Wrapping up the Year

So, how about 2012? Here are some things I meant to blog about but didn't get to:

Personal stuff

- First of all, I prepared a gigantic Hanukkah presentation for my middle-schoolers and it went quite well. Highlights included funny music videos (Matisyahu, Maccabeats and Eran Baron-Cohen), lots of latkes and donut holes, and re-enacting the death of Elazar Avran with a student volunteer, an expo marker, and me as the mortally wounded elephant.

Some people object to an ecumenical Hanukkah message, pointing out that the holiday celebrates people who were emphatically not tolerant of others. I think the history can be presented either way-- in the context of a classroom, I think it's legitimate to frame it as a conversation-starter about personal and national rights-- specifically, the right to be different and live/worship as you please (or as I framed it, rather than seeing it as a Jewish Christmas, Hanukkah is better understood as a Jewish mash-up of July 4th and Thanksgiving-- combining national as well as religious significance and rights). Would Judah Maccabee have been ok with the various expressions of Judaism we see today? Probably not. Then again, I know plenty of Jews-- myself included-- who wouldn't be very ok with killing a guy for worshiping an idol or running around forcibly circumcising your neighbors. I reserve the right to pick and choose.

- On a related note, we visited Mrs. Yid's mispocha. We were informed we would be attending midnight mass with the family. We wore our respective Jewish headgear (scarf and kippa). As Mrs. Yid predicted, there were precisely zero questions and comments from my in-laws, so it's impossible to tell what they thought of it. (Note that this is the exact opposite of what happens with my parents, who are nothing if not vocal-- about everything.) To celebrate Christmas, the church rang bells and set off fireworks. Since this was 12:30 am, I'm sure this did not endear them with their neighbors.

This was the first time I have flown with a kippa on. It is the first time in a long time I have been "randomly searched." Mrs. Yid notes that she has been "randomly searched" every time since covering her hair a year and a half ago.

I find it much easier to wear a kippa in public when I am somewhere I have never been and around people who don't know me. Food for thought.

- Our friend Avraham had his adult bar mitzvah along with 6 other congregants. Half of the b'nai mitzvah class were converts, and many of them were dedicated, longtime members. It was very cool to see hear all the different stories and paths that have brought people to Judaism in general and our shul in particular. Also, after shul Abbot Yid called me and asked why I hadn't picked up earlier that morning. When I told him we were at services he scoffed, "Oh, I'm sorry, you were busy BEING HOLY!" I continue to wonder when he will get over this stuff. Probably never.

- I am leading Carlebach davening this Shabbat. Wish me luck!

National/Media stuff

- Dennis Prager has a university. Considering he spends his time writing crap like how "as a Jew, I love Christmas because it makes me feel tingly all over," this pains me greatly.

- Israel is having an election. All the candidates seem either outright incompetent or supremely unsatisfying. I am intrigued by the shake-up among the religious, left and nationalist right political sectors, though at this point it seems way too early to tell what will come from any of it. (Though big kudoses to Shas for managing to be racist against Africans and bigoted towards Russian converts in the same election cycle. Mazel tov, jerks.)

- With all the school shootings happening, it's a strange time to be a teacher. I find it very irritating that so much of the national media/random pundits feel qualified to blather on about what teachers "should" do during a school shooting without apparently knowing anything about school safety procedures. At every school I've ever taught at, the training focuses on putting classes into lockdown mode until the threat is identified and/or contained, then evacuating. As cold as it may sound to people, this procedure and training helped keep Newtown from being an even worse massacre. Can there be additional steps added? Sure. But don't tell me that teachers are should be pulling a Rambo when everything they hear from the school is, "lock your door and keep your kids safe." And yes, while I realize the issue may be more complicated than merely gun supply, that does seem to be a far more logical place to start than random pat answers like saying we should "focus on morality" (how?) or that it's because we've taken God out of schools (explain the 60+ US school shootings before 1962, Huckabee).

 I don't see easy answers to the school shooting issue, but I do think that some combination of increased gun control legislation, mental health resources and refocused school security systems would be a good start. I don't think arming teachers or passing blustery laws that score political points but don't change the reality on the ground are good answers.

- Lastly, conversations regarding Newtown and theodicy have helped me better articulate some aspects of my understanding of God. Namely, why the notion of God causing disasters makes so little sense to me. (Adapated from a Dovbear comment I made a few weeks ago.)

