Understanding the Misunderstood: The Bible

I had the pleasure of listening to the illustrious and brilliant scholar James Kugel not once today, but twice! I mean, this is the man behind The Bible As It Was and How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now. I've known his name for years, and every time an amazing scholar enters my orbit, I'm elated. Kugel's big thing is understanding the Bible by understanding those who understood the Bible. Is that confusing? It shouldn't be. Kugel focuses on the evolution of how people understood the Bible and how we understand them and the Bible ourselves. Still confused? Okay, let's do this. Let's talk about what people call the "outside books," those that ended up in the Apocrypha or Pseudepigrapha. These books essentially attempt to understand the books of the Bible with a particular end in mind.

Kugel sees four points by which people in ancient times (he offered that it likely was around 500 BCE) started to look at the Bible:

1. The Bible is fundamentally cryptic
2. The Bible is a book of lessons -- aim is not merely history, but guidance
3. All texts agree with one another, there is no contradiction
4. All texts are divinely inspired

Okay, so that's good and well, right? But what does it mean for us. Let's look at an example.

In the beginning -- that is, in Genesis -- Adam is told that if he eats from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he surely shall die. If you recall the story, Adam ate from the tree and didn't die. So what gives? Assuming that the Bible is cryptic, there's a greater meaning here. Assuming the Bible is a book of lessons, there's a lesson here. The text can't be a contradiction, so we have to figure that out, and the text is divinely inspired, so it just has to work. Let's work this out.

Two books -- especially the books of Ben Sira and Fourth Ezra -- tackle this issue in their own special way. The idea is that the "you surely shall die" bit is understood as you are now a "person who WILL die." The assumption, then, is that before Adam and Eve ate from the tree, they were meant to be immortal, and after eating from the tree they didn't die instantly, but the result of the sin is that they're meant to die eventually. Then we quip, what about that Tree of Life, then? Was that something from which they would have needed to eat every now and again in order to stay invigorated during eternal life? But let's not go there.

Then we have to ask -- because every explanation in the "outside books" and other commentaries always produces and equally frustrating question -- what about divine justice? Just because Adam and Eve screwed up and their punishment was eventual death, why should their descendants be visited with the sins of the fathers? After all, elsewhere the Bible talks about this not being the protocol. The explanation is simple: It wasn't the act, but the inclination to sin evident in Adam and Eve, that makes us mortal and insists upon eventual death. 

So we figure out the cryptic meaning, the lesson (inclination to sin = bad), the contradiction in the text is gone (even the visiting of sins of the father on the sons), and because all of those items are qualified, the text is provable (er, cough) as divinely inspired. Right? Right. Oh that feels so good. 

Kugel emphasizes the fact that texts are not, despite what we might want to think, immutable. This, of course, is incredibly vivid in my experience as a blogger -- people bring their baggage with them to every post, every text I write up. I can't change that, I can only embrace it and hope that it works itself out in a productive (and not destructive) way. I'd say 60 percent of the time it does, and the other 40 percent, it doesn't. Sometimes, what people bring to a text is far more destructive than productive. 

When considering the Bible and its extant texts, it is clear in the "outside works" that the authors have their own baggage at the table with them while writing/gleaning/revealing the text. We have expectations for texts depending on the genre we identify it as. Kugel gave the example of a letter, which starts "Dear ..." He said, "Dear?! We barely know each other!" The assumption, however, is that within the genre of the letter, "Dear" is a simple, typical, benign letter opener. But you look at a text and see it as a genre and you make your suppositions about it based on that information. 

So, I guess the same could be said for my blog. People come here, see it as a blog post written by me, probably with the assumption that it's about me, for me. Added that you have the baggage that an individual chucks with them, and that's what makes for a recipe for disaster. 

It's a delicate balance, and the theory works for anything and everything that is written -- be it Bible or a blog post. 

Stay tuned! I also want to blog about what he had to say about the two instances of G-d telling Avram to go forth (lech lecha!) and how Jubilees and other texts happen to reconcile the issue. It's fascinating, and maybe I can talk @DovBear into letting me chuck this and the upcoming post on his blog. 

And now? I'm going to finish up what's on my agenda for the night and try to track down a copy of "Life of Brian." Kugel quoted some hilarious lines from the Sermon on the Mount scene regarding the cryptic nature of the Bible :) The great thing about Kugel is that he's 100 percent brilliant, and his knowledge of language and the history thereof is not to be compared. Oh, and he has the perfect balance of jokes/information to keep his listener informed and involved. I only hope to have such mad skills as a teacher someday. 

Sidenote: Of Philo, regarding his birth and death dates, Kugel said: "In one era, and out the other!" I was rolling!

Getting Serious With Stand With Us & IDF

I spent my evening over at the UConn Hillel for an IDF Soldiers Speak Out presentation, hosted by Stand With Us, the outstanding group that hosted my Birthright Trip back in 2008. The illustrious @YeahThatsKosher schlepped two IDF soldiers (Yoav and Avi, I believe it was) up to UConn (aka middle of nowhere) to talk to Hillel members about what it's like to be a soldier, the perception of the recent missions, the priorities of the IDF and Israel, and more. Although not too many people showed up (after all, there are more than 2,000 Jewish students on campus), it was a fairly good showing and the talk was interesting (I'm a sucker for an Israeli accent, too). Curious about Stand With Us? Here's the "About Us" from their website:

StandWithUs is an international education organization that ensures that Israel's side of the story is told in communities, campuses, libraries, the media and churches through brochures, speakers, conferences, missions to Israel, and thousands of pages of Internet resources.

StandWithUs was founded in 2001 in response to the misinformation that often surrounds the Middle East conflict, and the inappropriate often anti-Semitic language used about Israel and/or the Jewish people worldwide. StandWithUs has offices and chapters in Los Angeles, New York, Denver, Michigan, Chicago, Seattle, Orange County, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, the UK, Australia, and Israel.

