Susan's Musings

Beware the Misguided Majority

“Each Passover we should see ourselves as if we personally experienced the Exodus from Egypt.” Jews around the world recited a sentence expressing this thought at the Passover Seder a few nights ago. Shortly before the holiday started, my son, Ari, saw one aspect of this idea come to life.

I think most of us picture ourselves on the right side of history. Had we lived in different times and places surely we would have stood with the abolitionists rather than the slave-owners; would have joined the Resistance rather than the Nazi Party; and would have opposed Stalin rather than embracing him. We more easily picture ourselves following Moses through the sea rather than ignoring him and the God he represented.  But the majority of Jews did not leave Egypt. Eighty percent chose loyalty to Pharaoh and the status quo.  Bad choice.

Being courageous and noble is always easier with hindsight. If we were all virtuous, wise, discerning and proper-thinking people, there would be no evil to defeat in the world. It is obviously quite easy to follow a wrong ideology and be swayed by misguided and evil philosophies. Ideas which sound good can be awfully destructive. Fully aware of how courage is contagious, our son, Ari, took time from an incredibly busy schedule to go hear Ayaan Hirsi Ali, one of the brave and heroic women of our day. If you have not read her book, Infidel, I highly recommend that you do. An outspoken activist against the worst manifestations of Islamo-fascist behavior, particularly as it affects women and children, she risks her life by speaking out and has been forced into exile for her views.

Hearing her speak was a mixed experience. Ari appreciated her words and was glad to support her as she addressed the students at a major university in Maryland. The student reaction, however, was demoralizing. Ms. Ali and America were attacked. Listening to the questioners, one would be forgiven for thinking that the Moslem world is a bastion of women’s rights and peaceful coexistence among all religions while America is a bigoted, repressive society. In Ari’s words, “The questions and questioners were uniformly dumb, rude, antagonistic and illogical.  What was incredible is that the moderator, the president of the university, allowed and encouraged their behavior.  It was truly childish and embarrassing.”

In every generation in which evil triumphs, many who side with it are ‘useful idiots’ or swept along with the crowd. We should never stop looking deep inside ourselves and asking ourselves whether we are on the right side of issues and will be able to look back and declare that we, indeed, did align ourselves with those who chose God rather than Pharaoh.

 

 

 

Football, Caucuses and the Sabbath

Texans are serious about sports. Decades after he stopped playing for the Dallas Cowboys, a friend of ours still attracts major attention when he walks through the hallways at DFW airport. It is reasonable to assume that Texans also treat high school basketball more earnestly than do citizens of other states. So when a religious Jewish high school in Houston recently was told to forfeit a tournament semifinal game if they wouldn’t violate their convictions and play on Friday night, the Jewish Sabbath, it was big news.

I’m pretty serious about politics. This past Saturday the WA State Republican caucus took place. I didn’t attend. For Sabbath observant Jews, a Saturday caucus always presents a number of difficulties, sometimes insurmountable ones. This past Shabbat it was even harder to overcome the obstacles. The Shabbat before Purim (Feast of Esther) includes a special reading from the Torah in synagogue, and while you can play “catch up” if you must, the preferred option is to hear it on Saturday morning.

I did not feel ‘offended’ or ‘excluded’ by the WA State caucus’ timing. Had I wanted to, months ago I could have contacted the State’s Republican Party offices and brought up the issue. The chairman, Kirby Wilbur, a friend and former radio colleague of my husband, is a great guy who taught two of my children in a homeschool co-op. Our family has been guests at his home for a spectacular Fourth of July fireworks exhibition. Had Sabbath-observant Jews brought the Saturday caucus problem to his attention, I have no doubts the party would have made accommodations for us, as a number of other states with Saturday voting have done.

Similarly, when a well-known department store runs a “one day sale” on Saturdays, which means I can’t take advantage of the special pricing, I basically shrug my shoulders.  Whether you are a political organization, a business or a sports league, balancing your needs along with everyone else’s is impossible. You do the best you can and make adjustments when possible and reasonable.

