Here are three things you should not do, simultaneously, if you want to keep a sunny disposition: read political blogs; attend online graduate classes; and be married to someone who teaches college-level writing classes.
When I look at the writing skills of my fellow students in online classes, and my wife reads selections from her students' papers, I grimace and think, "Why don't people know how to write?" But when I look past the lousy grammar and sentence structure, and really examine the content of what's being said, the actual question is, "Why don't people know how to think?"
When I include the blogs (left and right) that I sometimes read (some of which are written perfectly competently; they're just insane), it's even worse.
When I say they don't know how to think, I don't mean that I disagree with their arguments. I mean that they are inept at laying out their arguments and, worse, perhaps incapable of forming a coherent argument.
And it all goes back to high school. Maybe even middle school. Because it's not a natural skill, like speaking, or walking. You have to learn how to think. You have to learn how to form a coherent, logical argument. You have to learn what a main idea is, and what a supporting argument is, and the varieties of different ways one can support an argument: emotionally, factually, persausively, and so on. This is supposed to be part of your education. You learn the skills and you practice the skills. You read the arguments of others and you deconstruct them, to see how they built their argument, and why it works. You learn how to look under the hood, or look behind the curtain. You learn the tricks so that you can use the tricks and--much more importantly--so that you can avoid being fooled by them when other people use them.
Or you don't. In which case, you end up thinking Glenn Beck is the savior of American Democracy.
I got into an argument, years ago, with a former theatre colleague who was an unreconstructed hippie and proud Leftist. I was telling him about an interdisciplinary, high school curriculum unit I was designing on the idea of utopia. The history section of the unit focused on the Cold War, and included essays from both the Right and the Left. The essays disagreed on pretty much everything, and it made the kids crazy, because they were used to reading textbooks. But we pushed them to read everything, come up with an opinion, and defend it. We didn't care what opinion they ended up with, as long as they could support it. My friend was very upset. He felt that it was his job to push a Left agenda with his students--hard--to counter what he felt was the larger culture's Rightward drift. I argued that it didn't serve the students, even if he was successful: all he would have done is sway them from Right to Left on the force of his personality or argument, leaving them open to swing right back again on the force of the next teacher. His job, I argued, was to get them to think independently, regardless of what opinion they ended up with, even if they ended up disagreeing with him.
He was unmoved.
Our fear that children will reach conclusions we disagree with keeps us from allowing them to engage in real independent, critical thought. So we give them textbooks that have ready-made, pre-digested conclusions, and then give them multiple-choice tests to see if they have accurately remembered those conclusions. And we leave them open to cultural and political vultures and con-men, who tell them what is cool, or what is right--what they should wear and what they should think. We raise them to be sheep--ready for the shearing--easy to manipulate and bamboozle and con.
And maybe that's good for the economy--I don't know. Maybe we need to raise easily gulled fools to keep people buying ten tens of shit that they don't need. But it's going to be the death of our democracy. Because if we raise generation upon generation of voters who laugh at people who ask questions, and revere people who come with easy answers, then it won't take long before people start asking why we need to bother with a Congress or a Court at all.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
The Narrow Place
Apologies to the 3.5 people who read this. I haven't posted anything here in a long time. Blame other social networking media, and grad school. And life.
Anyway, here it is, Passover. And as usual, I get irritated by the literalists--both the historical literalists who insist on believeing that the Exodus must have happened, as written, in historical time, for it to have any meaning, and the ritual literalists, who insist on leading the seder as though every page must be read out loud, in order, as is, for the evening to have any meaning. I reject both points of view.
I've participated in discussions, at my congregation, about the historical truth of the story, and everyone at the table got completely hung up on the topic. To them, the idea that maybe, just maybe, there were no Israelites enslaved in Egypt--the fact that no archeological evidence had turned up yet to confirm this--was terribly threatening to them. Like the story had no meaning unless it was literally, historically true.
And this is a Reform congregation.
To me, the story might actually have MORE meaning if it's not true. I mean, think about it--why would our ancestors have chosen, on purpose, to make this story of enslavement and redemption their founding myth? Who does that? Every other ancient culture that I know of saw itself as descended from gods or heroes. The Jews saw themselves as descended from slaves. Why? What does that say about us, as a people?
