on chanting

970. 'Neath the elms

2011-02-13T23:04:00.004-05:00

I'm still here! Spending much of my free time these days immersed in another project I hope will one day become part of my design business. It's starting slowly—but it's starting, the most important part. Alas, I have only so much extra creative energy to go around once the work day is over. I'm not taking my usual, wonderful writing class this winter, and haven't been blogging very much, either, both to make more time and space in my brain for the other venture. But "on chanting" and I haven't disappeared, and I hope to be back in full(er) force one day soon.

Meanwhile, a great deal of chanting going on. My casual remark to the cantor resulted in six weeks of aliyot of various lengths over the last eight, some sort of personal record. My nerves, still present, seem to have reached a peaceful if tentative detente with the rest of myself. One of my rabbis is teaching a wonderful class on prayer as seen through the writings of Heschel and Hassidic masters, and last week we studied these words of the Maggid of Mezeritch:

"... As the breath leaves you, it ascends to God and then it returns to you from above.
Thus that part of God which is within you is reunited with its source."

So, added the rabbi, sometimes it's good to just stop and breathe, and remind ourselves that we're constantly being recharged with (in the author's words) "that breath of heaven that is always flowing into you from above." We exhale and send the air in our lungs to God, who gives it right back. I remembered this as I chanted on Shabbat, when I placed my yad on the first word and took a deep breath. Please add a little more confidence to the mix when You return it, I thought.

I was too focused on trying to pronounce strange words for the names of jewels I could barely even recognize in English to notice if my prayer had been answered (but perhaps my concentration proved that it was). The section concluded with a description of the "Urim v'tummim," mysterious words on the high priest's breastplate meaning, maybe, "Light and perfection," although there are many other possible translations and mystical explanations. Coincidentally—or not—I had to rush out of services get to my college choir's 150th anniversary celebration, held on an enormous stage in front of a massive pipe organ crowned, at the very top, with the Yale seal emblazoned with those very words. I've written here before about the deep influence on my life of the Yale Glee Club, and especially its conductor. One of my first blog posts, almost exactly six years ago, was about my first time back on the campus in a decade. Back then, as yesterday, the place was alive with ghosts of my youth, of my mother, and of loss, joy, love.

(To be continued.)

969. Pluck

2011-01-30T23:36:00.000-05:00

Serves me right (in an entirely good way) to have asked about more opportunities to chant. Yesterday I read haftarah, and have lots o'aliyot coming up next week and the week after. Yikes (in a good way). I've also discovered I have no idea how long it takes me to learn a section. I'm faster than I think, mostly. But I always dwell on the exceptions, and so say no when it comes to adding an aliyah or two. I need to be a little more brave.

As I walked over to the bima, the rabbi leaned over and said, sotto voce, "Go for it!" Exactly what I needed to hear. (I wonder if he noticed my big, nervous intake of breath a minute earlier before chanting the blessing.) So I threw caution to the winds, and tried to sing with everything I had. Not that I hold back, especially during the High Holy Days, but am at times more decorous than others. The rabbi's words in mind, I let more of myself through than nerves had allowed me in awhile. It was fun. Much easier to do this for haftarah, when I can clutch my own piece of paper, complete with notes and vowels, rather than when maneuvering the sea of letters that float above the dizzying cliff of memory required to read Torah--but perhaps some of my pluck will last until next Shabbat.

(I learned to chant exactly nine years ago! Why am I still nervous? But I am. And I think it's a good thing; those nerves make me look beyond the obvious, with respect to myself as well to the act of singing and reading. The answers, like Torah, change over time and are sometimes inscrutable.)

968. Finally: chanting!

2011-01-14T17:34:00.000-05:00

Yes, believe it or not—and right before Shabbat, to boot—a post about chanting. (Not that I don't have more to say about the stem cell donation. I finally got my act together last week and answered my recipient's note, accompanied by extensive musing about how she is now a part of me as much as I am of her. Whenever I feel overwhelmed, which happens more often than I'd like, I just imagine her life, struggles, strength. They trump mine many times over; acknowledging that, I shrug and pick myself off the floor. I'm beginning to think the donation worked both ways, a little bit of her spirit flowing into me in exchange for the cells.)

But back to chanting. I did so last week, just one short aliyah, for the first time in two and a half months—my longest leining-less gap in years. No particular reason for the silence, although I did get paranoid for awhile there (and successfully talked myself out of it). The current crop of b'nai mitzvah are more amazing than ever before, and generally cover the entire reading each Shabbat between the two of them. In some instances one child reads the whole thing his/herself, as will my brilliant student in September. The relatively few chances for adults to read went to people who asked, or (it seemed to me) hadn't read much in the recent past, so it was their turn.

My short section was to fill in for someone at the last minute, and I took the occasion to ask the cantor, hmm, it's been awhile, any more opportunities coming up? So I'm reading again next week, which feels very good. I mean that literally, physically: singing, breathing for singing, is more refreshing first thing in the morning than jumping into the ocean on a hot day. (Or inhaling a mug of soup on one of these recent freezing days.) Learning an aliyah becomes an aliyah in the truest sense—my soul feels lifted up with every word. I ran into one of my b'not Torah students at services last week, who acknowledged that it was really depressing to have stopped singing after that intense event. And I realized these past 2 1/2 months took the same toll on my spirits, as well. The break was good, in many regards; I re-channeled that creative energy to a bunch of new and previously neglected projects. But I'm very happy to redirect it back home, especially since those other ventures are starting to take flight.

967. Update!

2010-12-24T09:52:00.000-05:00

Yes, another post not about chanting, and with an exclamation point in the title to boot—update received from my stem cell recipient, and so far all is well! Engraftment was successful, meaning that her body didn't reject my cells and they're starting the process of creating a new immune system. She's home from the hospital, although not yet out of the woods (rejection, infection, and other nasty things could happen at a later date)—but this was the first big hurdle. I'm glad to able to say "congratulations" in my answer to her note.

I am now very proud of my stem cells, if I say so myself, and of God (and many teams of doctors) for knowing what to do with them. This is great news to have at the start of the secular year, just as donating those cells was a fitting way to begin the Jewish new year. Good timing on the part of the universe, which sometimes does get it right.

966. What is the Qur'an?

2010-12-13T00:02:00.003-05:00

Here's an excellent video, linked from Islamicate:

"What is the the Qur'an? An Agnostic Jew Speaks. Lesley Hazelton at TEDx."

(TEDxs are "independently organized TED events.") The title says it all, and the speaker is brilliant, straightforward, and funny. And I wish she could have been at my side at a recent gathering when a member of my extended family severely tested my commitment to shalom bayit. I bit my tongue and knew I'd lost the argument before even uttering a word, because he was the kind of guy interested in no opinion but his own (wrong, scary, bigoted one). Lesley Hazelton could have made him a believer, however.

965. Rain

2010-12-12T23:36:00.002-05:00

Not much blogging here lately, I know. But I've been writing, mainly for the wonderful class I'm taking once again where we study a little Torah and then listen to one another's words—I am awed and inspired by both. I wish there were more hours in the day to do that, and work, and sing, and draw (an old hobby newly resurrected—or will be, once I finish clearing some space out in a corner of my bedroom). Oh, and socialize and pray and look at art and relax. I need a 48-hour day.

Meanwhile, in the middle of today's 24-hour one I led a shiva minyan. I arrived to see the rabbi deep in conversation—must be a scheduling mistake, I thought, since they certainly didn't need me if he was present. "No problem," I said to the son of the deceased. "I'm glad to stay." "The more the merrier," he answered, not ironically. A torrent of laughter came from the dining room; you could almost see the love pouring from all these good spirits. But I didn't know a soul, and suddenly felt uncomfortable. I'm not great at being a stranger in the middle of a crowd, even a really nice one. Just as I began to strategize which back wall to melt into, the wife of the deceased came over.

"You can lead now," she said with a smile. And there was the rabbi, putting on his coat and thanking me; he just came by for a visit. (Maybe he was on his way to another minyan. This winter, once again, brought a depressing increase in deaths within the community.) I was relieved to have something to do, and to do this thing in particular. (And also that the rabbi would not actually listen to me lead. Silly! They hear me sing all the time. But not in someone's living room while pretending to be in charge, even though I sort of am. It's less stressful to wear that mantle in a room full of people I don't really know.)

Today was the last day of shiva and everyone prayed wearily, too familiar with the drill. I learned that the deceased was alive and eating dinner at this time just a little more than a week ago, and then died very suddenly. The family cried and smiled and laughed, lovely, gracious people who made sure to thank crowds of friends for their support, and didn't seem numb, but I knew they were. I walked out into the rain very glad to be alive, chilly, and wet in the middle of Broadway.

964. Grateful

2010-11-25T23:59:00.026-05:00

(Written earlier today en route to a wonderful holiday celebration.)

"I am grateful: for the enormous hearts of friends; for all the words that seem to find my eyes at just the right times; for my niece and how she can make food out of love, and vice-versa; for the solid roof over my head; for the way rain caresses the streets of my city; for cats, in general; for the ability of strangers to suddenly find each other and become one; for the miracles of science; for the fact there there are no miracles, because life in general is just one, big, amazing invention; for the blood in my veins; for the love I’ve been given and the love I have to share."

Above, my contribution to the Shine The Divine Gratitude Quilt—see here for beautiful words about why we're lucky to be alive. My day began with a little holiday breakfast with friends, and I'm now en route to my niece's new home for a magnificent feast. (I'm not particularly grateful for two hours on the train next to a woman who is talking on her cell phone in a really loud voice--about, unsurprisingly, her recent hearing test. But this wouldn't be a Jewish blog without some kvetching, right?). Thanksgiving was never a big deal when I was a kid, and always a bit depressing. I became inured to the cycle of feeling jealous and certain the whole world had better families than mine--followed, after reaching the stage of complete misery, by shrugging it off and acknowledging that things weren't so bad, after all. When I was really little, we went to my Aunt Lil's house for turkey and decorating the Christmas tree. Aunt Lil was my mother's very Catholic best friend from a childhood as part of the only Jewish family in a tiny Queens neighborhood (eventually plowed under by the BQE). I had a very Catholic best friend back then, as well, despite living in a massively Jewish neighborhood, so assumed this interfaith experience of Thanksgiving was de rigeur.

Then my parents divorced, and Thanksgiving turned into dinner at my (related by blood) aunt and uncle's. Sometimes we went out to eat, and other years did nothing at all. I don't remember much about those occasions, aside from one really depressing time at a steakhouse chain in the mall a few months before my mother died. I'm amazed, in retrospect, that she had the energy to go anywhere at all; I wish I had understood the extent of this sacrifice at the time.

But I've come to realize that my checkered holiday experiences have left me in better shape than others I know who now find themselves without family, for whatever reason, and remain stuck at the miserable part. I feel for them—but also want to slap them like Cher in Moonstruck: "Snap out of it!" Today is one of the few Thanksgivings of my adult life that I'll spend with more than one actual family member. Many past dinners took place at restaurants with wonderful friends I'll miss very much tonight, where we ate vast amounts and felt free of traditional tsuris. We live in a family-centered culture, and even in this modern era of new and fluid definitions of the word it sometimes feels like those of us without a large assortment of relatives have second class status. I know a number of people who are ashamed to admit having nowhere to go on Thanksgiving. (I hasten to add that I know more who are role models for how to reach out with strength, humor and compassion during even the crappiest of circumstances.)

So I do my best to make Thanksgiving into an occasion to share gratitude with friends--nice if they happen to be family, but equally wonderful if not. Meanwhile, about an hour away right now from some delicious food, and the loud woman just got off--a reason to be doubly thankful.

963. Student

2010-11-15T07:05:00.000-05:00

Back to my wonderful student. I don't have much experience around kids, let alone teaching them. Awhile back I tutored a little boy, a second grader, through a public school reading program. The few personal details I was able to extract suggested that his parents were wealthy and way too busy; they bought him a room full of books but never sat there while he opened them, so he rarely did. He and I spent our time reading together, me correcting him on words while encouraging him concentrate and get excited by the stories. And he did, eventually, because I think I was one of the few adults in his life who paid this kind of attention.

I hope he learned something during our partnership, but I know I did, or more accurately, re-learned: how to think like a child, a combination of infinite patience and thoughts moving more quickly than the speed of light. I tried to remember this when preparing for my new chanting student, who could not be more different from the little boy. She's quick and focused and fascinated by a million different things, all supported by her deeply involved parents. She studies more than I ask, and is bummed that her portion isn't longer. She's also learning faster than I can teach her, and asks questions harder than anything I could come up with. Although someone else will be helping her write her d'var Torah, we've also started to study the parasha together (Shoftim), at her request. Once again, I'm pretty sure I'm learning more than she is, which I'm beginning to think is the whole, unadvertised point of teaching.

962. A note!

2010-11-14T12:35:00.005-05:00

So I sat down to get this blog back on topic and write about my new student, a little girl preparing for her Bat Mitzvah next fall—the first non-adult I've taught—and how brilliant and quick she is, with a beautiful, strong voice that belies her tiny stature, and an almost scary ability to remember tunes as soon as she hears then (or maybe all kids are like this, and it's just we adults who are a little slow?)—when suddenly:

A note! From my stem-cell recipient!

Of course the news was delivered via a cell phone message from the bone marrow people on Wednesday afternoon, same day and time as always. I guess Wednesdays are when they leave momentous messages. I'm at a client's office at that time, and answer only when I see that number on Caller ID—which for awhile was happening every week. This time the phone was in my bag, and I didn't notice the message until I was halfway back home. I ducked into a doorway and listened. Call me, said the woman who'd given me all the news since day one, and I'll read it to you before I send it to you! I ran the rest of the way and called, out of breath.

I had no idea my recipient could get in touch before a year had passed. I recall references on other blogs to letters received, but the chronology was vague; I assumed they came after a year. But in fact both donor and recipient can exchange notes at any time, as long as they remain anonymous, via the agency that facilitated the transplant.

It was a beautiful letter, full of thanks. My recipient is a real person, and my stem cells are now doing their work in her body. It actually happened; I haven't been dreaming these past 6 months; I have her voice, in writing, to prove it. She has a family, people she loves and who love her, and the goal of getting well in time to take part in a life cycle event next year. She received a transplant before that didn't work. I am her second chance and, in clear, strong handwriting that I saw today when I finally held the actual note in my hands, wrote that she couldn't find enough words to express her gratitude for my gift of life.

Ecstatic, astonished, overwhelmed, I exhaled the biggest ever sigh of relief... but a small part of me wasn't surprised. For some reason I always imagined her as having grown children and a big family, as the note implied, perhaps because I didn't want to think of someone so gravely ill as being at all like me, who have neither. Or that it was too sad to envision her all alone during this struggle. I had harbored a secret wish that she was nice and friendly, afraid of the opposite: that she coped with disease by becoming bitter, shutting off, and would never want to know me.

It's still very early, less than a month after the transplant. Bracha is nowhere nearly out of the woods, and all I know about her condition is that she has enough energy to write, which seems like a good thing. I'll get an official update in a few weeks, and then I'll answer the note. The next update after that will be in April, or perhaps I'll get a letter in reply. Even if I don't, I now feel like God has done God's job—and quite well, at that—for this phase of the adventure.

961. Storybook

2010-11-08T08:41:00.000-05:00

So—back to the topic of this blog, sort of. Last week I led two shiva minyanim, both for a dear friend whose mother had passed away very suddenly. Despite the shock, this family was able to speak and let others into their grief—functional, unlike some others I've encountered who were completely frozen in pain. My friend shared wonderful stories of traditions that created memories and a foundation for everything that followed in her life; her words invited us all into that warm and loving place for a few minutes. It was a little gift of a kind of childhood for which I didn't yearn back then, but only later on when I figured out that other peoples' lives were different from mine: trips to new places, laughing crowds, patterns and rituals that continued with the expectation of never ending.

I would not change the way I grew up for the world. Yes, there was yelling and death and a small, often contentious little unit of us that never travelled further than the Bronx Zoo, but also a lot of love amidst the strife. It was rarely expressed in a storybook way, with big holiday dinners or group sing-alongs (although I'm working on an essay right now for my writing class about songs my father sang to me when I was really, really little, some of which have been re-appearing in popular culture and dredging up long-forgotten Russian melodies from the dustier parts of my brain). But I knew with certainty that my parents, aunts, and uncles, for the brief period I had them, had hearts bigger than the universe, and I was in the center of them all.

My friend's siblings span the spectrum of Jewish observance: far right, middle, and disdain for the whole business. And in their grief, differences became more powerful than all they shared: the outer two factions would not help those of in the middle (my friend and I) form a minyan. They found enough people on the nights I led, but not the others. This caused everyone a lot of pain, although not enough to cross boundaries of observance. Which would have been a betrayal of memory and tradition as well, I guess, so it really was a no-win situation. It also reminded me that even storybook lives have their torn pages.

960. She jumped!

2010-11-02T23:04:00.002-04:00

Whew. It's taken me a while to catch my breath after the donation. Physically, it was over when it was over and all I had was a big bruise on my arm. But the emotional bruise was bigger; as expected, I felt adrift. But I was secretly sure that expecting the feeling would fortify me against it. Not so. Suddenly there was nothing to do but... nothing, no more anticipation, no needles to stick myself with, just waiting to find out what would happen. And the possibility that, worst case, nothing would—a month would pass, and another and another, and "my patient" wouldn't be ready for the transplant.

But last week I got my monthly check-up phone call from the blood center, along with some very good news: "the product was infused" last Wednesday. Whew! Suddenly the whole adventure seemed scarier than even a really, really big needle: she jumped off the cliff, no turning back. And part of me jumped with her. I was taken back to the surreal feeling of that very first phone call: how is it possible that my cells can rebuild the immune system of a stranger? And how in the world can part of me be inside someone I don't even know? But it is. My friends keep reminding me that they're prime, healthy cells, and so have a excellent chance of fulfilling their purpose. I can only hope and pray, and try not to let good or bad fantasies of what might happen get in the way of living with the kind of patience and strength I imagine my recipient must have learned over the course of her illness, and the waiting for last Wednesday.

959. A list

2010-10-10T23:04:00.001-04:00

Some random things, in no particular order, that are (in my opinion) more challenging than donating stem cells:

Having surgery of any kind
Root canal
Food poisoning/stomach flu
Ending a relationship
Beginning a relationship
Maintaining a relationship
Obtaining a college education
Working hard enough to pay all your bills
Putting together an Ikea wall unit from instructions in Swedish (unless you're Swedish)
Finding a job in this crappy economy
Being audited by the IRS (so I'm told)
Traveling anywhere by air, especially if changing planes is involved
Chanting Torah

So I encourage everyone who is physically able to register with the NMDP. If you've lived through even one of the things on this list, trust me—donating stem cells won't seem hard at all.

958. Post-donation

2010-10-10T22:59:00.003-04:00

I came home and fell asleep, and made it to Shemini Atzeret services the next morning after 12 hours of unconsciousness. I felt quite rested, although my energy level was less than normal and I looked kind of out of it. But happy. I also had an enormous bruise on the inside of my left arm, thanks to two IVs, bandages, and anticoagulant. (Something similar happened years ago when I gave blood.) It hurt to straighten my arm or apply pressure above the elbow, even that of a long-sleeved shirt. It's much better as of this writing, a week and a half later—today was the first time I woke up without any pain from sleeping on it—but still does hurt and looks (in the words of a friend) like I was the victim of domestic violence. I'm sure it will be better by next week; I haven't at all minded this physical sign of my donation.

I came home, slept some more, and headed back to the synagogue that evening for Simhat Torah services. I was glad to watch the joy rather than participate; my blood dancing through a big machine the day before was quite enough activity. The following morning I did manage a few circuits around the Torot while being very careful not to bump into anyone. And when I came home that afternoon I was welcomed by a beautiful bouquet of pink and white roses, still open and alive more than a week later, from the blood center. I've made a point every day since to stop and inhale their aroma first thing in the morning, even before coffee, and spend a moment in gratitude for my life and health.

During Hallel on Shemini Atzeret, the cantor sang a beautiful, slow melody I'd never heard before to these lines of Psalm 116:

Be at ease once again, my soul
For the Lord has dealt kindly with you.
He has delivered me from death,
my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.
I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
I kept my faith even when greatly afflicted, even when
in panic I cried out: All mortals are undependable.

God did not deliver me from tears at that moment; I wasn't sure if they were from joy, awe, or something completely different. I became the transplant recipient, caught between death and life and trying not to panic. I prayed I would prove her wrong about all mortals being undependable, and that she heard the prayers so many friends in my community had sent out.

The next day was Shabbat Bereshit. After talking to a friend about how many people were involved in this one miracle—everyone from the scientist who invented the apheresis machine, to the nurse who connected the collection bags, to the coordinator at the blood center who put thorough the paperwork, and the list goes on and on, hundreds of people trying to save the life of a single stranger—he observed that it was just like the parasha itself, the beginning of a story that repeats as soon as we finish telling it. Constant creation, routine and amazing. I feel like I've glimpsed angels in the back room, a new part of God that had been hidden to me. And have received, as another friend put it perfectly, the gift of being able to turn my life into someone else's path.

957. Donation, day 2

2010-10-10T22:55:00.004-04:00

Day 2 was less dramatic because I knew what to expect, although no less intense—but not hard at all. I took myself out for breakfast and ordered the exact same thing as the day before (scrambled eggs, hash browns), since it seemed to work well. I watched through the diner window as people sped past to get to work, and felt suddenly swept up in routine, as well. Except my work for the day happened to be donating stem cells.

I left the diner and tried to get a cab, but soon realized this was impossible during rush hour. So I took a bus to the hospital, instead, which did feel strange—a little too ordinary for the task at hand.

I arrived at 9AM and met my friend Y., who had graciously offered to sit with me for the day. Although they hadn't yet finished counting the cells by 9:30AM, I was hooked up to the apheresis machine just the same. The "in" IV was placed in my right arm after a few tries (my veins were not in terrific shape after a day of hard work) and the "out" in my left, as before. But after a few minutes the machine started to beep—my blood was not flowing through the needle. It and my arm were moved and re-adjusted every which way, to no avail. Then F., my nurse for the day, called over A., a distinguished-looking man with some sort of European accent and apparently the go-to-guy for such problems, and they decided my right arm was a lost cause vein-wise. The "out" needle would now go in my left—along with the "in," through a different vein in my hand. A nice side benefit: I would have complete use of my right arm.

So IVs were moved around with very little pain (although I wasn't exactly relaxed about the whole affair), blood began flowing, and all was well. Turns out my veins weren't at fault, but rather a small blood clot at the tip of the needle site that appeared before the anticoagulant could start flowing.

By then my cell count had come back from the lab; they had over half of what was needed, but decided to keep me hooked up for the full four hours. The rest of the day was just like the day before, except this time I was in a different chair situated right in the thick of things. After hour three I was again completely exhausted, but this time hour three coincided with lunchtime. Suddenly I didn't feel well—dizzy, lightheaded. Y. and the nurse reminded me to eat, and I was just fine after a few bites of tuna on whole wheat.