They have oodles of information on their website, and this week being "Anti-Israel Apartheid Week" on so many college campuses, the website might have plenty to offer those of you out there looking for some good facts. One of the most shocking questions asked was by a much older gentleman who asked "Do you know what Israel is doing with the 3 billion dollars that the U.S. gives Israel?" The man went on and on about how Israel should be doing good things with "our" money -- after all, we want peace, so Israel should be using that money on peace. He also asked an asinine question about why Israel can't make a two-state solution out of making Gaza and the West Bank the Palestinian State.

Ahem.

Been there, done that. No sale. For those who aren't in the know, it's an all-or-nothing with the opposing parties. In the Hamas doctrine, in fact, it says flat out that peace doctrines or policies for peace are not part of the Islamic Hamas charter. Thus is thus. Now, I'm not saying the people talking peace with Israel are all Hamas, but you see what these Palestinians (who want peace) have to deal with.

My message? Read your materials, get your facts straight, know your history. Be an informed, global citizen! And most of all? Support Israel. Just do it!

And now for some post-IDF talk bus-waiting photography.

These couches look on-fire!

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words.

You'll notice the title of this post, and then you'll notice that I'm writing words that really, to be honest, won't do much justice to a simple photograph. My face, in this photo, is swollen. I'm still recovering from my allergic reaction last weekend and the medication I'm on has caused my muscles to ache, my body to fatigue, and my face to swell. So that's me. But that guy next to me?

He is what I consider a celebrity. An academic, spiritual, Jewish, brainy celebrity. My heart beat fast when he was asked my question, among the four that were asked, during his talk this afternoon and when he was walking into the dining hall to eat a delicious kosher meal with about 50 of us, I got sweaty and nervous.

I walked up to him, "Thank you for answering my question, thank you so much for answering it." And he responded with "Well, thank you for asking it." (The question was irrelevant -- about Iran and the Holocaust and how we approach these people, what Elie Wiesel so aptly deemed those who are "morally ill.") I stood nervously. "Can I get a picture with you, please? If it's not too much trouble?" He answered that it wasn't, he put his hand around my back, leaned in, and this is the photo that I have.

A friend from Russia took the photo. I got the camera back from her and noted that in the photo he looked sad, tired. His eyes were saying something timeless, but something devastating. Even when he was smiling in the photos he took with countless benefactors and important persons this evening, he wasn't smiling. His expression always crawled back into a fatigue. He looked tired. I thought to myself, "If I were Elie Wiesel, I, too, would be tired."

But it's interesting how, while sitting and listening to this man -- this icon, this inspiration -- speak, I started to realize that I don't even remember what it feels like to not be Jewish. It was a funny thing to think upon while he was discussing what constitutes a moral society and whether we live in one today. He was discussing the Holocaust, surviving, his friendships and his experiences, how he lives his life and what it means to be moral. All the while, he was relating Hasidic legends, talking about the Talmud, and reciting popular quotes we find from the sages -- all to teach about morality. I realized, in those moments, that to be Jewish is so much of who I am, my efforts to relate to this aspect of Judaism and its history -- the Holocaust -- have stopped being difficult. Have I realized my fullness? I've finally crawled over that bump in the road where I found it so hard to relate to the Holocaust, to the survivors, to that period of Jewish history. In those moments, listening to this man inspire and emote, I felt as if I were listening to my grandfather, my father, my brother, my people.

So when I finally got to shake his hand, and feel his arm around my back, I felt as though I was finally realizing a part of me that was hidden. His hand, which surely had seen so much, felt so much -- both pain and simchas -- touched my back, and I felt so at home near those sad eyes.

Will I ever see Elie Wiesel again? Perhaps. But if I don't, I have the memory of asking him a question, him spending so many minutes answering it passionately, him shaking my hand, putting his arm around my back, taking a photo with me, and listening to me stammering nervously. What a man.

Afterall, I am the Kvetching Editor.

Sof sof (finally/at last), I'm back on campus in my brand new dorm room. I requested a change in rooms because my knees are horrible and schlepping up and down the stairs on rainy or snowy days was killer on my cartilage-free leg benders. So now I'm in a first-floor room, in what I'm guessing is a dorm dedicated to individuals with physical disabilities. I was stoked. First floor, easy entrance, my legs are feelin' good.

And then, well, the room I'm in is a mess. A mess because it smells like mold. Or feces. I can't decide which. I complained to housing and they sent someone here on Friday, they say they cleaned the carpet, leaving a big fan in the room that has been running since then, to dry the carpet. The carpet? Still wet. The room? Still smells. I even have a diffuser in here. I can't smell it.

Listen, I know, I kvetch. I should do more editing, but mostly I kvetch. But I've got a host of allergies and bucket full of history with asthma. Mold isn't good for folks like me. It's horrible. So I sent another email. I'm hoping that when I wake up in the morning, magically my room will smell like Vanilla Sugar or Cinnamon Sugar or whatever my little reed diffuser is supposed to smell like. And if not? I might have to take some drastic measures. I suppose the benefit of this whole ordeal is maybe I could slink out of my housing contract, get the money, get a place in West Hartford, buy a cheap-o car, and live Real Style. (Wishful and completely not-doable thinking.)

So this semester I am taking three courses: Hebrew, Midrashic Literature, and Sexual Politics (aka, women in Tanakh). I'm hoping Hebrew goes easily, that I get a new gig (maybe as a TA?), that I really focus and figure out what I want to study (precisely), and that I can land some stellar letters of recommendations and submit some outstanding applications to PhD programs. It's going to be a long and toiling semester, but I think that what I have lined up for myself personally and academically will keep me really busy and really stimulated. Wish me luck.

Oh, and pray for me. This room might kill me ...

Done! Done! Finished! For now ...

My first year of graduate school is over. It seriously almost killed me. At least, this semester did. Next year? I'm going to be all over time management. I'm going to start outlining and drafting and really changing my way of writing. I can't be one of those "write it all in one swift run" kind of a student anymore. I can change, right?

