What Now?

Jewish stuff

• D. and I had a very nice seder last night ... but the haggadah was again a disappointment. We've used a different one for each of the last three years, and we've been unhappy with each of them in different ways. Clearly the time has come for us to create our own! D. and I have committed to creating our own for next year, and we're looking forward to it.

 

• I had an ugly series of interactions with another temple member this week. A former temple president lashed out at me over email over a perceived conflict between our respective committees, and cc'd the current temple president, clearly confident that he was in the right and I was in the wrong. The current president and I then had a phone conversation that night, during which I think I made clear to her that this perceived conflict really isn't a conflict at all. She agreed, and also agreed that this former president was "a bit of an outspoken man," but urged me to soothe his ruffled feelings. I was going to do that anyway, because I do feel bad that I clearly hurt his feelings, even though that was never my intention. I didn't in fact insult him at all, but the important thing is that he felt insulted. So I emailed him the next day, sincerely apologizing and saying that I'd like to talk so that I could repeat my apology in person. He wrote back with his phone number and the invitation to call him any time. So far, so good. But then yesterday I called him (the day after his email) ... and he lit into me. My version — and of course his will be different — is that he interrupted me constantly, yelled at me, told me that I didn’t understand the temple culture, consistently and deliberately misread what I said, told me that my attitude was in opposition to the temple’s emphasis on kindness, and was a bully throughout. By the end, I was crying hard, told him that he was being a jerk and that I didn’t need to sit there and listen to him ranting to me, and wished him and and his wife a good seder before hanging up the phone as he was still yelling. It was pretty awful, and in fact I was still crying about it an hour later. Now the current temple president wants to talk again tomorrow, but I'd much prefer to let things lie for at least a week or so. There's no hurry on this at all -- there's no crisis, and I've already suggested a solution to our difference of opinion, which would fully address his concerns as well as mine, but he was too busy yelling and insulting me to hear it. I completely understand that these things happen in communities, but it's the first time it's happened to me at the temple, and it was really upsetting.

 

• My unhappiness over all of this took up a lot of emotional and mental energy these past few days, to the detriment of other work, but I got back to my Hebrew studies today. I'm going slowly, and repeating things when I'm not totally confident. My goal is to go about this in a completely different way than I did during my bat mitzvah studies, when I was trying to keep up with the rest of my group and was thus moving quickly and just trying to hang on. I think of my Hebrew studies the way I think of Betsy's math problems in Dorothy Canfield Fisher's Understood Betsy, one of my favorite childhood novels:

Betsy was reciting her arithmetic. She was getting on famously with that. Weeks ago, as soon as Miss Benton had seen the confusion of the little girl's mind, the two had settled down to a serious struggle with that subject. Miss Benton had had Betsy recite all by herself, so she wouldn't be flurried by the others; and to begin with had gone back, back, back to bedrock, to things Betsy absolutely knew, to the 2x2's and the 3x3's. And then, very cautiously, a step at a time, they had advanced, stopping short whenever Betsy felt a beginning of that bewildered "guessing" impulse which made her answer wildly at random.

After a while, in the dark night which arithmetic had always been to her, Betsy began to make out a few definite outlines, which were always there, facts which she knew to be so without guessing from the expression of her teacher's face. From that moment her progress had been rapid, one sure fact hooking itself on to another, and another one on to that. She attacked a page of problems now with a zest and self-confidence which made her arithmetic lessons among the most interesting hours at school. (Ch. 9)

 

• I've been working my way through Shai Cherry's "Introduction to Judaism" course, one of the Great Courses, on Audible, and it's been fabulous. I read through the published notes beforehand and then listen to the half-hour lecture as I cross-stitch a new pattern that I started this week and that is making me happy. There are only seven lectures remaining, and then I think I'll need to find a new course to work my way through!

 

• I'm also listening to Joseph Telushkin's Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History. I know zilch about the Chabad movement, but I'm sure that will no longer be the case in 19 hours.

 

"I was / fifty before I read Hebrew" -- Marge Piercy, "Learning to Read"

One of the ongoing effects of my Israel trip is a new commitment to learning Hebrew. I've certainly been working at it for the last couple of years ... if by "working at it" we mean sporadic sessions followed by neglect.