Which is why I was disturbed by the way in which the Texas situation was resolved. In response to a lawsuit brought by the parents of some of the basketball players, a judge issued a ruling and the game was rescheduled. While on the surface this seems fair and equitable, in my view, it was an unfortunate outcome. As I see it, legal action tends to damage relationships. It is ever so much better when these things get resolved – even if it takes longer and there is short-term pain– by neighbors acting out of concern for each other.   When people voluntarily make changes out of a desire to be inclusive, communities are strengthened. When the law forces accommodation it only emphasizes “otherness.” When courts get involved rigid lines are drawn which frequently end up causing unanticipated and more severe problems down the road.

I hope that in four years there will be a non-Saturday option for the WA State caucus. I wish the Beren Academy basketball team success in making the semifinals once again and for the scheduling to allow them to play. More than either of those outcomes, however, I wish for a less litigious society, where human relationships flourish and the legal system is called upon only rarely and in extreme cases.  

Ideology Interrupts the Story

Certain rules of writing are easier to memorize than to obey. One of the most basic ones is the importance of staying on topic. As a writer, it is tremendously difficult to remove a phrase you love or edit out a point about which you are passionate. When the words are completely extraneous, adding nothing to the story you are telling or the point you are making, their inclusion might say more about the author than about the topic.

Maureen Dowd’s recent NY Times column on actress turned nun, Dolores Hart, is a case in point. Despite achieving promising success as a young and attractive actress, Ms. Hart left Hollywood, choosing instead to take the vows of a Benedictine nun.  She is newsworthy right now because a documentary of her life has been nominated for an Oscar. The contrast between the beautiful 24 year old who appeared with Elvis Presley and the elderly 73 year old mother prioress planning to attend the coming award ceremony certainly makes for absorbing reading.

The narrative, however, provides less human intrigue to me than the completely gratuitous paragraph which Maureen Dowd included in her article on the subject. I’m going to present a few quotes and ideas from the column. Let’s see if you can spot the ones that have nothing at all to do with Dolores Hart.

1)    In 1958, a friend suggested to the actress that she spend a few quiet days at the Abbey.

2)    The church cares more about banning contraception than about investigating child abuse.

3)    The church has an “antediluvian male hierarchy”

4)    The actress was engaged to be married when she realized she wanted to be a nun.

5)    The tabloids couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a hidden reason for Dolores Hart’s choice and reported a (false) rumor that she was pregnant.

It wasn’t terribly hard to choose numbers 2 and 3, was it? With this column Maureen Dowd intended to reveal something about Dolores Hart’s history and religious epiphany, but she ended up revealing much more about herself.

Against the Tide

Having been rather busy last week, I just got around to reading Rabbi Jonathan Sacks powerful piece, Reversing the Decay of London Undone, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The incredibly articulate chief rabbi of Great Britain explored a historical precedent both for the recent riots in England and for believing that there is a way to prevent them from reoccurring. In his usual straight-forward and hard-hitting manner, Rabbi Sacks presents the case that only a religious reawakening can put the western world on the right track again.

In effect, he lays the onus on you and me. We may bewail the fact that universities, the media and government have abandoned the values which allowed them to flourish, but realistically they will only change when forced to do so. That force needs to be in the form of pressure by millions of ordinary citizens who refuse to take the path of least resistance and who are willing to be publically vilified by people including the president and popular pundits  as well as their children’s teachers and their neighbors. It means that we are responsible for demanding respect for our beliefs and unabashedly proclaiming our commitment to our faiths.

It also means that we need to start in our own orbit of responsibility.  How many of us believe that sex should be reserved for marriage, that God created the world and that capitalism is moral, but we still send our children to schools and universities which relentlessly preach the opposite to them? How many of us hold back from insisting that ‘social issues’ cannot be separated from economic ones? How many of us don’t take the time to research issues so that we can articulately and intelligently discuss these topics?  Or we speak the truth so bombastically that we end up chasing away people who would listen to and agree with us if we spoke more carefully?