At any rate, Shabbat Shalom and thank you ALL! You've been here for me throughout this rough semester, and for the next month and a half I'll be all your's, 24/7. Until I go away to Hebrew immersion at Middlebury's Language School, that is.

Woe is me, no more!

If there were a word to describe how I feel right now, it would be RELIEVED.

Yes, there is still a week and a half left till the end of the semester. This week and a half includes, but is not limited to:

• Two and a half chapters of Hebrew homework. Due this Wednesday.
• A Hebrew final exam next week (comprehensive, what joy!)
• A 15+ page paper on Ima Shalom (cringes). Due next Tuesday.
• A 10-ish page paper on cultic images in Babylonia + what the architecture of Babylon was meant to represent outside of physical enormity. Due Friday.
• A 5-7 page paper on my thoughts of the Talmud class and problems with seeking history from texts used in class (Josephus, Bavli, Yerushalmi, etc.). Due next Wednesday.

Now, this list looks much more begrudging than it feels to me right now. Ask me in a week how I feel, and we'll see. Essentially I have to be done with all of these things by Wednesday. I've split up the next week and a half so that I can successfully allot my time, since I seem to have a problem with that. Yes, I've waited until the last minute to write everything, but that is the Chavi way. I have thoughts and genius swirling in my brain and at the last minute I sit down for a 7-hour writing marathon to complete a single paper. It's how I roll, and it works. It won't always work, but for now, this semester, it will have to work. 

But the relief is birthed from having attended and presented at my first Academic Conference. This time around, it was the Society of Biblical Literature, and although it wasn't as exciting and thrilling as I had expected or hoped for, it was a good entrance for someone like me into the conference circuit. I saw what kind of feedback and questions were iterated, and I got a chance to check out the competition at schools like Boston and Yale and Harvard. As I read my paper on the Golden Calf, I saw holes in my argument, missing tidbits of information that I know in my head but somehow didn't end up in the paper (how'd I miss that?!), and I now know that I have some editing to do. I'm presenting the topic to an undergraduate ancient Near East class on Wednesday, and I'm hoping that it's not so much me talking at them as with them -- I seek a dialogue of epic proportions where some nerdy undergrad suggests something or queries something I had yet to consider, perhaps resulting in some massive dissertation someday. 

But overall? I was relieved to get that talk over with. And suddenly everything else just doesn't seem that bad. I put way, way too much pressure on myself. I'm one of those golden children of the differentiated and excelled tracts. I was dissecting frogs and writing computer programs in the fourth grade, and I spent much of my sixth grade year coasting through school with a bunch of other braniacs going for donuts and discussing taxidermy. The difference between me and a lot of these people now, though, is that I really had to and have to work to keep it all up. I'm not a genius, by any means. I did brain teasers well, excelled at my times tables, was an expert at Origami at the age of 10, and graduated fifth in a class a high school class of 525 students. I spend a lot of time wondering if this was the right route, if this whole academic devotion was really what I was meant to do and then when I'm sitting in a car reading about Babylonian cultic objects and telling Tuvia about it and explaining the finer details of kings shipping their idols to avoid plunder, well, it's those moments that I know this really is the right path. I just have to remember who I am, where I came from, and where I'm going. 

So, relief in mind, I'll start in on my papers and Hebrew homework. I have more to write about the Senegalese food we had for Shabbat, meeting a Jewish woman from Norway, and Tuvia's sister's baby shower. But this will all come hopefully after at least one paper is written. Maybe sooner. Either way? I'm feeling confident and good. With the help of friends, loved ones, and the end being near, I'm prepared for just about anything.

As a quick quip, though, there is no Hebrew word for "baby shower." I always knew that baby showers aren't very Jewish things, as it pushes the hand of G-d and beckons the evil eye. But I thought maybe there'd be a word for it! Alas, there isn't. 

Spring has Sprung

I'm up to my knees in the Golden Calf right now. I've been digging up images online to show the undergraduate class on Wednesday when I'll be teaching my first college course, if only for a day! Yes, I'll be the teacher. Teaching. A class. This is what dreams are made of folks. So I can't help but dig up my November 4 post where a group of Christians prayed at the Golden Bull on Wall Street for the economy. I wonder how that's working out this time around? Tomorrow at 9 a.m. at the Andover Theological Seminary in Newton Centre, Mass., I'll be giving a talk on the same topic. I'll be wedged between a Yale student and a Harvard student. Hopefully I can represent?

But the real point here, is to tell everyone that Spring really is in the air. I'm the kind of person who has never, ever had a green thumb. I killed a cactus, I killed a bamboo plant, I even killed the Wandering Jew that my mom bought me. My mother, who has a knack for growing things, no longer gives me plants because I have a murderous thumb. On a whim not that long ago, though, I bought a little Gardens of Babylon kit. It's one of those little boxes that you find on the spinny rack at the front of Borders or Barnes and Noble mixed in with your own mini putting green or beach scene. I once bought a mini sno-globe kit, even. But this was a whim purchase, knowing my history with greenery. Much to my surprise, though, over the past three weeks, this little garden has blossomed into something beautiful. When I'm having a cruddy day, I simply look down at my magical mini Gardens of Babylon and I get a hint of new, blossoming things. It's a good feeling. And hopefully I'm not jinxing myself by writing of my successes here. Check out the goods:

Tinkerbell Pulling her Hair Out! One night only!

I'm not consuming nearly enough coffee to stay afloat. I have completely neglected my fellow Bloggers (247 posts in the Google Reader queue) and what can only be some amazing posts. Between Pesach, the end of the semester, and this talk I'm giving Friday? My head is in explosion mode. I drive myself to the limit, stress myself out, and make things a lot more work than they should be. In the end, I'm always proud and satisfied by my work and effort, but I'm beginning to wonder if the ends justify the means. The anxiety, the stomachaches, the sleeplessness, the tears in front of unsuspecting teachers followed up by more tears in a bathroom stall ... and that's only part of it. As such, I just Google Image searched "pull out hair" and got a lot of hilarious stock photos. But the best of all was this animated gif! Score on tinker bell pulling out the hair in twinkly frustration!

