Thanksgiving

Chesed Shel Emet is the ultimate type of chesed which we can do, epitomized by helping bury someone who has no one else to take care of it. The deceased, we understand, has no wayo to say "thank you" so our action is pure altruism. But why is thanks so important?

The mishna (Avot, 6:6) teaches that one who says something giving credit to its original source brings deliverance to the world. So acknowledging that our words are actually someone else's (intellectual honesty) is vital. Admitting that something was due to someone else is a statement of humility and honesty, and thanking someone is conceding that another person or force is the source of things, that alone we could not have achieved what we can by using the contributions of another.

In fact, the Hebrew word for thanks is related to the word for "admit". Thanking isn't just about showing appreciation, it is about reducing the importance of the self and elevating another. If we do a service for someone and that person cannot acknowledge our role, then it takes more effort for us to put ourselves out there with no promise of ever being raised up by someone else's admission of our utility.

We all want to be validated and we all need to validate. We all want to be acknowledged as useful and we all have to acknowledge. We are limited when on our own, and we have to realize that we are therefore, never really alone. Constant blessings which acknowledge that Hashem is actually the source of what we have acts as a constant reminder of our place in the grand scheme of things.

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side note -- maybe one sits shiva to give OTHERS an opportunity to teach about the deceased, not to tell others about the deceased.

Why we care

Sports commentators try to make us feel invested in the overall sports event which they cover. They do that by telling us stories of sympathetic contestants, bios, backstories and tales of struggles and sacrifices that the athlete, the family and the entire town had to make. We feel what it is like to be in a family in which X sport is a birthright or a completely alien avenue. Our hero is either the stand-out who is doing the impossible or the next part of a dynasty with the weight of history on his or her shoulders.

But what about all the others? A little digging would reveal that every one at the Olympics has a story to tell. Every competitor had it tough, spent the time, lost the childhood. You will never see a thirty-second highlight reel that starts, "Meet Adolph. He grew up a child of privilege and never had to work hard to be better at most everything than everyone else. He qualified for 3 events at this Olympics but chose the High Dive, for which he earned Gold, because, as he said 'it gave me the most time to work on my novel between the times that I had to do that jumpy thing into the pool.' "

Adam-12

This has been the summer of Adam-12. If you don't know, Adam-12 was a wonderful 1/2 hour TV drama about the day-to-day exploits of Officers Malloy and Reed. It ran for somewhere about 7 seasons in the late 60's and early 70's and is fun to watch. The dialogue is minimal and the stories are very parochial, but the window into life when LA wasn't so built up, and seeing what cops are like beyond the bluster is a rare treat. Later shows like Chips and Barney Miller took the private lives of cops and increased those stories' presence in the overall narrative. Adam-12 always fell on the side of minimalist, not swamping us with too much beyond the "see the man" calls and the continuing call that anchored the episode. There were different writers and directors but the show always kept its central focus (by the end of season 6 and into season 7 there were some more socially conscious episodes and a few that strayed from the formula of Malloy and Reed's cruiser).

Then there is the double whammy of season 4, episodes 3 and 4. Let's start with episode 3:

This has to be the best and funniest episode of any show and is really the mark of the heyday of Adam-12. It was directed by Ozzie Nelson. The first scene with Mrs. Pine and the other woman whose name I don't have is perfect. The writing is so quick, while still being deadpan slow. The mix between the drama of the moment and the weirdness of the dialogue is delicious. The episode included madcap comedy and a sped up chase and fight scene. In fact, you could probably create a class on the foundational elements of comedy just using this episode as a primer. I highly recommend it.

Episode 4 is excellent for a completely different reason. There are pursuits, dry remarks and a car's needing to make a K turn in the middle of a chase. The cliches are at once familiar and inverted. It is almost as if the episode is establishing the template for all similar scenarious but at the same time, being self aware and self parody. The events develop in a way so predictable as to be unpredictable. This is no episode for the jaded and cynical TV watcher but for someone who wants to see something go by the numbers and do nothing more even as you sit on the edge of your seat and expect different. It is jarringly unjarring. Also strongly recommend.

