Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Recommended Torah Translation & Commentary
I've been reading Robert Alter's translation of the Torah, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation and Commentary. It is excellent. Alter also wrote The Art of Biblical Narrative and The Art of Biblical Poetry. I have read the former and it is very good as well. I bought the latter book but haven't read it yet. Alter translates the Torah based on the theories and techniques he writes about in the two Art books, and his commentary often expands on those as well. But there is no Hebrew text in it, so you'll need a separate copy of that if you want to translate along with Alter. I highly recommend this book.
Old Me, New Me, Community
I have been disconnected from my local synagogue because I disagree strongly with the latest leadership. When I say latest, I mean for the past year and a half. There are several people in line who adhere to the current line of thinking, so it's not going to come to an end anytime soon. It is not the same place anymore, for myself and for some other people. I don't know how many others, and nobody probably ever will unless we all resign, which is something I am seriously considering. Probably would have done it already if it weren't for the strong aversion for having anything to do with them, and I have to at least write a letter to resign.
When young people move away from home for the first time, they explore and learn things about themselves that maybe they had never realized before. In distancing myself from my synagogue I have re-discovered some things that I had put on the shelf when I started the conversion process and which have been on the shelf since then. With your family you are a different person than you are with your friends. During my time of close connection with the synagogue, I was synagogue-Jen. I was always the person they expected me to be. They only knew a narrow version of me. And while I always knew my true, full self, my situation as a "lone Jew" has given me the time and the room to get back in touch with some parts of myself that I had lost touch with. It feels good.
I wonder if this is something all converts go through. It seems that whenever someone begins something new they are very gung-ho about it to the point they neglect old interests. They say converts are some of the most involved Jews, and I wonder if that is the case for newer converts only or whether it's true for the lifespan of someone who converted. I don't see myself becoming less involved in Judaism. The opposite, in fact. This year I shook the lulav for the first time, and did kaparot for the first time (with money, not a chicken-- I am working on a post about that and why I did it). But I am less involved in community-Judaism. I didn't become a Jew to be social- I'm not a social person. But that's all the synagogue was primarily, was socializing. Actually, it's a Reform temple, and even though Reform has moved a long way back towards tradition, this temple hasn't. Or hadn't.
So somehow getting less involved in community has made me more involved at a personal level with Judaism and G-d. I am not sure why this is, although it does pop into my mind the way the temple never celebrated most of the holidays on the REAL holiday, like Purim. They'd celebrate it on the nearest weekend. That always chapped my hide. Christians don't reschedule Christmas or Easter. Muslims don't reschedule Ramadan. But this temple for some reason re-scheduled Jewish holidays! Not big ones like Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah. But just about everything else. So maybe a faulty community was actually preventing me from doing what I needed to do/what I should have been doing. Because if you have to reschedule your Jewish holiday in order to celebrate with the community like you're "supposed to," then the community is misleading you.
Maybe this is a lesson to me on the influence of community. I'm always thinking so much about personal responsibility. The community is where all our personal responsibilities come together and how well we have taken care of them makes a difference for other people. If individually we don't do the right thing, then collectively we won't do the right thing, and then we will each individually be harmed by it.
When young people move away from home for the first time, they explore and learn things about themselves that maybe they had never realized before. In distancing myself from my synagogue I have re-discovered some things that I had put on the shelf when I started the conversion process and which have been on the shelf since then. With your family you are a different person than you are with your friends. During my time of close connection with the synagogue, I was synagogue-Jen. I was always the person they expected me to be. They only knew a narrow version of me. And while I always knew my true, full self, my situation as a "lone Jew" has given me the time and the room to get back in touch with some parts of myself that I had lost touch with. It feels good.
I wonder if this is something all converts go through. It seems that whenever someone begins something new they are very gung-ho about it to the point they neglect old interests. They say converts are some of the most involved Jews, and I wonder if that is the case for newer converts only or whether it's true for the lifespan of someone who converted. I don't see myself becoming less involved in Judaism. The opposite, in fact. This year I shook the lulav for the first time, and did kaparot for the first time (with money, not a chicken-- I am working on a post about that and why I did it). But I am less involved in community-Judaism. I didn't become a Jew to be social- I'm not a social person. But that's all the synagogue was primarily, was socializing. Actually, it's a Reform temple, and even though Reform has moved a long way back towards tradition, this temple hasn't. Or hadn't.
So somehow getting less involved in community has made me more involved at a personal level with Judaism and G-d. I am not sure why this is, although it does pop into my mind the way the temple never celebrated most of the holidays on the REAL holiday, like Purim. They'd celebrate it on the nearest weekend. That always chapped my hide. Christians don't reschedule Christmas or Easter. Muslims don't reschedule Ramadan. But this temple for some reason re-scheduled Jewish holidays! Not big ones like Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah. But just about everything else. So maybe a faulty community was actually preventing me from doing what I needed to do/what I should have been doing. Because if you have to reschedule your Jewish holiday in order to celebrate with the community like you're "supposed to," then the community is misleading you.