But sunnier things? I just read a boatload of goods on false messianism and the Bar Kochba revolt. Incredibly interesting stuff. I'm going to sit down and read the parshah tonight before bed and look over some of the notes I took a few years ago when I was dutifully reading the parshah each week (oy how times have changed!). I have my first meeting with the rabbi tomorrow since pre-Pesach, and I'm ready to get in there and ask the tough questions! And maybe, you know, feel out when the conversion thing will actually, physically, literally happen.

No pressure, though!

So until the semester is over, until I'm done pulling my hair out, and until the only stress in the foreseeable future is the likely mind-bending Middlebury Language School from July 24-August 14, this is what I'm up to when I don't have a nose in a book.

And maybe, just maybe I'll have time to reflect on Yom HaShoah, the Omer, the meaning of the count, the mourning, where it comes from, why we mourn! And all of that good stuff that I thrive on.

I am a Writer, Am I a Writer?

For the first time in my A-student, excellency-first life, I handed in a crap paper. It was nine pages of writing that I knew wasn't up to Chavi Quality Standards (CQS), but I handed it in anyway. In the past, I've done this, but it was only that "I rushed, it probably isn't so great, but I'll do well" sentiment, and I always managed to fly by with As on such papers. But this paper? I knew when I was writing it that it was disjointed, unfocused, miserable in form, idea, and execution. And when I gave it to the professor, I said about 30 times "please let me know if this isn't what you're looking for."

I knew it wasn't. I knew it was crap. And I handed it in anyway.

So I wasn't surprised when I got the email this morning. My alarm went off, I grabbed my Blackberry, I opened GMail, and there it was, the first email sitting in my inbox. Let's meet, it said. What a horrible way to start an otherwise (might-have-been) good day. So now, my long day -- where I go from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. without room to breathe -- is clouded by this meeting I have in an hour, where surely I will be told "you're really bright, but ..." And I know I deserve every criticism.

I'm a good writer. At least, that's what people tell me and I need to prove to myself that I am a good writer. As a copy editor, I know what good writing is meant to look like. I know how the words should flow, how even in academic papers the prose and flow is important. Words should not feel harsh or disconnected; they should have a rhythm and be fluid. I read too many academic papers that read like math textbooks, and I refuse to be one of those academics. I want to be a writer. A good writer. An amazing writer who people read and say "Damn, I wish I could write that well!" But most importantly, I need to feel like I am a good writer. Being a good writer in other people's eyes is worthless when you can't love your own stuff.

This blog, this entire ridiculous volume of ether that I have spewed for nearly three years, is my baby. It's what made me feel good about my writing. It's what said, you aren't just an editor, you're a writer! Go for it! And so here I am, writing, again, venting, stressing, wishing I could crawl into a whole and delete that damn paper. It was a literature review, papers on the validity of the Bible, scholars who say it's a Hellenistic composition, the historicity of the stories of the Bible and how it all isn't just novel-y crap. And that's fascinating to me. It's important and big and special. It's my area of study. And I just pushed out nine pages of crap.

So maybe this is what I needed. I've felt completely out of time, out of focus this semester. I feel like I'm not doing enough, but always doing too much. So maybe I needed to be knocked off the confidence pedestal. I found out earlier this month that I had two papers accepted to a conference in April, and I found out this week that I was accepted to the Middlebury Language School's Hebrew summer Ulpan-style program. These are two massive, important achievements, and I've been riding on their high for a while now. Now? I'm deflated. Disappointed. Wondering if I'm really cut out for all of this. So maybe this is what I needed to really put it all in perspective.

Note to self: You start too many sentences with "So..."

Snow Day!

It's not that I'm trying to complain, but in Nebraska? It would take about five feet of snow and gale-force winds for them to cancel school. I'm serious. People wouldn't always go to class, but it took a LOT more than what it took the University of Connecticut to cancel school today. Okay, so maybe I'm a little upset that I was up till 2:30 in the morning reading and actually enjoying myself and now classes are canceled. Nu? I could have been sleeping.

Anyway, I suppose I should say "Hooray for Snow Day!"

For everyone else who is covered is snow like our little squirrelly friend over here? Please drive safe and stay warm today. No need to become a human snowman.

Vespasian and the Western Wall

I've spent the past week and a half stressing out, intensely, about this semester. My stress has largely been in regards to my Talmud class, a subject which I'm well informed on the outer limits of, but of which I have spent little time in the middle. I arrived home today exhausted after spending five hours looking at archives and compiling information on various states and their populations. I ate dinner, and took a nap. I woke up, still tired, stressed out, grumpy, frustrated. I purchased a coffee, came back to my room, and dove in to papers by scholars about reading rabbinics as history, whether the Talmuds contain hardcore, one-place and one-time history, or whether people read them wrong. Perhaps, as it says, the stories tell us more about the people than about the events. Who knows. The papers were sort of dry, sort of uninteresting, very much of the ego-stroking quality. In other words, very dense materials. I decided to put aside some of the academic papers for a packet on Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai and the episode involving his interactions with Vespasian (or Titus?) and the inevitable arrival of the rabbi in Yavneh, which became the hotbed of rabbinic activity in a post-Destruction of the Temple period, where the Oral Torah became what we know of it today.

But, I'll blog about the episode -- and the four different accounts from BT Gittin 56b, Lamentations Rabbah 1:31, and two versions from The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan -- at another time, because it's incredibly fascinating the subtle and obvious differences between the accounts and how the rabbi approached Vespasian, how Jerusalem fell, how the rabbi and his followers ended up in Yavneh, and the tales therein. But what I wanted to blog about quickly, before I throw myself into bed, is a take on why the Western Wall still stands to this day. It's pretty interesting. This portion comes from Lamentations Rabbah after Vespasian had subdued the city. At this time, he

assigned the destruction of the four ramparts to the four generals, and the western gate was allotted to Pangar. Now it had been decreed by Heaven that this should never be destroyed because the Shechina abode in the west. The others demolished their sections but he did not demolish his. Vespasian sent for him and asked, "Why did you not destroy your section?" He replied, "By your life, I acted so for the honour of the kingdom; for if I had demolished it, nobody would [in time come] know what it was you destroyed; but when people look [at the western wall], they exclaim, "Perceive the might of Vespasian from what he destroyed!" He said to him, "Enough, you have spoken well, but since you disobeyed my command, you shall ascend to the roof and throw yourself down. If you live, you will live; and if you die, you will die." He ascended, threw himself down and died.

