Chaviva 3.0

I have to give a huge nod to Ronit for her mad skills at coming up with the quirky title of this post. I hadn't yet had the boost of creative juice to realize that today, my 30th birthday, is a new version of me.

I'm not really sure why or when the 20th, 30th, 40th, etc. birthdays became such a big deal, but the reality is that after 21, you don't have many other major milestone "something happens" birthdays (if you're born in the U.S. anyway).

• Ten was a step toward the teens.
• Fourteen was getting a job (technically I started two months before my 14th birthday). 
• Sixteen was a driver's license.
• Eighteen was the right to vote. 
• Twenty-one was the right to (legally) drink. 

And then? Well, I guess 25 meant that I didn't have to pay up the wazoo on rental cars, but other than that, not much happens. I haven't gotten gifts in years (this year was the first in many for receiving gifts, thanks to my most awesome MIL), and the attempts at attempting a birthday party simply didn't happen.

So my 30th has mostly come and gone without much fanfare. My Hebrew birthday was last week, and after a nice dinner out with Mr. T I got violently ill (glutened?) and have been under the weather ever since (bummed that we spent the money when I just regurgitated it all). Today was a work meeting, a visit to emergency care (again), and stressing over finances (again, as we're paying rent in two locations for the second month in a row with money we don't really have).

Perhaps, then, too much value is placed on birthdays. There are many in the Jewish world who believe that celebrating birthdays is a no-no, something in the vein of what pagans once did and something that Jews aren't meant to (in the Bible, the one birthday mentioned is that of Pharaoh, believe it or not). I joked with Mr. T today that henceforth, mommies count time in the days of their childrens' lives.

Time to spend the few hours left of this Chaviva 3.0 upgrade mumbling like a madwoman in HaShem's general direction. All I want for my birthday is peace, strength, patience, and a healthy, happy, curious child.

What do you think about birthdays in the Jewish world? Was 30 a big one for you or did it float by without any recognition? 

FYI: Sukkot was amazing. We spent time in the north with friends in Ma'alot minutes from the border with Lebanon where we ate delicious chili and chatted the night away in the sukkah. We spent the next day driving back home with a detour past a winery that I visited ages ago that just wasn't the same, but I got to see some beautiful landscapes of Israel that reminded me of Colorado with their greenery. Check out some of the pictures over on Flickr!

What is a Jewish Birthday?

All of the goodness in this blog post comes from the amazing book that is Bnei Avraham Ahuvecha: Gerim in Chassidic Thought by the illustrious and wonderful Dov ben Avraham.

I was born on September 30, 1983 || 23 Tishrei 5744.
I was born Reform-Jewishly on April 28, 2006 || 30 Nissan 5766.
I became a halachic Jew on January 1, 2010 || 15 Tevet 5770.

So, what do I celebrate?

I get excited every year when we're nearing Simchat Torah because that's my birthday! The actual day that I was born day. The day that I crawled out of the womb of a non-Jew into a big world that was just waiting for me to realize my neshama. I like to think of it as HaShem knowing that I'd someday give in to the Jewishness and thus forced me out into the world on the day that we dance around and celebrate the completion of the cycle of Torah. It's celebrating coming full circle. Thus every year I really feel like my birthday and Simchat Torah really offer a unique experience.

But the truth is this: Even though my my actual date of birth remains the same (halachically speaking), I should be celebrating my spiritual birth as a Jew. Even though when a person completes geirus (conversion) it is a rebirth, the ger emerges as a gadol (a fully halachic adult).

In Tosafot Rosh HaShanah 27a, Rabbeinu Tam writes that G-d's ...

"desire for the world began in the month that would eventually become Tishrei, while the physical creation of the world happened in the month of Nissan. The physical creation of the world, however, is not emphasized or celebrated. Instead, we commemorate God's desire for a world which would benefit from His goodness. The date of a ger's physical creation, his biological birth date, is not the tachlis (the purpose) of his being. Rather, his purpose, what God ultimately desires of him, is found in his spiritual birth via becoming a Jew." ("Some Halachic Aspects of Geirus" by Rabbi Avraham Chaim Bloomenstiel in Bnei Avraham Ahuvecha)

Thus it's most appropriate for the convert to celebrate the spiritual creation rather than the physical creation.

That being said, there's nothing outright wrong with celebrating your Gregorian/physical date of birth. In fact, after so many years of doing so, it seems strange to switching to just my spiritual birthday. Celebrating both, on the other hand, seems right up my alley.

I do think it's interesting to consider, however, that a born Jew -- whether they're religious or not -- technically has their "spiritual awakening" at birth, no matter how spiritual. It's automatic.

Then again, I suppose that there is not date and time that a born Jew becomes a ba'al teshuva, right? Or can you pinpoint the moment you returned to religious observance (if you're a BT)? And if you're a convert, what birthday do you celebrate?

Names.Vocabulary to Know

• Rabbeinu Tam was a leading 12th-century halachic authority. 
• Tosafists were medieval rabbis from France and Germany who are among those known in Talmudic scholarship as rishonim that created critical and explanatory questions, notes, interpretations, rulings, and sources on the Talmud.

