couldn’t resist

Oooh yum

This address by Dr. Kimberley Patton to the graduating class of Harvard Div school is so worth reading.

Looking deep into the religious traditions of the world, one learns that we need not fear these initiations, these times of breaking apart. The soul cannot grow or change without them. What the human ego or the human body experience as traumas, the soul instantly recognizes as opportunities to shed what is no longer needed. When the heart is broken, the soul is released from its prior constellations. It begins the ancient process of dissolution, dismemberment, and new life. The soul rushes toward rebirth. This is not a comfortable process. But it is a normal one.

In the words of Jalaja Bonheim: “[M]ake no mistake: those who tell us we can have whatever we want, be whoever we want to be, and have full control of our lives are merely playing into our desire to avoid the discomfort of feeling our vulnerability. True wholeness has nothing to do with getting what we want. Paradoxically, we achieve true wholeness only by embracing our fragility and sometimes our brokenness. Wholeness is a natural radiance of Love, and Love demands that we allow the destruction of our old self for the sake of the new. ‘If anyone needs a head, the lover leaps up to offer his,’ says the mystic and poet Kabir. Life did not intend for us to be inviolable, but to be used for fodder for its workings. We are meant to be chewed up and digested and transformed into the blood and sinews of the world.”

Thanks and love to Laura for pointing me at this.

optimism

So I’m pretty pleased with how the elections turned out. Olmert (who I can’t stop calling Smoelmert after the nasty Likud posters came out–he’s not really that smoel (left-wing), he did come from Likud originally after all, but it just has such a ring to it, you know?) is going to be PM, Avodah (the more mainstream left-leaning party) got a healthy second, and Likud didn’t do well at all. The religious right-wing parties did pretty well overall, but there’s still more of a left-wing than right-wing presence in the Knesset now. And a few days back Olmert said that he wan’t going to do a coalition (there’s this whole coalition-building thing that goes into forming the Israeli government) with anyone who wasn’t going to be for pulling out of the West Bank…. so. Could they really be doing it? There’ll be a lot of opposition–probably more than the Gaza withdrawl–and I’m sure the reality of what’s withdrawn, where borders are, how this looks with an uncooperative Hamas government, etc. is not going to be anybody’s idea of perfect. But Israel has to get out of the West Bank, and I’m relieved that the people in power seem to want to make that a priority.

I have a friend who almost voted for the Communist party, but switched to Kadima at the last minute. “I’m not doing this out of the love of Mordechai so much as the hatred of Haman,” he said.

We’ll see what happens now, won’t we?

nuggets of not much

Am working actually pretty hard these days. For what’s supposed to be my slacker semester and all.

Leaving in a few minutes to go to the plush swanky gym at the university, though–sadly, I think I’ll be there too early for Riki Lake, will have to acutally read my book for class. I hate American TV when I’m in America. Why do I love it here?

Pesach prep has already begun in the apartment, which is shocking–I’m never this organized. But I guess, given that I’ll be on vacation a few of the days that are usually prime cleaning time, I gotta be. Am also being very careful to try to eat all the hametz in the house, which leads to these horrible concessions like having to make pad thai and such.

Here’s the link to the RA Pesach guide, for those of you who like that sort of thing: Mmm, forbidden and permitted.

That is all. Is it springy enough outside to wear a skirt?

more election mania

I don’t know if I’d vote for Meretz (the more progressive than Labor but not as radical as the Communists party–I don’t know enough about their platform, let alone what they actually do, or don’t do) but I so heart whoever runs their marketing campaign. Snarky heh.

Rav Ovadia Yosef, “spiritual leader” of Shas, saying, “I will concern myself with women’s rights.” And then the tagline: Meretz is needed greatly in this government!

Bibi Netanyahu saying, “I will concern myself with clearing out the settlements (ie withdrawing from the West Bank)” And then the tagline: Meretz is needed greatly in this government!

Amir Peretz, of the center-left Labor party: “I’m not going to follow Bibi. So it seems…. ” And then the tagline: Meretz is needed greatly in this government!

more on the Rabbinical Assembly vote

for those of you trying to stay current on the ongoing homosexuality tshuvah drama, the latest update on the backing-and-forthing at the RA convention in Mexico City is here.

election and books

Sorry the posting’s been so thin lately (at least I feel like it has been.) For someone who was supposed to be having a more relaxed semester than usual, I certainly seem to be awfully busy…..

