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monsooninn · 1 year ago

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Berakhot 3b: 4-5. "Battery Capacity."

5. "From the face of the avalanche", and suspicion and harm will be poured out from somewhere!

6. Betri and kosher.

We know the Face of the Avalance is the moment God said to Moses, "Shema! At Midnight!" = "the Rumor! Confirmed!"

Upon hearing and seeing God on Sinai, all that happened heretofore in the Torah and thereafter was supposed to have been "poured out." Here is what that means:

"Dating back to at least the early 11th century,1 we have a custom to sprinkle a bit of the wine from our cup 16 times during the recitation of the Haggadah:

three drops when we say “Blood, Fire and Columns of Smoke”;

ten drops when we enumerate the Ten Plagues by name; and

three final drops when we say “Detzach, Adash, B’achav,” Rabbi Yehuda’s mnemonic for the Ten Plagues.

While this custom is simple enough and pretty universal, its reason is far from elementary.

Sword of G‑d

The classic reason given in the early sources is that these 16 drops, which we spill as we enumerate 16 iterations of punishment, correspond to “the sword of G‑d,” which is called יוה"ך (the name יוה"ך can be divided into יו הך, which means “16 strike”). This is the name of the angel charged with executing vengeance.2 Furthermore, the Midrash tells us that G‑d’s sword has 16 edges.3

Another reason given for spilling out the wine is that “one may not recite a blessing over a cup of punishment.”4 We therefore “spill out” the drops of wine associated with punishment from the cup we will soon raise in celebration as we recite blessings and praise.5

(Based on the above, the Lubavitcher Rebbe explains that we can understand a rather intriguing and perplexing insertion in the Haggadah that was published as part of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi’s Siddur. Although Rabbi Schneur Zalman almost never includes any kabbalistic intention in his Siddur, with regard to spilling the wine, he writes in the instructions:

One’s intent should be that the cup be identified with the Divine attribute of malchut (royalty). Through the influence of binah (understanding), the anger associated with the wine it contains is “poured off” into a broken vessel, representative of kelipah, which is called “cursed.” . . . The wine remaining in the cup (after all the spillings) is “wine of joy,” and should not be spilled out.

Thus, it is important that one have the intention that it is only the wine that is being poured out that corresponds to the “sword of G‑d” and represents G‑d’s anger and retribution; however, the wine in the cup is wine of joy and blessing.6)"

The Battery and its Capacity is the Tradition, transmitted from one Jewish brain to the next until the entirety of the world has its own Shema at Midnight, "freedom is nigh! Obey God and be free."

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 4: the Value in Gematria is 5046, האֶפֶסדו‎‎, "the evil and the lost."

v. 5: the Value in Gematria is 484, דחד‎, "they rejected the pressure."

It is Midnight tonight. The Mormons and Republicans, they cheated, murdered Jews and Central American refugees, not one of them told the truth about it, and they are trying to do it all over again.

This issue raises an important question. We know the Mormons and the Republicans have committed unforgiveable crimes against the human race, why haven't we shown them the way out? What is prolonging our agony, and who would do such a thing? Prolong lawlessness and suffering when their Office calls for staunch opposition of such things?

All of the above are called rejection of the pressure. Future generations must root out evil like the former the second its seeds start to germinate, not one second after.

The First Condition for Mashiach, global awareness of the need for Ethical Government. The Second is happening now, the dogs of war are barking. We'll figure this one out using the stored energy inherent to the First.

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grandhotelabyss · 3 years ago

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Now that the “dunk” cycle has passed, I do have something to say about this viral Tweet. First, like all sublimely stupid remarks, it passes into brilliance. “Allegory of what” is a reasonable and even eloquent characterization—it would be a good title for an essay—putting in the vernacular Walter Benjamin’s famous description of Kafka’s works as Haggadah without Halachah—i.e., Talmudic illustrations of the law sans the law itself. What kind of sensibility does this offend? Well, let’s not defang the modernists—it honestly might irritate anyone. I myself have a somewhat checkered relationship with Kafka; I like him short, in aphorisms and prose-poems, and I think his masterpiece might be “A Hunger Artist,” an absolutely perfect story, which I don’t quite understand, except that it’s about me and my experiences, which I don’t understand either. The longer pieces, especially the novels, don’t have the same power, because the oneiric style feels forced and willful when extended. (I should say I’ve read a lot of Kafka but not all and never systematically, just in fits and starts between my teen years and today; my major omission is The Castle.)

Still, Dawkins’s remark also illuminates a larger phenomenon. I saw the other day a social-media inquiry, with what agenda I don’t know, about whether there was some continuity between Dawkins’s New Atheist movement and today’s wokeness. The answer is the opposite: official anti-wokeness, the Intellectual Dark Web, descends from New Atheism. But they share a sensibility, since both New Atheism and wokeness can be described, maybe unfairly but not simply in jest, as puritan sects. And what does the puritan want from a text? Governor Winthrop explains:

At Watertown there was (in the view of divers witnesses) a great combat between a mouse and a snake; and after a long fight, the mouse prevailed and killed the snake. The pastor of Boston, Mr. Wilson, a very sincere, holy man, hearing of it, gave this interpretation: That the snake was the devil; the mouse was a poor contemptible people, which God had brought hither, which should overcome Satan here, and dispossess him of his Kingdom.

The interpretation is so insistent and indisputable that the allegorical surface, here nature itself, is wholly dispensable. The New Atheist and the woke want a text the opposite of Kafka’s, one whose narrative, drama, style, and imagery are so morally legible that no “wrong” interpretation is even imaginable. Hence to the New Atheist, anything that calls for interpretation is irrational, while to the woke it’s elitist or crypto-fascist. American literature is the struggle of the puritan interpretive impulse toward complex artistic expression. This often results in amputated allegories, which is why Hawthorne and Melville often sound like Kafka.

Yet I’m sure I go too far. “Franz Kafka or Thomas Mann?” Georg Lukács rhetorically wondered—for the communist critic, the right answer was Mann, since he was (supposedly) a realist. David Mikics, reviewing a re-release of Mann’s Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man (which I’ve never read), reminds us of how Mann caught the character of the totalizing puritan by semi-caricaturing Lukács himself as Naphta in The Magic Mountain. Mann showed Naphta as a Jewish-turned-Jesuit Hegelian nihilist, which is to say that all traditions harbor their own oversimplifications. They always beckon us into the purity spiral. For nonpolitical Mann, that stolid German burgher and paterfamilias always about to melt into the Mediterranean, purity’s opposite is art:

Mann knew in Reflections that individual freedom, which he identified with the writer’s talent for playing with ideas, must stand against all political demands. It is on behalf of that life-giving freedom that Mann celebrates “art’s lively ambiguity, its deep lack of commitment, its intellectual freedom ... someone who is used to creating art, never takes spiritual and intellectual things completely seriously, for his job has always been rather to treat them as material and as playthings, to represent points of view, to deal in dialectics, always letting the one who is speaking at the time be right.”

The higher playfulness that Mann espouses in these sentences from Reflections perfectly suits his dazzling, many-faceted Magic Mountain, so different from today’s prizewinning novels, which present uplifting lessons endorsed by the socially conscious author and his or her tenure committee. In Mann, each character is right when he or she speaks, and the whole revolves in crystal.

A serious way of not taking things seriously—all those italics!—but still heartening. Mikics argues for a continuity between the early Mann and the later, though the author’s career is more customarily seen as a consistent drift from right to left. Considering Mann’s middle-period novella, Mario and the Magician, which exposes fascism in a wholly fascist way, and his almost unbearably excellent late masterpiece Doctor Faustus, a novel that criticizes the daemonic work of a genius while also being the daemonic work of a genius, he may be right.

I am more interested in the irony that everything I’ve written above would have been considered looney-left academic gibberish at the peak of neoconservative hegemony and New Atheist ascendancy about 15 years ago, whereas now it is considered reactionary obscurantism. It’s no sign of virtue alone to be attacked by both the left and the right—three people can be wrong at once—but to be scorned by the puritans of all creeds for not writing stories with obvious morals probably means an author is onto something. To quote Lukács from before he joined the Party, “Art always says ‘And yet!’ to life.”

#franz kafka #thomas mann #georg lukács #richard dawkins #literary criticism #literary theory #literature #david mikics

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beshert-bh · 5 years ago

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My journey to/with Judaism

***This is a super long post, it’s the FULL story, not a brief overview, but it would mean the WORLD to me if you read it***

Upbringing: very much Not Jewish™️

I was born into a Catholic family. I have a goyish last name. I was baptized as an infant, and my parents took me to church each week as a kid.

In kindergarten — back when I still went to a secular private school — one of my best friends was Jewish. He told me all about the traditions his family did...told me all about the kippahs they wear, and how they had their own game called dreidel for this holiday they celebrated, called Hanukkah. (Of course this convo was at a basic-kindergarten-level of knowledge.) When I came home from school I was fascinated with Hanukkah, (this is cringey to admit but my 5-year-old self tried to integrate the traditions together and so in order to do this I drew up a “Christmas dreidel” complete with Santa Claus’ face on one side, a present on another side...you get it)

And that is when I was promptly put in “parochial” schools. I went to Catholic school from 1st grade to 12th grade. I went through Holy Communion and Confirmation like all the other kids did. My elementary soccer team’s mascot was an Angel. My high school’s mascot was a Crusader. Our high school was located on Rome Avenue. I went to a Catholic youth conference. I considered becoming a nun because I was single all throughout high school.

Growing up, around Christmastime we would always travel to visit my grandma, and she would always say we’re “German Jewish” — but I would write her off. In my mind, I was like, Yeah ok like 1%? .....It felt like my grandma was acting like one of those white people who takes a DNA test and says, “Look! We’re 1% African!” So I would dismiss her and remind her how we’re Catholics and she would drop the subject.

Falling away from Xtianity: my first 2 years of college

My freshman year I changed — politically — as I was only conservative in high school because of the ‘pro-life’ agenda being shoved down my throat. I really aligned more with liberal and leftist policies and views, though. Once I became open to new political ideology, I began to question my theological beliefs.

I always had a strong connection to God. My whole life. But I struggled with connecting to Jesus, Mary, the saints, and so on. So obviously my freshman year of college I began to fall away from Catholicism.

You see, Catholics are “bad at the Bible” as I like to say. Other Christians do a better job of teaching and analyzing the writings. They actually require school-aged children to memorize Scripture passages. Catholics mostly just teach the same stuff over and over. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, blah blah blah. Catechism, liturgical calendar, blah blah blah. Parts of the mass, fruits of the spirit, blah blah blah.

So since I was already doubting Catholicism, its corrupt leadership, and its mindless traditions.... I thought maaaaybeeee I would find purpose, truth, clarity, etc. in plain-old Christianity. But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The other Christian churches I went to baptized people (which is a BIG LIFE DECISION) on the spot. For example if a newcomer felt on a whim that they wanted to be baptized, the church would do it right then & there. No learning, no planning or preparing, that was it. They promoted blind faith and circular thinking. I began to realize these were both normal attitudes and cognitive patterns within any and every Christian community that I encountered.

Even the Christians who exhibited curiosity mostly just asked questions in order to be able to understand, and then accept, the doctrine as truth. Questions never ever challenged anything.

Oh and let’s throw in the fact that I’m bisexual. Homophobia, transphobia, biphobia (and more) are rampant in the church. So needless to say, with all my observations about the lack of logical thinking in the church (and considering my sexual orientation) I fell away. I stopped going to church unless my family made me when I was home from college.

Enter stage right: Judaism

In retrospect I happened to have a lot of friends in my sorority and my favorite fraternity on campus who were Jewish (the frat happened to be a traditionally-Jewish one). Thought nothing of it at the time. Fast forward to junior year when I met this cute guy on Tinder. He’s now my boyfriend and we’ve been dating for over a year. He didn’t tell me this on Tinder, but when we went on our first date, he revealed that he’s Jewish and wanted to make sure that’s something I was ok with. Clearly I had no problem with that. I wasn’t too into Christianity anymore but I still identified as one (and I was still surrounded by Christian friends in my sorority) so I told him I was Christian/raised Catholic and asked hypothetically if he would be comfortable with a “both” family. He said yes.

