Dear the young people

An open letter to the young people.

Dear the young people,

I speak to you today on behalf of the old people, and unapologetically. Yes, we use your slang words, your websites and your subculture. We appropriate and make our own all the fringe terms and ideas that you use to distinguish yourselves from us. Stop whining. This is a thing and we will keep doing it.

Yes, we will say IKR. Yes, we will put words like lulz and realz in our emailz (HA!) and our Whatsapp groupchats. We will refer to your friends as shorties and ask you what the 4-1-1 is. We will sound ridiculous, but mostly because YOU SOUND RIDICULOUS. When you use a reference around us we will ask about it and then use it to death. If you find a new app or website on the interwebz, a new game or quiz or filter, we will jump on that bandwagon so fast it will make you wish you were a Luddite. We will binge watch all your shows and talk with our friends about 13 Reasons Why Season 2 (spoiler alert, who cares?). We will wear ripped clothes and Vineyard Vines as we listen to Halsey on our Beats. We will talk about the Snapchat, and the Finsta and the Fortnite and the Collide and the Sling Kong. You will want to say "don't say that" and "please don't ever say that again" but when you try we will just point out that we are cool AF and you will cringe. Then we'll dab. Poorly.

We don't just do this so that we can motivate you to innovate new words and push counter-culture forward. We don't do this just because we want to be viewed as cool. We do this as petty revenge and we will continue to do so with our BFF's and our homies and whatnot. We do this to mock you -- co-opting what you think of as yours and turning it into something completely the opposite of cool. We will make it so that you just can't. Possibly, can't even! Next time you are a baby, maybe you'll sleep through the night and not pull our hair.

If you want to get back at us, start quoting Shakespeare, dressing reasonably and using proper grammar. That'll teach us.

We've GOT to pray

My last post touched on the change in attitude people undergo when the status of a behavior moves from privilege to responsibility, and in giving relevant examples, I mention the challenge of getting students to pray in school. That specific example calls forth a substantial number of other dimensions of thinking and is a difficult subject because student reluctance stems from much more than the simple nature of obligation.

Students at a young age want to please authority figures. They engage in prayer whether or not they understand because they don't generally question their teachers and parents. Some do recognize that prayer can be boring or tedious so (when they are still young enough) we inject song into the process hoping that they will enjoy the experience more.

But as they age, they get pulled aside by all those other societal influences. At any given moment, young people, especially those brought up to embrace the trappings of the modern, secular world, are enticed by sensory inputs, experiences and interactions that are important in that moment. That fear of missing out is intense and time allocated for prayer becomes an unwelcome interruption. Even those with nothing better to do might be reluctant for a variety of reasons:

1. Faith begins to be reconsidered and uncomfortable questions beg to be asked. Many have no answer and this makes certain aspects of prayer empty.
2. Students start to celebrate their own individuality and rebel against the conformity of any group activity.
3. There is less and less urge to please the adults.
4. A common tendency is to reject anything that is imposed regardless of its nature.
5. Especially in a school setting, prayer times show little in terms of return. Classes lead to grades. Prayer isn't always obviously answered and one cannot be graded on one's performance.
6. Prayer in a foreign language is difficult and even in translation the references and concepts are alien. The topics aren't relevant or current.
7. Institutionalized prayer is repetitive with the same text said every day. This leads to boredom.
8. Prayer requires sustained attention and focus, neither of which is especially valued by teenagers.
9. Teenagers sleep less and less so prayer services which rely on silent reading or individual worship become nap times.

