Harvard vs. Philly

Last post, I made a plea for comments on my posts. The response was overwhelming. I'm really touched to see that so many people are committed to my still keeping a blog. On that note, I'd like to say that until I go on some good dates, I will not post to my blog again.

Speaking of good dates, I had a delicious chicken tonight dressed in a honey date sauce (thanks Mrs. Knopf!), which caused me to stop watching the Eagles-Rams game in the middle. It was a tough game for me to watch, because for the first time ever, I was sort of rooting for an opponent of the Eagles, as the Rams' Quarterback is Harvard graduate Ryan Fitzpatrick. Despite the plethora of Harvard grads in professional sports (much love to Dov), Ryan is a special case. You see, he's an athlete, not a trainer, general manager, or lawyer. So I get a little excited when he plays, and even when he scores. But in the middle of being excited for Harvard's favorite son, I remembered that I don't even like Harvard. So take that Ryan Fitzpatrick, I'm glad you lost to the Eagles.

But as much as I really didn't like Harvard, especially at the end, I'm finding myself more and more nostalgic for it. I even watched all of Prozac Nation, with the incredibly unconvincing claim that Christina Ricci was Jewish and Jason Biggs a goy, just because I saw a shot of Kirkland. That movie of course was leagues better than Soul Man, about a guy who takes tanning pills to get an all-Black scholarship to Harvard Law. The Harvard in that movie seemed so much fun, even if only because the protagonist slept with a Civil Rights-loving white girl who told him that she could feel 50 years of oppression being released in every pelvic thrust. The sad thing is, I'm pretty sure I had a class with that girl.

So what's the nostalgia about? As much as I hated the pomp and bullshit of Harvard, I get a real thrill of recognizing my former home every time I watch a movie about college (even Old School has some aerial shots of Harvard). Realizing that I may never return there makes it nice to see it on TV. But then, when I'm actually missing Harvard, I hear some annoying Harvard person in Israel comment about how great it is to hang out with other Harvard people so they can have intellectual conversation. And I think about all the smart conversations I have with non-Harvard grads, and I remember how ridiculous Harvard people are. And in the middle of the Eagles game, I take my head out of my own ass, and celebrate my Eagles' flying on the road to victory.

