to Dinosaur National Monument someday.

It was a gorgeous day, so after services we went down to the beach and did tashlich, naming the bad things that we wanted to get rid of.  For the boys, it was mostly things like hitting and not listening.  I started with things like yelling and not listening, but when T offered up "cynicism" I had to ask for the bag of crumbs back.

Tashlich, 5769

Tashlich

Tashlich is a ceremony where you symbolically cast your sins (in the form of bread crumbs) into the water so that they can be washed away. 

In looking for something to read at our informal tashlich this evening (the fish thought our sins were very tasty), I found this poem:

Tashlich, poem by Rafael Jesús González

   

These are the days of awe —

time of inventory

         and a new beginning

when harvest of what we sowed

         comes in.

(What have we sown

         of discord &
terror?

God, mighty and small

Saturday afternoon, T mentioned to me that a man had rung the doorbell earlier wanting to talk about God, and that he had had a good conversation with him.  "We talked about the problem of evil," he explained, shrugging.  "I don't get to have that sort of conversation very much anymore."

The problem of evil, is of course, how can a just God allow terrible things to happen to good people.  A few hours later, I read Phantom Scribbler's post about the Belarussian beekeeper whose answer to the problem of evil was that God is weak, powerful enough to strike with lightning cows left to graze in the Jewish cemetery, but not powerful enough to prevent the Holocaust.  (Go read her post, then come back here.)

Baylor University released a study a few months back about Americans' religious practices and attitudes toward God.  Among other things, they divided believers into four groups based on whether or not they believe that God is angry and will punish sinners and whether or not they believe God is active in their daily lives and the world in general.  Given those options, I fall into "type D" those who believe in a distant God -- one who set the world in motion, but does not intervene and is not particularly judgmental. 

Looking at the crosstabs, I see that Jews are the religious group most likely to believe in a Distant god (41.7 percent).  I'd guess that is in part because of the problem of evil -- it's hard to explain how an involved and just God could have let the Holocaust happen.  But the survey also found that ZERO percent of Black Protestants believe in a Distant god, and I find it equally hard to explain how an involved and just God could have let slavery happen.

One obvious question if you believe in a Distant god is why pray?  The survey found that nearly two-fifths of those who believe in a Distant god don't ever pray, the same fraction as atheists.  I pray because I believe that the act of prayer is healing, even if it doesn't cause God to intervene in any way.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but T's right, we don't get to talk about these things enough.  And I'd rather talk about them with Phantom and with you than with the guy who rings our doorbell.

A zen story

From Quev at Mobtown Blues:

A man was arrested and falsely charged with murder.  Despite his protestations of innocence, he was condemned to be executed at dawn. Resigned to his fate, he called for a Buddhist priest to give him comfort him in his last hours.  The priest told him that if he recited the prayer to the Bodhisattva of Compassion 12,000 times before dawn, he would be released.  The condemned man stared at the priest in confusion and terror, since the night was already half gone and there was no way that he would be able to get through that many repetitions of the Enmei before the sun rose on the day of his execution.  Nevertheless, he bowed to the priest and began chanting.  He had only gotten to the 4,000th repitition when the cold light of dawn broke into his cell and he heard the jailer's key turning in the iron door.  With one final prostration on the cold stone floor, he rose and turned to meet his fate, only to find that the door was open and he was free to go.

Or, as is said in Pirkei Avot, "Lo alecha ha-m'lacha ligmor, v'lo atah ben chorin l'hibateyl mimenah." (It is not up to you to complete the work, but neither are you free to refrain from doing it.)

Latkes, etc.

We had our big almost-annual Hanukah party yesterday. (Almost annual because there have been a few years when we haven't had the energy to make it happen.)  We wound up with a nice mix of people, none of whom knew each other -- which I think actually makes for a better party than ones where some people know each other and others don't know anyone but us.   At one point when the RSVPs were trickling in, I thought that no one Jewish but us was going to attend, but Jews wound up being about 1/3 of the attendees.

As always, I wound up wishing that I had more time to talk with everyone.  That's true about throwing parties in general, but is even more true for our Hanukah parties, where one of us is pretty much always in the kitchen working on the latkes.  I just don't think they taste as good made in advance and kept warm in the oven.

We made both standard latkes and the curried sweet potato ones from Jewish Cooking in America.  For my standard latkes, I grate both potatoes and onions in the food processor, and don't even bother peeling the potatoes.  Instead of adding matzoh meal, I use instant mashed potatoes to soak up the extra liquid.  I tried making a batch on the griddle, but the insides weren't getting as cooked as I think they should be, so we then reverted to the high-greese method.  (I may try Elswhere's idea of parboiling the potatoes some time, which might make the griddle work better. (via Crunchy Granola) The sweet potato ones are really good, and also have the advantage that they're not competing with the platonic ideal of latkes that you grew up with.

