February 2007 Archives

This was in response to Julie's M&M Post.

Currently playing in iTunes: Die Walkure from Act III (Wotan's Farewell And Magic Fire Music) by Lorin Maazel; Berlin Philharmonc

Whether or not you have any belief in a divine intelligence or providence, I think that most of us have had moments in our lives in which we feel as if we've been through some sort of test, where we've been called upon in our lives to make a judgment or perform an action in the face of a circumstance. Sometimes it's major, sometimes it just a moment in time that we can go this way or that way, and either affirm or fail to affirm who we are.

Sunday morning I feel as if I was given a test in two parts, and I passed one half while failing the second. I was rushing around running our errands before the party at the Exploratorium, but I was flying high. My boy was six, and we were getting ready for a fun day. I parked in the Safeway parking lot, and the sun was shining on a day that should have been rainy. I strode to the door with a spring in my step, and a smile on my face, saying yes to the world. On the way in, I made eye contact with a man sitting at a card table by the exit, collecting money for charity. He smiled at me, and I smiled back, and he didn't even try to stop me and give me the schpiel; he just said 'maybe on the way out', and I said 'sure, on the way out.' I think in that moment I knew I was going to give something to whatever the charity was. There's a Jewish ethic about righteous giving, not to massage our own sense of guilt for abundance, but in order to heal the injustices of the world. Some practice giving a percentage of the cost of any party or gathering they give, as a way of balancing the joy of celebration with the joy of giving. It seemed like an appropriate day to practice Tzedakah and so on my way out, I read the sign that indicated the charity being collected for was a Christian organization that helped the homeless, and the man told me about an event they were holding, where $10 would sponsor a family's meal. I opted to sponsor two families for $20 -- not a great sum of money to me, but enough to make the act meaningful. The man was very appreciative, and I was feeling pretty good at this point.

Then he asks me...

"Are you a Christian?"

At first the question doesn't register with me, and I have to ask him again what he asked me. I heard it, but my mind didn't know what to make of it.

"Are you a Christian?"

Well, ain't that the doosy of a question for me these days. I'm trying to gauge in the split second I have to answer this question why he's asking, and how I want to answer. Of course, I'm not a Christian, but there's a motivation for his question that goes beyond the simple reporting of the facts. He wants to connect with me. I've done something that he feels is praiseworthy, and wants to bond with me. Perhaps he needs to correlate my actions with my beliefs. It's not enough for me to just answer 'no'. And yet, what do I say?

"Well, no actually, I'm not a Christian. I used to be when I was growing up, but lost my faith as a young teen and have spent the last twenty years trying to figure out whether or not I believe anything at all, much less any particular story. I've tried on all sorts of religious and philosophical belief systems from paganism to atheism. It seems that now I'm converting to Judaism, but I'm still trying to figure out what all of this means, and if I have any story to tell about belief in a reality grounded in what I'm experiencing."

No, you can't hit a stranger with that sort of diatribe, and besides, I don't have the time for a lengthy theological debate, nor do I wish to be evangelized to. That 'No' is starting to sound pretty good. So I reply diplomatically:

"I believe in God"

That's really all he needed, to have permission to say "God Bless You".

And yet, is that entirely accurate? I feel like I've not only misrepresented myself, but I've also missed an opportunity to try on my new (becoming) identity. I could have said.

"No, I'm Jewish."

Which is actually much closer to the truth than saying I believe in God, mostly because I have no idea what I mean by 'I believe in God', but I've got a pretty clear idea what 'I'm Jewish' means to me. I've passed the test of Tzedakah, but I've failed the test of self-identifying. The truth is two-fold. The first part is, I don't have any practice saying 'I'm Jewish', especially outside of the Jewish community. The second part is, we live in a culture in which there are only two socially sanctioned answers to that question: "Yes", or "No', which translates roughy into "Yes, I'm a Christian" or "I don't believe in God". Other choices, other belief systems, are not standard answers to the question. In the language game, there are proscribed verbal exchanges, and being Jewish appears to be just outside the standard parameters of the game.

