The threshold of doubt

Last night, I attended the third of our mandatory class meetings. The first was on alcohol use, the second on issues of identity and bias, and this one was on sexual assault. Oddly enough, I had actually been looking forward to it the most, because I thought that it would be the most applicable presentation. The first two were certainly interesting (great speakers, excellent presentations), but this one went beyond. The featured speaker was Katie Koestner, whose story and presentation were incredible. I’ve never seen so many people so attentive. I don’t think I heard a word spoken out loud throughout the entire thing.

But what I really want to write about is a discussion I had afterwards. I approached some of the event coordinators who had told us how to get involved with some peer-education programs, to ask some questions, and got involved in a discussion with another guy about the ability to criticize the actions of a victim of such abuse. The discussion lasted a while, but where it ended up was with the concept of a threshold of doubt; a point past which we have no reliable way of asserting how we would act in a situation. I submit that rape is over such a threshold. None of us can predict how we would act given such an intensely demoralizing and disempowering event.

That being said, the guy I was discussing with made the very good point that if we always hold off on judgment based on a lack of certainty, we never reach any conclusions, because nothing is certain. It’s when we make assertions without declaring or implying the proper level of uncertainty that problems happen.

The result of the conversation was the dismissal of several assumptions. When I first heard this guy speak, I assumed him to be an angry, misinformed, and subtly sexist person who denied the role that society and masculinity play in a culture of sexual abuse. By the end of the conversation I had realized that I was completely wrong. This was a thoughtful person who personally knew several rape victims, and was extremely dedicated to moral and practical consistency on opinions and debates relating to this topic.

And I will venture to say that I had taught him something. At the end, we agreed that it was important to understand the context in which one criticizes the actions of a victim of something like rape. I had spuriously accused him of doing more damage than good by bringing it up. He made the very good point that none of the three of us (another person was also involved in the conversation) were in a position, had a desire, or were likely to spread dangerous misinformation. So, with this in mind, I amended my statement, and said that I wanted to make sure he understood the ways in which one must modify such speech in a public forum. This he agreed with.

So we both left the conversation with a heightened respect for the other (he had initially accused me of getting “violent” when I raised my voice following his assertion that beating up a sexual aggressor would help solve the problem), and an increased awareness of how difficult it is to engage in meaningful debate about these issues.

This is the kind of discussion we need more of. Not to sound self-centered, but I think we exemplified the way people should be talking about these things. Especially because both of us had spoken to Katie after the presentation and conveyed our gratitude and interest.

Make no mistake, these issues are incredibly hard to discuss. Emotionally, logically, and morally. But we owe it to the past and future victims to try.

Obama's best speech yet

Tonight’s health care speech was solidly the best speech I’ve ever seen Obama deliver. He backed the public option. He called out the liars. He put forward a plan. And he did it without sacrificing bipartisianship. He conceded tort reform, supported an individual mandate, and mentioned the people who’ve worked with Kennedy across the aisle.

The speech had exactly the right mix of stubbornness with regard to morals and understanding of GOP positions. But he also wasn’t afraid to condemn those who don’t have any interest in reform. People who have legitimate concerns will be heard, now, as ever. People who don’t won’t be invited to negotiate.

To the supporters: Keep your minds open and your morals strong.

To the opposers: Bring us your concerns and we’ll work through them together.

To the naysayers: Your time is over. Get out.

This is the bottom line. Reform now.

Impressions

I’ve been at Brown now since yesterday morning. I’ve met SO many interesting people, and there are so many more to meet. One of the biggest transitions has definitely been class size. PVPA, all six grades, is less than a quarter the size of just the incoming freshman class here. It’s SO BIG! I’m coming to terms with the fact that I will not know everyone. But I am making some good friends.

People are really friendly. Especially when you remember that they’re all in the same boat as you; they’re nervous about meeting people as well. If I suspend my judgment long enough to meet someone, I usually find them to be interesting and really engaging. So it’s been a really rewarding experience so far.

Orientation programming continues essentially through Tuesday, when our first academic meetings with advisors occur. I also have two job interviews on Tuesday and another on Thursday, all for on-campus jobs. They are all really interesting positions, so I will be figuring that out pretty soon.

Things are coming together. There’s certainly a lot to keep track of, but I feel pretty on top of it, especially with the help of the advisors and orientation committee, who’ve been awesome.

So far, a big thumbs up. College is pretty fun.

Cross-posted from Jewschool: To date or not to date?

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 thatmy 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.

Know your enemy?

I’ve just returned from a health care reform town hall meeting and rally in West Hartford, CT. It was quite an experience. After shouting into a megaphone for hours, holding signs, arguing with all sorts of people, and listening to peoples’ questions, I’ve learned a lot. First of all, I’ve learned that people will try any tactic to distract you from the issues at hand. I had people come up to me today, observing my various bits of Jew-apparel, and tell me that I should feel unsafe about the socialist direction the country was headed in, because socialism would lead to Naziism, etc. And not only that, but that therefore I should be “pro-Israel” (a phrase I DESPISE), as it would be my last refuge when this country went down the tubes. I say, when your last refuge is an introverted, outwardly violent, and discriminatory establishment, something is seriously wrong somewhere.