The race is not necessarily to the swift but often yields to the persistent. Despite the Supreme Court, public opinion and the establishment’s attempts, abortion is less acceptable today than it was a few decades ago. The Pooh-Bahs didn’t change their minds, but thousands of heroic citizens refused to normalize the destruction of human life. Individuals opened their homes to unwed mothers, started pro-life clinics and refused to ‘get with the program’. They ignored those who mocked and hated them. They are winning.

I increasingly speak to friends who are seriously worried about the future their children will face. They would probably agree with Rabbi Sacks that the viability and security of our nation depends on fidelity to traditional Jewish and Christian values. Yet when polls show homosexual marriage gaining in popularity these same people suggest that religious Jews and Christians should keep their views to themselves; they stay quiet when colleagues or their children’s teachers mock their beliefs, and they refuse to tell teenage and adult children whom they support financially that the support comes with strings attached. Like me, they sometimes find it difficult to speak up and present an unpopular viewpoint.

Rabbi Sack’s article is both reassuring and challenging. History shows that successful civilizations can and do fall. Whether America and Western Europe follow that descending path, or revitalize themselves and bequeath our children a flourishing society, is in our hands.

Eat, Pray, Eat, Love, Eat

That may not be the most original title, but it pretty much sums up my recent trip to Jerusalem. Arriving just a few days before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, meant starting off with an intense prayer experience. Yom Kippur is an annual occurrence, and unfortunately, it is often wrongly perceived by many Jews and presented in many synagogues as an ordeal – 25 hours to endure, spending most of those hours in synagogue as prayers drone on, with no food or drink for either sustenance or distraction. That is a perversion of the holyday, keeping the externals while missing the soul.  In Jerusalem, at our children’s synagogue, the day was meaningful and exhilarating. Rather than feeling drained as nighttime ended the observances, the atmosphere around us was uplifting and invigorating. It was precisely what a day which allows us to start our relationship with God anew, clear of the past year’s sins, should be.

Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, followed with its own special prayers and activities. This is a holyday ideally meant to be observed in Israel, especially in Jerusalem, and each day was precious. The entire country was bathed in a festive mood and as we reconnected with long-time friends and family whom we rarely get to see, the week of celebration unfolded joyously. We had the privilege of joining my aunt and uncle for his eightieth birthday celebration, re-connecting with cousins and meeting their children and grandchildren. An added bonus during our visit was the opportunity to attend thought-provoking and inspiring. shiurim – Torah classes.

As for love, it permeated the entire trip. For starters, I was sharing stimulating days and evenings with my husband, surrounded by family and friends. Even more, there was the opportunity to step into our daughter and son-in-law’s lives, seeing how their relationship has grown. The piece-de-resistance, of course, was the arrival of their first child, our new grandson. I had reluctantly missed the early days of our most recent two granddaughters’ lives. Waiting for their appearances I helped with older children, allowing my daughters to head into labor rested. But the babies each delayed coming until I was no longer able to stay. My help was appreciated, but I was absent for the miracle of birth and those first irreplaceable days.

This time I shared in a long, arduous labor, marveling how my daughter stayed focused and calm throughout and at my son-in-law’s unwavering support. I heard the first breaths of a new life and participated over the next ten days as mother, father and son eased into being a family. I was re-introduced to the feel, smell and blessing of newborn being. I had the added gift of watching my own child emerge as a loving, competent and entranced mother.

Throughout it all, as the title suggests, food was an overwhelming presence. We enjoyed numerous top-rate meals in private homes. But, in addition to that, there were dozens of kosher cafes and restaurants within walking distance of us. So many, that despite prodigious effort, we were not able to try them all. Since we do not live in an area which provides much opportunity for kosher eating out, dining in Jerusalem was an incredibly fun activity. It wove its way around each of the other more important happenings, accompanying us back to the States in the form of an extra pound or two as a physical reminder of a trip which overflowed with spiritual and emotional bounty. 