An interesting take on why we still have HaKotel HaMa'aravi today, no? There are a few other morsels worth noting, which you can find at this Kotel website. Oh, and for good measure, the photo credit goes to me!

On that note, I'm heading to bed. Midrash will float about my head as I hopefully fall fast asleep. Tomorrow? I get the chance to delve into the topic in class.

We Apologize, But ...

Due to unforeseen events involving chaos, madness, and general academic ballyhoo, there will be no d'var Torah today. Stay tuned for a hopeful d'var on Sunday for this week's parshah, Va'eira. Everyone loves the plagues, so you can wait it out. Here's a preview of what's to come (I hope), thanks to BrickTestament.com.

Until then, shabbat shalom!

School, Food, Books, and More!

So much to say! So little space. I'm torn between writing several blog posts all in one effort, or to just pile it all in here. There are some bloggers who will post 10 posts in a day, clogging up the old Google Reader. There are others who will write a novel, making my brain bleed. So where is the happy medium? To be honest, I don't know. So for now, we'll just throw it all out there in a couple itty, bitty morsels of goodness.

Topic No.1: Food, Kashrut, and Weight Watchers
I'm back on the wagon with Weight Watchers online. It was about a year ago that I hopped on the bandwagon, I lost about 20-25 pounds, and I was feeling good about  myself. Now? Well, there's something about this weather that makes me want to lose weight. So I'm on again. The great thing about this, and how it ties into this blog, is that I'm making all efforts to go kosher. Tuvia has managed to pick up a variety of sets of silverware, baking dishes, plates, bowls, you name it. When we eat at his place, we do it kosher. Here in my dorm room, I'm pretty much pareve. I will do fish or veggies, but no meat, so I don't have to worry about much. I'm still actively reading Going Kosher in 30 Days , kindly granted to me by the folks over at the Jewish Learning Group, but I'll just say that it hasn't been 30 days. It's a longer process -- a much longer process. I have oodles of questions for people about dishes and the kitchen, for one. It's so easy here, but it's difficult at Tuvia's (at least, I think it is). So what would you say about the following:

• How do you keep track of what baking pans/pots/etc. are Meat and what are Dairy/Pareve?
  
• Do people have different dishes/silverware/etc. for Pareve? Or just use Dairy?
  
• Do you wash them separately in the dishwasher? All together?
  
• What's your policy on the oven and cooking dairy and meat at separate times?
  
• How do you make the kitchen work like clockwork while trying to make everything not mesh?!
  

So, it seems like a lot, I know. But I now understand why Jews are keeping the toss-away aluminum baking-pan business and paper plate/plastic silverware businesses in business. I mean, it just makes life easier. This is why I like my vegetarian/pareve way of life. It's just easy. And for me, it's all about ease. Or maybe it's not supposed to be easy? I suppose that could be the Jewish way.

Topic No. 2: Chavi's Academic Life, or A Class Breakdown!
I know my readers just LOVE to hear what's going down in my academic life. So I thought I'd fill you in on the classes I'm taking this semester. 


Class No. 1: I'm once again doing Modern Hebrew, which after one day already has me overwhelmed. I'm going to try my hardest to get to an Ulpan this summer so I can brush up and really be ready for a second year as a master's student. I want to be able to read the texts in their original and to really be able to participate in class. But so far, everything is NOT coming back to me at a quick pace, which has me quite nervous. 
Class No. 2: Probably my most challenging class, Talmudic Historiography and Midrashic Thought is a graduate seminar that will definitely make me think. The amount of reading alone might kill me, but it's very much up the alley of what I want to be doing. Keeping up with the professor and some of the more advanced students, though, might stress me out unnecessarily. Add to this that the course reserves aren't yet on reserve and the books are expensive and the library is slow ... oy. My mind is already ready to explode. This will be another last-minute semester with me trying to figure out which of 20 topics I want to write a term paper on. I can't wait. 
Class No. 3: My third and final course shouldn't be too difficult, but it could prove to be more challenging than I think. It's with an adjunct professor (a new, original face, huzzah!), and it is the Ancient Near East taught using the Tanakh as a frame to analyze the rest of the Near East. I think it'll be interesting, considering it's an undergrad course with about 50 people in it, many who scoffed at the idea of using the Hebrew Bible as a source book. I'll let you know how it goes, but the class relies on a 20-page paper that I will surely rock. I just have to figure out what to write about ... something obscure, perhaps. Maybe looking or focusing more on archeology. I could, of course, just write more about Ba'al and calf figurines ... cross-cultural review? Who knows.

Conclusion
You like how I have things divided up like a nice little paper or outline? Welcome to my world. I have to think of everything as a finely organized outline, and I'm very much NOT an outline kind of person.

As an aside, there's a delicious little book by Joel M. Stein on its way to me (which I hope to review amid all the serious academic books that I'm reading) called "Webstein's Dictionary: The Essential Guide to Yiddishizing Your Life." OyChicago did a nice little write-up on it, and you can actually buy the book over on Pop Judaica. If you want to wait and see what I think, feel free. Either way, it'd probably be a stellar gift or a hilarious coffee-table companion.

At any rate, this is all for now. In the morning, thanks to the suggestion of Tuvia, I should have a d'var Torah on this week's parshah. It's wishful thinking, maybe, but I'm hoping to get back into the swing of looking at the Torah portion each week on Fridays between Hebrew and Ancient Near East. Until then, be well!

Back in the Saddle: Midrash!