We started dating during an October, so of course Hanukkah came up soon. There was a mega challah bake at our local Chabad, which he took me to, and we had a blast. From then on I decided I wanted to show him how supportive I was of his Jewishness. (The last girl he dated dumped him after 3 months BECAUSE he was Jewish... so I felt that I needed to be supportive)

We started going to shabbat services and dinner every week. We did Hanukkah together (we bought our first menorah together, he taught me how to spin a dreidel, his mom bought me Hanukkah socks...lol). At some point in our relationship I told him I may have Jewish ancestry from my grandma but it’s distant and my whole extended family is Christian so it really wouldn’t even matter. I don’t remember when I had that conversation with him.

Eventually, after another few months of Shabbat services and Shabbat dinners, Pesach came around.

We went to the first seder together. The second seder is what changed everything.

Deciding to convert

At first I wasn’t sure if I belonged at this second seder. My boyfriend had always brought me to every event. I had never attended anything alone at Chabad before. But I went anyway. Throughout the night I felt increasingly comfortable. I had never felt more like I was a *part of something* than I did at this seder.

I sat near a friend who I recognized. (He knows I’m raised Catholic.) Then he & his friends welcomed me. We all took turns reading from the Haggadah, we drank the four cups of wine together, and we laughed together as I had maror for the first time.

Then the familiar faces left to go home, and one of them even went to another table to sit with his other friends whom he hadn’t had a chance to see yet that night. Naturally I thought I was alone again. I almost left, but something tugged at my heart to stay until the very end of the second seder. Something told me to keep going and keep taking in this wonderful experience.

The rest of the night consisted of many songs (most likely prayers, in retrospect) I did not know. Everyone stood to sing and we all clapped to the rhythm. I knew none of the words but I still clapped along, alone at my own table. Then one of the boys — the one who had been sitting with my friends and I earlier — motioned at me to come over and join his other friends. I approached this new table full of people I’d never met, feeling awkward as ever, and they not only hoisted me up to stand on the table with them as they chanted, but they also included me in their dance circle. (no, I don’t think it was the Hora, we just spun around over and over. lol.)

This was the first night I felt at home with Judaism. Going through the Jewish history with the Haggadah, remembering the important occurrences and symbolizing them with various foods, ending the night by being welcomed into the community... it was transformative. After attending shabbat services for months and learning about Jewish values, it changed something in me when I observed Pesach for the first time last year. I knew this path would be right for me. I felt as if my soul had found where it belonged. The Jewish history, traditions, beliefs, and customs resonated with me. It all just... made sense.

I told my boyfriend I wanted to convert. I wrote three pages of reasons. But I sat on the idea of converting and did nothing for a while. I did do some more research on Judaism, though, as I continued to attend services each week.

The exploration stage

I began to actually research on my own time. If converting was something I was genuinely considering, it was high time I began actively learning as much as I could possibly learn. It was time to dive deeper than just attending the weekly services and googling the proper greetings for Jewish holidays.

I started digging deeper into Judaism and Christianity so I could compare and contrast the two. I needed to understand the similarities and differences. And BOY are they different. That was surprising at first, but the more I learned about Judaism, the more I loved how different it was from the Christianity I was indoctrinated into.

Not only are the values and teachings of each religion vastly different, but the Tanakh (which is “The Old Testsment” in Christian Bibles) actually contradicts:

The entire “New Testament”

The gospel books specifically

The Pauline letters specifically

How did I realize this? Some bible study of my own, but mostly through online research. And, of course, I would have gotten nowhere without the help of Rabbi Tovia Singer and his YouTube videos. He debunks everything there is to debunk about Christianity.

Here were some things I came across when researching:

It confused me how the four Gospels didn’t align (like, major parts of the story did not align at all...and supposedly they’re divinely inspired...but they don’t even corroborate one another?)

It confused me how the psalms we sang in church were worded completely different from the true wording in the Bible (essentially the Christian church is taking tehillim and altering it to benefit Christian dogma and Christian rhetoric.)

It confused me how we read in the Bible that Jews are ‘God’s chosen people’ and yet in every Catholic Church, every Sunday, there is a Pauline letter being read which depicts proselytization of Jews, as if Jews are lost and need Christians to save them. As if Jews would go to hell if they fail to accept Jesus.

It confused me why we would pray to Mary and the saints, because praying is worship, and worshipping anyone but God themself is idolatry.

It confused me why Christians make, sell, and use graven images. Idolatry. Again.

It confused me why Christians give absolute power to humans. For example, if you crawl up the same steps (Scala Santa) that Jesus supposedly crawled up before he died, you automatically get “saved” because *some old men who have no divine power* said so (they have a term for this and it’s called “plenary indulgence” lol).

It confused me why Jesus was believed to be the messiah considering he had to have biologically been from the line of Joseph. Wasn’t Jesus supposedly conceived without any help from Joseph? Wouldn’t that render Jesus, uh, not messiah by default? Even if he was from Joseph’s blood, he still did not complete all the tasks moshiach is supposed to fulfill. And even if he DID fulfill all the tasks required of moshiach... we still would not worship a messiah as he is human and not GOD.

These were all new thoughts I developed this past year between Pesach and Yom Kippur. New questions that challenged everything I thought I knew. It was like teaching a child 2+2≠22 but rather 2+2=4.

Hillel

This fall, after the High Holy Days, my boyfriend began attending shabbat dinners at a rabbi’s home. His new rav lives in the community and it’s exclusive to be invited, so I never imposed. We do Shabbos separately now (with some exceptions, we do it together sometimes).

I continued to go to Chabad with one of my friends who knew I wanted to convert. But one month, she couldn’t come at all, and I felt a little judged there anyway.

So I began going to Hillel a few months ago. And I honestly have found a home there.

From Hillel’s Springboard Fellow reaching out to me and taking me out for coffee to get to know me... to running into my sorority & fraternity friends at every Hillel event (shabbat or otherwise)... From getting included in various clubs like the women empowerment group and the mental health inclusivity group... to being the only college student to participate in Mitzvah Day (hosted by Hillel) with the elderly and the local Girl Scout troop... I feel truly welcome. I’ve started to attend every week. I even talked briefly with the rabbi about having Jewish lineage and wanting to convert.

Discovering new information

I went home to be with family during Thanksgiving break. My grandma flew in so she was there when I got home. She stayed with us from then until New Years (and she’s actually moving in with us next year.)

Of course, now I have a Jewish boyfriend, Jewish friends, and I’ve done extensive research on Judaism. So this time I had background knowledge when she inevitably said... “You know, we’re German Jewish!”

I inquired a little. I asked her what she meant. How is she Jewish? I know my uncle took a DNA test this year and came back part Ashkenazi. But I needed a deeper explanation than DNA.

She revealed to me that her mom’s mom was Jewish. We believe she married a Christian man. Together they had my great-grandmother, who I believe was Christian. She had my grandma, who had my dad, who had me.

And I immediately felt like that changed things. At first I was (internally) like, Now I definitely need to convert! But then I was like, Wait, does this make me Jewish? Am I Jewish-ish? ...Can you be considered Jewish if you’re only ethnically Jewish but not raised Jewishly? ...Can you be Jewish if your dad is your only Jewish parent? ...Can you be Jewish if your dad never had a bris or a bar mitzvah?

I joined a bunch of Jewbook groups, began learning the Hebrew calendar & holiday schedule, and found some folks who assist with Jewish genealogy. They did some digging for me and apparently I descend from the Rothschild family. THE Rothschild family.

Who is a Jew? Who “counts”?

This is something I’ve been muddling over.

At Hillel, at my school at least, most people are pretty Reform. They’re very liberal with their definitions of Judaism (they believe in patrilineal descent and not only matrilineal descent).

They accept me and see me as actually Jewish ...and the ones who don’t... they at least see me as Jewish-adjacent, an “honorary Jew” or an “ally to the Jewish people”.

My boyfriend, however, still sees me as Not Jewish.™️ (For context he’s Reform but he’s trying to become as observant as possible) I know he only thinks this was because of how we began our relationship and because of how I was raised. But I’m very confused here.

Do I count?

Do I not?

Do I count *enough* but still need to go through a formal conversion process?

So...now what?

I don’t know how to navigate this odd journey but I have felt for a while that I have a Jewish neshama and I feel a strong need to affirm it. I just don’t know how or what is appropriate. Do I learn Hebrew? Sign up for a trip to Israel/Germany/Poland? Put up a mezuzah? Or go toward the other end of the scale, and head down a path of a formal conversion/reaffirmation process?

Thank you in advance for your responses and thanks for reading. 🤎

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docholligay · 5 years ago

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On This Night

I’m sure what my family really wants to hear at Passover is a fucking sermon, but, too bad, I cooked the prime rib and writing is the only way I make sense of anything in my life. This is what I wrote to read at the beginning of our seder.

I usually read a poem at this point in the Haggadah. It’s a good poem,it’s one of my favorite things I’ve found in my constant refinement of my personal Haggadah, about Jews, and journeying, and what it means to be a Jew, on the journey that every single one of us is on.. Through both our own deserts, and the dangerous desert journey of what it means to be a Jew, in a world that will always fight you.

I’m not going to read that this year. The whole world is going through the desert, this year. We are wandering, with no idea if we will ever stop, if we will ever know a home again, knowing that home will be different from everything we’ve ever known. It’s a terrifying thing, to wander with no idea of the end. It’s terrifying, and unifying, and it reminds me that deserts pop up where jungles were all the time.

Moses was kept out of the Promised Land for the sin of losing faith, of doubt, and I think about that a lot. Not even his own doubt, but the doubt of his people. It seems so cruel, doesn’t it? That Moses would never see the end of the journey, that he would die with its beauty just in his sight, because of the weakness of others?

But I think of two things. Number one, is that we are all in community together. We are only as good, only as wealthy, only as safe, as the least of us. Jewish community is meant to be collective. If Moses’ people lost faith, perhaps he had lost the words to give them hope. Perhaps he had stopped trying. Can we consider ourselves innocent, if we do not seek to give hope and faith and courage to others? Can we not now understand so keenly, that the actions of some affect us all? Both come out for me, when I was rereading this bit of Torah.

The second is that the Israelites fucked up so many times on the journey, but it was losing hope so much that they were going to willingly return to bondage that kept them from the Promised Land. Maybe hope is the core of what it means to be Jewish. That we are unwilling to return to our bondage, even if we do not know the way. That to be Jewish is to be sure that there is a sunrise coming, while still acknowledging that we are in the dark. To remember that there are stars, small points of light to guide us to the morning.

This is a celebration of our freedom from bondage, but it is a also a reminder, a call that we must ensure we do not, in cowardice, return ourselves to bondage.

There are many personal bondages. We all hold ourselves in one or another, sometimes. The bondage of selfishness, and of laziness, of putting your desires above the needs of others. The bondage of taking joy in the misery of others, of forgetting that hands that hold a sword and shield have nothing with which to lift up the fallen. The bondage of fear, of believing generosity will hurt you. The bondage of hatred.

There are bondages of the world. The bondage of poverty, the bondage of inequality, of racism, of anti-Semitism, of homophobia. The bondage of inefficient systems, run by billionaires who will not know their touch. The bondage of a virus, and of quarantine.

No one is yet free. But that is no reason to despair. Despair is the greatest sin of all. God made the stars to guide us, but he also gave us the good sense to know how to make a candle. Hillel said, quite famously, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?” The time is always now. And we are always Moses, responsible to our communities, and to ourselves, and to our God.

We will find our way out of the desert. Don’t lose faith.

#sometimes the "i seriously considered becoming a rabbi' vibes are real strong huh?#ahahah

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manicpixiedreamjew · 6 years ago

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I hope this isn't a personal question, but how did you become so sure that you wanted to convert to Judaism? I've been thinking about it for years now, and my consideration hasn't reached the point where it's unshakeable, if that makes sense.