So when we try to solve the issue of prayer we are fighting against a large number of challenges. This is what drives many (myself included) to rely on the "fear of negative consequences" angle I mentioned in the previous post. If this fear is of local response (within the school), in the short term it will have the most direct effect on controlling behavior, but it might also be incredibly corrosive in most cases. A larger fear such as an existential threat outside the school can work but once that threat is resolved, the status quo ante resumes, and one should never hope that there will be some calamitous situation just so that students can see the value of prayer. There are stop gaps, such as making personal connections with students so that they will feel a sense of personal responsibility to an authority figure. This works when the student has the moral core to care about what someone else thinks but sadly this is often not the case. Additionally, it is difficult to carry this technique forward for any larger number of students. In the school setting, the ratio of teacher to student makes this practice hard to work on with any meaningful percentage of a group. Smaller prayer groupings would also help though this is contraindicated if one purpose is to foster a unified community, or if one lacks the man power and/or physical space to make it work. Education regarding the words and ideas is useful but cannot overcome the problems of faith which cannot be taught.

So what's the bottom line? We can acknowledge how difficult it is and help the students by admitting our own struggles. We can banish outside influences (in the community, the school or the prayer room) and hope that with no other pressures, students will allow themselves to engage. We can see ourselves as spiritually warehousing them and hope that through a gap year program, time and maturation, they will start to choose for themselves to become more involved in the process of prayer. We could make prayer optional, or attenuate the content. We could provide appropriate positive reinforcement and consequences to reward engagement. Each of these (or any other) options has serious risk and potential benefit and any combination has to be implemented keeping in mind the possible damage.

I'm open to other ideas and discussion. Thanks for listening to me rant.

Some thoughts about Reluctance

One of the things we wrestle with is the resistance we encounter from people when they are tasked with the performance of a particular responsibility. And yes, I’m speaking in vague generalities. This thought was inspired by very specific realities but I’m trying to allow my argument to take root all over the place.

So what is it that breeds such reluctance and how can it be addressed and remediated? It dawned on me that one approach would be to isolate the source of refusal. Why do things stop being appealing? The fact is, the biggest drain on someone’s zeal is obligation. Tell a 15 year old that he “gets” to drive the car on errands and he’ll do whatever you ask. Tell a seventeen year old who has had his license that he “has” to drive those errands and the eyes will roll. Talk to an 8 year old about the privilege of voting and compare that to the conversation with the 38 year old – the sense you get will be different. In the world of Jewish education, we struggle with getting students to focus on prayer. When they are 10, they seem excited but by 14, many have started to drift away. What changed? The idea that they are getting to pray becomes the notion that they are obligated to pray. Yes, there are intervening pressures, influences and variables but that same 14 year old will still sparkle with anticipation if he is told that he “gets” to sit at the adult table. The unusual, the unexpected and the unique are enticing and attractive.

So how can we make those things that develop into obligation remain as interesting and worth the effort as they were when they were perks? One way, historically, has been when external pressures threatened to take the ability to perform the responsibility away. The possible loss of an earned right has inspired people to stop taking what they have for granted and return to the level of appreciation which they had. Existential threats work wonders against the specter of apathy or assimilation. Take a child’s access to a car away and when he is again allowed to drive (and knows that the potential for loss continues to exist) he will be more excited at the opportunities afforded. Refuse to grant tenure and no professor can rest on his laurels (I am not necessarily advocating an abandoning of the tenure system, just a recognition of one of the dimensions which might be negative) – the fear of loss will keep him sharp, theoretically.

Can we aim to live in a world inspired by fear? If we told people that they will lose the right to vote if they don’t exercise that right to a specific degree, would that make them better citizens? Would the threat of expulsion based on non-engagement with prayer make students more connected to prayer? Wouldn’t these fears fail to encourage an honest sense of investment? Maybe we should rely on the negative consequences as a catch-all and supplement with the other ideas to try and catch the fancy of those who are at least committed for other reasons. But none of these will necessarily bring about excitement along with the engagement. In fact, might they instead breed resentment and foment rebellion even in the face of dire consequences? Do we need to find a way to progressively add on those perks that continue to make the activity constantly the milieu of the select, thus making participants feel special at every stage? Would some sort of concurrent, required continuing education reinvigorate people or would it, too, be an imposition unappreciated by the masses? Maybe we just need the repeated reminder that what we can do is different from what others are allowed, and should be appreciated not as a given, but as an accomplishment, though I don’t know how this would be communicated. No answers right now, but I’m hoping that if we recontextualize the discussion and consider the real source of tension, we might be able to brainstorm alternatives which might lead to more positive results than any of the approaches which we are relying on now have thus far engendered.