I felt odd about the whole exchange, as I said, like I failed a test. I talked with Julie about it, and she reminded me of something that made it all a bit more clear for me. She said that all Jews find it a little hard to claim their Jewishness in this Christian-dominated culture, and hesitance is normal.

Yeah, I guess that's true. I'm not used to being part of a stigmatized culture yet -- being anglo and male, I'm pretty much on the top of the heap, and since cutting my hair short several years ago, I've been accepted into the fold of the dominant paradigm. I've forgotten what it's like to be outside the norm, even if I don't feel normal. So, even in my apparent 'failure', I'm still learning what it's like to be Jewish. Perhaps next time I'll try on that identity.

I think I might need to practice it some more.

Six years ago today, I watched you come into this world. You gave me a scare, first by taking so long, then by coming out with a weak pulse - while your momma waited exhausted and anxious, I tried to play it cool as the doctors and nurses quietly but with firm intent suctioned the amniotic fluid from your mouth and nose, and used a mask and bulb to get you breathing. In an instant your skin tone turned from blue to pink, and you coughed and breathed for the first time. In that moment, my heart soared and I breathed with you.

Beautiful boy, ever since you came into my life, you've changed it, and have given me meaning. You've erased my existential angst, and assured me that no matter what goes wrong in my life, as long as you're in it, I'm going to be just fine. Every day has been a beautiful journey, some days are easy, some are hard, but each one of them have been worth it.

I'm constantly amazed at who you are becoming, with your intelligence, your grace, your wisdom, your love and caring, your goofiness and wit. Your will and your trust amaze me every day. Some days I don't take full advantage of your presence, and for that I am truly sorry. Other days, I drink you in completely and we laugh together, knowing the beauty which is each other. Tomorrow we celebrate your birthday at the exploratorium. I hope it's as fun and exciting as I think it might be for you. It's 3 AM now, so I am going to get to sleep, and hopefully have enough energy to be fully engaged.

So, my little rock star, let's have a great time tomorrow, what do you say? Let's paint the town red, and show those folks at the Exploratorium just how it's done.

For those who haven't been following the great journey which is Joshua's conversion to Judaism, one of the activities in which I've been participating is a weekly Torah study class, in which we read a portion of the Torah every week, and by the time the year is through, we've covered the entire scroll and it all starts over again. As a quick point of education for the non-Jew, this reading of the weekly 'Parashah' is a deep part of the tradition. The Torah is consumed in bite-sized chunks in this way, and (hopefully) special detail is given to coming to find and understand the wisdom found in the passage, echoed in other related readings (the Haftorah), in the Mishnah, and the Talmud. Frankly, growing up as a Christian, I can't remember EVER giving any portion of the bible this level of careful exegesis -- not that it isn't possible, or that it doesn't happen; its' just *I* never did it. Frankly, I do believe it's probably pretty rare except in the most liberal and/or academic of settings, as most Christians that I know view the 'Old Testament' as a quaint historical record of what came to pass before the really important event of the birth, life and death of Christ. Whatever hard-to-understand, strange or incongruous passages might exist are looked over with a patronizing eye of 'oh look how quaint, this is what the Jews used to believe -- good thing we don't have to worry about any of that anymore with the 'new Covenant' '. However, to the Jewish people, the Torah is still the central text, and the source of ethical and spiritual instruction. What's particularly interesting is, where a fundamentalist Christian might read the old testament with a literal eye to be taken at face value, even the most ultra-orthodox of Jews does not take the Torah at face value, but only through the lens of the other texts in their tradition, and through the wisdom of the rabbis.

Which brings us to Mishpatim.

Mishpatim, which means 'Ordinances' as a rough translation, is one of the sections of the Torah that lays out a whole host of laws and rules of conduct in the minutiae. Following on the tails of Yitro, the parashah in which the Hebrew people receive the famous ten commandments, Mishpatim is really a continuance of the utterance of God (oh my, I'm using that word again with a capital 'G' -- that's freaky) on the rules and basic conduct that constitute the terms of the covenant with Hashem (which is a name proxy for God -- it literally means 'The Name', and is a safe way to speak of God with out uttering his name. More on that whole thing in future posts, I'm sure :) ).

