Yay

This song, “Isaac Bashevis Singer,” is by the Owls and it’s quite lovely. They also have an ode to Peppermint Patty. What’s not to like?

147 Days

Well, I’ve passed the second Daf exam. I’m pretty sure this means that they actually do have to ordain me in May.

Next Sunday I leave for a few weeks in Patagonia with my sweetie. I’ll be back soon, with pictures (hopefully) of penguins, waterfalls, and how everything looks at the very edge of the world.

Relevant Metaphors

I bought an external hard drive not long ago, and transferring a lot of my bulkier files (photos, some music, etc) onto it enabled me to free up some serious space on my actual computer. My nice laptop works much, much faster and more happily now than it has in quite a while.

I feel like there’s a similar process happening to my brain right now, as I figure out which mental files from the past semester can be offloaded to some other place.

Daf Sheni

I’ve handed in all my coursework for the semester. It’s just me vs. the second Talmud comp exam, to come this Thursday.

I haven’t posted much about prep for this exam (in contrast to Daf Exam I, this summer). Much of this is due to the fact that the exam prep has been squeezed into the crevices between a full load of classes and my internship and the various other things going on over here. Some of it, though, is that I haven’t quite been able to figure out what I want to say about the material.

We’re studying the 5th chapter of Ketubot, plus a bunch of commentaries on it. It’s about women’s (often, lack of) status vis a vis marriage, divorce, and property rights. It’s not news to me that women didn’t have much room to maneuver in the Rabbinic era, but I’ve found that the experience of actually marinating in these difficult texts for four months has been pretty challenging.

Upon reflection, I think the hard part has been the fact is that my job is to learn the texts themselves–to receive them on their terms, rather than getting to dialogue with them. Looking around at other commentaries would be one way to enter the conversation, but the ones we’re meant to learn, unfortunately, don’t offer many (or, any) windows of hope, and I haven’t yet had the chance to do a real survey of other interpretations of each sugya (Talmudic discussion) in the chapter. There’s time yet for that. I’m looking forward to being able to use these texts as a starting point for a bigger conversation about the status of women in Judaism, about our ideals for relationships, about what kind of religious law might help and what kind might hinder marriage, and so forth. I’m looking forward to having the chance to move forward past the first step of this process, which is where I’ve been for the last few months.

In any case, I have two days left to study, and then there’s the exam, and then there’s a bit of vacation time. I don’t imagine that I’ll start up the project of redeeming this chapter immediately, but I’m also quite sure that I won’t be able to stay away from it for that long.

Smachot!

Two simchas in very close proximity to one another–joy upon joy.

Many mazel tovs to Shlomo and Melanie (and Koby), as well as to Andrew and Kim, for the births of their babies. May they all* grow up to be healthy, happy, and basking in love.

*Yep, three babies to two sets of parents.

Wardrobe Change

As you can see, the site has gotten a new set of design clothes. It was time. Many thanks, as always, to Dan for his kind assistance in this matter.

The Grinch Who Stole The Latkes

Massive cuteness written by one of my teachers, Rabbi Ed Feinstein:
(x-posted to Jewschool)

Oh the Jews of old Jewville, just loved holidays,
And kept them religiously, in all of their ways.
On Rosh Hashana, they ate apples and honey
Then came to the Temple, all dressed in Armani.
On holy Yom Kippur, they prayed and they fasted
Through rabbis’ long sermons, they kvetched but they lasted;
Till Neila was over, and proclaimed Cantor Fox:
“Go home and break fast, on bagels and lox!”
They sat and they feasted, in glorious Sukkos,
And on Simchat Torah, they danced off their tuchas.
Come Purim they brought to the shul, their noisemakers,
While dressed up in costumes, like Shaq and the Lakers.
On Pesach they asked the Hagadda’s Four Questions,
And ate so much matza, which is bad for digestion.
But of all of the holidays, that we Jews remember
The most special in Jewville, was the one in December.
With tales of brave Judah, with latkes and dreidels
Hannuka thrilled Jewville’s boychiks and maidels.
Hannuka brought all their families together,
To sing and to celebrate, no matter how cold the weather!
But there was one among them
Who got no joy and no nachas
From candles and latkes, and dreidels and brachas.
In fact, though his home was so close to the sewer,
It made him quite nauseous to hear Maoz Tzur.
Hannuka made him so angry and blue-ish
You’d hardly have guessed that he was born Jewish.
Since his Bar Mitzvah, he grew not an inch.
He was surly and hairy, and they called him the Grinch.
He lived on a mountaintop, far above town,
When Hannuka came, he’d declare with a frown,
“I hate all your holidays, it’s all hocus pocus
When I tell the story, I’m for Antiochos!
Because miracles they are all made up and fake!
Anyone who believes them, makes a mistake.
Maybe Macabees found some oil in the Temple
But soon it burned out, that’s the truth, just that simple.
And so my dear children, here’s the cold hard dark fact,
If you’re looking for oil, it’s under Iraq.”
Continue reading The Grinch Who Stole The Latkes…