 

 

Outdoor Luxury - first posted Oct. 7, 2009

Around the world, Jews are in the middle of celebrating the holyday of Sukkot, known in English as Tabernacles.

For one week, we move out of the house as much as possible and into Sukkot or temporary dwellings constructed exclusively for this holyday. Various specifications, such as a roof made solely of branches, mean that we are exposed to the elements while sitting in the Sukkah (singular). While in the land of Israel Sukkot comes at a lovely time of the year, in other parts of the world people sometimes find themselves sitting in parkas with gloves and hats sharing the Sukkah with bugs and drizzle. We spend as much time as possible in our outdoor domiciles, eating, entertaining and studying.

But, paradoxically, as we spend so much time in our Sukkah, this is not a “roughing it” experience. We wear our finest clothing, bring out our best cutlery and crystal, and cook our most scrumptious recipes.  Unlike a camping trip where our expectation is to endure a certain amount of discomfort, living in a Sukkah is in no way associated with deprivation.

Of all the year’s holydays, Sukkot is given the appellation, Z’man Simchateinu or “the time of our happiness.” While there are many spiritual injections that Sukkot provides, perhaps one of them is the message that happiness comes from within us rather than externally. When struggling with poverty or battling an illness, it is tempting to think that we would be happy if only that obstacle could be overcome. Some of us think the only impediment to happiness is 25 pounds of excess weight or a different spouse. I am not trying to minimize genuine, formidable challenges. But the human condition is such that happiness doesn’t correlate with the ease of our life. We all know of lottery winners whose riches led to despair, of Hollywood stars living miserable lives, and others whose good fortune is equaled by their wretchedness. Thousands born with the blessing of good health and beauty torment their bodies in ways that those who don’t possess those particular gifts are hard put to understand.

At the same time it is easy to find people whose circumstances should seemingly engender depression, but who greet each day and all those they meet with smiling faces. No one wants to deliberately impose poverty, ill health or sorrow inducing conditions in order to see how well any individual would face an ordeal. Without assembling such an experiment, Sukkot provides a reminder of how ephemeral security really is and how the safety we feel in our homes is actually an illusion. At the same time it reminds us that God is found in all places and that as long as we have His shelter, we are never abandoned and unprotected. That reality strips away any pretense that our happiness is dependent on “if only,” making this truly the happiest time of the year.

Good without God?

Can you be a good person without being God-fearing?

The immediate and obvious answer seems to be yes. There are self-described irreligious individuals, agnostics and atheists who live upstanding lives filled with hard work, strong marriages, volunteer activities and other honorable undertakings. But recently, I began to wonder about the validity of my question.

What do I mean? Well, a short while ago my husband had an experience which all of us have had at one time or another.  He said something and immediately realized that it came out differently than intended. Unfortunately, he was on a TV show with a massive audience and in the fast-pace of the show, there was no opportunity to elucidate his comments. Add an explosive blogosphere to the mixture and his comments about atheists, which were unintentionally inflammatory, got repeated, magnified and distorted. Our office email filled up with letters from atheists.

The emails fell into two categories. Some people who were hurt or confused by his words wrote to express their feelings or to urge him to rethink. Their messages were thoughtfully written and made some good points. My husband answered each of these and sent each writer a copy of the article he had immediately written explaining both the meaning behind his comments and his disappointment in himself for expressing himself poorly.

The much larger group of emails was angry and written in attack mode. The overwhelming majority of these were disgusting, filled with profanity and threats. And that is what started me thinking. Like many Jews and Christians I have frequently been embarrassed when people who publicly proclaim their religiosity, verbally or through their professions, dress and actions, behave in shameful ways. It is irrelevant whether it is a case of hypocrisy or human failing; the action leads to dismay at the violation of standards. That dismay, however, necessitates a general agreement as to there being standards to violate. It is fair to say that a synagogue-attending or church going individual who commits adultery, embezzles, spews profanity or acts in any reprehensible way, is behaving wrongly. There is a stated correct code of conduct that has been breached.  In contrast, a religious person who considers himself a “good person,” would also judge his goodness through the prism of his religion. Giving charity is good, because God said that one should. That same reasoning holds true for being faithful in marriage and dealing honestly with others. For a religious person, God defines what is good. There is a framework in which to judge the religion and its adherents.

