Category Archives: Jewish

Seder

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Our theme this Passover was “where does it say “loving G-d” in Exodus? Hint: it doesn’t.  The acts may be loving, but the language is about fear and the actions are brutal.

I found this hard because if, as commanded, I must tell my child how G-d set me free from bondage, I have a lot of pain, gore and scary things to talk about. And according to the text, G-d tells Moses that Pharaoh will set the Israelites free because of a greater might. How do I square this with my teaching my child (i) that might is not always right, (ii) that right doesn’t always need might, and (iii) that even if you are right, using might is not always justified.

It was interesting also to discuss the meaning of time — in current human terms, in biblical times and in the realm of G-d. According to Rav (Rabbi) Google, also known as the Google Shem Tov for its mystical qualities and abundant knowledge, the king who arose who knew not Joseph was Seti I, father of Raamses II (Yul Brynner in the Ten Commandments). Seti I ruled for 115 years. Did the ancients tell time differently or were age spans this long? (Sarah did give birth to Isaac at 92). And is 115 years a blink of an eye for G-d even though generations suffered? Was G-d busy creating another galaxy and his attention was elsewhere? Or does the suffering of many for a long time not matter so much to G-d, who kills people willy nilly through out the Bible?

A conundrum or two, indeed.

On the positive side, POB (partner of blogger) cooked a delicious meal. Truly extraordinary effort.

And SOPOBAB (son of POB and blogger) tried to take over running the Seder.  Wow, a preview of power struggles to come.

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Look away

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I have been pretty good about a new gym regimen since I started my new job.  (My 2010 horoscope said that I should keep up an exercise schedule, and that is as good a reason as any.)

Since the global economic melt-down, I have taken to drinking wine.  One glass goes straight to my inner thighs.  No joke.  I feel it the next day.  So, I need to work out just to maintain the usual mid-40s spread.

Since going to the gym, I have been feeling much better about myself and my degeneration into older age (in our family we call it “decrepitude” because we are — er — so gentle).  And I have noticed that, in the afternoons on the weekends, men have been looking twice at me at the gym (and not because I have stains on my t-shirts or my outfits are disastrous).  Most people would feel good about that.  But I have to tell you who is looking.

Imagine we are in the early 1980s when the Olivia Newton-John exercise outfits were popular.  Imagine your relatives who were moving down to Florida around that time.  Remember how they couldn’t pronounce “condominium” and kept saying “condominian” (which now sounds like a group of ten prophylactic devices)?  Remember the men who wore short-shorts with dark shoes and dark socks, dyed their hair and uber-cool sunglasses?  You know, the ones who drove Cadillac El Dorados.

Imagine now it is 2010, and these men have aged 30 years and wear white free spirits and white socks and they dye their hair an odd shade of red.  Apparently, mid-afternoon on the weekends, the older set comes to the gym.  The upside is that they wipe down the machines and don’t do many reps.  The bad news is that the men think I am old enough to be interested in them.

I wear bi-focals, but generally my eye sight is good.  I am graying, but I have few wrinkles.  I have a little extra thickness around the middle but I still have muscle tone in my arms and my breasts still hang comfortable above my waist.  Also, I am a lesbian for Goodness sake.  Ok, they don’t know that last fact.

I just wish I weren’t so attractive to the 85+ crowd.  Maybe once, just once, a young, beautiful woman would give me a second glance that doesn’t telegraph, “oh, you really should have taken better care of yourself when you were young. . . .”  Oh, well, that isn’t what I need.  I need the old men to look at me and think, “she is way too young for me.”

So, my cousin just called and I told him about this blog entry.  He lamented that only really older women check him out on the street.  We were laughing/crying to each other and he mentioned that this could be a schtick for http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/.  I checked out this site and there are videos of old Jews telling jokes.

The internet is worthwhile if only for bringing us this website and keeping the tradition available for the younger generations.  Also, if there could be a registry for “I’m too young for octagenarians”, that would be awesome.

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Family Weekend

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This weekend was family weekend.

Last night, POB made a huge tenderloin which didn’t seem so aggressively carnivore-centric, until her vegetarian sister (SOPOB) called to say she and her son were coming.  POB’s father (FOPOB) also came over, in part, because he liked the menu.  (Not only can you not fool all the people all of the time, but you can’t please them either.)