Apheresis machine, day 2

Finally, hour four—the machine beeped "DONE", and a woman in a white coat carrying a big cooler swooped in and left with the bag of my cells. I was steadier getting up this time—my body, and particularly my left arm, had gotten used to not moving. All three donor liaisons arrived as I got unhooked, like an official farewell.

I couldn't leave the hospital until my platelet counts were checked—below a certain level required that a nurse tell me officially that I shouldn't skydive, etc. So Y. and I, along with K. from the blood center, moved into the waiting room. A man sat there there as well who looked and sounded like my sort-of Uncle Ray (my mother's best friend's husband)--tall, bald, amiable and funny. We all got into a conversation about the weather.

Suddenly K. stared at the man. "You're the courier, right"? she said. He nodded. (I assume she recognized his voice from phone calls.) This was the person who would hand-carry my stem cells to wherever in the world they needed to go. I don't think we were supposed to meet, and soon the conversation grew more circumspect, no mention of cities or names. C. returned with my blood counts—low, as expected. (They would be back to normal in a week.) F., the nurse, came over to remind me not to operate heavy machinery. I was glad to go home, although didn't want this adventure to end just yet—but I had the distinct feeling they were rushing me out, in case inadvertent clues were leaked about the destination of my cells. K. offered to get me a cab, and I gathered my stuff.

As I walked out the door, I turned and looked Uncle Ray straight in the eye. "Thank you," I mouthed. He nodded.

956. Donation, day 1

2010-10-10T22:18:00.005-04:00

(Probably more detail here than anyone cares to read, but I wanted to capture a picture of the entire process.)

It feels like yesterday... it feels like years ago.

My friend Z.* gamely showed up at my apartment at 7:30AM, I picked up a sandwich at the deli for lunch, and we jumped in a cab get to the hospital by 8. Trying to write a note to the recipient kept me awake for most of the night before, but I was too excited to notice I was tired. We were greeted by S., the blood center liaison I met during my very first set of tests back in May. I was given a slightly-too-tight wrist ID band, and a finger stick blood test at the lab down the hall. Then C. arrived, the sweet gentleman from the hospital's donor center, and we headed down another corridor for my final Neupogen injection.

A nurse took my temperature and blood pressure, and I got on the scale. I had gained a pound since last week (they weighed me right before the first shot). No big surprise, I thought, considering all the Chinese food I ate that past weekend.

"Those are the stem cells," said C. "Your bones are literally heavier now." (Just as the verse from the Yom Kippur haftarah predicted.)

I was also sniffling, and my chest was congested. "You look like you have a cold," C. observed. I felt fine—but thanks to that massive amount of white cells, my body was trying to fight something off even though there was nothing to fight.

Another nurse arrived, the same one who had taught me to stick myself with a needle. She went through a checklist of side effects, and the answers were the same as the previous four days; a little achy, but nothing too bad. Did people usually have a lot of pain, I wondered?

"Only the men," she answered. "Cops and firefighters, big strong guys. We women are a lot tougher!"

She gave me the final two shots, and then S., Z., C. and I headed outside to a deli for breakfast. (NMDP protocol requires waiting an hour between the last Neupogen injection and the start of stem cell collection; other donor registries have different rules.) I had a big order of scrambled eggs and hash browns while admiring photos of C.s daughter, and then we all headed inside to the blood bank. A nurse asked more questions (no, I have not become a drug addict in the past five days), checked my temperature and blood pressure again and another finger stick to test hemoglobin, and began to affix little ID stickers to a pile of paperwork.

This is really happening, I thought. Soon I will be stuck with big needles. I had a sudden impulse to run back outside, maybe grab a coffee and bagel and sit in sunlight in the park. But the room began to spin before I could do any of those things.

"I'm a little dizzy," I said.

The nurse looked at me with alarm, darted out of the room, and before I could blink returned with Dr. D., in charge of the blood bank. His face radiated calm and confidence. "Have something to drink," he suggested. The nurse handed me a bottle of water. I took a sip, but by then the wave of irrational fear had passed, vanquished by the doctor's smile.

E. would be my nurse for the day, and he directed me to a comfy chair in the corner that looked like a cross between a hospital bed and Business Class. I climbed in, buttressed by pillows beneath my arms and behind my neck, and he began to describe the process while preparing needles, tube, dials, and other mysterious objects. (And I climbed out twice more to use the restroom. Four hours is a long time.) I was still nervous, even though I knew I was in the most competent hands in the country, maybe the universe. My cell phone rang: my rabbi, reminding me that the recipient and I were in everyone's prayers. (I think God must have whispered in his ear: "Right now is when she needs to hear it." It worked. I relaxed.)

The doctor, along with a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young man I gathered was an intern, came over before I could get nervous again. For the next 15 minutes Dr. D. explained the workings of the apheresis machine in detail: how it would separate my blood into red and white cells, the latter containing the stem cells to be transplanted, and then return the red cells to my body along with Citrate, an anticoagulant, and calcium to counter a side effect of the Citrate. I should tell the nurse if I experienced any side effects of calcium loss such as numbness of hands, feet, or face. I asked my burning question: how did the machine know which were the stem cells? It didn't, he explained. It was a centrifuge, so separated cells by weight—and so know how to grab the white cells. But they would look red in the collection bag, since the machine wasn't quite smart enough to filter out all the red cells.

All the blood in my body would go through the machine 2 1/2 times each day. At any given time about 10 oz. of my blood would be in that machine.

Dr. D. and intern left, and E. prepared the IV. My right arm would be "out". I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and felt a little needle prick in my left hand, a.k.a. "in". This was where my blood would return—minus the stem cells, so a smaller needle was just fine and I'd also have some mobility to do things like scratch my nose. It hurt a bit until he taped it down, and then I didn't feel a thing.

Then he went to work on the "out" arm, a bigger needle (to transport that pound of extra stem cells) for the vein in the crook of my arm. He stuck me—not nearly as painful as I feared—and then un-stuck me. Even though the nurse declared my veins to be in excellent shape not just once, but twice, and I'd spent the weekend drinking gallons of water to make them as plump as possible, they were not cooperating. He called over another nurse, and they bent intently over my right arm—and suddenly it was taped. They had poked around and found a better vein before I could even notice.

The machine began to hum, kind of like the rumbling of a subway or laundry room, and I saw a clear liquid drip into the bag closest to me.

"Those are the stem cells," said E. I said a Sheheheyanu prayer: thank you for this new season, this new beginning. Then my friend Z. came over and sat patiently for the next four hours, providing excellent conversation as nurses adjusted dials, straightened needles, hung new bags of liquid, checked my temperature, recorded numbers on forms at a little rolling table, and asked about side effects: none at all. (Thanks, I think, to the massive amount of calcium-rich cheese I consumed that weekend.) Although I wasn't cold, another possible side effect, I was grateful for the tip I read on a donor blog about wearing socks, since the blanket over my feet had to be lifted to get my blood pressure from my ankles (since my arms were otherwise occupied). Every once in awhile Z. and I stared in awe at the aphereis machine. (On Thursday at Shemini Atzeret services, I kept seeing it in my mind's eye whenever God's name was mentioned.) Meanwhile, the blood bank swirled with activity: a man in the next bed donating stem cells for an autologous transplant, his wife hovering patiently and nervously. Something important happening behind a curtain next door, nurses with masks going in and out. All the activity seemed routine and well-rehearsed, despite being miraculous.

I tried unsuccessfully to write emails on my iPad with two fingers. (By day 2 the iPad was a celebrity, with Dr. D. and E., the nurse, debating if it needed a phone or camera.) I did not watch any episodes of "Lost," as planned, since I had no attention span whatsoever.

Soon I barely noticed there was anything stuck in my arms. And I had no sense at all that blood was leaving my body and returning at a rapid rate. At about 1PM I managed to eat a sandwich with one hand, followed by a chocolate bar kindly provided by C. After hour three, I suddenly felt exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open. The nurse explained that my heart was working harder than usual to pump all that blood, so it was like strenuous exercise without moving at all. But I forced myself to stay awake, since I didn't want to miss a thing.

Soon another nurse came by and did some quick calculations: amount of stem cells needed divided by rate of blood flow = remaining time. Just a few more minutes. Then the machine flashed "ALL DONE!" (or something to that effect), and I closed my eyes and took another deep breath as the needles were un-stuck and neon pink pressure bandages applied. I couldn't believe four hours had passed; it really seemed like no time at all.

I swung my legs slowly over the side of the bed and waited for the room to stop spinning. I put my feet down on the floor and they felt different than at the beginning of the process—lighter. I could tell immediately that something was gone from my body. I stood up and shuffled across the room to the bathroom (all that anticoagulant did take its toll), and then out into the waiting area. After a few more minutes to make sure I was intact, and a big piece of chocolate cake courtesy of the blood bank, Z. and I hopped into a cab back home.

I tried to answer emails later that afternoon, and even managed a few phone conversations, but by 8PM felt like I had run a marathon. S. called to let me know that they hadn't finished counting the collected cells, so I should come back at 9AM the next day to find out how long I'd be needed on day 2.
-----
* Because most of my friends seem to have the same first initial, I've picked random initials for everyone. They know who they are, which is what really counts.

955. Done!

2010-10-02T23:59:00.003-04:00

Full story to come, but briefly—all done! Intense and exhausting (even though I just sat in a comfy chair for many hours each day and listened to the big chugging machine give my blood the best exercise it ever had), but not hard at all. I experienced no side effects, and they were able to harvest even more cells than needed. (See below, the bag on the far right, about 2 hours into the process on day 1.)

A longer description to come soon. Hoping everyone had a joyous Simhat Torah filled with dancing, singing, and all sorts of new beginnings.

954. Handicapped bathroom

2010-09-26T20:19:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, as planned, I spent part of the day with old friends at a place where a nurse could not come to give me the second Neupogen shot. One of these friends, whom I hadn't seen in about 25 years, was a doctor, and she agreed to supervise as I self-injected.

Soon as I arrived, we headed into the women's handicapped-accessible bathroom. "Wow, I can't believe it's been so long!" I said, and then pulled down my pants and began to laugh. It was, by any stretch of the imagination, a ridiculous situation. My friend, very serious back in the 80s and, I soon discovered, even more so now, didn't find it funny at all, which made me laugh even more. I quickly composed myself and laid all the injection paraphernalia atop the toilet tank.

I was able to fill the needle with medicine, but was very grateful for her presence—I didn't realize that you have to keep pushing and depressing the plunger to get the air at the top to disappear. The first shot was easy, but halfway through the second I had a moment of panic that that the needle was going was too far into my thigh, and froze. Very eager to leave the bathroom ("People might get the wrong idea!"), she pushed my hand away and finished pressing. She was already gone by the time I pulled the needle out. (She did eventually laugh about the whole thing later that afternoon.)

I felt just fine afterwards—tired, a few twinges in my legs. Woke up this morning without any pain. A chatty and pleasant visiting nurse arrived at 9AM to give me day three injections, along with a story of the famous bone marrow donor she visited a few weeks ago who got both their photos in the paper. My lower back, legs, and right shoulder did begin to hurt a few hours later, as if I had slept funny or overdone it at the gym. It was impossible to find a comfortable way to sit on the couch, but the floor was just fine. And the pain went away entirely after two extra-strength Tylenol. Now I'm kind of stiff, and glad I don't have to take any long walks.

Tomorrow, lots of distracting work and then I have to write a note to give to the recipient. And download some movies to my iPad. And then I show up at the hospital Tuesday morning at 8, bringing layers of clothing because I'll probably get cold during the donation. (But how will I put on a sweater if I have IVs in both arms?)

953. Dart

2010-09-26T13:46:00.000-04:00

On Friday morning I left Sukkot services early and, lulav bag in hand, got on the bus to the hospital to meet C. and K. for my first Neupogen injection. (K. was the person who called me that very first time in March, and whom I didn't believe.) They shepherded me through a finger stick to test my blood levels, and then we headed to a room down the hall to wait for a nurse. Someone came to take my vitals (how I managed to lose a pound during the holidays is a greater miracle than matching to be a donor), and then A. arrived.

I cannot imagine a better nurse to teach someone known to faint at the sight of blood how to inject herself with a needle, as I would need to do for the second shot. A. looked very much like an actress whose name escapes me: Jamaican, no-nonsense, perpetual smile, drily honest sense of humor. "I gave myself shots seven times a day when I was pregnant," she said. "I'm a nurse, and it was still weird. But you can do it." This was not resounding encouragement. C. handed me a big envelope with the paraphernalia required by both myself and the nurse who would administer the third and fourth shots. He removed the needles, which I was surprised to discover weren't pre-filled. ("We're old fashioned," explained A.) I'd need to stick two of them into two separate vials, and then stick myself twice in the thigh. It was awkward to hold both needle and vial while pushing the plunger, and I had a moment of fear when she explained how to tap it to get rid of air bubbles—wait, isn't that how people commit homicide (at least on House, M.D.)? Thankfully, not a danger in this case. (I probably couldn't even give someone a mild headache with that little needle.) An air bubble would cause a bruise, nothing more.

"Just pretend it's a dart," suggested A., and grabbed a chunk of my thigh to demonstrate. Suddenly the needle was in; I barely felt it. (Never before have I been grateful for the abundance of flesh on my thighs.) I depressed the needle, just a little sting. I got up and filled the next needle, and then sat down on the table and stuck myself. Actually, I stuck myself and immediately pulled out the needle, almost a reflex action. The second try was successful, and I pushed the plunger. This one stung a bit more, since there was more medicine in that vial, but really wasn't bad at all. I think the trick is in not thinking about the fact that you're sticking a really pointy needle into your body.

I looked up and A. was beaming. "Excellent," she said. I felt very proud.

So I went back home with the next three days' worth of drugs and a prescription for Tylenol 3, as well as a goody bag filled with rainbow-colored candy, more Tylenol, a little "Be the Match" lapel pin, a sweet thank-you card signed by everyone at the blood center office with a free movie pass tucked in and, best of all (since it was 2:00PM by then and I hadn't even had breakfast) a big dark chocolate Hershey bar. I ate half, followed by a slightly healthier omelet. K. explained that the anticoagulant administered during the donation would leach my body of calcium, so it wouldn't hurt to beef up beforehand. So I went to the store and treated myself to three kinds of cheese.

Then I waited for the side effects. Some discomfort on Sunday and Monday would be a good indication that the Neupogen had "mobilized," i.e., was doing its job to send my white blood count to the moon. I could expect pain my lower back and sternum, major sites where stem cells grow. Went home, took a nap, then walked to Friday night services and dinner with friends. All was well except for a strange feeling of my feet being very heavy, and I think I was a little dizzy—but that might have been all in my head. I had a lovely evening but was distracted by worrying if and when those symptoms might start, so left early and slept really well.

"Sukkot is a holiday of the body," observed the rabbi at services on Thursday. On the High Holy Days we immerse fully in our spiritual lives to contemplate past and future—but on Sukkot we can actually touch the fruits of those ideas. We grasp and shake the lulav, inhale the aroma of the etrog—in mystical interpretation, representations of the spine, eyes, mouth, and heart—and connect to heaven and earth through a very physical ritual. Another reason why Tuesday, the sixth day of Sukkot, seems like a good time for the donation.

952. 99.9%, part 2

2010-09-22T17:55:00.005-04:00

(Continued from here.)

At the hospital, C. told me that the recipient was about to start the transplant preparation regimen that same day—chemo and radiation to destroy her immune system in preparation for the healthy stem cells that would rebuild it. No turning back after that for either of us. So this was the last thing I expected to hear on the other end of the phone:

"I'm so sorry. They want to postpone the donation."

Seems the recipient was on a drug regimen to improve her condition, and a few more weeks would help even more. Was I available next month? Of course, whenever needed. But I was all psyched to get it done already. And my friends were psyched for me; now I'd have to tell them it was another false alarm. Boy, did I feel petty. Someone else's life was at stake, and the only thing I could think about was my own schedule and Facebook status.

But that really was all I could think about.

Before I could continue to dislike myself and add to the long list of items requiring breast-beating in a few days, the blood center lady continued: "There's another option. You could donate now, and they'll freeze your stem cells and transplant them in a month."

Yes, yes, I want to do it this way, I said, even before she finished the sentence. Sleep on it, she suggested. No need for an answer right now. So I pondered, and waffled: October, without the added complication of the Jewish holidays, was more convenient, and it also would be a little more dramatic in Grey’s Anatomy style: donation done, they’d whisk away the bag of cells and new life would start flowing through her veins within hours. Cut to commercial. Yeah, right.

One of the things I hate most, aside from anchovies and cigarette smoke, is indecision—but I was completely stumped, even more so that the situation warranted. Either option was fine with respect to the recipient's heath, or they wouldn't have left the choice up to me. But at that moment, maybe because Yom Kippur was right around the corner, I was desperate to make the decision for the right reason and not just the most expedient. I spoke to a number of very wise people, and interrogated the blood center: are you sure frozen cells are OK? Yes, and she was deemed an excellent candidate for that process, not always the case. I lost a night's sleep, and realized that patience was something I needed to work on in the new year.

Then a friend posed a question: will the recipient be told about your advance donation or find out only when she was ready for the transplant? I thought about how this woman might feel, twice turned away at the edge of a possible new future. If she knew my cells were ready the second she was, no need to wait or wonder if I'd lose patience and decide not to donate, maybe this would give her even more hope and strength.

I confirmed that she would know in advance, and it became a much easier decision. On Friday I’ll get the first Neupogen injection, and everything is set for next week as originally planned. On the same day this last bit of drama unfolded, I was also asked to read part of the Yom Kippur morning haftarah. This was one of the verses:

The Lord will guide you always.
He will slake your thirst in parched places
And give strength to your bones.
You shall be like a watered garden,
Like a spring whose waters do not fail.
—Isaiah 58:11

So maybe now, and not next month, is the right time for that added strength in my bones, so they can become a spring.

Hag sameah, and wishing everyone a sweet and happy Sukkot.

951. 99.9%, part 1

2010-09-20T00:01:00.014-04:00

I took these notes last Monday morning:
_____

9/13, 10:30am

Sitting in the hospital's cancer treatment center waiting room waiting for the donor liaison, who will shepherd me through repeat blood tests. Other people here with colorful scarves on their heads, walking in and out wearing surgical masks and beautiful but obvious wigs, some smiling, sone stony-faced. And others, like me, whose reason for being present can't be guessed from appearance alone.
_____

Then C. arrived, and I had stop writing. And it seemed there wouldn't be much of interest to say until the donation, because the tests were uneventful--5 more vials of blood (a breeze!--I think I'm finally cured of my fear of needles), another nurse poking the crooks of my arms to assess the state of my veins (could they have changed from a few months ago?), more of the same questions about travel, drug use, and sexual history (just as boring as back in May). "So this is really, finally going to happen?" I asked. "Yes," said C. "100% sure."

The blood bank head nurse also gave me a little tour of where I'd hang out all those hours, a subterranean but cheery room bustling with energy and purpose. She explained that a new blood bank was being built, but for now the only window was a painting donated by a former patient, a beach scene in tropical colors that would be visible from my bed, the one next to the big, noisy Frankensteinian filtering device. (Otherwise known as an apheresis machine, aka thing that performs miracles. I made a mental note to ask someone to explain, over the course of the 8 hours I'd be tethered, exactly how it knows which are the stem cells.) It was reassuring to see that exact spot, and be reminded that this event was routine for everyone except me. (In the next bed was a bored-looking teenager hooked up to an iPod and cell phone as well as a central line. The nurse explained that she was getting an infusion to treat a neurological disease. All in a day's work.)

The nurse also reminded me that I wouldn't be able to go to the bathroom for 4 hours, so not to drank any coffee beforehand. I think this aspect of the experience makes me more nervous than anything else. But I'll live.

By then the blood tests had been rushed through, and C. reviewed them: no change, all was normal. He also volunteered the weight of the recipient, more than mine, and explained that this meant a large number of stem cells were needed and so the donation might take the full two days--unless my blood decided to flow quickly. An anticoagulant would encourage the process. (I wonder if the rabbis ever devised a prayer for fast-flowing blood? Maybe one of those psalms that compare life to a swift stream would do the trick.)

(It's strange to know nothing more about a person than age, illness, and number of kilograms. When I told some friends, they got worried--she needs to lose weight! It can't be good for her health! Then we considered the possibility that she was taller than I was, as is the case with much of the world. And then we realized how ridiculous we sounded.)

I got back home and reviewed the facts; tests OK, person in charge said it would definitely happen. I had told some friends about the whole saga, but not everyone. This seemed a good time to share the news on Facebook.

I posted, and comments started coming in--yes, it's amazing.

And then the phone rang, a familiar area code. (Continued here.)

950. High Holy Days 5771, part 3

2010-09-19T19:00:00.003-04:00

I hope everyone had an easy fast. I did; just a little thirsty, and not hungry at all. (Although my stomach did begin to rumble in the morning during Sh'ma Koleinu, which I hope the microphone did not pick up.) I'm sure my relative comfort was due in part to the three large meals I had the day before, and also because I was simply too focused to want to stop and eat. I know all the halakhic reasons for fasting, and they make perfect sense, but I think I finally, truly understand why we do it. Meals, even when experienced alone, are social events. You're ether with and talking to people, contemplating them, or buried in a magazine, fork in the other hand, reading about how much better other people's meals are than yours. Rarely is eating a thoroughly solitary experience during which one ponders future life and death, as is our task on Yom Kippur. (If we had to think about those things at meals, we'd probably lose our appetites.) Community surrounds us like a cocoon on Yom Kippur to create a safe space in which we can experience the deepest, most intensely private prayer--much less likely to happen if we had to keep interrupting ourselves to eat, especially in the usual, social way. There's also the convenient side benefit of hunger, lightheadedness and the altered state of feeling empty mentally as well as physically--all the better to allow prayer to flow unimpeded.

Whatever the reason, I did have a tzom kal [easy fast], and a few of those scary but good naked moments: God, I've run out of words to enumerate how I've screwed up. Please just extract them from me. I know it's painful surgery without anesthesia. That's OK.

I don't have much to write about singing this Yom Kippur. There were neither catastrophes nor unintended drama (aside from a few minutes at the beginning of Shaharit at Big, Fancy, New Theater when I couldn't hear the musicians, who were playing a little too sensitively for the world-class sound system to pick up. After some dueling key signatures between bimah and band, they turned up the volume and all was well.) I tried to wring out every bit of myself, and also remembered to breathe. I felt like I was having a conversation with all the people I couldn't join for dinner, a thousand friends in the same boat. It was a two-sided dialogue even though I was way up front, their presence the most comforting thing in the world, and the answer I was looking for. Later that the day at Minha at the Usual Church, I quickly realized I wouldn't use up my remaining energy; great stores of fumes remained even after the fuel tank reached "E". But I tried.