Maybe this is a lesson to me on the influence of community. I'm always thinking so much about personal responsibility. The community is where all our personal responsibilities come together and how well we have taken care of them makes a difference for other people. If individually we don't do the right thing, then collectively we won't do the right thing, and then we will each individually be harmed by it.
Monday, October 12, 2009
The New "Donate" Button
I added a "Donate" button should anyone feel moved to financially support my Jewish learning process. Any money I should receive would be spent on books on Jewish subjects (Tanakh, Talmud, prayer, Hebrew, etc) or tuition fees for rabbinical school or other Judaica classes. I'm not in rabbinical school currently but I definitely will be going when I am able to pay for it and support my family at the same time.
To anyone who donates, I say thank you very much for your support of my learning! You are truly a kind and generous person.
To anyone who donates, I say thank you very much for your support of my learning! You are truly a kind and generous person.
I Get What I Need
I did a lot of preparation for Yom Kippur this year. I felt like I really needed Yom Kippur this year more than I have in years past. I'm not sure why, but I have been dealing with a lot of stuff from my past over this past year, and I felt a desperate need to draw near to G-d again, and maybe to put closure on the old stuff and move on.
The day of YK itself wasn't what I had hoped or expected to be, but it was what I needed. Sometimes we don't know what we need. I'm not saying YK wasn't good, just that I didn't know what I needed and I got what I needed, not what I thought I needed, and I wasn't real happy about it. I had swine flu a few weeks ago and it took several weeks to get over. I fasted when I probably shouldn't have. I needed water more so than food, because I still had a lot of chest congestion. I was tired and physically in pain, and in a bad mood. Everyone was annoying. They should really have a section in the synagogue for people who are there to pray intensely and don't want to be bothered by people talking to them, climbing over them, or talking to the people behind them.
Between feeling like crap and the difficulties of being significantly overweight in a crowd, I realize that Health should be my focus this year. This means focusing on myself, something I am not good at. I don't take care of myself. I have always been horrible at it. But I need to learn. If I had to stand before G-d right now, I'd have a lot of explaining to do when it comes to not taking care of the physical body that G-d gave me to use in this life. And I guess that's how I am going to have to think of my body in order to get the motivation to take care of it.
The day of YK itself wasn't what I had hoped or expected to be, but it was what I needed. Sometimes we don't know what we need. I'm not saying YK wasn't good, just that I didn't know what I needed and I got what I needed, not what I thought I needed, and I wasn't real happy about it. I had swine flu a few weeks ago and it took several weeks to get over. I fasted when I probably shouldn't have. I needed water more so than food, because I still had a lot of chest congestion. I was tired and physically in pain, and in a bad mood. Everyone was annoying. They should really have a section in the synagogue for people who are there to pray intensely and don't want to be bothered by people talking to them, climbing over them, or talking to the people behind them.
Between feeling like crap and the difficulties of being significantly overweight in a crowd, I realize that Health should be my focus this year. This means focusing on myself, something I am not good at. I don't take care of myself. I have always been horrible at it. But I need to learn. If I had to stand before G-d right now, I'd have a lot of explaining to do when it comes to not taking care of the physical body that G-d gave me to use in this life. And I guess that's how I am going to have to think of my body in order to get the motivation to take care of it.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Talmud
I've been studying Talmud in the original language(s) lately. I've got the Artscroll editions with the English translation which I really like. But language has always been an issue for me. Reading the Tanakh and prayers in translation was not good enough for me from the start. I've always been what I like to call a connoisseur of languages. I love grammar and the how languages express certain things in ways that simply are not translatable. So, studying Talmud in translation was good for a while but it would not fully appease me for long.
I can read Hebrew with a dictionary. For some reason, vocabulary just does not stick with me. My first real challenge with Talmud was the Rashi script. If I didn't know better I would swear Rashi script was developed just to discourage students. I learned a new alphabet 6 years ago (Hebrew), why should I have to learn another alphabet in order to read the same language?! In the past I would have made some flashcards and sat down and made a concentrated effort just to learn Rashi script, but this time I didn't. I just jumped in with both feet. I kept a chart nearby to consult when I got confused, and eventually it stuck with me. I did spend an hour consulting Yitzhak Frank and Jastrow trying to look up a word only to finally realize that the Rashi tzade and the Rashi lamed look almost exactly alike. Looking up words is much easier when you're spelling them right! But I bet you I'll never forget what a Rashi tzade looks like!
I finally made it through the Mishnah of Kiddushin 2a, and the Gemara, then the Rashi to the Mishnah, then the Rashi to the Gemara. I was just beginning Tosafot when a rabbi friend told me not to torture myself with it at this point.