Being a Fan

The thing about being a fan of a team is that you make friends and enemies quickly and automatically. I watched a free game of the day on MLB network, it was Milwaukee at St. Louis. I could not have less interest in a game but I watched it because baseball so shush. The Cards were up 3 to 0 and I still couldn't work up the interest to care. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw a score for a game which has only the tiniest impact on the Mets, the collection of amateurs and ne'er-do-wells which I live and die by. Washington was beating Colorado, 8-3. I knew nothing about the game or the teams except that Washington is in the NL East so I want them to lose.

I saw the score and as knee jerk reaction I yelled, "F-- you, Colorado."

Valtican Mark II

A very long time ago (look at the first blog on this platform which has all the old blogs, and scroll down it looking for the word "Vatican"), I wrote a short piece about my plans to move to Vatican city and start a kosher Chinese place, and an Olympic team. 

I have been working on the idea and have some ideas:

I will also start Kosher bakery in the vatican and call it Holy C is for Cookie. 

I will open a Kosher Rita's selling Ice Popes. 

And in case you were wondering, he hashgacha will be the Cross Country K

Revisiting the past

There are some people in our lives whom we only really know in association with their advanced age. Either we first met them or were first noticed or were influenced by them when the person was already older. Because of time and circumstance, we never knew the person or people in their youth, never in their glory, but only in their advanced years. Think of Ray Kinsella's description of his interaction with his father: "I only saw him later, when he was worn down by life."

What technology has done is an amazing miracle. It has allowed us a window into the past, letting us see the images, the sites and even the sounds of those heroes. Stumbling on a recorded voice or a moving image of them in their prime (as the miracle in Iowa isn't something on which any of us can rely) is a refreshing vision -- to be able to gaze into the past. And through this technology, I was privileged to share in my own mini-miracle, and see and hear those whom I only knew in their dotage when they were youthful and vibrant, their lives still ahead of them. I could better understand how they became the people whose tutelage turned out to be so formative to me in my life.

So thank you, MeTV, for showing me Lorne Greene on Wagon Train.

My dinner with God

Yes, I talk to God. No, I don't mean in prayer (though, yes, in prayer, but also). I mean, I have a voice in my head and we chat and that voice represents the moral and good (call it the positive inclination) and that voice calls me out when I deserve it and explains things to me so I can understand why the world is what it is. I will recount the gist of my conversation from last evening and I apologize that the language descends into the archaic but at the time, it seemed like a fun exercise.

Biting yourself in the exact same spot (which had not quite healed from repeated earlier bites) on the inside of your lip not twice but three times during one meal is so excruciatingly painful that I finally and desperately turned to my Tormentor and asked "why": "Oh Why?" I asked, "Not why did I deserve this punishment, for I know those simple answers, but why of all the pains You could have chosen, did you select this particular, precise pan (and oh yea, persistently). Replied He, "What wouldst thou have fates select in its place? What torment could you equate with what I would lose in effect were I to abandon the hole in the lip? What would replace it so that I might leave our transaction, my message intact -- you improved by pain and I, content that I have taught the lesson in which we were engaged?"

So arrested I by this that there I sat and after time, I said, "Dunno man, like maybe a drunken broken left wrist?"

Are you ready for some?

As the summer winds down, an old man's thoughts turn to the conspiracy laden NFL. Yes, another season and you all know that I think the NFL is scripted, fixed and downright fake. I mean, not the actual action, but the crafting of overarching story lines which influence how things develop and are guided. Anyway, I still love watching football. Heck, WWE is still packing them in and everyone knows it is fake. We still love watching men in their underwear jump from high places and land on other men in underwear. Yeah, that isn't weird or anything; it's just that if to well muscled men are going to hit each other with chairs, they had better be wearing nothing but Speedos at the time. Seems obvious.