This is a great question, and I’m not sure if I can adequately explain it in a way that makes sense. I remember spending nights crying myself to sleep because this decision was so intimidating, so foreign and scary. As an atheist, the idea of converting to Judaism was like...MEGA taboo for me. It was literally terrifying. I remember, though, being fascinated with all the intricacies, debates, arguments, halachot, prayers, writings, music...and just thinking, wow, I can study this for the rest of my life and never, ever run out of material. That was exciting. I have to say that was mid 2016, and my interest in Judaism was from a purely academic point of view. It wasn’t until I actually ATTENDED shul that I thought, “I’m connected to this in a way that runs miles deeper than simple interest. This is spiritual, grounding, comforting viscerally.” I always say that my first love of Judaism is its family and communal values. The “Wicked Son” in the Passover Haggadah, the Son that, had he lived in the time of the Exodus, would have been left in Egypt, undermines and rejects his community. The Wicked Son asks, “What is this service to YOU”--not “us”. This illustrates how intensely important community is to being Jewish. You can’t “do” Jewish on your own, which is so appealing to me. I love this world-wide family of people, I love my congregation; I love having been adopted into this ancient culture. When you convert to Judaism, you’re adopted into a tribe. That’s that. I don’t think I had one particular moment where I KNEW 100% that this was right for me, but over a myriad of tiny moments, it became clear that there simply wasn’t any other path. Sitting at our Sukkot celebration and dancing with all the other people, looking up through the sukkah and marveling at all the plants and leaves. Baking challah on Friday morning and realizing that somewhere, other Jewish women are doing the exact same thing. Feeling wet wind on my face, seeing fireflies flicker through the bushes and knowing that God is there. Touching my siddur to the Torah for the first time and feeling like something breathed life into me. Going up for a group aliyah and feeling a comforting hand on my shoulder, chanting the brachot in clumsy unison. You will have moments like these, and you will know. Trust me.

#save #judaism #conversion #Anonymous

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fuckyeahevanrwood · 6 years ago

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Evan Rachel Wood and Julie Taymor on Why Across the Universe ‘Scared the Shit Out of People’

The Beatles have always had a cinematic presence, from the 1964 faux-documentary A Hard Day’s Night to the experimental shorts of John and Yoko. But no director has ever used the Beatles’ music as inventively and audaciously as Julie Taymor, whose 2007 film Across the Universe is being rereleased in theaters for three days by Fathom Events. Using 33 Beatles songs and minimal dialogue, Across the Universe tells the story of three young adults in the late 1960s: Lucy (then 17-year-old Evan Rachel Wood), an all-American girl who wants to change the world; her brother Max (Joe Anderson), a rebel who gets dragged into Vietnam; and Jude (Jim Sturgess), a working-class artist from Liverpool who follows his dreams across the ocean. Their stories coalesce in New York City, where they befriend blues musicians, acid heads, radical extremists, a closeted lesbian, and Bono in a ridiculous mustache. Fictional characters become entangled in real events (the Detroit riots, the Columbia student protests), using songs from every Beatles era to express a nation’s political and psychedelic awakening.

Taymor’s film is as visual as it is musical. The magical-realism elements Taymor brought to her Oscar-winning film Frida and her Broadway hit The Lion King are blown to epic proportions in Across the Universe. “I Want You” becomes a nightmare ballet about Max’s recruitment and subsequent dehumanization in Vietnam, ending with an image of soldiers carrying the Statue of Liberty as they crush villages underfoot. “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” is a psychedelic circus featuring collage animation and 20-foot puppets. “Because” scores an underwater love-in. Even in more traditionally constructed scenes, the scale is breathtaking; the entire film was shot on location and, according to Taymor, employed 5,000 extras.

Across the Universe also runs well over two hours — not a big deal in this age of bloated superhero adventures, but in 2007, the length of Taymor’s cut alarmed Sony executives. Without her approval, the studio test-screened an alternate cut that eliminated much of the film’s political content and minimized the nonwhite supporting characters. Taymor fought back hard, and while she won final cut, she was smeared in the press (industry publications used words like “ballistic” and “hysteria”) and, she says, torpedoed by Sony’s marketing department. The film polarized critics (Roger Ebert loved it, Ann Hornaday hated it) and opened to limp box office, failing to recoup its budget.

And yet — in the past decade, the audience for Across the Universe has grown, its inevitable cult-classic status realized. At the present moment, the film’s portrayal of ’60s activism and art as weapons against government oppression seems especially resonant. In the lead-up to the Fathom Events release, Vulture had a candid conversation with Taymor and Wood about the unusual process of making the film, the bizarre logistics of Wood’s first nude scene, the ongoing challenges facing female directors, and the potential influence of Across the Universe on millennial activists. (Given the timing of the interview, we also threw in a few Westworld season-finale questions.)

There’s no film quite like Across the Universe, so I’d imagine making it was a unique experience. Evan Rachel Wood: It was one of the best experiences of my life. I was 17. Once I heard Julie was making a Beatles movie, I remember just thinking, “There’s nobody else that can do this. And I won’t let anybody else do it!” It just had to be. And then I got the part and we all spent about seven or eight months in New York together.

Julie Taymor: We rehearsed it like a normal musical in theater … and it bonded everybody. I’ll never forget Evan walking in the hallways with this Bowie T-shirt, because at one point we’d asked David Bowie if he was going to play Mr. Kite. And I think that at the moment Evan was really like, “Bowie, Bowie!”

ERW: Well, yeah, I mean I’m always like, “Bowie, Bowie.” But I was also all about Eddie Izzard. I was always doing Eddie’s stand-up in the hallway.

JT: One of the things that I remember profoundly — this was during the Iraq War right? And it was really touchy subject. When we did the march down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square, the anti-Vietnam War march with the Bread and Puppet Theater puppets — everybody thought they were marching against the Iraq War. Now this is what I wanted to say: When Across the Universe came out ten years ago, it was right before Obama. And maybe this is just my own feeling, but I feel that this movie was very popular amongst young people. And I think people were very inspired by what the youth of America did in the 1960s, how they really made things change.

ERW: I even remember that a lot of people in the neighborhood wanted us to leave up the peace signs and protest signs, because it wasrelevant.

I have a vivid memory of going down to the Lower East Side when you were filming and seeing a whole block transformed into a ’60s fantasy of New York City. It was magical, like stepping into a dream. Were there any moments that felt like that to you as you were making it? ERW: Oh my God, all of it. Certainly the scene where we stumble upon the puppets and the blue meanies and Eddie Izzard started coming out and singing. That was when I was really on a different planet.

JT: We shot that in Garrison, New York, and all of those were papier-mâché handmade puppets, giant puppets. There is almost no CGI in that section. It’s all real.

ERW: I think “I Want You” is one of my favorite numbers in the movie.

JT: I was walking on a beach in Mexico when I came up with the idea — I’d done the Haggadah at the Public Theater years before, where the slaves are carrying the pyramids across the sands of Egypt. And I got the idea of all the young boys in their underwear and their army boots supporting [the Statue of] Liberty, and the image of Liberty charging through the jungles of the Third World, mashing and stepping and destroying all the trees. You know, the irony of us being this country that says we’re bringing Liberty, at the same time we’re bringing it at the expense of many people.

Evan, what was involved in the scene where you and Jim Sturgess are singing “Because” and making out underwater? ERW: Speeding up the songs, and then learning how to sing them really fast. So the scenes were like, [sings] “becausetheworldisrounditturnsmeon…” And then she slowed it down so that it looked like it was in real time. So we filmed underwater all day. We would just take a deep breath and dive under and then try to get the song out as quickly as possible.

JT: And she also had to work hard to hide her breasts, right Evan?

ERW: Oh, I always had to hide my breasts. I could only show one boob because it was PG-13. Two made it an R but one was fine! And that was my first nude scene.

Julie, you fought the studio to get final cut on this film, when Sony wanted to shorten it. I was reading some of the press from that time, and I was noticing how gendered the language is when they write about you and this movie. There’s a Variety article that says, “She went ballistic to save her child.” JT: Thanks for reminding me. I’d almost forgotten how awful that was.

I’m sorry to bring it up! But I think it’s important to acknowledge that double standard. JT: You know, for me, I’ve been through it. Being a successful director on Broadway brings out all kinds of knives and hatred. But the misogyny business is true. And I put blinders on and just tried to do the work. I think every director, male and female, has babies, you know what I mean? It’s not just women. But you’re right. It is sexist dialogue. We loved our movie. And it wasn’t that it wasn’t working. It was working. They just smelled the money and thought if we dumb it down, literally, and get rid of the politics — I saw a cut where they got rid of the Detroit riot. There was no black child who was killed.

ERW: Prudence wasn’t even gay!

JT: Yeah, they cut “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” so many of the things that I knew young people and everybody would love. Evan had a line — this was one of the first signs of the kind of difficult road that would come. Lucy, who’s 16 or 17, is walking home from school and her best friend says that one of their friends got pregnant. And Lucy says, “I’m never having children. Having children is narcissistic, like putting out carbon copies of yourself.” I remember my best friend, when I was 16, telling me that. I mean, that line came from experience. But the studio said at the time, “Oh, Lucy can’t say that, it will make her so unlikable.” No, will make her likable! Because you have that sign that when she’s a high-school student, that she will become someone like Gloria Steinem or Jane Fonda, that she’s going to become an activist.

The other thing is the poster. The poster that we’re releasing it with now is the underwater poster, the psychedelic poster of them kissing. The one that they put out, the strawberry, everybody who made this film hates. Well, if we’re being honest! [Laughs.] The problem with it is, I think what happens in Hollywood is they think that you can only market to 14-to-15-year-old girls. And we always said this movie, even if it’s PG-13, will appeal from 10-year-olds up through the parents. I mean, the Beatles appeal to all ages. If you watched the karaoke James Corden video with Paul McCartney in Liverpool, all these people in the bars were from 16 years old up to 80. And I’m hoping that with this rerelease this summer, we’ll see the teenagers and the young adults, and also the families.

Evan, you tweeted recently that you’ve been struggling to sell a movie that you will direct with a script written by women. ERW: Oh my goodness, the responses are just breathtaking. I mean, split down the middle: Some people totally get what I’m saying and some people are so angry with me! But the thing is, what I was trying to say was not a sense of entitlement like, “I should have this,” even though I do believe that I could make a really great film. It was just to expose what these rooms are like that you walk into over and over and over again. And until you have the more inclusive pitch rooms with women and people of color and LGBT representation, then you’re not going to see this movie.

And I hear people saying all the time, “Why aren’t there more female directors, why aren’t there more stories about women?” So I wanted to say, “Hey, just so you guys know, I’m really trying. And nada.” I’m starring in the film, I co-wrote it, I’m directing it, I had an amazing cast, I had amazing DPs, an amazing crew. So everybody that read it was like “absolutely,” but the only people that are wishy about it are financiers, because it is very female-driven. And I do believe that they just don’t understand this film. So that’s what I was trying to say.

You did get a number responses that are just people saying, “ I want to see that film.” ERW: And I did get a lot of inquiries after that tweet. But also lot of people saying my idea is probably not very good, and you’ve never directed anything, and how dare you. I do believe that if I was a man with 25 years’ experience in the industry, who’s worked with some of the greatest directors in the history of film, and who’s lived and breathed it since I was a child — to say that I would have nothing to offer, when I know there are other people with a penis, with less than I have backing me up, that get green-lit, that’s where I’m taking issue. [Laughs.] Because it does seem like there’s an imbalance and it’s unfair. And that’s what I was trying to call out.

