More on Vashti

Rabbi Uri Cohen of the Center for Jewish Life at Princeton has provided a well-sourced overview of some recent work on Vashti. Esther too.

For Your Reading Pleasure

Go and read Lisa's so far six part tale of how she came to Israel. And bookmark her so that you can continue when part seven appears. She will put you in the center of it all in a most amazing way.

And yes, I know there are Lisas everywhere. I guess we'll all just have to cope.

It's cool

getting an "book due" notice from my library via email. (Ok, it's a cheap thrill, but I like it.)

Lenny Bruce on Goyish

I nearly used the word goyish in my last post, but some find it derogatory. So let me harken back to Lenny Bruce who explained well.

Now I neologize Jewish and goyish.

Dig: I'm Jewish. Count Basie's Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. Eddie Cantor's goyish.

B'nai Brith is goyish; Hadassah, Jewish. Marine corps--heavy goyim, dangerous.

Kool-Aid is goyish. All Drake's cakes are goyish. Pumpernickel is Jewish, and, as you know, white bread is very goyish. Instant potatoes--goyish. Black cherry soda's very Jewish. Macaroons are very Jewish--very Jewish cake. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime jello is goyish. Lime soda is very goyish.

Trailer parks are so goyish that Jews won't go near them. Jack Paar Show is very goyish.

Underwear is definitely goyish. Balls are goyish. Titties are Jewish. Mouths are Jewish.

All Italians are Jewish. Greeks are goyish--bad sauce.

Eugene O'Neil--Jewish; Dylan Thomas, Jewish. Steve is goyish, though. It's the hair. He combs his hair in the boys' room with that soap all the time.

Louis. That's my name in Jewish. Louis Schneider.

Purim

is today. I've heard every word of the megillah, Megillat Esther, once. I've even told my version of the Vashti part of the story to a bunch of strangers. And was told that it somehow differed from a Sunday School version. Quelle surprise!

Vashti is my hero.

A version of Vashti's story, told by me. She is the wife of King Ahasuerus' (Xerxes, 486-465 BCE) of Persia, who celebrates for seven days with his guy pals, members of his court. Much gluttony and drinking occur. Vashti made a decent feast for the women of the court, who where usually ignored. The king summoned her to show her off wearing her crown. We don't have much reason to believe she was supposed to be wearing much else.

Vashti refused strip and dance for his friends. In fact she wouldn't come when called, like the king wanted her to. The king is mightily pissed. And, the worst part is the example she sets, that she might turn into a role model. Women everywhere might disobey their husbands. *gasp* "... Vashti the queen has not done wrong to the king only, but also to all the princes, and to all the peoples who are in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus. For this deed of the queeen will be made known to all the women so as to make their husbands contemptible in their eyes, when it shall be reported that the king Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, but she came not. And the princesses .... shall be telling of it today to all the king's princes. Thus shall there be contempt and wrath in plenty."

She, of course, is toast. So the king banished her.

Oh.

I digress.

So I have this friend, a gentile type person. A tall blond person -- make that woman -- of northern European ancestry. And she needs Mishlo'ach Manot, a sort of goody offering that one sends to friends on Purim. It could consist of a few cookies and a bit of grape juice, or it could be most anything. It should contain two food groups though. That's Jewish food groups of course. And as a practical matter it really means foods that would get different blessings. Like bread and wine.

Now this is not as simple as it seems. She lives 2500 miles away. But !!! I finally figured it out. But I can't tell you because she just might trip over this. If I remember, though, I'll finish this tale later.

Disappointed? Hrm, I'm sorry. Well I'll go post a little Lenny Bruce to soothe you.

Simple Pleasures

A mail-ordered book containing 50 grilled cheese recipes. I know that nobody needs a recipe book of grilled cheese sandwiches. But I'm totally tickled just reading it. I put it down and picked it back up four times in the past hour.

And the annual program for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. This baby is 1/2 thick so I have a lot to peruse. I am a knitter and spinner. This festival is the main source of material for the year to come. And I love to go wallow in the notion of being a temporary farmer. And who could resist the tiny lambs or the sheep dog trials. See, there is lots to look at in the program. There are classes too. But most of all, its arrival reminds me that we really have reached the cusp of spring. The festival is always the first weekend in May, and it's just a downhill slide until then.

Woo hoo!

Tikkun Olam, Tzedak, and Terri Schiavo

Pursuing tzedek (justice) is a central religious obligation in Judaism, one that I connect to tikkun olam (repairing the world). Tzedek tzedek tirdof. Justice, justice shall you pursue (that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Eternal your God is giving you. Deuteronomy 16:20). I'm sure that this verse is singlehandedly responsible for 60% of the Jewish lawyers.

About Terri Schiavo -- I am quite certain that our elected representatives in the legislative branch and the fundamentalists who are exploiting this family's tragedy are not pursuing justice. If those fundamentalists actually believed that God would cause her brain to recover in spite of all of the medical evidence to the contrary, they would be just as likely to believe that God would supply her with nourishment once she was no longer being force fed, like a goose acquiring a fat liver.