Tonight we went to our congregation's Hanukah party, and had some amazing latkes.  The cooks said that their tricks are to a) squeeze out all the excess liquid through cheesecloth and b) separate the eggs and beat the whites until stiff before adding them back to the mixture.  My mother always squeezed out the liquid, which makes for lovely crispy latkes.  But it's an awful lot of work for a crowd.

My boys are not the paragons of restraint that Phantom's kids are, but they're doing reasonably well.  When D started to pout over not getting to open ALL his presents on Friday night, we told him that he was making it hard for us to have a happy Hanukah, and he did a pretty impressive job of controlling his attitude.  And when N opened his present from my folks tonight, he told me that he's always wanted a blue robe with clouds and moons.  (Yes, we've been reading A Pocket for Corduroy; how did you guess?)

I seem to have relaxed a good bit about the whole Christmas thing this year.  I've decided that I'm not allowed to complain about the public school teaching "Santa Claus is coming to town" in music class when I've shown the boys Miracle on 34th Street (the original, of course).  I'm more disturbed that the celebration of holidays around the world scheduled for this week includes "America, Israel, Mexico and Africa" as countries.  D got a reprimand for talking too much in class on Friday; he was trying to explain to his classmates that Santa Claus wasn't going to come to our house for Hanukah.

Thanksgiving

The pie (apple) and muffins (pumpkin) are baked, the stuffing is prepped, and the turkey is drying in the fridge after being brined (according to the NYTimes recipe that Libby recommended).  I've got two batches of cranberry sauce -- I let the first one burn last weekend when we unpacked the Wii and I forgot it was on the stove.  I sort of like how that batch tastes anyway, but I don't think anyone else will, so I made another batch last night. T is in charge of the mashed potatoes and I'll make brussels sprouts in the afternoon.

My parents and one of my siblings and her husband are coming down to spend the holiday with us.  I am so very grateful that they're coming.  The line that keeps running through my head is "bless this house, for we are all together."  I'm also grateful that after the boys woke up at 5.30 am from coughing, I managed to get them back to sleep and they slept until nearly 10 am.

Like Dawn, I accepted the UCC blogad even though I'm not Christian.  I'm embarassingly ignorant about different Christian denominations, but I can't object to a request that we "pray for 'all the people' -- our friends, family and coworkers as well as the vulnerable, the lonely and the outcasts."

May we all be filled with blessing this Thanksgiving.

Phases

Sorry, didn't mean to leave you hanging.  No, we didn't all fit into our dining room, not all at once.  But we borrowed a children's picnic bench from friends, and set it up in the living room, so all was well.

***

I've been trying to run in the mornings a few times a week.  I need to be out the door for my run by a few minutes after 6 in order to be back, showered, dressed, and ready to go in time to get D to school by 8.  This time of year, that means I'm heading out into the dark, with the sun coming up while I run.  I often linger over my stretches to watch the sun rise over the river.  It makes up for the pain of having to get out of bed so darn early (o'dark hundred, as one of my buddies used to call it).  The past few weeks, the moon has also been visible on most of my runs.  I've watched it fade into a sliver as the new moon approached.

As Rachel (the Velveteen Rabbi) noted, by a convergence of the lunar and solar cycles, this weekend was Rosh Hashana, the start of Ramandan, and the fall solstice.  Both the Jewish and the Moslem calendars go by moon cycles, but the Jewish calendar inserts "leap months" in order to keep the holidays roughly aligned with the seasons, so that Passover is always in the spring and Sukkot always in the fall.  The Moslem calendar does not make such adjustments, so Ramadan can land in any season.  And they'll align with the solstice only when it happens to fall on a new moon.

Andrea, at Beanie Baby, is Wiccan, so she celebrated the solstice, or Mabon.  She wrote recently about her relationship with the annual cycle:

I seem to make this annual journey. Down into the underworld for six months of introspection and quiet and inaction. Up into the real world for six months of activity and learning and noise. Pull inward, push outward, pull inward, push outward, and all the while I feel like things are starting to come together, making sense, like it all fits.

For me, the fall has always felt like a time of new beginnings, of fresh starts.  In part because of Rosh Hashonah, but more because that's when school starts.  And yes, I'm stuck on that cycle, even though it's been 10 years since I last attended school on a full-time basis.  (My husband laughed this fall at how excited I was to buy D's school supplies.)  Summer is for lolling around and living in the moment; fall is for making plans.

***

That said, I think I am going to take some time to turn inward for a bit. I don't have a physical retreat to go to like Jo(e)'s, but I'll do what I can to find some quiet.  I'll be back after Yom Kippur.

L'shanah tovah

May your year be both good and sweet.

(Tune in tomorrow to find out whether 7 adults and 6 kids can really fit into my dining room for Rosh Hashanah lunch.)

More Passover musings

Sorry for the light posting -- between Passover, a crazy workweek, and a visit from my mother-in-law, something had to give, and this blog was it.

