The Switch in My Brain

It is ironic that I am typing this shortly before 9:00 AM.  I am not yet on.  I have a switch in my brain.  It's on an independent timer.  I don't get to set it. It flips some time between 9:45-10:15 AM each day.  I can function before that (and often do since my alarm goes off shortly after 6:30 AM most days), but something isn't fully there.  I've always been this way.  My children find it amusing and annoying, especially when I cannot process what they're saying.  All I hear is noise instead of words.  I need slow enunciation with eye contact to process.

When the switch finally flips there is a mental and physical change that occurs.  I feel more awake. My muscles perk up.  I stand/sit straighter.  The mental change is harder to detect, but I know when it happens.  There are a lot of safety nets.  Spellcheck is a great friend.  Usually I can find my typos just moments after I make them, but I can't not make them.  It's most noticeable when I'm not at work.  Routine helps, as does sunlight in the summer months.  On Tuesdays and Fridays, when I'm still up in the dark, but don't have to work, I tend to do the crossword puzzle (which I just typed as crossward, even though I could tell I was mistyping almost as I did it).  This leads to all sorts of fun.  On Tuesday (which I just typed as Tuesdau), I misspelled at least 5 words in the crossword puzzle.  These were not words I can't spell.  My mind thought one thing, but different letters came out of the pen.  (I just remembered my breakfast [soup from yesterday] is in the microwave, where it's been sitting for the past 45 minutes since I pressed start.)  This morning's crossword had the clue "place where your radius is".  By the way, the answer is not, as my mind first thought, in your circle.  The answer forearm.  At 11:30 AM that never would have occurred to me.

Oddly enough I do the sudoku better.

I'd better get my soup now before another hour passes.

Shabbat shalom.

We Almost Become a Stereotype

School vacations mean visits with grandparents. Treks to New Jersey or Virginia are usually in the cards, although sometimes the grandparents come to us.  There is a flurry of activity for those few days, especially when heading to the States.  I love history, and I have passed on that love to my children.  Summer 2011 we did our own version of a July 4th heritage tour.  We camped at Shenandoah National Park, summer home of President Herbert Hoover.  We also toured Mt Vernon and Monticello.

We've done the memorials and monuments across the National Mall.  We've done all of the Smithsonian, although the kids were young and we should go back to some.  My parents are a short drive to New York and to Philadelphia.  We've made sure to see the sights there as well.

This year we went to the National Museum of the Marine Corps.  It's a must see, although you probably need three days to see it.  The Marines have created an interactive museum where you can feel the noise of incoming ordinance, the cold of Chosin or the vibrations of helicopters.  We aslo went to the shooting range.  The rifles have been adjusted for laser (no live ammo), and the recoil is absent.  Jesse, walking through on his own, missed the range, but the rest of us enjoyed it.

It had us talking about the skill of shooting.  There's a gun range near my in-laws, after all this IS the US south.  We thought we'd take Jesse and go shooting.  They said they were open Christmas eve.  Sean's dad, Sean, Jesse, and I headed out Christmas eve.  Unfortunately they closed early.  We ended up at Target instead.

Spending Christmas Eve shooting as a family.  If that's not an American stereotype I don't know what is!

We're home now, but the kids have remained in Virginia.  I wonder if they'll be a stereotype before they come home.

To all celebrating- I hope you had a merry Christmas and to all may it be a happy and healthy 2013, hopefully filled with peace.

Snow is Not a 4-letter Word

It seems odd I am posting this now as the snow is melting outside, but 1) I wrote this on our trip home through a LOT of snow in between winter storms, and 2) I am sad to see the snow melt.  Snow makes me smile. It makes my assistant a bit crazy.  He has a great window in his office.  When I walk in and see the snow falling so peacefully outside his window I tend to forget why I'm there for the moment and smile glassy-eyed at the beautiful flakes.  David has gotten used to this, and merely shakes his head until I return to the present.

I love winter. During the winter it should snow. Snow is one of God's greatest inventions. It beautifully covers the earth, blanketing the land in quiet and peace. There is a beautiful starkness in a winter landscape, the bare trees and brown grasses pushing through the white. The white of the snow filtering through the brown of bare branches and the green of fir and pine cause the mountains to look purple up close and blue in the distance. Driving through a snowy landscape you can believe in peace.

Smoke rises from a chimney, curling in the wind. The clouds blend into the slate colored sky reflecting the starkness of the ground. There is even beauty in the seemingly endless grey. Light reflects, bouncing from snowy ground to silver grey clouds, so that, even at 3:00 on a December day, it is not dark.

There's more to winter than snow. (Although that is my favorite part.) In winter the whole world is pregnant. Hopes and dreams are wrapped in cottony softness. Winter is the gestation period for the seeds lying dormant under that warm blanket of snow. All the promise of the future is wrapped in winter. In some cases buds are already on the trees, waiting for the freeze and the thaw. Just like people need sleep to rejuvinate, so too the earth in order to bloom anew.

