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.
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