For me, as a writer and a former English major and English teacher, the fact that something may be poetry does not mean that it isn't true. There is truth in poetry--sometimes greater truth than we find in history.
What does the poetry of Exodus tell us?
Let's start with crossing the Red Sea, or Sea of Reeds, or whatever it was. Does it matter whether the sea was really parted? Not to me. What matters to me is the imagery of something enormous being crossed by the Israelites, and then being closed behind them. It means that true freedom requies a boundary-crossing in a way that does not allow for backsliding and return. We know the Israelites bicker and complain constantly--that they are terrified of freedom and, in the face of each crisis, beg to return to Egypt. It's important that the door behind them has been closed, and that the only way forward for them is forward. If the oppressed peoples we've known of had been able to truly close the door on old chapters of their history, they might have been more able to move forward into freedom, rather than backsliding into tyranny, as so many of them have.
How about 40 years in the desert? What does it mean that the slave generation had to live out in the wilderness and die there, and that only their children--the ones born in the open spaces of freedom--were ready not only to understand the commandments given unto them, but also to live them, and make a new nation for themselves? How many peoples throughout history have had the benefit of "40 years in the desert" between tyranny and freedom? How many have had the luxury of not having a new potential tyrant, in their nation or in a neighboring country, breathing down their necks and waiting for them to fail? We, in America, had that luxury, only because most of the rest of the world was separated from us by two oceans that took a long time to cross. In fact, we had worked out quite a lot of what it meant to self-govern long before our revolution took place. Who else has been so lucky?
What about the giving of the law and the building of the calf? Huge. Someone once made what he thought was a nasty joke about Jews, saying, "Only the Jews would come up with the idea that laws = freedom." But I didn't find it nasty. I said, "You're damned right. Because laws DO equal freedom. Without law, all you have is chaos, and chaos leads straight to tyranny. If you don't have some laws or principels that allow you to self-govern, it won't take long for you to turn to some strong man and say, 'govern us.'"
None of these issues ever seem to get talked about by the literalists. Nothing that could teach us how to live, how to understand ourselves. Just facts.
And the literalist seders don't help us learn from our story, either. Instead, we get page after page of psalms extolling the power of God. And that's fine, to some extent. Maybe, for some people, that's fine in its entirety. That's the only lesson to be drawn.
But not for me. That's all I'm saying. To me, the Torah--the Bible--is not a book that you are simply supposed to swallow, whole, without reflection, and say, "I believe." From where I sit, my heritage and culture teach me to wrestle with the book, to argue with it, and to learn from it--constantly. And the only way to do that is to let the words and images resonate with you--to let them bounce around and reflect off things and work on you in different ways.
Like a poem.
Anyway, here it is, Passover. And as usual, I get irritated by the literalists--both the historical literalists who insist on believeing that the Exodus must have happened, as written, in historical time, for it to have any meaning, and the ritual literalists, who insist on leading the seder as though every page must be read out loud, in order, as is, for the evening to have any meaning. I reject both points of view.
I've participated in discussions, at my congregation, about the historical truth of the story, and everyone at the table got completely hung up on the topic. To them, the idea that maybe, just maybe, there were no Israelites enslaved in Egypt--the fact that no archeological evidence had turned up yet to confirm this--was terribly threatening to them. Like the story had no meaning unless it was literally, historically true.
And this is a Reform congregation.
To me, the story might actually have MORE meaning if it's not true. I mean, think about it--why would our ancestors have chosen, on purpose, to make this story of enslavement and redemption their founding myth? Who does that? Every other ancient culture that I know of saw itself as descended from gods or heroes. The Jews saw themselves as descended from slaves. Why? What does that say about us, as a people?
For me, as a writer and a former English major and English teacher, the fact that something may be poetry does not mean that it isn't true. There is truth in poetry--sometimes greater truth than we find in history.
What does the poetry of Exodus tell us?
Let's start with crossing the Red Sea, or Sea of Reeds, or whatever it was. Does it matter whether the sea was really parted? Not to me. What matters to me is the imagery of something enormous being crossed by the Israelites, and then being closed behind them. It means that true freedom requies a boundary-crossing in a way that does not allow for backsliding and return. We know the Israelites bicker and complain constantly--that they are terrified of freedom and, in the face of each crisis, beg to return to Egypt. It's important that the door behind them has been closed, and that the only way forward for them is forward. If the oppressed peoples we've known of had been able to truly close the door on old chapters of their history, they might have been more able to move forward into freedom, rather than backsliding into tyranny, as so many of them have.