On God, Torah, and Schwarma

This will be my last post...
If no one posts any comments. See, when no one comments, I assume no one is reading the blog, so what's the point of writing it? I already know what I think, and I've never really been one to keep a journal (GAL not withstanding). So nu? Respond!
So lately, there have been a few things on my mind of a pretty heady nature. Being at Yeshiva has done pretty much exactly what I was hoping, but I'm pretty surprised about how it happened. Around this time 2 years ago, I was probably at the peak of religiosity and observance. Then, over time, it sort of stopped making sense to me. I couldn't believe in a God responsible for everything that I saw wrong with Judaism. That is to say, the way that Jews around me envisioned God seemed totally foreign to me, and I had trouble thinking of God as a force that compelled me to buy into Judaism. I stopped davening, I grew a very cynical attitude toward mitzvot (though I remained observance), and I no longer wanted to be a Rabbi. I figured I was having all of these problems because of how intellectualized Judaism became to me at Harvard (people there overanalyze things a lot), and I assumed that I needed to return to a more emotional/spiritual community to learn to love Judaism again.
Two months ago, I decided that I loved the Yeshiva intellectually, but that it was even more difficult to be spiritual there than it was at Harvard. I pretty much reserved myself to being a hiloni Jew, albeit one who still kept mitzvot. It seemed sad that Judaism as a meaningful part of my life seemed a part of my past, but I just could not bring myself to find meaning it any more.
Thankfully, the Yeshiva has some of the smartest teachers and thinkers from whom I have ever learned. And apparently, since Judaism was ruined for me intellectually, I needed it to be rebuilt for me intellectually as well.
What changed for me could essentially be summed up in a short interchange between two members of the Yeshiva faculty discussing politics. The first, a teacher who believes that the Third Temple should be built in its right time (though not at the expense of doing anything to the holy sites currently there), stated that though he usually votes for Meretz, he was considering voting for Peretz in this election. The other, a rabbi who spends his days studying and teaching Talmud, encouraging students to develop a serious relationship with Tefilla, and has been learning at Yeshivot for the better part of his life (until recently, Orthodox yeshivot), responded by saying that he usually votes for Meretz as well. What impressed me about this was not that I recognized fellow liberals in Jerusalem--when I had become all but convinced that all liberals live in Tel Aviv--but that it was possible for two people with deep commitments to traditional Jewish lifestyles to affiliate with a party that seems at times to be the antithesis to the religious parties (Shinui notwithstanding).
I had come to think that as hard as I tried to find alternate meanings and values in Judaism when my values conflicted with traditional understandings of Judaism, that in the end Judaism had limited room for the kind of radical understanding that I sometimes see into Judaism. But knowing that traditional Jews could vote for Meretz--Jews with far greater knowledge of Judaism than I--proved to me that even in Israel, no one way of thinking has a monopoly on Judaism. And that is allowing me to begin to redefine Judaism on my terms once again. And the most important of that process for me is God. One teacher of mine argues that the entire structure of Judaism relies on there being a God, and that the Torah is the word God. The key, my teacher says, is defining God so that the Torah has to be the word of God. However, since the Torah is not easy to understand, it is definitely possible that things that seem clear in the Torah are not so clear afterall. The difference between this understanding and traditional understandings though, is that in my teacher's understanding, if something that the Torah says seems clearly in conflict with our moral values, then my teacher believes that we are understanding the Torah wrong, whereas many traditional thinkers would say that our moral values are slightly off. The most important part of this system is the ability to still let the Torah speak to you even when it means that it's in conflict with traditional interpretations. The key, of course, is to recognize that Judaism allows for disagreement, and find a way to disagree within Judaism's own system (Rabbi Joel Roth, another faculty member at my yeshiva, and a top thinker within Conservative Judaism, has made this argument his raison d'etre).
But thinking about my right to do this has revealed a real paradox to me. It seems that the Torah is given so much weight in traditional Judaism that the Torah becomes completely distant. Because our system includes 2000 years of commentary building one on the next, each older text takes precedence over a younger text. As a result, if the Mishna understands the law to be one way, the Gemara cannot directly contradict it. If a thinker of the 16th century disagrees with a 10th century thinker, he has to show how that 10th century thinker contradicts himself or is contradicted by a contemporary source or an older source. As a result, modern interpretations of what the words of the Torah say takes a major back seat to what previous commentators say the Torah means. So if I came in and could show convincingly that "Thou shalt not murder" is based on a Canaanite concept of murder that referred specifically to honor killings, and it was confirmed by numerous historical texts, that interpretation would be meaningless because it would undo 2000 years of Jewish tradition from the Tanaim (Mishnaic Rabbis) onwards. The words of the Torah are so holy that we can never undo them, but we certainly can never revert back to them and undo the way they have been understood, even if they seem to have been understood incorrectly. I'm not sure what to do with that yet, but I think the challenge now is to find a way that the words of the Torah can still speak to us while recognizing that sometimes the way they spoke to previous generations is problematic in our day, even if it spoke to Jews that way for close to 2000 years.
A final thought, on schwarma. Last night I went to a talk on ethical slaughter and kashrut. The Rabbi argued very convincingly that there exist kosher slaughter methods today that are more ethical than the methods currently employed. There seem to be a number of problems in kosher slaughterhouses with cruelty to animals, mistreatment of workers, and the desensitizing of mass slaughter of animals. It made me really question why I eat meat so often since these issues do bother me. I wondered if I should become a vegetarian, or at least restrict eating meat to Shabbat. I thought about this for all of 5 minutes, until I talked to Rabbi Romm, the Rabbi who coordinated the talk. After the talk, he told me and my friends Mike and Ari all about the amazing mixed grill they had at the restaurant across the street. And suddenly I had a craving for schwarma again. I don't know what this says about my morals, but at least I still consider myself lucky to live above my favorite Schwarma place in the country.

Political Upheaval

It is a sad day in Israeli society when the Likud party has become too hawkish for Ariel Sharon. And this is nothing against the actions that Sharon has taken in the last year. I applaud him for disengaging from Gaza, even though he effectively ousted himself from his own party. But let's briefly look at his career. He served as a top minister in Herut, Menachem Begin's party, the political realization of Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionism. As defense minister, Sharon led it a disastrous war in Lebanon, probably the most protested war in Israeli history. And sketchy military incidents seem to pepper his career. The man was seen as the political father of Gush Emunim. Not a very centrist record by the 1980's for sure.
I still remember the '96 election of Bibi Netanyahu and hearing people saying, "It could be worse. It could have been Ariel Sharon." (People, of course, being supporters of Labor, not supporters of Likud.) And now, nearly 10 years later, Sharon is breaking from the Likud because it is too extreme for him. I'm glad Sharon has become less extreme with time. I'm disgusted that the Likud has responded by becoming even more extreme.

