Better not

I was thinking this morning about what I wish I could do better. Strange but true. But strange. I'm not talking about the things that would be outside of a reasonable wish, like flying. Sure, I'd love to fly but the physics of it eludes me. maybe if I could fly...

Anyway, there are things I can do but not well, and I'm talking about those. And I'm not talking about things that I think I do fine -- I can cook, both by following a recipe and by dead reckoning (which does not involve cooking road kill -- that is dead racooning). Sure, my food isn't gourmet but it is warm, tasty and abundant so siddown and eat. I write passably, especially as I'm the one giving out the grades. I drive, usually forward, I know how to juggle and can recite the multiplication tables hands down. For long division, I throw my hands up. After I eat them.

I've had caffeine this morning. Can you tell? Please don't.

So what I want to be able to do is ice skate. Like hockey, not any other. Go figure. I want to race across the ice, do a hockey stop that throws a spray of ice chips, and then glide backwards and not fall down and get a concussion. I do know how to skate, but in that awkward way that the only way I can stop is by aiming at the wall and letting it, or anyone between me and said wall do the hard work. A natural question to ask is whether I would also want to be really good at skiing. The answer is no. While skiing looks like fun it is really just controlled falling and the promise of hot chocolate at either the beginning or end. Ice skating is down on a flat surface with the option of hot chocolate AT ANY POINT!

An unnatural question might involve a dead racoon.

My Vote

People have always been curious about my politics and my voting habits. I don't know why, but I get asked (or told) for whom I voted most every November. So I'd like to clarify my position.

Politics is dumb, politicians are liars and, well, yeah. That.

My voting patterns have changed over the years. As a younger man, imbued with idealism and stupidity, I embraced a party, convinced that overarching questions of one's approach to governance should drive major decisions, individuals be damned. The platform, as it reflected an underlying understanding of the role of government should hold sway. Even when I flirted with voting for a particular candidate, I was still focused on issue-driven positions. I learned to let slide moral lapses that included a commander-in-chief indulging in infidelity while in office though it violated my personal moral code, and ignore positions which didn't accord with certain understandings of my religious value system because the party spoke for an approach to the entire structure of government.

I continued, despite the rampant tendency of political leaders to embrace practices (both in their policies and their lives) which ran counter to essential aspects of my identity, to vote for the representative of the party whose stated positions more clearly reflected my priorities. I defended the players and the groups by parroting those supposed truths about the size and function of government and its place in the day to day lives of the public. But I stopped when I realize that it was all junk and lies. Beneath the offensive personal practices, the abhorrent policy positions, the hot-mic comments, or the problematic deals and decisions there was never a heart driven by and towards and chewy-nougat moral center which I could fall back on. There was no code which compelled any group to do anything, and I realized that the labels and groups were interchangeable and fictions.

Ultimately, politics is defined as "lying while wearing a suit" and any particular position is subject to the whims of the highest bidder or nearest election. The most admirable quality in a politician is the ability to keep his or her mouth shut so that we don't have made obvious what is rotting under the surface and we can keep pretending that it isn't the case. No politician stands for me and no one is a role model for how I think or who I should be. When a public statement echoes my feelings then, hey, great. It is valuable until it isn't in vogue any more. I am too leery of the entire system to expect anything more and I hope I have taught my children a similar distaste. It isn't cynicism or pessimism, but a healthy realism -- don't look to scientists when you want positions on religion or politics, and don't look to politicians for their stances on anything related to morals. I can applaud something that is to my advantage while keeping an eye on its half-life and seeing that its future is dependent on the squeakiest part of the electorate. Its staunchest supporter or ally might change his mind tomorrow and I shouldn't be surprised. The messenger no longer matters for good or for bad. I shouldn't rely on a politician to set any personal standard because if I hang my hat on his or her characteristics, I run the same risk I do if I look for scientific or archaeological proof and validation for the bible. If you live by that sword, you will, the next day, probably die by it. So you embrace the support while you have it but don't let that giddiness spill over into any other arena. Make that hay while the sun shines but expect the other shoe to drop. But you never admire the useful idiots in suits who put it forward because their other statements, their lapses and flaws make it impossible to latch on to them in any larger sense.

Now I vote for third party candidates. Am I throwing away my vote by refusing to participate in a broken system? Aren't I just ensuring that someone's vision of the wrong candidate will win? Yes and no. Remember, to me they are all undesirable, all liars looking for expedients and pay days, looking to line their pockets and make some speeches along the way. And what if one explicitly announces that he holds a major position which is one which threatens the well-being of me and mine, or which calls into question his valuing of deep-seated values which I adhere to? I can then wonder if anyone's vote can make any difference. This person got to a position of prominence -- he rose through the system to represent his party or group. They are willing to field him as their go-to guy which means the problem runs so much deeper than a single candidate. The move to overthrow the social order must be a clearly popular perspective and the country may just be too far gone.

So there you have it. My politics is the realization that politics stinks. I have certain feelings about specific laws, rules and such, views which have developed from my experiences and my own moral compass but I certainly don't think that any politician is in line with all of that so I have stopped looking.

Plymouth High School, Nov 27, 2019, 10:35 AM

Thank you all, please settle down. Let's go -- find your seats and quiet down, please. Thank you.

OK. Sorry that we had to have this assembly -- some of you are missing gym, but this is important. We need to discuss this as a community so let's just...please, Mr. Evans, sit down and- EVANS meet me in my office after this assembly! Now will the rest of you just pipe DOWN!

Thank you.

Before you go away for the Thanksgiving break I'd like to remind you of our school code of conduct and what we will not tolerate either in school or at home. We all know about the practice of "Pilgrimming" and it is, as it always has been, unacceptable. If we find that you have been involved, directly or not, there will be consequences. This school's administration finds the practice repugnant and we have a zero-tolerance policy about it. Yes, there will be pressure. Yes, it seems like innocent fun. But no matter what the "cool kids" say, taking a square-rigged merchant ship out on the water, landing at some unsuspecting person's dock and having a turkey dinner on his lawn is no laughing matter. The kinds of damage it does cannot be quantified and there are, though you may not see it, long term consequences. Yes, we were young once and sure, we were tempted by the allure of the hats and muskets, and even if a few of your teachers whisper to you about how much fun it is to say grace while a home owner waits, terrified in his den, lest he anger your God, this should serve as no excuse. There are ways that you can express your thanks properly, without terrorizing your neighbors with stuffing and yams.

And please, don't think that this is some "innocent activity". Studies have shown that pilgrimming serves as a stepping stone to even more troubling behaviors. Wassailing, hoarding Easter eggs and even, dare I mention it, spontaneous recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance are all tied to people who couldn't get their "fix" just by -- as you young people say it -- "Passing the Cornbread."

Local police will be on the look out for ships of all configurations. Last year a student claimed, after he was caught joyriding in a 2-masted schooner that he wasn't pilgrimming. Subsequent searches revealed a hidden cache of pumpkin pie in the forecastle and 14, yes, 14 pairs of buckled Victorian loafers. He was looking to deal, kids, and who knows what might have happened. He is no longer welcome here, and I don't want you to suffer the same fate.

So spend some time with family, and if your parents allow it, under their watchful eye, you can try some green-bean casserole -- in a safe environment with adults standing by. But we will be testing students for gravy...shhh, quiet please, gravy, and, yes, possession of open containers of cranberry sauce in public will get you suspended.

Thank you -- now please go back to 4th period for regular classes.

spoiler alert: I'm alive

The things we learn and the things we do

I'm sitting here at 26 thousand feet battling vague nausea and constant dread as we fly towards Chicago for a family celebration. The dread is about the flight not the event and only tangentially about Chicago. Broad shoulders they say. Just another reason for me to feel bad about my own physique. Even the city is in better shape than I am. 

But between the "chop" (that's airplane talk for turbulence that induces both vomiting and prayer) and the cramped seats I have already had an interesting morning. Here's what I have learned:

You can say morning prayers on a 737 if you are nice to the flight staff and are willing to get sidelong glances from most everyone. As I'm used to people looking at me all weird and such this was not really a challenge. The hardest part was the timing - when the seat belt light was off but the attendants were busy moving all around and needing the galley for the galley-type activities.

The headphones that American Airlines gives out seem to trigger the Google assistant on my phone so trying to watch a show which I downloaded on Netflix is impossible as the assistant keeps kicking in and minimizing the video. I thought that playing music would be a good backup plan but I did not download the AA app so while I can recognize and supposedly connect to the plane's wifi, I cannot actually connect to anything internet related so my music remains in the cloud, just not the one I'm flying through. For those of you keeping score, I didn't download the app when told to because, knowing I had no earphones, I didn't plan on using the phone. But then, hey, free earphones so I'm thinking, yeah, I'm back. Apparently not.

It is nice, though, to be able to type this while this metal tube navigates the bumpy air separating me and O'Hare airport. Now to locate the emesis bag...

2 things as we hurtle earthward - first us that I get angry when people don't sit down after the attendants and Captain say to. It isn't that I'm a blind rule follower, I just don't want some scoff law's arm smacking me as he is tossed about because his buckle is uncomfortable or he has to rearrange his pockets. Second is that when they announce that the flight attendants have to forego the safety check and just sit I worry. I'm worried.

Is there a type of terror beyond sheer terror? Because that's what I got. 