How about 40 years in the desert? What does it mean that the slave generation had to live out in the wilderness and die there, and that only their children--the ones born in the open spaces of freedom--were ready not only to understand the commandments given unto them, but also to live them, and make a new nation for themselves? How many peoples throughout history have had the benefit of "40 years in the desert" between tyranny and freedom? How many have had the luxury of not having a new potential tyrant, in their nation or in a neighboring country, breathing down their necks and waiting for them to fail? We, in America, had that luxury, only because most of the rest of the world was separated from us by two oceans that took a long time to cross. In fact, we had worked out quite a lot of what it meant to self-govern long before our revolution took place. Who else has been so lucky?
What about the giving of the law and the building of the calf? Huge. Someone once made what he thought was a nasty joke about Jews, saying, "Only the Jews would come up with the idea that laws = freedom." But I didn't find it nasty. I said, "You're damned right. Because laws DO equal freedom. Without law, all you have is chaos, and chaos leads straight to tyranny. If you don't have some laws or principels that allow you to self-govern, it won't take long for you to turn to some strong man and say, 'govern us.'"
None of these issues ever seem to get talked about by the literalists. Nothing that could teach us how to live, how to understand ourselves. Just facts.
And the literalist seders don't help us learn from our story, either. Instead, we get page after page of psalms extolling the power of God. And that's fine, to some extent. Maybe, for some people, that's fine in its entirety. That's the only lesson to be drawn.
But not for me. That's all I'm saying. To me, the Torah--the Bible--is not a book that you are simply supposed to swallow, whole, without reflection, and say, "I believe." From where I sit, my heritage and culture teach me to wrestle with the book, to argue with it, and to learn from it--constantly. And the only way to do that is to let the words and images resonate with you--to let them bounce around and reflect off things and work on you in different ways.
Like a poem.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
We Fight Authority (and we win...and lose)
I wrote a couple of years ago about "authority" as it relates to education (here), but the idea has been nagging at me ever since.
Now I see this, over at Joanne Jacobs' edublog. Very interesting take on what's fueling the achievement gap in education. And you can believe it or dismiss it, depending on your political point of view (since we live in an age where political point of view determines the truth value of any statement, data be damned). But I think it's pretty indisputable that parental authority, and especially male parental authority, is in crisis.
Here's one example, from just last week. Look at what they say about our sitcoms and family movies and TV commercials. Men are doofuses. Men are dolts. Most are bald; most are fat; all are clueless. The younger versions--pre-baldness and pre-fat, are just overgrown children. And the women? The women are patient, kind, understanding, and generally long-suffering. What they have to suffer is us.
The flip side of the picture, of course, in our harsher, less pleasant entertainments, is that men are greedy, violent, unscrupulous, and cruel.
If you're looking for the adult male role models of yesterday, you won't find them. There is no Atticus Finch in our movies. There is no Father Knows Best on television. And, as the students in the Jacobs article protested, in far too many families there are no men at all.
All right, you say, that's fine. They were all lies anyway. There were no Atticus Finches. There were only Don Drapers. Sure, they dressed better back then. Men wore ties, even to go out to a baseball game. But they were the same dolts, doofuses, and overgrown children they are now, deep down inside. We just didn't show them that way in our entertainments.
And yes, we've all had to grow up, and realize that our gods have feet of clay. But does that mean that, as children, we should have no gods? That the process of growing ujp and becoming independent--the process of leaving the Garden and entering the World--should be gotten rid of entirely? No more garden--at all--for anyone? Is it really healthy to bombard our children with images of their parents--of all the adults in their community--being hopeless morons? Is it really healthy to teach children that they are smarter than everyone else? I know they think that already--that's part of being a child. But have we really decided that growth--all growth--is an illusion? That there's nowhere to go but down? Really?
