what makes jews unique?

if you are hayyim nahman bialik and yehoshua ravnitzky, it's aggadah, often translated as "legend." it was their desire to make this non-legal aspect of rabbinic literature accessible to a new generation that made them go swimming through the rabbinic texts from the first eight hundred years or so of the first century to find their favorites and organize them in a way that moderns could fathom.
i first studied their amazing compilation, sefer ha-aggadah, in a small group at brandeis university hillel led by rabbi al axelrad. the future rabbi amy eilberg was in that class, as well, as we read the hebrew aloud and haltingly translated it into english and tried to understand what the rabbis were trying to say.
thirty years later, i'm approaching the text again. i've been motivated by a group i tripped across on the web (was it serendipity or was there a greater power leading me there?) which is committed to working its way through the text over the course of two years. i've only done daily study once before and that was to work my through the mishnah in memory of my father. i think i'm ready to do it again. the fact that i can do it with an english translation in hand makes it less daunting.
watch this space to see how i'm doing and what i'm thinking about. if you want to join me in this project, checkout bloggadah.blogspot.com. maybe we'll can organize a discussion group at bob and bob. let me know if you're interested.

is eat, sleep, read enough?

we hung a poster in the window at bob and bob yesterday. i was excited about it at first. but now i have mixed feelings.
i am a member of the american booksellers association. and because of the specialized nature of bob and bob, i often am unable to participate in some of their initiatives to support independent bookstores. but they have a new one i'm really enthused about. it's called indiebound and the idea is to support independent locally-owned businesses of all sorts and to help consumers understand how they personally benefit from the presence of these businesses in their community. i received a box and a tube of promotional materials from indiebound. included was a giant red poster that says, eat sleep read.
"cool," i thought. "that's me. and that's a lot of my customers." i asked my mom to arrange to have it hung in the front window because i can't hang something straight to save my life.
it looks great in the window and it blocks some of the sun.
but something is missing.
can a jew really be satisfied with eat sleep read?
but what would i add?
eat sleep read pray? sounds right, but isn't me.
eat sleep read save the world? closer, but pretentious.
eat sleep read love? sounds christian, even though love is all over the siddur.
eat sleep read pursue justice? getting warmer
when i figure it out, i may just have to adjust the sign. and once again feel like i don't quite fit in the american booksellers association.

love/hate thanksgiving

i have mixed feelings about thanksgiving. on the one hand, i think the idea of day set aside for expressing gratitude in a broad and general way is a good thing. and to focus on the bounty in our life may help us notice it. and one can't be too thankful for the safe haven that america has granted our family, as well.
on the other hand, it's hard to ignore the fact that we are living this well, to a large extent, as a result of the subjugation, exploitation and murder of the native americans who were living here first.
i came across a recipe for popcorn this evening. it seems massasoit's brother quadaqina brought a bushel basket of popped corn to a thanksgiving dinner in 1621. i think i'll bring a basket of popped corn to our friends on thursday. maybe it will help us remember to be thankful to the native americans who made room for us here.
but there's no way i'm popping it in bear fat.

a birthday is like new year's eve

it's my birthday today. i was born years ago today. i was induced because my older brother weighed more than ten and a half pounds and no one thought it was a good idea to have another baby that big. my nine months was up and it was time to come out. my mother chose the date because it was d-day and it would be easy to remember. but nobody remembers d-day. i have never had the experience of filling out a form and someone saying, "you were born on the anniversary of d-day."
it was also the first day of the six day war. i was 10. i remember being in hebrew school and rabbi younger calling us in for an assembly to pray for the state of israel. he rarely smiled, but that afternoon he was beyond somber. we stood and sang hatikvah, the hope. my older brothers organized a teen fundraising drive for israel. it would predict future behavior.
anyway, about my birthday. turning 50 is fine with me. i am happy to be alive and grateful for the many gifts in my life. but i am sort of embarrassed by everyone asking me what i am doing to celebrate. it seems like i am supposed to be going away for the weekend, or having a party or getting good and drunk.
i don't think i am in denial, but i just don't feel like putting on a party hat. i want to read the newspaper, study talmud, go grocery shopping, go to work, and supervise the homework hour. i want to celebrate reaching the half century mark by living my life. and it's enough for me. (as long as i get to eat cake.)

not saying kaddish

i got an e-mail from a sort-of friend yesterday asking me to come to minyan tonight. i say sort-of because we never see each other socially--we see each other in synagogue and in the store and chat. it was the first anniversary of the death of her father and she was going to talk about him. i figured i could be there. i come in late at the end of mincha in time for the mourners kaddish. ten people stand up. i am struck by the amount of loss in our small community and how much loss there is in every community. i think it stinks that people have to die and then i think if we did not know we were going to die at some point we would never get anything done. my musings have taken me half-way through the evening service.
then it occurs to me it is the anniversary of the death of my grandfather as well. erev erev shavuot is how i always think of it. i was making a cheese knish in my third floor walk-up apartment in lynn, massachusetts on my yellow counter. it was my first shavuot as a working woman and i was playing house to the hilt. i remember holding the stainless steel bowl in one hand and the wooden spoon in the other and the phone was wedged between my shoulder and my ear. and my mother told me the news. i sent my boyfriend david to a travel agent in vinnin square to buy an airplane ticket. and i kept on stirring.
twenty-eight years later, my father and aunt are both gone and no one is there to say kaddish for my grandfather. we have reached the aleinu and soon it will be time for the mourners kaddish. do i stand and say it to honor my grandfather? do i remain seated as a symbol of two generations gone? if we never stopped saying kaddish for someone, if we said kaddish for our grandparents and our great-grandparents and our great-great grandparents, etc., we would be saying kaddish every day. but here i am in a praying community and i am remembering my grandfather and my father who loyally said kaddish for him and i cannot sit. so i stand and do not say the words out loud. it was a compromise that seemed to work.

it's too darn hot

my college-aged daughter is on my case to start writing my blog. but it's too hot. i don't hate many things and i'm pretty sure i don't hate any people, but i do hate hot weather.
the new york times magazine had an interesting article this week (ok, it always has interesting articles) about wisdom and how hard it is to measure. wisdom is one of those things that we can recognize in others, but find hard to define. and if it can't be defined and measured then how can it be studied? and if it can't be studied, can it exist?
and, yet, wisdom is what i seek.
i find glimmers of it all the time. synthesizing in a way that is useful is my challenge.