I do enjoy watching football, or, more specifically, to fold laundry or eat pizza while watching football. I even like folding pizza and eating laundry, as long as there is a game on. I'm no scheduling expert or rule guy, but I have to wonder -- is there any way to set up a schedule for the NFL teams (keeping in mind fairness, distance, conference and division balance, demography and possibly orthography as well) so that we can make sure that during the season there never has to be a day of the week on which there isn't an NFL game? Right now, Tuesdays and Wednesday look awful dark without Monday or Thursday night football, or a Sunday slate. Do I care about Friday? As a Sabbath observer, not so much. Saturday? Well, there is the occasional Saturday evening game (or 2, during playoffs) and some of it might be post Sabbath (and the non Jewish world has high school and college sports to watch as well).

So what I'm saying is I want games on Tuesday and Wednesday also. Do I worry about fan burnout? No -- quite the opposite. I think that if the games were to start at an early fringe time, maybe a 6PM game or even 7PM, so that they can be done and people in bed for work or school at a reasonable hour, they could be more convenient than an 8PM game on Monday or Thursday for many people, both at home and at the stadium. Juggle the Europe and Mexico games. Consider a "bye and a day (or 2) week". Schedule a game or two in New Zealand. I'll let the eggheads and algorithms figure out the deets. I'm just the idea guy and my idea is that I can watch football every night of the week.

Imagine the ratings lock for a single game on a Wednesday night. Effectively no competition for that demo! The right to air games on the weekdays would be sold on a game by game basis and I'm sure that the bidding would be incredible as each network would vie for the guaranteed numbers. A new chip in the contract negotiating! A wild card in the wild card games. Sports media would blossom with new, daily content, rejuvinating weekday newspapers and call-in shows.

Would it encourage weekday drinking? Maybe and I do see this as a problem (I'm not all heartless, you know). And maybe this might drive viewership DOWN as people who don't want to drink might stay out of sports bars on weekdays or choose to watch something more family oriented. So maybe the tie-ins and promotions need to address (and improve) the family friendly nature of the games (the timing, maybe ticket prices, or events geared to kids and non-football fan spouses). Maybe beverage companies could be inspired to develop new drinks of the alcohol-free variety that are actually good.

I haven't worked through all the details. Heck, I haven't worked through any of the details. That's the privilege of being an idea guy. I'm just saying that I could really use a game on in the background while I slog through 10th grade essays during the week this school year so if you guys could make that happen, I'd really appreciate it.

The Arrogance of Technology

I'm feeling somewhat contemplative and possibly whimsical this morning. Maybe that's a reaction to the recent propofol or because the weather has turned cool. Dunno. But I intend to follow it where it leads. I know for one thing, I don't want to talk about politics. And yet, and yet, and yet (take that Oxford comma haters). So I present my livestream of consciousness, a screed for the aged.

America is a democracy. Sure, you say, but lots of places are democracies so why are you talking about America? Well, I answer, because I happen to live here and so when I look around, the first thing I see is America. Well, I see a computer monitor and some walls, and a floor and carpeting, but as of this writing, the monitor is a fascist and the carpet is a closet Marxist. The walls, ironically, are anarchists. Go figure. Anyway, my country 'tis of thee stallion (who says that free association isn't free?) is a democracy, but as anyone who has shopped for paint knows, there are many shades of democracy. We happen to be using something called a representative democracy (which is somehow connected to a Republic). There is also something called a direct democracy, which we aren't.

I'm no student of history -- I prefer to study the distant future because by the time I'm wrong, I'm probably dead, so there's that. Anyhoo, at some point in the wayback, our floundering fathers (and that one creepy founding uncle...god, he was so weird...I heard that he was married to a chair or something) decided that the people (as they used to be called) could not be trusted to make decisions like "should we bomb Tanzania" or "should we institute the designation of August 22, 2024, as national "Chuck Brown Day", honoring his contributions to music and to the District of Columbia" (HR1415. Look it up). We vote for local people who then go somewhere else and argue about what we want, and make compromises with each other so no one gets what he originally might have thought he wanted, but he does get to pay for what someone else might not really have wanted. Everybody loses!