And to round out the alphabet of “OB”-centric initials, sister of blogger (SOB), husband of SOB (HOSOB) and father of blogger (FOB) also came.  HOSOB got a really short haircut and looked so adorable in that way that little boys do when they get their hair cut (except he is 54 or so, but still sooooooo adorable).  And not the way an older man looks cute and helpless when he puts on a hat with ear flaps (you know, the “look” that cuts one’s IQ in half).

Since having a child, it makes me happy when those whom I love have home-cooked meals. Of course, POB has to do the actual cooking — I just plate everything and set the table, except when I don’t, and then POB is overworked and I don’t deserve her.  But last night I wasn’t a slouch or sloth.  (Of course, I think I deserve a merit badge for good behavior, but I digress.)

My nephew didn’t like dinner and was honest about in that way that kids can be.  Everyone else was polite and HOSOB seemed to enjoy the carnivorous portion of the meal especially.  FOB seemed to enjoy the wine.   SOB seemed to enjoy leaving (she later reported having a really sound sleep — must have been vicarious dose of triptophan from all of the food HOSOB ate).  FOPOB was non-committal.  Our son and nephew enjoyed being together.

Today, another generation descended.  A cousin from the Catskills who studied and lived in China for 5 years came for brunch, along with her half-Dutch, half-Israeli boyfriend who went to school in Switzerland and whom she met in Shang-hai. He is now in the States, in New England. It is too confusing to figure out which of the many pairings of culture shock he is currently experiencing.  He is sweet and gentle notwithstanding his inherent Dutch directness and Israeli hubris.

Also along was a brother of this cousin who traveled the far distance from the Catskills to a suburban hamlet in Massachusetts.  He introduced us to his girlfriend.  This was big. His girlfriend was polite, sweet and quiet — i.e., not Jewish.  Hey, non-Jews have tamed our family, to wit: my sister-in-law and brother-in-law.  So, really, we are scared the non-Jews we love won’t marry into our family because we are so loud, and — hmmm, how shall we say — undiscriminating about our dinner/brunch table discussion topics.

So we were loud, especially my cousin (her boyfriend), and she didn’t seem unnerved by it, even when those cousins started talking about importance of sloping leaching fields in the separation of solid waste from non-solid waste.   Septic tanks and the related issues of sanitation are not approved topics of conversation at my table (even though these were favorite topics of their father z”l who was a wonderful, if controlling, human).  As I was trying to stop the story (we WERE eating), his sister piped in about the variations of “spicy stomach” she and her friends had in China. Ok, ok, ok. All of this after I lectured them (again) about the inappropriateness of pictures they put on Facebook.

My dear cousin (DCOB) — an elder of my generation — also joined us.  He is such a gentle soul.  He is very involved in eastern traditions, medicine and meditation.  He also has a tremendous collection of American folk music.  I know that you are thinking Asian monk living in the splendor of secluded monastery that has access to folk music and occasional WiFi.  Think again.  Think yin-yang.  How yang?  He is a criminal defense attorney living in a large apartment complex.  DCOB’s wide ranging interests and openness to new and different things was evolutionary in our family.  The next generations is more free to focus on their inner muses.

Still, after 3 hours, I called SOB, who prescribed M&M — meditation and medication.

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Synagogue

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Religion is like opera — it loses something in translation.

Today, we went to the Liberal minyan at our synagogue while our son was in a kid’s session.  One of the verses of the Torah portion provided that if a man “seduces” a virgin, he must still pay the bride price to her father as if they were married.   Ok, in ancient times, a “virgin” — likely, a young girl — would not be in the company of a man unless coerced, because girls were not free to come and go unattended.

So, the girl gets hurt and the father is made whole.  Grrrreat.  There is one Hasidic interpretation that says this passage means that ideas are like virgins and must be put into action or something like that.  Ok, I suppose the rabbi who wrote that interpretation meant that only good ideas should be put into action and not bad ideas like men seducing virgins.

Like I said, it sounded fine when it was being chanted in Hebrew.  The translation, however, made my head hurt.

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The generations of progress

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Sunday night is family dinner night.  SOB (sister of blogger), HOSOB (husband of sister of blogger) and FOB (father of blogger) come over.  From time to time, COB (cousin of blogger) and COROBs (cousins once-removed of blogger) also come over [there is one COROB whom I miss very much — she knows who she is — I would love for her to come, too, when she is ready].