Past My Bedtime

It's 11:30. The Eagles are playing in 4 and a half hours and I plan to be up to watch it. But I can't fall asleep. What's keeping me up anyway?
1) I'm listening to itunes. Maybe I should shut it off.
2) I didn't get up at 7:30 this morning. Oh wait, I did.
3) I still haven't sold the sudoku from Thursday. And it's really hard.
4) I subconsciously don't want to wake up for the Eagles because I know they're going to lose.
Bingo.
But I'm still awake. So I'll share with you some recent thoughts of mine.
Arie on the Army
So I'm basically torn between making aliya soon and joining the army and putting it off and really not doing any substantial job in the army. There are pros and cons to both. The pro to joining the army is that I might make friends, since Israelis apparently stop making friends after the army. Good thing I'll serve with other fat olim. Oh well. The pro to not joining the army is that I won't be a Zionist oppressor. That is, a Zionist oppressor sitting a desk getting some officer coffee. If I'm lucky I can get some DJ coffee at Galei Tzahal.
Arie on Shimon Peres
So you've lost every major election in which you've run. You're 82 years old. You are basically Ariel Sharon's bitch. Did you really think you could contest the election? You have a Nobel Peace Prize, what more do you want? Fine, so you brought Amir Peretz into the Labor party. Inshallah, he'll actually make it into a party again, a party that has a platform beyond stabilizing the fascist elements of the Likud. Not that keeping Netanyahu from corrupting Israel into oblivion is a bad thing. But you're 82 years old. And Peretz has an awesome mustache. And he's a Sefardi. And he hasn't been in politics since the creation of the state. Peres, you were Prime Minister during the Reagan administration. And look at Reagan now. He's dead.
Arie on Mosh Ben Ari
He has a lot of hair. And apparently goes to the same hip hop clubs as me. But damn, that man has so much fucking hair. I think some of it fell in my drink.

Tel Aviv

Most Yerushalmim (or anyone who has seen Israel through the eyes of a religious program) have a hard time understanding what there is to like about Tel Aviv. On the flipside, most Tel Avivim hate Jerusalem as well, but their dislike is usually grounded in some combination of hating the religious, hating religion, or just being urban snobs who find Jerusalem too boring. Ridiculous, maybe, but at least their dislike is grounded in something real. Jerusalem is filled with religious people, the way that so much of the city observes Judaism practically forces its residents to do the same (ie, if you don't keep Shabbat but are tired of going to Aroma, you don't have so many options for drinking coffee from Friday at 3 until Saturday at around 6), and the list of movies, concerts, plays, operas, etc for Jerusalem usually includes about 6 options as opposed to Tel Aviv's 25. So yea, Tel Aviv has more to do, fewer religious people, and more restaurants open on Shabbas serving meat and milk together.
And there's plenty not to like about Tel Aviv. Much of it is kind of ugly, because of all of the drab, socialist-looking architecture. There are a lot slums in Tel Aviv, and I would be more afraid to walk around the Tahana Merkazit at night than I would in many other places in Israel. And worst of all, in my opinion, so many of the "left-wing" people just have disdain for arsim and dosim, but would god forbid ever send their kids to a school with Arabs. Sometimes I think that if Shas suddenly became in favor withdrawing from all the territories, the Tel Avivim would start wearing orange.
But these things don't seem to bother the people I know who don't like Tel Aviv. Instead, I hear that Tel Aviv has no culture, no charm, nothing Israeli about it. In one absurd case, someone I know called it American because it is less religious than Jerusalem. I have a feeling that the guy who said that hasn't met too many Israelis. But even for the people who actually know anything, I feel like their distaste for Tel Aviv isn't really justified. Of course, by only going to Tel Aviv to see hip hop shows and buy CDs, I haven't convinced anyone that Tel Aviv has culture and charm. But there's a reason why Tel Aviv Aviv has a philharmonic orchestra, multiple theaters (as in for plays, not movies), an art shuk, and more. And yet I bet that most of my hevra has been to almost none of this.
It's sad, but I think most Americans who come to Israel will never understand Tel Aviv's charm. It doesn't have the same history (at least as long as its distinguished from Yaffo), it doesn't have as many Jewish sites, and it definitely feels like it wants to be a metropolitan European city (god forbid it try to be a metropolitan Middle Eastern city). But Americans' (and probably South Africans', Canadians' and British) ignoring Tel Aviv is creating a dillusional view of Israeli city. Yesterday in Tel Aviv on a tour with the Conservative Yeshiva, our tour guide used Tel Aviv as proof that religious Zionism is vibrant while secular Zionism has given way to hedonism, materialism, and apathy. Besides the fact that there has never been a "Secular" Zionism as there has been a "Religious Zionism" (Religious Zionism's counterparts have been Labor Zionism, Cultural Zionism, and Revisionist Zionism), our tour guide's ridiculous argument rested on an assumption that only religious Jews were excited about Israelis, whereas other Israelis would be just as happy being any other nationality as long as they could be left alone. It's true that kibbutzim are privatizing; it's true that Bibi used his post as finance minister to cut social programs; and it's true that I've had little success finding shira-be-tzibbur. But to say that non-religious Israelis might as well not be Israelis is to create a false dream of what Israel and Zionism must be, and it will be a shame if Israeli culture is constantly overshadowed by a foreign fantasy of what Israeli culture is supposed to be.