The flight crew is back in the aisles so I'd like to think that the worst is past. I also would like to think that I'm going to win the lottery so maybe just thinking isn't going to be enough.

I note a strong positive correlation between when I think I'm going to die amdst the turbulence of a plane flight and the times when I am on a plane flight. The course of action seems clear. I'm going to walk to Israel.

We landed. Let us never speak of the shortcut again. 

Streaming of consciousness

OK, it's a bad habit but one I come by honestly -- I analyze stuff in the media. Not the worst habit, I understand, but it makes people not want to talk to me because I over explain and anticipate stuff that most people could care less about. Or couldn't. Both work. Anyway, I'm sure that there are other reasons that people don't want to talk to me but I would prefer to assume it is because of my d obsession with media studies.

I bring this up because I just want to put down in words some thoughts about a major shift or two in the TV industry so I want you all to understand that this is how my brain works. That said, here we go.

I just finished binge watching a TV series. I decided that I wanted to watch the show this week so I did, bam: 4 days and done. This got me thinking about two ways in which streaming services are changing the industry and the impact these changes will have. To wit --

1. There is no sense in making cliff hangers between episodes, but more sense in making them between seasons. When shows had long pauses between episodes, it made sense to keep the viewers on pins and/or needles. Force them to wait til sweeps, get them to watch an episode up against someone else's breakout hit. Do whatever it takes to get that appointment television to pencil in your show. So a show ends on a sharp intake of surprised breath and you wait a week, alternately persevorating on and avoiding trailers and previews. Now, no longer. Once episode X is over, I can jump right to X+1. No wait, no wonder. This shifts the entire structure of the writing of a show -- the act 1, 2 and etc progression is unnecessary so the writers can pace their story telling in a much more natural way. No longer does the one-hour mark require a major edge-of-the-seat event. In fact, the show can be only 45 minutes long if the writer wants! The natural break can be the natural break! Writers, change your gears -- you are no longer slave to that clock. But once that entire season is consumed in a weekend, the particular time between new seasons is completely arbitrary, so a streaming service can pick a date and make everyone wait until the new season drops. Drag it out and pump up the anticipation.

2. There are no longer any reruns. If I can watch a show whenever I want, I will. Or I won't -- I'll find something else. I'll watch it again when I want or I will look for another way to spend my time. The idea of seasons died a few years ago, and the summer "season", historically where failed shows get some air time, has become as valid a time to release a show as any. The entire calendar of TV releases has been affected. There is no place to hide bad shows, but on the flip side, because new content is constantly needed, mediocrity gets included. If it doesn't get watched, then we move on to something else, but that show isn't a stop gap while a "real" show recharges. Standard programming practices like tent-polling and such are meaningless. A show lives and dies on its own numbers. No lead ins.

I'm sure that there are other implications but these jumped out at me. I'll post more when I feel like it. So there.

More On the Internet

Related: This one, and this one.

I was standing amidst a throng of high school students (that's an occupational hazard, as I work in a high school, and we often have throngs) and I noticed a student wearing a hoodie which was half black and half white ( https://www.zaful.com/contrast-patchwork-casual-hoodie-p_541938.html?currency=USD&lkid=615976&gclid=Cj0KCQiAtf_tBRDtARIsAIbAKe3XY9MFCGjsxZ5HqnVeeFZls8QJaemErsOb-Pr7jiYBMy_aVDhl0KoaAq1eEALw_wcB ). I was tempted to go up to him and ask him if he was being chased by someone with a a hoodie that was half white and half black. Funny, right?

I stopped myself, though, once I realized that there is no way that he would understand the reference. I could have said "You know...Star Trek? Frank Gorshin? Let that Be Your Last Battlefield?" but it wouldn't have triggered anything. For those of you currently befuddled, here. How is it that in this day and age of the internet, people seem to know so little?

Here's what I figured -- historically, the measure of wisdom hasn't been what a person knows, but what a person knows he doesn't know. There must be room for inquiry. Therefore, in a universe where all information is constantly available, everyone is, by default, an idiot. And welcome to our world! We NEED to have people with actual knowledge and experience because only they can see the gaps, because they appreciate their own limitations. In a world where everyone CAN know anything, no one actually has to know anything. Once we are complacent, thinking that we can find whatever we need, we lost the ability to anticipate our needs! Cultural knowledge, experiential knowledge, common sense all go out the window because we think that all the info is a Siri away. Do you remember that trip we went on and you took that pictuer of...? No, because all the pictures are uploaded and we can go through them. In fact, I don't have to remember that we went on the trip because the experience is not necessarily resident in my brain.

This is a problem. We stop walking through life asking questions when we know that the answers are already waiting. We aren't troubled by anything and nothing has to trigger any other ideas -- long term memory is dead because we can store all of our memories in the cloud. We don't know our family's phone numbers. We don't know our own history. We don't worry about the trivia and factoids which give life spice and put the random things we see into a context. If you know X, so when you write, comment or otherwaise create content, referencing X, I stand less chance of knowing X because there was no reason for me to know it. I need to be followed by an algorithm or a person who can see that (To be or not to be" is a thing which hearkens back to something else, and can express the use's significance to me. We are inventing a new profession, that of the context keeper, who specializes in knowing stuff without a computer and will be the one whose job it is to prompt us when there is a background that we should be made aware of.

There is a meme going around (meme being a unit of memory with a built in half life) which expands on an old saying (attributed to Miles Kington in Philip Sheldrake The Business of Influence: Reframing Marketing and PR for the Digital Age, Chichester: Wiley, 2011, p.153): "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad." The new (at least 4 years old) version adds in "philosophy is wondering if ketchup is a smoothie."

My understanding of it is "Facts are stored, knowledge is through access but wisdom is knowing what to access, and when, and how to access." Sure, it isn't smarmy but in about 2 months, very few people will know that it reflects Kington's earlier quote.

Why I'm still on Earth this morning

The voices were like the heavenly choir. Harmonies so rich that they had their own harmonies filled my head as a blue light bathed me in radiance. Alone, walking home that night, I hadn't considered aliens or any sort of visitation which was ironic as that was usually what filled my thoughts.

I have always been interested in outer space -- the stars, planets, galaxies and the vast expanse that begs comprehension. I look up at the night sky and imagine myself spending any number of lifetimes crossing the distances and seeing wondrous miracles, life forms, explosions and things unimaginable. I'm often lost in thought as I gaze into the inky past, dreaming, wishing, even hoping that some force, some intelligence would somehow descend and pick me, yes me, to be the one to travel to the stars and represent humanity in this contact. This is why it was so unusual that at the moment when the beings finally made their presence known, I was not thinking of traveling to the out there which is out there.

"Come with us..."

The sound was as much in my head as around it. I was awash in sound, full and tangible. I looked up, realizing that, though the light was bright, it didn't need to shield my eyes. I both saw its center and was at its center.

"Come with us..." the voice repeated. I was stunned, too shocked even to respond. The light beckoned me, it drew me in and I found myself walking in it and reaching.

"Come with us..." again, the pull. Everything I had yearned for, within my grasp.

"Hold on," I said, pulling out my phone, "I just have to tell the wife that I won't be home for...how long?"

"What?" Even in their confusion the aliens' music lifted my soul.

"I want to let her know that she shouldn't expect me home for dinner and, maybe also breakfast?"

"Of course..."

"Hey -- I should probably let my boss know. He'll have to arrange some sort of coverage while I...what will I be doing again? I need to know so I can take the right kind of day."

The choir responded with a lushness that sang to my core."Come with us and explore the mysteries of the universe."

"OK, so vacation day. Go it. Hold on." I started to dial and then put the phone down. "Like how long are we talking. The universe is big but I only get 6 personal days."

"We have worlds to discover together, and we wish to share the secrets of civilizations beyond your understanding, dimensions of which you cannot conceive -- we want you to-"

"Right, so I'll probably need to take the whole bunch. That means I can't take one in March for my kid's recital. Hmmmmm."

"Come with us..." Its lure, irresistible.

"Yes...with you. Um...how does time work?"

"What?"

"I mean, will it seem like a long time, but we will be traveling so fast that the experience will be over really quickly? I haven't davened shacharis yet, so am I going to need to grab my tefillin before we go, or will we be back soon?"

"You will see the face of god in all things, and worship with an honesty and nearness you cannot even begin to imagine..."

"Right, but do I need my tefillin? And how are you people fixed on snacks? I have a gluten thing, so I'd appreciate if you had some vegetables or maybe rice crackers. I'm a bear to be around if I have gluten."

"We can give you the ambrosia, nectar of the stars, to fill you up in ways that -"

"I can't imagine, yeah, but under whose hashgacha? Do you guys have wi-fi up there?"

"You will be one with the cosmos, communing with nebulae and touching the heavens...come with us..."

"Yeah, but wi-fi? I will want to update my status, and live tweet this whole trip thing. Damn, I'm at 14%. I need to grab a charger, and maybe a change of clothes. What should I dress for -- cold? Hot? Do I need a sweater? Will we be meeting anyone so I should be maybe formal?" You meet some nice aliens and begin talking like your grandparents.

"Do you want to come or not?" The harmonies rang and I could almost feel myself lifted up by a power beyond my body.

"Am I going to be on my feet a lot? I have PT this afternoon and my foot is really aching. Do you have a guy? I need heat and massage and someone to work on joint strengthening. Also, can we stop by CVS on the way? I need to get more migraine medicine. Ooooh, also a magazine. You like People?"