Every movement that brought us to this place was right and righteous, and just and justified, even if they gave us some unintended consequences. Feminism's drive to balance the scales between the genders was right and was needed. And it did quite a lot of good. But I don't think it's brought us to the place we want to be. In too many couples, men and women compete for the traditional "man" role, neither of them wanting to be stuck with the nurturing, home-making role. Is that the healthiest way to raise children, I wonder--with both parents saying, "no, you do it"?
Outside of the home, the anti-authoritarian impulses of the sixties were more than justified, after Vietnam and Watergate. But where have they left us? We still have people placed in positions of authority over us--but we trust and respect none of them. We tear them down as quickly as we can, but secretly beg for someone with true authority to take their place. We mock our fathers and dream of some ultimate Daddy who will finally set things right. Robbed of the growth from dependence to independence, we grow up out in the cold from day one, dreaming of some theoretical warmth we've never felt. Isn't that a recipe for fascism? Truly free, independent people need to grow up feeling competent, capable, self-controlled, and well-informed. Do we get that by raising kids to believe that they can trust and rely on no one--not even as children?
And our own, personal sense of authority and command over our lives? We have none. We suspect all of our impulses and desires, both indulging them and hating them. We take on positions of authority at work or at home, and undercut and second-guess ourselves constantly. Raised to believe that all authority is suspect, we have no firm center. We are un-grounded. We do not stand upon the earth--we waver. We shuffle. We qualify every statement. We are weak.
Bugs Bunny used to be the animated character that symbolized America at its best--the way we wanted to see ourselves: witty, resourceful, optimistic, cocky, capable, unflappable. He epitomized the "can do" spirit that we thought we had--that we hoped we had. It was the spirit that looked on a problem and said "let's fix that."
What cartoon character do we see in the mirror now? Homer Simpson.
Personal authority shouldn't have to be a mirage. And it shouldn't have to be based on violence or the threat of violence; it should be based on wisdom--on understanding--even on empathy. There's nothing wrong with empathy--we naturally invest our trust in people who we feel understand the challenges and problems that others face, and sympathize. But that empathy is not a weak, watery sentimentalism. It doesn't wring its hands or bite its lip. It is grounded. It comes from a place of strength. And it is pointed--always--towards action. It says, "let's fix that," not "what a pity."
Let's fix that.
Now I see this, over at Joanne Jacobs' edublog. Very interesting take on what's fueling the achievement gap in education. And you can believe it or dismiss it, depending on your political point of view (since we live in an age where political point of view determines the truth value of any statement, data be damned). But I think it's pretty indisputable that parental authority, and especially male parental authority, is in crisis.
Here's one example, from just last week. Look at what they say about our sitcoms and family movies and TV commercials. Men are doofuses. Men are dolts. Most are bald; most are fat; all are clueless. The younger versions--pre-baldness and pre-fat, are just overgrown children. And the women? The women are patient, kind, understanding, and generally long-suffering. What they have to suffer is us.
The flip side of the picture, of course, in our harsher, less pleasant entertainments, is that men are greedy, violent, unscrupulous, and cruel.
If you're looking for the adult male role models of yesterday, you won't find them. There is no Atticus Finch in our movies. There is no Father Knows Best on television. And, as the students in the Jacobs article protested, in far too many families there are no men at all.
All right, you say, that's fine. They were all lies anyway. There were no Atticus Finches. There were only Don Drapers. Sure, they dressed better back then. Men wore ties, even to go out to a baseball game. But they were the same dolts, doofuses, and overgrown children they are now, deep down inside. We just didn't show them that way in our entertainments.
And yes, we've all had to grow up, and realize that our gods have feet of clay. But does that mean that, as children, we should have no gods? That the process of growing ujp and becoming independent--the process of leaving the Garden and entering the World--should be gotten rid of entirely? No more garden--at all--for anyone? Is it really healthy to bombard our children with images of their parents--of all the adults in their community--being hopeless morons? Is it really healthy to teach children that they are smarter than everyone else? I know they think that already--that's part of being a child. But have we really decided that growth--all growth--is an illusion? That there's nowhere to go but down? Really?
Every movement that brought us to this place was right and righteous, and just and justified, even if they gave us some unintended consequences. Feminism's drive to balance the scales between the genders was right and was needed. And it did quite a lot of good. But I don't think it's brought us to the place we want to be. In too many couples, men and women compete for the traditional "man" role, neither of them wanting to be stuck with the nurturing, home-making role. Is that the healthiest way to raise children, I wonder--with both parents saying, "no, you do it"?
