Once Upon a Time, I Was Going to be Something

Eleven years ago, I was poised to be a Judaic studies scholar. It was my dream, and I was willing to do just about anything to make it happen. After graduating with my bachelor of journalism, I went to The Washington Post for an internship after which I got hired on as a full-time employee. I was miserable in DC, and I started working on chasing my real dream: a master's in Judaic studies followed by a PhD followed by a prolific career as an academic, professor, and writer.

Instead, I ended up moving to Chicago, living with a guy I thought was my forever, working for a Nobel-prize-winning economist, and only a year later heading to graduate school. Just a few years after that I was married, divorced, and quitting a program at NYU where I was attempting a second and third master's degree.

Now? Well, life is different now. I don't have time for books or papers or pursuing all those fascinating topics that were going to keep me happy and sane and on the chase. So what did my dreams look like? This. And, I'll point out, I was going to be the scholar to blow up the Ulysses S. Grant history, not Jonathan Sarna. When I interviewed at Brandeis in 2009/10, I mentioned the fascinating issue to Professor Sarna. Then, in 2012 he released his book.

Coulda been me. Here's a letter I sent with my application to the University of Chicago. Maybe, someday, I'll get back on this track.

Does the world really need another Jewish studies scholar? There are truckloads of academics in pursuit of answers from the Holocaust or the perplexing makeup of American Jewry and the Diaspora. But what about the uncharted grounds of Jewish history and thought? What about, for example, Ulysses S. Grant and his expulsion of the Jews in 1862? A piece of U.S. history you won’t likely find in most history books, this is just one of the complicated, uncultivated avenues on which I plan to tread in pursuit of a career in Jewish studies. 

During my junior year, while pursuing a journalism degree and minor in Judaic studies, I took an ethnopolitical conflict class – nicknamed the “genocide class” – which I was told by those who had taken the course that it would either break me down or change my course of study. The class, taught by Prof. Patrice McMahon, was centered on a single ethnic conflict research paper written in three parts throughout the semester. I knew instantly that I would research Grant’s infamous action, which I had heard about from a rabbi visiting my synagogue as part of the celebration of 350 years of Judaism in America. Unfortunately, the rabbi couldn’t tell me much about the event, thus piquing my interest. 

I spent weeks in the library scouring the school’s collection of Civil War, Grant and Jewish histories. It turned out that few people had heard about the incident and even fewer had written extensively on the topic. It was clear that I had my work cut out for me, which only wrapped me up more in the research. My research focused on what motivated Grant to issue the order, including the effects of war, economics and other generals on his decision. My research turned up a rabbi and professor, both of whom had detailed accounts and assessments of the incident. My shock of the unexplored event turned into excitement. Could I chart a new path or cover new ground on an anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic act sanctioned by the U.S. government? I set out to advance the study of General Order No. 11. 

The result of my semester-long effort was a comprehensive look at what led Grant to issue the antiSemitic order in a paper, “Ulysses S. Grant and the Jews: A Mighty Order and a Blemish on U.S. history.” At the end of the semester, in presenting the research to classmates, the expression of surprise on the faces of the 30 or so students was the most rewarding aspect of the venture. When detailing this seemingly veiled incident with others, friends were hesitant to believe and fellow scholars were shocked to know they were unaware of such a significant instance of antiSemitism in U.S. history. It was then that I staked my claim as a scholar, researcher and educator. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best: “Passion … is a powerful spring.”

I hope to expand my undergraduate research on Grant to explore aspects of the incident beyond the motive. Few have focused on the lasting effects of the order or how Grant managed to carry the Jewish vote in both of his bids for president. Additionally, I would like to explore how such a significant event has managed to go unmentioned in textbooks and whether similar orders were issued during the Civil War or during other U.S.-inclusive wars. In a way, Grant has helped me find my raison d’etre.
But my interests reach much further than Grant and U.S. Jewry. My passion for Jewish studies spans American-Jewish fiction and authors such as Tova Mirvis, Jonathan Safran Foer and Cynthia Ozick; biblical Judaism; Jewish printing of the Middle Ages; and Jewish, Christian and Muslim relations. I hope to explore Rashi, his daughters, and whether his encouragement of their Talmud study was widely explored or purely rejected. I’m also fascinated with Emma Lazarus, whose outward effort to connect to the Jewish people seems hypocritical and insincere; I’m drawn to her understanding of Jewishness. Perhaps the most interesting avenue of research I’ve pursued and hope to look at further involves Jewish television and the rise of the sitcom, which spanned “Brooklyn Bridge” and “Bonanza.” 