"We love people and wish to usher humanity into a new age of -"

"No, the magazine. I'll get you an Us Weekly. I just have to stop off an grab some cash. Can you guys wait here? I'll just be a sec."

And, as I turned to make a quick withdrawal of, like, forty bucks, they left. The bastards.

To Brag

Allow me to brag. Allow me to bask in the glory, and brag. Not about me. Well, at least not directly about me. And please, don't judge me as a braggart just because I brag. I spill over with pride and I wish to share it. With all my complaining, you'd think you people would be happy that I'm happy. Sheesh.

Anyway, there are milestones by which we judge "growing up." I recall a TV show in which a son's maturity was marked by his ability to beat his father in a basketball game. Maybe it was an arm wrestling match. I watch them both with the same level of enthusiasm so I can't much tell the difference. But I'm no athlete. I'm what scientists like to call "a lazy good for nuthin'" Then they spit. It's Latin -- sorry if you don't get it. In my house, we value pursuits of the mind. So when your mind wanders, you can say it is just out doing research. I have tried to be the bedrock of information, intellectual method and curiosity for my kids and have tried to engage them in the process of discovery and debate so that they become better thinkers and communicators. So what could signify that they have reached a particular plateau and become kings of that particular trapezoidal mountain? When they knock me off. Intellectually. Not like dead, but bettered.

They know that to be conceded to when making cogent points is a feat and a great moment. Ever since they started presenting powerpoints to justify a trip to Florida, and assembling lists of pros and cons about why we should get a dog, they have both appreciated the systematic assembling of argument. That's plenty to get a dad's proud revving. But they weren't ready yet to challenge me on an issue of current concern and argue me into rethinking a position. Until now.

I don't often get my opinion changed. I think most of us, when we have thought through a position and firmly entrenched ourselves don't get jostled too much - not because of stubbornness and the fear of instability, but because if we are ready to declare a position, it is the result of deep and sincere thought and consideration. So when I had my mind changed due to a conversation I watched on line between strangers in a discussion forum, that was pretty big news for me. My underlying understanding didn't change, but I was able to recontextualize my position so that it effected a different outward expression. I saw things differently so I didn't oppose what I had opposed -- not because I changed the baseline belief about its rectitude (or lack) but because the milieu in which it existed was explained in a way where I saw that my opposition was unnecessary. It was a grand start. That was about 10 years ago. Then there was 2 days ago. I was driving my younger child into The City (if you have to ask which then you aren't paying attention -- The City) and, knowing that she is a passionate social justice warrior with a heart of gold, I asked her how she felt about a particular issue. I pushed and challenged and then presented my position which was, in many ways, opposite hers. We are able, you see, to disagree on major social issues and still relate together because we respect that positions don't define one's humanity; they are simply expressions of understanding. People should try that.

So there we are, driving down the FDR and chatting. I lay out my feelings and ask difficult questions and she responds. I was pretty sure that I would be able to cite enough statistics and anecdotes to justify why I felt the way I did and that, though she would make a fine showing, ultimately, she would have to accept that my position is valid. And that I could smile and nod at youthful exuberance and idealism while making sure that she was exposed to my, no doubt more worldly and informed statements. I pointed out that her position was inconsistent. She granted me that and we tried to explore the parameters which would define when she felt one way and when the other. I admitted my inconsistency and tried to express where I drew various lines. She pushed back. Everything was going well. Then she took a tack for which I was not prepared. She pointed out (through both anecdote and logic, coupled with common sense) that my baseline statistic was simply wrong. Now I'm no fan of statistics and I know that they are the tools of manipulators and liars, plus I don't understand them so much, but in general, big numbers that are commonly accepted seem safe -- basic correlations like "people with guns are more likely to shoot people than people without guns" and "if you don't eat, you gonna die." She questioned one of my big numbers: if I rely on a particular trend in order to predict future behavior, but that trend was established through improper thinking which would have been the result of using that trend, then my statistic is circular and baseless.

Here's an analog (and I'm working very hard not to bring up the specific topic we discussed so that any reader's thinking about this isn't clouded by his or her own preconceived notions):

I say we can predict tomorrow's weather by looking at the statistics of how much it rained on days after a football game.
She points out that those statistics were generated by people who ignored when it rained on days after no-football because they expected a correlation so they found it, and the later statistics which purport to show an effect are actually just pointing out the cause -- there is a higher correlation because those are the ones we counted in the past! Yes, it is more complex than that and without showing the actual topic of discussion, it is hard to explain fully and clearly, but trust me - she made me rethink what I knew and believed about relying on a particular trend's value. I fell into a sullen silence which masked a true admiration, which was covering a sullen silence. I'm complex like that.

Now I'm not saying that I am discarding my entire position. I still think that my ideas have merit. But this kid, whom I refer to as "the smart one," shut me down in a way. Now my other kid, whom I refer to as "the smart one" (fortunately, neither reads my blog, so neither knows that I think they are both smart...that's a relief) has argued her points well for many years, but we haven't sparred on questions of politics and the communal conscience. That's why the other one went through the army, her own apartment, moving to another country and becoming a vegetarian. She's smart like that. This one will change the world, one mind at a time. I am the proud dad of two women. Two brilliant, strong and strong willed women who see a better future and are working with their bodies and minds to make that vision a reality. Color me convinced

End brag. We now resume our regularly scheduled complaint. My foot hurts.

a pre-Yom Kippur Ne'ilah thought

A Yom Kippur thought (really about the Ne'ilah service but I'm putting it out there nowbecause the point is not to wait until the gates have closed). Inspired and driven by the words of Rabbi David Sher.

There is a commonly quoted idea about the month of Elul and the days of repentance -- these are days when we can approach God because, as the phrase says, the king is in the field. God is available, not in his palace, guarded by layers of intermediaries, but wandering among us, willing to meet us with a smile whenever and wherever we make any attempt to reach him. It is a nice thought.

I see the metaphor as more than that. We don't just see the king in the field and shout "Hey, Mr. King, I need a ______" or "I'd like to _____" and let him walk away while we go back to our business. We, realizing the unique opportunity, leverage the moment to walk with the king. We are elevated by his presence and we bask in that, hoping to eke out a little more of his glow by increasing our time with him. We pray longer and harder, with words that underscore his position and our realization of it. Daily, for more than a month we meet the king in the field, accompanying him on a long walk during which we relish the chance to discuss our dreams, our fears, successes and failures.

Then we realize that we have wandered with him on his long path back to his palace. By the afternoon of Yom Kippur we have made it all the way to the gates. At this point, the king walks in and we, stopped by his guards, can only address him from across the threshold. We take the last opportunity to make our case, and show who we are, who we have become and who we can still turn in to. The gates are closing -- the Ne'ilah service is that shutting of the gate. God will not be inaccessible but he won't be right there -- we will have to go through channels for the next 11 months. So we take those final moments to shout to the king through the slowly closing gate. We know the gates can be opened through tears and prayer, but the prayers will still have to wend their way to the king. Our walk is over. Time to go home and get back to the way things were before.

So while the king is still in the field, or on the road, or in the driveway, let's take advantage of his availability and pour our hearts into his service so that when the gates begin to close we don't get desperate and fearful, but instead can understand that we will always have the key and we, WE, escorted a king until the very last moment that we were allowed to.

A Higher Level, first

I attended a funeral recently -- not my own, thankfully, but I keep thinking that the odds that I will be able to make that statement go down every time I am at a funeral. The rabbi who ran the proceedings and introduced the family members who spoke, mentioned that we were gathered to give "Kavod Acharon" (the Hebrew phrase translating to "final respects") to the deceased. The children and grandchildren spoke of the example that the beloved man set and how they will emulate him and learn from him. It dawned on me that the words of the rabbi were therefore wrong.

I had never really considered it before, but that notion of "kavod acharon" is simply incorrect.

In Judaism, the issue of "kavod" or respect (gravitas, maybe, as the word is related to a word meaning "weighty") is a really important one. The talmud and the commentators provide many examples of how one gives respect, but I think that maybe they missed a little part. Or maybe some famous people figured this all out already and I'm late to the party and ignorant of the classics. Potayto, potahto.

In terms of dealing with our parents, the Torah commands us two things -- Kaved et avicha v'et imecha, respect your father and your mother and Ish imo v'aviv tira'u, a man should fear (be in awe) of his mother and father. Citations available upon googling. Do your own homework. The two verbs are kaved, honor/give respect to, and tira'u, fear or be in awe of. I listened to an explanation of the difference between the two online. Apparently, one major split is that honoring has to do with a passive acceptance and fear is a more proactive set of behaviors. Or something like that. Truth is, it didn't get to what I was looking for so I tuned out.

There is a mitzvah/commandment in Judaism which holds a special place, that of participating in the preparation for and the burial of someone. The recipient cannot say "thank you" so the act shows a respect and care without regard to recompense of any sort. This is part of "kavod hamet" -- respecting/honoring the dead. Honor, it seems, is elevated here when there is no one who benefits who can acknowledge the act. In terms of honor vs. fear, it seems to me that fear is about the concern for consequence. I don't want to disappoint, annoy or otherwise fun afoul of my parents, so I fear them and show reverence. But honor is silent and unknown. It is not about what happens afterwards; it is only about how we are supposed to be because that's just how we are supposed to be.