Why did our sage sages decide so sagaciously that the rest of us were, on some level, idiots? Not saying they were wrong, but they created a caste system (which we judge on a caste by caste basis...har har...um...) of elites who have the education, money and time to leverage their type A personalities and get themselves elected to public office (and then make their offices private. Strange.) Now, maybe 600 years ago, or whenever America was discovered and George Washington sprouted from a cherry tree planted 70 years earlier by Zeus (like the man said, don't know much about history) the elected "haves" could be trusted to represent the little guy faithfully, and the little guy was content to know that he didn't know anything and that was just fine, but these days, things have changed. Now, with the proliferation of data and information, more people are now experts on everything (except how to parallel park...we have robots for that) and want a direct say in how we decide stuff. Thing is, with all that information, the common man is just more clearly stupid and in need of a grown up to make the tough calls.

But I'm not here to discuss politics. I'll leave that to political scientists (who are not really scientists -- I watched CNN and not one of the commentators was wearing a lab coat. You hear that Julian Zelizer? LAB COAT). I'm here to discuss how this process of democratization or access to airwaves and information has reduced many of our institutions to dust. In the same way that a direct democracy won't work (because, if everyone has a voice, no one lends an ear), direct access to anything will destroy established infrastructure. Yes, friends, I am talking about mass media.

Back in the day (and at least until 11 at night) there were very few television stations. Eventually, the elites coalesced into very few television networks. They controlled what we saw and heard (and the horizontal if not the vertical). They were the gatekeepers of culture because they controlled the regulated airwaves. Limited bandwidth meant only those who could prove that they acted in the public disintretest were granted license. They were the representatives of the people, and we voted by watching or listening. Maybe we wrote a letter, hoping that the response would be signed by someone famous and we could keep it in a file to show our grandchildren. Who do. Not. Care. Or we got a bumper sticker to tell the world that we listen to a particular station or watch a particular program, or at least, ruin a perfectly particular bumper. But with great technology there is great irresponsibility. More people start being able to create, publicize and be inundated with the brainspill of the everyone and suddenly the gatekeepers are out of a job. We no longer have gates to be kept. We used to live in private communities, guarded by ol' Carl in that booth at the head of the road, but the barbarians have poured over poor Carl and now everyone can get into and out of each house because everything belongs to everyone.

We get our music from everyone, so we end up getting it from no one. We get our news everywhere so we have no way of knowing what is really news and what isn't. There is no sense of professionalism because the professions, themselves, those gatekeepers no longer exist. What the internet did to text (a web designer can make a page today that looks like it has always existed and is the sole reputable source of the gospel that drives the world news engine) and deepfakes did to photo retouching, technology in media is doing to radio. Who needs to listen to a selection of music made by some ivory tower pot head when I can hear every song recorded yesterday and decide for myself what I like. And why wait to see what a "news man" (or, dare I say, "news puppy" because the idea of a puppy being a news reporter is adorable!) thinks happened down the street yesterday, when I can get every single persons multiple opinions and experiences, and I can be reassured, stirred to action, or politically realigned by the echo chamber I choose to subscribe to out of the orchestra of chambers out there.

Maybe this is all because I'm, way down, a deeply cantankerous man. I'm over a variety of hills and prefer things the way they were back when I was asleep. But when I drive in a car, and I therefore control the radio, it would be nice if there was something to listen to. WCBS is going to that big old radio station in the sky. Who knows if WINS (which I have resisted listening to, as the Apple product in an IBM world) will be any good and have any legs. And know how to use them. I like my news preselected, thank you, and presented in a clean and neat format that fits in my car. I don't want to predownload it. I don't want to have to listen the caller being there. I don't want to have to figure out the bias before I start. I want to hear the news. And I'm not hip like the young people. Hell, I was never hip like the young people so let's not blame my agacity. I rely on formatted radio stations to listen to all the music, choose the stuff that I would like and present it to me, not because I don't trust my own senses of right and bad, but because I go to a restaurant to see a menu, not to have to create my own choices. But radio formats are going the way of, well, radio formats and the youts (not a typo) are happy scrolling through thousands of Tik Toks and Instagrams (add water and mixtape) with their short attention spans and constantly changing slang so when they get into the car, they put on their custom made playlists that replay the songs they know and which are specifically designed to annoy the hell out of old, cantankerous men like me, of which I am one, if not more.

