Learning by doing

 So today was another opportunity for me to assess local culture an practices while spending a lot of money at the same time. Like doing psychology field work by buying expensive perfumes and seeing their effect on teen aged boys. Or something like that. My head is a bit fuzzy and for a bald guy, that's a thing to think about. The jet lag, mixed well with some free floating anxiety and who knows what else inspired me (by lack of choice) to pull an all-nighter last night. I used to do that weekly in college but I sense something in me has changed and pulling an all-nighter has an impact on me which makes me even more unfit for human interaction.

So, first, an addendum to the previous post about what I learned. Here is a new one:

I don't know where you live but there is construction right by you. And there will be at least one, if not twelve road closures unadvertised, prompting cars to make K turns in a country in which people clearly don't know the shape of the letter K.

But I gress. It isn't a hill I'll di on.

My sister in law and my niece came over today for a tour of the apartment. That took the whole 2 minutes (we saw one room twice) and then they took me on an outing. First we went to a very local patisserie where I got a cup of cold decaf (2nd time's a charm...first time they put milk in it) and there were cheeses, cappuccino, rolls and eggs and olives and caramel and some sort of spreadable cheese. Heidi added some pepper to her eggs, and an insane woman came by (we were eating outside) and said unspeakable things about me and my family, but always with a smile. So that was fun.

Then we went to Osher Ad, the supermarket.  Step one was to walk to the car and leave the parking lot. We had to wait as the woman in front of us was clearly having an extended relationship with the computer system that controlled the gate. Eventually it was our turn to get frustrated at an inanimate object. Then off to the land of make bereave. The cultural differences started appearing. First, there is so much construction going on and the roads, congested 2.5 lane roads, are everywhere making all driving, and especially left turns, harrowing. If you don't know what .5 of a lane is, you haven't watched Israeli drivers. Next, parking -- the underground lot wasn't a "rows and aisles" kind of place. In the same way that the streets of Jerusalem are winding and interwoven, the passages in the lot were seemingly random. Next, the shopping carts have all four wheels that can turn, so that's neat. But for each step of shopping, you need to be on the lookout for pitfalls and obstacles. My niece was adept and the prep, knowing to get a scanner and a cart with a scanner-holder. I wouldn't have had any idea about scanners, but here is the dealio: Most (younger?) scan each item as it goes into the cart, and take the scanner up with the cart to the self-checkout area, place the cart on the scale and somehow mind-meld the scanner with the scale so see if the weight corresponds to the receipt. We were off by 1 liter of milk which I had forgotten to scan in. It is a very different set of muscle movements -- you don't just find something and put it in your cart -- you have to stop and scan it first, and let me tell you, that if you aren't used to doing it, you forget really easily. My niece had to keep reminding me and I felt like a tool most of the time because I had no idea what I was doing. I pestered them with questions.

Side note, older people use the regular check out but the cashiers are not always focused on the job and the older people get preference on line so if you are waiting and a senior citizen shows up, you get pushed back.

Then you go through the store which seems more like a Target (in terms of the breadth of things available and the layout of aisles) than a Shop Rite. Thing is, I really, really understand Shop Rite. I know what are good prices and preferred products. Here, the sizes are different, the currency is worth a different amount and the price-per 100 ml, or 1 kg or 100 g or whatever is unfamiliar. [I asked a student to make an app which would allow me to compare across units of measure and currencies. I didn't use it in the store because there was too much demanding my attention. But here it is.] So the task is to figure out you would have bought in the US, find what is the closest equivalent is to it (some times and some stores have American items available but those often cost more) and then compare prices per unit. This requires reading the signs and  figuring out what I'm looking for. There is an entirely new set of words that I will need n order to buy the basics and I don't know most of those words. So the shopping is very slow and I have to consider if I want to buy something now or next week, if I want to have to carry that in and up the stairs, or if a difference in quality is worth the difference in price. Each is a unique decision. In many areas, the aisles feel a little closer together and people will scoot around you, cut you off and bump into you (with shopping carts). And also with their cars. Just saying.