In that sense, when we see that a loved one has passed, and we resolve to emulate that person and incorporate important lessons into our future daily life, even though we know that the deceased can't comment on or provide feedback for our actions, we are intending to live a life dedicated to a continual kavod, honor and respect for that loved one! In fact, then, our presence at the funeral, and our continued existence, keeping in mind the wishes, life and lessons of the one who has passed, is not a Kavod Acharon, (final respect) but the Kavod Rishon, the first respect! Now that the person has passed, that person cannot see what we do, so our actions, being performed with no "thank you" are now a higher level of respect -- we do them because they are the right thing to do, not because we are concerned with the repercussions. Kavod doesn't end. It actually starts at this moment.

The term Kavod Acharon is a few hundred years old. It does capture one aspect of how we relate to the passing of a loved one, but it misses a whole other dimension that I believe we need to focus on. Let us concentrate on respecting the loved one who passed on every day, at every moment and making the funeral an opportunity to begin a new chapter of respect and honor instead of seeing it as a closing, a last respect.

Post Titles

Today, I started writing book titles. I don't really have any books to write, but I was possessed of a drive to compose titles for books that should be written. I have no particular idea of what these books are about, but I like the titles. So do with them what you will.

Screeching Howler Monkeys with Airhorns: The Silent Killers

Margarine Whence?

Mouse, Ahoy

Hip on Pip

Thoughts While Thinking

Should You Buy Your Radio a TV?

Top 10 Scenic Vacation Spots in your House

Poems to go Blind By

Runty, the Smelliest Badger

Drapes, Drapes, Drapes!

If I kick off...

I have been reluctant to write this because I'm afraid of the controversy it would cause, and the potential backlash from the powers that be, but I find myself at the point of the evening where, if I don't procrastinate, I might end up doing some work. So so be it. That being said, I am ready to blow the lid off of this whole thing.

I think, no, I dare say, I believe, or even, I believe I think, that the entire of the NFL is one big put on.

There, I said it.

A put on. It isn't real. it is to soccer what television wrestling is to the Olympic wrestling. It is a mock up of a sham, foisted on the unknowing masses and ignorant slobs who refuse to suspect that this can't be true, and who let blind acceptance rule them for 5 months out of the year. Games are scripted and fairly well rehearsed and American and the world are allowed to root for the good guys, buy the bad boys and get that vicarious catharsis that all good, mindless entertainment provides. Some explosions, some violence, a couple of beer commercials, and I'm good to go.

All fake. All Hollywood. Florida, maybe, but Hollywood nonetheless.

You are probably wondering about my evidence and don't you worry yourself any -- I've got that in spades. Its started when I was a boy, watching the gladiators of Sunday afternoon play. First, I noticed that when the going got tough, strategic players got "hurt" and had to leave the game. Ships abandoning the sinking ship to avoid future injury. They all came back next week, rested and healed. I notice that football players can recover from injury a lot faster than humans. Last week, I saw a quarterback have his ankle turned in a direction which I couldn't find in a 3-D space. I was convinced that MY ankle got snapped. Stunned silence -- I stared at the screen, wincing as I watched repeated replays through slightly splayed fingers. Cut to commercial. Return in 2 minutes and he has miraculously walked off the field. Not possible. I know what I saw. The man had no functional ankle left. Don't tell me that he walked off on his own. There isn't that much adrenaline in a bull elephant. Or an elephant bull. No sir.

I was watching a game and I noticed a few other things -- first is the easy one: calls made by referees that seem capricious and illogical. A penalty here, a judgement call there. Each team has felt the sting at some point or another. Even the announcers occasionally fail to understand. How could that have NOT been flagged? How could they whistle that dead? I saw a fumble recovery for a touchdown called back, but not because it wasn't a fumble. It was called back because, well, just because. The script, it seems, didn't have a touchdown set for that moment. Back to position A, kids. Let's film the big dance scene next.

Next up, replays. You watch the play and it moves unnaturally quickly. A violent ballet of 22 men in tights who swivel, pivot and good naturedly throw each other to the ground and threaten each others' families. The play ends and somehow, in the span of 2 seconds, some color commentator guy (a naming vestige of a cruder time...we should work on that) accurately names the 3 players who moved in some strangely synchronized set of movements to allow the play to develop, and the camera just happened to have exactly that vantage point diagrammed and cued up. Nuh uh. No way he could have seen that, identified the players, gotten the precise moment ready for a replay and a perfectly suited explanation timed to the second. I have seen referees struggle to identify a player and they are RIGHT THERE. You can't tell me that some guy in a booth can track all 22 players and identify, with no notice, which combination of hulking, falling figures, did the one thing which allowed a guy to rumble through a mass of bodies. It can't be done. They must know the plays in advance, and have the cameras all ready to track where the ball WILL be.

And another thing -- when I watch the game, no matter where I am (so no matter what the local game is) they all seem to cut to the exact same halftime show at precisely the right moment. If that halftime show (5 guys exchanging witty banter, never stepping on each others' lines or toes, with exactly the right amount to say about each game to get you back to the action right at kick off? Not a chance that that isn't pre-recorded) is the same one people from all markets watch, then how can they all finish the first half at exactly the same time? At the end of the game, when coverage shifts to the ending of another game, the announcers say "we welcome those of you who were watching X". But at halftime, there is no welcoming staggered audiences. So I vote "fake."

More about half time. This past weekend, before they threw the coverage to their canned "recap" for half time, the two actors pretending to watch a football game chatted about the game. This was, and I'm not making this up, at the half time of a fairly large game. Here is the picture:

Tell me if you notice anything. Remember -- this is during the game. I notice a whole heckuvalot of empty seats, even though the stadium was full for the game. Do 90% of the people go to the bathroom at the same time? Clearly, this is a little Capricorn One action. The discussion was recorded well before people got there and the game was played. Just all lies and we, the sheep, eat it all up.

Look, I know that there are plenty of good conspiracy theories out there, and I even believe a couple of them, But this one is mine. Sure, I think I could take this further and posit that the entire of existence is a Truman Show-esque joke played on me, but for now, I will simply risk life and limb by exposing the NFL cover-up. So if anything happens to me, blame pro football. The truth must be spoken aloud, people!

----------------
MAJOR EDIT!
It is a few weeks later (Oct 6) and I was just watching a game between Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Overtime. A ball was dropped and took an odd bounce. The commentator guy made a statement which repeated 3 times and quickly cut off, as if an audio file has looped! PRE-RECORDED! MORE PROOF that the whole thing is a major scam. Watch the video -- other than replaying it off of my DVR which automatically records things, I have done NO editing to this. Listen to the audio and tell me that this doesn't prove that the whole thing is a put on!

Note -- I can't insert a playable video file so I'm putting a link to the file on my google drive.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zrD-PJgWWQVDX53DP_44ybMBNwgyihZN/view?usp=sharing

and on Youtube
https://youtu.be/Fwaj5R379iI

---------------

Next edit!!

Dec 4, 2022. I am watching the Dallas vs. Colts game on SNF and I also looked at the news and saw this (the game started at 8:30 ish and it is now almost half-time, 9:48):

https://imgur.com/a/nUkTOXF

Note the time on the bottom right corner, 9:46. Note the time on the byline for

the article -- 3 hours ago, or approx 6:45 PM for a game that started at 8:30.

Somehow, they knew that, almost 2 hours before the game started, the Cowboys would lead. FAKERS!

Riposte

I know I come up with some fanciful thoughts -- I twist words and interpret text in a way which others might think of as liberal (in terms of meaning, not application). A bunch of years ago, I presented (here? on Facebook? in a file on some computer somewhere? I don't recall) a somewhat strange reading. It went a little like this.

At a certain point in the chumash, Ya'akov avinu says (Bereishit 37:35) כִּֽי־אֵרֵ֧ד אֶל־בְּנִ֛י אָבֵ֖ל שְׁאֹ֑לָה (ki ered el b'ni aveil she'ola) " I will go down mourning to my son in Sheol" (translation from Sefaria). That word, Sheol has been discussed well, to death. Rashi says that it means "the grace" and refers to "Gehenom" (a word/reference with its own interesting etymology). The Ibn Ezra vociferously disagrees and says it simply means "down". I'll let them fight it out. I have other ideas.

Judaism is a question which thrives on intellectual curiosity. Our sages agrued over finer points, challenged each other and (as shown above) disagreed across years and miles. We are driven to ask questions and investigate the answers and not give up. In the talmud, sometimes the answer is illogical but based in fath and sometimes, it is "teiku" (we don't know yet but will in the future) but that's an answer. So what is this "grave" word? She'ola, which has the same letters as she'eilah, a question. It seems that the suffering of death hinges on the torture of an unanswered question. What could be more excruciating than being possessed of questions and problems and having no way of even investigating towards any sort of answer. This is true next-world suffering in my humble opinion.

That's what I came up with years ago. Not so bad, I think.

But that's not what inspired me today. Today, if you aren't keeping score at home, is the 13th of Elul. As such, we are in the midst of preparations for the high holiday season and we are encouraged to explore paths towards repentance. Repentance. An English word that seems to indicate that I pentanced already and it is time to do so again. "Repent" is an ancient word that comes from the Latin penitire (to regret, which requires multiple grets, I guess) plus the intensive re- prefix. To really regret. In Hebrew, though, we don't use a word that has to do with regret -- we say "t'shuva".

