This I Believe

Today is my 44th birthday, and assuming that I live into my late-80s, I've reached mid-life, but I find myself, surprisingly, not in crisis. Instead, I've reached an age of competence, confidence, and if one can say it about herself, courage.

I believe the secret to my success has been lowering my expectations and giving up on some goals and dreams. 

I know what you're thinking.

Let me explain.

For years I set goals and made promises to myself (and others) I had absolutely no chance of keeping. 

• "I will lose 40 lbs in the next 3 months and ride the entire Slick Rock Trail in Moab!"
• "I will start a blog and publish it every single day!"
• "I'm going to own a mint condition 1967 Camaro by the time I'm 40!"
• "I will keep a diary and write in it every day, without fail. My handwriting will be beautiful and I will fill every page with brilliant, poignant thoughts. I will finish each blank book before even thinking about starting a new one."
• "I'm will set a beautiful Shabbat table and bake challah from scratch every Friday."
• "I'm will  study the Torah portion and the Haftarah every week and never get bored and skip verses, even the "begats".
• "I'm going to be more social and host dinners and game nights at my house and have people over spontaneously to just hang out."
• "I'm going to quit Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and only read literary fiction and never binge-watch stupid Netflix shows again."

It doesn't take an expert life coach like Yoda to see that I was setting myself up for failure over and over again. I didn't allow for progressive success, and it's almost as if I were setting goals for the person I wanted to be, not the person I am at my core. That list up there isn't really a set of goals and aspirations, it's a checklist of what I thought made a successful, ideal person: athletic, musical, social, cool, diligent, studious, accomplished... perfect. I am some of those things, but I am not and will not ever be all of them.

That recognition and acknowledgment has had some huge side-effects.

I do not envy.

Every single person out there has a quality I don't, an ability I don't, money I don't, or a talent I will not develop. So what?  I've stopped making self-centered, self-focused comparisons in which I always come out the loser. I try not to say: I'll never be able to do that like her and feel like a failure. Instead, I've learned to say: I'll never be able to do that as well as she does, but I am so damn lucky to be in the presence of someone who has those talents, and Wow! Let's celebrate this together!

I give myself breaks. 

I let myself do things that are not goal-oriented or even purposeful. Confession: I love staying in bed until mid-day on weekends and reading, listening to NPR, snuggling with my cat, and reorganizing my shelves. I no longer feel guilty that I'm not on a hike or at the gym or grocery shopping. I sink in, recharge myself, and feel no shame.

I give other people breaks. 

Especially my kids. They're the biggest teachers I've had in this journey to "Okayness." Watching them crash and push and sink into their own natural talents and abilities has made me much more generous with myself. I know that my son, for example, shares my introvertedness and needs time alone to recharge himself and deal with the world. As he has grown old enough to say, "Mom, I want to be alone!" I've grown wise enough not to push too hard against that boundary. 

I ask for help. 

This is a work in progress, but one thing about not having all the talents yourself is that you can ask people with those talents to help you out. Just being able to say, "You're good at this and I suck at this, can you help me?" is a great accomplishment for me. It recognizes the talent in others (easy), reveals my own lack of a skill (difficult), and gets the goal accomplished. Asking a friend to help me make phone calls and plan a social gathering, for example, has always been painful because I'd never want anyone to ask me to do that. But that's not how this work. Me asking a friend to make some phone calls is like him asking me to edit a resume. I'm happy to do it. 

Some people are happy making calls... who knew?

I like what I like, without apologies.

Earlier this year I had a conversation with a friend that went like this.

Me: I really like Ms. So-and-So. She's one of my favorite people.

Friend: Yeah, I don't much care for her.

Me: Hmm. Yeah, um, maybe you're right...

Friend: You can still like her, you know.

Since that conversation I've taken the time to ask myself, "Do I like this because I like it, or because someone else likes it and I want them to think I'm cool and want to fit in?" If it's the latter, it's time to reconsider. 

I forgive.

What I almost wrote to end this piece: "You'd think I would have figured all of this out much earlier in life."

But I'm going to be more generous with myself and end this way instead:

It's OK that I didn't figure all of this out before the age of 44. Life only goes forward, and I'm ready to kick some ass in the second half.

Supporting our Local Islamic Community, One Bored Teenager at a Time

Last night in Fort Collins, Colorado, a few hundred people gathered outside our local Islamic Center for a candlelight vigil of support and solidarity. Our entire family attended -- me, my husband, our 12 year old daughter and our 14 year old son -- three of us willingly.

We are all Jews in our house, but we are not all faith-filled Jews. We celebrate the holidays, we usually light Shabbat candles and set aside Friday night for a family dinner, and we have lots of conversations about what it means to live a Jewish life without faith, to practice Judaism without God.


When children are young, the holidays don't have much meaning beyond a few parties, craft projects, and the many variations of Jewish holiday foods. They dress up in costume on Purim, open presents on Chanukkah, miss school on Yom Kippur, and choke down matzah during Passover. Living a Jewish life is a series of Sunday School, Hebrew School, and hopping from one holiday to the next, trying each year to guess when they'll fall on the "regular" calendar.