Julie, do you have any advice for Evan in this situation? JT: Listen, I’m going through the same thing after 40 years. Evan knows, there’s a movie that I wanted to make with her, a female-driven epic love story. Haven’t been able to do that one. I mean, we still try, and I’m doing [a film adaptation of] Gloria Steinem’s My Life on the Road that will be extremely female-driven! And we will be making it this fall. But I have a number of films that have not gotten off the ground and things that I’ve wanted to do. And it probably has a lot to do with the ballistic-baby concept. Even if people realize that the press has misogynistic writing or fear of a powerful woman, unless they meet you personally — and then I often get people being so surprised! [Laughs.] But I work with a lot of the same people over and over and over again, so I have a very good team and very good friends and collaborators. Evan and Jim, all of the kids on Across the Universe, we’ve stayed close.

Quite honestly, ten years ago, when women were in big positions, they were not supporting other women. They were terrified of losing their job and they had to support the boys’ films. I don’t need to name names, you can all go look at it, but it wasn’t necessarily better that women were at the top because they were frightened of making a mistake and that they would then be called out for having supported chick flicks or women’s things. It was fear. For me it’s more. I have the scarlet letter of “A” on me — not “adultery,” but “art.” Even though The Lion King is the most successful entertainment in the history of all entertainment. [Ed. note: Broadway’s The Lion King has grossed $8 billion to date, more than all the Star Wars movies combined.]

ERW: And Across the Universe is a masterpiece.

JT: And it’s also been very, very successful without a whole lot of press. I mean, Frida didn’t get press either.

ERW: We even said that when we were making it: “This is going to be a cult classic, this is going to be something that throughout the years will continue to grow and grow.”

JT: The studio is all new people now, and they love it. And they’re very supportive. But I think it’d be great if they would just rerelease the film completely, because it didn’t go out enough as a movie. But they’re dipping their toe in with Fathom. If it does really well this summer, maybe they will do a real rerelease, which would be amazing because I do feel like it’s time. The success of La La Land — well, that had two very big stars in it, but it really comes on the heels of what Across the Universe did ten years ago.

ERW: I want to add about Julie, that she has such a strong vision and she holds true to her conviction. She’s a real artist. And yes, that does scare the shit out of people, because they don’t understand.

JT: Well, they think I’m not interested in commercial success. You gotta be kidding, of course I am!

ERW: Exactly. They underestimate what people want and how art moves people. I mean fuck, look at the Beatles, they changed the world. But I’ve worked with male directors that are complicated and have the same kind of conviction and they’re kind of hailed for it. But when you’re a woman, and you say, “I’m not going to do that, it’s not right,” they’re like, “Well she’s crazy. She’s difficult.” Julie is not crazy or difficult. She’s an artist. And I’ve worked with male artists that are similar that don’t get any shit for it.

JT: Well, thanks Evan. The thing is that we all knew what the movie was, and we presented it all. Maybe the falling Vietnamese ladiessurprised the producers because that was the first day of shooting. That I can understand, kind of gulping for a moment. But the rest of it, we did what was on paper and what we rehearsed. I didn’t change anything. I just did what I intended to do. I remember Amy Pascal jumping up and down in the first screening at Sony, just going, “It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen.” And the marketing woman was thrilled. Somebody else got in there and just smelled the money. But at any rate, you heard that already. And yes, I have gone through it and I will continue. But there’s enough great people wanting the kind of films that I want to make and the theater that I want to make. So you know, I’m not dying here.

All right, I know I can’t wrap this up without asking some Westworld finale questions. Evan, is that okay with you? ERW: Ha! Of course.

How much time did you and Tessa Thompson spend practicing Dolores together? ERW: That is so funny. You know it’s hilarious because we became really good friends at the beginning of season two, and then we started hanging out, and then all of a sudden we realized that we were gonna be the same person [laughs] and it was very strange! This show is so funny. Because they didn’t tell us anything.

But I thought she did an amazing job. I would send her recordings of myself doing the dialogue, and then she really sold it. I thought it was great. But you know, we weren’t really doing scenes together and I was basically playing a different character this season. So when she found out she had to kind of be me, she came to me and said, “Wait — what have you been doing?” [Laughs.] I’m like, “OH! Oh right! Yeah, I’ve got to do the voice for you and everything!” So I just made recordings and she really made it her own, it was good.

Ed Harris told us he has no idea what’s going on in the showwhile he’s making it. Have you had a similar experience? ERW: I had no idea what was happening in season two. At all. And we shot out of order, so most of the time — I mean, it was insane to be an actor on season two. I don’t know how I feel about it. [Laughs.] But it was a ride. We stopped reading the call sheets. We would show up and Jeffrey and I would ask what episode we were in. It was kind of that level of — we just lived in the moment in whatever scene that we were doing, and that’s how we made it.

#evan rachel wood #interviews #across the universe #vulture #julie taymor #interviews 2018

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easyfoodnetwork · 5 years ago

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This Passover Is Not Like Other Passovers

A Passover Seder table | Shutterstock

The coronavirus pandemic will drastically reshape the holiday that, by definition, is about families coming together

On the afternoon before their Passover Seder last spring, Liz Alpern and Shira Kline’s Brooklyn garden apartment was crowded with furniture that the couple had gathered for the evening ahead. A giant bowl of mole sat out on the counter, while in the fridge, packets of lamb stew meat were Jenga-stacked next to containers of homemade gefilte fish. Kline and Alpern, who co-owns the artisan Jewish food company the Gefilteria, had been planning the event for months. Invitations had been sent out seven weeks in advance, and 27 people would be joining them that evening. It was the first time, says Alpern, that “all of these different sides of these families were in the same place.”

That Seder was a success. And so this year, the plan was to go even bigger, with 28 people. But in late March, two weeks before the holiday, Kline and Alpern were still sorting out their Passover plans. “I think there’s this part of me, maybe unrealistically, that thinks that there will be some solution in which some of us can be together in person,” Alpern said at the time. “Whether that’s being in a giant room together [where] we’re six feet apart or whether that’s doing something outside.”

Alpern and Kline weren’t alone in the uncertainty of their last-minute planning. This year, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to interrupt every aspect of daily life, Jews across the country are scrambling to remake tradition in time for Passover Seder, an elaborate dinner hosted on the first and — outside of Israel — second nights of the holiday, which this year begins on April 8. The ritual, which is sometimes referred to as Jewish Thanksgiving, is often cited as the most widely observed Jewish custom. During the meal, the story of the Exodus is retold, freedom is celebrated, and a matzo-fueled feast is served to the family and friends, both Jewish and not, who gather around the dinner table.

“By definition, Passover is about family coming together,” Wise Sons Jewish Delicatessen co-owner Evan Bloom says. “The thing that makes this crisis and this Passover unique is that despite needing to come together, we can’t.”

That is particularly true for traditionally observant Jews, who abstain from using electricity during part of the holiday and thus won’t have the option to celebrate together virtually. But less traditionally observant Jews are using Zoom and other platforms to connect with loved ones in different cities and neighbors across the hall. Passover kits have been hawked online by the likes of Wise Sons, Oh! Nuts, and Chabad, and made by parents to be shipped to their offspring. Some people are rewriting their Passover menus, swapping traditional large-format dishes like brisket for simpler recipes and even takeout.

For Francine Cohen, the Seder meal will take the form of a socially distant potluck with a handful of neighbors in her Upper West Side Manhattan apartment building. One neighbor is handling the matzo ball soup, and another a green vegetable, while Cohen herself will prepare her grandmother’s brisket with apricots and prunes. The dishes will be portioned, packed up, and left at each neighbor’s doorstep on the morning of the meal. In the evening, everyone will sit down and connect for a Seder on Zoom.

The plans for the building’s Seders, which will likely take place both nights, were hatched in late March when a 60-something neighbor told Cohen she was craving human connection. With this arrangement, Cohen explains, “neighbors will not be without a way to celebrate Passover with other humans.”

Justin Feldstein says that his family’s plan for a Zoom Seder means that he doesn’t have an excuse not to show up. In recent years, Feldstein, who grew up on Long Island and now lives in Boston with his fiancée, hasn’t been able to get back to Long Island to attend his family’s mid-week celebration, which is overseen by his 90-year-old grandmother. But even though Zoom means their attendance is certain, their menu remains a question: While New York-based family members will receive care packages of matzo ball soup, stuffed cabbage rolls, and mandlebread that Feldstein’s grandmother made and froze before the pandemic hit the U.S., Feldstein himself lives out of the delivery range. After asking himself what an “appropriate�� meal would be for the occasion, he settled on Chinese food. “At least there’s no leavened bread that I know of,” he says. “And I’ll stay away from moo shoo pancakes.”

In keeping with tradition, the family’s dinner will include a discussion of the 10 plagues, a central part of Seder. This year, it will have a timely spin. During a phone call with his grandmother, Feldstein recalls that she said, “Now we just have two plagues: the first being Trump and the second being the virus.”

In 2020, the script for a modernized, darkly humorous Passover text seems to write itself. Consider the case of Gal Beckerman, a New York Times Book Review editor who flew to Southern California with his wife and kids in order to be closer to his parents and sister. Their 14-day quarantine at a house next door to Beckerman’s parents is scheduled to end on the eve of Passover. “It’s a weird serendipity,” Beckerman says. “We’ve joked that it’s not just the freedom of the Jews from slavery, it’s our freedom from this house that we’ve been stuck in.” When the quarantine ends, they will walk next door for a family Seder.

Back in Brooklyn, Celia Muller, a media lawyer, has found that the Passover holiday tradition and her Jewish heritage have offered a sense of grounding during the pandemic. In recent weeks, she’s been “thinking about the fact that if it weren’t for a whole ton of perseverance from the time of Exodus down till now... I would not be here,” she says. “I’m drawing on that strength of the past. So to me, it became really important to have Seder.”

Muller is planning to host a second-night Zoom Seder where she will use a card deck version of the Haggadah, the book that guides the evening’s festivities. In her emails to attendees (full disclosure: myself included), she attached cards for each guest and wrote, “The Haggadah we’re using explicitly contemplates a soup/salad break, so definitely have some nosh on hand even if you don’t go for matzo ball soup.” She offered snack suggestions including gefilte fish—“(shhh some of us like it)”—and links to a few recipe possibilities for the meal.

Muller also reminded her friends of the elements of the Seder plate, which sits at the center of the Seder ritual. An edible guide to the evening’s retelling of the story of the Exodus, it includes an egg, a roasted lamb shank, bitter herbs, and a sweet paste made from fruit and nuts called charoset, along with other edible symbols. For participants who can’t or don’t want to track down the items, Muller says, “I will make sure that I have everything and everyone can participate symbolically.”

And for those who don’t relish the prospect of trying to source Passover ingredients, there is the Passover kit. In New York, La Newyorkina owner Fany Gerson has been selling Mexican Passover meals whose options include Mexican-style gefilte fish and matzo ball soup, roasted carrots with harissa, brisket tamales, and flourless chocolate chipotle cake. Over in the San Francisco Bay Area, Wise Sons is selling kits with “everything you need on the Passover [Seder] plate but the plate,” Bloom says. They include candlesticks and a full meal including brisket, matzo ball soup, gefilte fish, and chopped liver; the Haggadah that Wise Sons uses at its annual Seder at the Contemporary Jewish Museum will be available for free online.

Passover kits also ensure that Seder hosts won’t miss any of the essentials, particularly matzo, which was rumored to be sold out weeks before the holiday. “Retailers were calling, frantic, three weeks ago — everything got wiped out,” says Aaron Gross, the owner of Streit’s, a 95-year-old matzo manufacturer that produces some 2 million boxes of matzo each Passover from its factory outside of New York City. But now, he adds, some of those retailers are calling and saying they no longer need those orders.

Even without a shortage of matzo, some are planning to make their own. Before California’s shelter-in-place order went into effect, Vicky Zeamer, a design researcher in San Francisco, tried to find yeast but found that stores were already sold out. She recalls thinking, “Oh my gosh, how am I going to make bread without yeast?” And then she realized that bread without leavening is the definition of matzo. “Between [the lack of yeast] and the plague, it’s feeling too much like Passover,” she quips. Although Zeamer isn’t planning on joining a Seder, she may watch the 1995 cartoon episode “A Rugrats Passover,” which is considered a childhood touchpoint for many millennial Jews.