So, on Sunday night, we had the usual gang plus a COB and COROB.  COB is the de facto family historian, so sometimes we discern breakthroughs of understanding and gentility invading our otherwise harsh and unforgiving gene pool.  COROB’s brother is coming in with his girlfriend in a few weeks.  COB asked COROB if “we” liked the girlfriend — one person’s opinion can shape a multi-generational disposition towards an interloper in — I mean new person to — the family.

COROB answered, “I don’t know, I haven’t met her.” And the generations of the family fell quiet.  This was indeed momentous.  Any member of a prior generation would say something like, “How could we possibly like her?  He would have brought her around before if she was a keeper.”  In other words, unworthy unless proved otherwise through hazing rituals only known among the clan.  Here was an opening to be level-headed about the matter.  The profundity cannot be overstated.  We older cousins could not grasp this “perestroika” of a sort at first.

Luckily, just when the world as we knew it was teetering on the edge of kindness and generosity, we had a disagreement over whether kashrut is important as a sign of belief in G-d or because it was sound eating practices.  Were the rules codified because of hygiene or because they set the tribes of Israel apart from other regional tribes?  The COROB and COB disagreed with me somewhat assertively but something had changed in the dynamic of the family just from that little openness shown by COROB earlier towards her brother’s girlfriend.

I heard myself say, “you’re wrong AND you can still come back for dinner next time.”  Wow.  Now, that’s progress.

Hmmmmm.

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The greatest generation

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I know, I know. I write about death and destruction a lot. But life is like that. And movies and TV depict death and destruction with a certain enthusiasm that seems, well, ooky.

Today, I went to a friend’s father’s funeral. I didn’t know my friend’s father but I knew about his life.  I heard him speak once.  And his is a life story worth telling again and again, over and over.

He was born in Turkey and raised — before World War II — in France. He was a Jew and fled to the forests in unoccupied France.  There he met his wife and together, with others they met in hiding, fought with the Resistance.

I remember his saying at a talk at our synagogue that he never really thought of himself as a survivor in the same way that those who survived the concentration camps were survivors.

At the funeral, the rabbi asked those who hid with him to stand and three very old people slowly, and with assistance, stood, two of them very stooped over.  These old people did heroic things in a world gone haywire and they survived in a jungle of sorts where other humans were hunters and they were the game.

This man did the exact opposite of what was done to him. He loved, he gave generously of his time and his resources, he was grateful for life‘s gifts and, as someone at the funeral said, he didn’t blink when adversity hit.

He is truly the epitome of our greatest generation.  He saw the worst, endured the worst and gave his best back.

I didn’t know him but I stand on his shoulders and those like him — my own parents and grandparents — and therefore I need to pay my respects to a man who made possible the opportunities in my life.  For the debt I cannot repay to those who so willingly gave to me, I promise to pay it forward to the next generation, all the while telling the heroic stories of those who came before me.

Monsieur Henri, your memory is a blessing to all who know you and your family.

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Oy

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Oy.

It is more than a word; it is an emotive state, conveying sadness or disgust and sympathy, even empathy, with those harmed by the event all in one syllable. You can even understand it in a flat, toneless medium such as an email.

Compare that to “oh” or “wow”.  You need context and knowledge of sender in order to decipher the intended meaning and, even then, still not clear.

Don’t get me started on those emoticons. Although I have used them, I do so sparingly and with a requisite ooky feeling.

Let me use it two sentences:  Sarah Palin signed a contract with Fox News.  Oy.

‘nough said.

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First Family Sunday Brunch of 2010

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So, last week, as I mentioned in my blog, as part of our family tradition, we gather together on the Sunday after Christmas for brunch to kvetch while our mouths are full of food.

Because at that brunch we didn’t kvetch enough or talk enough about our petty grievances against the humanity, the world and the next door neighbor, we re-convened at my house this Sunday.  We hoped the snarky energy that I emit in my home would provide a better venue for the spirit of our gathering.

