My first scathing book review

I just found a cache of my high school papers, and here's one gem (written for a US History course in my junior year):

The Metaphysical Club: A Herculean Feat of, Well, Research

In the middle to late nineteenth century, four great men were born. They came of age during the Civil War, and in their adulthood, they contributed to a great transition of ideas. These four men were Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., William James, Charles Peirce, and John Dewey. In The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America, Louis Menand follows the threads of these men's lives, in the process revealing the growth of a new way of thinking: pragmatism. Menand's book is a magnificent specimen of research, describing not only the ideas but also the denizens and characteristics of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century; however, the book offers little beyond simple information.

The central focus of the book is the progress of philosophy. The great transition of belief that was made was essentially from the idea that truth was something hidden and discoverable to the idea that all accessible truth was defined by our beliefs. Advances in science and mathematics helped trigger this transition, especially Darwinian evolution and probability theory. Darwinism provoked philosophers to ask whether the world was evolving toward a particular planned state, or whether the progress was random. Probability theory and its bell-curvian statistics led to two thoughts: first, just as more scientific trials lead to a more accurate measurement, more people thinking might lead the collective consciousness closer to the truth; and second, society has certain habits at any given time: murder rates stay relatively constant, for example.

העברית

כמעט מעבר לסף הזיכרון
היית שם, עם פנים שזופות
מלאות נקבוביות שהרגשתי ממוזלת לראות מקרוב.
באמצע הלילה שכבנו בשקי שינה
וחיכינו לצאת לטיול זריחה שלבסוף לא התקיים
(בעטיים של עננים שהסתירו את השחר העולה).
אני זוכרת את ההקלה ואת האכזבה --
ללכת שוב לישון בלי לעמול עבורו נראה כהנאה ריקה.
אבל קודם לכן, בשעה שחיכינו
הסתכלנו זאת בזאת, ודיברנו
ונגענו בידיים, עד שאמרת שאולי זה לא מתאים.
והייתי יותר מדי צעירה, אבל העמדתי פנים שהבנתי
והרגשתי מבוגרת ונבונה, כאילו הפקדת סוד נדיר בידיי.
בשדה התעופה, קראת בספר עברי
שורה על שורה של תיבות קטנות, עם מילה באנגלית פה ושם.
לא הרגשתי שאיבדתי אותך ביום ההוא
כי אם ששלחת אותי לדרכי, ושהייתי מסוגלת לו.

שמך אינו זכור לי
אבל השתכפלת בחלוף השנים.
היית ציפי, ששרה ביער כשהלכה להשתין
(זה היה רק לאחר שנה אחת).
והיית נעמי, שישבתי ברצפת הפרוזדור ליד משרדה, וידעתי שאסור לי להיכנס
אולם חיכיתי אף על פי כן, מלאת תקווה ובושה.
והיית אביטל, שקראה לי ספר ילדים כשבכיתי בבית קפה,
ועשתה קולות שונות לכל דמות.
והיית גם שירה, שלימדה אותנו את מילות היחס
והשתמשה בתיק שלה כדוגמה -- חפצים "ב"-משהו --
אך חדלה לפתע, והייתי בטוחה שהיא נזכרה ששם היה לה טמפון.

ואחר כך היית סיגלית, שהשאילה לי את צעיפה כשהיה לי קר בכיתה.
הופתעתי מחציית הגבולות הזאת, מתנה כה פשוטה שהרעיפה עליי חמימות
שהחזקתי בה למשך השנה השלמה הבאה.
אצל סיגלית בכיתי במרכז ההדפסה במרתף, ובמכונית, ובכיתה
וסימסתי בתעתיק, ודאגתי על כאב חלציה.
שלחתי לה מכתבים וחיבורים וגלי אור.
ישבתי אצלה כמו עמוס עוז הצעיר אצל זלדה, וקראנו על זלדה ועל עמוס עוז הצעיר.
היא לא נבהלה מכאב ולא מתשוקה
ועלה על דעתי שאולי אינני כל כך נוראית.
אחר כך, בעולם אחר,
מישהי קראה לי אמיצה.