Across the country in Brooklyn, Alpern and Kline are also planning to bake matzo. A week before the start of Passover, the couple had settled on hosting a Seder using the platform Seder2020. They’ve invited a large group of family “and a few of my friends who couldn’t have fit in my house,” Alpern says. This year, there will still be a big Seder and a busy kitchen, but the living room won’t be full of furniture. Instead, it will be crowded with voices, beamed in from Passover tables near and far.

Devra Ferst is a Brooklyn-based food and travel writer. Follow her on Instagram @dferst.

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A Passover Seder table | Shutterstock

The coronavirus pandemic will drastically reshape the holiday that, by definition, is about families coming together

Justin Feldstein says that his family’s plan for a Zoom Seder means that he doesn’t have an excuse not to show up. In recent years, Feldstein, who grew up on Long Island and now lives in Boston with his fiancée, hasn’t been able to get back to Long Island to attend his family’s mid-week celebration, which is overseen by his 90-year-old grandmother. But even though Zoom means their attendance is certain, their menu remains a question: While New York-based family members will receive care packages of matzo ball soup, stuffed cabbage rolls, and mandlebread that Feldstein’s grandmother made and froze before the pandemic hit the U.S., Feldstein himself lives out of the delivery range. After asking himself what an “appropriate” meal would be for the occasion, he settled on Chinese food. “At least there’s no leavened bread that I know of,” he says. “And I’ll stay away from moo shoo pancakes.”

Devra Ferst is a Brooklyn-based food and travel writer. Follow her on Instagram @dferst.

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cynicinafishbowl · 7 years ago

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a. the time frame for your Jewish fic is what's called "2nd generation" of the Holocaust survivors. If you have anyone other than that great uncle a survivor, and they have kids - good luck with that. b. my husband spent his teenage years in Sydney and they all went to Moriah. Because it was a good school and because his mother taught there and that saved on tuition. By the time he graduated you were lucky if you were able to put a kippa on him. We're Israeli, no language problems

All of my posts about my Jewish AU fic were aimed at non-Jewish readers. Obviously I could have been liberal with the Yiddishkeit in my explanations, and it might have given a more holistic impression of the story for readers who had the same upbringing as me, but I recognise that there are a lot of goyim reading my posts, and the tone was pitched for them.

From the beginning, it was made very clear that I was borrowing from the experiences of my relatives, but apparently I have to justify my upbringing and the way my family approach Judaism (both culture and faith) post-war, to you.

a. I am well aware that I’m writing a second generation fic. That was my parents’ generation. Their parents went through the war. On my mother’s side, her father went through the camps. He, his uncle, and a cousin were the only members of that branch of the family who survived. He came to Australia after the war on one of the boats that ended the White Australia Policy as it pertained to Jewish immigration. Her mother was in hiding in Greece during the war, and came to Australia on one of the Bride Boats. My mother and her sister went to Mt Scopus (for non-Jewish readers, this is basically the biggest Jewish school in Melbourne) K-12. On my father’s side, his mother was in hiding in Norway during the war along with her best friend, a woman whose descendants we refer to as cousins and vice versa, because they’re family after that. His father’s family were living in the Russian sphere of influence, and happened to have reasonably pale features (that part of the family have a number of blondes and red-heads). As more Jews fled from Germany and Czechoslovakia, they were approached by the KGB to keep an eye on the growing Jewish population in the area. They weren’t entirely keen to spy on their own people, but they were equally well aware of the fact that when the KGB request you to do something, refusal isn’t an option, so that night, they took what they could carry, and they fled. They eventually lost the KGB when they reached Dushanbe (the capital of Tajikistan, for those of you not up to scratch on your Eastern European geography), but they were prepared to keep going until they reached Harbin (China) if they had to. After the war, they made their way to Canada. My father’s religious education was basically non-existent. He was fluent in Yiddish, because that’s what his parents mainly spoke at home, but his Hebrew was non-existent, as my mother was reminded when he filled out my birth certificate and managed to translitterate my middle name incorrectly. You can actually see his Canadian accent in the spelling.

b. My sisters and I grew up in Sydney, and we all attended Emanuel for at least part of our schooling (for readers not familiar with the Jewish schools in Sydney, Emanuel is the loosest with respect to actual religious instruction, and has the widest demographic of students, despite being one of if not the smallest). I attended for the shortest period of time (four years) before moving to the public system, first in the OC (academically selective primary schooling, for international readers) at Hurstville Public (which was a culture shock and a half, having gone from a year of 40 kids to a year of 250), then at St George Girls (an academically selective high school). My older sister and youngest sister went to Emanuel for primary school (K-6 for overseas readers), before my older sister went to St George, and my younger sister went to MLC on a music/sport scholarship. My immediately younger sister went to Emanuel K-12, because she got a scholarship in high school.Throughout our childhood, we did an inordinate number of extra-curriculars (piano, choir, another instrument of our choosing, swimming, gymnastics, team sports of our choosing, not to mention at-school extra-curriculars like band, more choir, debating, and sports). This was to ensure that (a) we were the most accomplished children at the synagogue (which we were), and (b) so that we could get scholarships when we hit high school. One of my biggest regrets was staying at St George when I recieved scholarship offers from six different private schools the moment their music directors saw me at a band competition carrying a tuba, but at a certain point, *shrugs*, that was over a decade ago, so whatever.Both of my parents were working full time as academics, as well as consulting, so that they could afford to keep four children in private school and activities. My father didn’t see the point of us going to a religious school. He wanted us to go to Ascham (non-Sydney readers: this was, at the time, the only secular private school within an hour’s drive). My mother, however, insisted that we at least get a religious education so that we could make our own decisions about religion later. She also didn’t want to have to deal with the inevitable judgement from the older relatives that would come of us not being able to read a haggadah (for non-jewish readers, this is the prayer book which accompanies the Passover meal, or Seder - incidentally the exact judgement which fell upon my shithead cousins when it became clear that they had had no religous education, suckers).

My older sister is the only one of us who attends shul (synagogue) regularly. I go occasionally because I like the sense of community, and because it’s one of the only places in Canberra to meet young people you don’t work with. My two younger sisters do not attend. Judaism is, for us, a cultural identity, rather than a religous faith. My grandparents’ generation (in my family at least) gave up on religion after a war, when it had become pretty bloody clear that their god wasn’t looking after them. The continued religious education of the next generations was to allow us to make our own decisions about our faith (although when I say that, we all get very uncomfortable around the actively religious members of the family, who are blessedly few).

Our conversational Hebrew, picked up at primary school, has pretty solidly atrophied, but we can read prayers in Hebrew, which means we don’t shame our mother at religious events, and that’s what matters.

This fic will be based on my experiences, and what I heard of my parents’ experiences growing up. Everyone approaches Judaism differently, and this fic, and what I write about it, merely happen to be my experience.

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scottstiles · 7 years ago

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hi divvy! i know you are MAD right now, so don't answer this until you feel like it, but when you're ready i'd love to hear your thoughts on music on the sabbath and yom kippur! i love hearing you talk about jewish things tbh.

first off i’m so sorry i didn’t answer this whole time. it’s not that i was so mad (that came and went) but i did need a little distance from thinking about it and then i thought why not wait and see how the rest of the holiday goes before replying.

secondly oh my goodness i can’t believe you love hearing me talk about anything XD but it feels really nice that you enjoy my random outbursts about religion. i get that it must be weird for people (especially ones who know me irl) that i have this whole aspect of me that doesn’t fit at all with the way i present myself/live my life (for the most part- except the people who only know that part of me, of course, my students/congregation members etc). i have such a weird dual personality when it comes to this but anyway that is a HUGE can of beans for maybe another time.

but anyway here’s a bottom line about me to help us in this discussion about music on shabbat (im just gonna call it shabbat from here on cuz “the sabbath” is so weird for me to write for some reason) and holidays:

my elementary school was a secular zionist/traditional jewish day school. this might sound completely ridiculous so i’ll break it down- it wasn’t an orthodox place (girls and boys did everything together, nobody had to dress or act a certain way because of religion, and it was basically non-denominational so… secular), but it was traditional in the sense that we did morning prayers every day from the traditional (i guess u could call it orthodox) prayerbook, we learned Torah every day and everything to do with jewish traditions/ritual practices, learned about Israel, jewish history, etc. we, of course, studied all of the secular subjects (including french) at the same time. at the time i also went to a jewish summer camp from age 6-12, but it was more traditional and pretty jewish/israel intensive. we also prayed every day, observed shabbat in the orthodox sense (no electricity, no “work”, special activities, lots of food and rest), and even had special events on certain days like tisha b’av (the fast day commemorating the destruction of the temple), and maccabiah games at the end of the summer (like color war/olympics, but we had to talk hebrew the whole time or we lost points XD). my favorite part of camp was an event called ma’apilim, where the counselors would wake us up in the middle of the night and the entire camp would run through this simulation of the experience of the holocaust refugees being smuggled into palestine in the mid-40s. i can describe that whole experience for you in detail if you want but maybe not right now since i’ve rambled so much already.

SUFFICE TO SAY i grew up in a seriously jewish environment, but not a religious home. as a teenager i went to a jewish high school, though not at all as religious, and became active in my synagogue youth group. OH also, when i was 9, my parents switched us over to the reconstructionist synagogue (from a conservative one) so my sisters and i could have a real bat mitzvah (in orthodox and conservative shuls girls aren’t allowed to read from the Torah like boys do). so thru high school i was very involved in jewishy things and my synagogue, and i got really attached to reading Torah and the prayer service in my synagogue. my reason for emphasis is because, as i’ve said, i’d been exposed to the traditional prayer service for most of my life, but praying in this shul has always been a completely different experience.

in school and in camp, despite the traditional service (and separation of boys and girls, in camp only), i was always able to sing out loud as much as i wanted. but, traditionally, prayer is lead by an individual- the cantor- and the congregation (and the rabbi) only “participates” out loud in certain parts. that’s how it is in most synagogues in montreal except the temple and mine. in my shul, we’ve never had a cantor, and the entire service is basically communally led. our rabbi was also very special. our leader for 40 years, he was a pioneer in the reconstructionist movement, creating his own prayer book (not new prayers, just his own translation and commentary and additions) and passover haggadah. he wasn’t a singer, but he had a musical soul and when he led prayers it just moved me every time. the tunes for the prayers were sometimes the same as the traditional melody, and sometimes not. it always took me awhile to get used to new melodies or songs he would introduce (i’m so inflexible, what a shock), but i would always eventually suck it up. for him. basically for 25+ years i got used to doing things a certain way in my shul. i also watched through the years as new people came and left, including my entire generation (moved away/got married/not interested in synagogue), until the whole makeup of my shul was essentially completely different. but we’ve always had a few core members that stuck around, and the melodies have always remained. i was always proud to carry it on.

so, a little about the reconstructionist movement and synagogues in montreal. reconstructionism began post-holocaust when the founder, mordechai kaplan, realized how difficult it was becoming for people to continue to have faith in religion after such trauma. people couldn’t connect, or didn’t want to be involved at all anymore. so the movement began as a place for these people, to maintain a connection to judaism without feeling the pressure of having to believe in god or accept all of the traditional tenets of the religion. this isn’t the same as reform, by the way, which a lot of people think is the only other denomination of judaism besides orthodox/conservative. i don’t wanna give a lesson on denominations rn, but basically reconstructionism is all about adapting and shaping judaism so that it can fit into your life and inform your values without infringing on however else you choose to live. okay all of that just to get to this motherfuckingpoint:

playing music on shabbat/(certain) holidays is part of the laws of shabbat, codified by rabbis during the temple period as part of the Talmud. these laws, which are basically a breakdown of all the things you cannot or must do on shabbat, are what is considered oral Torah, just as binding as the laws in the written Torah from moses. they had to break it down because “on the 7th day you must rest” isn’t exactly specific, so how can you know if you break the law? there are 39 things that are listed as “work” which you cannot do on shabbat. the two main reasons for not playing an instrument on shabbat are: the instrument might break and you might be tempted to fix it (and in so doing, do one of the 39 acts), and the fact that instruments were played in the Temple, and we’re not supposed to be doing anything they did in the Temple until we’ve built the new one (hence no more sacrifices even tho almost the entire book of leviticus deals with the priestly ritual laws).