T'shuva has to do with going back, returning. In a sense, this overlaps with regret as it indicates a change in thoughts. My mind goes back to the event. I wish I could have the moment back so I could act differently. I have changed my way of thinking about the propriety (or lack thereof) of my actions. There is a lot of "going back" and "returning" for sure. But that's not what the word REALLY means. And I know, because I made up a new meaning.

Teachers use the word t'shuva often, though, generally when speaking or teaching Hebrew. Use it in a French class in a public school in Iowa and it won't really have the same punch. The word is a regular old noun meaning "answer." The meaning develops from the idea of "response" or a rejoinder. A word or message is sent back, returning to the one who asked a question. So why is this the word we use for repentance (or vice versa)?

Maybe, just maybe, I can stitch these two concepts of questions and answers together. Could it be that we, at this time of year, start thinking about the implications and consequences of our behavior on our soul and see that bad behavior will lead us to She'ol, to a state of questions with no answers. So what do we do? We immerse ourselves in the process of answering. We study (I don't understand the laws and have questions), we read (I have questions of faith -- let me see what great thinkers have said) and we come up with solutions to our questions (why did I do that? How can I change?) We realize that there is an ultimate answer and it isn't 42. As in the talmud, sometimes it is an answer of "have faith in God" even if that means "I can't tell you now, but trust me, there is an answer and you will get it in the future." Our soul is then reassured -- the future is not about unanswered questions, but about answers to the things we can't wrap our brains about now. T'shuva saves us from She'ol. Answers will make sure we are not left with only questions.

Let this be a year of understanding -- ourselves and others. Let this be a year in which we find answers, or move towards them, and a year in which our questions drive us towards understanding, not leaving us adrift. Let us return in all ways, to the faith that everything will be answered in the future. Let us do t'shuva.

A weighty subject

I have been thinking about losing weight. I don't mean that I have been only thinking about it because I don't intend to do it, though that is a reasonable conclusion to draw. I really have been spending brian cells considering it as a concept. Crazy, right? Beats exercise.

But anyway, here's my thinking, and I say this as someone who has been on a weight affective diet for 20 or so years. It doesn't work. Now, hold on there sport. I don't mean what I say. Exactly. I mean, sure it works, but only that it doesn't. i hope that that clears everything up.

I'm on a low-carb kind of diet. I eat green veggies (occasionally) and eat proteins and fats. Like fried cows with no breading, or grilled cheese, minus the sandwich. I started this Atkins-esque approach because I was somewhat "overweight" and wanted an approach that didn't require that I measure anything, or exercise, and that allowed me to eat animals and such. I found that if I stuck to entire chickens or a block of cheese, the pounds melted off. I dropped weight, and as long as I limited my intake of such bad things as fruit and vegetables, I was fine, if not depressed. I also found that my cholesterol rose but only in the good way -- my ratio is fantastic so while my overall number looks high, it is only so because I am doubling up on the good stuff. Here's to you, steak!

Ofr course with great weight loss comes great irresponsibility so I find myself subject to cravings sometimes. And I cave. I cave like a collapsing cave would cave were it not for a well-built set of supports keeping the cave from caving in. I eat what I want and the self-loathing kicks-in in 5...4...3...always. After these momentary setbacks which last from an hour to 2 weeks, I balloon back to my former size (when I am twice the many I used to be) and I punish myself by avoiding sugars and increasing my intake of cream cheese wrapped in edam. And vice versa.

And repeat.

Now, today (while I was eating my brussels sprouts and cheating with some sweet potato fries), I was listening to a conversation that the local vegan was having with another teacher about what he ate. He is on a strict raw foods kind of thing. I also listened to the people who avoid gluten like the plaque. What I realized is "they still exist."

My understanding was that if I were to continue on my diet, I would continue to lose weight. Therefore, people should eventually disappear, having lost all the weight that constitutes their being. Makes sense, right? Prove me wrong.

Well, you say, in a vain attempt to to unpack the inescapable logic I have presented, that's not how it works. Like you know. The body, you insist, can be reduced to a certain amount around its desired and best point -- a frame will always have a stasis, a size which is optimal for that body.

Fine, I say, having drawn you in to my whirlpool of brilliance, then why do we assume that the optimal weight exists on some chart or is the knowledge-province of experts who aren't even in my body? Huh? No answer. Maybe my body WANTS to be 10 pounds heavier than some expert insists is right for me! Maybe I keep bouncing back (in a jolly fashion, I might add) to a higher weight because I'm supposed to be at that weight and the lower fringes of the range I have occupied, if they can only be maintained by serious deprivation and concommitant sadness, must be perversions of who I am and am meant to be. There are plenty of people who "eat right" and even (dare I say it) exercise, but they don't lose weight. Their body has exerted control over the body. The die has been cast, and cast in XL pants.

So diet doesn't work because it is a distortion of the true nature of things. Yes, a particular set or volume of foods can get me back to my optimal weight after I have intentionally packed on the pounds, but moderation will take me back to that optimal place where, health experts be damned, I need to be. No apologies.

Just thinking out loud about teaching

There are 2 kinds of teaching -- modeling and instruction.

For little kids, modeling, the performance of behaviors, actions and tasks to establish the proper order and method for an audience, is important, especially if the person doing the modeling is admired. We can call this direct imitation learning. If I have my kids watch me do the laundry (and if I narrate the steps), they will learn the steps I take and, with enough exposure, learn to repeat those steps and do the laundry. They will not be conditioned to ask questions or know why they do what they do, but for certain behaviors, performance is key and understanding is secondary, at least initially. Creating a foundation of behavior and skills is necessary so when questions are asked, they will be within a context.

Problems -- if the modeler is NOT admired, the modeling might lead to direct counter imitation, the doing of the opposite as a rejection of the person, not the practice. And if the youngster does have questions that are not answered, or cannot be, or is confronted with a different set of parameters for which there is no model, the practice might fall apart. Internal motivation, at a young enough age and with the right modeler can overcome many problems, but if the success is predicated on this then a loss of motivation causes a cascading failure of the approach.

Instruction, the passing along of information, data, experience or skills, whatever the modality is useful when the brain has matured enough to acquire, file away and retain information and, one hopes, make connections with other information. Questions, properly motivated, can flesh out instruction and help the individual assess, analyze, synthesize and innovate new ideas. In a way, modeling addresses lower order thinking skills and instruction triggers higher order thinking skills. This, of course, is not absolute -- there is plenty of cross over and other variables to consider.

The problems with instruction are many -- the content has to be accepted as valuable and requires the buy in of the student. At the age when instruction is most effective and useful, students are most distracted and have developed the ability to avoid instruction. Multiple modalities (and stealth instruction) have tried to sidestep resistance in cases of reluctant learners. Also, disabilities which might not surface when modeling is the approach will often show up in instructional settings.

Proper pedagogy successfully combines the two approaches at varying percentages depending on the age, experience, motivation (and other elements) of the student. Modeling can never stop, but it can't be employed exclusively. Instruction in one form or another is both the backdrop and the context of understanding but it can't replace sensory input with intellectual assimilation.

Goals and Roles of Education

The school year is approaching so I need to get my head back into the teacher space. If you are in the field of education, then this post might be interesting. If you are not, then you are defining "the field of education" too narrowly and you should read this whether or not it is interesting. Either way, I win, and that's what is important here.

One of my many neuroses is a need to organize ideas into groupings. I also like to be places early and I finish any book I start even if it is horrible. But the main thing is I break ideas down into categories. For some things, this is a well known practice. People often talk about the reasons for the use of jails (in no particular order):

1. Punishment -- you do the crime, you lose the privilege of living with others, or voting, or whatever
2. Deterrence -- others want to avoid this penalty
3. Rehabilitation -- learn to be a better person while in jail
4. Removal -- we have to protect others by removing you

There might be more but you get my point. We can decide if the system "works" only by measuring the end result against the expectations created by our initial goal. If someone isn't rehabilitated but we are safer while he is in jail, then if our goal was #4, then success. If it was #3, then failure.

When it comes to education (as I and others have said) there are also many possible goals. The easiest way to break them down might be

1. To be
2. To do
3. To know

and each of those can be attached to a particular approach to curricular design and instruction: rules-based (civics, how can the student be a more involved member of the society), skills-based (vocational, the goal of teaching is to make sure the student can apply actual skills), classics-based (academia for academia's sake; amassing knowledge is the primary goal of education). Proponents of each can also defend their positions by saying that each one creates the gateway to the others. If I am a more involved person, I can gain skills through being social, and gain knowledge by respecting the canon out there. If I am well-read, then skills can be more easily acquired and I will contribute to society that way. If I have the ability to do something, I will become invested in the world and will want to learn more about it as I succeed. Or something like that.

Now, I know that all three of these approaches are valid and necessary, but when too much stress is put on any one of them, the educational system becomes stilted. For too long, most schools were about knowledge, expecting other things to come out of that. Students who couldn't hack it (in the old way of thinking) were consigned to vocational structured education. And certain more parochial approaches focused on the being and the self. In response, schools have tried to switch things up with more schools including vocational training for all students or using projects to have students apply knowledge and implement it as a skill, or even downplay the knowledge acquisition. Some schools have introduced character building as an essential element of curriculum. Now, this isn't inherently bad because, as with most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. A good school has to incorporate all of these aspects, trusting the classroom instructor's sense of when each needs to be primary. Unfortunately, we are letting the pendulum swing too freely, and shifting so completely from one exclusive mix to the other extreme that we aren't really solving the underlying need, for an holistic view of student development, needing all these goals all the time. In the same way that we can't focus only on higher order thinking skills and forget about the foundational nature of the lower order ones, we can't ignore the need for frontal teaching when we flip the classroom. Good teaching is student centered even as it keeps the teacher driving content, pace and approach. Good teaching gives students freedom but guides them towards what the expert knows will be most beneficial to them in the long run. You can't just "know" without knowing why. You can't learn to do without understanding when not to do. There is no "being" which isn't grounded in understanding. Nature isn't the only one who abhors a vacuum -- it doesn't work in education either. But it takes a practiced hand to know when each aspect of an educational goal needs stress.