In much the same way Torah is better in the original language, so is Talmud. The Artscroll translation doesn't give you the sense of one thing building upon another the way the original Hebrew and Aramaic do. When you look at the page of Talmud in Hebrew/Aramaic, you can see that the Mishnah is central, the Gemara just below it but clearly very closely connected to the Mishnah. Then Rashi is on one side and Tosafot on the other. What I didn't quite get, though, was how the Mishnah says one thing, then the Gemara comments on that, then Rashi comments on that. I knew it intellectually, but I didn't get it. It's almost like a family tree... at least that's the picture that comes to my mind. It's like an old textbook you buy used only to find that previous students have added their comments in the margins, and the occasional answer to the review questions. The difference being that Talmud is much more precious than anything we studied in college, and that the comments in the margins are by the teachers, not the students! I can't express the excitement I feel just thinking about it. This Talmud is truly a precious gift.
The Artscroll translation doesn't do a good job of communicating the structure that exists in the original texts of the Talmud. I don't think that is really the point of Artscroll, though. It does, in my uneducated opinion, a good job of making the arguments understandable. I just hope that anyone who is reading this and relying on the Artscroll will read at least one page of Talmud in the original languages in the hopes of having the same experiential lesson I had.
I can read Hebrew with a dictionary. For some reason, vocabulary just does not stick with me. My first real challenge with Talmud was the Rashi script. If I didn't know better I would swear Rashi script was developed just to discourage students. I learned a new alphabet 6 years ago (Hebrew), why should I have to learn another alphabet in order to read the same language?! In the past I would have made some flashcards and sat down and made a concentrated effort just to learn Rashi script, but this time I didn't. I just jumped in with both feet. I kept a chart nearby to consult when I got confused, and eventually it stuck with me. I did spend an hour consulting Yitzhak Frank and Jastrow trying to look up a word only to finally realize that the Rashi tzade and the Rashi lamed look almost exactly alike. Looking up words is much easier when you're spelling them right! But I bet you I'll never forget what a Rashi tzade looks like!
I finally made it through the Mishnah of Kiddushin 2a, and the Gemara, then the Rashi to the Mishnah, then the Rashi to the Gemara. I was just beginning Tosafot when a rabbi friend told me not to torture myself with it at this point.
In much the same way Torah is better in the original language, so is Talmud. The Artscroll translation doesn't give you the sense of one thing building upon another the way the original Hebrew and Aramaic do. When you look at the page of Talmud in Hebrew/Aramaic, you can see that the Mishnah is central, the Gemara just below it but clearly very closely connected to the Mishnah. Then Rashi is on one side and Tosafot on the other. What I didn't quite get, though, was how the Mishnah says one thing, then the Gemara comments on that, then Rashi comments on that. I knew it intellectually, but I didn't get it. It's almost like a family tree... at least that's the picture that comes to my mind. It's like an old textbook you buy used only to find that previous students have added their comments in the margins, and the occasional answer to the review questions. The difference being that Talmud is much more precious than anything we studied in college, and that the comments in the margins are by the teachers, not the students! I can't express the excitement I feel just thinking about it. This Talmud is truly a precious gift.
The Artscroll translation doesn't do a good job of communicating the structure that exists in the original texts of the Talmud. I don't think that is really the point of Artscroll, though. It does, in my uneducated opinion, a good job of making the arguments understandable. I just hope that anyone who is reading this and relying on the Artscroll will read at least one page of Talmud in the original languages in the hopes of having the same experiential lesson I had.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Going to the Mikveh
Still on the subject of conversion, I had a Reform conversion which involved a period of study and "living Jewish", and a ceremony at Friday night services where I was officially converted. I didn't go to the mikveh and there was no beit din. I was a little disappointed about the mikveh because I thought it would be an experience of re-birth, coming out of the water like coming out of a womb. I felt like something would be washed away and only my Jewishness in all its glory would be left. Or something like that. I really couldn't have cared less about the beit din part. I had a dream in the nights immediately surrounding my conversion in which I went to the mikveh as part of a conversion ceremony, and it was so very real that I always felt like perhaps that was God's way of giving me that experience without me physically having gone to the mikveh.
I was disappointed that some people didn't accept Reform conversions as valid, but I came up with reasons why it didn't really matter what other people accepted. Some of those reasons are in fact valid, but they aren't relevant to what I want to discuss here. While commenting on someone else's blog, making a case for my situation in a way, I learned a lesson about conversion and why it matters to do it in such a way that it is acceptable to the largest number of Jews possible.