In the darkest days of winter we retell the story of the Maccabees and their fight for religious freedom. We fry up some latkes and talk about the miracle of the oil and play dreidel and tell our children that it was used by Jews to secretly satudy Torah when the government tried to prohibit it.

How awful it must have been, we say, to live in times like that.

Pass the applesauce.





Why is This Year Different from All Other Years?

Donald Trump invaded our Chanukkah this year, and I'm betting a lot of other Jewish families took the time to talk about him around their menorahs. What it means to be a Jew and what it means to celebrate Chanukkah were struck in stark relief this year.

We are all subjected to the rhetoric of Trump and those like him, but it is the Jews who must respond with the most force, the loudest voices of condemnation, boots on the ground.

I thought my kids were feeling the righteous indignation right along with me and felt the obligation to stand up and speak out. I thought they were ready and eager to jump into the fray with me, until the day of the march arrived.

Our 14-year-old wasn't into going.
At.
All.

• I'll be bored. 
• It doesn't matter. 
• What difference does it make if I go or don't go?
• No. I am not going.

I was disappointed, and surprised. He'd been interested in our political discussions over the past weeks, and I knew he agreed that the anti-Muslim chatter was worrisome. "Jews stand up," we had all agreed, and now was the time to do it. But when a 14-year-old gets it into his head that he does not want to do something, the parents have two choices: Fight or Flight. Pick the battle and fight until someone surrenders, or let it go and live to fight another day.


There was never any question in my mind: The was the hill I was willing to die on. He was going to the vigil. Period.

So we fought, and there were the usual threats, and eventually he capitulated. He may have been mumbling, grumbling, and stomping his feet, but he got into the car when it was time to go.

The Islamic Center of Fort Collins, completed in 2013.

The Moment 

We arrived late to the vigil -- there were no parking places anywhere near the Islamic Center, and even when we drove blocks away, all we saw were people bundled up and walking toward the Center.


We stood at the back of the crowd and listened to the speeches and sang along to a couple of songs about peace/salaam/shalom. It was dark, and cold, but there was warmth to be found in the crowd.

The Islamic Center of Fort Collins was completed in 2013 and is a large, two-story structure. We stood in the courtyard bathed in the light from the Mosque's curtain-less windows. There was a crowd inside as well, watching a simulcast on large TVs.

The view from above -- what the children saw.

Silhouettes in the second-story windows caught my eye, and I saw a group of children -- young boys and girls of elementary age -- looking down on the crowd. Some of the girls were wearing traditional head coverings, and one or two would occasionally raise a smartphone and take a picture of the crowd, of us.

What did it feel like to them to look down on this gathering of mostly non-Muslims, standing in their courtyard, the place where they probably escaped to play when they were restless or bored or had been dragged to the mosque by their own parents.

If this were our synagogue, those would be my children looking down from the window, looking out. What would I want them to see?

I pulled my son close to my side and pointed up to the window.

"Look. Look at those kids. Imagine how scared they might have felt recently. How they might have wondered what people like us thought about them. How do you think they feel now?"

"Safer?"

"If you weren't here," I told him, "this crowd would be just a little smaller. But they can see you. You made a difference."

He threw his arm over my shoulder and gave me a squeeze.

"Yeah," he said. One voice in a chorus.
 



(Want to know more about Chanukkah? Read here. The main themes are religious freedom, re-dedication of sacred spaces, and celebrating God's (limited) miracle of providing oil for the eternal light in the temple while the people took the required time (8 days) to make more.)

Multiplying the Chanukkah Lights against Trump's Hatred

Tonight, we silenced the Hitleresque, hateful rhetoric of Donald Trump and brought the light of Chanukkah - - the holiday of religious freedom - - into our home and our neighborhood.

We teach our children that, as Jews, it is our obligation and our moral responsibility to be the torch bearers and speak first. When they said, "But there's nothing we can do," we brainstormed some ideas.

And now I want yours. How can our kids (and us) live Chanukkah out loud and bring light to the world?

#AllWordsMatter

Whenever someone starts a conversation with, "I had the strangest dream last night," I always hope the story doesn't take a turn for the awkward. I do not need to know that a coworker dreamed about his sixth grade girlfriend stuck in a bathtub of uncooked rice. (You don't need to know that either. Sorry.)

Dreams are intimate, personal machinations of our brains. It's how we process our days and ruminate on our troubles without being overly troubled. Dreams are also where our brains take off into strange and fantastical worlds of horror, ecstasy, and crazy imaginative leaps.as a writer, I've gained and lost a million great ideas in my dreams. A few times I've been lucky enough to wake up and jot something down before it slipped away again.

In this week's Torah portion Joseph (the favorite son of Jacob/Israel) tells his older brothers about his dreams.