So a student is graduated from the system. Did the system succeed or fail with that student? What was the goal? Does he know more than when he started? Does he care to learn more on his own because he values learning? Can he do any of that learning on his own, or can he apply what he has learned to other contexts? And this measure of success might change student by student (and even for a single student it might shift over time). Looking at short term measures (local summative assessments, external high-stakes testing, admission to the next step of the educational ladder) is a fool's way of deciding if things worked and we know this, but we hang our hats on these metrics anyway.

I don't have the answers -- that's why you are reading this for free on a blog. But I do know that the first step is asking the right questions and clarifying terms and goals so that we can free oursleves up to brainstorming some solutions.

Ms. Dog say Bork Bork

I'd like to tell you about the dogs. I probably have already mentioned them but I want to make sure that all the johnny-come-latelies can get up to speed. So, our dog-story so far: I have a dog. Have, while he is mine (h/t Bill S.) an angry little doggo named Sparky. He is called by many names -- Sparkles, Sparkster, Spark-o, Sparks, Thor (by my brother, but that makes sense because he calls his daughter Natasha), but his name is Sparky. He is the last angry dog until the next angry dog. He is a prolific writer (2 books, with 2 or 3 in the works, and a blog) and a dog of unquestioned brilliance and cute-osity. He has a friend named Princess. She is is nice, if you like bundles of slobbery tongues, and has the brains of a swarm of drunk pebbles. They spend a lot of time together (but the relationship is purely gin-tonic). They were over this afternoon, and the rain started coming down.

Let's talk weather. Sparky is OK with weather. If it rains, it snows or glooms, Sparky just sits there, knowing that as long as he can maintain his bladder, he will be staying inside, away from the elements and molecules that make up weather. Princess is a little different. She is afraid of stuff. She is fast as a dingo, vicious as a dingo and dumb as a dingo, but she is really afraid of thunder. At the first dip in barometric pressure she starts to shake like a milkshake held by a Parkinson's patient. Not my best image, but you get what I'm saying. She shakes. Her human puts a special thunder shirt on her (not one supporting a professional team...one with weights built in that is supposed to give her the reassuring pressure which tells her that if the thunder comes, she will now be too slow to escape it so she might as well just siddown and die) and she runs up the stairs where, she figures, thunder won't think to look for her.

The thunder started and Princess ran. I decided that inclement weather was the best time to start making a chicken omelet. Like there's a bad time to start making a chicken omelet -- amirite? Boo-ya.

As an inducement to stop being stupid, I told the dogs that I would be handling uneaten chicken, their favorite kind. As I began prepping, Sparky wandered in and I rewarded him with pieces of leftover fowl. I continued cooking, using up my store of secret ingredients: oil and a pan. As I shredded chicken, I called out, "Hey Princess, I have chicken."

Now this is where things get difficult for me.

She did not appear. I called again, "Princess! Chicken." Sparky looked at me as if to remind me that he was RIGHT THERE and why was I not giving him chicken instead of inviting his sworn enemy when it comes to chicken eating. I gave him a piece so that he would stop staring at me, then I raised my voice, "Dammit Princess, I have chicken! What are you waiting for?" Nothing. So I started muttering.

Please know, muttering and I have a long and colorful history. I mutter all the time. I'm the grand mutter of muttering. I started muttering to myself how this dumb dog wasn't coming down to get chicken while I'm here cooking my chicken fingers to the boneless. I realized that, at that moment, I had gotten angry at a dog because said dog (and I did, indeed, say "dog") did not come down when I called her name and explained why she should come down. Again. I got angry at a dog, a dog whom I have already characterized as not as intelligent as another dog, for not understanding my logic which I so cogently explained in words. I believe that this bespeaks some very strange transformation in my mental processes, and not a good one.

Princess ultimately showed up, lured by the smell of cooking chicken and the cessation of thunder and my wrath abated. My senseless, stupid wrath aimed at a dog who did not live up to my human expectations. I'm not sure what to make of this, or what lesson to glean. Alls I know is that of the two of us, me and Princess, one of us gets to wear a cool thunder shirt and the other has to do the cooking.

Hello, girls

I know what I am planning to do and I know that I will fail.

I want to write a heartwarming piece of drivel aimed at my niece who will be getting married next week. But every time I start to write, I come up with things that are so mired in the feelings I want to present to my own children that I end up with something which masquerades as an uncle's good wishes to a niece but is in truth, a dad's mush to his kids. So instead of fighting, I concede to the powers of the muse who pushes me into this and I embrace it.

Riks -- and I call you that for the same reason that I call your older sister Shasha -- because it is still the name that I am most comfortable with, so deal with it...my own kids wish I called them something akin to their actual names. Riks, you have always been a bundle of joy. You have always amazed me with skills and talents that make me want to kill you and eat your brain so I could have that talent. I saw that on TV so it must be true. Your smile is infectious, but in a good way and you are, as we in academia like to to say, a good egg. I want to tell you about what your life should be by explaining to you one of my major fears.

I have always worried that my children were sad. I still worry that. What I wish for people is happiness and I try to bring that to them. When my kids were little(r) I used to wake them up with a song. Not one that I sang, God forbid, remember, I wanted to bring them happiness. I would get a song like Morning has Broken or Morning from Peer Gynt or something like that and slowly increase the volume. I would give them a kiss and help them stretch a big stretch to start the day with a smile. I wanted them to know that they are waking up into a world in which someone appreciates them for just being who they are. I wanted them to wake up with a smile because in this nasty and brutish world they should know that they are loved. I wanted them to know that someone was thinking of them when they were asleep and will continue to keep them in mind while they are awake not because of anything in particular but just because. That's what love is. The love of a dad for a kid, and the love of a spouse for a spouse -- unconditional and irrevocable. Like a good wine.

I'm not sure it is like a good wine, but I have always wanted to say that. "Like a good wine." There. Scratched that itch but good.

And we're back.

So Rik, I want you to have a happiness that is so grounded in an unconditional love that you can't shake it. I want you to wake up and know that there are people, and one very special person, who choose to be around you because you are their first and last thought. And many in between. I want you to grab hold of a love not because it replaces another but because it is, on its own, worth grabbing. Wake up to a song, go through your day with a smile and end each evening knowing that you matter to someone more than anything else matters. I hope I didn't fail with my kids. I think back to the mornings when I was a bit more sour than sweet, and they were a bit more human than ideal. I regret the moments I missed bringing them joy and I want you to be more aware so you miss fewer opportunities.

I want you, and my own kids, to feel a safety net, a network, even if only of one person but more likely, of many, that will always be there for you. Put someone else first and be put first. My blessing to you is that I hope you have a joy inside you that you can and want to share and that you have found someone to share it with, someone who wants to share right back with you.

And if you don't want to listen to Cat Stevens, I'll understand, but that song really can make you choke up...which is a problem when you are driving.

You're wrong, but more importantly, you're bad

I received a message from a former student this morning. He is one of the few who actually spends his time thinking about stuff and working through deep concepts so I was flattered that he included me in the loop of thought. He mentioned that he is disheartened by the state of the modern world in certain ways. He wrote, "I hate how judgmental society and especially the Modern Orthodox Jewish community is". That got me thinking, a dangerous eventuality but what's done is done and so I'm thinking. Kaboom. So here is a bit of brain pie from your Crazy Uncle Dan for you to chew over. And over.

I'll start by opining about being judgmental. We all do it. We size up situations and see what fits and what doesn't into the box which is the society we have set for ourselves. "Look at that guy" we say, "he just changed lanes with(out) his blinker...that's horrible." We have judged him. "How about that joker...(not) wearing pants at such a fancy restaurant...what is he thinking?" Judging, again. As we belong to a variety of overlapping communities, cultures and societies, our schema for judging runs a range. From parenting, to diet, to fashion, to sports to religion -- we look at what others do and decide if their expression of self is acceptable in our little world.

We judge because we are insulating ourselves and defining the parameters of comfort in our bubble. We create an in and an out group so we know who belongs and who doesn't. It keeps us safe and helps us decide whom to invite over for dinner and a nice game of Pictionary. It isn't a bad thing all the time but it has fallen out of favor because of where it can lead -- not Pictionary, judging. Should we profile people? Do I cross the street to stay away from some people, or do I pay more attention to certain age groups when they enter my store because my experience has taught me that certain genders or ages are more likely to engage in unsavory activities? Do I have to wait for actions before I can judge even if, by the time the actions take place, the damage could be done? How about people who espouse beliefs -- can I judge them on the whole by their expressed positions in one area? Do I have to accept everyone all the time or am I allowed to say "anyone who hates little dogs is dead to me"? Must I be tolerant or even accepting of all the divergent opinions? One common answer is "this doesn't mean you can judge the person" but maybe I can! If someone's position is pro-rape, I think I'm pretty safe in judging on the whole and not saying "he's just a fine person with a singular point that we disagree on."

