Midway through the first week

My Bible teacher talks a mile a minute, and wants us to outline the entire Torah (aka 5 books of Moses, aka Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) by the end of the semester.

The Biblical Grammar prof is a grad student who got into languages because she plays piano. We ask so many grammar-ignorant questions that we're already behind in the syllabus (after two days), but she laughs and likes us anyway.

My history prof is the only ordained rabbi who has a full professorial chair in the New Testament. He was one of seven people to read the screenplay of The Passion of the Christ before it came out. After he wrote his critique, Mel Gibson promptly sued him. (The suit was later dropped).

The woman who teaches Hebrew literature is reminiscent of every other English professor I've ever had. That will be the easiest, most familiar class, if anything because we started it off by discussing the definition of "canon."

My Rabbinics/Mishnah class is at 8am, so even though the history part looks interesting, it's early in the morning. And there's lots of primary Hebrew text. That's all I have to say about that.

I also have the PDE classes (Professional Development) of Education (how to be an effective teacher) and Life Cycles (mentioned previously with the current work on funerals).

All in all, my classmates are nice, the teachers are fun, and the work doesn't seem so overwhelming. I'm really excited!

Why my husband rocks, part umpteenth

Jonathan wrote me an email today from work. I'm reprinting it here, with his permission. Its title is "Wisdom for our son(s)":

"I just went into the restroom and there is pee sprinkled all around the urinal. It's disgusting! I mean, it's a really big target at point blank range, how can you screw up nailing it? I am going to drill in our boys a little poem to help them be considerate.

If you miss when you piss
be a man and clean the can.

Nothing like a rhyme to make things memorable."

One, I feel lucky to be married to someone hygenic. Two, I feel lucky to be a woman! Our restrooms don't tend to have these problems...

Jonathan says I'm twisted

The second-year rabbinic class already got homework for one of our classes, even though our first day isn't til tomorrow. 200 pages of reading on funerals and Jewish mourning practices. It's in-depth, practical, philosophical, and very very long.

I love it.

I think the "twisted" comment came up though when I was reading some of it aloud, and he said that I had way too much glee in my voice. Which I was, which in truth probably wasn't very suited to the occasion... but I'm finally learning what I came to rabbinic school for! It's exciting.

And just to share something that I thought was fascinating, this is from page 18 of Maurice Lamm's The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning. This excerpt discusses why Judaism is against embalming.

"The art of the embalmer is the art of complete denial. Embalming seeks to create an illusion, and to the extent that it succeeds, it only hinders the mourner from recovering from his grief. It is, on the contrary, an extreme dishonor to disturb the peace in which a person should be permitted to rest eternally.
"It is indeed paradoxical that Western man, nourished on the Christian concept of the sinfulness of the body, which is considered the prison of the soul, should, in death, seek to adorn it and make it beautiful. Surely, the emphasis on the body in the funeral service serves to weaken the spiritual primacy and traditional religious emphasis on the soul."

I wonder; what does Judaism explicitly say about the relationship between the body and the soul? It wasn't in any of our literature. If a loved one dies and we think the soul is gone, then why does it matter what happens to the corporeal form? It's not the person anyway. And if the body and the soul are intertwined, as this passage implies, then I don't understand why it makes a difference. One respects the soul by the eulogy, prayers, etc. And one respects the body by treating it with care, which some can argue is embalming. I personally happen to agree with Lamm's assertions; I just feel that there are a few steps missing in how he got there.

Thoughts, comments? I'm interested. I'd write more, but it's way past my bedtime.

Our mighty hunters

Jonathan and I were busy today. I was writing service outlines for the High Holy Days, and Jonathan was reading Harry Potter. We didn't really want to play with the cats. But they meowed, and wrapped themselves around our legs, and overall managed to communicate their boredom admirably. Jonathan took pity on them, and attached a piece of ribbon to the grill of the fan. He pressed the "low" setting on the fan, and voila! Instant cat toy.

School

is overwhelming. The first week of orientation was wonderful, but absolutely draining. We had High Holiday prep, which meant literally going over each page of the prayerbook, singing specific bits of High Holiday music, and taking sessions on how to write a sermon. We had orientation for the Education program, for the Pulpit program, for the Liturgy (prayer services) program. We had tours of the library, of the American Jewish Archives, of the Skirball Center, of the Holocaust museum. We had presentations from Youth Programs, from the Rabbinical Student Association, from the Development Office. You name it, we covered it. Thankfully they fed us food throughout!

Every evening we had social programs, as well: dinner at the Dean's house, BBQ with the rabbinical and graduate students, pizza at a nice restaurant, and schmoozing with everyone.