What then of the “good atheist”? Would one of the individuals who sent a polite email feel ashamed by the writers of the vulgar ones? Would they feel that the writer reflects badly on them? Does a hard-working, honest atheist feel betrayed by one who is a con man? If the answer is yes, I’m not sure why. Atheism is defined by what one doesn’t believe, not by what one does. In that case, each individual may decide for himself what being good means. One person can decide that graffiti is wrong while another sees it as an artistic expression. One person might be meticulous in financial dealings while another decides that stealing is honorable as long as it is from a wealthy victim. Who laid down the law that having an affair is wrong? Maybe it is simply a fact of human nature.  If there is no agreed upon external system of values, how can there be right or wrong? But, this does seem to be a problem for society. Stipulating that each and every person decides what’s good or not seems to be a prescription for anarchy.

Perhaps being good means being a law-abiding citizen? By those standards SS, KGB and Stasi officials were all good people. In fact, most of those who broke the law to hide Jews in Nazi Germany did so because they were responding to the demands of a higher Authority than their country’s legal system. Americans who helped slaves escape through the underground railway were similarly acting illegally. History shows that what we commonly label as being good isn’t necessarily synonymous with acting within a legal framework.

I don’t have an answer to my question. The thoughtful email writers offered proof of atheists being good people. I agree that the examples they cited ranging from serving in the military to exemplary business practices to charity work overlap with some of my own definitions of good behavior. I agree that atheists can be good people by terms that are meaningful according to the guidelines I follow.  But I still find myself wondering how they can define behavior using a term which their atheism seems to make either a meaningless one or else one that only exists by the benchmarks of a religiously influenced society. 

In the final analysis, that is what my husband was trying to say in the first place. Cultures where atheism was a defining feature, like Stalinist Russia or Mao’s China, weren’t free, pleasant or successful places. Atheists thrive today when they live in societies with patterns of behavior that were established under a Judeo-Christian culture.  Yet, the system only works as long as the majority of citizens adhere to that moral framework. If too many people take God out of good, the entire structure crumbles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marathon Maturity

It is possible that that some people do not consider a pyramid of bright yellow sulfur to be an attractive sight. But for our family, that view always evokes nostalgic smiles and wistful sighs. You see, along with heavy seaplane traffic and the striking architecture of the Vancouver Convention Centre, the miniature mountain of sulfur always signaled to our family that our boat had passed beneath the Lion’s Gate Bridge and was approaching  our Coal Harbour dock, one of our favourite boating destinations (we even get into the British spelling as you can see).

This past Friday, my husband and I arrived in Vancouver by car rather than by boat, but even so we both felt our spirits lift as we caught sight of the familiar landmark across the harbour.  We had come to Vancouver as the cheering squad for our daughter Miriam, who would compete in her first marathon on Sunday. Aside from the achievement of running the 26 mile course in an amazing four and a half hours despite almost constant rain, she and her teammates also raised over a million dollars for Leukemia/Lymphoma research.  I was delighted that so many of you supported her efforts.  Thank you.

Over the years, our family hasn’t been very typically American in our children’s sports activities. We had a few summers of T-ball and soccer day camp when the kids were younger and a basketball season or two during high school.  But our lives never revolved around Little League or driving kids to and from games and practices. Our children’s physical pursuits tended to be more informal neighborhood games, individual endeavors like snow-boarding and the family passion of boating.  Parental cheering squads just weren’t often needed.