Sparky

You may or may not know this but I live with a dog. He is a little ball of cuteness who is named Sparky. We rescued him from his life of solitary wandering on the mean streets of Newark and now he lives with us. We feed him, walk him and basically cater  to his every need.

There is nothing wrong with this set up. Pets are a responsibility and we have to take this seriously. We treat them like part of the family, talking to them and training them, the way we might engage with a baby. Their survival is our job; their growth is our goal.

But through all of our hard work and after all of our sacrifice I still find it disheartening that Sparky has never once said "thank you. " I just figured that by now he would have realized that simple rules of decency dictate that a small show of appreciation is called for: a nice word in return for all we have done. But to date, nothing. And I'm saddened by it. I give him a bowl of food and even some of my food. Nothing. I play with him. Nothing. We snuggle on the couch. Nothing.

It just seems wrong to me that he withholds this basic courtesy and refuses to acknowledge all I do with those two simple words.

Please dear reader, understand the importance of recognizing what people do for you and say something. I still hold out hope that Sparky will eventually get the memo.

I'm seriously sickened by what I see in the Mid East

So yeah, I’m a little bit angry. I (and I have said this before) don’t like to wade into politics because it undermines the casual silliness of this blog. But there comes a time when one cannot just sit on one’s hands. I reached my limit so I’m taking a sitting stand on current events. I apologize if I offend, but not that much. If you wish to engage me on this topic, feel free to post a comment.

First, to clear the air, I am an ardent Zionist. That’s a very complex concept and term but it boils down to my belief that Israel has a right to exist and to determine its future and policies. This doesn’t mean that it is always right in its decisions, but it means it can exist like any other country and has to be held to similar standards.

These days, along with the stale trend of vilifying the state of Israel, there is a series of protests at the border of the Gaza strip. The Gaza strip – a piece of land repeatedly given away by Israel and then taken back when those who move in insist on attacking Israel. Now the attack isn’t by tunnels or rockets, but by simply overrunning the border. Let me just say this – Israel has a border with Gaza. For all those people holding fast to a multi-state solution, states have borders and part of being your own country is not walking into the other guy’s country. That’s how borders work.

The videos have been clear. This isn’t about some sort of protest, because what are they protesting? That the border is closed? Two things – one, it is closed because Israel is another country (and even with closed borders, Israel sends in truckloads of humanitarian aid…yes, references available…) and two, it is closed with Egypt also but no one is burning tires there. This is about not wanting a separate country in Gaza, but about “from the river to the sea” – taking all of what is Israel. And this isn’t some hidden agenda. It is overt and stated outright. Israel is supposed to sit by and let another country invade?

The fence has been attacked. People have made it into Israel. Guns have been fired into Israel, explosives thrown. Tires are being burned (forget the ecological nightmare for a second) creating a smokescreen under which who knows what kind of demolition is being attempted on the fences. So here’s what I see as the possible ways this plays out:

1. Israel does nothing and the fence is breached. People stream in. Some are just looking for a better way of life and are illegal immigrants. Some have more violent goals, but one cannot see that thing from a distance so they all just move in and violence ensues. The world excoriates Israel, saying it caused this by having a border and when Israelis die, the world (a it has historically done) counsels Israel’s forbearance, reminding them not only of the higher standard to which they are held, but also of their also being the author of their own suffering by “occupying” a land they have no right to.

2. Israel does something and it causes a loss of life. Israel is to blame. How dare it fire on what could very well be civilians? The right to protest is really important. And if a couple of bad apples use the guise of protest to starm the gates and throw Molotov cocktails, what right does Israel have to respond?