Sof Chag Sameach

I've been on vacation for a week and a half, and amazingly, I haven't found any time to post to this site. I only wish I could say it's because I've been keeping busy, but that sadly isn't true. There have been quite a few highlights since my last post, though.
1. I found the PR Troopers CD. As noted in Ari's comment to previous post, it is sitting in my cousin's DVD player in Herzliya. I haven't listened to it yet.
2. I went to a Gidi Gov concert. He played Inyan Shel Zman. I sang along. No one heard me.
3. I went to a Genders concert. The lead singer wants to read my thesis. I still haven't sent it to him.
4. I finally emailed Yoav Kutner (director of Channel 24) my thesis. If he responds, I'll ask him for a job.
5. I got searched by the police. My crime? Standing next to someone who called them fucking pigs without realizing that their car windows were down.
6. I cooked. And did a pretty good job.
7. I found an amazing mixtape by DJ Juvi. It's got two songs by the Hasid. Not related to me.
In the spirit of Sukkot being a 7 day holiday (that's right Diaspora, we have calendars now, we don't need to keep adding extra days), I'll keep it to those 7 highlights. But aside from those, this vacation has been a great time for me to think about my life, both how I am spending it now and what I might want in my future. I'm finding it really tough for me to be observant in Israel, mostly because Judaism is so tied to community for me, and the observant Jewish community just doesn't do it for me here. That said, there are also times where no other community does it for me here either. It's amazing how often I feel out of place here, but for whatever reason, I still like living in Israel. I don't know if I'll want to live in Jerusalem forever, or even next year. I don't know if I'll want to be a Jewish educator. I can't tell if it bothers me or not how much my observance is tied to who I want to spend time with, but I guess only time will tell. Beintayim, as long as I don't choose based on who has the most attractive women, I don't think it's too problematic.

Addiction

I definitely have a problem. Today I bought two hip hop CDs not because I wanted to listen to them, but because I felt that I had to own them. So now I own Israel's original hip hop duo, "Is Hop," with their breakthrough hit "1,2,3, Yesh Li Mesiba." That is 30 shekels I will never get back. In the meantime, all this time I've spent looking for the PR Troopers, I still haven't found their CDs, but they do exist. So give me time, and I'll have that as well.
On another note, after much thought, I've decided it's stupid for me to be shomer negiya. That is all.

Return of GAL?

Recently heard from a friend:

chill628: good news, jessica really wants to get you in on the seminary chick scene... she'll work her contacts in the frum community.... good things are on the way for the hackit

Wow.

I Watch Too Much Music Television

Let me start this by saying that I am currently watching Arutz 24 as I write this. At the moment, being the hip hop editor (a position that definitely doesn't exist and doesn't need to exist) for this channel would be my dream job. Of course, I haven't even bothered to thank the director of the station for his help with my thesis, let alone send him a resume (ie my thesis). That said, I pretty much watch this channel every moment that I am in my apartment that isn't Shabbas, yom tov, or an Eagles game.
So why is this news now? I just got back from Istanbul on Sunday, and I think in some ways the highlight of my trip was watching Turkish and French hip hop music videos. And no, the videos were not that good. Zot omeret, neither was my trip to Istanbul.
Here are a few things I learned about myself on this trip:
1) I don't think it's fair to expect people in foreign countries to speak English.
2) I think it's necessary to at least make an effort to learn the names of major tourist attractions in their native language.
3) I don't think it's cute to think of every piece of traditional garb of a foreign country as a prospective Purim costume.
4) I have too much ADD to stop and take a picture of every random English misspelling or wait for my friends while they do the same.
5) I prefer not to walk around wearing a big sign that says, "Rip me off, I'm a tourist."
6) I don't feel the need to advertise my Judaism every waking moment of my life, especially in cities not used to seeing such outward expressions of Judaism.
7) I can't bring myself to break Shabbat or kashrut, no matter how frustrated I get with observance.
But don't let me imply that the trip was a total bust. It was still Istanbul after all. I can understand why my entire family left, but I can also understand why they all still go back to visit every now and then. I would definitely recommend it, even for clueless vuzvuzim.
Shannah tovah!