But I digress.

Sort of.

Because during that conversation, in which the gentleman I was discussing with said that we need to “break radical Islam”, he said something else that struck me: “You need to know who your enemies are.” I responded by saying, “Sir, I don’t have enemies. I have differences”. But I’m not so sure that’s true. In a way, my constant obsession with dialogue and discourse has blinded me to some important realities:

• The GOP, as a party, does not support health care reform.

The GOP is not interested in compromise. They want to kill this bill (as many protesters today chanted) as a political tactic. Now, I know this is nothing new in terms of political wrangling, but to pose as having legitimate opinions on reform is just deceitful. Make no mistake: the GOP opposes reform.

• The GOP relies on misinformation and fear to keep its constituents behind it.

Today, I saw a lot of smart, educated people, who were very afraid. I saw children younger than my youngest sister screaming hateful slogans. What is it that makes these people want to live like this? It’s the media’s willingness to pander to make money, and the GOP’s disgusting willingness to capitalize off of that. Spreading fear of socialism is not constructive. I had an entire crowd of people chanting “Get-A-Job” at me today, as I yelled through a megaphone about my MassHealth and my experiences with the system. And when I talked to people afterwards, they said “You’re a Marxist”. I said, “I’m not a Marxist, I believe in the free-market. But you can’t turn peoples’ health into a profiteering racket”. And then they said “What are you doing here?” I was stunned. I said “This is a free country. All ideologies are welcome.” The GOP should hold itself in higher esteem than to court the values of xenophobes and racists. Being insular is not a political philosophy, it’s a moral shortcoming, and one that the GOP is exploiting for political gain. That being true, I will call the GOP what it is: an immoral organization with no regard for real progress of any ideological flavor. It is a self-serving organization, not one that exists for its constituents.

• There are people who will do anything to make you feel as though your opinions don’t matter.

I was decried as a Marxist, a Communist, and (along with my Jewish friend next to me), an anti-Semite. These are accusations meant to take away from the substance of the argument. This is not an ideological issue. This is not a political issue. If you believe that everyone has a right to health, there is no more debate except on how. But that’s not what these people are debating. When someone stood in front of me and said “I worked for my health insurance, and they should to”, I said, “So you are calling 47 million people slackers? Are you prepared to stand by that?”. They said, “Well, not all of them.” So I said, “Then what about the ones who aren’t slackers? How many are there?” He couldn’t answer. When faced with the reality of the issue, that millions of people who work just as hard, if not harder, than any of us, do not have the insurances we do because of disadvantages and fundamental inequalities that they have no control over, they can say nothing. He tried to change the topic, he fear-mongered some more about my religion. I told him I was quite comfortable with my existence as an American Jew. He said, “Then why do people die trying to come to this country?” I said, “Because there is a promise. A promise of opportunity. And the current health care system is a fundamental betrayal of that promise.”

I don’t mean to just write about my exploits, but I am coming to realize that not being able to negotiate is not a bad thing. When you’re facing people who don’t want to talk, people who don’t respect progress or change, when people like Senator Enzi walk away, you have to cut your losses sooner or later. This bill is going to happen. And if we have to do it without the naysayers, so much the better. Anyone who has something to contribute is welcome to join. Welcome to talk to me or any other Democrat in the entire country any time.

But if you don’t have anything constructive to say, your time is over. Fox News may be filming you, but they’re not making the policy decisions.

I’m extending a hand. Will you take it?

Fun with tow trucks

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.

Cross-posted from Jewschool: Quaking before G-d

You may not be looking for the promised land, but you might find it anyway / Under one of those old familiar names / Like New Orleans, Detroit City, Dallas, Pittsburg P.A., New York City, Kansas City, Atlanta, Chicago, and L.A.
-James Brown, Living in America

“We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and weve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then well build”
“And then what?” said her Dmon sleepily “build what?”
“The Republic of Heaven.”
-Phillip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

People grapple with how to make something larger than themselves significant in a personal context all the time. Obviously, religion is no exception. And when one tries to extrude one’s own understanding of a concept such as religion onto others, the consequences are disastrous.

That being said, I personally have found it extremely productive to learn more about other people’s approaches to difficult concepts. I struggle to maintain a balance of originality (i.e. not adopting someone else’s viewpoints) and applicability (not becoming so caught up in my own opinions that I become insular and self-centered) in my opinions. I talk to experts, I weigh their opinions, and I try to form my own based on a hopefully well-informed view of the situation.

So it was when I started wearing tzitzit and covering my head after freshman year. I spent time with some Modern Orthodox Jews, I talked to some more Reconstructionist-ish rabbis, I talked to friends and family, and I spent time just thinking about it myself. I ultimately came to the conclusion that it was something I wanted to do, to help provide me with the sense of constant responsibility and Jewishness that I felt I had been missing.