I am not able to discuss her parents' behavior in a civil tone. But I can offer you a tale about tzedak offered by Cara.

Who Am I?

Sometimes this is a profound philosophical question, but not today. I only mean to introduce myself. I'm Talia Beruriah. Taking a page from Naomi Chana over at Baraita, I'm using my real Hebrew name. Some people know my only by this name, but most of you know me by one of many other names or nicknames.

I prefer to keep my more common name to myself. This is not only a matter of safety, although it is that, but it keeps my real life better separated from my work life. The folks with whom I work and, more important, the organization for which I work aren't very comfortable with diversity. I'm odd enough there without disclosing more about me thereby only increasing their discomfort. And I do need to support myself, so I have no interest in putting my employment in jeopardy.

I live within 15 miles of where I was born, even though I am and always was an urban child. A native of Washington D.C., I live in the Maryland suburbs, not terribly far from the city in which I work. I have entirely too many interests to keep up. Some will emerge as I chat.

You are welcome to comment on anything and everything, ask questions, or bring up new subjects in the comments section. I only ask that you be open-minded and respectful of others. Posts that are not respectful will be deleted without comment.

On Trust - We're The Same, But Different

I was chatting with an acquaintance at work about trust yesterday, exploring why it is so important, how to know it when we see it, and how to know when it isn't there. This emerged from a conversation I had the day before with my supervisor, who had discovered, to his astonishment, that I put a lot of stock in trust. Doesn't everybody?, I thought.

So, surprised that there are folks who are apparently trust-indifferent, I was exploring the range of ideas out there. I was probably driving folks nuts, but this wouldn't be the first time. So this gentleman and I had agreed on the importance of trust, explored whether we trusted several mutual acquaintances similarly, and the like.

What constitutes trust? How do you know it when you see it? What makes you distrustful? How soon does that happen? Is it, (as it is for me) a condition it is impossible to retreat from?

Thinking about it, I believe my default condition is trust, at least in some moderate, social way. I believe most folks are honest, trying to do right, and the like. But once they incontrovertibly demonstrate to me that they are not trustworthy, they have gotten themselves in a place that there is no way back from. The road is washed out. Sometimes it troubles me that I am this way, but I am. It is a difficult place to get to and an impossible place to retreat from.

Anyway, I digress. So we're talking about trusting folks and he says "I always think about whether this is somebody I'd go into a fight with." Whoa. Never in a million years would that occur to me. Because, of course, I'm a chick and getting into fights isn't seriously in my repertoire. Never was. Now this is a quiet, low key, mannered guy but I infer from that statement that his life wasn't always so low key. And when I get past what is in fact a cultural difference between us, I can relate to the concept. But boy, what a way to get myself in somebody elses shoes.

A Rose By Any Other

I suppose I should have introduced myself first, but I suppose I'll get around to that after a bit. Right now I want to explain the name of the blog. Tikkun olam is a hebrew phrase that at its simplest means 'repairing the world.' (The word "tikkun" first appears in the book of Ecclesiastes where it means something very much like setting things in order. "Olam" means world. As a Jew, I am commanded to improve the world. I don't have to perfect it, but I am obligated to try to make it better.

There are many ways of thinking about this concept. I can feed a hungry person a sandwich and fulfill the commandment. Or engage in a broader range of social action, including the political. But those things, while essential to my well being, aren't enough to feed my hunger to set things in order.

Joseph Naft at Inner Frontier explains things this way: "Isaac Luria, the renowned sixteenth century Kabbalist, used the phrase “tikkun olam,” usually translated as repairing the world, to encapsulate the true role of humanity in the ongoing evolution and spiritualization of the cosmos. Luria taught thatt (sic.) God created the world by forming vessels of light to hold the Divine Light. But as God poured the Light into the vessels, they catastrophically shattered, tumbling down toward the realm of matter. Thus, our world consists of countless shards of the original vessels entrapping sparks of the Divine Light. Humanity’s great task involves helping God by freeing and reuniting the scattered Light, raising the sparks back to Divinity and restoring the broken world."

I have been struggling to grasp a few of those shards and find a way to reunite them all of my life. This blog is a tiny part of that struggle.

Starting Over

I've been blogging off and on for three years. I guess in spite of my protestations that I'm what the professional geeks call an early adopter. My blogs have ranged from moderately successful - I have/had a rather well known political blog - to relative non-starters. I tried a writing blog, but every time I posted I wondered why I wasn't writing instead of writing about writing.

So here I am again.

I've been avoiding my largely political blog for months. At first I thought it was post election depression, but lately I've been longing to feel free to work through a wider range of things that are more personal. Not that politics isn't personal.

And as I've tried to work through what kind of blog would suit me, I figured out yet again that I don't fit nicely into a predesigned box. I'm just going to blather and see what lands on the screen. If you're reading this for some reason, hello there. Feel free to talk to me on the comments. If you're sufficiently obnoxious, I'll delete. Or engage. We'll see.

Welcome.