I'm back to it. School starts tomorrow, and my first class is Wednesday morning. So, a pile of books at my side, I'm reading up on Talmud and Midrash and Hellenism and ... lots of relevant stuff. I've come across a few things and, being me, decided to share because I find them absolutely interesting. I hope you feel the same. Just as a note, midrash is sort of an explication on a verse or idea. If you think about it, gemara, the elaboration on the mishnah (Oral Torah) is a type of midrash, right? Right.

+ The moment we got to Israel last month on Birthright, exhausted from an 11-hour plane trip, we were bused to a nature preserve to plant trees. I'd forgotten the reason for doing this, the necessity for planting trees and the biblical explanation for why Israel is so big on the creation of forests and the growth of the tree population, until just now when I was reading in "Back to the Sources " a Midrashic explanation behind Leviticus 19:23, "...when you enter the land, you shall plant all manner of trees." Aha! There's the reason. The midrash, in turn, says that the reason for doing this first upon entering the land is to mimic or reenact G-d's work in the creation of the world. Brilliant! And here's my effort, I did as the Torah said (even if begrudgingly with exhaustion, bad hair, etc., heh).

Note the Barack'N in the Free World tee from KosherHam.com!

+ The second thing in this specific chapter on midrash that struck me discusses the people turning to the rabbis after terrible destruction, seeking guidance, and out of this being born midrashic texts, including Lamentations Rabbah. The following is an example from that text, where the "rabbis use the common comparison of the Torah to a marriage contract (ketubah in Hebrew as a means of offering hope to a people in despair."

"This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope." -- Lam. 3.21

R. Abba b. Kahana said: This may be likened to a king who married a lady and wrote her a large ketubah: "so many state-apartments I am preparing for you, so many jewels I am preparing for you, and so much silver and gold I give you."

The king left her and went to a distant land for many years. Her neighbors used to vex her saying, "Your husband has deserted you. Come and be married to another man." She wept and signed, but whenever she went into her room and read her ketubah she would be consoled. After many years the king returned and said to her, "I am astonished that you waited for me all these years." She replied, "My lord king, if it had not been for the generous ketubah you wrote me then surely my neighbors would have won me over."

So the nations of the world taunt Israel and say, "Your God has no need of you; He has deserted you and removed His Presence from you. Come to us and we shall appoint commanders and leaders of every sort for you." Israel enters synagogues and houses of study and reads in the Torah, "I will look with favor upon you ... and I will not spurn you" (Lev. 26.9-11), and they are consoled.

In the future the Holy One blessed be He will say to Israel, "I am astonished that you waited for me all these years." And they will reply, "If it had not been for the Torah which you gave us ... the nations of the world would have led us astray." ... Therefore it is stated, "This do I recall and therefore I have hope." (Lam. 3.21)

Wow. Brilliant, no? And appropriate for the current state of things. If ever one wonders if we've been abandoned, we merely return to this -- and to the Torah/covenant -- and know that it isn't so!

Taking a Mini-Break ... sort of.

It's a new month, and 2009 is nearly upon us. Thank G-d it's already 5769 and I don't really have to think about a new year! But I wanted to pop in to let everyone know that for the next week, perhaps two, I will be really MIA. I have a lot of things I want to write about -- keeping Shabbos over the past month with a significant other, hot water pots, already-on ovens, separating meat and dairy and the interesting conundrums it has presented, getting to shul, and more. But I have two term papers (one of which is presently 20 pages and the other of which is about 15 and growing) to work on and a few finals to focus my attentions toward. As such, I just can't be present on my blog in the way I'd like to be. So there will be short snippets of news stories and what have you, but nothing really that fascinating, and for this? I ask for your patience until I return fully and for your continued support! This blog is my world, and having so many readers means so much to me. I'll be back for about a week after my finals, and then, on December 17, I trek off to Israel for a life-altering experience on Birthright. I won't be live blogging, most likely, but I will be alive and well. If I can figure out how to text a post, I'll be sure to do it!

On a similar note, another reason I'm stepping away is because my energy level is at a bottom right now. I feel like the Freddy, the dog in this photo. I just want to sleep! As you all know, I was dealing with strep throat about three weeks ago. I took a 10-day dose of penicillin, and I was better for about four or five days, after which I started getting some similar symptoms. I couldn't swallow anything, not even water, without excruciating pain. I was exhausted, my glands were the size of baseballs, and there was a pressure in my head, nose, ears, and neck that I cannot even begin to put into words! Luckily, things only got really bad after Thanksgiving, so I was able to enjoy some time with the S.O.'s family. But on Friday morning, we had to drive about 45 minutes to the nearest urgent care/hospital in the middle-of-nowhere, Pennsylvania, so I could be diagnosed. The doctor immediately surmised it was mono (although he mentioned that since it had been 2.5 weeks, I likely was outside the window for showing positive for mono), took a swab test for strep (which I'm still waiting on) and sent me off to the hospital for blood tests. Later Friday, he called to tell me that he couldn't tell for sure whether it was NOT mono, but he did know that I had developed a bacterial infection. I was sent to the pharmacy just after the start of Shabbat (which bummed me out, but was necessary) for a prescription that was penicillin + more antibiotics to help fight the infection.

Needless to say, I'm feeling a lot better than I was Thursday night and Friday during the day, but I'm not even at 60 percent right now. I'm fatigued, my glands are still swollen, and my skin is more ghostly than normal! One friend quipped that I even looked like I had mono. Ach! So I'm going to be sleeping a lot, working on papers, and messing around with Hebrew while trying to get better.

And maybe ... just maybe ... I'll get around to reading the nearly 300 blog posts I'm behind on. You bloggers have been busy over the past six days. It's frustrating to be so behind. If you have a blog post that you think I should most certainly spend some time on -- email me or put the link in the comments below.

Until I return with stories of Shabbos and crazy racists in the Poconos ... be well!

Papers, Cards, and Wishes.