Outside of the home, the anti-authoritarian impulses of the sixties were more than justified, after Vietnam and Watergate. But where have they left us? We still have people placed in positions of authority over us--but we trust and respect none of them. We tear them down as quickly as we can, but secretly beg for someone with true authority to take their place. We mock our fathers and dream of some ultimate Daddy who will finally set things right. Robbed of the growth from dependence to independence, we grow up out in the cold from day one, dreaming of some theoretical warmth we've never felt. Isn't that a recipe for fascism? Truly free, independent people need to grow up feeling competent, capable, self-controlled, and well-informed. Do we get that by raising kids to believe that they can trust and rely on no one--not even as children?
And our own, personal sense of authority and command over our lives? We have none. We suspect all of our impulses and desires, both indulging them and hating them. We take on positions of authority at work or at home, and undercut and second-guess ourselves constantly. Raised to believe that all authority is suspect, we have no firm center. We are un-grounded. We do not stand upon the earth--we waver. We shuffle. We qualify every statement. We are weak.
Bugs Bunny used to be the animated character that symbolized America at its best--the way we wanted to see ourselves: witty, resourceful, optimistic, cocky, capable, unflappable. He epitomized the "can do" spirit that we thought we had--that we hoped we had. It was the spirit that looked on a problem and said "let's fix that."
What cartoon character do we see in the mirror now? Homer Simpson.
Personal authority shouldn't have to be a mirage. And it shouldn't have to be based on violence or the threat of violence; it should be based on wisdom--on understanding--even on empathy. There's nothing wrong with empathy--we naturally invest our trust in people who we feel understand the challenges and problems that others face, and sympathize. But that empathy is not a weak, watery sentimentalism. It doesn't wring its hands or bite its lip. It is grounded. It comes from a place of strength. And it is pointed--always--towards action. It says, "let's fix that," not "what a pity."
Let's fix that.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Shana Tovah, Baby
I have accepted an invitation from my local congregation to serve on its board. I have accepted the invitation, because I'm a sucker. But it's a terrible idea, on a number of fronts.
In the first place, I have no time. None. I have scrupulously ignored every email and entreaty and request from the board and other members, ever since signing on. With my work schedule, and travel schedule, and gradual school work, and house- and child-keeping, it's just not something that's high on my priority list. It should be. I accepted the responsibility. But it's my Bridge Too Far.
Also, I'm already over my limit of dysfunctional organizations (limit = 1, and that's the company I work for).
Also...well, I hate to say it, but I have very ambivalent feelings about the whole Temple thing. I always have. My religious life always moved back and forth along a continuum between Attraction and Repulsion, my whole life.
When I was twelve, deep in the bowels of Bar Mitzvah training, moving slowly along the track and preparing myself for eventual expulsion out into the world, I told my father that the temple we belonged to was a Bar Mitzvah mill, and that I wanted out. It was the mid-1970s, and the traditional position of the Reform Jewish family towards its congregation was that it was a place where one slowed down to about 20 miles per hour in order to eject the kid for Sunday School, before zooming off to do more interesting things. And, of course, it was that place you went for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in order to keep the guilt at bay. But that was about it. So when I told my father that our temple was a god-awful place that processed kids more than educating them, it wasn't like he was going to know whether I was telling the truth or not. So he hauled me down to the place to confront the rabbi (which is more than most fathers would have done, back in the day), and said, "The kid says this place is nothing more than a Bar Mtizvah mill." To which the rabbi replied, with a traditional, rabbinic shrug, "He's right."
And that was the end of that.
I started taking private lessons with one of my father's students, who was Orthodox, and going to Saturday morning services with him at a tiny, store-front schul a few miles from my home (for which the rabbi gave me special dispensation to ride my bicycle). This was a revelation to me. The congregation was no more than a dozen families. I understood, for the first time, the role of community in the shabbat service. I understood why the Bar Mitzvah was important--they needed people to do things. And I understood the role of study--because every weekend, we didn't just listen to a Torah portion and then a sermon--we studied the Torah portion and then argued about it. Argued! Fiercely, sometimes. Long before college or grad school, I learned what a seminar was. And I understood why our religion placed such an emphasis on study, and on analysis, and on argument--because you were expected to hold your own, to speak up--to say your piece--to help the group work through a thorny and complex story. THIS is why they trained you to read the Torah and give a speech about it, for your Bar Mitzvah.