I'm the sensitive sort, willing to defer, willing to help and make others' live easier. Which makes me the national mascot, the Door Mat.  Every decision is involved in a game of chicken. I feel I hyperventilated only 3 times so that's make "before." Let's see if, in a year, I do so less often.

And if you buy meat, you have to choose it, put it on a scale, scan it with the special meat scanner, then print up a receipt and scan it with your shopping cart-scanner. Had they not have been there to save my facon, I don't know how I would have figured most of this out. They warned me that buying fresh vegetables would lead to a separate process so I made the sacrifice of not buying produce that was not in cube or powder form. Gosh I'm altruistic.

The general avoidance of things that smack of courtesy made me want to overcompensate by being more amenable an forgiving. This causes me frustration but, I hope, reduces it for others. That attitude is why I was voted "Most likely to shut the hell up" 6 years running, and running fast.

Heidi and B-7 were invaluable in knowing whether the prices are reasonable and whether certain brands or products were desirable or junk. I took their various advices seriously because I really do know that I don't know. I don't know WHAT I don't know, but there is definitely a lot of somethings. More sage niece advice about needing to go through a post-checkout payment at a kiosk that has space for your scanner or else you get stuck. After the maze of the store and the guys checking receipts and people stopping mid aisle to pack their carts (sorry about that to everyone behind me) you go up these magnetic ramps with your cart held in place and go to your car (making your parking choice important) and you pack up and return the cart so you get your money back. I'm glad they had change for the cart. If I remember correctly, you get the first 2 hours of parking free and then costs accrue. On the way out, more construction, more horrible traffic and wild drivers and closed roads (plus one that was one lane wide (with cars parked on both sides) and 2 directional traffic. Just getting back seemed like a nightmare. But my niece helped me move my bags up and then I started my list of things I still need:

decaf tea bags

hydrogen peroxide

rubbing alcohol

bedside digital clocks

plus I need to go to the bank and pick up my Israeli credit card. You can tell it is Israeli because the card asks you if you packed your own shopping cart.

It is overwhelming and on no sleep, over that. I ended up spending a reasonable amount of money for what turned out to be 4 bags worth of food and food stuffs.

I am indebted to my SIL and niece for shepherding me through the experience, and now I feel comfortable never going back. I call that a success, at least until I get hungry again.

Things I have learned -- week one

1. Everything is smaller here. The oven is smaller. The streets are smaller. The sizes of foods are smaller. It reflects one's paycheck which is also smaller.

2. pride in workmanship is less stressed here. Even a very nice and updated apartment shows signs of corner cutting -- things that don't quite fit, or close or make sense. Here a punch list is the things you will have to live with going forward.

3. The attitude in bureaucratic situations is "this is the answer and if you have a follow up question, I will repeat my answer as I yell at you."

4. People in offices assume you know what to do next even when you have said you don't. I explained that I needed to register with the HMO so they said "ok, go over there" -- that was the language: "over there". Not exactly where or what I was going to do there. I wandered over to an area included in "over there" and so no sign telling me if I was supposed to do something or if I was in the wrong place. The screens that were supposed to give information weren't. Maybe I'm just too needy, but if they see I'm lost, someone should provide assistance. I ended up being directed by another patient.

5. There are a lot of cooks working on the broth, often from different cook books.

6. This is more of a selfish point, but if you are going to offer study materials to help people learn the language, put them on a web page which can appear in OTHER languages. If I need help to study it means I don't know enough to negotiate the webpage.

7. There is a LOT of 2-Factor authentication. 

8. Different people have different terms for the same thing/document so when someone asks you for something, you might have it but not know it. I was asked for a document proving X. I didn't have anything like that but I eventually found the document which stated Y, and Y was different from X so the woman said, "yes that's it!"