My passion for Jewish languages has made me desperate to learn Ladino in order to study the Jews of Salonika, which I know so little about and yet am constantly reading about. My knowledge of Hebrew is limited, having taken only one semester of biblical Hebrew with Prof. Stephen Burnett late in my undergrad. Although my undergraduate university lacked regular Hebrew courses, my liturgical Hebrew is strong, and I am constantly working toward a fluent understanding of Modern Hebrew, in addition to biblical Hebrew.

I have to stress that this field of study is as much an academic endeavor as it is personal. The pursuit of a master’s degree will serve as another spring on a path to teaching, writing and researching, whether through a PhD and professoring or, as my rabbi has suggested, through rabbinical school. My work with Grant and the Jews proved to me that there are a bounty of uncultivated avenues in Jewish studies begging to be examined and shared by curious, burgeoning scholars such as myself.

The University of Chicago has a history and reputation of excellence, brought forth by the presence of passionate scholars – both students and professors – who are searching for answers to some of history’s and society’s most significant puzzles. While researching the scholars of the Committee on Jewish Studies, I found professors who I know will be beneficial to work and study with. I only hope that my passion for Judaic studies is apparent and that I can continue my studies and work toward a career in teaching Jewish history, religion and philosophy with the help of the Jewish Studies department at the University of Chicago.

Dreaming in a Daze

I've written about my wacky dreams before, in all of their vivid and memorable and horrifying glory. My favorite dreams have been those like the one where I was studying with a Hasidic master (that was years ago), and I wish I had more like those. But last night?

The first dream was me (looking like Rihanna of all people), and I was in charge of subbing in a class for a math teacher. The class was learning about basic algebra, and I was trying to get technology involved and the class was very dysfunctional. But the problem? The teacher was actually there in the class the whole time, correcting every little thing I was doing and saying. I couldn't control the class, let alone the lesson. And then, the dream flipped.

I was standing on a street in the Old City or something that looked like it, wearing IDF garb. We were investigating a rumor that a woman on the street was planning to blow herself up on that street. We were questioning several people out on the street (Arabs) and they said they knew nothing, but then this woman walked out, dressed in 1940's style garb, dressed to the nines, and she walked by and just winked at me. I instantly knew that this was the woman who was going to blow herself up. I grabbed the device out of her hand that she would have pushed to detonate and started to move down the street while she just stared at me. She moved near a large group of people (all Arabs, which makes no sense) and she pushed her stomach, like that was where the bomb was, and at the same moment, I pushed the button on the device -- and nothing happened. She started to run and I got her and arrested her. Almost instantly, she turned from being an Arab woman into being a bleach-blond with bright blue eyes and milky skin. I was parading her through town, shouting "She's a Nazi!" I took her through this large hall -- it was almost like a bath house -- full of Jews and everyone was saying "Wow, she's beautiful" and I would spit back, "She's a Nazi!" and everyone responded with disgust. We left the large hall and were heading into the police station and she wrangled herself loose from my grip. I knew I couldn't chase her, so I started to load my gun as she knocked over an IDF soldier and took his garb, got dressed, and ran into one of the IDF gates across the street. I started shooting at her, while yelling that she was a Nazi. I shot her twice, and the rest of the soldiers dragged her into this big room where she ended up being killed. I got really, really upset, curled into a ball, and started weeping about how she should have been put through a trial, prosecuted, and sentenced.

Weird. Okay dream readers -- what's it mean?

Dream a Little Dream ...

Tuvia and I just got home from our motzei Shabbos movie date, in which we saw Inception, that movie with confusing commercials and an even more perplexing premise. And? Well, let's just say it's probably the best movie I've seen in a while, and I highly recommend you all go see it. At 2 hours and 28 minutes, I felt as if I'd been sitting in the crowded theater for a mere hour. I suppose that's part of the trickery related to the movie's theme.

The concept of the movie is that you can "break into" other people's dreams to extract ideas, with the impossibility (or is it?) of inception -- of placing an idea in the dream that will then consume the dreamer's conscious thoughts. There's someone who creates landscapes in dreams, another who masterminds the syrupy goo that keeps you asleep and able to accomplish your dream feat for extended period of time, and so on. It's a dreamscape of pretty much illegal proportions.