"There we were binding sheaves in the field, when suddenly my sheaf stood up and remained upright; then your sheaves gathered around and bowed low to my sheaf."

They already hated him because he was a tattle-tale when he was a boy. Now they really hated him. And Joseph couldn't help but make it worse by telling them about the second dream...

"Look, I have had another dream: And this time, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing, down to me."

The sun, the moon and eleven stars -- that included Joseph's parents. Jacob couldn't shake the insult from his mind, and the brothers' hatred grew. When his brothers found Joseph wandering in the desert, they decided to kill him, but eventually just threw him down a well and tried to sell him to nomads. In the end, they faked his death and reported back to their father that Joseph, his favorite, had died.

Terrorism in Colorado

It's been three days since the terrorist attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, about three hours south of where I live. Nine people were shot and injured. Three people were killed:

• Garrett Swasey, a 44-year old University of Colorado Springs police officer who rushed to the scene when he heard about the incident. He was also the father of two, and elder in his church, and passionate about his faith. 
• Jennifer Markovsky, 35, a military wife and mother of two children, ages 6 and 10. She had gone to PLanned Parenthood to support a friend who had an appointment.
• Ke'Arre Stewart, a 29-year-old Iraqi War Veteran recently stationed at Fort Carson and father of two, was shot outside the clinic just minutes after learning his girlfriend was pregnant. He'd stepped outside to get better cell reception to share the good news. He told everyone else to Get Down! before he was shot and killed.

Don't Say It

How would Joseph's life been different had he followed the old adage, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything"? He carried tales back to his parents when he was a child, earning him the hatred of his brothers.

He was a spoiled brat who, instead of being punished for tattling, received his father's favor and amazing gifts like this colorful coat. 

Joseph had self-serving dreams which, had he kept them to himself, or even presented them in a nicer way, would have done no harm. But he did speak, with cruel intentions and a desire to make his brothers jealous. 

If he could have seen the real consequences, would he have spoken so freely? Did Joseph spend his time in the well, and his time as a slave, wishing he could take back his words and reverse the series of actions they had set in motion. 

#AllWordsMatter

I have to wonder if the right-wing spewers of anti-Planned Parenthood rhetoric understood the potential power of their words. A sampling of their comments, some made before the attack and some (incredibly!) made after.

• Ted Cruz in September: In the September G.O.P. debate, Cruz called Planned Parenthood a “criminal enterprise,” guilty of “multiple felonies.” 
• Cruz in October: “When millions of Americans rose up against Planned Parenthood, I was proud to lead that fight.”
• Jeb Bush has called Planned Parenthood’s practices “horrifying,” and has said that the group is “not actually doing women’s health issues. They are involved in something way different than that.”
• Marco Rubio, who seized on the shooting of Cecil the lion as a reason to ask where the outrage was over Planned Parenthood and “dead babies,” didn’t have anything to say about the victims in Colorado
• Chris Christie, in one debate, talked about Planned Parenthood engaging in “the systematic murder of children in the womb to preserve their body parts.” 
• And after the shooting, Trump was, well... Trump: “Well, I will tell you there is a tremendous group of people that think it’s terrible, all of the videos that they’ve seen with some of these people from Planned Parenthood talking about it like you’re selling parts to a car. I mean, there are a lot of people that are very unhappy about that.”
• Cary Fiorina claimed that a video showed what sounded like infanticide—the killing of a “fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking”—for the stated sake of harvesting a marketable brain. This was false, and demonstrably so, but Fiorina just kept saying it. 
• And today, before any of the victims are even buried, Cruz dismissed any suggestion of a connection between the shooting and the heated words of Republicans.

Maybe Cruz was right today and there is no connection between these statements and the terrorist attack on Planned Parenthood. It's quite possible that the shooter (who shall remain forever unnamed on this blog) was not consciously listening to the Republican candidates when he was making his plan to attack Planned Parenthood. It's also possible that he came up with "baby parts," a term he used during his siege, completely independently.

Even if that is all true, this 57-year-old man grew up and lived in a country where terrorist tactics on the part of anti-abortion activists have been accepted by many in the movement.

• Kill an abortion doctor to stop him from doing abortions? Acceptable tactic. 
• Burn down a clinic? Sure, why not? 
• Verbally attack women going into the clinic? It's a matter of course.

Don't believe me? Read this article from a Planned Parenthood worker who documented all the instances of attacks on her clinics:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/11/heres-what-its-work-planned-parenthood

I understand that people are incredibly passionate about this issue, but how much of that frenzy-whipping has been achieved with outright lies? How much of the violence and terrorism against doctors, nurses, and women seeking health care has been encouraged and praised by anti-abortion rhetoric? How many of the fiery sermons have inspired the terrorists? Inflamed entrenched beliefs?

Radicalized true believers?


When are those who speak such things morally culpable for the actions their words inspire? Why do these candidates support going after other radical extremists who preach terror and violence but they are unwilling to look at what they say with a critical eye?