9. Everyone thinks he knows how to do everyone else's job. Often, while sitting at a meeting, I am asked for document X. I say "the other person didn't give me that document." The answer is "that person SHOULD have..."

10. Just because you have a US phone number doesn't mean that you can necessarily call the US and just because you have your American phone on local wifi doesn't mean you can access all the US websites (Verizon, I'm looking at you). As of now, I can't get in touch with Verizon or look at my account online or on the app. Audacy and IheartRadio don't work here for radio stations (even with VPN) but go to the WQXR website and you can stream classical music.

10a. So far, FM 88 is the only station worth listening to.

11. Keep a log of every meeting and phone interaction including action points, remaining issues and next steps. I did not do that -- I left myself a note saying I needed to get a particular document. I got it but now don't remember why I needed it and for whom I got it.

12. For a country with such a strong ethic of not jaywalking, people really misbehave in a movie theater. Talking, laughing and such, walking in late and standing in the middle, looking around, plus not only using the phone but having that light-flashing notification on the phones which keeps flashing throughout the movie. Also, just because your tickets says you are in seat 6, if you don't get there early enough, someone is going to sit in your seat and not move.

13. The English version of a website (not just a translation on your computer, but the English version offered by the source) is not always (read "rarely") the same as the Hebrew one so if you get directions from an Israeli they might not be possible to follow on the English site. This seems like a problem to me.

14. You get a LOT of filler text messages in some cases (buying a movie ticket leads to many texts and emails but not just ads -- reminders of the upcoming film start time) but no communication or updates on important things.

15. You know how you were squished on the flight? Get used to it. Everything is smaller (including stores) so forget about personal space (and baseline courtesy). This is difficult for me as I was brought up deferring to others until it was my turn. It will never be my turn.

16. When you walk into a building, there is a reasonable chance that you are on Floor 0. Not floor 1, but floor zero. Go downstairs to floor -1. People in the basement really do live in minus.

17. For the Ministry of the Interior, you can make an appointment for an exact time or you can get an appointment made for you by a Jerusalem municipality rep with whom you will meet. A 3PM appointment means that you are in the 3PM group. The doors won't open until three and then you go up 2 flights and wait with the 3PM people until you are called. You can't arrive early and you don't have anything more than a group appointment and then whichever cubicle you are sent to.

18. The Ministry of the Interior wants originals AND COPIES. I don't have a copy machine. Advice -- take all your important documents (apostille'd ones) and make photocopies and bring them.

19. You will need 2 passport pictures for the Temporary booklet at the airport but you can't use more of those pictures at the ministry -- they take their own.

20. For some reason, I was asked for 2 "security documents." I had the apostille'd FBI background check and I know nothing of any other but the woman seemed certain that I was supposed to have another. She got up to go "check." This brings up a different point -- even though people are sincere in wanting to help, they aren't always flexible or able to pivot, or show any empathy for the fact that you (well, I) are new to all this, nervous and just following a list given to me elsewhere. None mentioned 2 security documents. There are other documents you will get at the airport. Save and bring everything because they will ask for other documents and tell you you don't need the ones you brought.

20a. As soon as anything presents a bump, even if it is something which you were not told to be ready for, people act like it is the newest and worst thing, ever. I can't have been the first immigrant to sit in that chair with only 1 security document but she seemed perplexed as to why I only had 1 and troubled by it so she had to get up and check.

21. Everything takes two tries but sometimes, each try takes 25 tries.

22. Age is no barrier to wearing inappropriate clothing. Both 6 year olds and 75 year olds want to look like 19 year olds.

23. Pack a printer and some paper and lots of manilla folders. This place loves printed documents.

Ulpan Pizza

As I begin to settle in I am confronting my own inability to speak Hebrew. I understand it at the level of a 10 year old (if you speak slowly enough) but I really feel horrible speaking it. Everyone (well, many people) says that you have to feel comfortable making mistakes because that's how you will get better. My concern is grammar and vocabulary. I don't have the lexicon of words to communicate the invariably bizarre  ideas running through my head. I don't know the idioms or the slang so I'm afraid I will say something egregiously wrong. Had my kid not corrected me about the different connotations of various words that we learned to mean "finish" I would have been making lewd comments to everyone simply because in my many years of education, no one accounted for the evolution of normative language.

