Articles to think about. And book recs.

From The NY Times. What is the future of reading? Students Get New Assignment: Pick Books You Like. I'm torn on this article. In one way, YAY for encouraging reading! In another... I like literary canon. Maybe do a mix of both, as the article suggests.

And this discusses a Hollywood conservative Jewish woman who advocates attachment parenting! Woohoo! The website is fluffy, but I liked the video interview quite a bit. Mayim Bialik speaks out.

Also, I forgot to mention that a few weeks ago I finished Sarah, Zipporah, and Lilah, Marek Halter's Canaan trilogy. They're very light reading in the genre of Biblical historical fiction. Sarah was good, but I didn't care for the other two that much. Halter has this almost utilitarian idea of women as self-sacrificing their happiness for the greater good, so all three main characters don't follow their hearts so that they can "help" the men in their life (Abraham, Moses, and Ezra, respectively) improve the status of the Israelites. I don't buy it. No one should spend their life miserable, no matter what the outcome. There's always another way.

If you're looking for historical fiction, however, I do recommend the now-canonical The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, on Dinah, Jacob's daughter, and Queenmaker and Wisdom's Daughter by India Edghill, the first about Michal, David's wife (three guesses why I picked up the book in the first place), and the second about Solomon's daughter. While we're on the subject, I also read The Gilded Chamber a long time ago, about Esther, but I wasn't too impressed. The Rashi's Daughters series isn't Biblical, but they're still fun (Rashi was a Talmudic commentator in medieval France). I recommend the first novel, thought the second was okay, and haven't yet read the third. BUT, and if you've been following this blog for a while you may remember, the author is a friend of a friend, and I had a long phone talk with her about it, and she was really cool. So I'll always recommend her books just for that alone.

Does anyone here have any religious-character historical fiction for me to read? I'm always looking for something good, comment away.

Liturgical linguistics and spontaneous prayer

I’m taking a class entitled “Liturgy,” and we spent the first session talking about the definitions of the words liturgy, worship, ritual, and prayer. In the Greek, liturgy comes from laios/ergon. Laios means people, and ergon is work, or activity. In Latin, it’s from leit/ourgia. Again, leit is people. That’s where lay leader comes from – a leader from amongst the people! And ergon, work/activity, makes sense because we are working to serve God and the people. This is why Jews go to services; in the Temple, we used to serve God through making sacrifices, literally the care and feeding of the deity. It carries over to Hebrew too, because the Hebrew term for prayer is avodah, which is also the modern-day Hebrew word for work!

We also talked about why Jews don’t “do” spontaneous prayer. In Judaism the concept of “order” takes over, because prayer took the place of sacrifice, which was a very ritualized, formal activity. Prayer requires training and education, knowing the right words and choreography. Even when we have silent prayer it’s formalized, set within a specific fixed section of the service. The very word for prayerbook is siddur, and the name of Passover meal is seder; the roots of both words are sin/daled/resh which means “order.” We think that there’s a correct way of doing things, told to us by God in the Torah and then discussed and decided upon by the rabbis. This is in stark contrast to some Protestant denominations (think Pentecostal or Southern Baptist), which have a completely different cultural and religious morphology. There isn’t a set order or book of prayers that are used in services, and spontaneous prayer is highly valued. Of all Christian denominations, Catholicism is closest to Judaism because it too shares highly stylized ritual.

This somehow connected to all of my other classes. In Human Relations, the chaplaincy class, we discussed that when a Christian person is sick in the hospital, very often the chaplain will offer to pray together with that person. In Judaism if we did that “they look at you like you’ve grown a second head.” Why, I thought to myself? Because Jews don’t do spontaneous prayer! You say the Misheberaich prayer (which is standard) for healing, if that (and listen and do other counseling-type things). And then in Homiletics class (sermon writing), we talked about the various ways that congregants of different religions grant their leaders authority. Catholic leaders have authority granted to them by virtue of their place in the Church hierarchy. Jews demonstrate authority by their knowledge of authoritative literature, which is why almost all Jewish sermons quote some kind of text (Bible, Talmud, whatever). And Protestant denominational leaders demonstrate authority by their ability to be close the Holy Spirit. A rabbi would never say, “God spoke to me and said…” but a Baptist preacher might. Why? Because they value spontaneous prayer, they don’t have a culture of fixed ritual!

