harpojaeger.com

Of guilt and repentance.

This high holiday season was new for me in many ways. It was my first away from my family, it was the first time I fasted without drinking water, and it was also the first time I didn’t go to services during the day on Yom Kippur. This last one, and a related concept I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, are what I want to talk about here. As anyone who’s done it knows, praying is not a simple concept. It’s a big category within the religion (as in it encompasses a lot of practices and ideas), and there are a myriad of opinions about every single aspect of it. When, how, where, and why you should do it, and so on. Like many Jews, I’ve always had a complicated relationship to prayer. I was raised religious, but without much connection to a synagogue. Although very nice, the shul in our town never excited us that much (I think I’ve talked about my struggles with this a bit in a previous post), and I’ve looked for other options for a long time. (more…)

As a young Jewish man, I have often wrestled with the dilemma that dating poses: that is, do I confine myself only to Jews?  In my view, the question it comes down to is one of priorities.  Which is more important, an uninterrupted or unimpeded relationship, or my obligation (desire?) to raise my kids Jewish?  Are they mutually exclusive?

Theoretically, and in my ideal world, they wouldn’t be.  But in actuality it’s a lot more complicated.  In my hometown, for instance, there are a lot of families with one Jewish parent, usually the father.  I have many close friends like this.  And almost universally, they are completely non-religious.  I don’t say this in any sort of condescending, not-Jewish-enough-for-me kind of way.  What I mean is that they as a family have no interest in being Jewish.  Now that is obviously their own personal choice, and as such I have no intention of criticizing it, but I fully intend to have a Jewish family.  Here’s the issue: how many of those people did too?  How many went into that relationship convinced that they could do it, convinced that their spouse would be interested, engaged, capable, and that they would have Jewish kids if not a Jewish family (i.e. their mom wasn’t really a part of it)?  The answer is that I don’t know.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that none of these men went into the marriage with the intent of having a Jewish family, as I do.  Again, a personal choice.  But I doubt that’s as universal as the lack of that concept’s actual instances in the real world.  It’s definitely food for thought.

Thus, there is an issue of whether I can even do it if I try.  But I suppose the more basic question is, should I try in the first place?  Is it moral for me to insist to whoever I marry that my religion take precedence?  Is it okay for me to be the influence?  Is it Jewish?  Obviously “mainstream” Jewish teaching is in favor of the maintenance of the heritage.  But that same teaching frowns on intermarriage, and, in my opinion is, as a philosophy at large, responsible for the seclusion Jews have often held themselves to.  It’s true that Jews have been historically discriminated against in many respects, but there has definitely been an element of deliberate self-seclusion, perhaps in response to that discrimination.

But the modernized Jewish philosophy that I tend to associate with in most cases, the same one that says that a two-state solution is better than a “pure” Jewish homeland, and that gay marriage is acceptable in a synagogue, tells me that I need to keep my religion out of other people’s way.  That they have as much a right to theirs as I do to mine.  That all religions are created equal.  So do I have a basis for almost arbitrarily imposing my religion on my future family within Judaism?  I could certainly mix-and-match between Jewish schools of thought, borrowing from more orthodox viewpoints (maintenance of the bloodline at all costs) to allow for my raising my kids Jewish, and still maintaining an attitude of general tolerance.  Nope.  That seems completely immoral and subversive to me; using orthodoxy to enforce the spreading of progressivism, in a sense.  I need a progressive basis for raising a Jewish family with a not-born-Jewish wife.  Or I need to prove that none exists, and drop the idea entirely.

I guess I could say that it depends on the person I marry.  If that person is up for becoming Jewish and raising Jewish kids, then we’re all set.  Otherwise, I can say goodbye to having a Jewish family.

Do I want to leave it up to chance?  Or what might as well be chance, because I’m not really going to screen who I date by how likely I think they’d be to want to convert at some unspecified point in the future.  That’s just too much to ask.  Picture meeting someone in high school or college (I’m there now!), and telling them you can only date them if they’d convert if you got married.  That’s almost a more difficult criteria than “I won’t date you if you’re not Jewish”.  At least not being Jewish is an immediate disqualifier – I’m not asking someone to look ten, twenty years into their future, and decide if they will a) still be with me, b) want to marry me, and c) want to convert at that point.  You can’t start a relationship by looking at how you want it to end.

But no more can you ignore its end.  I don’t like the idea of starting a relationship with the intention of ending it, in any case, whether it’s because you don’t really want to stay with the person, or because you don’t think they’ll convert.  Either of those is just manipulative.