Overall, we've had a very mellow and pleasant Passover.  While it always makes me a little sad not to see my parents and siblings over Passover, I must admit that there's something nice about not schlepping anywhere.  And we didn't host our own seder either -- went to a friend's one night, and the shul's community seder the second.  So relatively little stress.

It also simplifies things that I've decided that it doesn't make any sense for me to make myself (and my family crazy) to avoid kitniyot for Passover (beans, corn, rice) given that I don't keep kosher, don't have separate Passover dishes, etc.  Not that I require absolute consistency in my religious practice -- I don't eat pork, but I do eat shellfish, even though both are equally treif.  (My logic is that no one was ever martyred for refusing to eat shrimp.)  But it's not particularly meaningful to me to avoid rice and tofu.  I'm fairly sure that whatever the ancient Hebrews ate on their way out of Egypt, it looked more like pita bread or tortillas than modern matzah, but I haven't quite been ready to follow that argument to its logical end.

Phantom Scribbler linked to a sermon by a reform Rabbi on the real meaning of Passover: "When we badger ourselves or one another about a drop of corn syrup in a Coca-Cola, but fail to work for freedom, we are in violation of Passover."  Or, as another teacher once put it:

   Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
       only a day for a man to humble himself?
       Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed
       and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
       Is that what you call a fast,
       a day acceptable to the LORD ?

    Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
       to loose the chains of injustice
       and untie the cords of the yoke,
       to set the oppressed free
       and break every yoke?

Saturday morning, D woke up and asked if it was Easter.  We said, no, it's tomorrow, but we don't really celebrate Easter.  He insisted that we had to have an Easter egg hunt.  Ok...  We assumed that he had figured out that this often involved chocolate, so we told him that if it was really important to him, we could dye some eggs, and then he and N could look for them on Sunday. This sounded like a great plan to him, so off we went to pick up some dye.  (Mostly we dyed hard boiled eggs, but I blew a few, and used the insides to make matzoh balls, much to my own amusement.) Both boys had great fun dying eggs and finding them, and then we let them trade the eggs they had found for chocolate bunny pops left over from the Max and Ruby birthday party of two months ago.  And later we let them egg joust.

But somewhere in all of this, D wanted to know why we don't celebrate Easter.  We sort of tiptoed around this one, not wanting to get into the details of the cruxifiction (remember, this is the kid who cried over March of the Penguins) but generally explaining that people believe lots of different things about God.  But he's at the stage where he likes there to be RIGHT answers and WRONG answers, and wasn't too convinced by our answers about uncertainty and tolerance.  Oh well, I figure we'll have a lot more chances coming up...

A few more links:

• Susan at Crunchy Granola's got a bunch of Passover posts up.
• For some thoughtful Jewish-Christian dialogue, see Sue at Inner Dorothy's post about Christian Seders (via Phantom Scribbler).

Passover Links

I'm not the only one for whom "For we were strangers in the land of Egypt" is resonating particularly loudly this year.

• Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
• Passover in Spanish -- in the Streets of America

Jews in America are not as solidly left as they once were, but most are pro-immigration, both because many of us are not that many generations removed from the immigrant experience (both my grandmothers came to this country as children), and because we know that thousands -- maybe tens of thousands, maybe more -- of the six million might have survived if America and other countries had been willing to let them in.

Or as Marge Piercy writes in a poem that was read at many seders tonight:

"We Jews are all born of wanderers, with shoes
under our pillows and a memory of blood that is ours
raining down. We honor only those Jews who changed
tonight, those who chose the desert over bondage,

who walked into the strange and became strangers
and gave birth to children who could look down
on them standing on their shoulders for having
been slaves. We honor those who let go of everything
but freedom, who ran, who revolted, who fought,
who became other by saving themselves."

Purim and justice

I've been reading JT Waldman's graphic novel of the Megillat Esther, the book of the bible that we read at Purim (discovered via the Velveteen Rabbi).  It's reminded me of what a very strange story it is.  There's an old joke that all Jewish holidays can be summed up as "They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat."  That's certainly the heart of the Purim story, with the added vengeful twist that Haman falls into his own trap, and is killed on the gallows he had prepared for Mordechai and that the Jews fall upon their oppressors, killing tens of thousands.

The Purim story has been racing around my head the past few days, bouncing up against the news of Slobodan Milosevic's death, and the possibility of the judge calling off the Moussaoui trial.   While we like to think of "law' and "justice" as synonyms, they're really not.  And sometimes following the rule of law means that evil people will get off.   It stinks, but it's better than the alternatives.

God is never mentioned in the Megillat Esther. There's no promise here of infaliable judgment in a world to come.  All we've got is this world, full of drunken kings, conniving queens, and scheming counselors.

The endless to-do list

I've been thinking about that NYTimes article on mother's labor force participation.  The article suggests that the slight recent drop-off in women's labor force participation in recent years is because we've pushed unpaid work -- housework and child care -- about to its lower limit, and there are only so many hours in the day and something has to give. 