When it comes to religion, things get even murkier -- part of judging is the attempt to further a heritage which is the defined society. Religious rules and norms ensure continuance of a community so we judge because we are perpetuating norms which got us this far. If we accept variation, we risk losing our discrete identity, but if we don't we look like ultra-traditionalists who can't face change. Some of us chafe at this restrictiveness and say that we, as a people have changed a bunch over the years so why stop now? But then the fear emerges: if we let a little change, how do we draw the line and decide that the next step is off the cliff? Back in the day (the year 1100, for example, maybe even 1101) changes we very local and moved slowly because communication was sans internet (true!). So if there was a need for a limited change, it took a while to get around and sink in. Now, things are a step faster than instant so we have changes upon changes and the slippery slope surrounds us constantly. Our reaction is to build our walls more solidly and allow even less because we have more potential for drastic shifts. Additionally, built into Orthodox Judaism is the need to judge. We have laws and responsa which establish the limits of behavior and we have to enforce and call people out when they stray. The only way we can continue as a unified group is by walking the walk, talking the talk and correcting those who don't. And while it is attractive to excuse (or at least ignore) private behavior and say that what we don't know doesn't affect what we do know, the current atmosphere is to allow the private to be public without repercussion, forcing the religious person to have an opinion and, yes, judge.

Here are two side analogies. They're free, so go with it.

Some Jewish communities are turned into a particular legal-construct as a "private domain" through the use of an eiruv (a string surrounding the entire community). In the past, because of physical limitations, the status of the integrity of the string could only be checked on a particular schedule, let's say monthly. "Monthly." Well done. If there is no reason to think that, in between checks, it has broken, we rely on what we last knew. But now, with drones and other technology, maybe we could check it more frequently and know definitively more often if it retains its proper structure. We can no longer hide behind "it was ok last week". More technology means more knowledge which means more definite opinions.

We know more and more about food production, and there are more cameras installed so we don't have to trust restaurants -- we can check up on them. And if we find out about problems that maybe were always there, now we have to act on them. For a position paper on a similar situation, read here. Before we knew, we could withhold judging. But once we know, we have to say something.

So we judge. We tell people when they are doing something which we don't approve of and we hope that our society's norms will be refined by the mass acceptance of a particular mode of behavior and the condemning of another. What we disapprove of through something approaching consensus draws our line in the sands of time. The tension between "modern society" and "modern Orthodoxy" pulls us in mutually exclusive directions as it relates to judging.

We have always judged as Jews. But we have chosen to know less and trust more. That era might be over. We know more and can trust less because we can know even more. With greater knowledge comes a greater responsibility to establish those lines or risk losing our defining shape. Do I like judging? Not especially. But is it part of who we are as humans and Jews? Yes. For good and for bad, yes.

Just a semi-thought

This isn't going to be a significant post, so feel free to skip it. I don't think this material will be on the test, but I wanted to share it with no one, and I thought, "where can I share this with no one? THE INTERNET!" So there you go. And went.

I was driving around the house in which I grew up, on the streets, mind you, not just donuts on the lawn, and looking at the street signs. I have never been good with street names and I know my way around more by sight than by name so I guess that's why I never noticed this. My parents' house is a corner property. That, I noticed. But the street names are particularly strange. If you ever read the directions for a standardized test then you will see that there is a chart of accepted abbreviations for street names. You live on Mockingbird Lane? Use Ln. You live on Supreme Court? Use Ct. Electric Avenue? Ave. Sacred Circle? Cir. You know the drill -- St, Rd, Pl and like that. But I lived on a corner which had two streets which are probably not on that list. The street address is on Parkway West. Note, this isn't like Ocean Parkway where the "Parkway" can be abbreviated. The "parkway" is the first word. Sure, you can abbreviate "West" but that isn't the type of street. In the city, there is a Pkwy South, East and West (and a Central Pkwy) but none is a traditional abrreviatable street type.

The other street is Wilson Block. That's it. Not Wilson Block Road. Just Wilson Block. I asked my mom and she said that she couldn't think of another street that is just "______ Block." Can you? Maybe, but there can't be that many. So the poor kids on that street probably also had no way of abbreviating their address when pressured for time filling out the preliminary info before the SATs started.

So what's the point? Well, I could derive lots of lessons here but I guess the one that got me thinking is this idea that I was living on a bizarrely, unconventionally named corner. And yet I never thought twice about the names and how they are different from other street names. I was oblivious to something rare and unexpected. How many other similarly unique things surrounded me and I missed them? Did I take other crazy things for granted and not realize their true status? What else did I not see because I didn't know enough to look?

Probably lots. And that's a really significant realization.

Compliments of a student - a bit of Torah

Aside from the regular teaching I, on Thursday evenings, teach an extra class. Our school has a "mishmar" program, with mishmar being the Torah learning encouraged after school once a week. The class is unconnected to my daily work and the students can take any of a number of options so there is often no continuity. It is learning for learning's sake. When I started teaching it, I had to find an angle: what would my class be that might attract students to it. So many of the rabbis were confronting the big questions of faith and practice that I decided to specialize in the small questions -- little things that bug me or don't make sense but which should be thought about also. I pointed out to the students that there is still a lot in Judaism that needs to be discussed and uncovered and they have as much right as anyone to come up with novel understandings or explanations. Over the years, I have come with a bunch of little things that don't make sense or that need discussion and we have had a fun time arguing over the trivia that populates out days. Today, something really wonderful happened. I came to the mishmar session ready with a problem which I thought would keep us busy as we worked the problem through, back and forth, arguing and challenging so that even if we ended up with no satisfying answer, we could say that we moved the conversation forward.

I was troubled by how we describe the upcoming holiday of Shavu'ot, the feast of weeks. It is one of the three pilgrimage festivals and is an intense celebration of the Torah and our being defined as a Jewish nation. In our liturgy, when we mention the day, we refer to it as "z'man matan torateinu" -- the time of the giving of our Torah. What troubled me is that in certain complementary stories, the medrash, the holiday is called "Yom Kabbalat hatorah" the day of the receiving of the Torah. This phrasing makes more sense to me. We should be focusing on our receiving the law, not God's giving! I can give anyone anything but if he doesn't take it then my giving is for nothing. Additionally, we make a big deal about how the people, at the foot of Mount Sinai, all said "na'aseh v'nishma" -- we will do then we will hear (an explanation). We pledged ourselves as adherents of the law. We received it as a people and we should be celebrating that. And yet, aside from 30 mentions in these secondary texts, the holiday seems to focus on the giving (I am skipping the possible answer that we didn't really receive the Torah at Sinai, but did so after the Purim story, and the Kotzker rebbe's idea that we actually are still receiving it every day so we don't focus on one day of receiving). I reminded students that the focus in the prayer-references to the other pilgrimage days is on the people, not God (Sukkot, the feast of booths, is "z'man simchateinu" the time of OUR joy, and Pesach/Passover is the "z'man cheiruteinu" the time of OUR freedom). So if the precedent is to frame things in light of US, why refer to the day by invoking God's action?

Then along came Zoe R. She raised her hand and reminded me that the phrase for Shavu'ot prayers is 2 words; yes, the first is "matan" the giving, but the second is "Torateinu" OUR Torah. Maybe, she suggested, the Torah was always and already ours but it hadn't been "released" to us. We had been waiting for it to be our turn to take what was destined for us from the Beginning and on this day, Hashem gave us this gift (matanah). Imagine if you grow up knowing that one day, the fancy piece of jewelry will be yours. It is out of reach even while it already has your name on it. The day that the other decides you are ready for it and hands it to you becomes a momentous occasion. You need not decide to "receive" it -- you decided that ages ago! The day of Shavu'ot is the time of matan Torateinu. OUR Torah was placed in our care so we could become what we were fated to be. This explanation accounted for 2 words, for the consistency of focus and wording among all the festivals and for the stress we place on this perspective. It comports with the Jewish notion that the Torah was written for the Jews. In other words, it is a wonderfully straightforward, efficient and comprehensive answer which I have not seen before! It was new and it was excellent. I told Zoe I'd write it up but will only do so in her name and with her blessing.

Our next generation of Torah scholars can think, formulate and create understanding. For this, I smile.

As I see it

I hate discussing anything akin to politics and I hate using this blog to put forward my view of significant world events, but I'm going to anyway.

Just putting this all out there so I can keep it straight.

First off, Israel pulled out of Gaza. There is no Israeli force in Gaza, but Gaza is its own political and geographical unit which has, much like many entities, borders separating it from surrounding nations. Gaza has a border with Israel and Egypt. Trucks and people go in and out, but only if they pass through borders -- not “check points” but borders, because we are talking about entering and exiting another sovereign nation. Forget about the trucks with aid that Israel sends in unilaterally. Forget about the Arab decision not to send goods in to Israel for sale so as not to do business with Israel. Forget about the tunnels that have been dug starting from the Gaza side as an attempt to cross the border. Just focus on the fact that there is a border.