Anyway, election season is heating up over here. It’s quite interesting to view as an outsider. I was at a friend’s the other day and the TV was on when the 1/2 hour of campaign ads came on–fascinating stuff. Some of it wasn’t that surprising, I mean, political ads are political ads to some degree. But I got to see just how outrageous Likud’s were–really shameless stuff about how much land they were promising to their right-wing voters, how little they planned to give up of the West Bank, with maps drawing lines and stuff. Kind of shocking, really, but I think that’s just my naivate and being used to the US double-speak where nothing’s said directly, at least not until the party gets into office. And I got to see just why they rag on Bibi (Netanyahu) for being an American. He did live there for a while, I guess, and totally has the US politician thing down–looking at the camera meaningfully, the too-fluid mannerisms, the raised eyebrow for emotional empathic emphasis, that sort of thing. Slick. I predict that Mafdal (mifleget dati leumi, the religious Zionist party) will do very well this year, they’re working backlash against the withdrawl from Gaza like crazy. Got 14 year-old boys on every corner handing out orange ribbons to put on your bag or car or whatever. I mean, no thanks for me, but no question that they’ll clean up. The other thing that blew my mind was just–well, it’s the thing where you don’t pay for the airtime for these ads–parties are allotted time based on their representation in the Knesset now. Which I knew, but was still really surprised to see the Communist party advertising, or a few Arab parties, or a couple of other groups that totally wouldn’t have had the $$$$$ to even get like a radio ad in the States. Their ads were pretty low-budget compared to The Bibi Show or Kadima or whatever, but still. There were ads at all! This whole more-than-two-party system really isn’t a bad idea, is it? Even if some people vote for reasons I wouldn’t (the marijuana-legalization party is evidently slated to get representation this year) the diversity of possible leadership–and not just that one green party who will just screw it up for the Democrats, you know–strikes me as healthy. You can have a few of your people in the Knesset influencing things even if they’re not the party in leadership.

What’s funny is that we have class off on Tuesday b/c of the election, and that’s pretty standard in these parts (it’s like a holiday.) Strikes me as crazy–can’t people wait in horrible lines in the morning and evening like Americans? But not complaining. I can use the time, frankly.

Things on my own end are just dandy. Classes are proceeding apace, it’s all spring out, I have to write a paper I don’t wanna right now, am going on vacation in a couple of weeks for a few days (Istanbul!!). Life is generally just fine.

One thing that’s kind of fun is that I’m on kind of a modern classics binge. My leisure reading now seems to have become all the yummy things that I didn’t get to read in school and haven’t since–I’ve got a pretty well-rounded Humanities education, but one never gets to everything. So now when I go to my used English-language bookstore of choice (Sefer v’Sefel, off Yafo by Ben Yehuda) I just hit the Classics section, and for some reason seem to be drawn to the 20th c. stuff more than the older stuff, mostly. I’ve read One Hundred Years of Solitude (why had I never read that before???? My goodness) and am just finishing Cather’s My Antonia, which is also lovely. Went there the other day for a restock and walked out with Crime and Punishment (read most of it in high school and loved it, but for some reason never finished, and I certainly don’t remember enough of it), Kafka’s The Trial, and Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which I suspect I’ll gain a lot from, stylistically. I want to get some Faulkner (I’ve never read Falkner! How can that be?) but will have to wait until they get something in. Anyway, I’m having a lot of fun with that. Modern lit and Talmud seem to take up my reading time these days. Talmud. So much Talmud, and yet–not enough. I’m making pretty good time on a first-pass review through the material I’m doing for my daf exam, but there’s still so much to do, and I’mma gonna need much more than a first pass through everything!

Speaking of work, maybe time to?

coolest site evar

www.girlsgotech.org/index.html

It’s a project of the Girl Scouts with games that encourage girls to excercise their math/science muscles, and information on the kinds of jobs a chica could do if she didn’t drop out of the left brain at a young age, as happens a lot these days.

Purim was fun–kind of low-key this year. A little Megilla reading, a little gluing rhinestones to my face and wearing dybukk horns, a little dancing, a little sitting around seudah-ing all day with a bunch of people that I like. Not too much to report. Well, there are some observations I had while surveying the costuming scene but I’m still figuring out what to do with them, really. Maybe more blogging on Purim later, maybe not.

Happy Thursday!

quote of the day

from The Wonders of America by Jenna Weissman Joeslit, about the creation (as well as commercialization, and assimilation) of American Judaism, by one Moses Weinberger in 1887. I like it in the way that depressing things appeal sometimes to my black sense of humor. He wrote,

As for phylacteries [tefillin], there isn’t much business for them in America. I see, dear reader, that you look upon me with amazement. A question forms on your lips: Don’t boys by the hundred celebrate every year their bnei mitzvah, amid enormous splendor and great show? Yet you say there isn’t much business in phylacteries…. Let me implore you, my friend, to leave me alone. Don’t press me to reveal everything at once! Go away!

this photo makes me happy

Picture from Sister Scorpion, specifically this post.