Bitch, PhD thinks that makes sense.  She wrote:

if, broadly speaking, we've wrung about all we can out of the 24 hours in a day, then it makes sense both that some women would step back from the grueling regime in favor of a more balanced personal life, regardless of the possible risks they run in doing so: when you've reached the limit of your energy, you can't keep going and that's all there is to it. It also makes sense that women who are still trying to hang onto the stressful balancing act of career, children, and coupledom would feel that they're singlehandedly carrying the world on their shoulders. And given the pressures on all of us, of course we're all defensive and insistent and argumentative about our choices.

But one of her commenters, Steve Horwitz, points to this Economist article (based on this paper by Aguilar and Hurst) which uses the same underlying data as the Times article and comes to the conclusion that total leisure time for all groups -- including working moms -- has increased significantly over the past 40 years.  Is this possible?  And if it's true, why do we all feel so tired?

I think there's a bunch of different things going on.

If I'm reading the papers accurately, the biggest issue is whether you consider time spent with children doing generally recreational activities -- reading to them, taking them to parties, watching school plays, even going to the park -- as leisure.  Aguilar and Hurst do, while I think Bianchi (whose data the NYTimes uses) counts them as child care.  Conceptually, I think these activities somewhere between true leisure and work.  They're not in the same category as changing diapers or attending parent-teacher conferences, which you do because they're important, but no one really considers fun.  But they're also at least semi-obligatory --  you feel guilty if you don't do them enough, and you often have to do them even if you'd really rather be doing something else.  So they add to the modern parent's endless to-do list.

While the time-use studies clearly show that the amount of time spent on housework has dropped significantly, they don't account for the fact that people's expectations  haven't fallen as much.  So even if we only vaccuum once a month, we feel like we ought to do it more often, and it stays on our to-do list, even if we know that we're never going to get to it.

Aguilar and Hurst also point out that there's been an increase in inequality in leisure time, with more of the gain in leisure concentrated among less educated individuals.  If you believe Annette Lareau, the parents with more education are also spending more of their "free" time in intensive parenting activities.  And if you're reading this blog, or Dr B's, the chances are high that you're in that group.

As the Economist article acknowledges, the blurring of the lines between work and free time are also a factor in our perception of overwork.  If you have to carry a blackberry to your kid's soccer game, and check your voice mail over the weekend, it's hard to leave the office behind.  And I don't think it's coincidence that Dr. B and Sandy Piderit are academics.  It's not just that professors work long hours, but that their hours of work are unbounded -- there's almost always something else that they could/should be working on.

Overall, I think it's that sense of things left undone, rather than the total number of hours worked, that makes people feel overwhelmed.  When I started work after getting my masters, I remember how excited I was at the concept of the weekend.  Look, it's Friday, and I get to go home!  And I don't have to think about work, or feel guilty about not doing it, until Monday morning!  What a concept.

But at this point in my life, my personal to-do list is a lot longer than my work one.  Some days are busier than others at work, but I generally leave the office having accomplished most of what I need to do.  At home, I almost always feel like I'm running behind.   Therefore, I need to make a conscious choice at times to let go of the endless to-list.

Or, as Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:

"The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation, from the world of creation to the creation of the world."

Shabbat Shalom.

Hanukah and Christmas

When I was in sixth grade, I got into an argument with a substitute teacher who didn't believe me when I told him that we didn't celebrate Christmas.  I was outraged, but more by his stupidity* than because I felt religiously persecuted.   This was New York City, after all, where the public schools close down for the High Holidays.

NaomiChana at Baraita has a really thought-provoking post up about the "December Dilemna" for Jews.  She writes:

"Apparently we American Jews are supposed to spend the month of Kislev engaged in a nonstop angstfest about -- well, mostly how we will decorate our homes. Single candles in windows are out; nine-branched candelabras are in; seven-branched candelabras depend heavily on context. Greenery is dubious,* especially triangular shapes, and circles are questionable, but any medium which can reasonably be shaped into a four-sided top is cool. Blue lights are fine; clear lights are fine unless they look too much like the ones the neighbors have strung around their creche scene; multicolored lights are Right Out. Also, lighted reindeer forms are frowned upon; my search for a lighted elephant form (preferably stepping on a lighted Eleazar Maccabee) has so far been in vain, but I like to think that would be OK."

I don't think the solution to the December dilemna is to stick a huge menorah up next to the Christmas tree in the middle of the park.  When you do that, Hanukah is always going to seem like an afterthought, a sop toward political correctness.  And Hanukah is a third-tier Jewish holiday in any case.  I'd be a lot happier if school districts were less careful to include "I have a little dreidl" in their Christmas Winter concerts, and more careful to give teachers a list of the dates of major Jewish holidays with a letter saying "please don't schedule major exams or projects for these days."  And, like Tiny Coconut, I'd like to see more floating holidays so non-Christians don't have to choose between observing their holidays and having a vacation.