The Arab government of the area doesn’t caution anyone or recommend staying away, quite the opposite – it encourages participation; it seems to be seeking casualties! If people die, it earns the world’s sympathy. It cannot be expected to exert any control over its people because Israel is going to be to blame no matter what. So if people get in, the Arab government wins. If people are kept out, the Arab government wins. If people die, Israel looks bad. If people don’t die, Israel suffers.

Sorry about this rant, but this all just sickens me. It sickens me that Israel is being put into this ridiculous and impossible spot but it also sickens me that the world turns a blind eye here. I mean, it often does, but this is just so egregious.

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palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=25414

https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/04/08/what-the-new-york-times-isnt-telling-you-about-israels-gaza-blockade/

2 Rantz

1. On the eggshells of youth

I’m a mass, or mess of contradictions and I know this. Hypocrisy, it could be said, is my watchword, so I apologize if this comes off to some people as a “do as I say” kind of rant. The fact is, I do try to live the life and alk all the alks, so give me the benefit of some doubt on this one.

We try too hard not to offend. Judaism has a strong theme of avoiding embarrassing people and we take this concept to an extreme sometimes, and hope that with enough honey, and enough spared rods, we catch our fly-children and get them to be good. The thing is, I don’t see it happening. We work so hard not to call out the young people so that they won’t feel put upon or offended by our harsh words. We hope that by sparing them this humiliation, and asking nicely, or hinting, they will choose to fly right. We don’t want them to be pushed away by our choice to walk up to them and tell them things that they don’t want to hear.

But that’s what they need.

If I have a student who is talking in the middle of my class, I have to break things down in a particular fashion:

A. The student must know that there is a classroom code which forbids talking
a. The student, by being in the class, is acceding to the code.
b. The student, making the choice to talk (especially if silence has been formally requested) is acting in a way which violates the code.
B. My reaction can be to
a. ask again for silence – this has proven ineffective already.
b. ignore the talking – this might be useful because the talking student then misses content, but others do also because of the noise/distraction, and the misbehavior is not remediated but, in a sense, rewarded
c. speak to the student privately later – while this seems useful, it does not change the distraction, nor does it overtly address the issue which sends a message to other students that the behavior is acceptable.
d. isolate the talker publicly – this is what embarrasses students. But the fact is, they have already forced my hand

Should our police shy away from catching criminals because it will embarrass the criminals? Should our justice system simply ask for compliance repeatedly? We can’t always be about happy talk. Certain aspects of society are in the realm of law and rules, not mercy and emotional safety. The individual has made the choice to break the rule. The move to identify the rule-breaker is not embarrassing – it is necessary. And the choice to be embarrassed by someone else’s pointing out a broken rule is a selective and manipulative way of discouraging any authority figure from doing the job of keeping an entire society in line.

Yes, I break rules. Yes, I would be ashamed if I were called out for my behavior. But I would be a fool to ignore that my shame should be aimed at my own lack of self-control and not at someone else’s response to a choice I made. I am not advocating a purely “strict justice” mode of behavior. Suggestion, private conversation and other modes of response are great early lines of defense. But at a certain point, we have to abandon this notion that a soft answer turns away wrath and we have to teach people that respect for laws and people are highly interdependent and once they abandon one, they lose the moral high ground to demand the other.

2. Maybe later is now

Technology is wonderful but it has ripple effects and one of them is that it has stripped away the idea of a deadline.

I like deadlines. They give me ulcers but in a good way. Yes, a good way. They teach discipline and they regulate the rhythms of life. Some things just have to be done by a certain time and some things have to be done even earlier than that. Learning to respect deadlines is an essential part of growing up. But technology has stripped away any respect for deadlines or any sense of urgency. This is, of course, ironic, as technology has allowed us to live in that present moment all the time because of all the instant gratification it provides. Send a letter? No way – I want an answer NOW. So an email? Not even – a text, and expect a text back on the same schedule (even worse with Whatsapp because you can see that the recipient received and read the message, so any delay in response is an insult). We want to download and watch something in the moment. Back in the day we had to wait for a download to happen (and hope it was without error).