באתי אפוא לארץ הבוערת מקנאות ומאדישות
לחפש את מורות מורותיי ומורותיהן וכן הלאה
(ואולי מורה אחד או שניים גם כן)
ולהיות מורבצת על ידי אחת, צְוֵויי, תַלַתֶה שפות
ולזכות, אם ירצה השם, לאהבה הבוטה כל כך
שמנפצת אותי לרסיסים
ויולדת אותי
שלמה
חדשה
וישנה נושנה.

Tefillat HaDerekh

Dear G!d,

Please get me there safe and help me with the transition.

Help me set my work aside and be present when it's time to be present, and help me relax my mind so that it can make space for each thing, even when it feels like there are too many things.

Help my body let go of its clenchedness and fatigue and help me find the energy to get more energy.

Help me to let go of commitments that don't deserve to be at the center, so that they make way for the work that's mine to do.

Help me ask for help and help me accept it when it's offered.

Help me to have the courage to walk into the dragon's mouth which is full of the flames of poetry and love and hope for redemption, personal, communal, and global.

Help me rest whenever I can and need to.

Help me to remember that it is You who opens up the path of least resistance, and that Your hands are human hands and human hands are Your hands.

Help me surrender to Your plans and let go of my own effort.

Help me let go of trying to return to You so that I can be free to walk towards You, fly towards You, fall towards You, swim towards You, learn towards You, love towards You, write towards You and voyage towards You.

Amennnnnnnnnn.

"Mindful eating" is not always a helpful concept

I've been having the following thoughts and feelings for a long time, but I think due to handling things better lately, I'm finally at the point where I can articulate them more clearly.

Here they are, in short:

When I first started working with a nutritionist, I didn't understand the point of mindful eating at all. I'm not sure what I thought the reasons for it were -- I guess partly it's so often used to try to get people to eat *less* (which is the opposite of what I need) that I was wary of it for that reason; and also, just a sense that it's part of a "culture of spiritual 'virtue' / perfectionism" that I feel very suspicious of in general (which to be clear I do not think is intrinsic to the Eastern religions from which the concept of mindfulness emerged -- but I do think it's intrinsic to the way the Western world has appropriated it for its own Protestant-Ethic purposes).

Dvar Tefillah: Avot

My initial reflection about Avot is that it is one of the prayers that I learned at a young age, which has certain effects: First, I can't read the words without hearing the Shabbat major nusach in my head (the way I learned this prayer at summer camp), and secondly, it's extremely hard for me to see this as a text that is made up of words that mean things, rather than just a collection of extremely familiar syllables. Just now I was trying to read it and pay attention to the meaning, and I find that indeed, all the words are Hebrew words whose meaning I know, but it's quite difficult to hold the meaning in my mind and not just slip back into the meaning-free oblivion of "this is a very comfortable set of sounds that I like to chew in my mouth." (I feel similarly about Adon Olam, Birkat, and perhaps Lecha Dodi, the most prominent specimens of ur-liturgy from my early childhood.)

It is interesting to notice that, but also good to take this opportunity to try to really read and understand the meaning of the words. Which seem to be a combination of power (גדול, גבור, נורא, עליון, קונה, מלך) and love (גומל חסדים טובים, באהבה) and then a couple things that are maybe a combination of power and love (עוזר, מגן, מושיע, מביא גואל) and then a couple things I'm not sure how to categorize (זוכר חסדי אבות and למען שמו). Also it is interesting that it is מביא גואל and not מביא גאולה, which brings me back to something I mentioned last week: the question of human versus divine leadership of the Jewish people (and specifically in bringing redemption / liberation). And maybe that's the key to the two things that I didn't know how to categorize -- maybe both of them are ways of bringing human leadership into the picture while still "hekshering" that leadership with a divine seal: חסדי אבות names the ability of humans to act for love -- but G!d still has a role in that action, by being the זוכר of it; and as far as למען שמו, the phrase is referring to the bringing of the גואל -- G!d is bringing a human hero (arguably) but it's still למען שמו.