Happy Chanukah!

I hope you’re all having a lovely miracle season so far.

Things aren’t bad on this end. I’ve had my first latke of the season, though the woman who brought them insisted that they be dressed with tahini, not apple sauce and sour cream. This troubles me (and no, it wasn’t very good that way.) I checked with the Israeli to whom I’m married, and he had never heard of such a thing, either. Why not let the nice Eastern European potato* get smothered with milkfat, like it was meant to be?

A few years ago I was in Germany for a couple of days around this time of year. There wasn’t much for a kosher vegetarian to eat at the sprawling outdoor Christmas markets, or even in the restaurants (my choices were: ham, ham, pretzels covered in bacon, and ham) except for the one lone guy in a corner frying up potato pancakes. I checked and double-checked with him (employing a passer-by to confirm in German) that the oil was vegetarian, and then got to snarf down…well, quite a few. The best thing about that was that the guy had condiment dispensers–like the kind with ketchup and mustard when you get a hot dog at the ballpark–with sour cream and apple sauce, respectively. That’s how you gotta do it.

In only marginally-related news, the Jewish Journal was kind enough to print some of my thoughts on the troubling history of Chanukah and how to use it to develop a more sophisticated understanding of God, Judaism and the holiday–rather than just running away because difficult things are yuuucky.

The Journal piece is here. And yes, it’s an adapted version of a post that made its debut on this very page–for those of you who’d like to see the 1/3 longer director’s cut (with 800 bonus words about Biblical Criticism! Whoo!), it’s here.

*Yes, fine, potatoes are a New World food. But they’ve been Old World for about 500 years, that has to count for something….

On Visible and Invisible Labor, and Economics

Mishnah Ketubot, 5:5:

These are the tasks which the wife must perform for her husband: grinding and baking and laundry and cooking and nursing her son and making his bed and working in wool. If she brings in for him (ie out of her own money) one maidservant, she does not [have to] grind and she does not bake and she does not do laundry. Two, she doesn’t cook and she doesn’t nurse her son. Three, she doesn’t make his bed and she doesn’t work in wool. Four, she may sit in a chair [and not work at all.]….

Miriam Peskowitz in The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars:

The ideal worker can be old or young but is essentially childless, and has no elderly parents to care for. The ideal worker, or breadwinner, is supported by the domestic caregiver. If there are children, someone else takes them to school and packs their lunches and makes sure their homework’s done. If there are household chores, someone else ticks them off the list. Someone at home relieves the worker of these duties. Someone else keeps the home clean, watches the kids, prepares dinner, and does the myriad tasks to keep a family together. This expectation for workers holds for most decent jobs, whether blue-collar jobs that pay decently or white-collar professional-track positions. The breadwinner must be free to earn the bread. The fact that the breadwinner’s child is sick and has a doctor’s appointment cannot be allowed to stop production.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own:

…It is necessary to have five hundred a year and a room with a lock on the door if you are to write fiction or poetry….even allowing for a generous margin for symbolism, that five hundred a year stands for the power to contemplate, that a lock on the door means the power to think for oneself….

How to Support the Writer’s Strike

As many of you know, the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) is on strike because the major corporations for whom they work refuse to give them fair compensation for, say, DVD residuals and Internet downloading of their work on places like iTunes. The online thing is particularly critical because it’s going to set a major precedent for years to come, and given how much of the world is moving online, the situation now will only be exacerbated in the future when, say, more online-only shows are produced, or when TV and the Internet become even more linked. Yes, writers deserve to be paid fairly for their work.

Here’s some more background on the strike, in a cute short produced by a bunch of Daily Show writers:

And this video gives you a suggestion about how to support the strikers:

(Or you can just go here.)