This is as of now an unresolved issue I’m thinking about.  I certainly haven’t confined myself to dating only Jews in the past, and I don’t think I will in the future.  I see intermarriage and intermingling as beneficial to any group; being insular is ultimately weakening.  So I suppose that, because of my desire to have a Jewish family, I’m looking for a way to ensure it within the moral bounds I’ve set for myself (equality, etc.); a fail-safe.  I haven’t yet found it.  I think I can do it, but I don’t want to step on anyone along the way.

Ultimately, this is the struggle of being a modernized Jew; how do you maintain the practice of a religion while simultaneously subscribing to ideas of universal religious equality?  They’re not mutually exclusive by any means, but you can’t just sit back and expect them to coexist.  You have to self-define and expand your boundaries constantly.

To me, that’s the most Jewish practice of all.

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

Driving south on I-880 from San Francisco to Alameda, we ran out of gas.  I pulled over to the shoulder, turned on the hazards, and took a breath.  I tried starting the car again, and was surprised to find that it worked.  So I pulled out, and continued on, planning to get gas at the next exit.  About a quarter mile later, it started coughing again, and I figured “Uh oh, this is really it”.  Now, of course, there was no shoulder to speak of, and we were going uphill.  The engine gave out completely, and I got as far to the right as I could, still blocking the lane entirely.  Since we were right in front of an entrance ramp, a large traffic jam ensued.  Most people were polite, pulling around us as I waved them by.  I was considering my options as far as Triple A and the like, when I felt a bump, and then another.  I turned around, and there was a man in a pickup truck repeatedly backing up and bumping into me.  I waved him by, but he wouldn’t stop.  I was getting worried for my safety (my sister was in the car also), so I decided the best thing to do was to call 911.  Of course as soon as I did, he pulled away, and I couldn’t see his license plate.  So much for him.  The dispatcher told me he’d send a tow truck over and an officer in the meantime to check on me.  No sooner had I hung up with him than a man tapped on the window, with a large Mack truck idling behind me.  ”I’m a tow truck on break,” he said.  ”I can give you a push to the nearest exit if you want.”  This was a very generous offer, but I had to turn him down, since I already had an officer and a truck on the way.  So I told him thank you so much for the thought, but I’ll be fine.  No sooner had he pulled away, than a Triple A truck pulled up in front of me.  Now I was confused.  The 911 dispatcher had said the truck would be from Micky’s towing in Oakland.  What was going on?

I was soon to find out.  The Micky’s truck appeared next to me, and honked its horn loudly.  It pulled up closer to the Triple A truck, and honked again.  The Triple A truck skulked away.  I, of course, was ecstatic.  I had just witnessed a tow truck battle!  Over the right to tow me!  What a sight!  Now the whole thing was worth it.  I felt so proud, to be the subject of a confrontation between two grease-covered burly men with chains and pneumatic lifts!

Except that then the tow truck driver told me there was, by virtue of a state contract between the Highway Dept. and any service truck, a $175 fee for being towed off the freeway.  This was an issue.  I dropped a whole lot of money on fixing my dad’s car the other week, after a minor scrape that did some serious damage to the steering (although no one nor any property was hurt at all), so I didn’t really want to pay.  Fortunately, the police officer arrived at the same time, and extremely kindly offered to push me off of the freeway.  So, with my sister hyperventilating in the passenger seat and the Micky’s truck preceding us with flashing lights, the cop bumped and shoved our beat-up Nissan pickup all the way off of the freeway.  From there, the tow truck brought us to a gas station.  And when I asked him what we owed him for the tow (expecting to have to bargain down from $175, since he had essentially towed us), he said “Don’t worry about it”!  I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

And now it gets interesting.  After shelling out $50 for a full tank of $3.15/gallon California gasoline, I got in the car, and was ready to head back to the house to rendezvouz with my aunt and uncle and head out to their purportedly-really-awesome friends’ house for dessert.  ”Don’t worry,” I said jauntily to my sister as we buckled up.  ”We’ll be home in five minutes.”  Everything was just fine.

Just fine, that is, until I turned the key.

The engine sputtered.

It coughed.

But it wouldn’t turn over.

I was flabbergasted.  The other night when I took this ancient jalopy out for the first time, we had had to jump it first, but since then I had been using it to drive back and forth between my aunt and uncle’s place in Alameda and my grandparents in San Francisco with no problems.  I asked the gas station attendant for a jump.  They didn’t have one.  I asked security (we were in inner-city Oakland).  They didn’t have one.  So I called my uncle, who was on his way home from a late day at work, and he said he’d come by.  So we waited.  I tried cleaning the battery terminals with a cardboard coffecup thermal holder, but to no avail.  That Nissan wasn’t budging.

Eventually, of course, he arrived, and we jumped the car with no problems, and drove home.  So ended the saga.