I knew then that that wasn’t at all a final step in my religious deliberations, but I’ve definitely gone in some directions since then that I didn’t anticipate. One in particular seemed to me a good topic for a post; my recent attendance of the weekly Quaker meetings in Northampton. My father was raised Quaker, although his family was Jewish by blood, so the RSoF was always on my radar in a vague sort of sense. I knew that Quakers worshipped in silence, and that one stands up and just speaks if one has something to say. I suppose I had thought a bit about the theological implications of this form of worship, but not extensively. So, about a month ago, I went to a meeting.

I have quite a few Quaker friends, so I had a bit of an insider view on the community from the beginning; I could sort of see it through their perspectives. There were not that many people at the first meeting I went to, owing to a annual meeting elsewhere in the area that drew a lot of regular members, but it was still very interesting. There were a couple “messages” given over the one-hour period. One woman spoke about a trip she took to Austria, and an experience she had in a small village where no one spoke English. She had a hard time understanding the local dialect, but she did know that everyone was very friendly, because whenever anyone passed anyone on the street, they would greet each other familiarly. It took her a while to figure out that what they were saying was Gruss Gott, which translates as “Greet G*d”.

The format of Quaker meetings can be taken in a lot of different directions. Some of my friends informed me that there’s a name for when too many people are giving messages at a meeting. They call it “popcorn”. So there’s a subtle stigma towards talking too much. But my perception was that that’s not because they don’t encourage thought. It’s that they encourage room for thought. The format of the meeting is deeply rooted in the Quaker belief that G@d is within everyone. The meeting is designed to provide space for you to clear your thoughts and share them if you feel that it’s appropriate.

My father remembers the meetings feeling very oppressive as a child. I can see how this would be true. A woman I talked to last Sunday told me about the childcare service the Northampton Friends’ Society provides; they bring the kids in for only the last ten minutes. Clearly, it would be difficult for a lot of kids to sit in silence for an hour. Even for adults, it’s difficult in some ways. But I’m continually surprised at how subtly natural it feels to just be with people. I find it refreshing. As much as I like to think that I’m unflappable, that I’m capable of forming rational opinions and coming to valid conclusions under even the most pressing and stressful of circumstances, I’m not; I’m only human. And since we live in a not-exclusively-Jewish community, my family has sacrificed any kind of Saturday Shabbat worship, instead focusing on being together Friday night. Thus, Quaker meeting on Sunday mornings is ironically enough my Sabbath.

I was taught in dayschool (before I dropped out) and then Hebrew school (before I dropped out of that too) that Go_Od is everywhere. The Friends’ Society embodies that fully and faithfully. Like the progressive Judaism that I have tried to form for myself, Quaker meeting embraces the notion of humanity, rather than denying it. Instead of condemning personal flaws and limits of ability, it recognizes them and calls on me to work within those constraints to fashion something useful and beautiful.

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

Ideas for actually getting stuff done

My last post expressed my significant frustration with the status of the “debate” over health care. That frustration has definitely not decreased since then (it’s increased, if anything), but I have been doing a lot of thinking about what to do with it. In other words, how should I be responding to the outrageous things that are going on? For one, it’s useful to understand their significance. There have always been ignorant people in this country. They are easily ignored for most of the time. But the right is incredibly good at harnessing those people’s ignorance by lying. And so far, Democrats, or at least those on Capitol Hill, have been terrible at doing anything about it. Jon Steward did an extremely good job of pointing this out last two nights ago, with a great montage of stuttering incoherent Democrats.

What they/we need is a cohesive message. I don’t really know who should provide it. More and more, what I’m seeing from this debate is how much of politics is about disparate interests. The issues is of balance between elected representatives’ right to free choice and a centralized leadership. Ultimately, it wouldn’t be right to have one body making strategic choices; that would undermine the democratic process. So it’s an issue of individual responsibility. Do I have confidence in every person in Congress to make honest choices based on their beliefs? The short answer is no. Too many of them are in the pockets of lobbyists and special interests. That includes Democrats as well as Republicans, and not just those labeled “Blue Dog.” Enough of these divisions. We elect these people to have honest debates about values and concepts, and we need to require more of them.

So ultimately, this is the electorate’s problem. Let’s debate and discuss on our own, let’s talk to our senators, let’s stay engaged. The tactics we see now from every part of the political spectrum have arisen because Americans didn’t care, because we were content to be lied to because it sounded nice, because we were content to vilify instead of unite.

The best time to plant a tree was thirty years ago. The second-best time is now. Similarly, the best time for change we could believe in was at the dawn of humanity.

The second-best time is now.