So the solution might be simply to tough it out, make my mistakes, own them, and learn to speak. My other option is to remain pig-headed about it; I will understand what I understand and adamantly refuse to speak, justifying it as more efficient (in an area where Israelis know some English -- more than I know Hebrew) and as an educational experience for THEM -- practicing English with a native speaker. I should be passing out a bill for services rendered when I give them practice time.

However, I have come up with a new method which can benefit the entire community of Hebrew learners (and even of Israeli learners of English). People here go out to eat. That's a thing people do. Some restaurants are more popular with English speaking people than others because of the ease of ordering in a native language. I would suggest that a group which provides Ulpan classes (an immersive Hebrew classroom experience) partners with a restaurant to post signs as follows:

food items (such as on a menu, at a salad bar, or a fixings area) are labeled in English, Hebrew (and possibly transliterated into English as well?) and either posted on/behind the counter, or printed in a menu addendum. There would be properly worded common phrases that an English speaker can use with the confidence that they are vetted by the Israelis so there is little fear of saying them wrong. I am thinking of a sign with the proper and current way of ordering a food ("I would like a ______ with _____..."). Now, remember, different restaurants have different workers who might expect a slang or more "vulgar" wording (eliminating "I want" because when you walk into a pizzeria you just say "one slice" and not the more formal "I would like...") so one would become accustomed to different wordings, all acceptable. These conversational phrases IN USE are much more relevant to invented and sanitized workbook scenarios. A person might return to a restaurant to get more comfortable with ordering so the venue increases traffic, and the Ulpan service gets a reputation for teaching practical Hebrew and being Ulpan friendly.

The signs could be temporary so the restaurant could have "Ulpan night" or the signs could just be part of the decor so that no one has to feel awkward about having to order on any day of the week. We learn by repetition and having these phrases available during the repetition will help engrain them in our heads so after a few meals, we can order (at least at THAT place) comfortably in Hebrew.

Additional idea -- on Ulpan Night, the consumer can expect that the workers will respond in a simplified and slower Hebrew so that one has time to consider and respond properly.

Repentance

 Please let me be the first to usher us all into the high holiday season with a thought about repentance. I have come up with an understanding which strengthens me in my yearly quest to improve and I'd like to share it with you.

I was sitting at my computer while eating a sandwich. My wardrobe was pretty much boring. A worn out, dark blue 3 button polo and black khaki pants of an indeterminate cut, waist or size. Athletic fit with a history of husky, I think. The sandwich was a whole wheat roll with some slices of slow roast turkey topped with yellow mustard. Boring, sure, but I was on the move and had to travel light* so turkey and not much else with a cuppa water on the side. It gave me time to sit, stare off into the dust over the Keurig and let my mind drift and at that moment I felt something end up on my leg, as if my sandwich had somehow released something onto me. Jarred back to reality, I looked down to see a glob of mustard. Big glob. Yellow mustard on my pants. These weren't my old knock around black khakis. Now, these were a recent purchase and I manipulated the wear/laundry cycle so that this particular pair could serve as the "day before" pants -- second place over all but no one was going to catch "traditional khaki" and maybe no one ever should.

So I grab the nearest semi clean paper napkin and smear right across it. Some sticks, some doesn't and some even smears, making it worse. So you wipe some more. You try different things. In similar situations, this worked. Maybe, this. And sometimes one DOES. But the next time and the next, it doesn't. You keep trying.