So why am I even blogging about this? Well, dreams are something near and dear to my heart, because I dream just about every night, vividly, with the ability (most of the time) to recall the depth and details of my dreams. People, faces, colors, scenescapes, the weather, the conversations, everything. I've also -- and this is the most awesome thing -- mastered the ability to throw myself back into a dream after waking up from it. Sounds nuts, right? Sometimes I wake up from an exceedingly vivid dream, and either unhappy with the point at which it ended or frustrated with how it was going or wanting more details, I push myself back into slumber for the express purpose of satisfying what I want out of the dream. Really radical, eh? I mean, I'm the kind of person who can barely fall asleep on any given night, and yet, when it comes to my dreams, I can push myself back into them to try to change outcomes. For what purpose? No clue. My subconscious and I are probably a psychologist's dream.

The best example of this that I can offer is a dream I had a few months ago in which I somehow ended up in an electrical storm outside of a large university building. I can't remember all the details, but it was a dream in which I walked into the building and accidentally caused a powerchord to hit some water and lit the building up. In the first version of the dream I ran throughout the halls, trying to get people out, but dozens died and the building fell before my eyes. (I'm so irritated; I thought I wrote this dream in my dream journal, but it appears that I did not.) I awoke from the dream, frustrated, angry at myself for something that happened in not-real space. I put myself back down and dreary-eyed attempted to fix the dream. The entire thing played out exactly as before, but I got more people out and was able to call for help. I proceeded to play through this dream about four more times, still unable to help everyone out. I changed the way I went through the building, I altered aspects of the floor plan, I did everything in an effort to re-scape the dream in order to be successful. And yet, still, my subconscious was set on defeating me.

Dreams are ... bizarre. For me, dreams are wicked places that, while supposedly revealing plenty about my innermost thoughts, really just baffles me. Over the past week I had three nights in a row with dreams of being hunted, through city streets, including one city street that featured Kate Gosselin and her sextuplets (she was deeply upset with me for attempting to talk them away from the road while she was busy yelling at someone on the phone). I need to keep a better log of my dreams than I do. I often sit Tuvia down and relate them to him, but he just stares at me blankly like a nutjob. People used to think I was fabricating or elaborating on a kernel of a dream memory. In reality, my dreams are exhausting. I wake up feeling as if I've been running a marathon all night (and in the case of the "being chased" dreams, I really was running -- for my life), and thus I end up feeling as though I haven't slept at all. My mouth guard has become my best friend, with teeth marks poking small holes into its base. Soon enough, I'll chew through the darn thing from dream anxiety.

This stuff is real, folks. And Inception was like this picture of my dreamscape. Weird. Surreal. Creepy. So what I leave you with is a recent dream of mine, from about a week ago, that left Evan staring blankly at me, as usual. Enjoy!

The dream began with Tuvia waking me up for lunch (we're in the Poconos, so the dream took place in our Poconos house, but the house looked a lot nicer and larger than our place actually is). The skies were dark and stormy, and as he was pulling me out of bed this huge torrent of rain came and it started seeping through the ceiling. It was like there was no roof, like the rain was seamlessly slipping through the wooden planks. I started freaking out and told Evan to turn on the lights, and he said, "But it's Shabbat!" and I responded, "I don't care! We need to pack and get the hell out of here!" So he turned on the lights and just then a man came walking up the stairs with an umbrella. "I thought y'all couldn't turn the lights on on Shabbat," he said. We asked him why he was even there and he said he saw our car in the driveway and thought he'd pay a visit. No clue who this guy was, by the way, but I think it might have been the neighbor who I've seen only through his minivan window. We explained the rain, the house falling to pieces, and needing to leave, so he pulled this little ball out of his pocket, pressed a switch, and it lit up. He threw it into the fireplace (which was in a different spot than our actual fireplace) and, with a flash, the rain in the house stopped. He left, and we began to assess the situation. The house suddenly morphed into this big house/community center thing, and all of our friends from West Hartford were there (and some of mine from the shul in Nebraska, too) and the skies were looking seriously doomful. Women and kids started to scream and sirens started going off ... so I ran for the lower level, I crouched in a corner, only to realize that the entire room -- of the basement, which was done up like a kindergarten or preschool classroom -- was full of windows, and this big, looming tornado was coming at us. I got up, squished this little kids hand as I stepped on it (oops), and ran for the only room in the place without any windows, a big cement block of a room. As I got there, an old woman grabbed my hand with a grip I can't describe. I tried to push her off, and I think I broke her arm in the process. I finally got to the corner of the room and then ... POOF. There was a flash and I looked up and I was sitting on a cement floor, the walls mostly decimated, in a field of pumpkins. Alone.