Here is a link to those comments: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8444758&postID=5794447031133776886
The "what are we, chopped liver?" comment was meant to be funny but it also had a lot of wisdom behind it. It inspired me to look at this situation from a different point of view. If someone loves Judaism and wants to be a Jew, converts in some manner and lives as a Jew, wouldn't every other Jew want to be able to accept that person's conversion and welcome them? I believe people are basically good at heart, so of course they would! In choosing to convert the way I did, I made it impossible for many Jews to accept my conversion as valid. It's possible they could see that as a slight: "what are we, chopped liver?" or in other words, "don't you care that halachically I can't consider you a Jew?"
That was pretty profound to me. I had always concentrated on how I felt excluded, but never thought about how I was also excluding the Orthodox community. Now, I will never be an Orthodox Jew. There are things that I just cannot believe and things that I do believe which make it impossible for me to be Orthodox. (I also no longer consider myself Reform, but hover in the vicinity of Conservative Judaism after years of study and personal growth.)
A dear friend of mine is a Conservative rabbi and offered to me a year or 2 ago that if I ever wanted to go to the mikveh and have the beit din, she would be glad to make that happen for me. I didn't give it any serious thought at the time, and even felt like to do those things would be saying I hadn't been a Jew in the years since my Reform conversion. But after gaining this new perspective on things, I told her I wanted to go to the mikveh and go before the beit din.
So that's the plan. I realize this won't make me acceptable to the Orthodox community, and that the Conservative community already accepts Reform conversions, so nothing is technically changing. But as I have studied and prayed, I have come to have greater respect for halacha, and this will be an expression of that respect. It will also be a "message in a bottle" to the Jewish universe that I want to be included fully (even in that isn't possible), and that I want those in the Jewish universe to know that even if I don't agree with them, they are valuable to me.
I was disappointed that some people didn't accept Reform conversions as valid, but I came up with reasons why it didn't really matter what other people accepted. Some of those reasons are in fact valid, but they aren't relevant to what I want to discuss here. While commenting on someone else's blog, making a case for my situation in a way, I learned a lesson about conversion and why it matters to do it in such a way that it is acceptable to the largest number of Jews possible.
Here is a link to those comments: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8444758&postID=5794447031133776886
The "what are we, chopped liver?" comment was meant to be funny but it also had a lot of wisdom behind it. It inspired me to look at this situation from a different point of view. If someone loves Judaism and wants to be a Jew, converts in some manner and lives as a Jew, wouldn't every other Jew want to be able to accept that person's conversion and welcome them? I believe people are basically good at heart, so of course they would! In choosing to convert the way I did, I made it impossible for many Jews to accept my conversion as valid. It's possible they could see that as a slight: "what are we, chopped liver?" or in other words, "don't you care that halachically I can't consider you a Jew?"
That was pretty profound to me. I had always concentrated on how I felt excluded, but never thought about how I was also excluding the Orthodox community. Now, I will never be an Orthodox Jew. There are things that I just cannot believe and things that I do believe which make it impossible for me to be Orthodox. (I also no longer consider myself Reform, but hover in the vicinity of Conservative Judaism after years of study and personal growth.)
A dear friend of mine is a Conservative rabbi and offered to me a year or 2 ago that if I ever wanted to go to the mikveh and have the beit din, she would be glad to make that happen for me. I didn't give it any serious thought at the time, and even felt like to do those things would be saying I hadn't been a Jew in the years since my Reform conversion. But after gaining this new perspective on things, I told her I wanted to go to the mikveh and go before the beit din.
So that's the plan. I realize this won't make me acceptable to the Orthodox community, and that the Conservative community already accepts Reform conversions, so nothing is technically changing. But as I have studied and prayed, I have come to have greater respect for halacha, and this will be an expression of that respect. It will also be a "message in a bottle" to the Jewish universe that I want to be included fully (even in that isn't possible), and that I want those in the Jewish universe to know that even if I don't agree with them, they are valuable to me.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Chosen by Choice
I had a hard time thinking of a name for my blog but then it just hit me. I make no secret of the fact that I'm a Jew by Choice. In the congregation I was converted in, there was no shame in it, and there were a lot of converts. Converts were some of the most active members of the congregation, which I hear is pretty typical. But I have heard of others who don't even want a person who is in the process of converting to ask them in private about their conversion process, even in the way of moral support or asking what to expect. I guess I was lucky enough not to be exposed to an environment that would generate that feeling in me.
Even though I've been a Jew for years, I still want very much to learn about other people's family traditions and customs. That's really something you can't get from a book or a rabbi. I figure that if I'm open about wanting this thing I never had, people will be more apt to offer it to me.
That's just a little about me and the name of my blog to get things started here.
Even though I've been a Jew for years, I still want very much to learn about other people's family traditions and customs. That's really something you can't get from a book or a rabbi. I figure that if I'm open about wanting this thing I never had, people will be more apt to offer it to me.
That's just a little about me and the name of my blog to get things started here.
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