I've spent the past two days, hidden away in the Poconos, hammering out 30 pages of two papers -- one on the Golden Calf, the other on Qohelet. The calf paper has been turned out in 19 pages and I have at least five more to write. Qohelet isn't even halfway composed and it's already at 11 pages. I have about a week and a half to finish them, though in reality I only have about a week considering the next two days I'm going to be floating around New Jersey for Thanksgiving festivities and then comes Shabbat. I did, though, happen to get consoled by the falling snow this morning, which was a beautiful thing to wake up to in a little cabin-esque house in the woods of Pennsylvania. I'm pretty proud of my achieved compositions, not to mention the parve chocolate chip cookies I made and the dinner that's currently roasting in the oven. It has been a productive 48 hours.

The moment my papers are done, I'm going to settle in to composing Chanukah and Holiday cards. I know a lot of people don't send cards out anymore, but I do, because I firmly believe that people love real mail, especially this time of year. Yes, I tend to send out the form letter with the updates and news on my life (and this year there has been a LOT), but I also like to include plenty of personal notes on the card itself. So, if you would like to receive one of my dazzling Chanukah (if that's your flavor) or Holiday (if that's your other flavor) cards this holiday season, please e-mail me your mailing address! You can get to me by clicking on the "Contact" link at the top of the page, or by using chaviva at kvetchingeditor dot com.

In the meantime, if you're in the gift-giving mood, check out my Wish List on Amazon.com. Yes, it's all a bunch of Judaica books, but, you know, that's how I roll and books are my most favorite thing.




After papers, finals, and card-making are finalized, I head off to Israel on December 17 for 10 days of exciting trekking. I finally received the itinerary and cellphone rental information via email today, and it looks like there's going to be quite a bit of free time and independent dinner outings. I know at least one person on my bus, and I'm guessing (and hoping) that the rest of the people on the bus will be of the older persuasion (man I'm old and crotchety when it comes to college kids, heh). In fact, at this time next month, my trip will almost be over! My intent to stay an extra week won't come to fruition, as there are far too many external factors at work that just doesn't make it possible right now. Thus, I'm going to look into options for studying in Israel in the summer and see what I can pull up.

Be well, and Happy Thanksgiving!

A Stream of Consciousness Post

My coat -- a fluffy, bright pink Lands End piece -- makes me feel like that kid in "A Christmas Story." I walk around, arms stiff, like a penguin, unable to move or rotate my head, but feeling quite warm nonetheless.

I'm not really sure what this revelation has to do with the bigger picture, namely that I'm feeling all out of sorts in a number of ways, but it seemed like a good segue from point A to point B, wherever point A might have been. And suddenly, as I write this, I realize I had no idea how to spell "segue" prior to now (why did I think it was segway?).

I've traded a relatively painless life for a life of uncertainty and difficulty. I went from schluffing around an economics department at one of the country's most prestigious schools, making good money and saving up, but being subjected to emotional and verbal assault on some ocassions, to academia, where I spend every day wondering when my fingers will find their way to the keys so that I might put something down on paper to impress the holy prophets -- that is, the professors. On winter days like this, I'm reminded of sitting for hours on end at the Coffee House in Lincoln, Nebraska, during my undergraduate years, studying biblical Hebrew and preparing editing marks for the school newspaper (which, it seems, is where most of the excitement I remember about school arose from). I'm also reminded of my time in Washington D.C. when I was working at the Washington Post, when I'd get out of work at midnight and schluff over in the cold to my favorite little coffee shop haunt in Dupont Circle to read the week's parshah and dish out a d'var Torah for the blog. I miss that kind of dedication where I provided the reader of this very blog with something Jewishly substantial as far as the Torah went.

It's something about this time of year makes me want to crawl into coffee shops for days and days, drinking mochas and running into old friends, conversing about tout le monde. Unfortunately, my university is devoid of any coffee shops like what I'm familiar with -- couches, dank corners, intellectuals waxing poetic over a chess board. The coffee shops on campus are all loud and filled with people and aren't really coffee shops at all, they're just places that sell coffee that happen to be inside various campus buildings. The ambiance, which I found so inspiring during my undergrad, just isn't here.

I called my little brother last night, to get peace of mind about how he was coping with the whole dad thing. He managed to brighten me up, like he always does, with his infinite wisdom and interesting outlook on life. When I asked him how he was feeling about things, he aptly responded, in the Edwards way, "There's always something bad happening around here, I'm just used to it." That, folks, is wisdom. 

I've signed up for classes next semester (though the large chunk of graded work for this semester still has yet to be penned), and I'm quite excited about them. I think they'll offer more intellectual stimulation than this semester managed to, though, I think it will be a much more difficult semester. My classes? Of course there will be Hebrew, there will also be a class on Holocaust cinema, but it will be focused on the cinema of the decade at the end and following the Shoah, specifically in Europe and Russia, and I think it'll provide some interesting insight into little-known film. And then, my third class will be Talmudic and Midrashic thought, which is a graduate seminar that should be advanced to the point of forcing me to get really damn good at my Hebrew really damn fast.

To be honest, I'm nervous about writing these two papers. It's sort of going to set the stage for the next three semesters, I think. Will I impress the professors with my Judaic studies prowess and mad writing skills? Will they be wowed with my punctuation and verbage? My choice of words (I'm anti-big words and anti-thesaurus, for what it's worth)? My rhythm and flow? I think, to be sure, that I'm far too worried about what people think of my writing. When I tell people I was a journalism major they always say "Oh, you like writing?" forgetting that there's a whole editing -- not to mention design and photographic -- component to journalism. I was never a writer in the journalistic sense, but I've always been a writer. A poet, anyway. I like to think I have a sense for how something is meant to sound and how the words are supposed to be paired.

But enough about me.

I pose a question for my readers of the academic or religiously curious persuasion: Recently in my Bible course we were discussing the Trinity and Jesus/G-d. Now, I can't seem to get a really straight answer about how Christians reconcile the following things. Assume the following are all accepted as true.