The lack of reflection on the part of the Republican candidates is distressing.

When will just one of them say, "You know, this guy may have been acting completely on his own, but let's say for a minute he wasn't. What if watching our debates inspired this kind of violence? What if there is someone else out there who might be inspired by address this issue, shouldn't we change how we talk about it? It's the very least we could do."

When?

Why I Finally Added a Flag Overlay to my Facebook Profile Picture

In the days after gay marriage was legalized in all 50 states, many people changed their Facebook profile pictures to celebrate and show their support. Even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg got in on it:

In the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks, the new profile meme was a French flag overlay.
Again, Mark was in on it:

I didn't participate in these profile pic trends, but I'm not criticizing anyone who did. I did post quite a bit about both the Supreme Court decision and the attacks in Paris, so both events were on my mind and in my newsfeed.

Today, though, I did add a flag to my profile picture. This one:

To add this filter to your profile pic, go here: http://rainbowfilter.io/israel

The rainbow flag and the French flag overlays were provided by Facebook, and all users had to do was click a button and, wham!, profile picture changed. It was an official response from Facebook to world events and the currents flowing on social media. They saw a need -- users who wanted to express sympathy and solidarity -- and filled it.

But where were the other flags?

Beirut? Kenya? Israel?

Facebook did receive some public criticism for their lack of response to other terrorist events around the world. Twice as many people were killed by ISIS in the Russian plane bombing than in Paris -- was changing your flag to a Russian flag an option?

95 people were killed and 250 injured in Ankara, Turkey in a terrorist bombing in October. I didn't notice a Turkish flag meme.

In some ways  understand the reasoning. The Middle East is always embroiled in one violent affair or another, and we have come to expect bombings in places like Iraq, Beirut, Kenya, Nigeria, Syria and Turkey. They are foreign, distant places with cultures very different from the Average White Band America where me and my friends grew up, and in which we are raising our children.

But Paris. Paris is the city of American aspiration and admiration. Cultured and multi-cultural, fashionable, well-fed, and the epitome of good taste. It is the inspiration of art and artists, poets and novelists, film directors and songwriters. It's philosophers gave us the ideas upon which America was founded.

When we say, "We are Paris," we all understand what that means. We speak a common western, cultural language. It is more difficult for us to say


We are Kenya
We are Beirut
We are Ankara
We are Russia
We are Malli

So we don't.

And even if our prayers and thoughts go to those victims for a moment or two as a story flicks by on our newsfeed, we do not see a flood of those flags overlaying our friends' faces.

We are Israel.

For me that is the easiest of all. I read Israel, study Israel, sing Israel, and in my own limited way, pray for Israel.

I pray for no young man to have to return from Israel like this:

I pray for no one -- especially so many who are so young -- to ever sing a national anthem in grief:

WATCH: Ezra’s final journey. 18-year-old American volunteer, Ezra Schwartz was murdered in a terrorist attack in Gush Etzion last week. As Ezra was sent to his final resting place in the United States, his friends accompanied him to the airport. In a powerful gesture, they sang Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikva” as Ezra left Israel for the last time. May Ezra’s memory forever be a blessing.via: Ynetnews

I pray for peace.

You'd Run, Too

You'd run, too...


Take a close look at the picture of the medical center "before". That little white car on the right? That's the same year, make and model as my car.
 
Someone drove that car to a medical appointment that day.

Someone like me who had a normal life of car payments, doctor's visits, family dinners, fights about homework, errands to run, etc.

You'd run, too...

Where would you go?
Who would take you in?

You'd run, too...

Why I Decorate My Cube (and You Should, Too!)

I've found that I'm one of the few people in my new group at work to put up any personal mementos in my cube.

No, not like that!

But I have added some personal touches to my work space, and I've chosen each one of them carefully and after quite a bit of deliberation.Why?

I'm not the most introverted introvert!

As it turns out, being surrounded by software engineers and IT guys makes me one of the most outgoing people in my area. Me! I have to start conversations, make eye contact first, and say hello if I pass someone in the walkway.

I do try to pick up on people's interests, but so far my methods are limited to eavesdropping on their conversations (which are few and far between) or looking around at their work spaces.

[There is one way in which they are social that I'm completely left out of. They smoke (vape, whatever) and go outside together a few times a day. Since I'm not a smoker, and I don't want to pick it up to gain a social advantage, it would help immensely if my coworkers would decorate their cubicles... even a little.]

My Cubicle

Top Row (L to R) Two postcards from Oregon, a bookmark for the upcoming Wyeth exhibit at the Denver Art Museum, My Red Sox "B", a calendar.
Bottom Row (L to R) Grateful Dead dancing bear button, A skull sticker made by a colleague in Oregon, Ellie's 8th grade picture, Ben's bar mitzvah picture, a postcard from the Impressionist exhibit I attended. recently.