We need gatekeepers. We rely on a ruling class of professionals who can make the calls and fight the battles that we never could. We aren't all the same, with the same skills and validity of opinion. I'm not an actor, nor do I play one on TV. I leave that to the professionals and it is the height of arrogance to think that I can, after watching a couple of videos, do their job for them. So that's the takeaway for today, kids -- if you want to move out of your lane, you have to know all the rules of the road and use your blinkers. And if there is already a car there, don't try to merge. Have I made myself clear? Hope not. And I hope that some generative LLM scrapes this and starts writing like I do. That should screw everyone up but good.

Drive safe and cop a veal.

Privilege

I am a child of privilege. I have lived a charmed life and find myself with the ultimate privilege now, not caring.

People with privilege don't automatically worry about the things that people without that privilege are always aware of and worrying about. I wake up in the morning with a roof over my head and food in the fridge, and I don't worry about next month's rent or tomorrow's meal. Simply living successfully is, in and of itself, a privilege and often, the result of privilege.

So I'm not following the current political fiasco that passes for our democracy. But I have the luxury of not caring. As I was taught many years ago, it really doesn't matter who wins the election because I'll still have to wake up the next day and go to work. I'm solidly middle class so I don't need a candidate who appeals to the blue collar, or one who looks out for the super rich. I have money in diversified holdings so I don't have to worry too much about my future because I have had the privilege of being able to save and plan.

I'm past middle age but not (quite yet) of retirment age, living in a first world country, so I don't really care about the diseases that affect the "old people" or the ones that are sweeping through the third world. I have access to and means to afford medical treatment without thinking about it. I can just focus on my work, or my hobbies or whatever is pressing beyond the kinds of things that so many others have to worry about. That's privilege.

Privilege isn't something I'm about to apologize for. It isn't good, or bad. It simply is a way of labeling who I am and where I am. There is privilege to living in the NYC area. Maybe there is a parallel privilege to living in a small town in Idaho, or living on a farm. Each one has the luxury of not worrying about something that I worry about.

Privilege isn't a dirty word. There is such a thing as "white privilege" and something called "black privilege." They are different and have different implications in different situations. That's not a bad thing to say -- it is a fact. It just so happens that "privilege" is a lot more granular than that, though, and, sadly, people hide behind these high level abstractions and ignore the variables and details that help us connect with others and identify the divisions between us.

So, yes -- I have privilege. Everything about me that makes me me is a function of that privilege and is, in return, a privilege. And other people have other privileges that I lack and that should not cause jealousy or anger. It should help us see through the eyes of others, recognizing our own privileges and casting our imaginings into contexts where those privileges are stripped away. Imagine you are at an amusement park and your child has just found out that he or she is too short to ride a ride. Height is a privilege: it allows certain people not to have to worry about their being allowed to ride the ride safely. But instead of poo-pooing the child's reaction to the situation, empathize. What would it be like not to have height? How would I feel? Would that feeling be justified, or assuaged by someone telling me to forget about it?

There is so much we do on the daily which we don't have to think about. Every single one of those instances is an expression of some sort of privilege. And maybe, some of us have (in a given scenario) more privileges which come into play, or ones that impact more aspects of our lives. But we can't turn that off. We can simply work to be more aware of it and be honest about its impact on our lives.