I spent the entire Yom Kippur with the same rabbi, which is unusual (because I was switched to Big, Fancy theater at the last minute for Shaharit. Although a million other reasons could be at play, I think it's because someone was suddenly unable to chant half the haftarah, so I was asked to fill in. Which was also fun—although there sure are a lot of words to fit into the melody in that last paragraph of Yom Kippur-specific blessings.) It was nice to have the privilege of standing at this rabbi's side throughout, her continued presence welcome stability, because I hit the jackpot this year—four services over the Yamim Nora'im at four different locations. Usually I get to lead in one location more than once—not this time, although I felt equally at home everywhere, having logged lots of prayer in each place. I was reminded that Judaism is a religion of time, not space—with the right intention, anywhere can be holy. This year the entire Upper West Side (and a little below) was my synagogue, its walls defined by the crowds on Broadway, oblivious to the holiday but still sharing it with me as I walked home after Kol Nidre on Friday night, as well as the tall stained glass windows of the sanctuary where we usually pray, hiding the outside world but letting in just enough light so that we couldn't forget it, either.

949. Dog with a log between its teeth

2010-09-13T00:01:00.003-04:00

In just a few hours I head back to the hospital for a re-do of all those blood tests from last May, just in case I met up with a nasty mosquito during a recent weekend trip down the Amazon. (Not.) Assuming all is well, my first of five Neupogen shots will be on 9/24; I'll need to leave second day Sukkot services early in order to get to the hospital on time. After five days of injections, my stem cells will be practically leaping out of my bones, and hopefully not causing any discomfort in the process.

The next three shots were to be given at my home by a VNS nurse. Inconveniently, I have plans to be elsewhere on 9/25. I usually stay close to home on Shabbat but this was a special occasion, in the works for awhile. Someone else could give me the shot, which is subcutaneous and not intravenous (i.e., the kind of needle you stab yourself with in the arm or thigh, like a diabetic does with insulin), but that person would first need to submit credentials to the donation center and be thoroughly vetted. Of course this makes sense, but is also a big pain. The other option, which a few dear doctor friends convinced me is perfectly feasible, is to give myself the injection. Needles give me the creeps, but I opted to go this route after a dozen phone calls failed to identify a suitable injection-giver. They'll teach me how to do it at the hospital, and send me home with a cooler full of drugs and gel packs. One of the friends I'll be with is a doctor herself, so can supervise.

Or I might decide to skip the event, which will require stamina and some running around, and just lounge around at home that weekend. I have 11 more days to decide; it wouldn't be the end of the world, and would probably be the spiritually saner course of action. I was originally set to read Torah on the second day of Sukkot, too, but some people far wiser than I suggested I focus my kavannah on the impending donation rather than on vowels and trope. To be honest, I haven't been able to focus on much of anything for weeks. I've cranked out some less than brilliant work, paid bills, gone to the gym, all the usual stuff. But a good chunk of my brain is floating in a fog somewhere above. Often it feels real, other times utterly impossible and I wait to wake up, but then it's real once again and all I can do is smile and marvel, or sing. Rosh Hashanah couldn't have come at a better time.

The other day I wondered if this is how parents or pregnant women might feel, a mixture of awe and a massive sense of responsibility. (How I wish I could ask my mother; oddly, coincidentally, I am now the same age as she was when she had me.) But then I decided it fell into a category all its own. Unlike a child, we are both responsible; the recipient of my stem cells chose to place her trust in a complete stranger. I can't imagine a braver act. Maybe I'm reacting as a surgeon or cop might, or that guy on the trapeze who catches the other guy by the wrists after he flies through the air. There is no way to sufficiently rise to the responsibility of embracing so much trust. All a person can do is keep living and breathing and doing her best, and God will take care of the rest.

On the way to services the other morning I passed by a big, scary-looking man walking an even larger scary-looking dog. The dog was also armed, in case they were not imposing enough, and held a log, the trunk of a small tree, in its jaws. Man and dog trotted past, and I gave them a wide berth on the sidewalk. And then they were gone, no harm done. I think that's how the donation will feel: some shock, excitement, a little fear, and then--done. Meanwhile, I finally fixed the alarm clock in my bedroom to display the actual time after years of keeping it set to seven minutes ahead, or maybe it was six, which I thought helped stop me from being late and forced me to rush, since I could never be sure of the actual time. But in reality I just subtracted six or seven and went about my business. Now, instead, I will be forced to focus on the present moment alone.

948. High Holy Days 5771, part 2

2010-09-12T15:03:00.001-04:00

The holidays, so far, have been calm and ecstatic, like fireworks contained in a careful, hand-made box. It feels like we--rabbis, congregants, musicians, me--have figured out how to breathe in safe places despite the unsettled turn of world events these past few months, and so are free to enjoy the music and try to renew no matter what. Or maybe we just know our parts a little better now. And it's two days post-Rosh Hashanah and, miracle of miracles, I do not have a cold (knock wood, p'tui p'tui, evil eye begone! and all those other things other people's grandmothers used to say), reason enough to exult and relax. On Tuesday I have a Yom Kippur rehearsal, since this year I'm back to leading both Shaharit and Minha, followed by copious amounts of deadline work until the edge of Kol Nidre. But I'll be fine. And tomorrow morning, repeat blood tests to make sure all is well for the bone marrow donation (more about that in another post). A week overflowing with the sacred and ordinary, no better preparation for approaching those open gates.

Meanwhile, one of my favorite voices of all time (aside from the cantor at my synagogue) sings a song my father used to, a tune buried so deeply in my past that it took a few hearings of this link forwarded by a friend to understand why it made me shiver and become unbearably sad--and happy, as well, the echo of childhood and sensation of being embraced by the compact, muscular arms of an off-key, deeply resonant bass with a rakish mustache and always a few Hopjes candies in his pocket:

Paul Robeson, Song of the Plains

947. High Holy Days 5770, part 9

2010-09-12T14:06:00.001-04:00

A little out of sequence, sorry, but I wanted to finish last year's story, continued from here:

Gallons of water and the threat of noxious potions did the trick, and I still had a voice when Yom Kippur arrived. The evil bug hadn't left me unscathed, however. In its wake remained a throat that felt like brittle parchment no matter how much liquid I poured down it. But I could sing just fine, and only coughed--violently and endlessly--on occasion.

The service went well, and the Louds even held their tongue. Then we got to Besefer Hayim, almost at the finish line, right before the changing of the guard (someone different would lead for Musaf). I began to sing and suddenly couldn't catch my breath, as if my vocal cords were feathers attempting to rub together fast enough to start a fire. I put down the mic, walked over to the edge of the bima, and faced left as far as possible without actually turning my back to the entire congregation, and pretty much coughed my lungs out for about a minute. The rabbi and everyone else kept singing, and I think only the people in the first row noticed anything was amiss. I recovered my composure just in time for Kaddish Shalem, grateful that the fit didn't happen during Hamelekh or another less participatory part of the service.

946. High Holy Days 5771, part 1

2010-09-12T12:15:00.008-04:00

It was magnificent. This has been the most relaxed holiday by far in the seven years I've been helping to lead. I had just one rehearsal on Tuesday--Rosh Hashanah began on Wednesday--basically a reunion with old friends. (Although the run-through was invaluable, since the same questions popped up this year as always: how many lines of intro before Psalm 150? will you play "A" or "B" to start off L'el orekh din? and a few others.) But my alter ego Ms. Paranoia (when will they send that email with the assignments? did I delete it by mistake? did they change their minds? what did I do wrong? and other nonsensical thoughts) disappeared the minute I opened my mouth.

I was at the Theater With the Zipper for Day 1, much less cave-like than I remembered. Even though years had passed since I'd last been inside, the big, concrete space was comfortable and familiar, and oddly intimate. The zipper itself advertised an upcoming movie, which seemed OK since it was, after all, a festive holiday. My only surprise was being asked to gabbai, not stressful since the Torah readers were among the congregation's most perfect and experienced. Maybe one day the rabbis will remember that I don't actually know High Holy Day trop. (Or maybe one day I'll learn it.)

Day 2 was at the synagogue, which felt like I won the lottery. (I did, sort of; hazzanim are assigned locations on an eminently fair rotating basis, and I guess it was my turn.) It was comforting and exhilarating to pray at home in the glow of walls alive with vines and jewels of deep red and gold, and the breath of hundreds of friends close by rather than a few feet below (the one drawback of being on a theater stage).

Life would be boring without a few challenges, however. Before we walked out front, the rabbi asked me to remind him where the service began.

"Page 58," I answered. Hareni mikabelet, as always: love your neighbor as yourself. Now, sometimes we don't start here; there's often improvising and extra niggunim on Shabbat. But we always follow the script on the Yamim Nora'im, because the instrumentalists have music in front of them and there's no way they can keep up if we skip around.

Since the rabbi did ask me to confirm page 58, and we had begun with page 58 for the past six years, I felt pretty confident that I could start singing on page 58. I took a deep breath. And then the rabbi reached over to my mahzor and turned the page.

"Here," he whispered, pointing to the Birkat Hashahar, the morning blessings. The musicians, who are all geniuses with ESP, saw what was going on and turned their pages as well, and began to play. My early-morning brain was still expecting to follow the script, however; I was very flustered. But I recovered and found my place after a second or two, since page 60 is my favorite melody of them all, and the rabbi would alternate verses with me. That would give me a few moments to compose myself.

Except he did not come in at verse 2, or even 4 or 6. I paused before each "Amen," not wanting to step on his toes or show inadvertent disrespect if, in fact, he chose to sing. But he was clearly deep in concentration and happy to let me do my thing. Almost at the end, I realized that I could have been having a lot more fun had I worried less about following rules and more about breathing and praying. Fortunately there were still a few verses left.

The blessing before the Shema took us on another brief adventure to the wilds of keys as yet unexplored. Then the rabbi prompted me to sing the hatima, the last line, in High Holy Day nusah as always. The good angel on my right shoulder hummed the correct note. The other little guy on the left disagreed: sing higher, it's more fun! I succumbed to temptation, and for a split second forget that it wasn't an a cappella service. And then I took note of the strange, new tonal world where I landed, and got very disoriented. (I also remembered that the cantor, who would be leading Musaf, was sitting a few feet away. I knew he knew exactly what was going on.) I stumbled on a few words but made it safely to the end when, gratefully, we all covered our eyes as the rabbi chanted. I asked God to have the keyboard player come in for the next hatima and, sure enough, my prayers were answered.

The rest of the service proceeded without a hitch. This rabbi, unlike the others, chooses to face the Ark for the entire repetition of the Amidah, not just the Kedusha section. There are few other more comforting sensations in life than the crush of a roomful of souls at your back, holding you up as you sing.

945. Nine years

2010-09-11T23:53:00.004-04:00

I generally wear sunglasses when it's very bright out, but only during the summer. September light doesn't bother my eyes as much--and I like being reminded that short days are still full of sun.

But I grabbed my sunglasses this morning, just in case. And as soon as I got outside and saw the perfect blue sky, not a single cloud, just a slight breeze and maybe you need a light sweater in the shade, I put on the glasses. They changed the sky to a warmer color, closer to July, as if the summer were just beginning, and allowed me to enjoy the walk to services and put off thinking about the pain of this day for a few more minutes.

Last year and the year before weren't so bad. Time seemed to be healing; we were sad, but also learning and growing. Moving on? I don't know--does that ever really happen after a death, or is it more a case of getting used to the tear in one's soul and figuring out how to move around it so the acid only splashes on the edges?

But today, this month, this year, is different. I've never before felt such fear and hatred in the air. Maybe our collective recovery was too fast, and we've relapsed back to those days right afterwards when we stayed awake to keep vigil until the next evil thing fell out of the sky. Or the pace of life has become so quick and unforgiving that the comfort of past flaws seems safer than any kind of change.

At services last night, the rabbi recalled a conversion with a bar mitzvah right after the attacks. What do you want most? he asked the boy. I want it to be September 10 again, he answered. So here it was 9/10 once more, right on the cusp of a new year full of hope and promise, and I thought back to that day before. I was lucky; my life didn't change dramatically in those 24 hours. I was as unemployed before 9/11 as after. (If anything, the sudden, grim economic situation gave me the push I needed to work for myself, which would otherwise have been way too scary.) I lost no loved ones, and had friends and a community to rely on. I am still basically the same person, just older and tireder and a little less trusting.

So I wonder, as we plunge into 5771, what it does take to change? If I--we--can so quickly resume our old lives after the murder of neighbors and threat of war in our own backyards, and then even forget that we were once the persecuted strangers ourselves, is there any hope that we'll ever learn peace? I think so. I want to believe there is. At an interfaith memorial service this morning, where my tears stained the same pews as on that evening nine years ago, the minister of the church whose space we share offered an apology. For years, he said, he listened as his friend the imam (who couldn't join us today because he had to stay at an "undisclosed location") apologized for things he didn't do, sins committed by others who shared his religion in name only. Now, said the minister, it was his turn to do the same, because real Christians do not hate. Then my rabbis led us in song and the Mourner's Kaddish, and I remembered that real Jews don't hate, either. Or real, ethical human beings, whatever they might think about God. This "new normal," the return to comfortable, familiar fear, is not normal at all, and it gave me hope to be in a sanctuary filled with others who knew this as well. I hope and pray that someone can figure out how to slap this entire country in our collective face and make us all understand.

944. A new song

2010-09-08T16:38:00.000-04:00

From the Reform movement's daily email "Taste of Torah" this past Labor Day:

"During these High Holy Days, we are surrounded by the teachings of Torah and the prayers of our services, and one hopes that we are open to hearing them as well as the voice within. Listening is an art; we all hear the same words of Torah but may hear them in very different ways. The way we hear or give ear or understand our encounters with God can never be fully described to anyone else, even as we strive to transform the mundane into the spiritual and achieve a sense of the sacred through the way we live our lives on earth."

--Rabbi Elliot L. Stevens is the rabbi at Temple Beth Or in Montgomery, Alabama.

Wishing everyone this Yamim Nora'im the gift of hearing something new, and the ability to use our own voices to bring those sounds to life. Shanah Tovah!

943. Awe immersion preparation

2010-09-08T16:30:00.006-04:00

(Trying to catch up on some pre-holiday posts before the holiday appears in a very short time.)

Selihot on Saturday night, the final stretch of awe immersion preparation. We studied and sang two piyutim, liturgical poems: Ahot Ketana, traditional for that day, to a Moroccan melody, and Leka Eli Teshukati, often sung prior to Kol Nidre, with a tune from the Jews of Greece. Gorgeous, flowing music set to texts about how desperately, almost agonizingly we yearn to connect to God. But the tunes are infused with joy, no pain at all.

I didn't grow up with music from that part of the world; it's not my tradition at all. If music were like food, then it wouldn't be entirely kosher for me to embrace these sounds. You can't decide to become Sephardic at Passover just to be able to eat kitniyot, for example. Born Ashkenaz, you're kind of honor-bound to stick to those customs. Thank goodness it doesn't work like that with music, because I am not the biggest fan of the sounds of my most closely relsted forebears. On Saturday night I watched the end of an excellent documentary about a well-known cantor whose passion in life is to spread the joy of hazzanut--excuse me, chazzanus--the traditional plaintive, operatic and melodramatic style of cantorial singing popular in Eastern Europe for a few centuries, and then in the US as Jews flooded these shores. It's still the sound most people associate with cantorial music, althoug few cantors sound like that anymore.

I am grateful to this musician and his colleagues for helping insure that this link to our past doesn't become a dying art. But I'm also very glad that fewer hazzanim, at least in liberal Jewish circles, sound like that. I don't like it at all. In fact, I hate it. There, I've said it, and pray that the combined force of my ancestors rolling over in their graves won't knock me over. As soon as I heard the first florid, kvetching glissando escspe this cantor's mouth, I was transported to the time in my life when Judaism was a spectator sport dominated by mumbling old men. (I like it even less when sung by a woman; there were a few examples of this in the film, as well.) I know others have fonder memories of this style of music, but to me it just sounds like people trying to be larger than life--which should be the domain of God alone. The cantor at my synagogue has the most glorious voice on earth, and probably heaven as well, but also a way of singing that is smaller than life--humble, full of awe, able to make quiet sounds that leave room for the rest of us to hear the still small voice. His hazzanut isn't about him, but us, one of the best gifts I've ever received.

942. Trifecta

2010-08-29T10:33:00.002-04:00

Guilt and worry--the signature characteristics of of American Judaism. No, not really, but they often seem to be, especially during the month of Elul. They don't have to, suggested the rabbi yesterday at services. This week's Torah portion, Ki Tavo, included a long and somewhat gruesome list of curses, followed by a bunch of blessings. The rabbi related it to the blessing and curse of hindsight. We feel regretful when we look back at what we haven't accomplished, but failure is part of the human condition--and we're engineered to learn from our mistakes. But our educational system, and our entire American culture, pretty much, make us feel that we're out of luck when we don't immediately "get it," whatever "it" is. Perhaps--a radical idea--we can think of hindsight as a blessing instead, a helpful and welcome tool to identify what we have't yet achieved, and are still able to. (Or not; in that case, a way to reach closure, and move on.) In context of the current, introspective month of Elul, he suggested we turn things around and try to be grateful instead--OK, I've fallen short of the mark, but look how much it's taught me!--rather than reacting to our shortcomings with that popular trifecta of guilt/worry/anger.

It's a brilliant insight, and seemed much more possible to achieve as I sat in services listening to the rabbi's kind and logical words of wisdom. Today, not so easy. But as I get ready to attend the funeral, in a few hours, of a sweet, lovely man (I wrote about him a few years ago), and lead a shiva minyan for a different grieving family tonight--and another for yet another family on Tuesday*--I am reminded to be grateful for the health of my loved ones, for being able to live in freedom on this gorgeous, sunny, not too hot day, and for the possibility of growth and change, whenever I'm ready for it.

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*I must admit that I didn't jump at the chance to volunteer, as I'm a little afraid of being around so much sadness so many days in a row. But all that death taxes the resources of any community, even a large one like ours, and also causes rabbis to run around like crazy providing support to very many grieving people. I can't imagine anything more exhausting; I want to do my part to help my rabbis find a little space to breathe before they have to support the rest of us during the holiday marathon.

941. Jewels of Elul blog tour: “The Art of Beginning... Again”

2010-08-25T18:01:00.004-04:00

This post is part of Jewels of Elul, which celebrates the Jewish tradition to dedicate the 29 days of the month of Elul to growth and discovery in preparation for the coming high holy days. This year the program is benefiting Beit T'shuvah, a residential addiction treatment center in Los Angeles. You can subscribe on Jewels of Elul to receive inspirational reflections from public figures each day of the month. You don’t have to be on the blog tour to write a blog post on “The Art of Beginning... Again”. We invite everyone to post this month (August 11th - September 8th) with Jewels of Elul to grow and learn.

We hope you’ll share the program now with your friends and followers to spread the word about Jewels of Elul. If you’d like to, you can also folllow Jewels on Twitter or join the Facebook group.

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Two weeks ago at services, the rabbi spoke about Parashat Shoftim:

Deuteronomy 20:5 Then the officials shall address the troops, as follows: "Is there anyone who has built a new house but has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his home, lest he die in battle and another dedicate it. 6 Is there anyone who has planted a vineyard but has never harvested it? Let him go back to his home, lest he die in battle and another harvest it. ..."

This section is particularly appropriate for this time of year, she observed, because it's about our goal for Elul: finishing so that we're ready to begin. Yes, we have the freedom to start anything at any time–but can we truly renew, release bonds, until those loose threads are tied?

Well, it would be lovely if life had the good graces to work according to the Jewish calendar, with resolution achieved like clockwork. But what if I can't make peace with those I've wronged by the end of Elul, or Yom Kippur, or even by Hoshana Rabbah, the day when those gates really, finally, close? Am I out of luck until next year? I don't know—but I don't think so. I love that in Judaism there's always another chance. Year after year we find new light in the darkness on Hanukkah, learn how to be free on Pesah, grow up as ethical beings on Shavuot; starting over doesn't happen just once, even though Elul gets all the press. Remembering that every day is an opportunity to reboot takes some of the pressure off for me at this time of year. But not all of it.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately because Elul for me, this year, is mostly about my role in the process of someone else's re-beginning. As readers of this blog know (all 5 or 6 of you, thank you immensely), a few months ago, incredibly, after 11 years in the National Marrow Donor Program registry I matched with a stranger to be a bone marrow donor. It was scheduled for July, but she had a setback and it was postponed indefinitely. My speechless awe tumbled quickly into anger—how dare God have the chuztpah to offer hope, and then yank it away? In truth, I had no idea of the extent of her illness, or how much hope there ever really was. All I knew was that I might be cheated out of the gift of being able to help.

And after grumbling for a few days, I realized I was more upset about losing my opportunity to do a cool, once-in-lifetime mitzvah than about the recipient's grave situation. I hated this encounter with my own selfishness and impatience, which I tried to explain as a reaction to God's random screwing around with the timetable. I felt completely powerless; it drove me crazy. This was Elul, the time to fix. I wanted to DO something. My Elul for the past 6 years had been about action—rehearse, sing, feel like a wrung-out sponge, and then like a new person. The Elul of waiting around was my old life, been there, done that years ago in Row Z of a moribund synagogue in Queens.

But then I thought about the waiting of my recipient. How could she possibly bear it? Did she try to reimagine time, creating new holidays, new beginnings and endings, in place of the real ones she might never again experience? Unable to take action and grab onto life, to complete any task at all, was she able to glimpse the future through love, laughter, the light of the sun coming through the trees?

I hope so, because this unknown woman (I named her Bracha—all I know about her is that she needs blessings, and everyone deserves the dignity of a name), this Bracha, by the simple fact of her existence and surprise of our connection, has taught me not to stress out over Elul. My beginning for this year happened in March, when I first learned I was a match. Maybe something was resolved in order to create that beginning, or not. It doesn't matter; what counts is that it changed me. I started exercising, to make sure I was in good shape for the donation. I plunged back into the world of dating after a long hiatus; I figured those odds must be better than the ones I just beat of matching to a stranger. Bracha reminded me that life must be grabbed onto, over and over again, to renew even when messy, loose threads of unfinished business stand in the way.

And life may end up fitting neatly into the calendar this year, after all. I recently learned that Bracha is now stable, and the donation has been rescheduled for the end of Sept. For the day of Hoshanna Rabbah, in fact—when the gates symbolically close, and we really, finally, do begin again.

940. Random things falling off the wall

2010-08-18T09:56:00.000-04:00

Elul sure did come in with a bang last week. But I haven't yet been successful with my plans to do the daily exercises in 60 Days, as I did last year. I'm trying, but have been temporarily defeated by an inability to concentrate (for good reasons). I haven't given up, since I know that Elul will not wait; I need to catch up. I got a reminder of this last night, in fact, just in case I happened to forget.

I was sitting at my desk, cranking on all my deadlines, when suddenly—the sky fell. Or so it seemed... a big, heavy piece of it whooshed past my right ear, knocked off my glasses, and landed at my feet. I was frozen for a few seconds, unable make sense of what happened. All I could think to do was get down on my hands and knees and reach around to find my glasses, since the world was now a big blur. I finally tracked them down on the other side of the room, completely bent out of shape.