I loved it.
But, of course, I wasn't Orthodox, and my family wasn't particularly interested, and I had not one to talk to about it, or do ti with, and...well...it was a long bike ride, and winter did eventually arrive. And I was 13.
And that was the end of that.
When I got to college, I did not join Hillel. I did not find a congregation. I did not even go to temple for the high holy days. Well, I went once. I sat in the back row and felt terribly out of place and wrong. I no longer remembered any Hebrew. The whole service felt like something I was supposed to know, but didn't know, so I felt out of place and foolish. I didn't stay long, and I didn't return.
But I felt bad about not observing anything. I mean, I went home to do Passover with my parents. I exchanged presents at Chanukah. But what about the high holy days? What about Yom Kippur? The whole idea of atoning for your rotten deeds and committing to do better--that was important stuff. And yet, going to temple did nothing to help me feel those things or think about those things.
Eventually, I started going out of town for Yom Kippur, to some national park or other Awe-Inspiring Location. I went alone and spent the day in silence--hiking for a while and coming to rest at some beautiful spot, where I could sit and think and...pray. I would say the shema, which was the only prayer I remembered, and then I would talk through the year that had passed--what had gone well, and what had gone badly. I apologized--to myself and Whoever was out there--and I promised to do better. And then I hiked down to whatever passed for civilization and had a big dinner.
Even now, years later, having belonged to congregations in Brooklyn and Tucson, raising children in them and sending them off to Sunday School (even teaching in the Sunday School for a couple of years in Brooklyn), I often feel as though I am missing out on the Real Deal when I sit through services and mouth the litanies. Yes, I am part of a community now. Yes, I am saying the words that my ancestors said, and participating in the rituals of my people. And often it's nice.
But it's never more than nice. It's never awe-inspiring. It's never difficult. I never really take the time to find some silence and really think about the choices and actions I've taken in the past year...and atone for the ones that have fallen short of my hopes for myself. Even when they give you time for silent reflection in temple, it's only about 30 seconds. And I have two fidgety boys to keep an eye on.
But those boys adore the rabbi and the cantor, and feel connected and at home in the congregation--and that's a hell of a lot more than I ever had, growing up. So...good for them.
And for their sakes, I care about the place. And for their sakes, I sit on the board.
But I'd much rather be sitting under a tree.
In the first place, I have no time. None. I have scrupulously ignored every email and entreaty and request from the board and other members, ever since signing on. With my work schedule, and travel schedule, and gradual school work, and house- and child-keeping, it's just not something that's high on my priority list. It should be. I accepted the responsibility. But it's my Bridge Too Far.
Also, I'm already over my limit of dysfunctional organizations (limit = 1, and that's the company I work for).
Also...well, I hate to say it, but I have very ambivalent feelings about the whole Temple thing. I always have. My religious life always moved back and forth along a continuum between Attraction and Repulsion, my whole life.
When I was twelve, deep in the bowels of Bar Mitzvah training, moving slowly along the track and preparing myself for eventual expulsion out into the world, I told my father that the temple we belonged to was a Bar Mitzvah mill, and that I wanted out. It was the mid-1970s, and the traditional position of the Reform Jewish family towards its congregation was that it was a place where one slowed down to about 20 miles per hour in order to eject the kid for Sunday School, before zooming off to do more interesting things. And, of course, it was that place you went for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in order to keep the guilt at bay. But that was about it. So when I told my father that our temple was a god-awful place that processed kids more than educating them, it wasn't like he was going to know whether I was telling the truth or not. So he hauled me down to the place to confront the rabbi (which is more than most fathers would have done, back in the day), and said, "The kid says this place is nothing more than a Bar Mtizvah mill." To which the rabbi replied, with a traditional, rabbinic shrug, "He's right."
And that was the end of that.