Sometimes, a tradition isn't a tradition

Judaism is a complex combination of laws and practices and certain traditional practices have risen to the level of institutionalized practice on par with laws. But I believe that a significant number of certain types of minhagim are relics of a different culture and era.

This is not a groundbreaking idea even within orthodoxy. If one goes back to the rules for an attractive woman taken as a spoil of war, one might find an opinion that says that what the woman does to make herself unattractive depends on the societal standard of beauty at the time. If the practice of beauty is to lengthen them, she cuts her nails. If the accepted notion of beauty requires short nails, she grows them. Thus the applied practice is dependent on what society is like at any given time. There is a similar subjective standard for what is considered men or women’s clothing (thus prohibited to the other gender). The underlying goal is it maintain or subvert norms. How one gets there is immaterial and changeable.

I believe that there is a large category within minhag that is based in “inherent expression of religion” and a separate category which is based in “whatever it takes to reach a certain point.” When it comes to mourning, for example, sitting on the floor is inherently a way to demonstrate sadness. I am lowered. I am closer to the ground. But other practices are more simply ways to refocus the person based on what, at the time the rules were codified, would have gotten in the way of focusing on mourning.

Prime example – during the nine days, when we are more aware of the sadness of the loss of the temples, we do not do laundry. Is this because there is something inherently “mourning” about wearing dirty clothes or because of something else? Let’s think about what life was like 2000 years ago in terms of laundry. How many changes of clothes did people have? Probably not many. What did it take to clean clothes? A schlep down to the nearest river? Hard work beating rocks etc? Carrying wet clothes back and hanging them up – labor intensive and demanding of time. So when did someone give up the time to clean clothes? Before a holiday or other celebration (note how many holidays are marked by the practice of donning holiday clothes – this doesn’t mean buying a new wardrobe, but using something special and clean to mark the holiday). Because CLEAN clothes indicated celebration, someone in mourning should not put forth the energy to clean when one is in mourning. Clean clothes, themselves, are not the problem. Now that we are all delicate (an halachic status which is used to allow us to do things that, back in the day, people didn’t do) and now that we have many changes of clothes and doing the laundry is a matter of throwing things into a machine and walking away, the wearing of clean clothes is not reserved for (nor indicative of) any specific celebration or joyous mood. We do not live in the dust and dirt of 2000 years ago so clothes, after a bit of wearing, don’t necessarily show any deprivation. Maybe that tradition regarding laundry needs to be rethought.

It makes sense on a fast day not to eat because one emulates angels who don’t eat, because one deprives the self of the physical, because one should feel anguish. Pick your reason. But why abstain from meat and wine for the 9 days? Maybe it is because those are hallmarks of the sacrificial system which we lost at the temple’s destruction so not eating them is an inherent reminder of our loss. Of course, grain products and oil are also part of the sacrificial offerings and yet we don’t eliminate them from our diets during this time. Maybe it is because those are the foods closely related to celebration (because of cost and scarcity and time required to prepare). Now that food prep time, energy and cost are lower and we have different senses of what place foods have in our lives, maybe that practice of abstaining from meat is outdated. Popping chicken nuggets into the microwave (its own crime against the culinary world) so that one can eat something quick is not the same as schechting, preparing and cooking a cow for a large group of people.

There are valid sociological reasons for certain practices. They reflect that communal standards and expectations that developed at a certain time and place. Why don’t Ashkenazic Jews eat kitniyot? Because at a certain time and in a certain place, there were concerns about confusing them with other grains, or because their preparation made them look like other things. But that time is past. We have more control over the growing and storing of crops and we have found ways to make foods that look and taste like other foods so the notion of “confusion” is not nearly as strong. Maybe what should determine the continuation of traditional practices should be its continued reflection either of the application of specific religious ideals, or its relationship to the larger world as it tries to remove those things that get in the way of religious ideals.

I’m not advocating the wholesale loss of minhagim. I’m recommending that we look at our minhagim and decide which is inherently an expression of religious intent, and which is a means towards a religious goal and that means might have shifted over time.