It was a damn long night.  We had to cancel the dinner plans, and were unable to reschedule them for tomorrow as had been hoped.

So it goes.

It rained really hard on the way home today, and as the defroster in my dad’s car is broken, we were mopping the windshield with a sweater every few minutes.  It was awful driving weather.

The actual day at Brown was really nice.  I met some really interesting faculty, and learned a lot of really cool stuff.  Since the program was designed for admitted students, not just those who are already comitted to the school, as I am, there was a fair amount of courting, which was annoying, but expected.  Also, now that the students have been admitted, and the school is essentially trying to woo them into giving the school their money, the control shifts to the parents, who start asking all sorts of ridiculous and non-productive questions.  At a certain point, it seems as though they don’t even really care about the educational component, they are just looking to put people on the defensive, because that is fun.  It can be easy to fall into the trap of wanting to hear yourself talk when you are interested in something.

Anyway, I had a really good time despite all of that.  Not only did I have some excellent conversations with various faculty members (chiefly in the Geology department), but I was fortunate enough to start a conversation with a senior who then offered to show me his thesis work, which was on historic wind and temperature changes in East Africa.  It had all sorts of cool charts and studies involved, and he had a lot of interesting stuff to say about the department and the way science in general works at Brown.  The main thing I gained today, from him and others, was a really good sense of how to navigate the departments and resources once I get there.  I am really looking forward to begininning in the fall.

The conversation I began to have with some of the Geology faculty and continued somewhat with that student was about public policy.  One thing they pointed out, that I agree with, is that Geology is very much a study of how humans can interact with natural cycles.  In this way, it is extremely applicable to public policy.  Or rather, public policy is extremley applicable to it.  There is an abiding notion in politics that the best way to become, for instance, a statesperson and work in international relations is to study political science, and government, and stuff.  I would agree that it’s important to understand how governments work, but if you’re going to go work for one, as, say, a broker of international environmental policy, you had better understand how nitrogen cycles work.  Scientists are in a unique position to set and influence public policy, based on their formidable understanding of the way things work.  Policy needs to be set based on scientific truths, not the other way around.  If you decide what your policies will be and then look for science to back them, that is bad.  It is data mining, and it is just general quackery.  Science necessitates conclusions, and sometimes painful ones.  Governments need to respond to that by setting policies that are based on scientific truths.

More and more, I am getting interested in some kind of intellectual property law, or something of that sort.  For that reason, I am considering doing some kind of engineering major (perhaps Computer Engineering, which seems to be a strong division at Brown), and then going to law school, perhaps earning a Master’s degree in Engineering as well.  Having a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering makes it easier to find work, which could potentially help me pay for law school and graduate school.  I also really want to teach high school math, so I am definitely considering some kind of math major as well, perhaps dual.

Also, if I work hard on my investment plans for this summer, I could enjoy a lot more financial flexibility in the future in terms of education and career.

Things are starting to come together.

Our plans changed rather suddenly this evening.  We were not able to go to the rabbi’s house for dinner, so I instead went to our synagogue’s community Seder.  And this was no ordinary seder.  Deval Patrick himself, the governor of Massachusetts, arrived, and ate with us.  I managed to corner him before he left, and talked to him about charter schools.  I had heard that he opposed them (which I doubted, as it is an oversimplification), and he vigorously denied it as I had thought he would.  He did make the very interesting point that what Massachusetts has not done such a good job of is using charter schools as “laboratories”, as he put it, and applying what we learn from these schools to the district system.  Building off of this, I would say that the reason people are often angry about charter schools is because they don’t see any benefit to having them.  If we look at charter schools as a government investment that allows a new perspective on public education, we see an immediate benefit, as long as those perspectives are used constructively.  I don’t know what specific legal steps Patrick plans to take to make this more of a reality, but I appreciate the clarity of his goals, and his willingness to communicate them.

I got a photo with him, but I was using my mom’s celphone camera, and did not save it properly, so it is gone forever.  So it goes.

We had a Passover seder last night, which was pretty wild.  A total of thirty-one guests were in attendance.  The Manischewitz and the Dr. Brown’s were flowing fast, and a wonderful time was had by all.  Tonight we are heading to the house of my congregation’s rabbi for a seder, which promises to be excellent.

Passover is a good time to reflect on a lot of different things.  At this moment in particular, the idea of the way Jewish people relate to slavery and freedom is pretty important.  The situation in Israel is, in my opinion, continually deteriorating.  A foreign minister who believes that Israeli Arabs should swear an oath of allegiance to the Jewish state, a government that is increasingly willing to pursue military action before diplomacy and compromise, and an international assumption that the land is Israel’s to do with as it wishes; these are all huge obstacles to peace, and, in Jewish terms, Moshiach.