Cut the act, Obama

When senators are being burned in effigy, shouted down at meetings, and having their offices graffitied with swastikas, something is wrong. In this case, it’s the blatant lies and distortion the media is feeding much of the American public. This needs to stop. Meaningful health care reform is something that everyone has a stake in, and whether or not you support a certain component of it, the discussion needs to occur. We need to put political pressure on the Obama administration not to let the big pharmaceutical companies off the hook with price negotiation bans. That’s a subjugation of the free market principles the GOP touts so highly, yet backs away from when they interfere with lobbyists desires.

And Obama needs to stop with the diplomatic responses to crackpot questions. When someone asks him about “death panels”, he shouldn’t say “I don’t support that.” He should say “That’s not true. That is not part of the bill. That is not part of the plan.”

In a way, this situation is analogous to the birthers. A bunch of lies have dominated the exchange of ideas, and are being regurgitated by the media, and then seized upon by those same pundits when people repeat the claims that the media’s made. A self-fulfilling prophesy, a vicious and malicious cycle.

America deserves better.

Cross-posted from Jewschool: Judaism and internet anonymity

I said before that I would share some biographical information about myself, so here it is. The real reason I’m writing this post is to talk about some issues that I thought of while deciding what sort of biographical information to share. One criticism of the internet that I hear a lot, particularly regarding blogger, concerns anonymity. People don’t like the idea of someone being able to write whatever they want without their name or identifying information attached to it. I’ve been thinking about what this means from a Jewish perspective. What ethical responsibilities do I, as a blogger, have to those who read my writing? Do I owe them information about myself? I don’t think I do. There’s no reason a blogger can’t write responsibly, with well-researched and well-cited information, while still maintaining anonymity. I personally have no problem with people on the Internet knowing who I am, but there a lot of cases where that’s not true. The key is this: there’s a difference between anonymity and cowardice. I can write under a handle without ever linking that handle to any kind of real-world information, but I still have a responsibility to provide honest content and to respond honestly to criticism. Using anonymity as a shield for ignorance or deception is not acceptable. That’s true in any field, and the blagotubes are no exception. Neither is it acceptable to use my anonymity to spread lashon hara. So from a Jewish ethical perspective, as well as one of scholarly responsibility, with great anonymity comes great responsibility. Given the pitfalls of anonymity, are there any advantages? Well, if one provides useful content free of charge (most bloggers dont’ get paid), it could be considered a form of tzedakah. I’m not trying to sound self-centered here, but ideally blogging is a useful form of information and perspective, in donation form. Maimonides said that one of the higher levels of tzedakah is giving anonymously to an unknown source. So if a blogger writes an anonymous post, they’re engaging in a high level of charitable giving. They don’t know who’s going to read their post; it could be anyone in the world. That’s the beauty of the medium. And the person reading it doesn’t know who wrote it. So there’s been an exchange of significant information between two people, neither of whom have any idea who the other is. There’s no ego involved (“look how much I know about this topic”), just learning. That, to me, exemplifies both the ideals of Jewish text study or chevrutah and those of journalism; the pure exchange of ideas. So in this case, as in most, the internet makes it easier to do really good work or really bad work. The question is, which one will you choose?

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

Cross-posted from Jewschool: Hello, world

Hi everyone. My name is Harpo Jaeger. I’m a new poster on Jewschool. I’ve been blogging for a little over a year now at my personal website,harpojaeger.com. I’m really excited to start blogging here! Some of the other Jewschoolers I know from theNHCSummer Institute, some I don’t know at all.

At some point in the future I’ll be updating my biographical information, but right now I am here with the intention of posting about something very specific.

Being a pluralistic community, the Summer Institute (which I’m currently at) has some interesting halakhic quirks. For the members who don’t carry items on Shabbes, we create aneruv, a quasi-physical boundary around the campus that halakically turns the campus into one building, thus allowing those people to carry siddurim, a talit, and so on, between buildings. For several years, I’ve been a coordinator of this construction process, and I’ve learned a lot from it. BZ suggested I write a post about this, as a sort of “DIY eruv”, which is a very good way of putting it, so here it is.

The essential idea of an eruv is a series of simulated doors. To do this, we use a series oflecha’in(singularlechi, which translates as “doorpost”), with string run over the tops, representing the header of the door frame. There are various other components of the eruv in addition to sticks and string. For instance, a hill can act as a natural boundary around an area if it is steep enough. Part of the campus here is on a steep hill, so we can place alechiat either end and use the hill as a go-between. Additionally, an existing cable such as a telephone wire can be used if alechiis placed below it and the cable sags less than about eleven inches (inaccuracy due to conversion from biblical units of measure).

What’s interesting about the process we’ve gone through is that neither myself or my friend with whom I coordinate have a great deal of experience with this halakha. We’ve learned it from those who do, we’ve internalized it, and at this point it’s become a DIY ritual more than anything else. Without having a pre-existing complete grasp of the spiritual and traditional elements of the eruv, we are able to create one that is completely in line with all of the requirements. Also, it’s pretty fun. We stay up late drinking tons of caffeinated beverages, drive around in a golf cart with lumber and power tools, drive around the perimeter with one of the halakhic experts to verify the whole thing, and then sanctify it by saying a blessing (al mitzvat eruv) over a “communal meal” (in today’s case, half a bagel left over from yesterday’s sunrise hike up Mt. Monadnock). That meal is then eaten after the eruv no longer needs to be sanctified (although I anticipate the bagel being rather stale by then).