 

Official-looking work papers, Pats 2015 schedule, Gronk!, concert tickets, and a key chain made from one of Ben's paintings. (These are further into my cubicle... if you come in, you see them. If you stand at the door, probably not.

Look at all the things you can learn about me!

• I have kids, a girl and a boy
• My daughter wore an AC/DC shirt in her school picture and I still hung it up
• I like art, and am probably planning on going to the Wyeth show
• I like baseball and football, and my favorite teams appear to be the Red Sox and Patriots.
• I'm organized, keep my space neat, I print out calendars and schedules

And there are also things that are designed to elicit questions

• Skull -- what!?
• Kid looks like he's having a bar mitzvah -- Jewish?
• Who's Keller Williams?

It works!

 

Our leadership team visited a few weeks ago. They're from Seattle, Corvallis, Salt Lake City, Palo Alto, and San Diego. They stopped by every person's cubicle to introduce themselves and have a little chat. When one of the execs stopped by mine, he took a look into my cube and said, "Baseball fan?" and we were off and running on a conversation about the upcoming World Series and wasn't it funny how the Back to the Future movie included a reference to my cursed team winning the whole thing...?

Yes, he mixed up the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox, and No, I didn't mention his mistake. (Did I mention this was the executive team?)

Hanging up that "B" was an instant conversation starter, and I didn't have the awkward, stilted conversations that my coworkers had as the execs made their rounds. One mentioned how much he liked the lighthouse on one of the postcards, and he also wants to get back to the Oregon coast. Another had seen a similar skull in our Corvallis office and asked about it. [One of my colleagues in Oregon is a graphic artists and the stickers are his side gig.]

Just the other day, one of the women from a couple of aisles down stopped to say hi to my absent cubicle-mate, peeked into my cube and said, "I like your bear." A conversation about live music ensued. It may go nowhere, but the next time I buy tickets for a Dead-similar band, I'll mention it to her.

Plans for Changing it Up

 

Life in a cubicle-farm can isolating, awkward, and soul-sapping. I hope my sparse, thoughtful decorating style catches on with my neighbors. Just in case it doesn't, I'm planning on rotating out some of the items as time goes on, like a carefully curated art exhibition. Leaving the same things up for months destroys the purpose of people noticing them. They'll blend into the background, or people will forget if they've asked about an item already. A few switches and I can avoid that further awkwardness.

I'll be a social maven before you know it!

All I Have Left is a Song of Peace

In Oklahoma City, people were working at their desks
In London, people were riding the Underground
In Mumbai, people were strolling through a market
In Paris, journalists were working and cartoonists were drawing
In Beirut, Marines were in their barracks
In New York, so many people were enjoying a beautiful Tuesday morning
In Saudi Arabia, people were going to pray
In Aurora, people were going to watch a movie
In Japan, people were commuting to work
In Turkey, people were rallying for freedom
In Washington, DC, people were protecting our country
In Nigeria, people were trying to make it another day
In Tunisia, people were vacationing on the beach
In Iraq, people were trying to rebuild
In too many places, students were trying to get an education

In Paris tonight, hundreds of people went out La Bataclan to see a concert.

I do most of the activities above, but going to see live music is where I find
my peace
my joy
my connection to the universal language of music and dance.

I have to believe the terrorists knew exactly at whom they were aiming their weapons. Concerts are gatherings of happiness and good vibes and being together with strangers and friends who love what you love.

Tonight, 100 or more of those revelers, those music fans, were killed in a holy place by the unholiest of people.

As we enter Shabbat, all I have to offer is a song of peace.
May there one day be a true Shabbat of Shalom.

The Bat Mitzvah I Never Had

I'm writing this in a coffee shop as my daughter meets for the first time with our rabbi to study Torah for her bat mitzvah. She's well prepared. We've reviewed all of the parshas up to her portion, and she read her parsha (Behar) on her own over this past week.

I feel like a pro, having already shepherded one child through this process, but what I don't feel is a sense of nostalgia for my own bat mitzvah ceremony. Why?

I didn't have one.
Those of you who've only known me as an adult may be thinking....

But anyone who knew me as a tween is thinking...

My "blunder years" were awful, and every shy, reticent, introverted, misanthropic, angry bit of me was multiplied 1,000-fold. I have look back on those years and wondered if I could have been "forced" to do it and thus risen to the occasion? Maybe, but I certainly don't blame anyone for not waging that fight with me. I would not be moved.




I've "done" all the rituals, though.

The first time I chanted Torah was August 28, 2004, parsha Ki Teitzei

From the archives of Go West. Young Jew (8/31/04)

I'm still riding high from my Torah reading this past shabbat. I admit to being very nervous about the whole thing. I was fine through most of the morning service, until the Torah service started. As soon as the Torah was taken out of the ark, I could feel my heart racing and my hands start to sweat. I had my paper with the portion on it tucked into my siddur. I took it out to glance at it, and I swear it was like I'd never seen it before, even though I'd listened to the tape probably 50 times and was hearing the trope in my dreams.