One reason we weren’t into team sports was that we live in an area with only a small population of Sabbath-observing Jews.  Most games were scheduled for Friday night and Saturdays, which our children learned effectively ruled out their participation. One year our son did find a basketball team that played only on weekdays.  However, to his disappointment, their final championship game fell on the night of Purim, the Feast of Esther, and he went to synagogue rather than to the gym. 

Last November, when Miriam decided she wanted to run a marathon and to train with the well-known Team in Training, the fund raising arm of the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society, she discovered that training was scheduled for Saturdays and Tuesday nights. At that point, had it been me, I would have shrugged and looked for a pottery course instead. But Miriam explained to the coaches that she could not attend the Saturday runs on account of Shabbat and found friends with whom she could run on Sunday instead.

That was one of the ways in which she balanced being part of the group and following her faith.  Another was that on this past Saturday, while her team members spent the day before the race touring Vancouver, she and we enjoyed the Sabbath in our hotel. We lit the candles on Friday evening and spent the long sunny Saturday attending worship service, enjoying our Shabbat meals and strolling the busy harbour front to view our beloved snow-clad mountains, the seaplanes and ships, and of course the yellow sulfur stack.

Since the official pre-race pasta party, intended to assist carbohydrate loading, was both on the Sabbath and did not involve kosher food, we brought pasta salad from home for Miriam to eat in our room on Saturday night.  With all the issues that cropped up for a religious Jewish participant, her team members were always understanding and helpful.  Until Sunday night after the race was over.  That was when most of the runners enjoyed a rambunctious party featuring a great deal of the alcohol they had to refrain from in the weeks leading up to the race.  They were sure that beer was kosher and were puzzled by our daughter not participating.

Finishing a marathon is a great achievement; living with integrity is an even greater one. Well done, Miriam!

 

 

Fifty Pounds of Potatoes, Fifteen Dozen Eggs...

At the end of the meal, after proclaiming in a loud voice, “Thank you HaShem (God); thank you Grandma,” three year old Eli noticed that everyone at the table was looking at him. He explained to the group, “I like to thank both those guys.”

Which pretty much sums up our Passover. With God’s blessing, we had all our children and grandchildren around the holyday table for the first time in a number of years. While I spent many hours preparing the food for the seventeen to nineteen people at each meal of the eight day celebration (including ten festive meals), it truly was a labor of love.

This is not to say that it also wasn’t a lot of work. The planning started weeks in advance with a lot of unknowns. Would we have a very pregnant daughter at the table or a post-partum one? Or maybe the eagerly awaited family member would arrive during the festivities? Would we have a sparkling new and large kitchen to work in as well as extra bedrooms available or did the east coast winter snowstorms put another daughter’s planned move into a new home behind schedule?

Well, we are still waiting for the baby and about two weeks before Passover it became clear that a tiny kitchen would have to suffice and that we would need to impose on generous neighbors for beds. We rented an extra refrigerator, bought a counter top convection oven and moved the organizing/cleaning/shopping/cooking countdown into high gear.

Is Passover an easy holyday to make? No. But it is hard to think of anything that is worthwhile which doesn’t entail great effort. While this year had its specific complicating factors, other years have featured my own newborns, ovens and refrigerators that conked out, and a variety of other family and technical hurdles to overcome.

Still, while I appreciate the times we have spent Passover at friends or relatives as well as the availability of hotel Passover programs, my favorite years are like this one, when we are blessed enough to have the strength and time to do all the preparations and gather our family around our own table. The “easy” Passovers, when others do the work, can be wonderful, but they always feel a bit “Passover style” to me rather than the real thing. Not only are the weeks of preparation an intrinsic part of the celebration, but while the food may be delicious elsewhere, it doesn’t include those items whose smell and taste trigger the explosion of Passover memory receptors.  And had anyone other than I done the cooking, I would have missed out on my grandson placing me in such illustrious company.

As my mother always said at the holyday’s end each year, “May the same hands that put the Passover dishes away this year take them out again next year.” Amen.