Only then, crawling across the floor, did I begin to understand what happened. Over my desk, near the ceiling and about 7 feet up, is a big, ugly Con Ed meter camouflaged by an even bigger, heavier wooden box about 3 feet long by 1 foot deep. It's been wedged into the space between the door frame and the ceiling for a few decades, I'm guessing. The meter reader guys lift it up and then shove it back in place without fanfare each month in order to calculate the bill.

Last night, for the first time in its long and uneventful life, the box decided to fall off the wall and right on top of me. My glasses, thankfully, suffered the full force of velocity--had I been wearing my contact lenses instead, the broken and twisted parts might have been my teeth, skull, or eye.

I'm still shaken up, but fine physically—just a little bump on my right temple and scratch above my eye. (I'll know this afternoon if I need to say Kaddish for the glasses.) To say I feel lucky is the world's greatest understatement. But I also think that assault by a falling piece of wall is no different than any other trial, whether it be contracting an illness or losing a love. Or even much different than the good, random things—matching with a stranger to become a bone marrow donor, for example. There are no miracles or punishments; it's all life, one big soup of events that happen, or not. We can control only some of them but, to some degree, can control our reaction to all of them, and that's where I think Elul comes in. Once a year we join with our community to contemplate the spilled soup, and try to clean up the mess. And then we can start all over again with a clean table.

939. Madness, definition of

2010-08-15T10:09:00.000-04:00

Thought for the day, courtesy the fortune cookie I just got at Empire Szechuan:

"The universe without music would be madness."

Amen!

938. Agenda

2010-08-12T23:12:00.007-04:00

Interrupting the current ongoing story for another ongoing story. A few days ago, exactly one month since I heard from the bone marrow donation people, I emailed for an update. I steeled myself for bad news; if the recipient was sick in July, what were the odds that she'd be strong enough to withstand the procedure just one month later? I prepared to mourn the end of this glimpse into how small the universe really is, and the life of a woman whose name I don't know, but who has become a profound influence. (What would that mourning feel like? I know the pain of losing parents, and even of the death of part of my past--a hole of grief one blindly, painfully escapes over time, if lucky. How much does it hurt to lose something you never really had in the first place?)

The shock of our connection reawakened me to the great luck of my life, and reminded me to discard complacency, a recent trap, and live instead with equal measures of patience and urgency. Thanks to Bracha bat Sarah, I began to pursue some long-dormant goals. I'm eating better, exercising, honoring the good fortune of a healthy body, and feeling more happily alive as a result. And I don't want that to end--I don't want to stop feeling hopeful, as being blindsided by bad news can do. So over the past few weeks I've tried to protect myself, practicing for pain by imagining the worst and then ignoring it entirely. The real answer made me giddy:

"Well, you must have some kind of intuition going on, because I just received an email that the patient may be ready to proceed."

It was the day before Rosh Hodesh Elul--what better moment to begin a journey of change and renewal? Yes, I'm still willing to donate, I answered when they asked (as they must before every stage; I can back out at any time, no questions asked. But if I turn back too late in the process, the patient will die.) Yes, any day is good -- well, actually not. I'm kind of busy during the weeks of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and don't want to run the risk of getting exhausted the week before, either.

They got back to me today with new dates at the end of September, right before Simhat Torah. I had a feeling all along that it would happen over Shavuot. You couldn't script it more perfectly--harvesting the stuff of life during the holiday of the harvest.

I still need more blood tests to confirm that I haven't caught anything nasty over the past two months. Various administrators must exchange paperwork. It's still not a sure thing; I don't believe that man plans and God laughs (well, maybe God does laugh at times--but at our excellent jokes, not at us), but God certainly has agendas about which we have no clue. So I'm prepared for anything. And if it really does happen--I will not only celebrate new Torah the next day, but also the renewal of life. And not just Bracha bat Sarah's, I hope and pray, but mine as well--the miracle of this connection will change me forever.

937. High Holy Days 5770, part 8

2010-08-09T00:01:00.013-04:00

(Continued from here.)

The gargling worked, but not entirely. My throat went from feeling like a paving stone on the road to Hell to a mere white-hot coal dancing in the mouth of an active volcano. I continued to search online for sore throat remedies and found this, mirrored on approximately 4,760,000 different sites:

Garlic Honey

Basically: Crush lots of garlic. Add honey. Microwave. Eat. A miracle ensues; health is restored, or so claim thousands of people. Who knew?

So I whipped up a big, steaming bowl. Actually, it wasn't so steaming; I couldn't bring myself to heat it. It was pungent enough at room temperature to bring a large gorilla to tears, and I couldn't help but recall the time my old boyfriend's roommate decided to cook an Italian feast and put so much garlic in the lasagna that I almost passed out. (He rescued me just as I was about to drown in the soup.) Heavy spices and I do not always see eye to eye. I chose to refrigerate the concoction instead.

The bowl of honey and garlic sat marinating for the next three days. I figured it would be more effective after it matured for awhile and, besides, I was afraid to eat it. Very afraid. More and more powerfully aromatic clouds wafted out of the refrigerator each passing morning when I opened the door to get the orange juice until one day I began to consider hiring a SWAT team to kidnap the bowl and dump it at a nuclear testing site. By day four I abandoned any thoughts of actually spooning down the stuff, since its aroma suggested that it might make good rat poison.

By day five, one day before Yom Kippur, I realized my sore throat was gone. I think the garlic and honey was successful after all, even though I never ate it--its very presence intimidated my germs into submission.

(To be continued.)

936. High Holy Days 5770, part 7

2010-08-08T10:25:00.001-04:00

It's almost Elul, yikes. This means I will soon have to stop working 12 hours a day and begin to think about more important things. Meanwhile, just four weeks left to finish the story of High Holy Days 2009. Where was I? Oh yes, Mr. And Mrs. Loud and Louder. So Rosh Hashanah ended, and I returned to real life. Things were great for a day. But the day after that, not so good: I woke up with a sore throat. Not just your run-of-the-mill pain--I never do things halfway--but the kind that makes you want to rip your tonsils out of your head and pour a gallon of ice down the remaining cavity. I usually ply non-life-threatening illnesses with echinacea or Advil and hope for the best, but this was an urgent situation--I didn't have time to wait for nature to take its course. I refused to accept a replay of 2005.

"Well, it could get better or worse in the next few days," opined the doctor unhelpfully after peering down my throat for a good long ten seconds. This was slightly better news than what a different doctor had told me a few years earlier, but still not so good. "Rest, drink plenty of fluids, and if you can't speak the day before you have to sing, call me. I have a few opera singers as patients. Steroid injection," she added.

I did not want a large needle anywhere near my vocal cords, so decided to find a miracle cure on my own. After scouring Google, I learned that established medical professionals and quacks alike seemed to have great faith in the remedy of gargling with warm salt water every hour on the hour. Even though it made me gag, I set my alarm clock and did so. I drank gallons of liquids and forced myself to sleep 10 hours a night over three days, during which I neither left the house nor spoke on the phone. I was determined to coddle this cold to death--kill it with kindness rather than a predictable OTC poison.

(To be continued.)

935. Flustered

2010-07-26T00:10:00.013-04:00

So Tisha be-Av went well, in additon to the aforementioned study. My chanting was a bit... flustered. Chapter 4 of Eikha began on the usual awkwardly high note, which I must pull accurately out of the air to insure that I don't end up somewhere deep down below where I can't reach (taking into account my tendency to go flat when chanting while sitting cross-legged on the floor). I *just* made it. My long morning Torah reading was uneventful, except for a moment during the second aliyah when I lost the trope (that I knew like the back of my hand--it happens). The rabbi, generally the best gabbai in the history of all gabbais, sang the correction clearly. But he uses a different trope than I do. Usually I can translate, but had never heard that melody before; I chose to stumble on a fairly uncommon section of the tune. He sang it again, quietly and calmly. At that point I decided to just leap off the cliff and move on to the next phrase, hoping my memory would return--which it did.

At the end of the aliyah the rabbi turned to me and whispered, "Sorry--I forgot that your trope was different!" Hello, now you know how I've felt for the past eight years. (It's not all that different, but there are two major schools of trope at my synagogue, stemming from the two people who've taught it over the years. He is one; I learned from the other.)

My third flustered incident was at Minha later that evening. I knew there were three aliyot; as the haftarah reader, the last one would be given to me. The gabbai, none other than F., came over to confirm: "Shishi [sixth aliyah]?" he whispered. Hmm, I thought, that doesn't sound right, but he had already darted away. Well, nothing is ever set in stone at my congregation; we often flout tradition, and things tend to change all the time. So at the third aliyah I just continued to sit and enjoy the scenery. Suddenly I was aware of a big silence, and everyone looking at me. Everyone. Stares really can have the force of steel beams. I noticed that both F. and the rabbi were gesturing not quite imperceptibly for me to come to the bimah. Oh, I realized... he said "shLishi" [third aliyah]. Duh. I ran up as fast as I could and apologized, because this is something one just does not do; services tend to run like clockwork. No one said a word, but I was sure they must have thought I was biggest space cadet ever. I didn't even have fasting-induced lightheadedness to use as an excuse.

(Afterwards I realized that I must not be the first person in the history of Torah chanting to mis-hear those two words. But I'm probably the first to blog about it, so there's no recorded history to assuage my feelings of guilt. Which I no longer have, thanks to a good night's sleep.)

Just a few more weeks until Elul and the start of the next marathon. Meanwhile, sitting here figuring out how to type on my brand-new and truly guilt-inducing iPad, which I sort of need for work but not really, just couldn't fight temptation any longer, listening to Pharoah's Daughter and getting in the mood for all the music to come.

934. Does God pray?

2010-07-25T10:15:00.001-04:00

Tisha be-Av Minha ended, and we were all on our way out the door--and then the rabbi said, "Anyone want to stick around for awhile and study?" Still two hours before the fast ended--better to spend it in the synagogue than at home, hungry and tempted. I wasn't among the fasters this year, but decided to stay just the same.

Turns out I was very familiar with the text he chose, a line in the haftarah I had just chanted. (For the eighth Tisha be-Av minha in a row! It's the first one I ever learned. Time flies.) It's from the end of the usual fast day afternoon haftarah (Isaiah 55:6-56:8):

56:7: Then will I bring them to My holy mountain and I will make them joyful in the house where men pray to me, their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be favorably accepted upon My altar for My house shall be acclaimed as a house of prayer for all people.

Vahavi'otim el-har kodeshi vesimachtim beveyt tfilati oloteyhem vezivcheyhem leratson al-mizbechi ki veyti beyt-tfilah yikare lechol-ha'amim.

The words he focused on were "beveit tfilati," here translated as "the house where men pray to me"--but "tfilati," "my prayer," could also be read as "the praying that is mine"--the praying I do. Could this be, wondered commentators--does God pray? What would God pray about? Why? The rabbi read a passage from the Talmud about God apparently learning how to pray from a simple shopkeeper. Did we think it was possible, he asked?

Big silence in the room at first. On the one hand, we strive to envision God as less literal and more spiritual than the bearded old guy in the sky. But we also want to be able to pray to a God who's like a parent or friend, to whom we can cry and expect a response. How to reconcile the two?

For me (I said when I finally got the nerve to raise my hand) the answer is self-evident. If we can pray, then God must be able to, as well--for how could we do something that God can't? If God chooses to pray (that, I have no idea), then I think God prays that we humans will choose to pray. I believe God yearns for the partnership just as we do. I don't really know what that means--I don't know what "God" means--but I believe it just the same, and feel it in my heart and bones.

933. iDaven

2010-07-21T00:15:00.000-04:00

I liked this sensible answer:

"Can I Pray With an iPhone?"

I agree that an actual, physical siddur "has a certain sanctity to it that a virtual siddur cannot attain," but perhaps this is because we're a lot more accustomed to the technology of the book, with 500+ years of history and associations behind it. I wonder if praying from Gutenberg's invention didn't shock a few parchment scroll fans back in the day, as well.

Also agreed that the point of prayer is to escape form the tyranny of e-life. But prayer in a synagogue is communal and, paper siddur or not, will not exclude that loud, off-key guy who thinks his "Amen" must be heard in the shul down the block. "Ask the Rabbi" offers this solution to the electronic version of barriers to concentration:

"The ring tone issue is easily solved by switching to vibrate. Notifications can be turned off in Settings. But you're still going to have those incoming calls and text messages popping up over your siddur. To avoid these, the only trick I know is to switch to Airplane Mode. It seems to me that this is a must for proper praying. Look, if you can do it on the runways of Planet Earth, you can do it on the runway to heaven as well."

932. Sinat hinam

2010-07-19T00:30:00.000-04:00

As a lifelong New Yorker, I take for granted that no one cares that I'm a liberal Jewish woman who chants Torah and leads services. Any kind of religious practice is tolerated in this city, as long as it doesn't involve murder or riding the subway completely naked (partially naked would be OK).

So events like these, below, make me not just angry, but incredulous. I love Israel, and respect her right to have a Church-managed State, but that's no excuse to turn religious principles into a parody of themselves. What halakha justifies pushing a woman down a flight of stairs at our holiest site? Or forcibly wrestling a sefer Torah out of the arms of a peaceful, praying Jew because you don't approve of her style of prayer?

Anat Hoffman Arrested for Carrying Torah

Or giving a small and provably corrupt group of Israeli rabbis the power to legislate who can be called a Jew, instantly alienating most of those throughout the world who have, both spiritually and financially, supported Israel for decades? (My mother would have called it "cutting off your nose to spite your face.")

The Diaspora Need Not Apply

Hillel said "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." (Shabbat 31a). I guess the rabbis at the Kotel would disagree. On second thought, Hillel was clearly misguided. Writes Alana Newhouse:

"It will do little good, too, to point out that it is well outside the consensus established by Hillel — arguably the greatest rabbi in all of rabbinic Judaism and whom, as Joseph Telushkin argues in a forthcoming book, was willing to convert a pagan on the spot, simply because he’d asked."

What was he thinking?

As we approach Tisha be-Av this evening, I pray that all the genuine goodness in the world, and there is an awful lot of it, may be a stronger force than the sinat hinam, the baseless hatred.

931. Is nisht

2010-07-18T13:56:00.002-04:00

For some reason today I thought about a phrase that permeated my youth--I can't recall exactly who said, it, or when, but probably everyone, all the time: "So, is nisht." I never learned to speak Yiddish, but when I was a child most of the people taller than me did, so I'm left with a sort of sense memory of many words. Perhaps it was a shortened version of "nisht gerferlach", "not so bad". I remember it meaning something like today's "Whatever...", a sigh of resignation acknowledging that life isn't perfect, but it's time to close the last chapter with a resilient thwack of the pages and move on. Or, in the words of my cousin Bunny z"l, "You do what you do."

It's very hot. It's been very hot for weeks, turning most New Yorkers, including myself, into boiling, inert, annoyed people. So, is nisht. Yesterday at services the rabbi reflected on his longstanding curiosity about why far more people come to services on Tisha be-Av*, the saddest day of the Jewish calendar, than Yom Ha'atzma'ut, one of the most joyous. Why does mourning come easier than celebrating our greatest modern miracle? He quoted from Aviva Zornberg's latest book, The Murmuring Deep, and (I am simplifying radically) her observations on the psychological aftermath of being "the chosen people." Why us? Are we worthy? Did we really deserve to survive all the unspeakable tragedies that befell us? And what of the ones not chosen--where do our responsibilities to those others begin and end? Biblical characters grappled with these questions (i.e., were neurotic) long before Freud put names to the problems, and we continue to do so. One way is by seeking out opportunities, such as Tisha be-Av, to relive our pain, which is more familiar to us than our triumphs. In doing so, we remind our still-incredulous selves that we really did survive.

As he spoke, I thought of my more immediate struggle with a similar concept, my postponed stem cell donation. Why was I chosen? No reason at all, most likely. It just happened, one of many great random acts of the universe. But if that's how God works,maybe the same is true of the Jewish people--there is no great plan, and we were chosen just because. We are bound to do our job as good Jews nevertheless. It is a baffling and unsatisfying answer, usually the case when trying to apply logic to theology. What really counts is how we react to this knowledge. This unknown woman has already taught me about patience, and living in the moment (and enhanced the coffers of JDate, eHarmony, and a couple of local coffee shops and bars in the process). I hope I may one day return the favor, and can only pray that knowing I remain in the wings will help her find hope and strength.

(Bracha bat Sarah has also helped me gain the smallest bit of insight into the suffering of families of those at war. How to ever relax, or stay sane, when you don't know if your loved one will return? I've never even met this woman, but whether she will live or die is always in my consciousness.)

So, is nisht, it remains above 90 degrees everywhere in the U.S. (except, I hope and pray, Alaska), and I continue to work too hard and take a few breaks during the day to practice my upcoming trope triple play (chapter 4 of Eikha tomorrow night; the Torah reading on Tuesday morning; haftarah at Tuesday Minha). I didn't set out to be such an active participant in Tisha be-Av, but it just sort of happened after a few years of saying yes whenever the cantor needed someone to chant. Maybe there's a greater reason behind it, who knows, and I am learning something that I will one day understand.

-----
* Which I grew up pronouncing "Tish Above"--maybe that's the Yiddish way--only to learn in the last few years that it's properly called "Teesh-ah-bay-Av." Which feels a little too modern on my tongue, and elicits stares from Jewish friends who don't go to my synagogue, so I usually compromise somewhere in between the two.

930. On belief and deception

2010-07-05T17:41:00.000-04:00

The nebulous place known as the JBlogosphere (i.e., Jews with blogs) has been abuzz about The Orthoprax Rabbi, who just started writing a few weeks ago. He's the rabbi of a Modern Orthodox synagogue somewhere in the world who admits to being an atheist who doesn't follow much of Jewish law. That said, his congregation is very happy (they just renewed his contract). They think he's a regular halakhic, God-fearing rabbi just like any other. He's proud to be a good speaker and pastor, expert at the mechanics of leading. But clearly there is some stress in living a lie, hence this anonymous blog of admission.

Not surprisingly, vast torrents of comments on the blog span the gamut from accusations of heresy to praise for his honesty in revealing a frequently hidden truth about rabbinic souls. It's a fascinating and intelligent conversation, with just a few crazies. It is, in short, Judaism—a messy debate that hopefully results in some kind of new insight when all is said and done.

And this definition of Judaism is why I greatly respect The Orthoprax Rabbi, even though I don't agree with him. In physics, every action has an equal reaction; in Bereshit, God created in opposites (heaven and earth, etc.). Whether one believes in religion or science, it seems fair to assume that the seeds of all things contain their antithesis. So perfect faith, as some of the blog's commenters profess to have, must also embrace the shadow of doubt in order to be as God engineered. (See this link posted to one of the hundreds of blog comments.)

From this angle, R. Orthoprax is very good Jew. His life, like the debate about him and the nature of Judaism itself, is a struggle between opposites just as we all encounter on a daily basis. I can imagine how this would make him a very good rabbi. Unlike many religious leaders who pretend to be evolved beyond the need for doubt, R. Orthoprax leads from the ground, in solidarity with his flock. I'm sure they sense it, and appreciate him for this reason.

But on the other hand: I don't think he's a very good rabbi. He's lying to his congregation, a kind of fraud. Yes, the job description never said he had to believe in God. But I am pretty certain the vast majority of Jews who look to their rabbis as role models do think their rabbis believe and (according to the standards of whatever the stream of Judaism) observe halakha. It's implied in our shared understanding of the role. It is a violation of the trust of his congregants to pretend that he believes when he doesn't—to deceive them and be something other than the kind of rabbi they thought they hired.

And I can't imagine his congregants don't somehow sense this dishonesty, just as they silently empathize with his struggles. I have no idea if my own rabbis believe in God; I've never asked, and they've never told. But I assume they do, because when talking about the subject every single word they share, every bit of advice, joke, condolence, is deeply felt and from their hearts, and rings true. (They talk about God often. We rarely did at my stuffy childhood synagogue, which I think is more the norm. The concept of belief is still a little too touchy-feely for many Americans.) I trust my rabbis not because they believe in God, but because I can tell that they are being honest.

A rabbi's role is to teach about spiritual life, of which struggling with faith is an important part. What if R. Orthoprax admitted the truth to his congregants? He might get fired—or he might feel like a weight was lifted from his chest. And his congregants might respect him more than ever before before, because he is even more like them.

I have no sense of what it's like to grow up in a totalitarian state, as Orthodox streams of many religions seem to be, only one opinion allowed and all others a quick ticket to Hell. (Or would be, if Jews had Hell.) I can't imagine how this kind of childhood colors one's reactions as an adult. It's like commenting on someone's bad marriage; what looks loveless to one is safe and comfortable to another. I understand that particular kinds of lies might work just fine for all parties involved, as might be the case with this rabbi and his congregants. I am nevertheless sad that he can't breathe easy or be true to his own beliefs. (Another rabbi expressed this same thought much better than I.) Having hidden big parts of my true self, as well, when caught in a troubled relationship, I feel this rabbi's pain, and hope he can one day find a place of comfort and freedom.

929. Time travel

2010-07-05T13:30:00.002-04:00

Haven't written very much lately, but I've been busy--with life, and chanting as well. This morning at the minyan I read a short section from the beginning of Mas'ei, all that going forward from place to place. On Shabbat Pinhas I chanted about sacrifices from Pesah through Yom Kippur, mostly all the same except for an extra "and" and inexplicably changed trope now and then. I guess the Masoretes wanted to make sure we didn't fall asleep when reading it for the 5,000th year in a row. I was worried I'd screw up my old friend the Pesah maftir, which became much trickier when paired with similar but slightly different other sections, but everything went well until the end of Rosh Hashahah and I made up a bunch of trope. I ended in the right place, however, so all was well. I'm very glad these hiccups no longer give me heart attacks.

The summer is officially here--98 degrees as I sit in Starbucks typing into Evernote on my iPhone with the ancient, collapsable Bluetooth keyboard that never quite worked years ago with my Treo (it does now, perfectly) and Yo-Yo Ma in my earphones drowning out generic 40s jazz--and it will be short one. The holidays start right after Labor Day, so rehearsals will need to be sometime in August. This logistically annoying earliness is probably why the cantor asked myself and the other hazzanim just last week if we wanted to sing again this year. (Duh.) The subject line of his email was "High Holy Days 5761," leading me to wonder if time travel was among his many talents (since we're about to enter the year 5771). Details, details. The early notice was welcome, even though I've finally stopped angsting (much) about whether I'll be asked back each year.

The email also reminded me that I need to finish writing about last year's High Holy Days, which were lovely but not without drama. I will do that before something else eventful happens that's worth chronicling (donating bone marrow, for example; still on hold.)

928. Chocolate

2010-06-27T15:27:00.002-04:00

The other week a friend referred to chocolate as "the Great Unifier," with which I heartily agree. I would love to get the leaders of the Middle East in a room together and feed them some Ben and Jerry's; since I doubt this will happen, I guess we're stuck with diplomacy. In my own life, there is no other dessert option when feeding groups of people. (Since my invited guests generally like one another, I haven't been able to test its peace-making qualities.)