Links to Visit

• Find your Hebrew birthday and make your own certificate here: http://www.chabad.org/calendar/birthday_cdo/aid/6228/jewish/When.htm

Leggings = Not Tzniut!?

Borrowing this from Wolfish Musings. I hope he/she doesn't mind :)

Leggings Under A Skirt Is Not Tznius?

Perhaps someone can explain this to me.

A friend of Eeees recently received a letter from her kids' school. In short the letter said that it was a violation of tznius rules for a woman to wear leggings under her skirt (even if the skirt is of the proper length).

For the life of me, I can't figure this out. How are leggings any worse than tights? On the contrary, I would think that leggings are better than tights since it is less form-fitting on the exposed lower leg.

Can anyone please explain the logic of this to me?

The Wolf

Nu? What do you guys think? I wear leggings under EVERYTHING. Most of the time they don't show. Am I crazy untzniut?

Parshah Eikev and my Jewish birthday!

CHEERFUL COMPANY AND A MERRY TIME ARE AHEAD FOR YOU.

That was my fortune today with my orange/sweet and sour chicken from Panda Express. So here I am, sitting outside attempting to make friends with other students in the little quad area of the graduate housing complex. I suppose that's a start, eh?

I sat down last night and read this week's Torah portion, as well as some more in Rabbi Marc D. Angel's new novel The Search Committee. I also somehow stumbled upon Chabad.org's nifty Jewish birthday calculator. In fact, I think it's pretty awesome that my Jewish birthday is 23 Tishrei, and the Torah portion is Bereishit -- the first parshah of the Jewish year! And my "normal" calendar birthday, September 30, is the first day of Rosh Hashanah this year. That's new beginnings, fresh starts, like a rebirth of sorts, and I think that's so appropriate considering my path and how I got here and where I've ended up.Throw that into how I'm starting a new leg to my journey in life and wow, beautiful happenstance all around.

So a few words on this week's portion, Eikev, which is Deut. 7:12-11:25. Right off the bat, Moses is saying that only if the Israelites heed the commandments and laws of G-d will they really be taken care of.

And it will be, because you will heed these ordinances and keep them and perform, that the Lord, your God, will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your forefathers. (7:12)

But then, Moses says:

Do not say to yourself, when the Lord, your God, has repelled them from before you, saying, "Because of my righteousness, the Lord has brought me to possess this land," and [that] because of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord drives them out from before you. Not because of your righteousness or because of the honesty of your heart, do you come to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and in order to establish the matter that the Lord swore to your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You shall know that, not because of your righteousness, the Lord, your God, gives you this land to possess it; for you are a stiffnecked people. (9:4-6)

So my beefs here are as follows. The parshah starts out essentially by saying that G-d will only grant kindness if we do EXACTLY as he commands. This implies a cause-effect relationship: you do bad, G-d punishes, you do good, G-d bestows kindness. Of course, this is problematic in a pluralistic Jewish society and it definitely gives weight to those who follow the commandments completely and utterly strictly, with no room for evolution or interpretation, and unless the commandments are followed most precisely, then of course there will be no kindness. This is equally powerful for those who suggest that the reason Israel has not been fully returned is because we have not followed the commandments to perfection. It "proves" that this is all just punishment, right? This is problematic, and I'm not sure how to resolve it. 

But then in the second set of text we see that G-d isn't repelling our enemies because of our good and accurate following of the commandments and laws, but rather because they are wicked. So if G-d intends to drive them out because of their own wickedness, what is the point of following the commandments? If the land becomes ours because of the faults of others, then do we really need to follow the laws? Of course there is a lot more that comes out of following the mitzvot than merely the acquisition of land. 

Of course, then there's "For the Lord, your God, is God of gods and the Lord of the lords, the great mighty and awesome God, Who will show no favor, nor will He take a bribe" (10:17), which sort of contradicts the whole "chosen" people idea that we are to be a light unto the nations, perhaps a holier nation than others so that we can lead by example. Of course, I'm not saying here that the Jewish nation is "better" than other nations, because that's the oft quoted bit about why people don't like Jews, because we think we're "better" than others because of the notion of being a chosen nation. But in reality, it does suggest that the Jewish nation is favored as being an example to other nations. It doesn't imply better, just different, but still it suggests a certain amount of favorability.

But in truth, this entire parshah is a reminder to us that we are an obnoxious, hard to please, frustrating group of people who need to climb off our high horse and see what good might befall us should we opt to follow the commandments and do our part to look into the WHY of the commandments that G-d placed upon us. I'm a firm believer that history repeats, repeats, repeats. People never really change, and we all tend toward making the same mistakes of our forebears. The scenery might change, there might be more technology, buildings are bigger and business is bigger and our clothes are finer, but in reality, the human mind continues to function in the ways it has in the past. In this, I mean, that the commandments of yore are still applicable today. We just have to figure out how to adjust our lives to fit the commandments and not the other way around. 

We are a stiffnecked people, indeed, so let's figure it out.