Here I was, reading from a Torah that had been saved from Prague before WWII, a Torah that is identical in every way to every other Torah scroll around the world, THE Torah. It was such a different experience than reading from a Chumash or Tikkun. I hit every note, got every word right, needed no prompting, and when I was done looked up into the faces of a very proud father, husband and mom. The gabbai and the rabbi were both pretty amazed, and then the rabbi told the congregation that it was my first time layning, and everyone gasped. He also told them that I'd never had a bat mitzvah and then did the misheberach for a bat mitzvah girl and people sang Simon Tov u'Mazal Tov.

Was that my bat mitzvah ceremony? I suppose we could count it as such. My parents were there, and I know they were very, very happy to see their one and only child on the bimah, chanting Torah. And I studied the heck out of that portion. I could chant it right now (which would be awkward in this Starbucks with the couple sitting next to me doing their New Testament bible study.)

Several people who've heard that I did not "have" a bat mitzvah at  age 12/13 have suggested that I have one now. Why not age 43, 30 years late? I've always said no. Why?

There have been so many Bat Mitzvah moments...

• My first aliyah was on the Congregation Har Shalom bimah, on May 24, 2003, with a 7-day-old Ellie in my arms receiving her Hebrew name.

• I've always been a practitioner of Judaism, though I got real about being a student (and teacher) of it when I moved to North Dakota in 1994 and had to represent "my people" to my classmates, many of whom had never met a Jew before. You really learn when you teach. 

• I've read every parsha and turned the Torah over and over again, looking for its secrets and finding my own voice to add to the chorus of Israel, those who struggle with this wonderful, terrible, people-defining and people-dividing book.

• For 7 years I was a professional Jewish educator, teaching Hebrew High and then serving as the director of our synagogue's religious school. I lived my Judaism out loud, and I carry the lessons of those years -- some of them very heavy -- with me each day. [Any scars from that adventure are healed each time I run into an old student (as I did tonight) and remember what I taught them and what they taught me.]

• I have taken on and shed mitzvot over the years wavering from

blatant disregard (I Don't Want Your God!)
to
do-it-yourself observant-ish (God Said So!)
to
spiritual atheism (Judaism Without God)

Too many developmental milestones have come and gone for me to "become" a daughter of the commandments.

Besides, it's someone else's turn now.

We Interrupt This Blog

My commitment when I revamped this blog (for the 4th (5th?) time) was to

1. Read something every day (check!)
2. Write something every day (check!)
3. Post something every day (almost-check!)

I'm living up to my commitment on 1. and 2., but 3. is proving slightly more difficult. I've been reading a lot of the wonderful, glorious Anne Lamott. The result is that much of my own writing has turned to the deeply personal, and unlike Ms. Lamott, I don't need all that out there for everyone to access.

Also, there's a #4.

No one needs to read my blog every day, and I want to be more focused in my publishing about Jewish-centric things. (I've got Facebook and Twitter (@schaibly) for all those other thought drippings.)

I've pushed out some posts that needed more editing, more time to simmer, and a few that needed to be deleted. I've also published some really great posts that got lost in the background.

I'll be publishing less, but (I hope) publishing better.

Shabbat: Happiness Only (With a Soundtrack)

I've often pondered this question:

Does the music I listen to influence my mood?
or
Does my mood influence the music I listen to?

The answer, of course, is yes.

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac will always make me tear up...

(Especially this 1975 version. She is so young.)

As will Time by Pink Floyd...

 (Don't forget the alarm clocks at the beginning!)

But the tecnho Orthodox chant at the top of this post has never failed to make me smile. It's damn upbeat, it has a great hook, and you can really dance to it!

The followers of Rebbe Nachman are known for driving their vans around Israel, stopping traffic and dancing in the intersections.

Their eponymous Rebbe was big on happiness, and quotes like this are everywhere in his writing:

Be very careful to feel only joy on Shabbat. There is nothing to compare with the greatness and holiness of Shabbat. The key to honoring the Shabbat is joy. Don't show even a hint of depression or anxiety on Shabbat. Treat yourself to all kinds of delights in the food you eat, what you drink, your clothes...  whatever you can afford. 

The food of Shabbat is completely holy. It is purely spiritual and filled with Godliness. It rises to a totally different place from that of the food of the six working days.

Make an effort to feel the joy of Shabbat and you will find true happiness.

--Rebbe Nachman  
Likutey Moharan II, 17

That's a tall order, but I like that he ends with "make an effort".  Sometimes there is more than "do," there is also "try". 

[This post doesn't serve as an endorsement of the Na Nachs, their theology or practices, which I know very little about beyond the views on joy. I'm sure we disagree about much. ] 

Remembering Yitzak Rabin & Jew vs. Jew

I am not Israeli.
I have never been to Israel.
But I clearly remember the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin 20 years ago, when he was 73 and I was 23. It was major world news, of course. It was so soon after the Oslo Accords, the treaty with Jordan and the Nobel Peace Prize. The world was shocked.