I've had a frustrated relationship with Hebrew. I actually put off looking into conversion because I was so convinced that I couldn't learn Hebrew. And then when I did start learning it, it was so hard that I felt stupid all the time -- not even able to sound out words, much less know what they mean -- which is not a feeling I enjoy. And there was a performance piece to all of it, especially in preparing for my bat mitzvah, that I balked at (not helped at all by the woman who taught us Hebrew in that preparation, since she has a serious performance and one-up-man-ship thing going on).

But going to Israel and hearing actual people speak actual Hebrew made a difference. It became a form of communication instead of a performance or a chance to prove oneself. Plus, my rabbi and our tour guide spoke with each other in Hebrew in a pas devant les enfants way when they were checking in with each other about tour things, since the rest of us didn't understand. And I found this amusing but then wanted to know what they were saying!

On our last night together as a group (I then stayed in Jerusalem two more days on my own), several folks expressed a desire to know more Hebrew, and our wonderful tour guide told us about Avraham Infeld's metaphor of Jewish identity as a five-legged table. The five legs are 

• Memory -- a strong connection to Jewish history
• Family -- the conviction that all Jews are connected, are family
• Covenant -- living a Jewish life, following Jewish practices, being religious
• Israel -- caring about/ working on behalf of the Land of Israel and/or the State of Israel
• Hebrew -- knowing Hebrew, the language of Torah

and the theory is that if you have at least three strong legs, you've got a solid table. I find this a helpful metaphor -- one doesn't have to do everything to be a "good Jew" -- and I'm still thinking about what my table legs are. But in the meantime, I want to get better at Hebrew!

So last week I went back to the basics. There are still a couple of letters that I usually have to guess at (samech, qof, pei, plus distinguishing between some look-alike letters -- okay, that's more than a couple!), and I decided that I needed to be entirely solid in the alphabet and sounding out words as the first step. That sounds obvious, I know, but I was so determined not to be in the beginners class in my bat mitzvah group that I crammed in order to be assessed in the higher group. And that was dumb on my part, or at least it was dumb of me not to go back and shore up that cramming. No wonder I then found it so stressful to be in the higher group!

So I'm doing one chapter a day in Linda Motskin's Aleph Isn't Tough, which is really an excellent textbook. It's all review at this point, but I'm taking the time and effort to do that review. And then I'm going to move onto Aleph Isn't Enough, which I own but have never cracked open. It turns out that there are two other books in that series (Bet is for B'reishit and Tav is for Torah), which I hadn't realized before today, and so perhaps I'll continue with Motzkin -- the first one really is very well set up as a language textbook! -- or maybe I'll switch over to Prayerbook Hebrew the Easy Way, which Motzkin also worked on with other people. Plus, I bought a children's book in Israel -- it was on the discount table, and it had pretty wood cuts, and the author, Natan Zach, is an important Israeli poet -- and I'd love to be able to read it at some point.

I'm going to confess here what I've only confessed to D., and which I'll say nowhere else: My secret goal is to be able to teach the introductory Hebrew lessons the next time the temple offers an adult bar/bat mitzvah class, which will probably be 18-24 months from now. I'm not saying I would teach those lessons, which would be a lot of work, but I want to be able to do it. Partly this is because the woman who taught Hebrew in my group knows her Hebrew well but is not a good teacher, which I think was one reason that I'm kind of scarred from the experience. But also, I'm enough of a teacher that, when I'm learning something, I often start thinking about how I would teach it, which in turn helps me learn it better. So I figure if I give myself this goal, of teaching beginning Hebrew to adults in two years' time, that will help my own pursuit of competence.

I'm now a week into my one-chapter-of-review-a-day schedule, and so far I have not gotten frustrated, although I have better and worse days at bringing the Hebrew I know to the front of my brain. But I've been patient with myself thus far -- something I rarely achieve! 

Oh, and the title of this post: I was reading Marge Piercy poetry in bed last night, and I came across this poem and this line. And I thought, "Well, hey, I'm 50! Maybe this is the year I learn to read Hebrew!"