So, starting from a mere interest in construction, and with the counseling of some persons with more halakhic knowledge, we’ve learned a lot about the practice, had a bunch of fun, and helped some of our co-Institute-goers observe Shabbes more easily.

If you have the opportunity, I’d highly recommend getting involved in the construction of a local eruv. It’s a fabulous way to learn about some very interesting halakha and its modern implementations, as well as explore a host of pluralistic issues. Great all around.

That’s all for now. It is time to light candles here, and I must away. I hope this first post is food for thought, and I’m really looking forward to writing here. Shabbat shalom!

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

NHC Summer Institute 2009: Days 1.5-2.5

I argue a lot. People who have met me tend to realize this pretty quickly. So I was pretty excited to go to last night’s dialogue on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After getting there, though, I had some serious reservations. The session was structured in order to deliberately avoid direct arguing! What would I do? I often feel lost in discussions where there’s no opportunity to challenge people.

But it quickly became clear that the model for this session was very well-planned. Designed and facilitated by the Jewish Dialogue Group, it allowed for participants to state their background and feelings on the issues, and then to engage in what was called a “connected conversation”, where we could respond to each other, but within the constraints of statements about ourselves. We could talk about how we felt about another person’s opinion, but we can’t directly challenge them or ask them for a response, except for clarifying questions. What this leads to is an absence of what on the surface appears to be the only type of probing discussion. However, participating in the discussion, I learned a lot about other points of view, and about the objective facts at issue. The session didn’t, as I had anticipated it might, descend into a bunch of people talking about how they felt with no material evidence in question. Rather, we discussed concrete and applicable concepts.

After the discussion, I spoke with the organizer, and indicated on the email list that I was interested in taking the facilitator training in order to facilitate (obviously) this kind of dialogue elsewhere. I don’t know what the status of Brown’s dialogue on these issues is, but I’m excited to get involved as a participant and potentially a facilitator.

I wrapped up both of my classes today. In the morning, we baked all of the challah for the Institute, and in the afternoon, we finished up by talking about the financial aspect of Shemitah, whereby debts between individuals are forgiven at the end of the Shemitah year. We looked at a recent opinion piece comparing a rabbinical exception to this procedure to Secretary Paulson’s bailout in late 2008.

I’m about to write my first post for Jewschool! If I’ve set everything up correctly, it should show up here as well.

WAHOO!

NHC Summer Institute 2009: Day 1.5

I had intended to write last night about the first day of Institute, but was too tired. Thus, this post is going to try to cover yesterday and some of today.

I started off the day yesterday, after breakfast, with text study. There were only three people there, including the teacher, who it turned out lives in Northampton as well. We looked at a parable attributed to the Baal Shem Tov. In the parable, there is a fiddler, who plays a certain tune that the king likes very much. He commands the fiddler to play it for him many times a day. In order to prevent the fiddler from growing tired of the tune and playing it with less inspiration, the king brings a man off the street into the court every time the tune is played, someone who has never heard it before, so that the fiddler is always playing to a new audience, and feels inspired every time. Eventually, the king realizes that he can’t keep pulling dudes off the street, so he is advised to blind the fiddler, so he won’t know if there’s a new person or not. Thus ends the parable – rather inconclusive, but with a lot of food for thought.

The classical interpretation is that the king is God, and we are the fiddler. The particular song represents prayer or worship. The parable tells us to find new ways of keeping our prayer meaningful and applicable. Although I don’t pray regularly, this was the part I liked. When we get to the blindness part, there’s an issue. What this seems to be saying is that we are blind to God’s plans in the macro sense. I don’t like that idea. To me, it engenders willful ignorance; the idea that we should assume we can’t understand the universe, so we shouldn’t try. It implies that we should become more insular, caring only about our supposed personal relationship with God, and not about trying to discover anything else new.

That being said, it was an intriguing story, and a good way to start the day, particularly because it remained applicable to a lot of the other stuff I did, surprisingly enough. In my morning baking class, we talked about the spiritual and philosophical implications of preparing food, and looked at some historicaly Jewish rabbinical writings on this topic. Some of them dealt with what you do to make eating unique or worshipful. For instance, there was a rabbi who said that if you are eating while walking, you should stop walking to eat. If you are eating while standing, you should sit. If you are sitting, you should recline. And if you are reclining, you should wrap yourself in a prayer shawl and then eat. The idea is that you need to distinguish what you’re doing; you need to take a break and step back. I like this idea very much, especially considering the economic and social context of food in our society today.