For me, the most shocking aspect was that his murderer was a fellow Jew. At the time, I was fairly ignorant of the deep disagreements between Jews, especially Israelis. I hadn't studied much of Israel's history, and what I did study was a gloss -- I'd had a few Israeli religious school teachers, but the only thing I really remember about them was the arguments over tav/sav pronunciation.

I spent from 1989-1994 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and as a university student I often found myself as the first Jew my peers had ever known. I put a lot of time into studying Judaism itself,
especially anything that would help me educate my friends and refute my evangelistic enemies on campus. (I had a few knock-out punches ready for the Campus Crusade for Christ whenever I engaged them, and I engaged them every chance I could.) Oh, to be young and on fire!

Rabin was killed by a Jew? How could a Jew do such a thing to another Jew? I still struggle with this question, with Jews who don't seem to embrace my liberal idealism of "This Judaism is good for me," and "That Judaism is good for them," but we all get along anyway.

I knew they were against us.
I didn't know we were against us, too.

Was there really something so divisive that Jews would resort to killing each other?
Of course there was.... and I look back on my naivete with wistfulness and nostalgia.

I used to be very into Jewish Triumphalism, Jewish Essentialism, and Jewish Exceptionalism. Jews are chosen. Jews put more value on education. Jews are smart. Look at all the Jewish doctors, lawyers, and media moguls (but don't talk about Jewish influence and lobbying power...)

What a narrow view of Judaism (and the rest of humanity).

It doesn't give Jews enough room for their shortcomings and doesn't acknowledge the amazing potential of everyone person, Jewish or not, to achieve excellence. [American exceptionalism drives me crazy for many of the same reasons. As soon as you believe that you are chosen, or the best, or #1! you close yourself off to learning from "others" who may know better.]

Maybe there are better ways to do religion, to think about spirituality, and to act virtuously.
Maybe we can learn from other countries who have found better systems, economies, and ways of being in the world.

I used to think that Jews were somehow above hurting others in the kinds of ways we had been hurt so many times.

• Would we oppress people? Of course not, because we know what it is to be oppressed. 
• Would we hold ourselves above others? No, because we know what it is like to be stepped on.
• Would we settle our disputes with violence? No, because we were experts at debate and argument and agreeing to disagree. The minority rabbis may not make law, but they were included in the Talmud.

Then Yigal Amir shot Yitzhak Rabin, and I didn't know what to think.

I still don't know, if Judaism has taught me anything, it's to be OK living with the questions. Living with the uncertainty and looking to many sources for guidance...)

Be kind. Always.

Let's start there.

May the dream of peace be seen in our lifetime.

The Things I am Not

I am not a musician. I can strum a few basic chords on the guitar, and I can sing (mostly) on key, but I have never been able to feel so wholly comfortable playing any instrument that I've been in control of the sound that comes out of it.

Except for once. I was about 12 and taking weekly piano lessons. I was struggling to get a song right and was desperate to give up and walk away. But my mother was enforcing my practice time, so I kept going and kept on making the same mistakes.

Then I had a moment.

My hands were playing the keys, and my mind was hearing the music, but it was as if I were an audience member,or listening to a recording. I wasn't creating the music. I was receiving it.Transmitting it.

I only realized I had played the song when I was done and my mother asked, "Was that you?" For a moment I honestly didn't know.

I tried over and over again, for years, to recapture that moment, but I was never able to. I've taken lessons. Practiced on my own. Started over at the beginning with the basics. Switched instruments. Even when I was my most diligent, I could never get past "technically correct" and copy-cat mimicking what I heard others play.

It may be that I never put in enough time.
It may be that I gave up too easily.
It may be that I needed a better teacher, a better book, or better practice methods.

Even if all that is true, I'm still ready to say:

• I'm not a musician, and That. Is. OK.

• I'm also not an athlete. Also OK.

• Or a visual artist. Definitely OK.

At some age you just have to take an honest assessment and say, "I am talented in these ways and not in these others, and I am going to put my limited energy into

• Improving the talents I have

         or

• Working on obtaining and improving the talents that do not come naturally.

I've chosen the first.

What excites me now are moments like this, where I sneak in and catch Ellie playing along to "All Apologies," by Nirvana, "Box of Rain," by the Grateful Dead, and noodling around on her own tunes and lyrics while she wears an AC/DC t-shirt, sits beneath my 1988 Jim Morrison tapestry and keeps her faithful stuffed penguin Pingu on her pillow.

It's not yet time for her to say, "I am," or "I am not," and that is, most definitely, OK.

Parsha Chayei Sarah: Sarah answers Channah's Letter

Dearest Channah,

What a delight it was to receive your Rosh Hashanah letter. You are correct, my dear sister, I did not believe as I lived my life that I would be remembered so many years later by so many! They even named a weekly parsha after me. "Chayei Sarah" -- the life of Sarah.