okay so those are the rules. now, for me personally. what’s my problem? i’m a member at a reconstructionist synagogue, not an orthodox one. i’m not a religious person. i don’t keep the laws of shabbat on a regular basis. what. is. my. problem?

maybe i should have mentioned, along with my heavily traditionally influenced childhood, there was also a point in my life where i did decide to keep all the rules. for about 5 years in my mid twenties i became completely zealous when it came to the laws of shabbat/holidays (maybe cuz i was trying to get my jewish teaching career off the ground idek). i walked 45 minutes each way to shul. i even walked clear across town on saturdays to get to the theatre in time to meet my mom for the ballet at 8pm after sunset. i made them turn off the microphones if i was going to be on the bimah (pulpit) in shul. i was a bit insane, but nobody was offended and neither was i, i just tried it out and eventually decided it wasn’t for me.

i guess what i’m trying to say is that my problem with music in synagogue comes from a few places: 1- my “traditional/religious” brain saying NO it’s just NOT ALLOWED, IT’S TOO MUCH. YOU BREAK SO MANY RULES AS IT IS, and i guess that’s harder to turn off than i would like 2- the shul i grew up in and love was one where our collective voices were the instrument, and that alone has had a huge impact on my spiritual growth. i don’t like being drowned out (my own and other’s voices) when i’m praying. 3- while my rabbi occasionally would whip out the guitar, this new rabbi has it out every single shabbat. to me, prayer and ritual worship are not a performance. when i see someone on a “stage”- in this case the bimah- with an instrument, i’m in the mind frame of a concert, and all of my attention is focused on the musician. i just can’t pray like that. when i lived in nyc i worked at this huge reform synagogue that had like 5 rabbis and 3 cantors and every friday night service was like a broadway spectacle with a full orchestra and choir and what not. it was beautiful, but i couldn’t concentrate on the praying. i don’t know how many people could. i understand that for most people music in itself is a spiritual experience, and that makes complete sense, but for me, my spiritual experience in synagogue is hearing voices in prayer.

i just realized i didn’t talk about yom kippur specifically. yk is one of the only times of the year that most jews in the world decide to do the exact same thing (the other is passover). jews who eat bacon every morning and work all day on saturday will put their lives aside and fast. most will even be in synagogue for kol nidre (the night before) or neilah (the night of), depending on your ethnic background (for ashkenazis the former is most important, for sephardim the latter). the main part of the kol nidre service (which is the beginning of yk), is the kol nidre prayer itself, which is supposed to be chanted 3 times, starting off soft and each time getting progressively louder. as a child i led the kol nidre service once in the conservative shul where we went, and it was unbelievable i’ll never forget it, so i’ve always had a special connection to this prayer and melody. in my current shul we’ve always had a choir, and a cantor, for the occasion, much like many traditional congregations do. i’ve never really liked it because i can’t sing aloud all three times, and therefore don’t feel the same connection to the prayer, but i dealt with it. bringing in an orchestra was just kinda a last straw i guess? i didn’t want to have to deal with all of that negative bitterness as i’m trying to ask god to nullify my vows so i can be clean again.

oy gevalt. this was an essay, and not a well thought out one at that. sorry :// my main point is, basically, that for me music on shabbat is complicated, and it’s not just about the law, because clearly i’m not a “follow every law” kinda person. i don’t feel like i fit into any particular jewish mold, thanks to my upbringing, and i can’t really connect to any of the denominations, so i pick and choose what’s meaningful to me. luckily i stuffed a lot of information into my brain (thank you mcgill jewish studies), and i feel more comfortable doing so than i might have in my youth because i actually know and understand my options. maybe i’m not the best jew i can be, but i’m trying to be the best divvy. :)

#clarz #fuck #speaking of music and emotions #that fucking mondo cozmo song just came on and im gonna cry again DAMN IT #thank you so much for this clara #and for your patience #you're the best #jewish things #judaism #personal

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starlightomatic · 8 years ago

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Passover + Goldsteins

@ravens-and-writings asked me some questions about Passover for a fic she’s writing, and I decided to answer with a post in case other people had similar questions (or was curious about Judaism for other reasons). Also, people are welcome to add anything I missed or correct anything I got wrong! For people reading this, the Jewish characters in question are Ashkenazi young women in the 1930s, one in New York and one in England

1. Is a Passover Seder held every night or just the night before the holiday starts? If so, what does a ‘normal’ Passover dinner look like? The first two nights. Jewish holidays begin in the evening, so technically yes, it’s the night before the first day (as well as the night of the first day).

A Passover seder involves a series of rituals (mostly eating various foods), reading from the Haggadah and telling the Passover seder, a meal, and then songs. Here are some links: Passover 101 The Passover Seder Haggadah (the book used as a guide for the Seder)

In terms of food, I believe brisket is pretty commonly served. Matzah ball soup is popular as well, as is roast chicken. Most importantly, as it is Passover, there would be no bread, or anything made from wheat, barley, oats, rye or spelt other than matzah or things made from matzah meal. Ashkenazi Jews (those of Eastern European descent) traditionally also don’t eat peas, chickpeas, rice, corn, soybeans, green beans, and beans (among a few other things) on Passover.

If there are any England-specific traditions, English followers please let me know!

2. Would it be okay for Jacob to keep his bakery running during Passover? (Since he’s not Jewish, but his wife and children are and they all live in the flat above it)

I think so. I’m not really sure the halacha (Jewish law) when a non-Jew and a Jew co-own property or goods (since Jews are prohibited from having chametz -- leavened bread -- on their property, or owning any chametz, during Passover). If anyone knows the answer to this, please let me know. (However, I’d venture a guess that Queenie is probably not religious enough to care about the legal specifics and would just figure it was okay). It might be fine if they just decide that Jacob is the sole owner for the duration of Passover. Also I’m not even sure if they’d have a conceptualized a man’s wife as a co-owner of his business in the first place.

3. Any advise on writing Jewish people attending an Easter celebration during Passover? (They're visiting Newt's family for Easter brunch ^^)

Basically, just keep in mind that things that seem familiar to you about Easter would be unfamiliar to Jewish people. I only know the basics of Easter and its traditions -- I know it’s a celebration of Jesus ascending to Heaven, that it often involves an Easter egg hunt, and that people (especially little girls) wear fancy dresses. That’s about it. Also, Jewish people might have some level of discomfort with the actual service -- specifically with the parts that directly are about Jesus’ divinity. I’m not sure how to explain this, but participating in a Christian religious ceremony might feel a little wrong. Which isn’t to say they wouldn’t do it -- I’ve definitely attended church services before, either with friends or just because I was interested. But this is definitely something I’ve felt. Though if she’s just attending a brunch and not a service, that feeling would be very much lessened. I do think there’d still be a feeling of being an outsider, and perhaps apprehension about making sure to do and say the right things -- though it’d very much depend on how well she already knows the family.

4. Any special wellwishes I could/should include when Queenie finds out Tina is pregnant? ;) We don’t say mazel tov or congratulations, because of superstition -- you don’t want to temp the Evil Eye into making you lose the pregnancy by assuming you won’t lose it (weird, I know), so instead we say “in a good hour.” Nowadays we say it in Modern Hebrew, but I doubt that was the case in the 20s/30s; they’d have used Yiddish. The internet informs me that the corresponding Yiddish expressions were "in a guter sho" or "in a mazeldiker sho.” (Even though most Yiddish words are Germanic, some are from Hebrew -- that would be why you wouldn’t recognize “mazeldiker” or “sho.”)

#jewish #judaism #fantastic beasts #passover #tina goldstein #pesach #fanfic #fanfiction #writing jewish characters #queenie goldstein #newtina #jakweenie #fantastic beasts and where to find them #fbawtft #jumblr #halacha #easter

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rotten-zucchinis · 8 years ago

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Seder Reflections 2b: from a snowy ace meetup to how I got to hosting my own seder

This piece is the 2nd part of a two-part story continuing from: “Reflections on how I got to hosting my own seder” [ text ]

The 1st part is “Exploring ‘The Women’s Haggadah’” [ text ]

For me, the story of learning my connection to the history of feminist women's seders begins in an unexpected place--events often have consequences far beyond what anyone could anticipate or predict while they are taking place.

About ten and a half years ago, I embarked on what is typically a 2.5 hr highway journey, in a snow storm, to attend an “asexual”[1] meetup. I was living in the prairies at the time, and had only managed to meet 1 other asexual person locally ( via AVEN ). [ Before I moved out there, I had been to a few meetups and had met a few local asexual friends... but the social landscapes differ wildly with the geography. ]

It was a Big Deal meetup-- one where people were coming from various distances because it was “the” meetup-- and there wasn't another one in the time I lived out there. About 25 people showed up. I'm glad I went, but I didn't really click with anyone there on a personal level. Not to mention that I don't do well in groups. But the meetup itself isn't really the point. On the other hand, one of the other people who showed up was actually living in the same city as I was.

She was involved in an LGBTQ+ youth group at the time and she invited me to attend. I did. As it happens, we didn't really end up being friends, partly I imagine because she took off overseas shortly after that. But I did get quite involved in the youth group ( and I certainly wouldn’t have otherwise ), and that has had some long-reaching consequences. Among other things, that was the first space where it was accepted for me to be not a woman and not a man. I didn't really have the “non-binary” language for that yet ( and neither did they ), but the space and the people in it were accepting.

Living in the prairies generally was also interesting for me in the sense of navigating my atheistic, liminal Jewishness. Unlike what I had known up to that point, being ( even a little bit ) Jewish in that context was a major point of difference. I was used to being “less Jewish” than many of the people around me, and suddenly I was a whole lot more Jewish ( even if I wasn't “Jewish enough” to belong with the Hebrew-speaking Jewish student group largely populated by international students from Israel who met regularly to eat bagels ).

One of the people from the LGBTQ+ youth group was a trans guy who knew I was missing some Jewish stuff in my life. His transness is quite relevant because, for whatever reasons, in that city at the time, a large portion of the trans guys were Jewish ( so being trans put him in contact with Jewish folks in ways he wouldn't have been otherwise ). A friend of his ( also trans ) was hosting a feminist queer-and-trans seder. It was a mix of non-Jewish LGBTQ+ folks withe emphasis on the T ( most of whom had never been to a seder ) and a few feminist LGBTQ+ Jewish folks who were used to missing out on seders because family spaces weren't so accepting. And me.

Owing to dietary restrictions of the host and attendees, all the food was vegan with gluten-free options ( including the mazah ball soup! ). That was the first time I had experienced that.

And while it certainly wasn't an all-women seder, it was one of the first spaces I ever occupied which was explicitly for women and trans ( & non-binary ) people ( i.e., for people other than cis men, centred around people other than cis men, inclusive of non-binary people even though we didn't really have the language of “non-binary” the way we use it today ). That was also the first time I had experienced that. This seder was explicitly and self-consciously continuing in the tradition of the women's seders, continuing by opening up space for trans people who weren't there. [ “The Women’s Haggadah” for instance has parts that are pretty ciscentric. It reads like the women writing it just weren’t thinking of trans women at all. ]

The seder was very welcoming. I still remember my place-card name tag with purple puffy-paint that said “friend #2”. Attending was a positive experience for me. But more than that, it was the first time I saw how a seder could be suited to the people who were actually involved and participating in it. And it was also the first time that eventually holding a seder myself seemed like a possibility.

Several years later, in yet another city, I was talking with someone who had been raised in a traditional Orthodox Jewish family, which was quite alienating for her ( as an atheistic queer, feminist woman ). It happened to be around the time of Passover. She was intrigued by the idea of a feminist seder-- especially the parts that explicitly welcome LGBTQ+ folks. She was also interested in the idea of Humanistic Judaism.