It all ties together! I think it's fascinating.

Happy pics

I love bathtime!

Serious boy on a car trip.

Mommy, I think fell through the bed!

Obviously, Yentl has taken relaxation lessons from her two fuzzy brothers.



And I finally got around to it - HERE IS A LINK to MORE PICTURES from our visit to the country. Enjoy!

The first two days of school

Xander does not like daycare. He refuses to take a bottle or eat in a high chair. Thankfully the daycare is right on campus, so I can go visit and nurse him every few hours. That seems to help the separation anxiety overall. But it's also hard to hear him cry every time I leave. Not to mention constantly switching between Mommy and student mode.

But to share something about being in student mode... my Talmud professor is amazing. Do you remember in the first Harry Potter, when Professor Snape gave an opening speech which had all the students mesmerized? That's what this first class was like.

He started off by stating that a person who studies one page of Talmud every day takes seven years to finish. It's a seven-year reading cycle. We have 13 weeks in our semester. The course will be "a hard slog" as he put it, with arduous translations and lots of reading. Then he told us why.

"In two and a half years," he said, "you will be ordained from this institution and you will go out into the field. You will be teaching adult education classes. And you will be teaching professional teachers and educators. Many of them will be better teachers than you are. You will be sitting in board meetings with professional administrators and business people. They will know more about board work than you do, and they will be better at it. You will be doing chaplaincy work in hospitals with professional doctors, nurses, and therapists. Many of them will be better than you at it. You will be doing interfaith work with priests, ministers, and imams, many of whom can quote the Hebrew Bible verse for verse. They will know it better than you do.

What do you bring to the table? What makes you a rabbi? Your knowledge of rabbinic literature. Judaism is a not a Biblical religion. Doing Kiddush on Friday nights is not in the Bible. Ketubot are not in the Bible. Saying the Amidah at services every morning is not in the Bible. They are all from the Talmud. Judaism, even Reform Judaism, is a rabbinic religion, either following or reacting to the Talmud.

Being a rabbi is very often performative. You lead services from the bima. You can say the words, you can sing the songs, you know how to conduct a life cycle event. I invite you to think of this as the tip of the iceberg of Judaism. This class will help you to see the glacier underneath the water. If you do not know why you do the performative acts, you are no better than a lay leader. And we have plenty of those. You are here to be a rabbi.

You might ask me, why do we have to break our teeth on the Aramaic and the rabbinic Hebrew? The Talmud is translated into English. The Mishnah is translated into English. And I will tell you, that is correct. However, the [huge number] of medieval commentaries are not. The [huge number] of responsa are not. You must be able to access them, and you cannot do that without knowledge of language. You will not be able to read the Talmud fluently when you leave this classroom. But we will have cracked the door open so that you can begin to decipher the array of literature that distinguishes Judaism from other religions."

After going over the syllabus, he closed by saying, "I do not set anyone up to fail. Your failure as a student is my failure as a teacher. We will get through this together. And hopefully, you will see this class an opportunity through which to open other doors of Judaic knowledge."

I have to tell you, I've been dreading taking this course since the day I applied to rabbinical school, but now I'm really excited about it!



P.S. Sheryl, I know my links in this post suck - they're Wikipedia or chabad.org - but I'm pressed for time and they give a decent overview!

Pictures from Ari's wedding

I seem to be running about two weeks behind on pictures. In my defense, my hubby took over 600 of them, and it was hard to narrow them down! This link is about a quarter of them.

Also, here is Xander dancing with Myfanwy's dad. He starts to smile and laugh about halfway through.

3 instances of wonderful-ness

1) The HUC library is up and running! This morning I went into the front door, looked up the call number of a book, went upstairs to get it, came downstairs and checked it out. Now I know that this is the way all libraries are supposed to work, but ours has been on the fritz for over a year due to construction. It's beautiful now though! I can't wait to use it more.

2) Xander is in daycare right now, he's been doing half days all week. He had a great time - between daycare yesterday and the HUC orientation picnic last night (where he was handed off to a ton of people), he was so exhausted, he slept 8 hours straight!! That's never happened before.