Unfortunately, the first line of that chapter announces my death, and rather unemotionally at that: "The life of Sarah was 100 years, and 20 years, and 7 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah."

What an ending. Dying off stage! In truth, it was probably better than I deserved. The last of my words quoted in the Torah were some of the ugliest and meanest I ever uttered: 

"Cast out this bondwoman and her son! The son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac."

Cast

Them

Out

Abraham didn't want to make Hagar and Ishmael leave. I believe he had fallen quite a bit in love with them, especially the boy. Ishmael, at age 14, was finally old enough that Abraham had started to make a real connection with him. 

That was what scared me, Channah. What would I do if Abraham's bond with Ishmael grew and grew while Isaac languished in the shadow, not old enough to join in with his father and half-brother?

What would happen if Abraham -- who was no spring chicken -- up and died while Ishmael was still in our household? Where would my Isaac be then?

No.

Cast

Them

Out

They hated me after Hagar and Ishmael left. Abraham couldn't stand to look in my direction and fretted constantly about his other wife, his other son. Despite God's promise, he could not erase the vision from his mind of them suffering a torturous death in the desert. He screamed himself awake from nightmares. He tore at his garments and went on long, aimless walks, waiving off the company of even his most trusted servants.

I fretted too, wondering if Abraham would ever forgive me, warm to Isaac and take him into his heart, or had I poisoned that part of him? Did he see too much of me in the little boy? Or maybe he saw Isaac's strong resemblance to Ishmael and the presence of one caused the remembrance of the other.

Did you think about Elkanah felt when you made your vow to dedicate his son Samuel to the temple? When you surrendered him to the priest? 

Elkanah also had to make an empty-armed trip home. 

Allegra Villareal
Allegrea's Website

Isaac was distraught. I had taken away his hero, his "Ishma." Each time he noticed the conspicuous absence he would wail, sobbing into my robes. 

"Want Isma!"

"Want 'Agar!"

"Mamma's here," I would tell him. "Shush shush...Ima's here," but he was inconsolable. I was not enough. 

Had I made a terrible mistake? Would they ever forgive me? What could we have built together, the five of us? Me. Abraham. Isaac. Ishmael. Hagar.   

You gave me too much credit when you said I was brave when I let Isaac go up the mountain with his father. 

The truth is I had sacrificed Isaac many years before 

on the altar of my own fear. 

So no, I don't need to be in another book and have my decisions, plans and words laid bare before the world. Have you seen how the rabbis obsess over every little detail? How can anyone come out looking good under such scrutiny? 

I lived to be 127 years old, Channah. 100 years, plus 20 years, plus 7 years...and what is captured in this sacred, holy text is so little of that time. 

Where is 
the struggle

the fear

the uncertainty 

of leaving our home and setting out with no destination and only a promise?

Where is 
the excitement 

the passion

the joy

of living with and growing old with a man such as Abraham, a man who deeply loved his family and trusted completely in his God?

It must be enough to say

Chayei Sarah

Sarah Lived

I Lived

Woodcut by Gustave Dore
depicting Sarah's burial in the cave
1866

Schadenfreude gets harder...

The Kansas City Royals won the 2015 World Series tonight by beating the New York Mets.

I don't have any great love for the Kansas City Royals, but when I was 12 years old, in the fall of 1986, the Red Sox were one out -- one strike -- away from winning it all, and then this happened:

I searched Google for the video and pasted the link, but I can't actually bring myself to watch the damn thing. "It gets by Buckner..."

Don't click it, Sox fans.

That was the last time the Mets won a World Series, and they were two outs away from keeping themselves alive in the 2015 World Series tonight, when this happened:

"Buckner'd it!"
Take that, Mets.

But I've been there. I've been that anguished fan watching it slip away.

I've seen a manager leave a pitcher in too damn long.

I've screamed at the TV when a fielding error or a bad throw to home blew a lead.



I love the human drama of sports, and baseball is (for many reason) my absolute favorite. I don't just love the Red Sox. I love the game, and tonight's game packed in the drama.

Because the Sox tanked this year, not even making the playoffs, I had no emotional connection to the outcome, except that ugly kernel of desire for the Mets to "get theirs" in some sort of sick trade/revenge for 1986.

Then I looked up their roster:
The oldest player in the team is 2 years younger than I am. Over half the men on the team roster were born after the 1986 World Series.

And that game that the Red Sox lost -- that wasn't the Mets' fault -- of course they wanted to win. So did the Red Sox. We just had a terrible mistake that happened to be one of a long line of serious mistakes.

And now I have friends who are Mets fans, and I feel empathy for their pain, not schadenfreude.

I still love the Red Sox just as much as ever, but maybe I'm old and wise enough that I don't hate the other teams simply because they are our opponents.**


So Congrats to the Royals, their city and their fans. It's been a long 30 years, eh?
Great season, Mets. Keep the faith for next year.



** Except the New York Yankees. Yankees Suck!"