I came close to leading a life bereft of this ambrosia, however. I was allergic to chocolate as a young child. A single M&M would cause my entire body to break out in hives, followed by forced slathering-on of Calamine lotion or a soak in an Epsom salts-filled tub until I turned into a prune. It wasn't fun, but did insure that I wouldn't scratch myself to death. My mother and I fought a constant battle of wills over chocolate, a precocious stand-in for the cute but dangerous motorcycle-riding boyfriend. I knew it was bad for me, but just couldn't keep away. My mother gave up the battle after awhile, just sighed and slathered on the Calamine whenever I came home from school covered in welts. She felt my pain, even though she didn't have a sweet tooth; growing up in the bakery business with unlimited access to cake and cookies cured her of that craving. But she remembered what it felt like, and knew that I would never retreat. And she wanted more than anything else to see me smile.

So she spent countless hours in search of a loophole. To keep up with the Catholic Joneses, I'd get an Easter basket every year (sometimes smack in the middle of Passover, filled with leaven-fee sugar). My father didn't mind; if all other American kids merited egg-shaped candies, then I did as well. The search for a non-allergenic, non-chocolate bunny would begin early each spring, my mother scouring stores all over Queens and keeping me abreast of her progress. If they could send a man to the moon, then this Holy Grail of confectionery must exist somewhere.

And one year I unwrapped the basket and there it was, a red ribbon around its cellophaned neck: Peter Cottontail, big, hollow and white. I was a little afraid to tear off a chunk, but my mother was optimistic. White chocolate tastes different, she observed. So maybe you can eat this. I was bursting with anticipation; never in my life had I felt so hopeful. I swallowed a paw, and then another. Ten minutes passed--nothing. My skin remained as pale as the summer sky over Jones Beach. We were in ecstasy over our sneaky and brilliant scientific breakthrough.

Then, suddenly, big red hills and valleys began to erupt up and down my arms and legs. My mother shook her head and drew the bath water, as close to crying as I'd ever seen her. We spoke no more of white chocolate, and I finally began to ask for vanilla at birthday parties. Making my mother sad was even worse than itching.

But addiction never really goes away, and at some point in my eighth year the pull became too strong. I traded a plum for a chocolate chip cookie at lunch one day, and took a bite. I waited for the inevitable, all through recess and later that afternoon at Hebrew School. And I was fine. I casually mentioned this to my mother when I got back home, and she pretended to casually acknowledge the change. We were both afraid to get excited, in case the effect was temporary. But it lasted--it seems I had grown out of the allergy--and after that my mother never even suggested any other flavor. Cake and cookies were still carefully measured, but when they did appear were always Double Fudge Chunk or Devil's Food or whatever else marketers decided to call Death by Chocolate before Ben and Jerry's patented the name.

I still will not consider any other flavor when it comes to desserts of the non-fruit variety. What does this have to do with Judaism and the usual subjects of this blog? Maybe just a reminder that food is not religion, and a fervent wish that people everywhere could limit their disdaining to kinds of candy.

927. Geek

2010-06-24T08:23:00.001-04:00

I'm one of these. Typing right now on a small folding Bluetooth keyboard I bought about three years ago for my late, great Treo, now retired to whatever part of heaven is reserved for ancient technology. And the keyboard is paired with the phone that will stop traffic in about seven hours, and is right this minute responsible for a big swath of Broadway turning into a concrete campground as fellow geeks (slightly more nuts than I) salivate until the Apple Store opens at 7AM. Fate smiled on me two weeks ago via the online ordering process, so my iPhone4 came via FedEx this morning in a box tiny enough to camouflage its ability to create world peace or plug the oil spill in the Gulf, as you might assume it could do if you were from Mars and read the breathless forum posts on Mac blogs this week.

I went to the gym this evening and disguised it in my old, beaten-up 3G case lest some crazed fanboy notice and, well, salivate. But I was nervous just the same.

Postscript: Wrote this last night on the phone and am editing and posting this morning on my computer thanks to Evernote, a very cool app that can create, share, and update documents between either place. There are other ways to do this, but none so easy and seamless.

926. Over my head

2010-06-13T10:32:00.000-04:00

Last week I discovered a Google group:

leining

Yes, it's all about leining (aka chanting Torah). But this time I wasn't barred for being female; times have changed. Or maybe just in this little corner of Google, where experts are humble enough to type the word with a lower-case "l". Discussions about the minutiae of trope, how exciting! So I began to read...

... and understood about 1/10th of what they were talking about. No, that's generous. Perhaps 1/100th. Who knew there could be such minutiae about munachs, and I do own the Jacobson book; this group leaves it in the dust. All participants (just men so far, because few women have yet been able to spend lifetimes amassing this kind of knowledge) seem to have favorite rabbis or sages who know the definitive way to sing a pazer and everything else. It's fascinating, and kind of exciting to be in over my head, and I will continue to read in hopes that 1/10th, or even 1/100th of the information shared will seep into some small corner of my brain.

925. Names

2010-06-13T07:31:00.003-04:00

Once again, a phone call in the middle of the day as I sit at my desk. I recognize the number; my stomach drops. This can't be good. Two weeks ago, unable to wait a second longer for an update, I emailed the donor center. "We have no news about a delay in collection," they answered. So I began to count down the days, imagining what DVDs I'd watch during those hours when I wouldn't have use of my hands, and who could sub at my networking group. I began to smile all the time. Suddenly it didn't matter what else happened in the world; life was certifiably good.

I pick up the phone: a familiar neutral but cheery voice. "I'm so sorry, but your recipient had a relapse." Catch-22: the illness has to be grave enough to require a transplant, but not so bad that the process will kill her. It's not cancelled, however, just postponed to some unknown time. Am I still interested in donating? Of course. Thank you, we'll keep you posted.

I knew this might happen—the possibility was mentioned on every sheet of donor literature I received—but I still feel horrible. I want her to be OK. I want to fix her. I have no idea who or where this woman is, whether she has a family, kids, is nice or mean, hopeful or desperate. All I do know is that God is being very annoying. I have something she needs—but now, all of a sudden, she can't receive it. I guess life often works this way; we love someone but they're not ready to reciprocate, or we possess talent but not means. But in most cases we can find tools to help us change and discover how to accept those gifts. In this instance, the recipient and I are both powerless. All we can do—all I can do—is be grateful that science and circumstance brought us this far, and that the story is not yet over.

When I first matched, I wondered what I might learn from the experience. It's been a lot, so far: that it's not about me, and humility is a virtue I need to work on. Patience, too; things progress in due time according to a hidden schedule, and there's no point in delaying life until we figure it out. (I had been afraid to make vacation plans, just in case—what if something bad happened before I could donate? But something bad could happen while crossing the street. I now have plans, and know that my stem cells will be happier as a result.) The most unexpected thing I've learned, however, is about names. I wanted to include this unknown woman in my prayers, yet was uncomfortable doing so. I didn't want to feel too attached, and set myself up for unnecessary pain—what if she died? Or survived, but never wanted to meet?

But I couldn't remain detached. Like it or not, we're connected; I can't pretend otherwise. But just as I had been unable to articulate my awe and joy at the start of this process and lacked a "container" for the experience, I also was unable to formulate a prayer on her behalf. Here was my chance to escape from powerlessness, but each sentence I tried to whisper seemed to lose its glue and scatter into random words.

Friday night in the middle of services, I suddenly knew what was missing: a name. I might never learn it, but she has one, and it's hers alone. It gives her dignity, and proves that she's a person and not just a collection of symptoms. I understand why, for legal and psychological reasons, the bone marrow people can't tell me what it is, but I can no more ignore its existence than the profound connection we already have.

Names in Judaism are mystical and powerful, and many people assume a new one one during illness in order to trick the Angel of Death. They're like scaffolding to support and identify our uniqueness to the rest of the world. Praying for this woman without using her name felt like trying to grow ivy without the wall, nowhere solid for the the leaves to climb.

It came to me a little later in the service: Bracha (blessing) bat (daughter of) Sarah. That's all I need God to hear: please send blessings. Also, a reminder of the blessings that her existence has already brought me. "bat Sarah" because I assume she's Jewish, since we share ancestors somewhere down the line. If not, I trust that God will insert the proper appellation. I guess it's pretty chutzpadik for me to name a total stranger, but we all have alternates for different situations: nicknames, "mom," "dad." This one is for talking about her to God, nothing else.

The moment I discovered this name, I felt like a physical weight had been lifted from my chest. I can focus once again, after two days of sadness and a whole month of being self-absorbed. Her name will remind me that everything good, bad, and ordinary, is also a miracle. Until the good part of that miracle takes place, please include Bracha bat Sarah, whomever she may be, in your prayers for healing.

924. Z'chut

2010-06-04T17:43:00.001-04:00

Last week I heard someone use the word "z'chut" in a context I didn't quite understand. I had thought it meant "merit," as in something one deserves based upon an earned right. But it's really closer to privilege, an honor not necessarily predicated on action or position. In that sense it seems a word particularly suited to the Jewish experience. Do we merit survival, despite the odds, because of good deeds? Or are we still here thanks to divine intervention, or just luck? Google isn't the best place for answers to major existential questions, but it did lead me to this observation on the Chabad site:

----
There is a common misconception that life is about being in the right place at the right time. In truth, how you experience life has more to do with what is happening inside you as with what is happening outside.

Like riding a roller coaster without being prepared, if you are not well-tuned to the channel of life, a symphony of miracles could come across as cacophony from the boiler room.

This is what the sages call z'chut--sometimes translated as merit. It means a refinement of the soul, so that it will be precisely on the right frequency and static-clean.
----

So maybe the answer is: it doesn't matter why we've triumphed or suffered. What counts is being open to learn from these experiences; therein lies the honor, the z'chut.

923. Rest

2010-06-04T17:14:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago at Friday night services, the rabbi considered the meaning of Shabbat rest. On Shabbat we refrain from creation, enjoying the gift of living in the present for a day. We prepare eagerly for a taste of eternity, cooking, cleaning, inviting friends to join us--and suddenly it's sunset.

That's when we have to lay aside our expectations. Because if we enter Friday evening still anticipating what those 25 hours might bring, we're not truly observing Shabbat. We need to let go of our hopes and wishes, whether for the quality of the soup we just made, the aliyah we're been practicing over and over again, or of our lives in coming weeks, and simply be with what we have, what we and God have made in partnership. There are six other days in the week to fix what is not yet perfect. Shabbat is for sitting back and reminding ourselves that what already does exist, flaws and all, is pretty amazing.

It's not easy. (For adults, anyway; I think back to when I was a kid, and finishing my homework meant perfect freedom. Then one day when I was about ten, I had a flash of insight—I remember the exact moment, sitting at the kitchen table eating a peanut butter sandwich—when I realized that growing up meant reaching a tipping point where responsibilities could never be put aside. There would always be something, someone, latched on and wanting more. I couldn't decide if I liked or feared this fate, but knew I had to continue having fun and acting like a child until its inevitable descent.) We drive ourselves crazy trying to reclaim a time before the noise began. It's a paradox of being Jewish; we're people of action. Study isn't complete until we put knowledge into use and help make the world a better place. But one day a week we're directed to refrain from the most important part of our jobs as human beings and act like we're boss, resting in the image of God and allowing what has already been created to flow like a stream over and within us.

A child might walk around in her father's big shoes and imagine what it it's like to be all grown up. Shabbat is for the first part of that experience only; the imagining follows later on. Shabbat is for the senses, so that during the week we can filter those tastes, sounds, and images into imagination and, ultimately, action.

Shabbat Shalom!

922. Shavuot morning

2010-06-01T00:01:00.002-04:00

Imagine a sapphire, bluer than the sea and clear as a loving gaze, mixed with milk, simple and opaque, mirror-smooth, and the color that might result. This was the sky on Shavuot morning as we stumbled upstairs after a night of learning. Sleeping cars parked on Broadway looked more deeply rooted than the skinny Manhattan sidewalk trees between them. I didn't want to go back inside; I wasn't sure my brain would function well enough to chant four aliyot. And I also wanted to watch the sun continue to seep into a flat and flowing sky.

But eventually we had to start the morning service. I made it through the reading just fine although shaking a bit, partly in anticipation of the text, and also because I forgot to take a nap the afternoon before and was dizzy with exhaustion. I did stumble once, on a passage I knew perfectly:

Vayomer Moshe el-ha'am al-tira'u ki leva'avur nasot etchem ba ha'Elohim uva'avur tiheyeh yir'ato al-pneychem levilti techeta'u.

"'Do not be afraid,' replied Moses to the people. 'God only came to raise you up. His fear will then be on your faces, and you will not sin.'"

—Exodus 20:17 (or 20:16, in some tikkunim)

Where I got confused: "al-tira'u," "do not be afraid." I made the same mistake last year, as well, and I think on at least one other occasion. The trope is similar, but not identical, to the melody a few lines later. I knew it might trip me up; I practiced it over and over beforehand, but it got the best of me once again. So I listed to the gabbai's correction, took a deep breath and went back a few words, and did it right. We can't help being afraid, but will always be OK once we remember that we're never alone.

921. Donation update

2010-05-31T00:30:00.002-04:00

So I think it's really going to happen. I went for the physical, a long but not unpleasant experience: about 20 more vials of blood and other bodily fluids taken, interview with a doctor, hundreds of questions answered on a dozen forms (hey, do I look like someone who might have had sex with a prostitute?! but I know they have to ask), EKG, chest x-ray, no-nonsense nurse flicking her fingers repeatedly into the crooks of my arms to assess the state of my veins. It was actually almost a fun way to spend the afternoon because I was accompanied through these various trials by two staff members from the local marrow donor program: S., a young nurse on her way to getting a degree in public health, and C. a sweet and endearingly chivalrous man in his 30s who refused to call me by my first name because "it just wouldn't be right." He also opened doors and offered to bring me food and drink every ten minutes or so. It's been a long time since I went to the doctor with anyone but myself, and so was a nice and nurturing experience. And after the nurse pronounced my veins in good shape (very important, otherwise I'd need a central line for the donation and would have to stay in the hospital overnight), they both applauded. Never before has the state of my veins elicited a standing ovation, nor will it probably do so ever again.

Then I waited a week and tried not to think about it, an impossible task. The following Tuesday I received a phone call: we're so sorry, some of your blood samples got contaminated. So I rushed back to the hospital to give more, and C. offhandedly (and politely) mentioned that a few of my results had been "flagged." But no need to worry. Of course I did, so he said a doctor would call to explain. A sleepless night followed.

The next day C. himself called to say that it was a mistake, my results were fine (and the doctor scolded him for suggesting otherwise). And, with that, I was pronounced fit to donate.

So now I wait a month and a half. It doesn't seem quite real, and I alternate between being certain I'm blowing the whole thing out of proportion (it's just a few hours out of my life, and plenty of others have done it before; I'm nothing special), and being completely overwhelmed with awe. It's not a miracle, which is even more of a miracle. This is what God does; this is how life is. We're all part of one another. I become mute and immobilized if I think about it for too long, like staring into the sun.

Last week I met with one of my amazing rabbis to see if he could help me find a voice. As I learned this spring, Heschel wrote in Man's Quest for God that silence is the highest form of prayer. So when confronted with these uncountable heaps of of gratitude and amazement, I thought at first that it would be OK to be unable to express. I waited for my silence to take me to a greater place of understanding. But it didn't. Instead I was adrift, like a cloud in a beautiful but way too big sky. This event fits in no category I've ever known. It needs a "container," offered the rabbi, and suggested specific Psalms and part of the Book of Job as texts to help illuminate the sensation of feeling both infinitesimal in a vast universe, and more joyful than there are stars. So bit by bit, a little each day, I will look for answers in those words, one set of metaphors illuminating another. And continue to pray that an unknown, unnamed woman can hold on until the second week of July.

920. On teaching

2010-05-30T21:00:00.002-04:00

Well ... it's been a while. Since last I wrote, an awful lot of life has happened around me; not to me, things are status quo, but this swirling activity of birth, death, grief, joy, has been exhausting. Not complaining. Better to be over one's head in the stuff of existence than bored and wearing blinders.

Yesterday was one of the amazingly joyful days. Three of my chanting students, with whom I'd been working since January (one via Skype from Brazil!), became B'not Torah at services. They are brilliant women, and so of course did perfect, beautiful jobs. (This didn't stop me from being irrationally nervous, however; I was definitely projecting my knee-jerk Torah reading butterflies on them. They, in turn, were cool as a cucumber.) I cried as I watched the woman who chanted haftarah smile as she sang "Rani v'simhi, bat-zion:" "Sing and rejoice, daughter of Zion."

I was given an aliyah, much to my surprise and reluctance, and the rabbi reflected on his earlier d'var Torah about the week's parasha, Beha'alotekha, and Robert Alter's comment about "radical spiritual egalitarianism." To the elders who gather to figure out how to contain the kvetching Israelite riffraff, God grants the gift of prophesy ("the spirit of God rested upon them"). God does not fix the problem God's self, or through an agent; the people do, themselves (with a litle help, of course). Our synagogue community follows in this tradition as well, observed the rabbi, as members extend the chain of learning directly from one to another--beginning with my teacher, who made it possible for so many people to sing these beautiful words--and now it can grow threefold, as these three women find others to teach.

As a kid, I had no clue about the value of teachers. I had some amazing ones, but never acknowledged that they did more than just a job--were anything other than the hired help. I think I felt entitled to those moments of revelation, and envisioned my teachers as mere conduits of someone else's knowledge. That teaching required mastery of the art and science of connecting to others in a unique and life-changing way never occurred to me. My mother and father were certainly grateful and admiring of my teachers, but never suggested I become one. This doesn't sound like a very Jewish parent-like directive--but parents, by nature, are not egalitarian. Teaching, they believed, would never serve my talents and and goals as an artist whose imagination was meant to lead to unknown and exciting worlds. Like my parents, a bookkeeper and grocery store produce manager, teachers provided a service. My future was as a creator, a far nobler goal.

So this discovery, over the last few years, that teaching is all about learning, changing, seeing the world through someone else's eyes and ears and adapting mine to help grow theirs, has been a bit intoxicating. It's one of the most creative things I've ever done, and I'm honored to become another link on the chain.

919. Omer update

2010-05-02T14:37:00.004-04:00

I haven't been very good at counting the Omer this year. One reason (not that this is an excuse) is that time is doing an usually strong job of marking itself. I haven't been inspired to help it along. The father of a friend died two weeks ago, suddenly—fifteen minutes after we spoke on the phone and his voice and spirits sounded stronger than ever—a kind, sweet man with a wonderful smile who gave myself and other friends the gift of feeling like family. The next day, one of my dearest teachers and role models gave birth to a son. Marking both kinds of passages so close to one another was a roller coaster of emotions, but also helped me see how these two people were perfect examples of that third week of Tiferet—a word that means "beauty" and describes a quality combining strength and compassion. If only I had a whole week to contemplate the fullness of those traits, as the Omer intended; one day between the coming and going of these particular souls was not enough. I'm still exhausted.

Thursday, the day I found out I might be a PBSC donor, was the 29th day of the Omer, Hesed of Hod, Lovingkindness in Humility:

... Hod or humility is modesty—it is acknowledgment (from the root of the Hebrew word 'hoda'ah'). It is saying "thank you" to G-d. It is clearly recognizing your qualities and strengths and acknowledging that they are not your own; they were given to you by G-d for a higher purpose than just satisfying your own needs. Humility is modesty; it is recognizing how small you are which allows you to realize how large you can become. And that makes humility so formidable....

... Does my humility cause me to be more loving and giving? More expansive? Or does it inhibit and constrain me?
— from meaningfullife.com

In other words (I think), if I do end up being a donor, I need to thank God for the ability to give but also remember to take credit for my own actions: joining the registry, saying yes, I'll do it. If I don't recognize myself, as well, I will be diminishing this gift.

(There are way too many lessons to learn! Sometimes it seems dangerous to even blink while in the vicinity of a holy book for fear of missing the one word that might change your life...)

Meanwhile, I'm discovering more collected wisdom from others who have donated marrow/PBSC and decided to share their experiences:

Kylie's Adventure with PBSC Donation

A Quick View of PBSC/Marrow Donation

PBSC Donation Writeup

How I Met My Match: A Donor Story

918. Perfection

2010-05-02T09:48:00.002-04:00

We study Torah to understand Rashi, remarked the rabbi at services on Friday night, and not the other way around. We don't live in a black and white world; midrash helps us interpret daily life, and does indeed count as much as the original text. This week's parasha, Emor, for example, says that the high priest must be perfect in every way. Does this mean that those with disabilities are forever flawed, less than holy? What about the rest of us? So we can choose to interpret Emor as fundamentalists, text to be rejected wholly or observed blindly. Or we can see it as a challenge from God: look beyond the surface, discover how to connect words of Torah to the realities of here and now.

"What's the text of your life?" is an awfully heavy question, added the rabbi, and we can spend our entire lives searching for the answer. But "What's the midrash for today?"—that's a little more manageable. Think about the context and meaning of your actions, he suggested, and if they don't ring honest and true—discover a new midrash.

I sat speechless for a few seconds after he said that, as if cold water had been splashed in my face: wake up! We can try to steer and influence, but so much that happens in our lives—health, world events, love—is out of our control. And how we respond to these events is up to each one of us alone, and no one else.

On Thursday I learned that I am indeed a perfect match to be a bone marrow donor to a perfect stranger, a woman in her 50s. As proof that God really does have a sense of humor, and good timing, I got the news in a voicemail message left on my phone at the exact same instant as I was having blood drawn at my doctor's office during a routine checkup. (As the events at Sinai demonstrated, important pieces of information are most effectively delivered with special effects.) I heard the phone buzz and for a second thought—as I had every time over the past month and a half when seeing caller ID from this particular area code—is this it? "It," I already decided, was no. The odds were too high (about 1:20,000), and how chutzpadik to assume I was perfect? Besides, I didn't want to get all excited and then be disappointed.

But then I stood on a windy street corner and called back, and heard yes. I was both surprised and not; I guess a little part of me concluded all along that I'd be the one. On Friday I received a big FedEx box containing a million papers to read and sign and a DVD explaining the procedure, an oddly charming glorified filmstrip complete with earnest doctor lacking acting ability as narrator.

If all goes well and I pass the physical, I'll be donating PBSCs, peripheral blood stem cells. They carry the ability to generate new blood cells, and until recently could only be harvested from bone marrow, a surgical procedure involving pain and a hospital stay. A newer method, still experimental but now the most common way to donate, allows these cells to be extracted from circulating ("peripheral") blood. For five days the donor is injected with filgrastim, a drug to stimulate PBSC growth, and then undergoes a procedure where all the blood in one's body—at least twice over—is filtered to remove stem cells, and then returned. Out one arm and in the other.