If you look around, the world does not seem to be controlled. If God is a factor, it seems to operate as an undercurrent, not an obvious force. As such, my conception of God is not focused on the idea of a miracle-maker or a punishment-dealer. My God is one of suggestion and hope. When I daven, I always take a moment to insert a personal prayer where I ask for blessings for my family, for my friends, for my coworkers, for the leaders of the world, and for myself. I ask for health, for happiness, for peace, and for wisdom. But those blessings aren't for miracles, and I don't expect them to be fulfilled miraculously.

For me, prayer is an articulation of hope, and by speaking to God I am trying, in some small way, to reach out to whatever forces may influence the universe. It may do nothing more than make me feel better. It may help reaffirm to me what my goals for myself, others and the world are and thereby spur me a little step closer to making them come true. I don't pray for God to move mountains, but to touch people's hearts, to make them care about each other and about doing the right thing. I pray that somehow, this force we call God will help influence good and brave people, so that eventually they outnumber and overcome the evil and apathetic and help tip the scales of history.

To me, that is God's job, not making it rain, helping me win the lottery, or shielding people from terrible events-- because I believe that those things by necessity will always happen. But if there is a God and he does influence the world, my greatest hope is that he will help us, impact us, empower us, to become better about preventing our own tragedies and reaching out to those touched by them. That's the God I believe in.

Shabbat shalom.

Cultural Ambassadoring is Hard

Mrs. Yid and I are in the South hanging out with her family and relatives. Tonight we celebrated Hanukkah. Afterwards, my father-in-law, Habakkuk, and brother-in-law, Be'or, took me aside.


Habakkuk: You know, Friar, next time you explain something like this, it would be really nice if you didn't...

Me: Have so much detail?

Habakkuk: Make so many cynical side comments. Like about the oil miracle probably not happening.

Be'or: It's sort of like someone explaining Christmas to you and then immediately telling you there's no Santa Claus.

Touché, boys.

Dudes with ideas about things I should do

A year ago, I got to go on vacation with Shiksa Girlfriend and her family, doing typical goyish vacation things like hiking and sightseeing, as opposed to my family's time-honored vacation pastimes, sitting around doing nothing at all (at one point I was physically ejected from my easy chair by Shiksa Mom, who apparently flies into a tizzy when people are seen enjoying their free time doing lame non-sweaty things like reading a newspaper).

Besides fun cross-cultural mishaps like the above, SG had arranged our time with her folks to coincide with another important announcement: we planned to move in together. However, in her family, conflict is generally avoided like the plague, whereas my family views them the way knights do opportunities to break out the spiky sticks. So, it was not until 10:30 on our last night at the cabin that I was called down from packing my suitcase for "a talk."

Said talk consisted of Shiksa Mom twitching back and forth, SG nervously massaging my hand until her fingers were poking out the other side, and Habakkuk asking leading questions while refusing to get out of his horizontal Lotus Position with his legs up against the wall due to his injured back.

-------------
Sidenote: Habakkuk is also not very good at this conflict resolution thing. Shiksa Mom's sports-loving sister and brother-in-law had also come on this trip, as had their mutual friend. All were avid tennis players, a sport which apparently requires a fourth in order to be at all entertaining. Poor Habakkuk was forced to oblige them nearly every day. By the end of the trip, he had clearly had enough. Rather than man up about it, he instead tried to coerce me into doing him a solid, which he also refused to do in any sort of direct way. The conversation more or less proceeded like this:

Habakkuk: Man, it seems like I've played tennis a lot this trip.

Me: Mmmm.

Habakkuk: I think my ankle is shot.

Me: That's too bad.

Habakkuk: And my back is giving me trouble.

Me: Darn.

Habakkuk: But they really need a fourth for tennis... and I don't want them to not be able to play... What do you think? Do you like tennis?

Me: Not at all. Also, I can't wear any shoes other than my orthotic ones.

Habakkuk: ... Darn. My back is really killing me. And I just know they're going to ask...

Me: Hey, I know. Why don't you just tell them you don't want to play any more?

Habakkuk: I guess I could do that...

[Ten minutes later, we see Habakkuk limping off to the tennis courts.]
----------------

The most memorable exchange between Habakkuk and I centered around his totally-just-saying-question, "Is there any reason you're just moving in together, instead of doing something more serious? Like, say, getting married?"