Dreaming of Calmer Nights.

Sometimes I wonder if my wiring is off. I've blogged about my vivid dreams before, these narratives that roll around in my head at night, waking me up sometimes in a sweat, other times in tears or a cry, a yelp. Sometimes the vivid nature of my dreams is awesome, it's like a movie reel spinning rapidly. But recently, my dreams have been haunting and horrifying. It makes me wonder what's wrong; is my subconscious trying to tell me something?

Last week I had a few horrifying dreams. One I won't share the details of, but let's just say it involved death and my parents. The other dream was weird in that it was repetitive, as in Groundhog Day (the movie) style. The dream played out once, with horrifying results. So my mind replayed the dream over and over, trying to fix the situation, trying to lessen the damage and the casualties. But when I woke up, it was still death and damages. You see, the dream involved me walking into a big stone building on some college campus, and in the hallway I spotted this gigantic electrical cable sitting in a pile of water in the hallway. It was sparking a little, but I assumed someone was taking care of it. So I walked down the hallway, in my socks, and there was a spark. Suddenly, a fire broke out and I took off running, flames flying down the hallway, ready to consume me. I yelled for people to get out, I ran into classrooms, I screamed, and people ignored me. The dream ended -- the first time around -- with me outside, watching the building burn and people running out all ablaze. As the dream went on, I handled the logistics better, got more people out, but there were still casualties. When I woke up, I felt defeated. After five re-tries, I still couldn't save everyone.

This week, as in last night, I woke up almost crying. Tuvia had to wake me up, actually, because I was breathing funny and started to yelp out cries. I was in China, driving down a road, looking for something with Evan and someone else, and I finally found it. I dove out of the car, and ran into this building, and there was a gigantic pool-like space with milky green and yellow water, bodies just floating in it. There were women there giving birth into the water, willing their children to die rather than be born into China and a downtrodden life. I tried to stop them, made women go in the water to rescue the babies, but women were also diving in, drowning. I was frantic, trying to save them. Again, I couldn't save them; they wouldn't listen.

Any dream interpreters out there? It's probably stress, but I get an overwhelming sense of helplessness with these dreams. But let's just say, I'm tired of having such rotten, depressing, vivid dreams, because the horrific images stay with me, appearing at the most random times -- like when I'm driving down the highway.

Here's to more restful nights, less vivid dreams, or at least the kind that don't have me feeling miswired.

Sunday Notes

Just a few short Sunday notes for your information.

• My father, who was diagnosed with large B-cell Lymphoma, a very fast growing cancer, in December, is in REMISSION! We found out this past week, late in the week, and it's really good news. Remission doesn't mean the cancer is gone, but it does mean that it's disappearing. Your prayers and kind words over the past several months have meant so much to me. Todah rabah!
• The newest edition of Haveil Havalim is up over on Shiloh Musings. Seriously, give it a read. You'll find some of my favorite blogs, and there are some new blogs thrown up there in the list, too. If you want to reread my Monsey post, well, it's posted there, too. 

In completely unrelated "of note" notes, and on a pretty personal level, I experienced my recurring dream while napping today. I haven't had my adult recurring dream in months, but for some reason, while napping today, it made an appearance. I had a recurring dream as a child of a skeleton in my children's rocking chair chasing me around my house, but I haven't had that since I was maybe 12 or 13. In my adult years, ever since I was probably 17 or 18, I've had a horrible public bathroom recurring dream. I know the implications of the dream -- you feel exposed, naked, and like your entire personal life is at the whim and fancy of outsiders. My dreams tend to be me using a public bathroom, the stall door disappears, and there are people walking by, talking to me, chatting casually, as if I'm *not* sitting on a toilet attempting to use the facilities. Inevitably, the dream ends with the toilet clogging, a mess being made and everyone laughing or pointing or scolding me for having broken the toilet. This one was a horrible, long, agonizing version of this dream. I'd like to think that it's the result of a previous post this week, but who knows what made my subconscious choose to defragment my mind's thoughts in this way.

Do you have any disturbing or frustrating recurring dreams? 

An Octopus in Canaan.

I have a separate online space where I write things that just don't fit here and where I put up poetry and dreams. This dream, though, was too good to keep hidden away from the view of my readers. Yes, this is a dream that shows just how all-consuming  my studies appear to be. Even in my dreams I'm in pursuit of breakthroughs.