Okay, cool, let's get into it, right? Well... these laws are pretty much severely outdated, as they refer to how you are to treat your slaves, how to pay restitution for taking a man's daughter's maidenhead without marrying her, what to do if your ox gores another man's ox, etc. etc. While progressive for the time, what does all of this hubbub offer the modern Jew for inspiration and relevance? You can really start to take the Christian perspective here -- it does seem quaint and irrelevant, doesn't it? Especially in the light of the fact that it explicitly sanctions slavery, and lays out the terms for capital punishment (did you know that speaking ill of your parents was a capital offense?! Watch out!) The famous 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth' phrase comes out of this passage (though if you damage your slave and he loses an eye, he goes free). So, what is a liberal-minded reader supposed to do with all of this information? How does this help guide my life today and in what way should it inspire me?

Well first off, let's talk about the Talmud and the Rabbi's again -- Judaism has religiously sanctioned and encouraged interpretation and debate over the meaning of all of these passages, with a firm intent on keeping it relevant. Even the writers of the Talmud knew not to take that 'eye for an eye' business literally -- they declared it to mean if someone pokes out your eye, they have to pay restitutions in value of the eye. So, yes, read the Torah, but please don't take it literally -- there's so much more to read to get it. Kinda like Kant -- without the secondary sources, you're lost.

Second, what *is* particularly interesting about this passage is that there is an unprecedented move that's happening in social organization. Up until this point, the peoples of the world have been ruled by kings and dictators, whose word is law, and is changed at their own whim. How just the society was depended solely on how just the current ruler is, and there was no guarantee of justice from one monarch to the next. 'And then came a pharoah that did not know Joseph'. For the first time, we get a system based on the rule of laws being the final arbiter. In this passage it's made clear that for the most grievous offenses, you're to take a person from the very altar of god and bring them before the people for capital punishment. What this means is, not even the high priest is exempt from following the letter of the law. Wow. No ruler is above the law. This is ground-shaking, and changes the direction of human history. Okay, yes, yes, the historians are going to tell me that there were other systems of laws being put forth just like this system in other cultures. However, those systems of laws were not grounded in a religious covenant with the gods, even if they were said to be transmitted from the gods. Hammurabi's code was given to him by his gods, but they were not a condition of his relationship with those gods. In fact, the whole idea of a binding contractual relationship between mortal and divinity was brand new. These were the rules you had to play by if you were to be part of the community.

Thirdly, this section lays out the establishment of the higher and lower courts, of the importance of trials and adjudication. Actually, the higher and lower courts are first mention in Yitro, the previous passage, but they are detailed a bit more in Mishpatim. All cases of legal infraction had to be brought before some sort of judge for not only determining guilt or innocence, but for the meting out of punishment or restitution, in accordnace with the terms laid down in the laws, which often allowed for flexibility on the part of the judge.

Hmm... is any of this starting to sound a little familiar? Well, if you know you American history, it should. It's a common misconception that the American legal and judicial system is based on Roman practice, but it more closely resembles a secularized version of the judicial system being proposed right here in Torah. (Lawyers and legal wonks -- no, you don't have to point out to me that American law is based on common law, which is an English invention, but the English Puritans, who helped craft and create the modern common law in response to abuses of monarchy used the bible as inspiration). In any case, whether the source or merely an echo of American values, this is something that I can get behind. If you substitute one document (the Constitution) for another (the Torah), and you subsitute one legislative body (Congress) for another (Rabbis), the similarities really start to stand out. And this is all over three thousand years old, I find that to be pretty inspired.

Personally, I'm interested to start studying Talmud as soon as I can, to start getting the complete picture on Halakha, whether or not it's really still relevant in whole or in part today. What I find interesting in the ordinances is that there is a dual purpose of positive proscribed actions created to make a better society and world, and to spiritualize the actions of life, and the negatively prohibited actions cited in order to help control society's impulses as well as setting the Jewish people apart again in order to spiritualize and sanctify everyday life, and to draw distinction, in turn tightening identity and community.