My afternoon class began with an introduction to the historical definitions and derivation of Shemitah, the Jewish sabbath for the land that occurs every seventh year (depending on where you are and how you define it). This class as well is going to talk a lot about the politics and economics of food. Yesterday (and today as well) we worked on understanding the various perspectives on the practice; we haven’t really gotten to the meat of discussing how this practice should be applied today. However, it fit in nicely with the theme of yesterday’s text study; how do you keep a regular practice (agriculture) relevant? The agricultural justification for this law is somewhat questionable; you can farm land pretty constantly without depleting it (enriching it, in fact), if you do it properly. At the very least, a mandatory year-long break every seven yeasr doesn’t provide the flexibility I imagine a farmer would need to keep the land healthy if there was reason to cease farming entirely. But it does raise questions about how we should think of that practice to avoid abusing the land or ourselves in its context. More on this later, I imagine.

One of my friends accompanied me to this morning’s text study. There is a different teacher each day. Yesterday’s teacher wasn’t there as a participant, but the other participant from yesterday was, plus one more. We looked at the origin of Tu B’Av, which is rather grisly. In outline form, the story takes place during the period of Judges. The tribe of Benjamin commits a heinous crime against a traveler and his concubine, and in return all of the other tribes except one swear to never let their daughters marry Benjaminites. They also go to war and kill a lot of the Benjaminites. A ways down the line, they all realize that they’re about to entirely exterminate an entire tribe of Israel (which they surprisingly didn’t have any qualms about before), and they change course, working out an elaborate solution that involves abducting women to be brides (from a different tribe, one that had taken the oath, but since the women are taken without their father’s consent, it’s a loophole), but not before also killing a bunch of the tribe that didn’t take the original oath. I guess the whole being married without permission part is the origin of the festival’s tradition of women going out to get guys; I’m not really that familiar with the current-day practice (by which I mean that I didn’t know it existed until yesterday).

Obviously, this is a rather troubling story. The women leading the study pointed out that this story contains the first steps of Teshuvah (repentance). This is true, but it’s difficult to really give the repenters credit, because they haven’t admitted that what they did was wrong. A participant in the text study insightfully pointed out that what they were really donig is approaching a series of problems. They had the problem of the possible eradication of the tribe, so they dealt with it in a way that would create as few other problems as possible. But along the way, they killed a bunch more people, and abducted a bunch of women. In short, I don’t know enough about the holiday to say anything about how this might affect my perception of it as a modern practice, but its origin is pretty screwed up. This is true of a lot of parts of Judaism.

Today in the baking class we made seven-species bread, which has turned out fabulous (as did yesterday’s oatmeal-maple bread). Our teacher told us about his personal history with baking, and how it has affected his life as a rabbi and a person. I’m looking forward to discussing a lot of food issues in this class as well.

I seem to have unintentionally picked two classes that are both about the economic, social, political, and spiritual implications of food. I’m glad it’s worked out this way (it didn’t occur to me until yesterday), because this is something I’ve been getting increasingly interested in recently. Food is a big problem facing our society. I’ve heard it claimed that we can’t fix the health care system without fixing the food system. That’s true to a certain extent; we could save a lot of money if we were just healther in the first place, and many of our current health problems can be traced to poor dietary habits as a culture. But I do think that food change is going to be more of a grassroots effort than a legislative one. Ultimately, the system will correct itself as oil prices rise (with the passage of Waxman-Markey, I hope), and as we run out of the stuff. Michael Pollan puts it best: the corn industry is floating on oil. That can’t last by definition, if nothing else. The question is how many people will starve and be harmed before we get there. And that’s an issue the government can’t fix; as long as there’s cheap food available, people will buy it. It’s up to us to recognize the hidden costs of food. Food is not cheap. It’s probably one of the most labor-intensive commodities on the market. We need to make the choice to pocket the full costs of food by buying locally, organically, and sustainably.

Programs like this one give me hope that that kind of change can be effected. A lot of people come here to get educated and to educate, and there’s a lot of really important learning going on. That kind of education is self-replicating. Ignorance can only hold sway as long as no one is smart. The nation is getting smarter. We’re getting closer to real change, change we can, finally, believe in.

Live from Rindge, it's Monday night

And here begins my first post from the NHC Summer Institute 2009! So far, the program is off to a fabulous start. I’m meeting a lot of new people, more than in past years, which is interesting. I think my sort of circle of teen friends is making a more concerted effort to expand ourselves this year. Needless to say, it’s been fabulous reconnecting with old friends. It looks to be a terrific week, between my awesome classes, the facilitated dialogue re: “Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, and the general atmosphere of interesting people doing interesting things.

In other, extremely exciting news, I am going to start blogging at Jewschool! A while back, I let Ben Murane know that I was interested in writing for them (I’ve been reading it for a while), and when I saw him today, he said they said yes. I am uber-pumped to get started. I don’t really know any details yet, but I am going to talk to a bunch of people who are part of the editorial comittee this week to find out more. I suppose I’ll write more when I know more.

So, in summary, I am looking forward to a terrific week of various awesome things, which I will write more about as they occur. For now, I will sleep.