Recently, and especially on Fridays, Arabs in the Gaza strip have been protesting at the border. They mass there because they, it seems, don’t want there to be a border. They want the right to enter Israel whenever they want. But the thing is, this is a border. I can’t saunter into another country whenever I want. That’s what borders do. These protests have been less than peaceful with video evidence showing gun fire, burning tires and attempts to snip the wires of the border in order (and this has been stated for the record) for Arabs to infiltrate and kill Jews. [note – all of these things I reference can be found online in articles, videos and other sources. If you wish to read up on it, here is one article -- pay attention to the time line]

On a most recent Friday, during a “peaceful” protest, Arabs shot and injured two Israeli soldiers who were on the Israeli side of the border. This is called an act of war, firing on the soldiers of another nation. This is not “peaceful.” The Arabs are unhappy – their autonomous political entity is struggling and they have decided that the best option is to shoot at Israeli soldiers who are standing in another country. This border, they see, is a way to keep them OUT. But borders serve a variety of purposes – keeping those who belong IN and those who are of another nation OUT. No one has the innate right to come IN whenever he sees fit. Nations exist and often, they have borders and the right to determine who crosses them.

Israel retaliates because, you know, most countries frown on having their soldiers shot. Now, if you think that this retaliation is uncalled for, just imagine that the soldier shot was your son or daughter or was protecting your house from your neighbors on the other side of the street who want to wander in and raid your fridge and have stated that after drinking the milk, they want to kill your children. The soldiers were just standing there. Not shooting anyone. Just making sure that the border remains the border and people stay on their sides of the border. If borders bother you then ask yourself why they exist ANYWHERE and whether the proper approach to them in ALL cases is to shoot people on the other side. Do you endorse that happening anywhere else?

The response to the Israeli response is to indiscriminately fire over 700 rockets into Israel. These devices comprise a double war crime – they are fired towards civilian targets from the cover of non-military sites (yes, all claims can be documented…did you see the picture of the rocket firing mechanism in the minaret?) Seven hundred rockets that claim to be a response to Israel but which ignore that two soldiers were shot on Friday. This is not a “cycle” – it has a definite beginning. Each round does. Once it gets started then, sure, you can claim that it is a cycle, but it doesn’t come into being ex nihilo.

So, to sum up, there is no occupation of Gaza. Israel and Egypt maintain their borders with Gaza. There are no Israeli settlements there and, unless one claims that all of Israel shouldn’t exist, the cities on the Israel side of the border are not settlements. There is no cycle of violence – there is a repeated attempt to breach a fence and cross a border illegally (with stated nefarious aims) and there is violence demonstrated against a sovereign nation. This is not about the political corruption scandals in Israel, the high cost of housing or anything else. This is about the choice to use violence across an international border and then having to deal with the consequences. Again, I can provide video, documentation and other substantiation for my claims. I haven’t because right now, I’m just typing stuff, but it is all out there, plus more stuff. I find it frustrating that many people (including US politicians) want to look at this with an eye towards “equivalence” and refusing to see the actual cause of the problem. This isn’t some constant back-and-forth. This is a timed and calculated escalation after a period of relative calm. If you want to defend the Arab position, you will have to start by defending the decision to shoot two soldiers across a border during a peaceful protest.

Super geeky

So I have been thinking about super heroes (MCU ones, mostly) recently. With the release of Endgame, super heroes have been on everyone's mind but I have decided to take a different approach. I started thinking about what makes the super heroes what they are - - maybe so I could figure the best path towards becomg one.

So as far as I can tell, there are 3 categories of super hero: skills, abilities, technology.

Skills - these super heroes are regular "people" within their own environs but they have training which elevates them. Hawkeye, Black Widow, Nick Fury, the Dora Milaje and other warriors in Wakanda, the Valkeries (and to some degree Thor) come to mind. Most of the Guardians of the Galaxy also. Even Doctor Strange.

Abilities - intentionally or not, these heroes have inherent elements which others can't learn. Captains America and Marvel, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Spiderman, the Hulk, Deadpool and all mutants, to name a few. Thor to the rest of the degree would fit in here.

Technology - the heroes whose identity is defined by the technology they have access to. The other heroes use technology but without it, they still have their skills or abilities. Without his suit, Ant Man is just Scott. So here we have Iron Man, Rescue, War Machine, Falcon, Bruce Banner in Infinity War. Did I miss any?

Two side notes - Black Panther is a combination of all 3 (well, at least 2) and Falcon, when becoming Captain America will have a problem because he is trying to fill an "abilities" role without having those abilities. Bucky has those abilities.

Did I miss anything?

Today is the 19th of Nisan

Tomorrow will be the 20th of Nisan. To many people, that won’t mean anything, and I expect that in many years, it will mean little to me. But this year, it means everything. This year, the 20th of Nisan signifies the 11 month monthiversary of the passing of my dad. In Jewish thought, this is significant. I will, on that 20th, stop saying the kaddish – a prayer recited by the mourner during his time of mourning. For a parent or other first level relative, one says it for 11 months. The truly evil get is said for a year but, as we don’t see our loved ones as evil, we stop after 11 months. What worries me is that whatever theologically explained benefit this prayer has for the soul of my father, will cease when I stop saying it. More than that, the daily reminder of my father – that crutch which gave my liturgical process meaning for 11 months will also stop. And I, a drabbi, can do nothing but unpack my heart with words.

“Drabbi.” I write that knowing that the pun will be missed by many, while others will think it highly inappropriate Either, or. It represents my personal affinity for Hamlet and my clerical status mixed with my personal lack of filter when it comes to humor. I write like that because I know that every once in a while, when I make, or at least when I made, some ridiculous bit of wordplay, I managed to make my father smile or, even better, think and look something up. His bar was not low. He was the smartest and wisest man I ever met and to make him laugh or confuse him gave me purpose. I don’t try to make my mom laugh – I try to annoy her and make her feel like she wants to throttle me. Different strokes, you know. But anyway, I write the stream of my thoughts because I like to think that even now, my dad is avoiding reading something I wrote until he really has to. That gives me comfort.

So I’d like to aim a word or two to my dad, Richard Rosen, Yitzchak Aharon Ben Eliyahu Chayim a"h.

Dad. Eleven months and I miss you terribly and daily. I recall you often and invoke your memory more than I thought I would. On the calendar of kabbalistic levels for the days of the omer (the 49 days between the second day of Passover and the Feast of Weeks) , the 20th of Nisan is symbolized by Hod She’b’chesed – glory that is in kindness. I can think of nothing that more symbolizes you. You wore a crown of glory through your accomplishments and personal characteristics, but you reveled in doing acts of chesed, of loving kindness for your fellow man. You were never about self-aggrandizement and in that, I’d like to think you served as a role model for us all.

I will continue to remember you daily through both my prayers and my actions. Eleven months will turn into 12 and the ending of formal mourning. To thirteen and the anniversary of your death and then I will start counting by years and not months, the way we do for an infant who becomes a toddler. The tears will pass like calendar pages as the years become milestones and memories become lore. I hope that my actions and prayers for these 11 months have elevated you and made you proud, and served as an example of the impact that you continue to have in this world. May your neshama have an Aliyah in the z’chut of any mitzvah I do.

Pick on a Number

The thing is, I teach English. I actually teach people about English language and literature but we shorthand it as “teach English.” By law, therefore, I hate math. If you ever run into an English teacher (English not telling about ancestry but area of focus…focus on the language, not the ancestry) and he or she says that s/he likes math then run. The alien invasion has begun.

But WHY don’t I like math? Is it just because I never had a really good and empathetic math teacher who could help me understand WHY if Johnny had 5 apples anyone would feel the need to take 2 from him? Or why I should care how much fencing Mr. Smith has to buy when he increases the size of his pool by one half its current width. He has the money to expand his pool, let him hire a guy to do his fencing and just pay him. No – my distaste for math runs deeper. Math, itself, is the problem. I wonder why it has taken me so long to set these thoughts down, explaining why math is just plain bad but I shall stay silent no longer! Maybe things have finally come to a head. Maybe it is the vast amounts of sugar coursing through my system. I thank my sponsors – a large number of mega stuff Oreos and some Entenmann’s chocolate donuts for their faith in me and for the vast amounts of sugar coursing through my system.

This is a subject which sows discord. You say that it endorses clarity and unity by requiring a singular, particular and specific, objective answer? I say it requires us to study division! And not just local and short time division, but LONG division! Horrible. This is a discipline predicated on problems, trying to find exes instead of moving on in life. What does it value? Inequalities! Why all the focus on what is greater than or lesser than? Can’t we all just get adrink (or at least another donut)? Is it a study based in originality? No – derivatives everywhere. And all that talk about sets, sets, sets. How can we let our children be around this? Perverts. It is an area of study where it is still ok to discuss “slopes.” Totally inappropriate. I’m made uncomfortable by the idea of “cross multiplying” and I can’t even imagine what kind of travesty a rhombus is.

When we talk in English we say “all things being equal.” You see how beautiful that is? All things, equal. In math, if I could have said “all things being equal” then all the answers would have been the same and maybe I would have passed! Some people say “not for nothing, but…” and do you know what this means? It means I am not doing anything because of math. Even when we discuss numbers, we say “five will get you ten.” Do you see how egalitarian and socialist this is? You have five, it’s ok…take 10. When math wants to approach the sanity of personal understanding it allows in variables; and how does it signal them? LETTERS. That’s what I’m saying.

Do I need math to live my life? If I don’t tip, no. If I don’t expect change, no. Keep my page numbers in Roman numerals and let my tangents be in conversation. Math be darned.