So I suppose I could (elliptically and freely) translate the bracha this way:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱלקינוּ וֵאלקי אֲבותֵינוּ. אֱלקי אַבְרָהָם. אֱלקי יִצְחָק. וֵאלקי יַעֲקב. הָאֵל הַגָּדול הַגִּבּור וְהַנּורָא אֵל עֶלְיון. גּומֵל חֲסָדִים טובִים. וְקונֵה הַכּל. וְזוכֵר חַסְדֵּי אָבות. וּמֵבִיא גואֵל לִבְנֵי בְנֵיהֶם לְמַעַן שְׁמו בְּאַהֲבָה: מֶלֶךְ עוזֵר וּמושִׁיעַ וּמָגֵן: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה', מָגֵן אַבְרָהָם:

Blessed are you G!d of our ancestors -- great and mighty G!d of power and lovingkindness. You remember the lovingkindness of our ancestors, and you cultivate powerful human leaders who do Your work with love. Blessed are you, G!d who uses Your power to protect Your people.

Dvar Tefillah: Mi Chamocha

I looked at the context in liturgy and in Tanakh (Shmot 15, Shirat Hayam), both of which make it clear that this cry is a cry of awe about God's power, in its reflection in the drowning of the Egyptians in the Sea of Reeds. I've been thinking about the issue of what God does to the Egyptians through the plagues (and especially in hardening Pharaoh's heart to extend the plagues). So my first reaction is disappointment -- "Ugh, why can't this cry of awe just be an uncomplicated celebration of God's power, instead of being a celebration of God's violence?" But then looking at the text of Mi Chamocha itself, I can see that the words itself reflect this complicatedness -- נורא clearly emphasizes the fearfulness, and even נאדר and עושה פלא emphasize God's scary, unfathomable, unbearably radiant aspects. In that sense, it actually feels less complicated to me to cry out in awe in response to this incredible act of violence, because the words of this cry truly express awe -- not celebration, but fear and wonder and perhaps some doubt about whether it's safe to be in relationship with a God like this one.

Dvar Tefillah: Shema

The Shema is a prayer that I have struggled with, mainly because of its centrality – I've felt a sense of pressure to experience it a certain way, and also a sense that it embodies all my tension about whether or not I am Jewishly connected enough (and specifically how I am or am not connected with the type of Judaism that I grew up with). I also often feel irritated by the practice of saying the Shema with one word per breath, because it can feel like “enforced kavanah” (and also maybe kind of fake or performative kavanah) in a way that I don't necessarily want to buy into, but also can't find a way to opt out of, when it arises in the service. Finally, I've felt a sense of overwhelming energetic charge in the words because of their association with deathbed confession and martyrdom – their connection to “the last moment – what if you don't do it right?”, similar to the energy of Neilah (which also makes sense considering that Shema is one of the repeated phrases at the end of Neilah, again marking this moment of “last chance”).

After thinking and writing about this last year, I found that I came to a new place with the Shema. Once I understood the arc of shacharit liturgy leading up to the Shema, I understood that saying the Shema could serve as an act of consciously receiving the ol malchut shamayim (yoke of the sovereignty of heaven), which was helpful, since I had not previously found that the words of the Shema held particular meaning for me. After I understood this, I came to understand that accepting the ol malchut shamayim can also be a matter of “submitting to what is,” and experiencing divinity in the sense of the aspects of the world and experience that are beyond human control. Since then, I have had the practice of treating the Shema as an opportunity to come into the present moment, no matter the nature of that moment: to be with whatever my experience is in the moment that the congregation arrives at the Shema (similar in some ways to the shofar blast as a call to presence and consciousness).