So while many celebrate the January thaw, I look at it with some saddness and wait longingly for the snow to return.

Va'era- Frogs Here, Frogs There, Frogs Were Hopping Everywhere

One morning when Pharaoh awoke in his bed

There were frogs in his bed and frogs on his head

Frogs on his nose and frogs on his toes

Frogs here, frogs there, frogs were hopping everywhere

This is a very popular seder song in our home. We added it when the children were little, but have maintained its place in our seder even as the children have grown. It’s more than a nice rhyme. The song portrays an important theological aspect of the plagues.

...hinei Anokhi nogeif et kol g’vul’cha batzfar’d’im. V’sharatz ha’y’or tzfar’d’im v’alu u’va’u b’veitecha uvakhadar mishka’v’cha v’al mitatecha u’v’veit a’vadecha u’v’amecha u’v’tanurecha u’v’mish’a’rotecha. U’v’cha u’v’amecha u’v’chol avadecha ya’a’lu hatzfar’d’im.

…Behold, I will strike all your borders with frogs. And the rivers will swarm with frogs, and they will go up and come into your house and into your bedroom, and on your bed, and into your servants’ home, and upon your people, and into your ovens and in your kneading troughs. And on you and on your people and on your servants the frogs will come.          (Shmot 7:27-29)

The first plague, blood, strikes at the Nile, central to Egyptian theology. The Nile itself was a God. It could give life or kill with its waters, and all of Egypt depended upon its benevolence. So follows the procession of plagues. Not only do they afflict the Egyptians, they work to erode faith in the power of the Egyptian gods over all others. The Nile turns to blood. Fish die. The amphibians crawl out to plague the Egyptians. The frog plague, as with the other plagues that follow, fills all of Egypt, from border to border within Egypt. The frogs plagued the Egyptians in their homes, in their beds, in their kitchens, on their dishes, and on their bodies. The frogs fill every space, including Pharaoh’s bed and upon his body. The plagues did not differentiate among classes. They did not choose between the people and their god on earth, Pharaoh, but were here, there and everywhere.

Further, these plagues struck Egypt. They do not enter Goshen, where the Israelites dwelled. This is a basic theme of the redemption. Only the Egyptians were afflicted. As they had afflicted others, now they were afflicted. For and against whom God stood had to be clear. The child’s song, while silly and fun, illustrates God’s power and the extent of the helplessness of Pharaoh, a god among the Egyptians.

As an aside, I used to wonder why we read the story of the exodus for far before Pesach. I have decided it’s to remind me that Pesach is coming and I’d better start getting rid of all the hametz.

Shemot- Have You Been The Change You Wanted to See?

Last year for parashat Shemot I wrote about Naama Margolese and her mother Hadassa. Naama was the eight-year-old girl in Beit Shemesh at whom a haredi man had spit because she did not fit his image of a properly modest woman. There was outrage and rallies on both sides of the argument. A few weeks later, on the same day that I led Mincha for the first Masorti/Conservative minyan ever held at the Knesset, a woman was assaulted on a bus by a haredi man who saw marks from tefillin straps on her arm. I wrote of Ghandi’s words, “be the change you want to see in the world.”

Vatirehna ham’yaldot et Ha’Ehlohim v’lo asu ka’asher diber aleihem melech Mitzraiyim va’t’chayehna et ha’y’ladim.

And the midwives were in awe of God, and did not do as the king of Egypt told them; they let the boys live.

All change begins with one individual. This is the message throughout history.  From Naama Margolese and her mother Hadassa, the eight year old girl in Beit Shemesh determined to learn, back through history to Craig Keilburger, founder of Free the Children; from Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, to Rosa Parks to Mahatma Ghandi and so on, all the way back to this first act of resistance by the Egyptian midwives.

These were some of my words last year. If you googled Naama Margolese now, you would only find the news of last year. She has returned to her childhood. Nonetheless, Naama’s and her mother’s courage in standing up before the world to make public the wrong done to her opened a floodgate of support and action. The past year has seen more discussion on religious equality in Israeli society than ever before.

The past year has brought a ruling in Israel that rural communities may appoint non-Orthodox rabbis to be their religious leaders, and those choices must be accepted and paid for by the Israeli government. The Jewish Agency (JAFI), led by Natan Sharansky, no stranger to civil disobedience, passed a resolution calling for a “satisfactory approach to the issue of prayer at the Western Wall.” In early December a prominent religious leader in Israel, Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, called upon the State to recognize all streams of Judaism in all aspects, including conversions. Most recently Prime Minister Netanyahu appointed Mr. Sharansky to study the issue of equal prayer access to the Kotel.

A prominent theme in Jewish life, beautifully illustrated by the actions of the midwives in our parasha is ain somchim al hanes; do not depend upon to the miracle. Talmud teaches us that we finally merited redemption because of the merit of the righteous women. It all began with these two midwives. Our year of change began with an eight-year-old girl, but it continues with all of us. May 2013 be another year of positive change, not just in Israel, but in the world.