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.

Dad Psychology

In a particular way, I'm a hoarder -- that way being that I keep stuff and don't throw things out because I think one day I'll need them. So, I guess I'm a hoarder in the particular way that is the exact definition of a hoarder. So, yes. I'm a hoarder. But not in the bad way, unless you think it is bad not to throw stuff out.

But I think I come by it honestly. Hoarding is just a negative-nancy way of labeling "collecting." Are coin collectors "hoarders"? Stamp collectors? Celebrities with large collections of cars? But why do we collect? We do so out of fear. Fear of not having (and secondarily, being confronted with someone who DOES have and thus, feeling inferior.

A couple of generations before mine people were not called hoarders. The catastrophe that was the Holocaust, and before that, the tragedy of the Great Depression taught people about the fear of not having. This encouraged collecting as a hedge against the uncertainty of tomorrow. Things had value not because of what they were today but because there might be a need for them later and they would be inaccessible then. The pre-internet generation took a watered down (and less trauma-inspired) version of this because all we knew was what we had in front of us.

Let me explain.

When I was about 11 years old, I was a big M*A*S*H fan. The year was 1980 and I watched the show whenever it was on, which was 7pm on channel 5 for re-runs and 8pm, Mondays, on channel 2 for new episodes. Eventually, 11pm on channel 5 also but I had a bed-time before that. I memorized everything I could about the show, bought a trivia book about it and watched and watched. I even caught a peek of parts of the movie though I don't recall how or where. At some point, someone gave me a piece of paper that had on it the full lyrics to "Suicide is Painful," the Johnny Mandel song performed as an instrumental at the opening of each episode. The lyrics, typed neatly on a piece of stationery. I cherished it, keeping it safe, for many, many years. Why? Because it was a tangible representation of my interests and I didn't know if, had I thrown it out, I would ever have access to it again. Now, the internet has made every lyric accessible all the time so I can throw these things out, but I have been taught about that insurance policy of the extant so I can't muster the courage to chuck all the little scraps of existence that I have so assiduously collected over the years -- the visceral markers of my mind.

I also collected music -- albums, tapes and, eventually, CDs. I rarely listened to them because I enjoy the spontaneity and randomness of the radio, so why did I collect, cataloging each purchase on an index card with album, artist, media and track listing? Because I wanted to know that I always "had" if the situation ever arose that I "needed." I scoured Goldmine and other publications, looking for anyone who was selling the 45 of Mitch Ryder's version of Prince's "When U were Mine." Finding Bob Welch's Ebony Eyes or the Beach Boys' Holland was a cause for celebration. Never again would I feel the fear that, were all the external sources of music to disappear (or just change format), I would never hear these songs again. I t wasn't about snapping up something that might have value, and the potential for increase -- it was about simply having so there would never be a situation in which I would not have. Now? I can go onto my computer and find any song I want, at any time, with lyrics, explanation and even a video. Heck, I have even uploaded a song or two to the virtual clouds so that I, and others, can recapture a little bit of our history (though I don't know who else has a penchant for Carmel's "The Drum is Everything" the way I do). We live in an age of no fear.

Maybe this, psychologically, will change how the future unfolds and how the next generation acts. The "entitlement" that we see might be a natural extension of knowing that everything on the internet will continue to be there, and this generation does not know about "not having." [I am not, of course, talking about those who really don't have -- don't have money, food, lodging etc...clearly, I'm concerned with the thinking of those who don't worry about the very basic/essentials and who have access to the internet and baseline technology.] Why memorize when the internet remembers for me. Why collect when I can get whatever I want at any time. Why learn process when the cloud "does" the work and I can just dream of the desired end. Once I "friend" someone on social media, I needn't concern myself with real life connections.

The recent fad is about cleaning -- Marie something or other, who espouses a philosophy that one must remove things that don't "spark joy" or something like that. For a younger generation, this makes sense. You can get "it" or its equivalent whenever and wherever. Look at it online, buy it from someone in, basically, anywhere, or print up a 3-D version. Who "needs" anything anymore? We all, in a sense, already and always "have." But for someone like me - the collector (or "hoarder") things spark joy because they inspire a sense of security -- a feeling that I don't have to be without. The joy is a different one, but it is real nonetheless and throwing things out doesn't work because everything I have, I have because having, itself, is the source of the joy. I can't separate myself from a book, or an old newspaper because that thing has kept me calm for a long time. Sure I could buy it again, or read online, but my thinking is stuck in the "what if" of 25 years ago.

So I collect. I hoard. I hold onto -- people, things, ideas. But only because I grew up knowing that holding on to what was precious was the best way to make sure that I was never alone.