Shortly after Passover, we co-hosted a humanistic, feminist ( vegan ) seder with some of our peers ( who weren't Jewish ), including some of the additional readings with which I was familiar—e.g., one version of Four Daughters [ text ], a version of Miriam's Bowl [ example ], the Orange on the seder plate [ example ]. The only humanist Haggadah I could find at the time was a Unitarian Universalist one, so we used that as the skeleton of our seder. ( I’m not actually all that into Unitarian Univeralism but at least it was a starting point. )

Our seder wasn't kosher for Passover ( especially since that was before the Conservative movement made the decision to allow lentils and soy for Passover for Askenazi [ explanation ] ) and that was okay.

Also, our seder had no men. ( It was mostly women-- cis and trans-- and me. ) That wasn’t entirely by design, but I think that also was central to how the space felt.

Going into that evening, I was a little hesitant because, as the only person who was familiar with even the idea of a feminist seder, I was the “expert” ( even though I didn't feel like one ). Ultimately, it was another positive experience-- and a learning experience with creating cooking. It did, however, feel like a very rough work in progress. But I left with the sense that I wanted to continue the work-in-progress, and more importantly, that I could. Eventually I would host my own seders.

Last year was the first time I hosted a seder at home, observing the Passover in my own space. It was a very small seder with just someone(s) else for me to share it with ( as it was again this year ). As a reference guide, we used the Haggadah that I had grown up with-- a pretty standard Reform Haggadah, and some additional readings. Much like what I was used to with my family.

This year, I explored other, very different Haggadahs and ended up using a particular ( relatively new ) feminist Haggadah as the skeleton of my seder. Eventually, I will assemble a Haggadah entirely of my own ( which will probably be a living compilation ). But this is where I am on my journey now.

It is not lost on my that my induction to the world of feminist seders was by the invitation of a man ( never mind a non-ace man whom I'd only met in the first place because I braved a snow storm to meet a bunch of aces ).

It's not lost on me that that I had to discover of my own connection to the women's seders of the 70s and 80s by myself, instead of this knowledge being passed down to me in the spirit of the seder itself.

And it is not lost on me that I navigate my own seder as an atheistic Jew ( of liminal Jewishness ), sharing the space with someone whose connection to Judaism is very much about relationship with the divine.

This is how I got here. I don’t usually think of my Jewishness as being related to my aceness or non-binary transness, but they are connected. And my journey continues, exploring these connections.

Footnote:

[1] This was long before we were using the term “ace” and when “asexual” was functioning as an umbrella term even more than it is today ( as I've written about before: [ text ] ). It feels misleading to just say “asexual” in a context where I would now say “ace” but the anachronistic retrospective application of “ace” also feels weird.

#feminist seder #queer seder #LGBTQ+ seder #trans seder #jewish ace #jewish asexual #family cw #brief mention of ciscentrism cw #liminal Jewishness #still not sure how to tag this #my ramblings

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naomitess · 8 years ago

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The Wizarding Haggadah

Most Reform Jewish families I know customize the Haggadah they use for their Seder. Many families put an orange on the Seder Plate to symbolize the contributions of women and LGBT Jews throughout history. My family incorporates a poem by Alicia Ostriker about the way the women of the Exodus story collaborated across class and cultural lines to protect the Hebrew babies, and we have a reading at the end that replaces the call “Next Year in Jerusalem” analyzing the meaning of the word “Jerusalem” and praying that next year may it be a city of peace for all peoples.

Anyway, now that we know that there are absolutely canonically Jewish-American wizards, I want to imagine the readings that have been incorporated into the Seders of families like Tina and Queenie Goldstein over the centuries.

A Reading from the Secret Book of the Babylonian Talmud

Rabbi Gamaliel ben Ezra asks, “But what if Moses was a wizard? For if he was a wizard, perhaps it was not the almighty G-d who parted the waters of the Red Sea, but Moses, casting a powerful spell to save his people.”

To which Rabbi Judah ben Mordecai responds, “The Torah tells us that Moses promised to the Children of Israel that he would show them the salvation of the Lord; likewise it tells us that while Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, it was the Almighty who caused the sea to go back. From this we understand that even if Moses was a wizard, nevertheless it was the almighty G-d who parted the waters and saved our people.”

A Reading from Samuel Kestenbaum, 19th century Polish wizard, rabbi, and philosopher

Rabbi Kestenbaum writes: In fact, reason and logic tell us that Moses was clearly a wizard. The Pharoah himself recognized this when Moses transfigured his staff into a snake, ordering his own court wizards to do the same. Moses was an exceptionally powerful wizard, which is why he was able to perform a truly mighty spell, one that took the Egyptian Pharoah’s soldiers by surprise.

But this is important: the story confirms that Moses’s powers come from God. Not from trickery nor from the ‘witchcraft’ that is condemned later in the same book. Also, what this shows us is that G-d gave us our powers for a reason: to protect others from oppression and injustice. Finally, it tells us that Jews are Jews -- wizard and non-wizard Jews alike, we are all the Children of Israel, all redeemed from slavery in Egypt by God’s mighty hand, all united tonight around the Seder table.

#haggadah wizard hagaddah harry potter fantastic beasts

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7-9lavanluria-blog · 8 years ago

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7-9 Highlights and

Questions of the Week

Week of March 20th, 2017 - תשע"זאדר כב

Learning Highlights

Language Arts:

Year 2: We worked on the following writing about literature skill:

When writing about favorite books, writers often need to retell a part of the story in order to help their readers fully understand their opinion about the story, a part, or a character. Writers also write with a specific audience in mind, angling their writing toward their readers and writing as if they are talking to them.

Year 3: This week students learned to read narrative non-fiction through different lenses; as an informational text and as a story. Students practiced differentiating these two elements of a non-fiction narrative. In writer’s workshop students continued to work on their non-fiction books as well as their “personal” narratives written from the perspective of a character in the Pesach story.

Yahadut:

Mitzvot: We learned about the mitzvah to tell the story of Pesach, through the lens of the four children. Each child needs to hear the story differently, so s/he can see himself or herself as part of the story.

Daphna’s group: The children started learning about Pesach, and different points on the Jewish history timeline represented in the Haggada. We reviewed the order of the Seder, learned that Hashem told Avram that his decedents will be slaves, and thought about when the Pesach story really started. We also learned the text of the first Pesach, and compared that celebration to our own.

Nora and Shirel’s group: Students were exposed to the idea that celebrating Pesach is part of generations of history culminating into a rich contemporary Pesach experience. Students began to explore different themes in the Haggadah, which relate to this big idea. These themes, such as Hashem’s promise to Avraham that his offspring will be slaves and the first Pesach celebrated, were contextualized on a Jewish History Timeline.

Ivrit:

Rehovot, Rosh Pina and Degania: Daphna’s groups got to experience some of what slavery feels like. The children schlepped books, Plaster of Paris and furniture around according to the whims of the “Task Masters” and then reflected on the differences between slavery and freedom. We reviewed the song Avadim Hayinu and learned a funny version that Daphna sang with us. The children started practicing comparative writing, The Rehovot group focused on using verbs in past, present and future, and the Rosh Pina and Degania groups focused on using verbs in present and past tense.

Yerushalayim- Tel Aviv

The students learned about the Ashkenazi and Moroccan minhag to abstain from eating kitniyot (any grain or legumes) on Pesach. The students learned about the historical background, and then practiced separating rice from flour pretending to be "mashgiach kashrut". We learned vocabulary of cooking, and wrote our own recipes.

Cultural:

Students in year 2 learned about ancient civilizations and identified some of the differences in each civilization, including how common needs, such as food, shelter and clothing, were met. They then explored the ancient civilization of Egypt and learned about the lifestyle of people at that time, including how they lived, how they learned, and how some traditions were observed at that time.

Students in year 3 continued to explore the rock cycle and conducted an experiment to (cook and) create igneous rocks. After compiling and cooking the ingredients (lava), students observed how the rock formed and hardened and took note of air pockets that showed as it cooled, a distinct characteristic of igneous rock (such as a pumice stone). They then recorded their observations.

Chumash:

Daphna’s Bereshit group: The children finished learning the punishments for the sin of eating from the tree the Hashem gave Adam, Isha and the snake. We spoke about the expression Beze’at Ape’ch and working hard, and summarized the story in order from beginning to end.

Shirel's Bereshit group: learned the psukim about the punishments G-d gave Adam, Chava and the snake after they ate from the forbidden fruit. The students discussed how the punishments fit (or don't fit) their crime. The students discussed appropriate consequences to bad choices in their own lives. We read about Adam and Chava's removal from the garden of Eden by Hashem.

Jaclyn’s Bereishit group: We started an assessment on the story of Adam and Chava eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Children pretended they were reporters standing outside Gan Eden, reporting on the story. They also picked a character to pretend to be interviewed as, reflecting on how that character felt about the story.

Jaclyn’s Lech Lecha groups: We began learning about Avraham’s argument with God about whether or not to destroy Sodom. We talked about whether or not it is okay to argue with authority, and in what instances.

Math

Daphna’s Year 2 group: The children played different games practicing addition in the hundreds and subtraction up to 100. We spoke about different mental math strategies for subtraction.

Jaclyn’s Year 2 group: Children worked on their challenge projects, meeting with a child learning about a different topic to give a “practice talk.” Children also practiced the addition algorithm and began learning the subtraction algorithm.

Year 3: Specify and partition a whole into equal parts, identifying and counting unit fractions using concrete models and different shapes.

4th grade: Use right angles to determine whether angles are equal to, greater than, or less than right angles. Draw right, obtuse, and acute angles.

Questions

Language Arts

Year 2: Write a letter to someone in your family about a favorite book, keeping in mind if they have read the book before or if this is the first time.

Year 3: What is the narrative non-fiction book you are currently reading? Please share how you would read it as an informational text and how you would read it as a story.

Yahadut:

Mitzvot: Which of the Four Children do you identify with most and why?

Daphna’s group: When do you think the Pesach story really started? How is the first Pesach celebration different from your own?

Nora’s group: Why do you think traditions change over time?

Ivrit:

Rehovot, Degania and Rosh Pina: איך זה מרגיש לא להיות בני חורין? היית רוצה להיות עבד במצרים? למה? למה לא?

Yerushalayim- Tel Aviv

איך עושים אורז? (How do you make rice?)

Cultural:

Year 2: What are the 6 main civilizations across history?

Which civilization was the longest?

What new information did you learn about Ancient Egypt?

Year 3: How does igneous rock form?

What do you know about the rock cycle?

Chumash:

Daphna’s Bereshit group: When do you work hard? Is working hard a privilege or an obligation

Shirel’s Bereshit group: How did G-d punish Adam, Chava and the snake? Do you think the punishment "fits the crime"?

Jaclyn’s Bereishit group: What main events did you pick to explain when reporting on the story we learned?

Jaclyn’s Lech Lecha groups: Do you think it is okay to argue with authority? Why or why not?

Math

Daphna’s group: What is 85-20? 85-19? How did you solve it? Did solving the first one help you solve the second? How?

Year 2: What is 35-19? How did you solve it?

Year 3: Draw a shape that shows 4 fifths.

4th grade: Draw one acute angle, one right angle, and one obtuse angle.

Week of: Sep. 26, 201

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nataliesnews · 5 years ago

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Subject: 9th day of quarantine

From: Natanya Sent: Thursday, April 2, 2020 9:03 PM Subject: 9th day of quarantine

I wonder if future generation will understand this pun that someone sent me. 1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."

I have decided that even though I think my sense of humour has been sadly impaired I will try to think of something funny to write each day. Or at least to send on something someone else has sent me.

Today’s menu

Red Lentil Soup

Tilapia fish in the oven

Chicken Fries (fried chicken in tempura)

Zucchini stuffed with meat

Mashed potatoes

Rice

steamed vegetables

Anyone coming for lunch?

Any day!