Unfortunately, my sister couldn’t come because she had to cover for a sick colleague (“Doctor, heal thyself,” I say).  Besides the patients are so used to rounds, they could round themselves.  Still, my sister is a professional and went to the aid of her patients.  So, already, good karma started to push out my snarky energy.  AND IN MY OWN HOME.  How galling.

My brother-in-law came and he is really too sweet to have to carry the banner of acerbic, sarcastic humor.  He also has high blood pressure and a teensy cholesterol problem.  So, I ratted him out in the middle of brunch when he ate chocolate cake by sending the following pictures by email to my hard-working sister:

Needless to say, my brother-in-law is now on a diet of lentils, rice, and anti-oxidants.

Also, our dear cousin for whom my sister broke ground by cooking scrambled eggs, came this Sunday.  If my sister can cook eggs, well, I can, too.

SO THERE!!!

We are NOT competitive.  Really.  Nooooo, sireeeee.

Anyway, another cousin came over, too.  He is really a wonderful kid and it was actually hard to be snarky.  It was an odd feeling to want to be nice and gentle.  Wow, age does mellow a person.

But, let’s re-evaluate tomorrow.

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The Clan

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On Sunday we gathered at my sister’s house for the traditional Jewish post-Christmas brunch, to go over the number of tourists who got in our way and the number of merry people who infected the usual ennui and bad humor that are so quintessentially New York.  Because we are open-hearted, if narrow-minded, my sister’s Catholic husband was welcomed to join. We sat down to a traditional meal — high in salt smoked fish oils and low nutrition and low in any nutritive value.  Not a vitamin in sight.

But something different happened this Sunday, and I have yet to process the event fully.  I saw — or else I would not believe this — my sister cook something.  Our cousin can no longer eat the usual fare that is our cultural comfort foods.  My sister, who had never before used her stove, made our cousin freshly scrambled eggs.

Last year, she got married to a wonderful man who is kind and always in a good mood.

This year she is cooking nourishing food.  I can see a trend, but I can’t yet see the trajectory.

For background, my mother and I had suggested to my sister, when she bought her apartment in 1999, that she just convert the kitchen to a den.  All she needed were a phone, a stack of take-out menus and a mini-bar fridge for diet coke. But she insisted that an apartment needed a kitchen.  So we suggested that she get the fiberglass demo version of a stove to save some money.  A few years after she moved in, my partner finally took out the plastic envelope with the care instructions and warranties and turned on a burner.  (I was horrified that she diminished the resale value for no apparent reason.)

I was nervous seeing my sister at the stove, thinking she might hurt herself.  Our cousin was so touched at my sister’s domestic effort once he realized that she never cooked anything for anyone, even her husband.  Also, our cousin is a life-long bachelor (save for a short-lived marriage a long time ago) living in a tiny studio with a mini-bar fridge, and therefore unaccustomed to home-cooking.  He could not stop complimenting my sister on the eggs.

We forgot to kvetch about the tourists or the merriment that interfered with our hardened and mean personalities.  Instead, at this brunch, we just all talked and were glad to be together.

Next year, we may be singing folk songs and a bonus round of kumbaya or maybe my sister will have knitted each of us something in seasonal colors.  I think I’ll read up on Ebenezer Scrooge, so I know my part and can be the standard bearer against the march of time and humility.  I hope Scrooge doesn’t get nice.  I don’t “do” nice.

You see why I am worried.

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No Holiday For Us

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My son refused the time-honored Jewish tradition of going to the movies on Christmas.  It is a variation on the theme of sitting in the dark until the holiday passes.  In the movies, you sit in the dark, too, but are possibly diverted for 2 or so hours.

We took a walk along Broadway.  It is a gray day and the lingering snow is in that only-in-New-York-could-snow-be-so-gross state.  Everything is closed, even the eatery I called which had a recorded message naming the soup of the day.  In the back of my mind I had a feeling that that recording was for the soup d’autre jour.  Thursday, for example.  Our son didn’t want to go on this walk to — as it turned out — nowhere, and the fact that there was no “there” there justified further whining.

Now we are home, watching educational movies (because we are those creepy kind of parents who have very few videos just for fun).  Now that I have watched the biography of Abraham Lincoln for the third time in six weeks, I am so creeped out by my own parenting that I may have to buy the entire video library of SpongeBob.

Maybe my partner will talk me off the ledge.

The good news is tomorrow is NOT Christmas.

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