But with all this speed, we have destroyed any need to long term planning or accommodating a deadline. I remember having to submit material for a magazine I was working on. We had to have it done with enough time for material to be typeset, read, returned, proofed, sent, blue lined and copy checked. Pictures had to be taken in time for them to be developed, submitted, laid out etc. So things had to be planned on a calendar well in advance. We learned to use our time, stagger our responsibilities and chart our progress. Now, with instant communication, phones that take pictures and such, nothing has to be planned because we assume that we can take care of everything at the last minute and it will all work out. This bleeds over into other areas – I don’t need to have my paper done well in advance because I don’t need time to type it up, even work on printing it at a printing center, or proofread it. The spell checker will do the work. The grammar checker well. The online site will create my bibliography instantly. I don’t need to keep a shopping list because my technology will keep track of what I have and need. Therefore, I don’t plan before I shop and have no idea what I can make that will go beyond what I recently made. I can get the directions while I drive so I don’t have to plan my trip, so I won’t remember to make t reservations well in advance. We have destroyed process and once we show such a lack of concern for deadline in one area, we have trouble instituting it in other areas. Planning is a skill that, to be applied properly, has to be recalled across the disciplines. If students don’t have to remember to write assignments down because the teacher will post it to a homework site, then they won’t remember to write other notes down in contexts where there is no teacher or web-posting to fall back on.

Do we subcontract our memories to the cloud? Sure. Do we rely on computers to be responsible for lower order thinking skills (thus destroying the foundation for our performance of the higher ones)? Absolutely. And are we, by letting technology dictate the pace of our lives, forgetting how to stretch things out and let them mature and develop over time? Yup, and that’s a really bad thing.

Just one wish

Sometimes I wonder what the greatest gift/blessing could be. At the same time, I also consider what the worst curse could ever be. I’m still unclear on the former but it is pretty obvious that the worst thing a magical being could ever say to me would be “I’ll grant you one wish.” Even just being asked would be horrible and having to turn down (for what?) that offer would be really sucky.

Many people might think of "one wish" as an incredible opportunity but I’ve thought it through and, trust me, it doesn’t end well. Fortunately, we have a spate of popular culture resources which can shed some light on the issue. I'll rabbit hunt it for the non-believers. What do I ask for? The snarky among you are leaning towards “ask for [more/unlimited] wishes.” But that’s just stupid. If one wish is a curse, then many more would, a fortiori, be an even greater calamity waiting to happen. The later wishes would be constantly used up trying to mitigate the disasters which occurred because of the earlier ones. Wishes are designed to subvert the natural order but that leads to consequences (think Jim Carey’s prequel to “Evan, Almighty”). The more the way things are supposed to happen gets shifted, the more problems ensue. The more responsibility for changing the world, the more one feels the weight of billions of voices, all crying and then suddenly silenced. Deal me out, thankyouverymuch.

Maybe I ask for immortality? No – Highlander (among others) proves that this is not only incredibly sad, watching everyone else age and die, but also extremely inconvenient, having to move around to avoid suspicion, and needing to create new identities. All that just so I can be around when the iPhone 23q is released? That’s not much of a trade off.