Delivering the Peisach gift. See below

And Dalia phoned to say I must open the tv for the exercise class I have been looking for. Such bliss.

What is most unfair is that although I am not eating a lot and drinking a lot (I have to check that when I am sober) my weight remains the same even though I do at least 6-7 kilometre each day.

Martine (who is Mervyn’s daughter) phoned last night.

Such excitement. Voices in the corridor and two of the workers leaving us the present from Nofim for Peisach. I opened my door and said how wonderful it was to see human beings in person. But people are really terrified. My opposite neighbor opened her door at the same time and I thought maybe we could talk for a few minutes but she just took the parcel in and closed the door. Me I take every opportunity to make a human contact not by phone.

To the residents of the Landscape Tower peace and blessing -

Again we learn that "no news is good news."

Our home is quiet. The wisdom of life that we have accumulated helps to adapt to the strange lifestyle we are forced upon. The worsening state of affairs in the country does not facilitate isolation, even within the home.

And yet we formulated the following plan for the Seder:

The holiday dinner, from the best of our kitchen, will be provided free of charge to tenants, carers and employees. Haggadahs can probably be obtained from authors (Me: When I saw this I started laughing. The first time today. I used Google to translate and it should be from “others”. We would need timetravel to get back to the authors. I wish we had it. I would send myself at least 50 years on to make sure that I would be out of this crazy world But come to think of it that may not be such a good idea. Even when I think of the first day I can get out of here…….what will I find)

You will be allowed to join two apartments to hold the Seder night together. "Two apartments" means: two people, or more if it is a couple or tenant with a caretaker. Everyone will choose their partners and the time of the meeting (we want to prevent the movement of many people in the corridors and elevators at that time).

Meals will be brought by staff to the apartment where the arrangement will be held. Please note who should be notified of apartment number.

Please do not request to attach more than two apartments. We can't respond to that.

Movement in the corridors and elevators will be done with masks and preferably with gloves. We will provide such before the holiday.

Do not bring anything in from outside. Your loved ones understand the situation.

I'm sure the human spirit that beats us will prevail this time too.

Zvi Levy

I had a really bad hour this afternoon. I forced myself to sit down and do Reiki. What I would do without the computer and the tv I do not know.

In Jaffe there was a full score riot (is that the right term). The police tried to arrest a young man who should not have been out. Interesting that they did this there and not with the ultras in Mea Sheariem or Bnei Brak where there are more people who have the disease and where one cult in particular is still not respecting the laws.

How bitter that this is the holiday of freedom.

I would give the rest of my years of my life which I was never that mad about anyway for just one walk in my wadi feeding my cats. The only thing that makes me happy is that just as in earlier years I did not succumb to the madness of cleaning for Peisach because just watching my neighbors and listening to them in the cloakroom of the pool ( does anyone remember what that is) exhausted me , I have not succumbed to cleaning my flat ….floor and dust O>K but anything more than that …then I would really know that I am heading straight for a psychiatric ward.

So our idiot of Health has the disease I thought that such a disease would have sufficient respect for itself to keep away from him and his wife. And now an announcement that the Peleg Hayerushalmi ( an extreme sect) are going to hold a demonstration at 5.30 not even against the disease but against the Police. Anyone remember “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest is a quote attributed to Henry II of England, which preceded the death of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury”. It has got to the stage that even in their own areas even other religious are screaming at them that they are murders. But in Jaffe the police could cause a riot trying to arrest one young man? And now it seems that he may have infected the whole government. Pity this did not happen a month ago.

And now they had the cheek to phone from some clinic to say that they had been informed by the thought police that I am in quarantine and all the week they have been trying to contact me…bloody liars. I should have told them to go to hell instead of even answering them. They are not even accurate in what they do. No one phoned me from the clinic at any time since I came back

I have just heard that Bnei Brak is being called the Korona capital of Israel.

#Subject: 9th day of quarantine

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easyfoodnetwork · 5 years ago

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A Passover Seder table | Shutterstock The coronavirus pandemic will drastically reshape the holiday that, by definition, is about families coming together On the afternoon before their Passover Seder last spring, Liz Alpern and Shira Kline’s Brooklyn garden apartment was crowded with furniture that the couple had gathered for the evening ahead. A giant bowl of mole sat out on the counter, while in the fridge, packets of lamb stew meat were Jenga-stacked next to containers of homemade gefilte fish. Kline and Alpern, who co-owns the artisan Jewish food company the Gefilteria, had been planning the event for months. Invitations had been sent out seven weeks in advance, and 27 people would be joining them that evening. It was the first time, says Alpern, that “all of these different sides of these families were in the same place.” That Seder was a success. And so this year, the plan was to go even bigger, with 28 people. But in late March, two weeks before the holiday, Kline and Alpern were still sorting out their Passover plans. “I think there’s this part of me, maybe unrealistically, that thinks that there will be some solution in which some of us can be together in person,” Alpern said at the time. “Whether that’s being in a giant room together [where] we’re six feet apart or whether that’s doing something outside.” Alpern and Kline weren’t alone in the uncertainty of their last-minute planning. This year, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to interrupt every aspect of daily life, Jews across the country are scrambling to remake tradition in time for Passover Seder, an elaborate dinner hosted on the first and — outside of Israel — second nights of the holiday, which this year begins on April 8. The ritual, which is sometimes referred to as Jewish Thanksgiving, is often cited as the most widely observed Jewish custom. During the meal, the story of the Exodus is retold, freedom is celebrated, and a matzo-fueled feast is served to the family and friends, both Jewish and not, who gather around the dinner table. “By definition, Passover is about family coming together,” Wise Sons Jewish Delicatessen co-owner Evan Bloom says. “The thing that makes this crisis and this Passover unique is that despite needing to come together, we can’t.” That is particularly true for traditionally observant Jews, who abstain from using electricity during part of the holiday and thus won’t have the option to celebrate together virtually. But less traditionally observant Jews are using Zoom and other platforms to connect with loved ones in different cities and neighbors across the hall. Passover kits have been hawked online by the likes of Wise Sons, Oh! Nuts, and Chabad, and made by parents to be shipped to their offspring. Some people are rewriting their Passover menus, swapping traditional large-format dishes like brisket for simpler recipes and even takeout. For Francine Cohen, the Seder meal will take the form of a socially distant potluck with a handful of neighbors in her Upper West Side Manhattan apartment building. One neighbor is handling the matzo ball soup, and another a green vegetable, while Cohen herself will prepare her grandmother’s brisket with apricots and prunes. The dishes will be portioned, packed up, and left at each neighbor’s doorstep on the morning of the meal. In the evening, everyone will sit down and connect for a Seder on Zoom. The plans for the building’s Seders, which will likely take place both nights, were hatched in late March when a 60-something neighbor told Cohen she was craving human connection. With this arrangement, Cohen explains, “neighbors will not be without a way to celebrate Passover with other humans.” Justin Feldstein says that his family’s plan for a Zoom Seder means that he doesn’t have an excuse not to show up. In recent years, Feldstein, who grew up on Long Island and now lives in Boston with his fiancée, hasn’t been able to get back to Long Island to attend his family’s mid-week celebration, which is overseen by his 90-year-old grandmother. But even though Zoom means their attendance is certain, their menu remains a question: While New York-based family members will receive care packages of matzo ball soup, stuffed cabbage rolls, and mandlebread that Feldstein’s grandmother made and froze before the pandemic hit the U.S., Feldstein himself lives out of the delivery range. After asking himself what an “appropriate” meal would be for the occasion, he settled on Chinese food. “At least there’s no leavened bread that I know of,” he says. “And I’ll stay away from moo shoo pancakes.” In keeping with tradition, the family’s dinner will include a discussion of the 10 plagues, a central part of Seder. This year, it will have a timely spin. During a phone call with his grandmother, Feldstein recalls that she said, “Now we just have two plagues: the first being Trump and the second being the virus.” In 2020, the script for a modernized, darkly humorous Passover text seems to write itself. Consider the case of Gal Beckerman, a New York Times Book Review editor who flew to Southern California with his wife and kids in order to be closer to his parents and sister. Their 14-day quarantine at a house next door to Beckerman’s parents is scheduled to end on the eve of Passover. “It’s a weird serendipity,” Beckerman says. “We’ve joked that it’s not just the freedom of the Jews from slavery, it’s our freedom from this house that we’ve been stuck in.” When the quarantine ends, they will walk next door for a family Seder. Back in Brooklyn, Celia Muller, a media lawyer, has found that the Passover holiday tradition and her Jewish heritage have offered a sense of grounding during the pandemic. In recent weeks, she’s been “thinking about the fact that if it weren’t for a whole ton of perseverance from the time of Exodus down till now... I would not be here,” she says. “I’m drawing on that strength of the past. So to me, it became really important to have Seder.” Muller is planning to host a second-night Zoom Seder where she will use a card deck version of the Haggadah, the book that guides the evening’s festivities. In her emails to attendees (full disclosure: myself included), she attached cards for each guest and wrote, “The Haggadah we’re using explicitly contemplates a soup/salad break, so definitely have some nosh on hand even if you don’t go for matzo ball soup.” She offered snack suggestions including gefilte fish—“(shhh some of us like it)”—and links to a few recipe possibilities for the meal. Muller also reminded her friends of the elements of the Seder plate, which sits at the center of the Seder ritual. An edible guide to the evening’s retelling of the story of the Exodus, it includes an egg, a roasted lamb shank, bitter herbs, and a sweet paste made from fruit and nuts called charoset, along with other edible symbols. For participants who can’t or don’t want to track down the items, Muller says, “I will make sure that I have everything and everyone can participate symbolically.” And for those who don’t relish the prospect of trying to source Passover ingredients, there is the Passover kit. In New York, La Newyorkina owner Fany Gerson has been selling Mexican Passover meals whose options include Mexican-style gefilte fish and matzo ball soup, roasted carrots with harissa, brisket tamales, and flourless chocolate chipotle cake. Over in the San Francisco Bay Area, Wise Sons is selling kits with “everything you need on the Passover [Seder] plate but the plate,” Bloom says. They include candlesticks and a full meal including brisket, matzo ball soup, gefilte fish, and chopped liver; the Haggadah that Wise Sons uses at its annual Seder at the Contemporary Jewish Museum will be available for free online. Passover kits also ensure that Seder hosts won’t miss any of the essentials, particularly matzo, which was rumored to be sold out weeks before the holiday. “Retailers were calling, frantic, three weeks ago — everything got wiped out,” says Aaron Gross, the owner of Streit’s, a 95-year-old matzo manufacturer that produces some 2 million boxes of matzo each Passover from its factory outside of New York City. But now, he adds, some of those retailers are calling and saying they no longer need those orders. Even without a shortage of matzo, some are planning to make their own. Before California’s shelter-in-place order went into effect, Vicky Zeamer, a design researcher in San Francisco, tried to find yeast but found that stores were already sold out. She recalls thinking, “Oh my gosh, how am I going to make bread without yeast?” And then she realized that bread without leavening is the definition of matzo. “Between [the lack of yeast] and the plague, it’s feeling too much like Passover,” she quips. Although Zeamer isn’t planning on joining a Seder, she may watch the 1995 cartoon episode “A Rugrats Passover,” which is considered a childhood touchpoint for many millennial Jews. Across the country in Brooklyn, Alpern and Kline are also planning to bake matzo. A week before the start of Passover, the couple had settled on hosting a Seder using the platform Seder2020. They’ve invited a large group of family “and a few of my friends who couldn’t have fit in my house,” Alpern says. This year, there will still be a big Seder and a busy kitchen, but the living room won’t be full of furniture. Instead, it will be crowded with voices, beamed in from Passover tables near and far. Devra Ferst is a Brooklyn-based food and travel writer. Follow her on Instagram @dferst. from Eater - All https://ift.tt/39IdiJm

http://easyfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/04/this-passover-is-not-like-other.html

#EasyFoodNetwork #ComfortFoodRecipes #EasyRecipes #GoodFood #BestComfortFoodRecipes #TastyFoodv

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