NaomiChana goes on to argue:

"You want a real dilemma involving Judaism and American culture? Try "whether or not to run errands on Shabbat."....These dilemmas run up against Jewish fundamentals. What you tell your kids about the white-bearded, red-suited guy in the mall is probably not that kind of dilemma."

Ok, ok, point well taken.  But what do I tell my kids about the white-bearded, red-suited guy in the mall?  D attends a Jewish preschool, so December isn't all Santa all the time, but he watches enough television that he's definitely got the concept.  He knows that we don't celebrate Christmas, but that his paternal grandparents do.  And when we're with them on December 25, they hang stockings for all of us.  We're not seeing them this Christmas, having schelpped out to Portland for Thanksgiving.  I'm not quite sure whether D is expecting us to hang stockings without them.  And I don't know if we should, whether or not he's expecting it.  (Even without the excuse of non-Jewish grandparents, my family did do Christmas stockings when I was little; I'd guess my parents gave it up when I was 9 or 10.)

* It's ignorant not to know that not everyone celebrates Christmas, but it's stupid to persist in that belief when confronted by a real live person telling you that she doesn't.

A poem for Yom Kippur

How Divine is Forgiving?

by Marge Piercy

It's a nice concept
but what's under the sculptured draperies?
We forgive when we don't really care
because what was done to us brought unexpected
harvest, as I always try to explain
to the peach trees as I prune them hard,
to the cats when I shove pills against
the Gothic vaults of their mouths


We forgive those who betrayed us
years later because memory has rotted
through like something left out in the weather
battered clean then littered dirty
in the rain, chewed by mice and beetles,
frozen and baked and stripped by the wind
til it is unrecognizable, corpse
or broken machine, something long useless.


We forgive those whom their own machinations
have sufficiently tangled, enshrouded,
the fly who bit us to draw blood and who
hangs now a gutted trophy in a spider's
airy larder; more exactly, the friend
whose habit of lying has immobilized him
at last like a dog trapped in a cocoon
of fishing line and barbed hooks.


We forgive those we firmly love
because anger hurts, a coal that burns
and smolders still scorching the tissues
inside, blistering wherever it touches
so that we bury the hot clinkers in a mound
of caring, suffocate the sparks with promises,
drown them in tears, reconciling.


We forgive mostly not from strength
but through imperfections, for memory
wears transparent as a glass with the pattern
washed off, till we stare past what injured us,
We forgive because we too have done
the same to others easy as a mudslide;
or because anger is a fire that must be fed
and we are too tired to rise and haul a log.

From Available Light

L'shanah tovah

L'shanah tovah.

We didn't get our act together to hire a babysitter for tonight, so our choices for services were either for me to go on my own while T stayed home with the boys, or for us all to go together and see how long the boys would last.  I like the idea of attending services as a family, but N lasted only about 20 minutes.  D lasted longer-- over an hour -- but that still meant we left in the middle of Avinu Malkeinu. 

My challah was something of a bust.  Someone told me that you could freeze the raw dough and let it defrost in the fridge before baking it, but I think the middle was still frozen when it went into the oven, and it never really cooked.  How long does it need to defrost?

I've got an apple and honey cake in the oven.  I don't know how it will taste, but it smells awfully good.  It's a bit of an experimental recipe -- I started with the plum torte recipe from Marion Burros, but replaced the plums with apples and some of the sugar with honey.

May you be written in the book of life for a good and sweet new year.

Challah

Last week, Phantom Scribbler asked me to post a bit about how I'm keeping shabbat. 

The short answer is "inconsistently."  But that's actually a step toward observing it, not away.  In the past, I've let perfectionism get in the way -- which means that I've been least likely to celebrate shabbat those weeks when I'm stressed and overwhelmed, most in need of a step back.

So two weeks ago, we lit candles and said motzi over sliced wheat bread because we hadn't bought any challah and said p'ree hagafen over apple juice, rather than grape juice.  (I know, it should be p'ree ha-etz, fruit of the tree, not fruit of the vine, but we were pretending it was grape juice.)  And we went to tot shabbat services the next morning.  Last week, D had a sleepover with a friend, and I went out to dinner with my friends, so we didn't really do anything.  It varies.

I'm actually baking challah this week.  Or rather, I left it to rise in the fridge this morning, and T should have put it in the oven sometime this afternoon.  I know, it sounds very Martha Stewartish, but it's really not any more of a hassle than making a separate trip to the bakery.  But D loves challah -- it will probably be all he eats for dinner tonight -- and I love the feel of kneeding dough.

As I said last week, I'm trying to cut back on my computer time.  I should probably just turn it off, and not turn it on until Sunday.  I'm encouraging board games, but not banning television.  I'm willing to drive to services or the library, but trying not to run a million errands.

And tomorrow I'm spending all day in my training class. Oh well.