Should I ask for something more mundane? Everything has a price. Consider the movie “The Box” but replace it with a movie anyone has actually seen. I’ll wait. Now, think about the Monkey’s Paw. Money leads to death. Life leads to monsters. In the animated parody of that story, Homer Simpson asked for a turkey sandwich, and I now quote the sage: “I’ll make a wish that can’t backfire. I wish for a turkey sandwich, on rye bread, with lettuce and mustard and-and I don’t want any zombie turkeys, I don’t want to turn into a turkey myself, and I don’t want any other weird surprises. You got it? . . . Hey! Hmmm, mmm, not bad, nice hot mustard, good bread, the turkey’s a little dry . . . the turkey’s a little dry! Oh foul accursed thing! What demon from the depths of hell created thee?” Also, think about that whole “house elf” slave thing in the Harry Potter series. Food that magically appears on the table still has to be prepped by someone. That wish for a sleeve of never-ending Oreo cookies means someone is staying up nights, baking for me and the finite wheat harvests will not go to feeding the starving babies of Eritrea (it’s a place, I checked) but instead, to my gluttony. Wishing for something ex nihilo would throw off the balance of matter in the universe, and that is not a good way to start the morning, what with a universal imbalance and all, no siree.

Things never quite work out and the greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment when the turkey, after all that pre-thinking, still ends up not living up to what the dream was for it. Do I ask for health for a relative? Which one? Who deserves to (out)live his divinely ordained time? Who has earned this magic more than another? Should I ask for health for all? Do we have the resources on this planet to sustain a race of significantly larger size? What about the lives of all the doctors, undertakers and grave diggers which will be ruined by this. When Donne pointed out in Meditation 17 (one of my top 17 meditations) that no man is an island he wasn’t just pointing out that our deaths (should) impact each other, but that our lives and their choices do as well! Maybe I’ll get rid of war and violence – which would mean the end of human nature, free will and would cause (inevitably) an invasion by Kang and Kodos (same episode…look it up).

Superhero movies used to be this form of escapism – wouldn’t we all want to have powers like Superman or Spiderman? It took a deeper exploration for us to see that with great power comes the death of your uncle and then a series of miscast reboots. The horror. The most recent set of Superhero movies have done a much better job of showing that having gifts of speed, strength, intellect or anything that puts one so far from the norm in society is fraught with downside (now there’s a superpower…being able to see the downside to every situation. My God, I’m SPECIAL!) Go watch WarGames and see what happens when you get what you ask for, when you get access to what you aren't supposed to have access to. You end up with Dabney Coleman mussing your hair and that's something I would want to avoid. And, oh yeah, arrested by the FBI and almost causing the end of humanity. I want to avoid those things also.

I could wish that my dog could talk but that doesn’t mean he will have anything interesting to say (nor that he would understand me when I spoke back). Should I do something to empower other species or will that lead to an ape revolt? Look how that turned out (spoiler alert, “not good”). Do I just want to be loved? That would get a bit stalker-ish, no doubt. I love Willy Wonka, but his quote about the man who got everything he ever wanted is totally off base as is this guy who admires the quote. The guy who gets whatever he wants ends up with no ambition and probably other problems.

Maybe the fascination with the “one wish” scenario is an expression of our own dissatisfaction with our lives. We are afraid to confront the underlying wish, “what if everything was somehow different; could I be happy then?” To make that one wish is to have to accept that things can’t be any better than they are without there being consequences. Just ask George Bailey and every TV show that invoked that “never been born” trope. Now, sure, some people live in such abject conditions that the price is acceptable. A victim who just wants to not be victimized can probably formulate a wish that, while it might negatively impact the world, would certainly, and in a very local sense, make things a whole lot better. We do this when we pray -- we pray most often to thank God for our existence and to recognize that things really aren't so bad. Sometimes we ask Jim to use the normal laws of the universe but bend them a touch to let things play out in subtly different ways, but only if He thinks that it would be for the best. We don't pray for 2+2 to be 5 (well, I used to, after EVERY. MATH. TEST, but I digress). In fact, Jewish law teaches that we don't pray for the impossible. But for the average guy the hypotheticals, when explored, can be shown to have more disadvantages than advantages. Being forced to make a choice about a wish would make me responsible for the undoing of the universe and that’s a burden I don’t think I could handle, at least not before lunch.