That's teshuva. We want to get back to that perfect "new" pair of black khakis so we try to fix and we do get a good percentage done on the first pass. But sometimes, fixing one thing has consequences that also have to be considered. And maybe we have stop-gap measures or we cover it up but eventually we are going to have to go to a place with more resources and other people who can help. Expand the time frame  -- immediately after something has happened we take care of most. Is that in the first moment or the first year? Daily repentance might get the spot fully clean or it might get an "it isn't perfect but I appreciate the work you did to get it to this point". But we also have special days at fixed intervals, we use the laundry machine or go to the dry cleaner. Different methods, same goal, all reflect effort. In every prayer and with every prayer we show intent, scratching at some corner before it becomes a stain.

And me? I'm not the same guy. I see the stain everywhere. I regret the decision to eat. I curse how distracted I was -- not that there isn't time for that but this wasn't it. And if the next time I wear clothes, I pay a little more attention, then that might not wipe the stain away, but it will show that you know how to keep yourself clean.

So we wipe ourselves clean after every meal with our prayers and the pants stay almost sort of kind of not unlike the black khakis that I love so much that I named them. I chose the name "Mick". If you were expecting anything else, maybe YOU are the problem. Anyhoo, teshuva is a steps-forward-steps-back kind of thing that we're all always doing, and we get so distracted that we forget that we need to keep our eyes open. It is a process not a place; there is no there there; it's all always here. The pants DO get cleaner on the whole and maybe they even get them back to the closest they can get to new, but what matters is that every attempt was a sincere attempt to get them clean. Maybe there's a stain on them, maybe not. Maybe it is one only I see. But I'll never stop trying to make it better.

Maybe I'm not the perfect Jew I was but I try every day to be as Jewish as I can be.

We can get credit for a job well done, or a job done well, or even a job well, "done." Or even just for showing up for work.

*as those of you who know me and my history know, there are other reasons for the beef based confusion which explains my poorest of poor boys but that's a story for another story 

Religious Kindness

 I have been thinking about kindness recently. How can we raise a generation which will have a normalized sense of kindness? For whom thinking of the feelings of another is second nature? I think that Judaism does something like that by teaching certain strange things.

Should we be kind to people? Sure, but halacha doesn’t start or stop there. Consider the laws of shilu’ach hakein (sending away a mother bird when raiding a nest for its eggs) and even oto v’et b’no, the law forbidding slaughtering a mother and child cow on the same day. These are designed to rein in the cruelty element of our nature and recognize how our actions have impact on other things.

Sure, you say, other things…like cows and birds? Well, if we codify concern over the feelings of animals, then we will become used to considering how our actions might cause pain to other people. Even the notion of shechting (and tza’ar ba’alei Chayim on the whole) is about reducing strain and pain for the animal. Why should we care? Kill the animal and be done with it, right? Some things gotta get et. But then I think back to The Frisco Kid in which the inimitable Gene Wilder says, while chasing a chicken (and I paraphrase) “I don’t want to hurt you, I just want to eat you.” This would be the exact moment when kindness should not matter – when I want to use a resource that God provided, I still have to recognize its inherent soul and feelings and I have to be kind even while do what could easily become a cruel exercise of power.

But Judaism takes it a step further. On Friday nights, when we set the shabbat table, we put the challah on the table first and then we cover it before pouring the wine. Ask any 2^nd grader why, and he or she will probably mention some notion of “so that, when we make the blessing over the wine first, the bread won’t be shamed – placed first but eaten second.” I learned that when I was little and, admittedly, I never looked it up to see if there is a source but as I grew older, I realized that the story is weird. Does my challah have feelings? And not just the basic perception of pain when I cut it, but an embarrassment at a perceived slight or social faux pas!

But if we teach children this lesson before they have the sensibility to look at it and say “wait, what?” then we will accustom them to considering, even in their intentional and proper acts with supposedly inanimate objects, that there is a power we have, a power to hurt even when we don’t want to. We teach care and care leads to kindness. We need to say thank you to automatic doors. We need to avoid knocking over the traffic cone. We need to see that we share our space with “things” and our responsibility to be civil includes these things – not because they need it, but because we need to engrain positive habits into our every moment. Kindness must be intertwined into our being.