I started taking private lessons with one of my father's students, who was Orthodox, and going to Saturday morning services with him at a tiny, store-front schul a few miles from my home (for which the rabbi gave me special dispensation to ride my bicycle). This was a revelation to me. The congregation was no more than a dozen families. I understood, for the first time, the role of community in the shabbat service. I understood why the Bar Mitzvah was important--they needed people to do things. And I understood the role of study--because every weekend, we didn't just listen to a Torah portion and then a sermon--we studied the Torah portion and then argued about it. Argued! Fiercely, sometimes. Long before college or grad school, I learned what a seminar was. And I understood why our religion placed such an emphasis on study, and on analysis, and on argument--because you were expected to hold your own, to speak up--to say your piece--to help the group work through a thorny and complex story. THIS is why they trained you to read the Torah and give a speech about it, for your Bar Mitzvah.
I loved it.
But, of course, I wasn't Orthodox, and my family wasn't particularly interested, and I had not one to talk to about it, or do ti with, and...well...it was a long bike ride, and winter did eventually arrive. And I was 13.
And that was the end of that.
When I got to college, I did not join Hillel. I did not find a congregation. I did not even go to temple for the high holy days. Well, I went once. I sat in the back row and felt terribly out of place and wrong. I no longer remembered any Hebrew. The whole service felt like something I was supposed to know, but didn't know, so I felt out of place and foolish. I didn't stay long, and I didn't return.
But I felt bad about not observing anything. I mean, I went home to do Passover with my parents. I exchanged presents at Chanukah. But what about the high holy days? What about Yom Kippur? The whole idea of atoning for your rotten deeds and committing to do better--that was important stuff. And yet, going to temple did nothing to help me feel those things or think about those things.
Eventually, I started going out of town for Yom Kippur, to some national park or other Awe-Inspiring Location. I went alone and spent the day in silence--hiking for a while and coming to rest at some beautiful spot, where I could sit and think and...pray. I would say the shema, which was the only prayer I remembered, and then I would talk through the year that had passed--what had gone well, and what had gone badly. I apologized--to myself and Whoever was out there--and I promised to do better. And then I hiked down to whatever passed for civilization and had a big dinner.
Even now, years later, having belonged to congregations in Brooklyn and Tucson, raising children in them and sending them off to Sunday School (even teaching in the Sunday School for a couple of years in Brooklyn), I often feel as though I am missing out on the Real Deal when I sit through services and mouth the litanies. Yes, I am part of a community now. Yes, I am saying the words that my ancestors said, and participating in the rituals of my people. And often it's nice.
But it's never more than nice. It's never awe-inspiring. It's never difficult. I never really take the time to find some silence and really think about the choices and actions I've taken in the past year...and atone for the ones that have fallen short of my hopes for myself. Even when they give you time for silent reflection in temple, it's only about 30 seconds. And I have two fidgety boys to keep an eye on.
But those boys adore the rabbi and the cantor, and feel connected and at home in the congregation--and that's a hell of a lot more than I ever had, growing up. So...good for them.
And for their sakes, I care about the place. And for their sakes, I sit on the board.
But I'd much rather be sitting under a tree.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Why Johnny Makes Shit Up
I've seen two instances recently of people trying to read the new Health Care Bill on TV. One was on Comedy Central; the other was on Fox.
And yes, obviously, first one had to get through the jokes about how fat and heavy the bill is. But then they actually tried to read it.
The interesting thing is that on Comedy Central, John Stewart was genuinely trying to make sense of what he was reading (with an unable non-assist from Betsey McCaughey), while on Fox, Greta Van Sustern was simply making fun of the hieroglyphic text.
And the text IS barely decipherable. I've decided that this is the root problem. Yes, we have disingenuous pundits who spin things to cause hysteria. Yes, we have town hall teabaggers who repeat whatever they have heard, but at nine times the volume (and with guns). But at the bottom of the whole shitpile are these twin evils: People don't know how to write, and people don't know how to read.
Friends, it just shouldn't be that hard to read legislation. As complicated and old-fashioned as the Bill of Rights may be, at times, most of it is legible. Any eighth grader ought to be able to make sense of it. And since many people out there in America have nothing beyond an eighth grade reading level, I think it's important--a civic duty, really--to make sure that legislation is written at a level that is readable by them. This is not the middle ages. These are not gnostic, hermeneutic texts to be interpreted by an educated priesthood and explained for the peasantry. Say what you mean. Say it simply enough that everyone can at least understand what you've said. Let us argue about whether or not we agree with it, instead of arguing about what is actually on the page. Watching Jon Stewart spend ten minutes saying, "No, it doesn't say that...but....but...no, it just doesn't say that" is painful. And ultimately a waste of time.