TBR: Quotidian Mysteries

Today's book is The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work," by Kathleen Norris.  It's a small book, 4" x 7", with only about 90 pages, and is the text of a lecture that Norris gave, the 1998 Madeleva Lecture in Spirituality.  Based on the list of previous title in the series, it appears the lectures always focus on women and spirituality.

I requested the book because I read about it (can't remember where, sorry), and the title intriged me.  And I often feel overwhelmed by the everyday (which is what both "quotidian" and "mundane" mean), so I thought it might be helpful. 

Overall, I can't say I found the book illuminating.  Norris waxes enthusiastic about the possibility of finding spirituality in the midst of ordinary chaos, and praises "those who manage to find God in a life filled with noise, the demands of other people and relentless daily duties that can consume the self" but fails to provide any guidance for how to do so. (Except for a nagging suggestion that "young parents juggling child-rearing and making a living" should, "if they are wise,... treasure the rare moments of solitude and silence that come their way, and use them not to escape, to distract themselves with television and the like.")

Norris writes that she knew "since high school, that whatever I was destined for, it was not motherhood."  And she is best known for her book about life as an oblate in a monastery.  I found her cheerleading for the joys of the quotidian a little bit like someone who hikes unencumbered up a mountain while I am carrying a huge pack.  When I trip in the mud and beg for help, she tells me, oh no, my journey will be so much more impressive than hers for having carried the pack.  Perhaps, but I'm not sure I'm going to make it at all. 

Norris is at her best when she shares her enthusiasm for laundry (especially when hung on a line) and daily liturgies, and how she uses them to bring herself out of terrible blue funks (although she uses the archaic word "acedia" instead of admitting to depression.).   And I'm happy to have read the book if only for her discussion of collecting manna as the prototypical daily chore.  (As you may remember, the Torah says that God provided manna each day and the Israelites had to collect it each morning.  There was no point in collecting extra so you wouldn't have to do it the next day, because except for the double portion provided for Shabbat, it all went bad overnight.)

Gretna, Justice, and God

Earlier this week, I turned on the radio and heard this NPR story about the bridge at Gretna.  My husband, who generally avoids the news as much as possible, hadn't heard about this event before.  When the story was over, he looked at the handful of goldfish crackers that he had picked up, and discovered that he had turned them into goldfish dust from clenching his fists.

Rob at Big Monkey, Helpy Chalk faxed a letter to Mayor Ronnie Harris of Gretna, and Harris called him back.  Rob posted his transcript of their conversation.  It's quite fascinating.

Rivka at Respectful of Otters suggests that cognitive dissonance leads some people to portray the victims of Katrina as bad people, who got what they deserved.  She writes:

Cognitive dissonance gets particularly ugly when reality collides with the just world hypothesis, the belief that "the world is an orderly, predictable, and just place, where people get what they deserve." Faced with tragedy, victimization, or injustice, just world believers have four options to reduce the cognitive dissonance: they can act quickly to help relieve the victim's suffering (restoring the justice of the situation), minimize the harm done (making the tragedy a less severe blow to their beliefs), justify the suffering as somehow deserved (redefining the situation as just), or focus on a larger, more encompassing just outcome of the "poor people will receive their rewards in heaven" variety.

When the NPR story on Gretna ended, I said "And when they die, they shall go to the Pearly Gates.  And there will be a bridge to get there...."

Unfortunately, I don't really believe in a heaven/hell where everyone gets their just deserts.  So I'm left believing that the only justice in the universe is that which we create.  And that's often a pretty weak justice.

The usually funny WaiterRant got all philosophical in the aftermath of Katrina.  He quoted a pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed for his part in an attempt to assassinate Hitler, who said: “God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which he can be with us and help us.”

The Waiter's take on this was:

"But within Bonhoeffer’s words lies a challenge. Since God doesn’t come down in a blizzard of special effects to bail us out – we have to help each other. We recognize the suffering of others and are moved to relieve it. We can’t coop ourselves up in our apartments, churches, and mosques wishing all the bad things will go away. There’s no room for childish magical thinking. We have to act. The rescuers of 9/11 and the Gulf Coast understood this without all the fancy theological reflection. Bonhoeffer would say when we help each other that is God helping us."

That sounds about right to me.

I'm trying to make Shabbat more a part of my life, and (at least for right now) that involves staying away from the computer.  See you Sunday.

Shabbat

"Does the Sabbath exist independently from the preparation, from the tradition?  Can you meet your family for a pizza dinner on Friday, relax together for the first time all week, drive home after dark, snuggle up to a video tape, feel happy to be alive, and call it Shabbas?  Can you go to the beach with your family on Saturday, enjoying the creation on a beautiful day, and fulfill the observance?  The rabbis rather firmly say no.  A tired man and woman might prefer yes.