1) G-d is all powerful and cannot suffer

2) Jesus is G-d

3) Jesus is flesh, and thus able to suffer

So how do Christians reconcile the idea that G-d cannot suffer but Jesus does suffer if Jesus is G-d (which he has to be, otherwise it's idolatrous)? I'm asking this seriously, as an academic. It seems to me that all explanations boil down to the following: "We cannot know, for G-d's ways are mysterious to man." And that, unfortunately isn't good enough for me. Sure, there's a lot in Judaism that people throw into the same category, but at least we argue about it!

Anyhow, for this week's parshah, Chayei Sarah, check out G-dcast.com , and have a good Shabbos!

I Hate Doctor's Offices.

Well, I went to the infirmary where I was informed that I either have strep or mono. Either way, talk about sucking. I'd prefer the former to the latter, but either way it's going to be a miserable time for me for a while. The miracle drug penicillin is keeping me calm until the test results come back on the strep. If I get worse, then I probably have mono, and then I get to seriously freak out. It is, after all, crunch time here at UConn.

Luckily, I have some delicious homemade chicken matzo ball soup courtesy of a real-life Jewish grandmother from the old country. I couldn't be more elated. So please, pardon me while I eat some soup and crawl into bed for the 30th time today.

Oh, and I do promise to respond to comments posted throughout at some point when I'm not feeling so low, and I will also do up a Part I to my Shabbaton Reflections, as well. I just lack the energy to do anything. This post? Took me way longer than it should have to type.

Peace.

A Quick Ditty.

A quick quip: I walked to the Student Union tonight in 38 degree weather to pick up a few beverages since I was Jonesing for some liquid, and on my way back, while admiring the brisk, cool, clear weather that so defines my happiness, I started singing in my poetic, lyrical way, words of my own: "I'm just trying to live wholly ..." and then stopped myself and thought "wait, did I mean wholly or holy?" And then I realized that both were applicable, and the interesting thing about it was that to live wholly, I need to live holy. Oh the things we say and the wisdom we can impart upon ourselves without even knowing it.

In other news, I'm pretty sure I'm settled on both paper topics for class.

+ For Bible class (an undergrad course in which I'm taking three tests with the rest of 'em, but am required to write a paper on a topic of my choosing about anything at all from Hebrew Bible or Christian Bible): The Golden Calf, was it meant to represent/replace Moses or G-d? An idol or cultic object? And perhaps maybe my topic might evolve if I find out more about this tradition of concealment in 2nd century BCE synagogues in Israel.

Nicolas Poussan's "The Adoration of the Golden Calf" 

+ For Biblical interpretation (the philosophy course that blew my mind in the beginning that I've settled comfortably into): Qohelet as philosophy or theology, how is it read and by whom (I need to zero in on whether I want to do Medieval or maybe modern scholars), and tie this into whether there is even such a thing as Jewish philosophy (thank you Paul Mendes-Flohr and the long ago piece I read "Jewish Philosophy and Theology.").

The holidays have really created an awkward setup with my research and studying though, and it's frustrating. Luckily I have all day tomorrow, and all next weekend to thrust myself into research. I want to be able to create solid theses for both papers so that I feel and look more put together than I am. Then, my plan is to trek to Chicago during the first half (at least) of Thanksgiving Break maybe and devote myself to writing my papers. The idea of filling a suitcase full of books is thrilling. But who knows if that will happen. At some point I have to start writing SOMETHING. I'm a last-minute writer -- someone who sits down at the last minute, composes 15-20 pages in one sitting (no breaks) and then turns it in before reading it. That, folks, is how I roll.

On that note, I still need to compose an email to my undergraduate professor whose class prepared me for all of this (even though I can't bring myself to write an outline) ... Ethnopolitical Conflict. Man alive, that class developed the paper that got me into graduate school (here, Brandeis, U of Michigan), and it also taught me what it meant to write a literature review in the form of a paper. Several ideas on a single topic, how they approach it, and finally my take on their analyses -- a combination of thoughts or a breakdown or a completely independent assumption of the facts. That's probably how my Golden Calf paper will roll, but not my Biblical Interpretation paper. Why? Not sure. Maybe it will. Who knows.

Academia rules. Now if I could just teach myself to focus ... this lack of regiment is difficult for me.

Sick and Not in the Sukkah.

Well, I hope your Sukkot is going better than mine. I've been sick essentially since I woke up Sunday in a beautiful house hidden away in the Poconos. By late Sunday and early Monday, I was practically comatose. I didn't go to Hebrew class, and I spent most of Monday and Tuesday in bed, schluffing around in my comfy pants and going through boxes of Kleenex. But now? I'm feeling quite a bit better, as my illin' has been relegated mostly to utter congestion and some minor issues of breathing.

But the days of sickness gave me a lot of time to read, and read I have. About what? The golden calf of course! It's interesting how many random roads I've trekked down thanks to my recently heightened research. For example, there was a period of time where the golden calf episode wasn't mentioned in synagogues in Israel (we're talking way, way back in the day, like 2nd century CE) -- known as a "tradition of concealment." I can't seem to find much on it, though. Then there are three writers who "rewrote" the incident in their own unique ways, the two well-known among them being Philo and Josephus. The former brushed around the incident of idolatry, because to him the purpose of the incident was to emphasize the choosing of the Levites as the auxiliary priesthood. The latter, Josephus, bypassed the entire episode in his writing -- why? Probably because of the anti-Jewish mockery by writers of the time. Josephus likely wanted to keep his gentile readers from getting certain "impressions" about Jews and animal worship. Then there are all these avenues of thought about how the incident wasn't a violation of the first commandment, but rather just of the second since it was creating an image/likeness of what is on "the earth below," but that it was meant either as G-d or Moses, but either way the people weren't replacing G-d, but rather were worshiping ... well ... that's a whole other story.

Anyway, I'm getting excited. I just need to ORGANIZE my thoughts. We'll see how I feel after our grad student meeting tomorrow when we reveal where our research is taking us.

I hope you all are enjoy Sukkos, and I'm stoked for Simchat Torah :)