While I'm never likely to own a slave, or have to worry about my ox goring another man's ox, what I can take from these passages is a tradition that stretches back thousands of years that is dedicated to justice and equanimity, as well as mercy and compassion. While the situations may have changed, the underlying motivational values have not. The ancients needed a set of common laws drawn up to help them learn the difference between wrong and right, and to hold them accountable in the case of transgression. In today's world, most of us in the western cultures have for the most part internalized a good deal of this proscribed ethical behavior, but we still have our needs for laws, courts, judges and process. We're far from perfect, and it's not enough for us to hold the will of god in our hearts through some sort of penance and transformative experience. Sorry, Christians -- I don't mean to rip on you, but I don't trust your best intentions, no matter how much you love Christ and your fellow human. We need to have rules and legal process in order to hold us accountable, and hopefully the internalization of those rules give us insight into compassion and love for one another as the Christians desire. It's the chicken-egg story, and I'm a believer that the chicken of laws has to come before the laying of the egg of right action. The Covenant, which was said by the early Christian thinkers to have be wiped clean and made irrelevant by the death and resurrection of Christ, and by his teachings of brotherly love and passivity, is really the set of behaviors that a fully spiritually connected Christian wired to the godhead is supposed to perform instinctively. By true Christian theology, It's not that the laws don't matter anymore, but that you don't have to be told them anymore because your heart guides you.

How many fully actualized Christians do you know, or can name historically? I think that Jesus is probably the only one. For the rest of us, we need teaching and laws to help us become better people. We internalize right action little by little, and we decide what right action means on a personal level in a dialectic conversation with the rules we agree to follow.

Anyhow, that's enough of my rant for now. It's late, and I need sleep. I know I've forgotten a few somethings in this diatribe, but the time for my brain to write and work properly is long past over.

Shabbat Shalom

A few weeks ago I had the strangest of dreams that was both disturbing and illuminating, and while I don't remember all the twists and turns and details, I will tell you the main point of it that affected me for days after having the dream. I'm not sure how exactly I got there, or what the set-up was, but somehow I ended up in a bar / night club with all of my friends, and it was open mic night. However, it appears all of my friends had matching outfits, and were putting on a collective (and rehearsed) show, where each of them was showing off their particular talents. They were all very good, and very entertaining, but it was bugging me that they didn't once offer for me to join them in their escapades. I was very impressed with each person's talent and presence, and yet I felt excluded and unappreciated. It was an ah-hah moment in humility, to realize (or at least I was realizing this in my dream) that I am such a stage hog that I hadn't really ever given enough screen time to my friends for them to shine like they can, and it was an awakening realization to see what my friends were capable of, how beautiful and powerful they are, what strengths and talents they have, and just how much in the end of the day they don't need me to survive -- they are self-sufficient. Now, I know this is all going on in my head while I am dreaming, so not only is it the constructed reality of my mind, but it's also one blissfully divorced from the constraints of rationality and experiential input. This isn't really happening. All the same, it gives me pause to think about whether or not I give my friends enough credit for being who they are and being as powerful and capable as they are. Of course, I value them, and I don't make friends with lesser people -- I'm sort of a friend snob that way :). But it appears that part of me thinks I take them for granted, and I tend to be a pretty perceptive guy, so I'm paying attention to my own self-criticism.

All of my friends -- I love you, and I see you for the beautiful amazing people that you are; this is why you're my friend. The last five or six years of my life have been about learning humility, and learning to take the back seat when my impulse might be otherwise. I need to get comfortable being in the audience and not getting my hand called in class. I guess part of me is always seeking approval, always looking for validation, and I learned in my teens and twenties how to demand attention in order to get that validation. Now, in my thirties, as a parent and a full-fledged adult (hah), I'm learning to accept my own value through the fact of my having so many friendships with such amazing people, and most importantly because I feel worthy and complete. I didn't make friends easily as a child, I was very sensitive and socially clumsy, so more often than not I'd stick my foot in my mouth, get laughed at, and run away crying. Part of me is still like that, but you all know that. I don't run away, but I blush and laugh at myself. I still (often) stick my foot in my mouth, as glib and smooth as I might pretend that I am. Being articulate and being smooth are not the same thing at all. And all of you know I'm still pretty sensitive -- a blessing and a curse, I suppose.