"Here's a puzzle: If you race home from the office, snap off the cartoons, shake your roast chicken out of a box, and light the candles exactly by sundown; if you bound out of bed next day though you desperately need your sleep, and then head out to services in the rain on foot when driving would be more restful; if you stand and sit in the chapel, your concentration constantly interrupted by children, and then you return home in the rain: this might pass for Shabbas, and the rabbis would probably confer their blessing.

Possibly religion is not appropriate for parents of young children."

-- Elizabeth Ehrlich, Miriam's Kitchen.

Making connections

Tiny Coconut writes today about her tentative steps towards a spiritual practice that is compatible with her intellect and heart and sense of the world.  I posted a link that I thought she might like, and she wrote back asking if I had suggestions for books about progressive Judaism.

I always have suggestions of books, but as I told TC, I'm not sure that's the right way to go about the quest.  For all the talk of Jews as "people of the book," Judaism really can't be practiced in isolation -- for one thing, many of the key prayers require a minyan, a congregation of 10 adults (traditionally, 10 men), in order to say them.   Orthodox Jews also don't believe in driving on Shabbat, so they're forced to live within walking distance of their shul.

More broadly, other than the central idea of monotheism, Judaism doesn't care so much about what you believe, as what you do.  If you went to a rabbi and said, "Rabbi, I follow the commandments, I go to shul, I keep Shabbat, but I don't know if I believe in God, can I still be a good Jew?" my sense is that most rabbis wouldn't hesitate to say you can.

I also thought of something I read over on a blog called How to Save the World.  Dave Pollard writes (at the end of a long discussion of something called social network mapping):

"An application of all this that intrigues me is in assessing how we should (and can) change ourselves.... So do we start by a navel-gazing process that entails some personal, individual decisions and bold actions? Or, if our relationships and networks define us, do we start by first finding or redefining the circles, the communities to which we (and others) belong and then let those new and altered communities redefine and change us? For example, if we want to solve global warming or end world poverty do we first launch into personal study, self-improvement and individual activism, or do we first connect ourselves with those who can teach us and show us what needs to be done, and just get carried along with the collective wisdom of their activities?"

That made a lot of sense to me.  So I suggested to TC that she ask her local friends who are practicing Jews if she can go to shul (synagogue) with them, maybe wangle an invitation to Shabbat lunch.

Looking for a spiritual home

Almost two years ago, the shul (synagogue) I had been attending moved across town.

The move made sense for the congregation as a whole, but it meant that attending shabbat services there would be an hour drive each way for me.  Not something that made it feel like a day of rest, especially since I never knew how long the boys would let me stay before melting down.  So I've been looking for a new shul ever since.

D attends preschool at the local Reform synagogue, and loves it.  I grew up belonging to a Reform synagogue (and identified myself as a Reform Jew, rather than a Jew), so it would be the natural choice.  Except that after 6+ years of a participatory havurah, Reform services feel too much like sitting in the audience, rather than being part of a congregation.  Plus, they don't offer any babysitting during services, except for the High Holidays, so I couldn't really go to services anyway.  They offer a tot shabbat twice a month, but that's Jewish gymboree, not a spiritual experience for an adult.

There's another shul that I've heard good things about, and looks like they might have child care during services.  I keep meaning to check it out, but haven't done so yet.  One of the things that's stopped me is the religious school pages on their website where they warn parents that children who don't attend class at least 75% of the time (Sunday mornings, 9:30-12:30) may not be promoted to the next grade level. 

So Jody's post a couple of weeks ago about the low priority that people place on church hit home.  She compared parents complaints about the expectations at church v. sports, and wrote:

"It's not that parents won't tolerate strict demands on their kids' time, it's just that they don't think church is important enough to make those demands."

I do think shul is important.  But I know too many kids who never set foot in shul except on the high holidays between when they had their Bar or Bat Mitzvahs and when their own kids started religious school.  I don't want my sons to resent religion for making it impossible for them to participate in sports, or to ever sleep late.  But I want them to know enough to make educated choices.  I attended religious school regularly as a child, but it was on weekday afternoons, which seems much less burdensome to families.  That doesn't seem to be an option around here.

I've been going intermittently to another havurah, closer to my home.  They offer a low-key tot shabbat service once a month, and babysitting the rest of that morning.  And they don't mind the boys wandering around the back of the room.  Their religious school is a "one-room schoolhouse" with mixed grades, meeting late Sunday afternoons.  It seems like it might be a good fit for us. 

Belief and practice

I realized that I never got around to writing about this story I heard on Morning Edition on Monday.  It's about a series of radio broadcasts from the 50s, hosted by Edward Murrow, of various people, famous and anonymous, talking about their personal values and where they came from.  NPR is reprising the effort, and inviting people to submit their essays.

I particularly liked this passage from Martha Graham:

"I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit."