That said, I have also been wondering about a potential tension between two halachic mandates.

We have the idea of “dan l’chaf z’chut” – to judge favorably and assume the best, not worst in people or situations. Don’t jump to negative conclusions.

We also have the idea of “lo teetein michshol” don’t place a stumbling block before a blind person (don’t create an unfair challenge or a temptation which might lead someone else to doing something wrong or being unable to do something right).

Don’t they contradict? If I judge everyone favorably, then I will suspect no one a priori as being, for example a thief. But if I put all of the jewelry away before my guest arrives then I have decided that I’m worried she or he will be tempted to steal (which is not judging anyone favorably) so I remove the valuables so as to avoid creating a stumbling block which might entice people to sin.

So which is it? Do I think people are potential thieves or do I believe that people are good and won’t steal?

I’m sure that there are subtleties regarding the implementation of these broad rules and granular discussions about when each one applies and how, but the underlying thinking still lends itself to the question, do we think that the nature of mankind is inherently prone to fail (thus we don’t tempt) or prone to succeed (as we judge all people favorably). Are we being kinder by removing temptation or by assuming that people are good?

This does lead to the old medrashic concern about how kindness is not always expressed as niceness (one who is kind to the cruel will end up being cruel the kind). How do we teach that kindness is not in opposition to justice and not always synonymous with mercy?

No title for this one as I don't know what it is about

 for a long time the internet was the ultimate playground with its own social hierarchy and rules. And in it, way back when binary still had only 1, the nerd could be king. The one who was ostracized for playing with technology was unexpectedly ahead of a major curve so he becomes the expert and the role model for his 15 minutes. And in the online communities, the lone gun who can come in and settle a flame war with a single, silver tongued post, the guy so smooth when he sets a trap and shows the other guy is wrong - the virtual beat down. Knowledge rules and this is the nerd's home field. Trivia matters and finding stuff in the early, unsorted cloud was the skill native to growing up with a friend who is a librarian.

Search engines and GUIs tried to level the playing field. Once even the jerks have access to the compendium of all human knowledge that is the interwingle, even jerks can find-a-fact. But the finding isn't easy and the nerds still hold an advantage -- experience in negotiating search terms and communicating with the computer, a most trusted friend. As is always the case, the expert could still reign by knowing things on the assumption that not every analog memory has been digitized somewhere so that knowing defies www. But if something had to be found, it was the webizen who knew how to read the map.

Now AI makes us fake experts not in knowing, but in finding. Instead of pretending we found the facts when wikipedia found the facts, and then writing the paper we are now feeding the teacher's prompt into an AI interface and having the AI spit out the response. We pretend we even made an effort when in truth we didn't. In the earlier case, you walk away without the content knowledge needed to craft the paper. In the later case you walk away with no skill acquisition on any level.

I'm not saying that "no skill on any level" is necessarily bad, but I'd like a representative from the next generation(s) to defend it so I can hear the argument.

Reading right to wrong

 Here's some confusion to chew on. I will have to take a test to measure my proficiency in Hebrew. Fact is, I am very proficient in Hebrew as long as it is translated into English.

Part of any preparation is a review of the structure of a test. Here are some random snippets I have learned while researching the exam (all are quotes from websites and AI summaries but I added color):

"The YAEL test is approximately one and a half hours long and consists of three sections: the first three sections contain multiple-choice questions, and the fourth section is a writing task..."

It is a 3-part exam, each part allocated 20 minutes."

"The computerized YAELnet exam consists of two or three scored multiple-choice parts. Each part contains 22 questions and you are allotted 20 minutes to complete each one. Each question features four answer options."

"Grading the two multiple-choice sections used for scoring (out of three total sections)"

I have yet to figure out the Hebrew because I'm still wrestling with the English.