Assuming I do pass the physical, the procedure won't take place until July or later because of a drug trial the recipient is on. In the meantime, she has to stay both sick and healthy enough to make a transplant appropriate, a scary balancing act.

So it still might not happen. What's my midrash for today, in that case? How can I understand this accident of my birth and tissue type that might allow me to save a life—or watch God dangle the possibility so closely but then take it away? What if I donate and the recipient still dies? (A little knowledge, especially gleaned from the Internet, is a dangerous thing; last night I read that transplants often fail for people with this woman's condition. But it wouldn't take place unless there was some chance of success, right?)

A friend pointed out that no matter what, whether or not the process goes any further, I've given someone hope. Maybe that's the best blood of life, and the real definition of perfection.

917. Taking down the dishes

2010-04-11T17:11:00.002-04:00

A few more thoughts about Pesah, even though we're well on the way across the desert to Sinai. This year I didn't take down the dishes, since I wasn't hosting a seder and planned to have many meals at friends' homes (I used paper and plastic instead). When I was a kid, it was "take up the dishes." They hibernated, in cardboard boxes wrapped with crumbling twine, in a locked basement storage room along with ancient bicycles and patient, empty armoires, and every year were liberated the day before the holiday by Norris, the porter. Norris looked like Chief Bromden in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next," although was slightly more verbal—but not much. He had arms like trees, and would lift the boxes into the elevator as if they were made of feathers. Once upstairs, the boxes would sit on the kitchen floor for hours as my mother painstakingly replaced shelves full of soon to-be-treyf coral-colored china with acceptably kosher plates and bowls that looked exactly the same, but with fewer scratches and chips. (I always wondered why we didn't have two sets of dishes in different colors, but never asked. And, in fact, the chip and scratch situation made them quite distinct.)

After lunch on the eighth day (our particular minhag was to resume hametz well before sundown; maybe my father was pretending to be Israeli or Reform, or just disliked matzah as much as I do), the ritual would be reversed, and the cartons parked in the exact same rectangular oasis amidst a sea of dust until next year.

These days my Pesah dishes, kosher in spirit more than halakha (since I've served food on them that, although hametz-free, wasn't prepared in a strictly k for p kitchen), live in funky little aluminum boxes from Ikea that reside in the space between the top of my kitchen cabinets and the ceiling. So now I have to say "take down the dishes" instead of "take up."

I wish I could find a low spot for them, though, in order to revert to the old phrase. "Take up" suggests aliyah, as if the dishes themselves had to make their own harrowing journey and spiritual ascent just like the Israelites.

916. Family

2010-04-11T09:51:00.001-04:00

Finally recovering from matzah (I really do NOT like it, even when camouflaged by chocolate or tomato sauce.) A little belatedly, hoping everyone's seders were fun, meaningful, and delicious. Mine were just about perfect. I spent one night with a friend who kept us learning and questioning—why are there four questions, and not three or five? and why did those rabbis stay up all night discussing them?—helping me see the holiday with fresh eyes, as required. The second night, like almost every Pesah since college, was with old friends, and this year was the best of all (even though I say that every time). Our lives are now very different from one another—some of us are married, some not, some are happy, some not, some have kids (in college! how is that possible?), others don't. But we first met when we were unformed people, a strong bond. There's nothing intellectual about this seder, which consists of a zippy, marginally reflective English reading of every single word in the haggadah punctuated by groan-worthy but highly anticipated jokes that have been uttered, year after year, at the exact same places in the text. We're not very close friends, and sometimes I get jealous after hearing stories of large, loving families and wonder what my life would be like if it happened to have taken that path. But then I give myself a virtual slap and across the cheek like Cher to Nicolas Cage in "Moonstruck"—this is my family. Just one of my families, to be specific, along with the one actually related to me, and all my other communities of friends.

This is freedom—being able to move between two completely different and wonderful kinds of seders, friends, relatives. You can't get much luckier than that, despite the matzah.

915. The Sandpit

2010-03-28T13:29:00.003-04:00

Speaking of dismal places in New York, most of them are not. This is a brilliant animation that captures the soul of New York, the light and life that emerges even in the most ordinary of city places:

The Sandpit

914. Why

2010-03-28T13:26:00.002-04:00

In college we had a joke that the definition of the word "anticlimax" should be the Yale school song, "Bright College Years," which ends:

"... for God, for country, and for Yale!"

I have a better definition now: my trip to the lab last Monday for blood tests that will determine if I can get to the next stage of being a possible bone marrow donor. I barely slept on Sunday night. It made no sense, I know; this isn't a competition, the result will have no impact on my health, and it's just a few vials of blood. Ordinary. But symbolically it felt like a whole lot more.

The lab, a small room in an E. Side office building, was rather dismal. The staff consisted of one woman doing double duty as office manager and phlebotomist who seemed to move at the speed of light from shuttling people in and out of the crowded waiting room to staring, Zen-like, at everyone else who complained about the wait. "They told me to be here at 8! It's now 9! Harummph!" I had put an "away" message on my email, so reminded myself that I was in no rush even as the minutes ticked away.

Finally it was my turn. "Is this your first time here?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered, bending over the counter so I could lower my voice. Because there was no buffer zone at all between the Front Desk of Inquisition and the rest of the waiting room, we had spent the morning inadvertently learning about the medical conditions of all our fellow patients. Although I was proud to be a possible bone marrow donor, I didn't think it was anyone else's business.

"Bone marrow test? Did they send you a package? Oh, wait, here it is!" she yelled from under the desk, loud enough to be heard in New Jersey. "Room 2."

Room 2 was the size of a closet. I sat down and she opened the FedEdx box, extracted a stack of documents and vials wrapped in bubble wrap, and gave me a form to sign. I didn't even feel the needle go in, and suddenly five vials were filled and shoved back into the box. She handed me an envelope with my name and "Thank you! [smiley face]" written on the front. Inside was a brochure reiterating much of what I had learned online (minuscule odds of being chosen, up to two months before you'll hear back, etc.).

And that was it. I walked out into the rain back to the bus stop, and attempted to put it out of my mind. (But I was reminded again this morning when I noticed a nasty bruise in the crook of my arm.)

At services this Shabbat the rabbi spoke about questions. Not just once but twice is Passover described in the Torah as a day when children ask, and parents must explain. It doesn't say "if your child asks" but "when": questioning is an integral, essential part of Judaism. Yet with regard to my possible donation, there is little point in asking why my tissue type might match some stranger's, because there's no answer; the situation just is. The image of God I imagine in this case is like a parent: "Because I said so."

Or maybe we're all asking "why" and petitioning God constantly, like the Israelites pleading for freedom, only we don't know it. God hears our unspoken desires to connect, to fulfill our purpose as human beings by reaching out to other human beings, and figures out clever ways to make this happen even when we're not paying attention.

913. Preliminaries

2010-03-21T18:20:00.005-04:00

Another thought about this potential bone marrow donor thing. I don't think I fully conveyed, in my last post, my overwhelming feeling of surreality (is that a word?). Perhaps if the woman from the registry had sounded a little more excited, or used the phrase "earth-shattering odds"—but judging by the tone of her voice, I might as well have won free dry-cleaning. Her affect did not match the content of her words. I hung up the phone and yearned for Superman to burst in through a window and repeat the message.

I realized, later on, that I'm used to sudden bad news. I've had a lot more experience with it. The phone call about an unpromising lab test, or a death—I know, as do most adults, that feeling of being punched in the stomach, robbed of breath. I understand the recovery time involved, during which you live in a world devoid of color or music where everything is muffled, grey.

Bad news arrives quickly more than it grows into being. Even situations that devolve over a long slide, starting out bleak and ending up dire, usually feature one moment when the bottom seems to fall out entirely. One second there's hope; then it's gone. The length of time in which hope is nurtured doesn't necessarily make it any more true or enduring.

But joy takes its time. Rarely does true love appear at first sight. Birth requires pregnancy; marriage, engagement. Great happiness generally grows out of many instances of smaller happiness, and they add up until one day you realize that things are really wonderful. Even the suddenness of winning the lottery usually comes after many failed attempts. I guess the preliminaries to joy aren't always all happy—but there are still preliminaries. Joy does not generally sneak up.

So I think that's why this potential bone marrow thing has been so disarming, in the best possible way. One minute I was a normal person, and the next—a normal person who might be able to save a life. I feel completely unworthy of this honor, which I know makes no sense. We are all our brothers' and sisters' keepers.

I know that my body is on loan from God for the duration of my life. I hope and pray that maybe God will decide to use part of it for this purpose—and if not mine, than a part from one of God's other works of art.

912. Choice

2010-03-21T14:08:00.005-04:00

It's been awhile, but I'm still here (and chanting). I've been doing a lot of writing, but not here—mostly for my great class, which is now over for the semester, alas. If you hear about a day with more hours in it, please send it my way.

Meanwhile, I got a phone call on Wednesday afternoon. "You registered with the National Marrow Donor Program in 1999," said the woman on the other end. "We'd like you to know that you matched to be a bone marrow donor," she continued in a cheery, customer-servicey voice, as if she had a long list of people to call and tell potentially life-changing news.

In 1999 I had just joined my synagogue, and knew only a handful of people. A member urgently needed a bone marrow transplant, and a drive was organized. The rabbis exhorted us over and over from the bima to take part. I had never paid much attention to that sort of thing; I was pretty self-centered, but was beginning to learn what it really meant to be part of a community, to step up and do my part. So, with no small measure of self-congratulation, I showed up one evening and got my cheek swabbed. I remember that part clearly, because I struck up a conversation with the woman who took all my info. I asked if she was a member. Yes, she answered, and told me her name; she was the wife of the former rabbi, and I was very embarrassed not to have recognized her. She laughed—you're new, no big deal! A pleasure to meet you. Is everyone here so nice and gracious? I wondered.

For a few years I got an occasional newsletter in the mail from the registry, but that stopped after awhile and I completely forgot about it—until the call on Wednesday. I was utterly shocked and ecstatic, but don't yet know if I can donate; blood tests tomorrow will determine the answer. The odds of a non-family-member getting to this stage are about 1 in 20,000, and for those matches, 1 in 12. According to the NMDP website, www.marrow.org, most donors match with a number of people at first, but further tests are needed to find the best choice.

At services on Friday night, the rabbi spoke about the difference between Pesah and the Yamim Norai'im. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we choose God; we pray that God recognizes this. On Pesah, however, God chooses us. As we commemorate the time when God led us to freedom, we're reminded that God also gave us the strength to lead ourselves out of many other kinds of mitzrayim, narrow places. But we don't always see that we have this choice. First we need to open our eyes, and then decide to take action.

Whether or not I make it to the donor finish line (I many not hear for months), I think this amazing event is a reminder from above that I have the power, and choice, to do my part to help others out of mitzrayim, as well—through tzedakah, kindness, awareness that we all share space on this earth and need to look out for one another. On Shabbat morning, the rabbi connected the sacrifices described in Leviticus, which we began to read last week, to the current drive to live lives closer to the earth (i.e., The Omnivore's Dilemma). Behind either task is the desire to become more integrated, whether by joining the act of worship to the animals and objects that surrounded the Israelites on a daily basis, or joining the business of daily life (holy, in its own way) to the earth that nourishes us. Both, ultimately, help connect us to one another. Everyone was required to bring sacrifes to the Temple; no one person alone could fulfill the commandment. And if you want to become a locavore, you need the help of a nearby farmer and CSA.

Fulfilling either mitzvah requires cooperating with and helping your neighbor. Being a potential bone marrow donor is the same. The more people who choose to join the registry mean a greater chance that someone's life will be saved—and it is no sacrifice at all to join.

(Meanwhile, I don't know how I'll be able to concentrate on anything at all until I find out whether or not I can donate.)

911. Socialite

2010-02-21T13:25:00.002-05:00

One of the reasons I haven't written much these past few weeks is, quite simply, social media overload. It had begun to feel like a big anvil hanging over my head. It takes an inordinate amount of time and energy to read all those blogs, Tweets, Facebook status reports, and constant musings of the interesting people on the bulletin board where I've been a member since the beginning of time—not to mention adding some of my own deathless prose to the mix. Oh, and in the middle of it all, earning a living and interacting with people in the actual flesh. (And having time left over to learn to chant some Torah, as well.) But I'm not one of those who can walk away from the noise and become a modified Luddite; it's all much too interesting and, besides, my job depends on knowing about this alternate dimension we now must inhabit.

So I'm trying a different solution: Socialite, a Mac-native (hurrah!) application that consolidates my Twitter, Facebook, and Google Reader feeds into on small, elegant interface. (Goodbye, Bloglines; you were great all these years, but Socialite doesn't support you.) I've read warnings about its tendency to crash and hog memory, but so far it's been working just great. I know it doesn't take much time to open a few different sites, but something about having every single word gathered in one place makes the whole experience much less daunting, and faster.

Who knows, maybe I'll change my song after living with Socialite for a few more weeks. But for now—well, I'm here, and and glad to be writing and reading.

910. Dark and swirling

2010-02-21T12:55:00.002-05:00

Written in my writing class a few weeks ago:

----

The day after graduating from college, I got on a plane with 62 other members of the choir and flew to Europe for the very first time. I was in a state of constant amazement, photos in books suddenly concrete, strange food and languages everywhere. I barely slept or ate as we sat on a bus for hours in between singing Bach or football songs in great cathedrals or quaint Italian town squares. But even though we were 22 years old and indomitable, we were still human—and finally, one day, an evil flu crept through the double-decker bus and attacked us one by one. It hit me in Venice, around which I stumbled in a dreamy 102° fog.

Our next stop was Zurich. My desire to photograph every monument and painting in Europe with my little Instamatic camera was quickly fading. One afternoon, burning with fever, I got some communal petty cash from the tour leader, told no one where I was going, and asked around on the street in halting German where I might find a doctor. I was directed to the emergency room of a hospital just a few blocks away. I walked in, filled out some forms, and took a seat in the waiting room.

But just as they got up to me, chaos—a dozen gurneys rolled in covered with bleeding, crying people, until the ER looked, through my fever haze, liked one of the circles of Hell. A plane had crashed; another made an emergency landing. One by one they passed by, as I sat for hours.

Finally it was my turn. By then, just by virtue of sitting still, I was starting to feel much better. I was led into a cubicle, and the doctor began to speak in Swiss-German; I didn't understand a word. Finally he resorted to pantomime. He started pulling off his sweater, pointing to mine.

"Take yourself apart," he said, in halting English. I was suddenly very relieved, and very glad to take myself apart.

----

(These ten-minute in-class writing exercises are incredibly hard, and invaluable. I hadn't thought about this experience in about 25 years until‚ after a discussion of "bein has'mashot," the in-between places, in the story of Jonah, the teacher gave us a list of writing prompts including the "the dark and swirling world around me.")

909. Cats, jaded

2010-02-21T12:13:00.002-05:00

I love Verlyn Klinkenborg. In addition to loving his name, and the very fact that there are people in the world with great names like his, I admire his ability to capture moments and scenes with the precision of a camera and expression of a painting, but in words. I want to write like him. His adventures are completely unlike mine—I'm a city person with no experience of the exotic life among trees or nature—but do know cats very well, and so particularly appreciated this piece:

Behind the House

An excerpt:

"I stand back from the windows, hoping to remain undetected, but at least one of the cats — a gray and white — has found me out. It sits watching me as though it has never seen a writer in its habitat before. Then it walks away, jaded."

908. I'm back, and more minyans

2010-02-21T12:01:00.001-05:00

Yes, it's been awhile. I think I exhausted myself in January, between all that blogging and writing for my class (to paraphrase Barbie, writing is hard!), but hope to resume at a saner pace.

There were an awful lot of deaths in my synagogue community these past few weeks, which always seems to happen during the cold winter months. Someone suggested that it's also because people nearing the ends of their lives try to hold on until the new year. I like to believe this is true, and that we can influence our fate, and God's will, in that way. In either case, it means I've been very busy as a volunteer shiva minyan leader. One night I led for a member of my havurah who lost her father after a long illness, an evening of funny, moving stories and the warmth of a room filled with people who knew and loved one another. We were friends, relaxed, and so I could breathe while immersed in the sadness.

Last week, a very different scenario. The apartment was packed, a father, mother, 40 or 50 other shell-shocked, smiling people: the young man, their son, brother, friend, had committed suicide. I knew neither the family nor circumstances and spent the day very nervous about walking into this house of shiva, afraid I'd say the wrong thing or respond inappropriately to a completely unimaginable kind of grief. In an attempt to quantify a wholly incomprehensible situation, I envisioned some kind of black pit of swirling despair. Then I thought about the wise and eloquent words of Gannett Girl following her son's death, as well as how my infinitely sensitive and compassionate rabbis might react, and realized that I needed to say very little, and just be as present as possible.

It was fine. They were people just like the rest of us, broken on the inside but still standing. The son and father wept during the prayers; the mother stood frozen. They shared stories about a caring, smart man with many friends; the mother asked if people could send photos and web pages they knew were out there, but never needed to find before. We sang "Esa Einai," Psalm 121 ("From where does my help come?") at the end; I watched the father close his eyes and sway gently, and was relieved that I correctly judged that music would be bearable.

Afterwards I came home and collapsed into an unconscious sleep, utterly exhausted. I'm in awe of how rabbis and others who provide this kind of support during impossible situations can do it on a regular basis without losing their minds.

907. Wanted: One Golem

2010-02-02T23:45:00.004-05:00

Alas, the original post has been flagged for removal (maybe they found what they were looking for), but hat tip to both Chaviva and Memoirs of a Jewminicana for pointing out this brilliant Craigslist ad:

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Looking for Rabbi Versed in DARK TALMUDIC ARTS to create GOLEM. (Astoria, NY)

WANTED:
One Rabbi versed in the Dark Talmudic Arts to create one Golem for household of three. Golem will perform rudimentary household chores such as dishes & sweeping, basic Math Tutoring for our daughter in 3rd grade and basic household security. Golem must be obedient and fairly unobtrusive on our every-day lives.

We will supply all materials needed (clay, twigs, calfskin parchment, etc) needed to create the Golem. All you need to do is use your magical ancient Rabbinic skills to animate said Golem!

Please note! We are looking for a Rabbi to create a Golem: an anthropomorphic being created from intimate matter from Jewish folk-lore, NOT Gollum: a former Hobbit turned into monster and looking for "precious". This is important! We have no interest in living with Gollum. We want a Golem. Please respond, serious inquiry only.

Location: Astoria, NY
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Compensation: no pay

------

I could use one of these, if only to help with the vaccuming. I hate to vacuum.

906. Queens

2010-02-01T23:09:00.000-05:00

Two paragraphs from a piece I just wrote for my writing class (not really about chanting or religion, but I hope God is in the details, even the unsavory ones):

---
... We lived in similar six-story red brick apartment buildings, separated by five blocks of sari stores with incongruously Caucasian mannequins in their windows dressed in flowing crimson and gold silks; 24-karat gold jewelry emporia wedged into the alleyways between discount electronics outlets; and a Halal butcher shop with upside-down goat carcasses and a sign that read: "Fax: 426-MEAT."

... We grew up in the boroughs of the 70s, he in Brooklyn and me just left of Shea Stadium, an era when sunset meant that you had to clasp your purse to your chest and race the block home from the bus stop. Our parents' generation began to retire to Florida, and soon various unsavory types moved in who discovered that the holdouts who couldn't afford to leave were easy marks. By the time I finished high school, I had been relieved of my allowance at the public library, my leather jacket in the elevator of our heavily-alarmed apartment building and, just like my mother, my wallet on the bus. She earned a back eye in the process; all I got was some creepy guy who found my address book, called our home, and threatened to hurt all my friends. I didn't go to school for a few days after that, then shrugged and rejoined life.

905. Quest

2010-01-31T20:58:00.004-05:00

Next week I'm starting to take a class about a most amazing book: Abraham Joshua Heschel's Man's Quest for God. (Between that and my writing class, who knows how I'll find time to write here. But I will, even if I have to cram like I did today in order to achieve my pointless but satisfying goal of one post in honor of every day of January. Which I doubt I'll do again in February. Still, it's a good kind of cramming.) I've had the book for awhile, and have read a few pages here and there, most notably following a suggestion of one of my rabbis. I'm taking the class because I need to figure out prayer a little better. I love to do it, and want to do more of it, but I'm not sure why—and this is confusing to me. If anyone can shed light on the question, it's Heschel.

Even though I haven't yet finished the whole book, I know this passage will remain my favorite, just as it was in 2005:

"To pray is to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live. Who is worthy to be present at the constant unfolding of time? Amidst the meditation of mountains, the humility of flowers--wiser than all alphabets--clouds that die constantly for the sake of God's glory, we are hating, hunting, hurting. Suddenly we feel ashamed of our clashes and complaints in the face of the tacit glory in nature. It is so embarrassing to live! Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, for the gift of our unearned right to serve, to adore, and to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great."

904. Liturgy online

2010-01-31T20:34:00.003-05:00

An article about some excellent sites out there to help us learn liturgy (and the author's hopes and plans for one grander than all of these combined):

Niggun Please: Jewish Liturgical Music Database

903. Ready

2010-01-31T20:24:00.003-05:00

This past Shabbat the Israelites finally crossed the Sea of Reeds, as I mentioned a few days ago, and at services the rabbi wondered why God made them take the long way around. Forty years is an awfully long detour. Commentators say it's because God wanted us to learn patience—there's a right time for everything, and we can't rush it. We do what we need to do when we're ready to do it, and must grow in order to get there. God knew the Israelites needed forty years before they'd stop kvetching and be ready for a new life.

I'm in the midst of trying to stop procrastinating about a few big things, and so found the rabbi's words comforting. I really want to do those things, and know I will, but sometimes get angry at myself for taking so long. That doesn't help one bit. I need to take a deep breath, remember to like myself, and concentrate on how good I'll feel when I achieve my goal.

But there will come a point when I need to say, this is it: go. Parashat Beshalah teaches us that lesson, as well:

Our sages point to an interesting fact. The miracle didn't happen until the first person jumped into the water. Why didn't G-d perform the miracle before he jumped in? To teach us that at times G-d waits for us to do our part; to take that leap of faith and then G-d does His part.
— From TorahFax

902. Cold January

2010-01-31T19:48:00.005-05:00

I walked through Times Square and onto a side street lined with old walkups, trendy Asian restaurants, and some street people with overstuffed shopping bags who looked like costumed extras. A white brick apartment building with a nondescript lobby stood at the end of the block, its lack of character in stark contrast to the garishly lit theaters just a few minutes away. Upstairs the small apartment was packed with loud, laughing people; at first I thought I had the wrong address, and this couldn't possibly be a house of shiva. There were knickknacks from world travels lining the shelves of a big breakfront, and photos of exotic locales on the walls. Even before I met the person who lived here, I could tell that she knew how to have a good life. On the corner of the dining room table sat a photo in a silver frame of a woman with grey, upswept 50s-style hair wearing a smile that at once looked satisfied, patrician, and very kind.