This goes back to middle school and high school. We need to teach people how to read--not Jack and Jill, and not The Great Gatsby (well, yes, the Great Gatsby, but that's another argument), but the things that will actually influence and affect their day to day lives. Who teaches kids how to read a lease? Or a mortgage? Or contrasting editorials on the same topic?
Reading and writing.
Who teaches students how to write business letters? Not the crappy sample letters we were all taught, that don't relate to anything real but format. I mean real letters, of the kind we might have to write, once we leave home. How do you let your landlord know that you are withholding rent until he makes the repairs you've been asking him for? How do you communicate with your elected representatives (without calling them Hitler)? What language do you use to express anger appropriately, reasonably, so that you are not attacked (or dismissed) for being a loony or a hothead, but are heard?
We like to criticize TV pundits, and the 24-hour news cycle, and our fellow barbarians, for the crappy level of political discourse in our country. And they're all to blame. But They are not separate from We. And We, as a country, are not raising our children with the skills they need to participate in a civil society, much less a democracy. We are raising them to have opinions, and to express them loudly and obnoxiously. But we are not raising them to doubt, or to analyze, or to support their opinions with facts, either verbally or in writing. So...we get what we deserve.
Or, as the great Pogo Possum once said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
And yes, obviously, first one had to get through the jokes about how fat and heavy the bill is. But then they actually tried to read it.
The interesting thing is that on Comedy Central, John Stewart was genuinely trying to make sense of what he was reading (with an unable non-assist from Betsey McCaughey), while on Fox, Greta Van Sustern was simply making fun of the hieroglyphic text.
And the text IS barely decipherable. I've decided that this is the root problem. Yes, we have disingenuous pundits who spin things to cause hysteria. Yes, we have town hall teabaggers who repeat whatever they have heard, but at nine times the volume (and with guns). But at the bottom of the whole shitpile are these twin evils: People don't know how to write, and people don't know how to read.
Friends, it just shouldn't be that hard to read legislation. As complicated and old-fashioned as the Bill of Rights may be, at times, most of it is legible. Any eighth grader ought to be able to make sense of it. And since many people out there in America have nothing beyond an eighth grade reading level, I think it's important--a civic duty, really--to make sure that legislation is written at a level that is readable by them. This is not the middle ages. These are not gnostic, hermeneutic texts to be interpreted by an educated priesthood and explained for the peasantry. Say what you mean. Say it simply enough that everyone can at least understand what you've said. Let us argue about whether or not we agree with it, instead of arguing about what is actually on the page. Watching Jon Stewart spend ten minutes saying, "No, it doesn't say that...but....but...no, it just doesn't say that" is painful. And ultimately a waste of time.
This goes back to middle school and high school. We need to teach people how to read--not Jack and Jill, and not The Great Gatsby (well, yes, the Great Gatsby, but that's another argument), but the things that will actually influence and affect their day to day lives. Who teaches kids how to read a lease? Or a mortgage? Or contrasting editorials on the same topic?
Reading and writing.
Who teaches students how to write business letters? Not the crappy sample letters we were all taught, that don't relate to anything real but format. I mean real letters, of the kind we might have to write, once we leave home. How do you let your landlord know that you are withholding rent until he makes the repairs you've been asking him for? How do you communicate with your elected representatives (without calling them Hitler)? What language do you use to express anger appropriately, reasonably, so that you are not attacked (or dismissed) for being a loony or a hothead, but are heard?
We like to criticize TV pundits, and the 24-hour news cycle, and our fellow barbarians, for the crappy level of political discourse in our country. And they're all to blame. But They are not separate from We. And We, as a country, are not raising our children with the skills they need to participate in a civil society, much less a democracy. We are raising them to have opinions, and to express them loudly and obnoxiously. But we are not raising them to doubt, or to analyze, or to support their opinions with facts, either verbally or in writing. So...we get what we deserve.
Or, as the great Pogo Possum once said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
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