More than a mirror

I've been reading and thinking a good bit about Pope John Paul II's life and legacy the past few days.  It's hard for me think of another public figure whom I both respect deeply and thoroughly disagree with on many issues.  Not being Catholic, I was never directly affected by the Pope's positions;  I can disagree with him without feeling insubordinate or betrayed.

Rabbi Yoffie's statement for the Union of Reform Judaism sums it up well for me:

"While we had our disagreements – on gender equality, reproductive rights, and the rights of gays and lesbians – we never doubted for a moment that he was a man of profound principle, courage, and vision.  Even when our religious traditions led us to different conclusions, John Paul II always found new opportunities for reengaging in our common purpose of bringing justice with mercy into the human community."

I'm reminded of a passage from Stephen Carter's book, The Culture of Disbelief, in which he comments on Americans' tendency to create God in our own image -- our habit of assuming that God supports all of our political and cultural positions (a failing equally prevalent among the left and right). He challenges us to allow religion to be more than a mirror that reflects back our own smug certainties. 

Purim

One nice thing about D attending a Jewish preschool is that they totally ignore most of the secular and Christian holidays.  So we didn't have to run around making valentines for all of his classmates last month, and this month he's not bringing home Easter baskets or talking about Easter eggs.  Instead, they've been making hamentaschen and singing Purim songs.  I'm particularly fond of "Harma Harma Haman" sung to the tune of "Little Bunny Foo Foo."

But the Purim story isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world to explain to a 4-year-old.  He likes being Haman and saying "bow down to me" and I get to be "the Jewish People" and say "NO!" and then we both laugh.  But last night he was thinking about all the characters, and he couldn't quite figure out why there were two Queens in the story.  I simply said that Vashti is the queen at the beginning of the story, and Esther is the queen later on, and left it at that. 

I think I'm going to get away with it this year.  But at some point, he's going to notice that Vashti gets the kibosh for refusing to dance in front of all of the King's friends.  And while saying "NO!" works out ok for Esther and Mordechai and "the Jewish People," it doesn't turn out so well for poor Vashti.  (I guess I've always been a fan of the underdog; I used to dress up as Vashti for Purim when I was just a bit older than D.)

God's in box

After another trip to the doctor, D is now on six different medications.  Two of them taste awful, and he howls and runs away when we take the bottle out, but then uses every ounce of bravery in his body to swallow them.  I keep wondering whether we're doing the right thing, if we're putting him through this unnecessarily.

This afternoon, I remembered one of my favorite Anne Lamott articles, about God's in box.  I love Lamott, because she's just as neurotic as I am.  She both makes me feel normal just the way I am, and gives me hope that it's possible to get off the hamster wheel.

A few words from Dr. King

My one misgiving about the title of this blog is that it implies that this is a transitional stage, that one day the world will be "fully changed."  I'm not sure I believe that.  Some days I think that it's inevitable, that the old attitudes are dying out with the generations that believed them; other days I think there are three steps back for every two steps forward.  (Two recent studies on hiring and marriage preferences, using undergrads as their research subjects, were especially disillusioning.)

Since it's Martin Luther King Day, I thought I'd share a piece of one my favorite King sermons:

"As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of general and panoramic view of the whole human hisotry up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" -- I would take my mental flight by Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn’t stop there. I would move on by Greece, and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldn’t stop there...

"Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth centry, I will be happy." Now that’s a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That’s a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth centry in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding -- something is happening in our world....

"Well I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight, I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

King gave this sermon on April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated.

Hanukah thoughts

We had a Hanukah party last night, which was a lot of fun.  The baked "party latkes" from Cooking Light were a disaster, but the fried latkes were a huge hit, both the traditional ones and the curried sweet potato latkes from Joan Nathan's Jewish Cooking in America.  I like cooking and I like having people over.  Can't say I love the hectic cleaning that's needed to get the house ready to have company.  (I wish we had entertained more during the period when we were feeling flush enough to have a biweekly housecleaner.)

The party was a nice mix of people we know from different settings -- work, online communities, school, hobbies.  I think it worked because there were no big clumps of people who already knew each other, so people had to find different things to talk about.

I had an interesting conversation with one of our guests, a Christian married to a Jew, about why I am less than totally thrilled about celebrating Christmas with my in-laws.  Why, he asked, is it not a totally positive thing to have another holiday to celebrate?  I don't have a really good answer.  I think I have this vague notion of Christmas as a big seductive force that will try to suck us all in if I don't draw a bright line against it.  It is one of the ironies of the season that Hanukah is a celebration of resistance against assimilation, and it is the most assimilated of Jewish holiday.

L'shanah tovah

Tonight is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. May you and your loved ones be written in the book of life for a good and sweet new year.

(Why good and sweet? Because if you wish only for a "good year," you might get one full of what a friend of mine refers to as AFGE -- Another F-ing Growth Experience. So may your year be both good and sweet.)

Thanks to RebelDad for the prominent mention in his blog. Reading his blog -- and filling up his comments column -- was one of the main things that inspired me to start writing this.