Shifting gears this week

Last night I finished taking the "Rise of the Rabbis" Me'ah online course, so there's one thing cleared off of my mental desk. The course was pretty darned awesome, but by the end I really just wanted to move through it and get on with my life. (Partly this was because the second-to-last lecture was my least favorite, although the professor herself was a good speaker; I just wasn't as interested in the topic.) No doubt due to the fact that I did the last three course units in a single week, by yesterday I was ready for a serious break from the rabbis. I learned a ton doing this course, and I've got a couple of books that I want to read or finish reading on the subject of Talmud, but by this point I am feeling pretty clear that I'm in servetus's second Talmudic camp: those folks who want to know enough to get how Talmudic thinking basically works but don't feel driven to do the work necessary to be in the gung-ho camp.

Something else now wrapped up: This morning I spent two hours working with sixth-graders at my temple. They've spent the year studying Israel, and my job was to introduce them to a poetry unit and have them write poems about Israel, which they will then read at the temple's 70th-anniversary party for the founding of Israel. And the bottom line is: There's a reason I teach high school and not younger grades! I mean, it was a fine morning, but sixth-graders are squirrely, and I found the whole thing exhausting, such that I came home and took a looooong nap, which has thrown my body clock completely off. (The Daylight Savings time change doesn't help.) And the experience was a vivid reminder to me that, yes, I want to get involved at my temple, but I need to choose carefully what that involvement looks like and make smart decisions!

To this end, I just politely declined the offer to do volunteer English tutoring once a week to a member of the Syrian refugee family the temple is sponsoring. I did a good bit of work for the family last summer and fall, and then I decided that I needed to step back. My original volunteering for this resettlement project had been for a specific and time-bound piece of the project, but it was morphing into a once-a-week, no-finish-line commitment, and I just didn't want to do that. I am full of admiration for the people who are doing this work ... but most of them are not working full-time, and many are retired or are stay-at-home parents of teenagers, and they have different priorities and time schedules than I do. (I am still finding the volunteer work I'm doing as part of the local sanctuary project very doable, since I basically just get to sit and read. I was there for four hours yesterday afternoon, and I got so much read.)

So the clearing the decks is continuing, with this online course and the sixth-grade poetry workshop both over.

Time to change gears for the sabbatical week ahead. This week I'm diving into some of the pedagogy reading on my list, and I'm also diving into one of the books on American racial history on my list. I really want to move into my writing/research project, but I need to get myself back into my more usual modes of thinking after my immersion in rabbinics. So this week of American history and pedagogy will be a good mental palate cleanser.

 

Sabbatical and falling down rabbit holes

My sabbatical got off to a rocky start, between my mom's surgery and my flu, and then I spent three weeks doing serious reading in preparation for going to Israel. And I'm so glad I did; my studying really did add to my experience significantly.

And then there was the trip itself, plus almost a week of recovery afterward.

Which brings us to today, Monday, March 5, when I start figuring out what the rest of this sabbatical are going to look like. I had a dream last week in which I was informed that my sabbatical was over now that I was back from Israel ... and I was actually okay with that, because I had done the most important thing already in making the trip. Of course, the sabbatical is not over; there are just over four months between now and when I start teaching a three-week summer school session. So how do I want those four months to work?

Here's how my sabbatical is really different from an academic's: There is very little that I need to do in particular. The proposal I made to the school was that I was going to read and think about how I teach writing, but that's actually something I do every year anyway. Honestly, if I just worked my way through the stack of writing/teaching books that I've accumulated but haven't had time to read, I would have accomplished what I am obligated to do for this sabbatical. And I have no publication requirements for my job at all; in fact, I think I'm the only published teacher at the school. And nothing I do this year will improve my career status or salary or anything else. I do have a school review next year -- I'm at the stage of my career at FGS where I am reviewed every six years -- but I have zero worries about it. I'm good at my job, and everyone knows it, and I don't really need to prove it.

So whatever I do in the next four months is entirely about my own intellectual exploration and growth and satisfaction.