Anyhow, I just wanted to tell you that I'm learning to let you have the lime-light, and I'm really really enjoying the show. You guys rock.

Isaac is at the age now when his height is just about perfect for banging his head on the corners of tables, and his combination of overconfidence and lack of general coordination places him in situations where he can fall from heights that can hurt him as he climbs into his high chair on his own, or onto the chair by the sink in order to wash his hands, or onto the bathroom toilet to get his toothbrush. In truth, his balance and coordination are better than I give him credit for, but I'm his dad and it's hard for me to let go and not be so protective. I know that a blow to the head at his age, or at any other age can be life threatening, and sometimes I worry, perhaps a bit too much. When I was in college, in my freshman year, a freshman girl who was rushing a sorority and who drank to the point of losing consciousness, passed out while walking down the street, fell and struck her head on the curb, killing her instantly.

What's been haunting me lately is this image in my head from an event that happened around twenty years ago; I was playing mud football with a bunch of friends (most of them older than I) at the grade school near my parents' house, and for some reason there were local kids hanging out around us as we played -- a kid that was perhaps 11-12, I think perhaps a younger one around 8-9, and a very young boy ... just about Isaac's age, around 2 or maybe 3. The guys that were there playing football with us, the older ones, were maybe 17 or 18 years old (I was 14 or 15), and full of competitive testosterone. At one point, one of these older guys gets the ball, and feeling the impending tackle on his heels, starts to sprint, and notices only too late that he's got the young boy directly in his line of approach. He's got moments to react, and makes the decision to jump over the boy. Well, he doesn't quite clear him, and as he's attempting to clear the boy, one of his feet catches the boy in the front of the forehead, and slams him back. At this point, all action stops, and we all huddle in. I'm young, I'm not really sure what's going on, but I remember that things didn't seem right. Being teens, and perhaps less responsible than we should have, we're of course looking to cover our asses in this situation, so we send the boy home with his siblings. There's a noticeable goose egg rising on this kids forehead, a thick rectangular red gash about two or three inches long and about a half-inch wide - the shape and dimensions of our friend's cleat. To this day, I have no idea what happened to that boy, and if he was okay or if something more sinister developed from that incident. As a parent, I'm outraged at our own irresponsibility, and at the irresponsibility of the parents who let their children take out their two year old without supervision. As a parent, I'm frightened of that sort of thing happening to either one of my boys. We're such fragile creatures, and while we can bounce back from minor injury without a scratch left on us, it's so very easy to cause permanent lasting damage. The fear of the dangers of the world can be paralyzing if you let it, and so we all ignore it and live our lives the best we are able -- life is fatal, after all. What's important is living each moment with meaning, alive to the possibilities and the actualities around us. To hide from the world is to die to it.

And so the ghosts of my past quietly amble through my life, silently pointing for me to notice what I should, what I can, what I could, what I shouldn't, and what must not be. We've already had a close call with Isaac when he was just starting to walk, as he stuck his hand into live ash under the barbecue and gave himself second degree burns on small embers left in the cooling ash trapped on the catcher. We feared that he might have had permanent damage, but with a bit of Neosporin and clean bandages, he healed up without leaving any marks at all. We were lucky. Hell, raising a child from infancy to adulthood is a long string of lucky events, considering just how much we seemed genetically driven to put ourselves in danger. Childhood is nature's proving ground, where the herd is culled of the weak and the unsuited, but to deny the tests are to deny life, and just as you can't crack the shell of a chick lest you deny it of the strength-building exercise of birthing themselves, you can't save a child from childhood. Scrapes are gonna happen, and there are blessings in a skinned knee.

Nonetheless, when I close my eyes at night, sometimes on the black screen of the theatre of my mind plays a silent reel of these moments, quietly warning to look alive, stay sharp, and be on my guard, lest history repeats itself and that which is most important to me is hurt. However, when I stay up until a quarter-of-two, mostly the lights go out and the theatre closes for the night -- only to reopen for the dream time, but that, my friends, is another blog post.