One-year

Today marks the one-year anniversary of this site’s transition to WordPress, and, thus, the one-year anniversary of my beginning to blog in earnest. This is a good opportunity to reflect on some stuff I’ve learned and look to the future of this site and my interests.

I’ve gone through a lot of different phases with this blog. I began by using it as sort of a journal of my actions and thoughts. Coupled with the WordPress client for iPhone, I did a fair amount of spontaneous and short blogging, expressing ideas I had, things I saw, and so forth. As school began, I started becoming more introverted, focusing on the way I felt (usually being under a lot of stress, as it was senior year). In January, my iPhone was stolen, and I lost the ability to blog at anytime. I started blogging almost compulsively when I got home every day, almost as a way to let out my feelings. Because of everything that was going on at school, it felt good to have a place to write about what I thought it all mean. Sometimes it’s hard to articulate that sort of stuff when you’re still in it. You need to take a step back. Blogging has definitely helped me do that, in other areas of my life as well.

When I got a new iPhone in early July, I started using Twitter for uses other than just tracking this blog, and shortly thereafter joined Facebook. Now I use those as two methods of communication (they’re closely integrated), and have begun to regard this blog as more of a place for contemplative, well though-out concepts or arguments. A lot of my writing has been inspired by the increasing amount of other blogs I’ve been reading, including Paul Krugman‘s The Conscience of a Liberal, Jewschool, CAP, andClimate Progress, to name a few. In a lot of cases, doing this writing has helped me solidify my own thoughts on subjects, and opened my mind to new points of view.

In the future, I want to blog more regularly than I have been recently; at least a couple times a week. Interestingly, it was easier for me to blog regularly during the school year than it has been now. I’m planning to blog a couple times next week from the NHC Summer Institute about the program and some issues that I will be considering during my time there. There’s a plan for facilitation of a dialogue about the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict (although I don’t really like calling it that), so I’m expecting to get some interesting stuff out of that.

As I begin school, I will almost definitely be undergoing some serious life changes in terms of how I spend my time and what I work on. I intend to keep this blog an important component of my work and thoughts, and I hope to attract a wider audience as I meet new people and discover new ideas.

It’s been an incredibly rewarding year in many ways. I look forward to many more.

Why is everyone so afraid of a wise Latina?

It’s pretty silly to me that people would try to deny that who you are has an effect on how you think. I resent that Sonia Sotomayor was made to eat her words about such factors as her race and gender affecting her judging. That’s perfectly valid, and I admire her for saying it to a bunch of white guys. It’s not humanly possible to separate yourself from your background. Understanding people’s backgrounds is the only way to truly engage them. The idea that judges should be some sort of robots, carrying out legal judgments as if they are not people, is ridiculous. Sotomayor has conveyed enormous respect for legal precedent, as a judge should. The criticisms of her as being a racist, deviating from the law to suit her own biases are ridiculous. In the much-lauded, but seldom inspected, recent Supreme Court overthrow of her affirmative action decision with respect to the New Haven firefighters, she was acting in accordance with higher precedent. The Supreme Court created a new precedent in its reversal.

Conservative criticism of Sotomayor shows that, while the party claims to be a post-racial one, (having a black chairman, having nominated their own Latino to the Supreme Court), they’re, as a party (and I know some individual members to be better than this), still tied to racial politics. And what does it even mean to be “post-racial”? Race still exists, so how can you be “post” it? Acknowledging that different peoples’ backgrounds lead them to different conclusions is important. That diversity of conclusions is important. Republicans using race as a token for their acceptance, but then refusing to acknowledge the very real effects race has on individual people and society as a whole, is just plain hypocritical and dishonest. Whether or not they know that (some definitely do), it’s a backwards approach to people that is ultimately going to cost them their constituency. The time when having all of the white people agree with you was enough to get done anything you wanted to in American politics is over. It’s not coming back.

And that’s a good thing.

What Chris Brown and Scott Roeder have in common

Recent news about Scott Roeder has got me thinking about the way people sort of rise and fall in the public eye. Chris Brown, for instance, was all over the front pages of everything when his case was breaking, and he’s faded since then. I’ve just learned while writing this that he’s been sentenced. So why haven’t we been hearing about it more? And why had Roeder’s name lain silent for that interim period?

The way the public reacts to news media is often unpredictable. It’s hard to tell which stories will be how popular for how long. Roeder and Brown have something important in common, though. Obscurity is a luxury they do not deserve. Roeder may have mental problems, so I’m a little more reluctant to judge him, but Brown has no excuse that I know of. Especially noteworthy in my opinion is his cultural status. Domestic violence is something we are taught. From the moment we are exposed to the outside world, we see images of men beating and dominating women, we see images of submissive women portrayed as attractive and desirable. We are bathed in these stereotypes from birth until death. That’s not just an American phenomenon, as easy as it would be for me to denounce it as such (even though this is the only so-called “civilized” country where it’s legal to beat your children). No, this is a crisis of global cultural expectations.