I didn't know the woman who lived here—the knickknack collector and daughter of the smile in the photo—but she recognized me, and we sat down to talk for few minutes before I began the minyan. I lead services occasionally but certainly do not have, or ever pretend to have, the skills of someone in a pastoral role. But although mourners at a minyan know I am not even one ten-thousandth of a rabbi, the fact that I am about to stand in front seems to make me very approachable. I take this inadvertent responsibility seriously; when, right before we begin the service, I ask the son or daughter how she's doing, and the answer comes in waves with silent tears as everyone else is shmoozing and waiting to start, I listen with all my soul for as long as needed. This evening the daughter told me, in the space of just a few minutes, how her mother was "one of the last heroes," a rescued child of the Holocaust who survived even as hundreds of others in the transport did not. How, her family's wealth decimated, her appearance and actions resonated with elegance and refinement even as they struggled in poverty. And how her mother demanded the highest standards from those around her, but always with love and a warm smile. There were no other siblings; the daughter explained that her friends filled this role, and that she wouldn't have survived the ordeal of her mother's illness but for their support. I suddenly thought of myself, and all the losses I experienced at a young age, and realized how fortunate I was to have so many relationships as deep and enduring as the ones this woman described.

There's always time during a shiva minyan to share stories of the deceased, but those friends chose to talk about the daughter instead—how lucky her mother had been to have such a child. Their pride filled the room like sunlight on this freezing January night, helping melt sorrow for a few minutes. The daughter thanked me profusely when it was over, and apologized for being in a hurry—she had to start packing for after shiva ended, when she planned to travel out west and to Europe to heal and continue to live the life of quirky knickknacks and vivid photos that her mother taught her to live.

901. Trees

2010-01-31T18:20:00.002-05:00

This weekend I attended not one, but two Tu Bishvat seders. I'd been to just one underwhelming one before this, where I got very bored discussing the mystical meaning of nuts and berries. It didn't make much more sense to me than drawing pictures of trees when I was in Hebrew school in an attempt to celebrate "Jewish Arbor Day." (I never understood the the American version of Arbor Day, either.) Recent additional rainforest- and global warming-related content only helped me feel guiltier.

This weekend I began to understand. While acknowledging that the holiday was extremely minor compared to others in the Jewish year, the rabbi pointed out how important trees were to our story. They're singled out in the story of creation, and figure prominently in the event that got us banished from Eden; we wouldn't be here (theologically speaking) if not for trees. We call the Torah "the Tree of Life" and, as this beautiful article on the Tel Shemesh site explains, they're a recurring motif in the Psalms.

But I'm a city person. There are little, skinny trees all over the streets of New York, and much bigger ones in the park where I love to run—great green umbrellas that completely disguise the fact that I live in the middle of concrete—and some individual trees have been sources of beauty and comfort in my life. I am angered and distressed at all of us and our governments for killing them slowly, and ourselves in the process. But they are not omnipresent for me; I can go days without seeing a tree. (Unlike one of my college roommates, an ornithologist specializing in birds of the Costa Rican rainforest. She spends months at a time living under the canopy, studying the inhabitants of each level of green.) Trees are on my mind but not so much, I am sad to say, in my heart.

In both seders this weekend we focused on the Kabbalistic tradition of the seder that assigns to each ritual food—all fruits of trees—a contemporary interpretation of the "four worlds" (too complex to sum up in a few words, but basically steps in the path that takes us from intention through the physical world of action, and finally to the highest, holiest state where we can realize our potential). First we eat a nut with a hard shell, to symbolize the barriers we tend to place between our true nature and the face we show the world. Next, a food like the apricot with a hard center surrounded by softness, representing the ability to let down our guard and become vulnerable. And finally we eat figs and raisins, fruits that are naked and whole, a symbol of the most honest selves to which we aspire. We had lots to drink at these seders, too (especially on Friday, accompanied by loud and happy zemirot), white wine at first, with drops of red added throughout the evening until the color in the cup was solid and definite.

So maybe trees and I have a relationship like Judy Collins and clouds:

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It's cloud's illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all
—"Both Sides Now"

But Tu Bishvat this year help me understand the illusion a little better, and become aware of the mirror that trees and their fruit hold up to my own life.

900. You don't look a day over four

2010-01-29T00:01:00.001-05:00

Happy anniversary to me! Wow. When I wrote this first post on January 29, 2005, I never imagined I'd last five years, let alone 900 posts. My life isn't very different than it was back then—still waiting for the guy to call, still trying to pay the bills—but my voice is, in terms of writing as well as chanting. I'm slowing finding the courage to say and sing in new, more honest ways, and the seeds of that confidence began here, with some tentative words and no idea where they'd lead. And with the help of a small but steady bunch of readers who (much to my shock) actually want to hear what I have to say. Thank you, and (assuming the Internet still exists) onward to the next five.

And Shabbat Shalom!

899. By hand

2010-01-28T23:01:00.004-05:00

Oy, things are getting busy again, which is good (in terms of my bank account) and bad (in terms of staying sane). Until I have a few more seconds to write, here's a new kind of Torah for the 21st century—and an interesting interpretation of the mitzvah of participating in the writing of a Torah:

People's Torah

From the site:

"Every Torah has exactly 304,805 Hebrew letters, and it is said that each of these letters corresponds to a soul So, too, People's Torah will have 304,805 Hebrew letters. Each letter will correspond to an individual and be rendered from (and image of) that individual's hand."

898. Moses

2010-01-26T21:21:00.004-05:00

Speaking of Parashat Beshalah, Moses is coming down from the mountain tomorrow.

OK, not really. But according to Business Week, Steve Jobs' wildly anticipated announcement this coming Wednesday of a new kind of tablet computer (tablet, get it?) is prophetic and threatens to change life as we know it. Or something like that:

The Tablet as Totem: Is Steve Jobs Our Moses?

I am the world's biggest iPhone fan, and probably more people will be at the foot of our moden-day Sinai, aka the Internet, than at the original one* to hear this announcement, but I don't think we'll be adding a Sixth Book of Jobs any day soon. (And, despite any phenomenal numbers of tablet sales, the symbolism of the apple in the Torah will still be pretty negative. Sorry, Steve.)

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* That is, without adding in all those other Jews who ever existed or will exist, traditionally also at the mountain that day (a concept that terrified me as a child—even more crowded than the subway at rush hour!).

897. Freedom

2010-01-26T20:27:00.008-05:00

Every Shabbat, at the end of the Torah reading and before the chanting of the haftarah, there's a ritual called hagba (lifting). Someone (preferably someone strong) is given the honor of raising the scroll by its atzei hayim, the poles to which the parchment is attached, and holding it up as high as possible so all members of the congregation can see what's written. If he or she has any energy left (in my synagogue this person is sometimes a woman, of whom I'm in awe; the scroll weighs as much as a small person), she will also turn from side to side so that even those way off to the side can see it. The congregation, in response, lifts the edges of our tallitot to the scroll as we point at it with pinky fingers, a mysterious old tradition (see here).

The best part about hagba, though, is looking at those words. Even if I've just been up at the bima to read them, I'm always amazed by the sight of a whole army of columns waving in the air at perfect attention.

This past Shabbat I looked up at the scroll during the moment of hagba and saw something even better: the future. Next week during Parashat Beshalah we read Shirat Hayam, sung by the Israelites as the waters began to part. Written like bricks in a wall, it's unmistakable amidst the sea of letters in the Sefer Torah:

(From Navigating the Bible.)

Last Shabbat the Israelites were in Egypt. But here was proof, in the wide, unrolled scroll like a flag above our heads, that by next week—each word and person supported by the others—they would find freedom.

896. Prayer

2010-01-24T23:57:00.001-05:00

Here's another interesting link I've been meaning to post since October:

Why Jews Pray

Why does anyone pray? asks Rabbi Ben Greenberg, the author of the article:

"... Prayer is arguably the most fundamental, intimate, and unique element of a life of faith. ... Prayer is the vehicle by which sages of any religion put to words their deepest hopes and visions for all of humanity. "

There is, of course, a rabbinic debate as to why Jews in particular do this:

"... On the one hand, as expressed by Maimonides, praying daily is of fundamental importance. One can speculate a myriad of reasons why this would be so. On the other hand, however, prayer is only necessary when the community is faced with a tremendous difficulty and needs to turn to God and cry out for help in that very moment."

Heschel says it best (from Man in Search of God):

"As a tree is torn from the soil, as a river is separated from its source, the human soul wanes when detached from what is greater than itself. Without the holy, the good turns chaotic; without the good, beauty becomes accidental. ... Unless we aspire to the utmost, we shrink to inferiority. ...

Prayer is our attachment to the utmost."

"These goals are so awesome in scope," concludes Greenberg, "so radical in what they propose, that any adherent to Judaism could easily be left paralyzed into inaction at just pondering the aims of their faith."

I agree—prayer can seem like an overwhelming task. Not even he greatest sages of our tradition could agree on why we do it and Heschel's answer, although brilliant and true, lacks instructions. I think prayer is like Justice Potter Stewart's definition of pornography: you know it when you see it (or feel it in your bones or soul). But how exactly does reciting words over and over change into a connection to something great and undefinable?

The first time I really prayed accompanied a moment of great understanding. I'm not sure what came first, the praying or the opening of the door, but do know that I've had few, if any, grand revelations since then. Yet I'm still able to jump into that stream of prayer, the feeling of touching something like the root of a tree or the reason behind beauty. I've never surfed, but imagine that watching the approach of a wave and then diving in and flying above it must not be all that different from prayer. I leave the shore, the dry sand of ordinary life, and climb up until I reach the crest of something nourishing and endless like water. As with any kind of exertion, I need to warm up first; it's easier when I'm with others who have the same purpose. The familiar sounds of the prayers—not their meaning, but the repetitive rhythm and music of the words—give me energy to swim out to sea.

I pray, I jump into that water not knowing what awaits, because I'm afraid I'll die of thirst without it. Prayer is now essential in my life; I can't imagine feeling safe and at home in the universe without those moments of pause and connection.

Maybe prayer is just mediation, learning how to tune out noise and focus on what's essential. But I think that's God, too—what remains after everything else is gone.

895. Amazing

2010-01-21T08:31:00.001-05:00

I've posted before about how I really love my iPhone. Here's further proof that it's an amazing device (sorry for the commercial at the beginning):

iPhone Saves Life of Man Trapped Under Rubble in Haiti

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcmiami.com/video.

894. Shalshelet

2010-01-20T16:46:00.005-05:00

Three things I have not yet done in the course of my Torah chanting odyssey:

1. Chant the end of a book of the Torah and say "Hazah, hazak." (Just about every other adult who reads Torah at my synagogue has done this! I want to, as well, for no reason other than it would be cool. My timing seems to be lousy.)

2. Learn High Holy Day trope (I have too much stuff keeping me busy on days when one would chant this).

3. Chant a shalshelet, a rare, long, and baroquely ornate trope that appears just four times in the entire Torah. Here's what it sounds like, an entire song unto itself.

There was a shalshelet a few weeks ago in Pararshat Vayeshev, and a very smart friend noticed it was on the same word I chanted the following week, shalshelet-less: vayima'ein, "and he [Yosef, when tempted by the seductive advances of his master's wife] refused." We did some research in The Biggest Book Ever (aka Chanting the Hebrew Bible, by Joshua Jacobson), and learned that the trope name, which means "chain," probably—maybe—alludes to the long, drawn-out, waffling back and forth nature of the refusal. Jacobson's theory is that the purpose of trope is to clarify and support grammar, and secondary meanings are nice to speculate on but never a sure thing, so who knows.

Wikipedia led me to a fascinating paper about the shalshelet that analyzes each usage and ties them into a grand theory of struggle, confusion, and delay:

The Shalshelet: Mark Of Ambivelence

"The shalshelet arouses our attention at these four incidents," writes the author, Moise A. Navon, "which incisively illustrate the archetypal struggles which man must battle within himself."

This is what I love about Jewish learning: that meaning can be found in every detail, letter, sound, and sigh to help us become more self-aware and, in the process, a little better at repairing the world.

893. Antisocial Media

2010-01-20T13:11:00.008-05:00

So I've apparently been banned from Facebook. I've been a member for a few years, visit once or twice a week to see what friends are up to or track down someone from elementary school, maybe post a line about my state of mind. That's it. I neither play online games nor promote my business. I'm the most benign Facebook user ever.

Last week I got what looked like a suspicious email about the status of my account. I decided to change my password in response. Next time I logged in, I was informed that I'd been "disabled," the fate of those who violate Facebook's terms of service and post offensive material, spam other users, etc. All traces of me have now disappeared from Facebook—old messages, photos, you name it. It's as if I never existed. Repeated emails to Facebook elicited no response until I tried to contact them from an address other than my usual one. Then I got an automated reply: we'll get back to you.

Call me a pessimist, but I don't think they will.

Seems I'm not the only one enmeshed in this Kafka-esque scenario. I've found hundreds of similar complaints online, many posted just this month. Some suggested that friends write to Facebook on the banned person's behalf; I tried this, and my friends got emails back asking me write directly. (Gee, I never thought of that!) A few complaints were from columnists, people with known names; their accounts were restored within a few days, along with apologies from real human beings. I guess the rest of us don't count.

Facebook is fun, and has enhanced that quality of my life; I'll miss it, but can certainly live without it. Hey, it's free—what should I expect? Sure, my presence puts ad revenue in Facebook's pocket, but they don't owe me anything personally, right?

But they do. Facebook attracts users by creating community, something we all crave; by alienating and ignoring a member of that community, they are failing miserably on both a business and ethical level. An organization (or a state, social group, synagogue, church) must be judged by the way they treat their weakest members. Hire more customer service people to deal with complaints (Mr. Zuckerberg, you can certainly afford it), or issue a public statement about why accounts are disabled in error, and how to rectify the problem. (Hint: sending out an automated reply and never following up is not the answer.) They demand responsible users; they must be a responsible service provider in return. This isn't a new concept, and Rabbi Hillel said it best: "Do not unto others that which is hateful unto you." Facebook seems to be forgetting that the Internet is small enough that such lack of respect is noticed, and big enough to make room for the next big thing to take their place.

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UPDATE (hours after posting the above): Kvetching to the universe seems to have created some good karma. As mysteriously as they turned me into a non-person, Facebook just informed me (via a form letter, of course) that my account was restored. I'm happy to see it back, but will remain forever wary of investing too much of myself there or on any other social media platform that grows too big, too fast. It's community with a big asterisk.

892. Status

2010-01-18T10:10:00.002-05:00

This essay in Haaretz caught my eye:

Why rabbis sin

The author writes, in part:

" ... Across the Jewish world, one scandal followed another: corrupt and criminal activity among kosher slaughterers and kashrut supervisors, drug smuggling, theft and other illegal financial practices, racial discrimination, sexual abuse, some rabbis recorded demanding sex for conversions and others taking drugs and employing prostitutes. One after another, the headlines have reiterated a sad litany of corruption among Orthodox Jews, in many cases among their rabbinical leaders.

None of this is new ... I am tired of making excuses. Once I would argue that 2,000 years of oppression, hatred and exclusion had taught the Jews to do whatever they needed to survive. Or, I would note that much of Orthodox Jewry nowadays is barely a generation removed from life in an Eastern Europe where the state was an enemy and everyone had to break the rules in order to evade the discriminatory regimes. ... It may be true that every religion has a similar problem, but that's no excuse. I don't deny the goodness, charity and spirituality that do exist within Orthodoxy, but I am concerned about so many who let the side down, and an automatic tendency of authority to blame the messenger.

All closed groups behave this way, not only Orthodox Jews ..."

Yes. I read the article thinking not of Orthodoxy, his focus, but many aspects of the Jewish world at large. It doesn't matter how we choose to pray or observe; once we start to feel comfortable with our status—whether at the top of the heap, or righteously oppressed—we run the risk of becoming complacent, no longer fighting to change our own lives but rather trying to change everyone else's to fit neatly into ours. Life is one big Catch-22. You finally get where you want to be and discover that you're someone else, often someone not very nice, once you're there.

891. Guilt

2010-01-18T09:41:00.003-05:00

I had a horrible dream last night that I completely forgot about the second day of Rosh Hashanah. (But I had an excuse; it fell on Martin Luther King Day—it was REALLY early—and I assumed, in perfect dream-logic, that there could only one holiday a time.) As soon as I realized the truth, I ran around in a panic, yelling and screaming—who led the service? Would I be banished from the congregation? How could I ever atone?

I was enormously relieved to wake up and remember that today was only one holiday. I had been writing about guilt before I went to sleep, probably the reason for the dream, and also thinking about another al chet to add to the list come September. That visiting couple at the end of my row this Shabbat, the ones who were shocked by the appearance of the gospel choir, were also very annoying. They didn't say hello when I sat down (then again, neither did I, because I was annoyed they were sitting in MY part of the pew.) The man, clearly Jewishly knowledgeable, was unfamiliar with our siddur and tunes and spent much of the service flipping pages in grumbling confusion. When he did recognize something, however, he sang it really loud and fast, usually winning the race with the cantor and getting to the end first. I wanted to believe his zeal was spiritual, but could not help but imagine that he was trying to demonstrate, by mumbling at the highest possible decibel, how it really should be done. This man I didn't know from Adam, with his repeated, intrusive bursts of phrase fragments, started to represent all the reasons why I stayed away from Judaism for so many years. I began to hate his apparent closed-minded, self-congratulatory triumphalism—and then hate myself even more (al chet) for judging a complete stranger, on Shabbat no less. (Not just judging; making up an entire life story, complete with conflict, failure and ill-gotten gains.)

So I took many deep breaths and tried to grab onto some wisps of gemilut hasadim amidst the bad singing aimed at my left ear. I calmed down. And when I came back to my seat after chanting Torah, the man had a big smile on his face and held out his hand: "Yasher koah!" I realized that he looked just like most of my elderly relatives, who were pretty nice people beneath all the kvetching.

890. Chromosomes

2010-01-17T23:59:00.002-05:00

Thanks to my daily Google alert for the word "Judaism," here's a great blog post by an open-minded Orthodox rabbi (I don't mean to imply that these terms are oymorons, but sometimes they are, unfortunately) about the tendency of Judaism to look to the Matriarchs as role models for women, and the Patriarchs for men. But we all need to learn from all of these figures, no matter our respective genders:

The Sexing of Judaism's Founders

An excerpt:

" ... I am still disturbed by the implicit suggestion that Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov belong on one side of the mechitzah, and Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah are property of the women’s section. Do we really want to teach our children to emulate only those biblical figures who share their chromosomes? And where does that dichotomy leave people of more vague sexual identity?"

889. Rain

2010-01-17T23:30:00.003-05:00

Today was grey and cloudy, and I felt like I was suffocating while sitting in my apartment doing important apartment-type things. It seemed like a good time to go to the gym, but that was indoors as well. So I went running instead, in the rain. It had been quite awhile since I ran outside (although I've logged many miles on the elliptical machine, safe from the elements).

The bare trees against the sky above Riverside Park looked like black lace; it wasn't too cold at all. I chose Beethoven to blast through my earphones, the Appassionata, and when I reached Grant's Tomb suddenly understood that this music was about struggling with a decision—calm, at first, then frenzied, a tug of war that threatens to be melodramatic but is actually restrained and even mathematically precise, especially under Daniel Barenboim's fingers. It's obsessive music, but not so self-involved that joy and passion don't break through like the sudden breath you draw upon seeing the sun emerge from behind a big cloud. The sun didn't come out at all during my run, but the silver light of rain was just as bright as it bounced off puddles on Riverside Drive. I don't think a decision is reached at the end of the sonata, but rather acceptance of an unresolved world where beauty and turbulence vie for space, and finally agree to coexist.

888. Gospel

2010-01-17T21:47:00.003-05:00

So I was at a meeting with a bunch of people last week at the office of my synagogue. Suddenly one of the rabbis walked in.

"Are any of you going to be at services this Shabbat?" he asked.

I raised my hand, and looked around. No one else had their hands up.

"Are you sure?" asked the rabbi. "Are you reading [Torah]?"

"Yes," I answered, "so I'll definitely be there."

"Great," he said. "I have something for you to do. Come find me later." And then he left.

Very mysterious. We all shrugged and continued the meeting, and afterwards I knocked on his office door.

"Come in, come in. This is very important, and you can't tell anyone." And he proceeded to fill me in on the top-secret plan, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: a 40-voice gospel choir from a Harlem church was going to end the service with spirituals. (Kind of like in "Keeping the Faith," but without the Hebrew lyrics.) Not a soul would know about this until the choir actually got up in their seats and started singing—and my job (by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time), should I choose to accept it, was to help sneak them in.

Not accepting it wasn't an option—I'm not good at saying no to rabbis. Besides, it was cool. He gave me the instructions, and then gave them to me again later—and again and again, many more times over the next couple of days. He was a bit nervous, which I could understand. Unfortunately, he made me nervous, too. I didn't even want to imagine the guilt level that might result after screwing up a rabbi-imposed task. One unexpected side benefit, however, was that I didn't get at all nervous during my Torah reading about boils and cattle disease, which seemed easy compared to what I had to do immediately after grabbing my yad from the scroll.

(Although it wasn't as immediate as planned. The next reader came up to the bima when I finished, and she wasn't wearing a tallit. The gabbai, aghast and not wanting to halt the proceedings, turned to me and said, "Give her your tallit." Another situation where I didn't really have a choice; I gave it to her, but pulled F. over to the side and explained that I needed to leave for awhile, and asked him to get it back for me. When I asked him for it later, he told me he sold it. Very funny.)

The choir arrived and tiptoed into the back of sanctuary, and I told the director when they were supposed to stand and make their way to the front—and the coreography was perfect. "Trust in the Lord!" they sang, running up to the bima. I suddenly understood the meaning of the phrase "raise the roof"—I half expected the honest, passionate, heartfelt force of their sound to blow it into the heavens. The kids from the children's service crowded around the bima as well, the littlest ones dancing to some of the loudest gospel ever. The couple at the end of the row, guests of the Bat Mitzvah girl, turned to me in complete confusion. "Who are these people?" I was tempted to say, "Oh, we do this every week," but was too busy holding back tears. There was really no difference between their music and ours aside from the way it sounded. Chanting Torah, singing Hallel, singing a spiritual—it's all for the exact same purpose.

887. Dolls

2010-01-17T18:54:00.003-05:00

When I was a little girl, I had a collection of dolls—the small kind meant to be displayed on a shelf—given to me by friends and family who went to more interesting places on vacation than we did. On an old black Smith-Corona, the one my mother used on weekends to type letters for my uncle's whiskey importing business, I made careful labels in all caps listing countries of origin to paste in thin, white strips on the dolls' dresses. There was "MEXICO," woven from straw and holding holding a basket of multi-colored papier-mâché, and "CHINA," two delicate porcelain figurines in a tiny case. And many more—but my favorite was "HAITI," made of coal-black fabric packed tightly with cotton. Her face was capped with a brightly patterned scarf, and she wore little gold hoop earrings. She didn't have a mouth, but her painted-on eyes looked like they were smiling. "Haiti" was more approachable than the other dolls, who were clearly for display; we had tea parties, and I perched her on the side of my dresser at night for company. Even before I knew where Haiti was, who lived there, or what language they spoke, I felt as if I had seen those smiling eyes for real. She was just a doll from an unknown friend of the family who thought to pick up a gift in an airport shop, but she made a child feel connected to a place and people that would otherwise be foreign, unknown, too distant for concern.