One great thing to note: last year, before HUC officially started, Jonathan and I went on an archeological dig to Tel Dan. We made friends with an HUC Cincinnati Ancient Near East grad student who was on the dig for the experience. Lo and behold, who do we see at the BBQ but this same grad student and his wife! We talk a bit, and then tell them the area where we live. They say, oh, cool, we just moved from there. We tell them the specific area where we live. They say, cool, we were there too. We tell them the street where we live. They say, huh, is it house number X? We say yes, how did you know that? They laughed, and said, because we just moved out of there last month! They then proceeded to tell us all about our landlord. Apparently they moved out because it was too small after the recent birth of their second baby. Otherwise, they loved it. We promised to invite them over to Shabbat dinner soon so they can see what we've done with the furniture. :)

Picnics and prayerbooks

I start school tomorrow, yay! I’ve got the back-to-school itch. They’ve got us booked pretty solid this week, with dinners and BBQs and lunches and too many seminars and High Holy Day prep sessions to count (which is a good thing, as I need all the help I can get!). Jonathan’s going to get to work early so he can leave a bit before 5, and come to all the evening events with me.

Today was the "Shalom Cincy Newcomer’s Picnic," put on by the local Jewish Federation. We schmoozed, ate hot dogs, and met lots of new people. Then we did a very new-age couple-y thing: Carri, Scott, the baby and myself and Jonathan all went shopping together! We hit Costco, Target, Petsmart, and Michael’s, then treated ourselves to bagels at Marx Bagels. I love the suburbs; all the shops are in one area.

It’s a sad but true fact that I’m hopeless at home repairs and such. Jonathan, however, is not, and his honey-do list is slowly ebbing (yay window blinds are fixed!) Also, the projector and surround sound is now up and running. We celebrated by watching Top Gun, the most guy-type-sonic-boom movie ever made. I saw Volver, which I thought was amazing. (It must be stated again, I’m in love with Netflix.) I’ve been on a movie kick for some reason, maybe cuz of impending school. Either way, I haven’t read any fun books at ALL in the past week (Bible Prophets: Books Three and Self Guided Hineni: Hebrew Through Prayer don’t count).

In serious news, Jonathan’s mother had back surgery and it didn’t go very well. She was in rehab for the past week and a half but is now back in the hospital again. Everyone please think good thoughts.

Musings from a city girl

- Jonathan and I were eating dinner on the picnic table in the backyard when we saw some flashing dots. They were spinning wildly, and looked like a torch was lit ever-so-briefly. “Fireflies!” we realized.

- Walking in a part of town called Mt. Adams, we went near to the church (highest part of the mountain). And guess what was hanging from the doorways in the church? Bats.

- Today I spent all afternoon hanging out with Lisa (Tony, Jonathan’s coworker’s wife), and her two kids (6 and 9). We went to the community pool, and I dived, swam, played with the kids, and ate cherries and cheese sandwiches. I was also introduced to a whole new culture – moms and their kids at the pool on summer vacation. When we got back to Lisa and Tony’s house, we were sitting in their (huge) backyard talking and what do we see, standing not 30 yards from us? A mom and baby deer. “Oh yeah,” said Lisa casually, "the baby was born in the woodpile on our neighbor’s property.” For the first time in my life, I saw a deer in the wild. I also “smelled” a storm coming, and experienced thunder and lightning right before the rain hit.

This whole weather-wildlife thing is really miraculous. I can’t wait for fall, I’m told it’s beautiful.

OMG

My cat was so deeply asleep that he just slid off the back of the couch.

The joy of stress-free weekends

- We saw Bourne Ultimatum. Quite good, it was mindless fun.

- Joined Netflix, yay! Finally saw Y Tu Mama Tambien. Again good, but definitely not what I was expecting.

- My new fun book is Sex in History, by Reay Tannahill. It's a history book, textbook-like in parts, that covers the subject chronologically - I finished "Prehistoric World" and have now moved onto "Egypt, Ancient Near East, and Early Greece." It's fun; next I want to read her other book, Food in History.

- Still can't blow the shofar beyond a few sad little pbbbtthhhs. (And because I take no chances after last year's post... if that sounds dirty, read about shofars here)

- Learned disappointing lesson of the week: No matter how much time you spend in pajamas, there's always laundry to be done. Sigh.

Packages and shipments

Before we moved back to the States, we gave Savta our big black candelabrum because we didn't have room to take it back in our suitcases. She said that she would bring it with her next time she came, or ship it out. When we moved into Cincinnati, she reminded us of it, and said she would send out a package with the candelabrum and a "few other things" to help welcome us to our new house. I said sure, that'd be great. I was expecting a package.

The "few other things" arrived today. It wasn't a package - it was a 30-lb shipment! In it was everything from household items to Judaica to school supplies to tools. The list includes but is not limited to:

a wall clock with Hebrew letters as numbers
3 white tablecloths
matzah and challah covers
a mezuzah
kippot (plural of kippah)
traveling candlesticks
multiple organizing trays
3 packages of Israeli candy bars
a loofah and lotion and extra toothpaste
socks
packing tape
a pencil sharpener, pencils, highlighters, and colored pens
a set of pots and pans
a staple gun
a set of textbooks for teaching young children Hebrew
my very own set of Rummikub (yay!)
and more.

The best is the pillow below. You might recognize the picture - it was on our blog in January. :)