To which my response was, essentially, "Yeah. We don't feel like it."

Luckily, centuries of Southern gentility prevented Habakkuk from having any programmed response available. That, and the fact that all the blood was rushing to his head.

I only mention the above because Shiksa Girlfriend told me an amusing anecdote yesterday. Apparently one of the black guys that makes deliveries for her store was chatting her up, and kept tilting his head at her. When she asked him what he was doing, he said he was looking for the ring on her finger. Confused, she said she didn't have one, at which point he clucked his tongue and said that since she and I have been dating for four years (next month), it's time I stepped up and "be a man" about this whole thing. Apparently she made a face or something, because his next tack was to quote Beyonce: "If you like it then you shouda put a ring on it." Touche.

Still unconvinced, and at this point more than a tad weirded out, SG tried to change the subject. Delivery guy was undeterred, and predicted that "by Christmas, you'll have yourself some sparkle on that hand." Charming.

SG came home and told me the whole thing, rather peeved. "He and my Dad would get along great!" she said, exasperated.

"Hey, they should hang out," I said. But remember: If he likes it, he needs to put a ring on it.

Cross-Cultural Exchanges

My girlfriend is from the Deep South. Not originally, but that's where the family wound up. We went for a visit to North Caro-Missi-bama last year and it was a little bizarre. I had been told ahead of time that I was expected to go with them to church. They're liberal Episocpals, not something loopy like Southern Baptists or Pentacostals, so I knew that at least I wouldn't have to worry about being outed in the sermon. Still, the fact that I had been told, not asked, bugged me a little.

I turned out to be there on Youth Sunday, where, as a way of acknowledging that some of the youths have stayed past their Bar Mitzvah confirmation, the adults let them do things, like singing stupid songs and giving lame sermons. The highlight came when a friend of one of the gf's younger siblings gave a talk about responsibility. She knew about responsibility, she said, because she was the assistant manager at Pizza Hut. At some point she threw Jesus in there, and I heard a Pharisee reference once or twice. I was annoyed that she didn't know what she was talking about, but amused myself by looking at the nice color maps they have in the backs of their Bibles- "oh, so David's kingdom was that big? And Saul took this route when he was preaching the gospels? Wait, Corinth is where?"

The gf's parents apparently get a little weirded out when they hear how Jew-ey she and I (or at least our conversations) tend to be in everyday interaction, so we've been trying to tone it down when we talk to them- I'm not supposed to tell any specifically Jewish anecdotes about my crazy relatives, and the gf isn't supposed to let on that she's learned how to bake challah or sing the prayers for candle-lighting. I also started emphasizing just how nonreligious my family is. "One year we had burritos for Passover." That turned out not to be very effective, since they didn't know anything about Passover, but hey, I'm trying.

But the last time I saw her Dad (whose idiosyncracies reach far beyond mere regional and religious divides), we started having this weird conversation about this Jewish writer I've been reading up on. Apparently he really, really liked Jesus and decided, in the 40s, that the best thing he could possibly spend his time doing was to bring Jews and Christians together. So he wrote some historical novels about Jesus, Paul and Mary, and pretty much rewrote the Gospels to make Jesus super-Jewey, and the Pharisees much nicer than they appear in, say, John.

Now the gf's Dad, who for my own reasons I'll call Habakkuk, has never heard of this guy, and doesn't really have much to contribute as I'll telling him about him. The one thing he does say is, "Hey, that's just like this book by X, a Christian author I like! He rewrote the Gospels, too!"

Sounds neat, sez I, being polite.

"Yeah, you should totally take a look at it."

I'm sure I will, sometime when I have time, money and interest.

He goes back to his hotel, and the gf groans. "I can't believe he told you about X!"

"Why, what's the big deal? It's just another fictional vesion of the Gospels, right?"

"No, he's this weird super-Christian religion professor , and he wrote this as his "vision" of what the Gospels should have been like. I don't even know why my Dad reads him."

Hmm.

The next day, Habakkuk gives me a copy of said book. Thanks.

I mentioned all this to my father the other day, and hesmiled. "I wonder if he's evangelizing you?" Thanks Dad, you always know what to say.

So now it's getting time for the holiday season, and I've decided I need to give Habby something- and I think I know exactly what.

Now I just need to expand the glossary. It turns out 'highly accessible' is a relative term.