That feeling never left. To write that the devastation in Haiti is impossible to comprehend, unbearable to hear about a thousand times a day on the news, is just to repeat what everyone has said. There aren't any more words left, just action. Please give money. I wish I had more money to give. I do have an unlimited supply of prayers; I don't know if they make a difference, but they can't hurt. I hate that human beings are engineered so that other peoples' tragedies remind us to be grateful to be alive, safe, with food in our bellies, but we are and I am, more so than ever.

886. Nonsense

2010-01-14T20:31:00.003-05:00

I stumbled across this interesting article last week:

How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect

Exposure to uncanny, meaningless experiences strengthens our ability to recognize patterns and improves our ability to learn, suggest researchers:

"When those patterns break down — as when a hiker stumbles across an easy chair sitting deep in the woods, as if dropped from the sky — the brain gropes for something, anything that makes sense. It may retreat to a familiar ritual, like checking equipment. But it may also turn its attention outward, the researchers argue, and notice, say, a pattern in animal tracks that was previously hidden. The urge to find a coherent pattern makes it more likely that the brain will find one."

The article recounts experiments where subjects read a weird story by Kafka and, immediately afterwards, were tested on their ability to find patterns in meaningless strings of letters. The Kafka group did much better than a control group who didn't hear the story.

I read this and immediately thought about my experience chanting Torah. When I first learned eight years ago, it essentially was nonsense; I understood very little. The words, attached to random melodies, were just sounds. But I soon discovered that the best time to practice was first thing in the morning; it was better than coffee at waking me up and getting me ready to face the work day. The creative puzzles of business and design always seemed a little easier, more fluid, when I tackled them right after chanting. Was it just that singing helped more oxygen than usual get to my brain? Who knows—but it makes sense that the task of navigating through gibberish would be like running your grey matter on a treadmill to gain strength and agility.

The best part of this article, however, was the correction note at the very end, dated a month after the story was published:

"The Mind column on Oct. 6, about the ability of nonsense to sharpen the mind, reported findings from a flawed statistical analysis. ... . After a reader questioned the analysis, the researchers repeated the experiment and found no significant difference between the groups. (A similar experiment reported in the same paper, in the journal Psychological Science, did hold up to re-analysis.)"

So the theory many not hold water at all. The article itself may be nonsense; maybe we're all part of the experiment to see if it's true ...

885. Talking

2010-01-14T20:23:00.002-05:00

Here's a link I've been meaning to post since last September:

Streisand's Fine Instrument and Classic Instinct

I'm not a huge Streisand fan, but appreciate that she's an astonishingly gifted musician. I am in awe of anyone who can admit this:

"Did Ms. Streisand, like an opera singer, think incessantly about breathing deeply from the diaphragm, about using the diaphragm as a natural support for her voice?

'Never,' she said, sitting up straight on a couch in the living room of a friend’s Upper West Side apartment, looking elegant in a dark dress and lacy shoulder wrap. Everything about singing came to her naturally, she explained, adding, a little sheepishly, that she hardly ever does vocal exercises. "

But I was struck by these lines in particular:

"During the lesson [referring to her early voice training--just one lesson] Ms. Streisand got as far as the first line: “When a bee lies sleepin’ in the palm of your hand.” The teacher stopped her. “She said, ‘No, no, you have to say bee-e-e-,’ ” Ms. Streisand recounted, prolonging the word and singing it with a rounded, quasi-operatic tone. “I thought that was unnatural so I told her, ‘No, I have to sing the word as an extension of my speaking.’ ”

I think that that sums up all of singing, whether opera, rock, or chanting Torah, in a nutshell. It's musical talking. The sounds are not just there to be pretty, or to create an entertaining performance, but to say something to whomever is listening. The cantor gave me the same advice when I was first learning how to lead services. Like so many other ideas that seem obvious (i.e., do unto others, etc.) it's remarkably difficult to achieve, and takes a genius like Streisand to make it seem easy.

884. Procrastination

2010-01-14T19:45:00.007-05:00

The six verses I chanted at services last Shabbat (Parashat Shemot) included these mysterious ones:

4:24 At a night encampment on the way, the Lord encountered him and sought to kill him. 25 So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched his legs with it, saying, "You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!" 26 And when He let him alone, she added, "A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision."

This odd interlude takes place right after Moshe begins the trip to Egypt in response to God's order:

4:22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the Lord: Israel is My first-born son. 23 I have said to you, "Let My son go, that he may worship Me," yet you refuse to let him go. Now I will slay your first-born son.'"

Why interrupt the story to talk about circumcision? wondered the rabbi at services. Who is the "him" that God tries to kill (Moshe? the son?)? And what in the world is a "bridegroom of blood"? I was very grateful for this d'var Torah, because I had no idea what I was talking about when I chanted. The rabbi admitted that no one else really knew (our humash, Etz Hayim, says that it might be a fragment of an ancient myth whose meaning is lost) but offered a few suggestions. You'd think that Moshe and family would be in a hurry to begin the trip; why, then, did they stop to rest? Drawing a parallel between the blood of brit milah and the ritual of blood on doorposts that saved the lives of the Israelite firstborn, maybe it's commentary on the need to take action--keep going, don't make camp. (Along these lines, Aviva Zornberg noted the similarity between the word for night encampment [malon] and circumcision [milah].) The story of the Jewish people, over and over again, is one of motion and response.

I'm losing a lot in the retelling (and I was busy studying what I was about to chant as the rabbi spoke, so paid less attention that I should have), but the message I came away with was as in Lekh Lekha: Don't wait. Do something. Last week I was thinking about the contemplative orders of other religions, like monks and nuns. Judaism has nothing like that, and Jewish meditation (at least in my limited experience) even frames itself as a way to create focus to help repair the world--to take better action.

So why did God create beings who so love to procrastinate? (I guess God really does have a sense of humor.)

883. Upside-down cattle disease

2010-01-12T17:42:00.002-05:00

One of the reasons I love chanting Torah is because it allows me to write sentences like this:

Today I woke up early and spent an hour singing about boils and cattle disease.

(This coming Shabbat I'm reading part of Parashat Va-era. Of course, these are nowhere near the most graphic verses in the Torah. The worst I've personally intoned were a few years ago in Parashat Metzora.)

(About that dever: I've always thought of it as "upside-down cattle disease," because the illustration in the haggadah I used a child was of a cow on its back with its feet sticking up in the air.)

I can't believe we're nearing Sinai once again; Bereshit and the creation of the universe doesn't seem far enough away. Every year the cycle of Jewish holidays feels more and more like a roller coaster, a slow ride up after Simhat Torah that reaches a pinnacle on Shavuot, when we receive the Torah as free people and enjoy the scenery as we make our way back down.

It's always a little odd, though, that we read this portion a few months before Pesah. Maybe the ancient rabbis scheduled it to allow us ample time to ponder our fate and get in the mood for matzah. Whatever the reason, I get to to sing—not just once, but twice this Shabbat—"Let My people go that they may worship Me!"

882. Nourishment

2010-01-08T14:46:00.003-05:00

Shamelessly stealing from Chevrutablogger, here are some of the wisest words about Shabbat I've ever heard. I hope I can heed them as I rush now to do laundry, vaccuum, and catch my breath before I get to exhale... Wishing everyone a very spiritually nourishing 25 hours.

881. Uncool

2010-01-08T14:27:00.004-05:00

I've been meaning to share a bunch of links that caught my eye. Here's one, from November:

The Death of Uncool

"There are so many cultural trends today that the distinction between cool and uncool doesn’t matter anymore, says Brian Eno. We’re all hipsters now."

It really is true. The world is now like my very unusual high school, where there were a few of every kind of stereotype (Goth, jock, nerd, etc.), but no critical mass of any particular one. So there weren't "in" or "out" crowds, because no one faction could claim to be bigger and better than another. (I loved high school; the real world came as a shock.)

One of my rabbis often says that Judaism is counter-cultural. We rest one day of the week; most people never stop moving. We concentrate on repairing the world; far too many others seem bent on destroying it. But, as Brian Eno wrote, majority cultural opinions are splitting into smaller ones with different points of view—and the core ideas of Judaism seem to be much cooler these days as a result. The concept of Shabbat is less unfamiliar, for example, with other names ("staycations"). Everyone is now "green" and at least pretends to care about global warming. It's a start. In a universe of subgroups, it's harder to convince the masses that one opinion is better or cooler than another—and there's more space, in a world without a mainstream, for the formerly uncool to thrive and grow.

880. Characters

2010-01-08T13:39:00.002-05:00

I attended just about the worst Hebrew School in North America, where I learned to read Hebrew, barely, and write—sort of. In the reverse scenario of most afternoon Hebrew School victims, we were taught script but not print. I graduated able to read any style of letter, but write only half of them. This never posed a problem until I took private Hebrew lessons a few years ago. The tutor was aghast at my semi-illiteracy, and sent me home with elementary school homework: a page full of printed alephs, a page of zayins, etc. I did learn, awkwardly, but had few opportunities to practice; I reverted back to script when I took Hebrew grammar classes later on.

I'm a graphic designer and type geek who spent four years in a pre-desktop publishing-era job tracing fonts with a #6H pencil, so know the printed Roman alphabet intimately as a result. Typefaces have personality; they're not called "characters" for nothing. The gentle serif on the ascender of a "d" or the height of the top of a two-story lowercase "g" can mean the difference between a word that entices you to read it, or one that chases you away with cold disdain.

So last week when I sat down to draw and paint some Hebrew letters, just for fun, I assumed they would be as familiar as my friends in the Roman alphabet. I forgot that my previous attempts to reproduce printed Hebrew were as awkward as making out with your very first boyfriend. After a short, frustrating while the paper was smudged and covered with bits of eraser, but I didn't give up—and eventually the process did begin to feel like a first date. That long line in the middle of an aleph could be jaunty or mellow based on the angle and swell of a serif. A khaf was bold or retiring, depending upon how far down the descender ventured below the baseline. The more I got to know these letters, the better I could hear their individual voices—kind of like the melodies of Torah tropes, but silent—and change the sound entirely with the slightest stroke of my pencil.

879. Safe

2010-01-05T23:42:00.002-05:00

I'm learning a fairly short (six verses) section to chant this coming Shabbat. Actually, I learned it already; the cantor emailed yesterday asking if could read, I looked at it for 15 minutes last night and another 20 early this morning, and—I knew it. Not that I won't practice a hundred more times over the next few days, nor escape sweaty palms on Saturday morning, but it's already firmly lodged in the short-term folds of my brain. Even after working on this skill for almost eight years (a tie with the longest job I've ever held), I still don't always believe I can do it. A track record of success has not yet convinced me. Although I understand the gist of what I chant, comprehension happens only while I study. Up at the bima, the combination of nerves and a complete lack of fluency turn the words into a string of comfortable, essentially meaningless syllables punctuated by a few checkpoints—aha, blood! (or "heart," "death," or any of those other concepts that require extra emphasis). How can I memorize this gibberish, I wonder? But when I start to sing, the words take on meaning beyond grammar, pulling me along even when I'm unsure of their direction or intent.

I think that's part of what makes it fun, my doubt that it can happen at all and a constant, irrational, threat of failure. I've never rock-climbed or hang-glided; chanting Torah is my equivalent of living on the edge. As long as I don't poke my eye out with the yad, I think I'm safe.

878. Drawers

2010-01-04T22:42:00.004-05:00

When my mother was young, she volunteered at a local hospital and grew close to a man who was seriously ill with a grim prognosis, but always in great spirits. How do you stay so positive? my mother asked him. What do you think about when you're lying in bed, unable to move, cut off from everything that gave you pleasure?

The places, people, and events of my life are like a series of drawers, he answered. Every day I open a new drawer, look inside, and enjoy the contents. Some are good, some bad, but I open them just the same. Then I close and save them for another time.

My mother told this story often, and kept a photo of the man in one of our family albums—thin, pale, with a goofy smile, propped up in bed surrounded by an army of nurses and volunteers. I got that it was an important lesson to learn, but never understood why. Was it about not forgetting? Or more like havdalah—separation—appreciating each thing on its own, in its time?

Last week I decided to paint, which used to take up countless hours but fell by the wayside years ago for many different reasons. I dove in, after some fits and starts; it felt great, although was a bit of a struggle. But soon I could sense my brain responding in old, familiar ways, a tether between eyes and hands that had fallen slack since college. Even the light and air around me began to look like it did decades ago, an odd déjà vu. Had nothing really changed since then? I wondered. For a moment it was incredibly depressing—I didn't want to feel the same. I'm a very different person now.

But then I looked at what I painted and saw pieces of other images that came from different drawers. I chose one color because I chant Torah; the curved line was a relationship that ended in my 30s. White space at the top: walking alongside El Malecón, Cuba, 2002. The sensations of painting were the same as always, but my brush automatically outlined snapshots of a life I had not yet lived when I was 22. I finally understood that the drawers don't have to open one at a time; it doesn't even matter if you misfile and mingle the socks with the T-shirts. The best creative jolt comes from allowing yourself to open each, good and bad, and savor what's inside.

877. Obligation

2010-01-03T12:13:00.006-05:00

Yesterday at services the rabbi posed the question of what God expects of us. Do we feel obligated to God? Do we even imagine God as an idea to which we can feel obligated? Potential converts, he noted, often ask if being Jewish requires belief in God. His answer: try it out for awhile and see if it fits. Being Jewish means wrestling with the idea, even if you conclude that you don't believe.

I thought of this last night when reading an interesting article about how more women than men believe in God, possibly because of a biological or cultural imperative to seek out community, to which ritual is often attached:

Why Do More Women Than Men Still Believe in God?

The article is subtitled "Especially considering how God treats them." I've been lucky; any marginalization I experienced (such as having a fake Bat Mitzvah because I went to an Orthodox Hebrew school) happened before I was aware of, or even cared about the concept. (And the savings bonds I got at my fake Bat Mitzvah paid for my first trip to Israel a few decades later, so I'm not complaining.) I do now, and did back then, even without being able to articulate it, feel that God makes some demands of me. I'm not sure what, why or how; I acknowledge that I might be conflating the imperative with an ethical or moral sense. Perhaps they're one and the same. (Not even all those angry atheist authors can say definitively.) A few years ago I was jogging in the park and suddenly recalled a commentary about our bodies being borrowed from God. We're given only one in this lifetime, and must return it when we're done, so it only makes sense to treat it with care. So, in a way, I'm obligated to God every time I exercise and attempt to keep God's creation in the best possible shape.

Is prayer the same kind of required borrowing? Perhaps; when I sing and become joyful, I'm keeping the soul that was lent to me in good shape, as well.

876. Kosher

2010-01-03T11:07:00.006-05:00

This recent excellent post by Chevrutablogger got me thinking about kashrut. Like understanding which trains were IND and which IRT, I can't recall when I first became aware of the difference between meat, dairy, and pareve. I just always knew. Keeping kosher as a child was like breathing, something I never consciously learned but realized was essential. We weren't terribly strict; we didn't have two sets of dishes or even one set of glass ones, another custom. Ours were pink, contemporary china, and any mention of those other practices was disdained as archaic. Yet my mother still soaked and salted meat (although never lit Shabbat candles), and my father prayed three times a day (but worked on Saturdays), walking a careful and sometimes unsteady line between tradition and modernity.

I remember acutely the few times I slipped. Once, after singing a concert at fancy-shmancy club, I was served a delicious soup I only only later learned was lobster bisque. I was mortified to admit it was the most delicious thing I'd ever tasted. When I was 7 and visiting a friend after school, her mother gave me a bologna sandwich with a glass of milk. I knew I shouldn't eat it, but wasn't sure why. I did anyway, told no one, and forgot about it for years—until, one day, I recalled the moment and felt guilty. For a few months in college, I ate pizza with pepperoni because I thought pepperoni was a kind of vegetable (a green pepper that wasn't green). Yes, I wan't too swift back then. I stopped as soon as I figured out the truth, but did enjoy those months--as well as the ones when I ate chicken tettrazinni, not comprehending that the cheese-like substance surrounding the chicken was, in fact, cheese. I was an unaware eater, to say the least.

After my parents divorced, my mother relished BLTs in diners. (Never cheeseburgers or shrimp, however; that would be truly unthinkable. Bacon looked close enough to pastrami to seem OK.). I think it was her way of celebrating emancipation, and the fact that she never again had to serve my father borscht or kishkas. I'd order a tuna fish sandwich and she never suggested I do otherwise, understanding even before I did that kashrut represented a time in my childhood when things were good and stable.

I think I still keep kosher for that reason more than any other. It connects me not only to my heritage and religion, but also to memories of being nourished unconditionally by the food of safety and love. Following the minhag of my parents, I'm not the strictest observer of kashrut. I mostly, but not always, avoid meat in restaurants; chicken never seems like meat. I do look for OUs and Ks on food packaging, most of the time. Aside from those few moments above, I've never knowingly eaten shellfish, pork, or milk and meat together, even during the years when I barely set foot in a synagogue, and have not the slightest desire to do so. I rarely yearn for forbidden fine cuisine. Keeping (sort of) kosher still feels like breathing, unconscious and necessary. At times I wish it didn't, and perhaps one day will move kashrut to the realm of a more mindful choice regarding God and heritage, as it should be.

875. Run

2010-01-01T12:33:00.009-05:00

Last night was not only New Year's Eve, but also a "blue moon"—the second full moon in a month. (This happens every few years, but won't occur again on New Year's Eve until 2028.) Judaism had a similar event last April 8 when we said the Birkat Hahama to mark the completion of the sun's 28-year solar cycle. (Hmm, 28 years... 2028... 28 = 4 x the 7 days of creation.) Whether or not these occasions and numbers have grand significance, I have no idea—but I think we put too much emphasis on the possibility.

We lead linear lives, and by custom and instinct mark the milestones on that line—New Year's, birthdays, s'mahot, yahrzeits. Like the word "milestone" implies, these signposts remind us how we've grown and changed, how far we've traveled from beginning to end. And we're limited by the laws of physics from skipping any step on that path. We have no choice but to take each one. Still, we often try to speed through like a race (climb the corporate ladder as fast as possible; get rich quick, etc.). This really makes no sense, since ultimately we want to extend the journey for as long as possible. But the fastest caveman caught the biggest large beast and therefore got the best dinner; we're also hard-wired, as a survival tactic, to run from milestone to milestone and ignore the scenery. Run vs. amble, an eternal struggle between two necessary compulsions.

So I try not to put too much stake in those portentous 28-year- or millennium markers (i.e, Y2K). All the preparation, pining, waiting for a few brief blue moon moments distracts from closer scenery, the daily goals and triumphs that keep us engaged as we travel from one end of the road to the other. Those are the real occasions that mark our slow, steady and (God willing) very long progress through life.

875. Yiddish

2009-12-31T17:07:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I got a DVD in the mail from my nephew in California, a video from 2000 of my sister-in-law z"l starring in as Dorothy in her retirement community's theatrical production of "The Wizard of Oz"—in Yiddish. She was quite a ham (that doesn't sound quite right in this context, but it's true). It was, shall we say, a colorful amateur event, but she and her friends were definitely pros at Yiddish. I felt like I understood most of it even though I didn't, a kind of gut comprehension without grammar or vocabulary. The sounds were comfortable in my ears. When I was very little, my parents used to speak (mostly yell) Yiddish above me, literally, as if I were a small boat under a big bridge of loud language that acted as both detour and shelter. I never cared to understand, nor did they offer to teach; Yiddish was a secret code of old people, not applicable in any way to my life. In recent years I've tried to get excited by the current Yiddish renaissance, a language and culture now very cool—but it's been hard to shake those old misconceptions. I can't see myself speaking Yiddish because I can't imagine living my parents' lives, and the two seem inextricably entwined.

But watching my sister-in-law sing with such Bronx-inflected joy—as if the very sound of each word transported her back to the happiest of childhood times—I was jealous that the language is mine in sensation only, not tachlis. Still, this is better than nothing. Chanting Torah seems to work the same way. I understand only a small fraction of the words, but the minute I learned how to do it, I knew it was my language long ago. I just had to wait for the right time to dig it out and start using it.

874. Paranoia

2009-12-30T23:41:00.002-05:00

Amazing how quickly time passes when you're not doing anything. Well, that's not exactly true; I managed to tackle a number of overdue projects, but they're just ploys to avoid the big one or two that perennially float to the top of my "to do" list. I still have a few days left before real life resumes on Monday, however—I just need to begin one of the Big Items and I'll feel marginally victorious. ("It is not upon you to complete the task, but you are not free to idle from it." —Pirkei Avot.)

My not doing much also consisted of an epic battle with the cable company. If I were paranoid, I'd be sure these modern robber barons had it out for me because I downgraded my TV service last week. But I'm not, so must conclude that incompetence is why my internet connection went down twice in two days, each instance blamed on my faulty equipment but then revealed to be the cable co.'s fault. After the first time, I wasted three hours shlepping back and forth to their office (a place as grim as one of the pits of Hell) for a new modem, which didn't work when I hooked it up. After the second, I yelled for many minutes at a telephone support person who insisted that I must be mistaken, her computer said I was online. The drama culminated when a tech person knocked on my door, unannounced, at 8AM this morning to "fix" the "problem." No one had told him that the connection was already up and running.

So I spent most of the last few days alternately trying not to scream, berating myself for getting annoyed at this relatively tiny blip in the rhythm of life, and laughing at the absurdity of it all. Then I spent the evening flipping through millions of computer-based TV shows, my brain atrophying with each passing minute. I need to put the experience in a larger context. Chaos (tohu vavohu) preceded creation; maybe these odd few days were a necessary preamble to creativity about to burst forth. And if they weren't, I can still watch all ten streaming seasons of "Law and Order: SVU" in one marathon sitting and then wait for my brain to simply overload and reboot.

873. Happy Secular Gregorian!

2009-12-29T15:13:00.006-05:00

A few days early (a true miracle), here's the holiday card I just sent to a bunch of family, friends, and colleagues. I celebrate the end of every year by pairing a favorite photo with a quote. This year's image is from my July Cape Cod vacation, accompanied by the words of John Ruskin:

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

Wishing all who read this a new decade of clearing clouds, and the most interesting kinds of weather in 2010.

872. "All fat is the Lord's"

2009-12-28T12:26:00.003-05:00

It must be true (and therefore I don't feel so guilty about eating dessert) because it says so in Lev. 3:16, as my good friend Chevrutablogger pointed out—and she should know, because she just started a wonderful new blog about Jewish food, "jew makes food". I highly recommend checking it out and following her ongoing adventures in cooking, knishes, schmaltz, and other fun topics.