Saturday night, I had one of those wacky, super-vivid dreams that has me wondering what it means. I mean, for the most part it was utterly ridiculous, so in reality it probably means a whole lot of nothing.

Myself and four other people from my Birthright trip were at this gigantic library doing intense research trying to make a breakthrough in the case of the gigantic purple octopus that lives under Canaan (weird, yes). So I suddenly, while my colleagues are digging through books and the computer, take out a gigantic sketch pad and draw this big hill and I take out a purple marker and draw a gigantic octopus underneath the hill and go, "GUYS! LOOK!" and all of a sudden they're like "YOU'VE DONE IT! BREAKTHROUGH!" and we run over to this pile of books and are digging through this shelf and find this one right as they announce the library is closing so we grab the books and run down the escalator as it's turning off and run out the door in utter elation and one of the guys makes his book fly away like a dove ... and we're dancing around because we've uncovered the mystery of the gigantic purple octopus.

Trippy. Artist's rendition of the breakthrough drawing:

As an academic, I can only hope that this breakthrough really comes true. It would surely trump any other long-awaited archaeological discoveries!

Light Up the Path Already, Will You?

Every night, I say the shema before going to bed.

And every night, I silently pray that my path, my strength to go in one direction over another, will be granted to me in my dreams by the hand or voice of G-d.

I have had recurring dreams of Hasidism, men in black hats and coats with white shirts speaking to me and teaching me, recently Hasidic people I know have appeared -- wisping by me while I stand, perplexed.

And then last night I awoke in horror in the middle of the night, checking my right leg, on the lower part, the entire space below my knee, wrapping around my leg, for the tattoo. The tattoo that appeared in my dream was huge, in an obscure shape of blacks and reds and it was hideous, but I got it anyway in the dream, not even thinking about it. And so when I woke up, I checked my leg, because the dream had been so vivid, and I was frustrated, but relieved nothing was there. And I went back to sleep, hoping for something.

People keep telling me that in our dreams we're spoken to. And I blogged about my claimed Psalm 16 before.

So every night, I silently pray that these things revealed to me in obscurity in my slumber will somehow be clear. I want to know what they mean, and every morning I wake up without feeling clarity I grow more and more weary.

They say G-d speaks to us in our dreams.

I've blogged more in the past 24 hours than I have in about a week. What gives? I have a lot to say? Maybe. But this post is mostly for the sake of bookkeeping, but please feel free to respond.

You see, I had a big Chabad-inspired dream last night. My dreams, as some of you know, are incredibly vivid in their detail, so I usually wake up remembering just about everything -- from the clothes people where to the most fine detail like someone's earrings or the words someone says. It went something like this.

There was an entire (less vivid) portion leading up to the main dream that involved teaching my little brother Joseph Hebrew but him resisting and getting the numbering all wrong, but then it broke and I walked into this gigantic social hall type thing, like where State Fairs sometimes have exhibits or expos or where conventions meet with lots of booths. There was a big stage and right as I walked in, they were getting ready to start a show, and the stage was full of Hasidim of all ages. The show began and they were all dancing wildly all over the stage to music, but I couldn't hear the music. The crowd and the people on the stage were all male and in the traditional black/white garb. The dancing then stopped and everyone piled off stage and one of them was a girl! I was so excited and I started following her and she was explaining she had to pull a lot of strings to be able to dance with the other Hasidim and she was wearing really bright colors, too. She led me through a series of booths that were set up with tables and seder plates and it finally hit me that it was Pesach and it was the first night seder. But we wound through all these tables to this back section where there were hundreds of women hanging out with kids, all the women dressed traditionally and the kids running amok. There was also a little sale thing going on and the girl, as she was telling me about Chabad and her family and Pesach, was shopping and picked up a pair of silver, star earrings and her mom started yelling at her, so she went over to her mom to their table. All the tables that were set up had dozens of different types of haggadot and the tables were all varied in their settings. There was an announcement by a really tall Chabad rabbi that the seder was about to start, so everyone piled into all the seats and since I didn't know anyone, I just stood there and after the rabbi was done speaking I went over and explained my situation and he responded "I don't know what to tell you. Wander around till you find an empty chair." So I did, and I walked through all these weird booths of things, people advertising their shuls and this one Reform Jewish guy yelling really loudly to try and talk over the rabbi. But I ended up at a table with a bunch of people dressed in early 1990s business power suits and they explained they didn't have any food, so we were going to eat leftover pizza for the seder and I felt utterly deflated and disappointed. And then? I woke up.

And that, folks, is how you dream. I just wonder what it means.