Domestic violence is never the fault of the victim. Period. But in this case, can we really even blame the aggressor? As a man, I know I’ve felt that same pressure before, to assert myself over women, in many ways, not just in the context of the relationship. He bowed to that pressure. Can we really judge anyone for that? Everyone witholds against pressure of any kind as far as they can without breaking; that’s human nature. Can you really blame someone if they can’t take as much as you? Just because you or I wouldn’t do the same thing in that situation, does that make him a lesser man, or a man less deserving of pity? I don’t know. But I do know that we’re missing an incredible opportunity for progress if we let this story slip by. If we call him just another angry man or just another pressured man, we miss the point. How many kids to whom this person is a cultural element have learned from his actions? No public apologies can undo the impact that he’s had on them. This is an issue that every single one of us needs to tackle head on. These are not isolated incidents.

Is that an excuse for Brown? No. We can’t solve this problem by witholding responsibility, whether from society or from individuals. He did something heinous. He physically abused someone who trusted him and who he was connected to. He betrayed their trust. He showed them that they could not relate to another person safely. That’s a scarring lesson to learn. It’s one that many people learn, and whose impact is significantly underrated.

Societies tend to ignore persistent problems or try to classify them as something else. Whether it’s widespread domestic violence, gun crime, or suicide bombings, we can’t turn a blind eye anymore. There are serious issues with the way the world expects people to function. Those issues need to be addressed by grassroots action in order to change.

First impressions: Google Voice

I was invited to open a free Google Voice account, and so far, it’s pretty cool. I get an online inbox, free text messaging (although it may forward them to my phone, causing AT&T to charge me, I’m still figuring that out), and free calls anywhere in the US. It can also transcribe my voicemails, screen my calls according to my contacts, and allow me to listen in on messages. I also got a FABULOUS phone number. I’m probably going to mess around with the settings a little more before I start giving out the number, but I think this could be pretty useful. Probably its best feature is the ability to ring more than one phone. If I have a dorm landline at college, I will definitely configure this; I can save some serious money and always be reachable on campus. And I won’t have to give my number to anyone I don’t want to. I can just block them or screen them if I want.

Mennonites

Downtown today, I saw a whole bunch of Mennonites singing on the steps of City Hall. I took a bunch of videos with my iPwn 3G S.

It was a very interesting experience. Beautiful, in some ways. Standing by the curb, filming with the iPhone, with the sounds of pious and beautiful religious music in front of me and reggaeton, car horns, and motorcycles flashing behind me, it sort of epitomized the struggle to remain religious in a world that moves as fast as ours. Historically, religion has been a slow-moving concept; it begs contemplation, thoroughness, and reverence. Nowadays, it’s hard to maintain those things. It’s possible, but it’s hard. I liked that these people had the nerve and the interest to sing in that context. And it’s not like they were isolated. They were definitely old fashioned; the men wearing collared long-sleeved shirts, belts, dress pants, and the women wearing ankle-length, long-sleeved dresses and hair coverings, but they weren’t naive. One man came up to me afterwards, and introduced me to his five children, and commented on my iPhone. Then he asked me if I “knew the Lord”. I told him I did, and that I was Jewish, and he was very pleased. There was this sense of genuine excitement at appealing to someone else’s faith. He liked that a Jew appreciated their Christ-oriented music, and I liked that they wanted to sing it for me. He told me about their congregation, which is in Russell, and I think I’m going to try to go to some services. They sound very interesting. The congregation sings in this area often during the summer, so I will try to see them again. I loved hearing them sing, and I want to talk more religion with them. I don’t know all that much about Mennonites, and they seem like very interesting people.

Diplomacy weapon or tool?

Why is it that we expect diplomats to use their positions as weapons? We look at the idea of diplomatic sanctions or the breaking off of diplomatic relations as a good thing. The point of diplomacy is to keep lines of communication open. Even if a country has leveraged economic sanctions against another, has public denounced its conduct, or even is at war, diplomats should always be communicating. If war is a failure of diplomacy, then nations should have the expectation that diplomats will work constantly throughout a military conflict to try to end it at any point.

I’m thinking about this because of Britain’s decision to withdraw diplomats from Iran following Iran’s detention of some of their diplomatic staff. Not that it wasn’t an unprovoked and improper act, but how are we supposed to communicate that if we withdraw the very people whose job it is to do so? Iran, and really any country in its situation, has proved itself to be resilient to world opinion. The more we denounce them, the more they’ll close up and oppress their people. We need to maintain a strong diplomatic presence to pressure them to change.

If we start using diplomacy as a weapon, as a threat towards other countries, we defeat its entire purpose. Worse, we risk pushing reclusive countries further into their shells, limiting our ability to deal with them rationally, and ultimately harming their citizens. Iran is a good example. We need to stop thinking about ways to punish Iran’s government and start thinking about ways to help its people and pressure its government to do the same. That’s the true aim of diplomacy.