Ken L'Heskem, Ken L'Nikayon

It took me a long time, but I finally went to a peace rally in Israel last night. Thanks to the bitching of some friends, I only saw about 30 minutes, but I was fairly impressed by it while I was there. People actually attended, the director of the Fuchsberg center was there, and it seemed to be a fairly moderate crowd, not too radical. Then I left and there were some very insignificant counter-protesters. They didn't appreciate the word play I made with their signs (their sign said "Matai Nafsik Livroach" which means "when will we stop fleeing?"; I turned to Ari and asked, "Matai Naspik Livroach" which means "when will we have fled enough?"). Their response was phenomenal: they started to pray for me! It was the start of a great night.
After returning to Syndrome, where I had watched the spectacular Quami de la Fox, Ori Shohat and Sagol 59 two nights earlier, my friends and I were ready to just about call it an evening. We walked back home by way of Bet Nativ so I could see my sister (whom Ari was shocked to see had aged about 8 years since he was her counselor at Ramah) and we found that some orange ribbons had infiltrated Kikar Paris, the site of the peace rally earlier that evening. Ari did what any concerned citizen would do, and he started taking the orange ribbons off of the posts. I started to follow suit, and soon enough, I got in a shouting match with one of the anti-Israel protesters. [ed. by anti-Israel I mean anti-Disengagement, an act carried out by the Israeli army under the direction of the democratically elected government of Israel]. Sadly, I didn't know the Hebrew for "you're enslaving another people and making all Jews look bad for it," and I hadn't attended slichot, so I didn't feel comfortable pulling the hillul hashem card. Maybe next time.
In the meantime, I accomplished a few goals. I brought home a lot of orange ribbon, (safely removed from public spaces where they don't belong), and I picked up a lot of trash in the kikar. Maybe next time I'll get punched in the face by a settler.

Yesh Bi Ahava V'Hi Tnatzeach

I have love in me, and love will win. For the Eagles. Boo Falcons! Knopf knows what he can do with his Falcons victory.

I Won't Forget and I Won't Forgive

Last year in January I had possibly one of the worst days of my life. I found out that my laptop would cost $800 to fix or else all my thesis research would be gone (I fixed it, obviously); I was very stressed out about doing research without my computer anyway; and I was fairly convinced I wouldn't graduate from college. To make matters worse, I was wearing a navy blue hoodie and an orange t-shirt. As I walked from my hotel (across from the Conservative Yeshiva) to Hebrew U's Jewish National Library, I passed the Knesset, and a huge protest outside of it. There, wearing all blue and all navy, were a lot of anti-disengagement protesters. Long before they came up with the grossly inaccurate "Yehudi Lo M'garesh Yehudi" (I would love one of those as my landlord- I could stop paying rent without fear of ever getting evicted), they stuck to their basic racist creedo, "Eretz Yisrael L'Am Yisrael"--The Land of Israel is for the People of Israel. I disagreed with them, but I had to go do research, so I left it alone.
On the walk back to the hotel, armed with 80 pages of useless articles, I passed the Knesset again. I immediately zipped up my hoodie all the way- not daring to show even a hint of orange. However, the protest was over, and all that was left was a ton of litter all over the Knesset grounds, including many posters reading Eretz Yisrael L'Am Yisrael. Now maybe it's just me, but my feeling is that if you believe that the land exclusively belongs to you, you need to clean up after yourself a little bit.
Fast forward to right now. Yehudi Lo M'garesh Yehudi (a Jew doesn't expel a Jew) is still prevalent, if blatantly false now. But they have a new one, "Lo Nishkach v'lo Nisloach"-- I won't forget and I won't forgive. And we wonder why the Right of Return is such a big issue for Palestinian refugees of 1948. Given how many of the Anti-Disengagement folks are religious, and how many more will probably at least end up fasting for Yom Kippur, you'd think they would realize the importance of forgiveness this time of year. I've learned to forgive them enough to restrain myself from throwing garbage at every Gush Katif supporter I see. But if they insist on neither forgiving nor forgetting for long enough, I might have to change my mind.

Hey Arie- Real Original

So the concept is unoriginal, the title is unoriginal, and my thoughts will probably be unoriginal. That said, expect this to be a combination of left-wing rants (a la Ari's blog), funny stories from my life (a la everyone in the world's blog), and maybe even some pictures that will all be taken on my sister's camera, and therefore probably will be with my sister. Stay tuned for updates on my apartment, my love life, and other things that I pray that I will have eventually.