Part of that growth and satisfaction is the opportunity to fall down whatever rabbit holes I encounter with no worries that I am blowing off "real work."

The current rabbit hole is learning about Midrash and Talmud. I've been taking an online course from Hebrew University about the rabbinic period, and it's been awesome. (The first three sessions, on the Second Temple period and its immediate aftermath, were especially great as part of my preparation for going to Israel.) And, unlike the friend I'm taking it with, I'm actually doing all the suggested reading and enjoying the heck out of it. There are four more sessions in the course, and I've gotten a couple of extra books that will extend that learning even more.

BUT ... I also want to keep reading about Israel and Palestine, building on my experiences in the trip. I have a stack of books for that project as well.

BUT ... neither of those is actually my academic field. I'm an Americanist by training, and there's a possibility that I may get to teach US History next year in addition to English classes (fingers crossed that this works out! I'd love the new challenge), and regardless, I have a stack of books I want to read about the history of race in America.

PLUS ... I'm teaching a new themed course for AP Lit next year, and I do need to actually prepare for that. And, if I get to teach US History, I'll need to prepare for that as well, since it's been several years since I've taught it.

AND ... there's an article that I started working on two summers ago, and I'm still really excited about it and want to write it, and that will take real time and work. And there's a potential second article, although that one is much more amorphous in my mind.

[ETA: PLUS ... I want to keep working on my Hebrew.]

So I'm feeling pretty scattered and unable to decide how exactly I'm going to do all this. At the moment, my approach is to just do whatever is in front of me -- and this morning that means keeping going with the online course and reading about Talmud -- plus getting some exercise each day and doing other fun things, such as having lunch with friends and cross-stitching. But I feel like that approach is going to encourage me to keep dropping down rabbit holes without perhaps ever coming back up to the surface to think about what I should be doing.

But maybe the personal part of this sabbatical is learning to enjoy whatever I'm doing in the moment without worrying about what I'm not doing, something I struggle with normally.

Eretz Yisrael

Home from Israel! Actually, I got home on Tuesday at an obscene hour of the morning, but then I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday sleeping, not to mention the naps on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It's not jet lag (which I got over almost immediately) but rather overwhelming tiredness from packed days and unceasing new impressions and ideas and peoples and sights and information.

It was an amazing, life-changing trip, but it's going to take me quite a while to figure out exactly HOW it is life-changing. Certainly my identity as a Jew has now shifted to include Israel and worldwide Jewry, which is definitely a change from the very Protestant (I realized in retrospect) way that I first approached conversion, which was about intellectual assent to a series of propositions.

Perhaps in contradiction to that last statement, I'll confess that one thing that kept me from exploring Judaism at first is that I figured I'd have to take a definitely pro-Israel stance on the whole Israel/Palestine issue. But of course both the issue itself (really multiple issues) and my not-yet-clear stance are far more complicated than I realized back then. And both are more complicated than ever after this trip.

An uncomplicated joy of this trip was making much tighter, fonder connections with my fellow travelers, who are all members of my synagogue. After four years, I'm finally starting to feel as though I really belong there. That delay is not the fault of the very friendly synagogue at all but rather my own wariness of communities and my social anxiety and my feelings of inadequacy as a convert.

One decision: I'm going to stop telling people (such as Israeli security people in airports) that I'm a convert, because I think I'm sort of saying "I'm not really a Jew," but darn it, I am indeed a Jew. Also, the Israeli security person before my flight there actually asked me to chant part of my Bat Mitzvah portion and seemed somewhat skeptical when I told him that I didn't remember it at all.

I kept a journal during the trip, which is good because all of the details are really quite overwhelming as I look back on the trip now. I think that, in a week or so, I'll reread the journal and let it all start settling in to my brain in a new way.

Also, I now have three Israeli friends on Facebook, which has made it very clear to me just how bad the Hebrew-to-English translation feature in FB is.

Do you see the apparent randomness of the last three paragraphs, how my brain skitters about from idea to idea without settling in on one for very long? Yep, that's how my brain has been working since I got home.

Maybe it's time for another nap.

(That photo is taken from the top of Masada, looking over the Dead Sea.)