I do not agree with those who say that all Jews are responsible for what the state of Israel has done.  That’s like white guilt; it’s polarizing and non-constructive.  But I do think that, as Jews, we have a duty to stand up and say “Look, we’re not okay with what’s being done in the name of our religion.”  We, the constituency of international Jewry (a FABULOUS word), are the strongest voice of conscience.  I can’t speak for the views of Israeli Jews, many of whom I know do not agree with the way the government has approached these problems, just as many Americans despised the way George W. Bush treated the rest of the world, but I am not self-centered enough to pretend that I am the only Jew who is not blinded by fundamentalism.  I am only one of many Jews who believe that [the] religion stands for something greater than its own personal gain; the betterment of humanity, whether or not the particular humanity is involved happens to be Jewish.

There are always people willing to use religion as a justification for their own racist or extremist ideals.   I don’t distinguish between Avigdor Lieberman and a Muslim extremist who sets off a car bomb on an ideological level.  Clearly there is a practical difference; it’s not illegal for Avigdor Lieberman to have views that I consider racist and it is illegal to blow people up.  But it is immoral for Lieberman to be allowed to apply those values to a society in which he is in a position of leadership.  Racist views have no place in government.  Neither does religion.

In my household, we place a strong emphasis on having non-Jews at our Seders.  We believe that is a mitzvah to share our traditions and celebrations with others, and to experience theirs.  Coming from this place, I see it as central to the Jewish faith that Jews be willing to cooperate with others.  Judaism places a high value on human life and dignity, and its intrinsic worth, and we must always prioritize that above all else.  I strongly believe that religion can be a force for good, and that despite arguments about whose is “better”, who is the “true believer”, or if it’s even valid at all, we cannot discount the effect it has on many people.  All persons of religion have a duty to deal with others on their terms.  This means that a religion must not become insular and self-absorbed.  It must prioritize the basic needs of others over its so-called “religious truths”.

There is a myth that a lot of American Jews support Israel’s generally conservative stance towards religious cooperation, but a new survey from JStreet finds that this is not true.  It is clear that Jews have individually progressed.  Judaism needs to follow.  All religions, Judaism included, need to take their rightful place in the modern world, allowing their practitioners to maintain their reason, logicality, and respect for others.  When any religion begins to cloud these things from view, this must be immediately addressed with progressive and productive dialogue.

I support the abolition of the state of Israel and the forming of a single secular state in the region.  But this does not preclude me from dealing with and listening to those who support the state of Israel as a religious institution.  Nor does it prevent me from having a close and personal relationship with that historic and significant area.  I don’t view it as the Promised Land, but, being a person who picks and chooses from the history of the religion to suit my own needs, I understand the significance it holds for others, and would not take that from them.  But we all must realize how our actions affect others.  Jews do not have more of a right to that land than any one else.  Period.

Google Calendar is becoming really awesome.  I just spent about forty-five minutes entering various data about Brown stuff, and it is going to be really useful.  I have a calendar shared with my parents, and have entered all filing deadlines, special events, etc.  Also, the discussion feature has thus far allowed me to take some notes on what I’m doing (like filling out paper forms and getting things to my college counselor), and as my parents start to reference the calendar more, we will all be able to keep track of our progress there.

We got home earlier than expected, at about four or so.  I have been doing some yardwork, and am heading up to see Will at the farm.  I will stay there tonight, and we will catch up on our math and physics work, on which we are extremely behind.  I may also bring the LC(A) to show off.  Will has told people about it, but I don’t think they’ve ever actually seen it in the flesh (plastic?).

Our first Frisbee game is on Thursday.

Shawarma is probably one of the best foods there is.  I had a fabulous chickens shawarma sandwich.  We are staying at my aunt and uncle’s apartment now.  We walked around for a bit before coming here, as we had been in the car for about an hour from New Jersey.

This morning, before we left, we visited my great-grandmother at the nursing home she is in.  It was very nice in some ways, and not nice at all in some other ways.  It made me think a lot about how I want to be treated and live when I am that age, and how I want to cope as my parents get towards that age.  I think that it is weird that in America we pay people to live with and take care of our old people, rather than just doing it ourselves.  If everyone was in a better position to take care of their relatives as they aged, we wouldn’t need to spend so much money on those institutions.  Ideally, the government would provide money to anyone who is taking care of relatives to help them cope, but until we are in a position to have that sort of health care infrastructure, we will have to deal with these not-so-friendly institutions.  This particular one is rather nice, but it is still an institution, with all of the benefits and pitfalls that implies.  It is a tricky situation.

I am glad that my relatives are being well taken care of, but I wish it was a little more personal, and I wish I saw them more often.