3) I was talking to my friend Deann on the phone. She was telling me that she just finished the last Harry Potter book during one of her midnight nursing sessions with her newborn, and that now she's sad that the series has come to an end. "Well, not really," I told her. "You're quite welcome to borrow my copies of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Quidditch Through the Ages, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard." She didn't even know that they existed, and started to laugh. Then she told me, in a direct quote, "You are my most amusing nerd friend. And I have a lot of nerd friends, so that really says something!" I decided to take it as a compliment. Yay for amusing nerdy obsessions! (You should also know the rest of the conversation revolved around what we're going to wear at our upcoming Renaissance Faire excursion.)

Why I love academic friends

During a discussion of Judaism's view of the afterlife:

Carl: "Have you ever thought about the etymology of the word Sheol?"
Me: "No. But then, I can't say it's ever come up in conversation before."
Carl: "Really?!"

He was honestly shocked. Jonathan nearly snorted tea out his nose laughing.

We're in the country!

We are visiting Anne and Carl. So far I have learned that:

1. Caterpillars create huge nests in trees that look like gigantic spiderwebs.
2. Xander likes horses. This one lives adjacent to the house. Her name is Bubbles.
3. Evangelical churches are absolutely fascinating. We went to church today; I took three pages of notes and want to write a paper comparing it to Jewish services.
4. Jonathan won't play Twenty Questions with me on road trips anymore. How does "animal, vegetable, or mineral" fit in when the things I'm thinking of are "dance" and "question mark"?
5. One can actually see Mars and the stars from one's house. Unlike in LA and Cincinnati, where there's the moon and then smog.
6. There is an amazing dessert called "monkey bread" that involves biscuits, sugar, cinnamon and copious amounts of butter.
7. Amish people go to McDonald's.
8. People actually do have creeks in their backyards.
9. Bats do not just live in zoos. They also live in your eaves.
10. Well water tastes weird, like sulfur.
11. And last but not least... there are places in the country where you can't get cell phone reception, but you still have wireless internet. Go figure.

Edited to add: I WENT HIKING!! IN A FOREST!! IN THEIR BACKYARD!! (Anne's parents have 14 acres). It was amazing. Katie, you would be proud. I was.... outdoorsy. With Xander strapped onto my back!

Also edited to add: Auntie Lois emailed me and had a very good point, which is that I neglected to include that I had seen both bright stars and a wild bat before, at her home in central California. I do regret the omission. To tell the truth, I had forgotten about seeing the stars from there. But about the bat, this one flew about about six inches from my face, so it was a different experience. Let it not be said that I had not been in country before... it was just different country. This time it was forest-y, hilly, Amish country. In Ohio. Who knew that there was country everywhere? :)

CA trip in a nutshell

Would you believe I don't have one picture of the bride, groom, or any wedding festivities? I was too busy helping Tara to take pictures of her! My mom took this of me when I got home.




Xander had a fine time when I was off doing things with the wedding party. The best part, apparently, was chewing Bubby's DVDs.

Hat at the park!

Breakfast at Denny's with Gwen the day before we left. Big smiles for everyone!

And last but not least, "reading" his book on the plane ride back to Cincinnati. We left for Cleveland the day after. He's still jet-lagged.

Savta, Cleveland pics are next!

Ari and Myfanwy

My cousin and his beautiful bride are finally married! And thanks to my husband's new hobby, we have over 600 pictures of the wedding ceremony and reception. My mom flew back from CA with me and drove with us the four hours each way (which turned into six on the way home, cuz Xander was not happy). She leaves Wednesday night, so when she goes I'll spend some serious time sorting and uploading pictures. Sorry Savta; it'll be a big post, I swear!

The blog returns

I'm back! I was the maid of honor at a high school friend's wedding in CA, and had little access to a computer while there. Please don't be offended if I didn't see you or tell you I was in town. It was a whirlwind trip comprised of the wedding rehearsal, wedding itself (8am Saturday-2am Sunday), brunch, a visit at my home temple, a stop at Jamba Juice, and then LAX. But I'm now unpacked and ready for our next trip, starting Saturday... another wedding, this time of a cousin in Cleveland. And instead of being a member of the bridal party, I'm co-officiating!

There are some pictures of the CA trip which will be downloaded who knows when. I'm hoping by Monday, but keep on checking!