True Ancestor

Leaping from thought to thought on Leap Day

• It's kind of funny to me that from time to time I get interviewed by people ... as if I knew something! Flattering, amusing and a little scary. The latest is this article on judging people positively in The Jewish Angle, an entertaining and educational Jewish eZine.
• I love the question: If God is all-powerful, could God create a rock so heavy that God couldn't lift it?
• Tzimtzum -- the Divine act of contraction to make room for Free Will -- is the Big Bang thrown briefly into reverse.
• Rabbi Menachem of Chernobyl said the Hebrew letter aleph, being closest to the Divine Emanation, contains such brilliance that it couldn't be approached by the lower levels of existence. So with each letter of the aleph bet, God contracted a little more, until the final letter, tav, which stands for both tiheyeh -- 'you shall live' -- and 'timut' -- 'you shall die.' This last is the level at which we operate -- the lowest, sandwiched between life and death, in the narrow space provided in the realm that has the faintest of Divine emanations. I'm just saying that's a pretty cool idea.
• I didn't know what it meant to lose "spring in your step" until I was about 45. All of a sudden, when I was running, it just hurt. My knees felt like worn-out shock absorbers.
• This morning as I was getting into my car to go to work, I heard a cardinal singing. Nature's great anti-depressant is the first birdsong that pierces the thinning shell of winter.
• The cardinal sang the day after the first Spring Training ballgames were played. Perhaps it knew...?
• Somehow, the Midwest produces days when there are no clouds out and the Sun still doesn't shine. It's not pollution -- it's some kind of collective, meteorological gloom: the reflection of all this frozen slush back up into the atmosphere.
• Scotch seems to be in now. Why is Scotch so in?
• I wonder: if I'm fortunate enough to grow old, but unfortunate enough to become infirm, which kid -- if any -- will look after me?
• I am addicted to the "BrickBreaker" game on my BlackBerry. It's just Pong with better graphics.
• My son told my brother that I'm more like a big brother than a dad. Is that a good thing ...?

Shabbat Shalom.

--T.A.

(DISCLAIMER: many if not all thoughts contained herein are not original in form or content. Author denies any intent or attempt to plagiarize, mimic, lift, nip, tuck or otherwise alter or expropriate the works of other authors without attribution. Offer good while supplies last.)

Obama and the Jews, or: Just Say No to Mass Hysteria

Still eight months-plus till the election. And I'm still exhausted.

One thing that's exhausting me is the almost hysterical tone of anti-Obama rhetoric amongst the pro-Israel right. Maybe I'm naive -- I almost certainly am, in many respects -- but I detect, in both the tone and content of some of the attacks and critiques, a paranoid but almost Talmudic exegesis of Obama's remarks (like this recent talk to Jewish leaders in Cleveland) that frankly suggests not just xenophobia but a racism that is the mirror image of the anti-Israel views imputed to Obama: never said in so many words, but there just the same.

I had an online argument with a certain individual (who shall remain nameless) about Obama's remarks and their wider implications. Some excerpts:

Me:

Follow the link to a lengthy transcript of Obama's remarks to a gathering of Jewish leaders in Cleveland yesterday. Cuts through the hype, and you can decide for yourself.

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_spine/archive/2008/02/25/obama-on-israel.aspx

Certain Individual:

thanks david, deluded marty peretz is 'a obambam' supporter-i wouldn't expect less, tho he has seriously questioned obambam's choices of foreign policy advisors in the past. too bad he shelved those thoughts.  obambam is NO GOOD for the US-Israel relationship.

[Obama says,] "Two years ago I had a chance to travel to Israel and it left a lasting impression on me."
i was there at the same time, staying at the same hotel, saw him coming and going from ramallah, and refusing and guidance from any jewish institution or gov body.

a comment from a friend about peretz: Plus he wants to be a player in DC-always has wanted that, always will.

this is the best answer, written by my friend ed:

American Thinker: Senator Obama's Coming Out Party in Cleveland

Me:

This article tries to make negatives out of a lack of positives. In other words, it imputes evil motives to Obama for not saying key catch-phrases and words that any experienced and nuanced Israel supporter would know. Not sure that's fair.

Furthermore, it has key facts wrong. For one: Robert Malley is not and never has been an Obama advisor. From Peretz:

'There are all kinds of spooky rumors that a man named Robert Malley is one of Obama's advisers, specifically his Middle East adviser. His name comes up mysteriously and intrusively on the web, like the ads for Viagra. Malley, who has written several deceitful articles in The New York Review of Books, is a rabid hater of Israel. No question about it. But Malley is not and has never been a Middle East adviser to Barack Obama. Obama's Middle East adviser is Dan Shapiro. Malley did, though, work for Bill Clinton. He was deeply involved in the disastrous diplomacy of 2000. Obama at the time was in the Illinois State Senate. So, yes, this is a piece of experience that Obama lacks.'

What's more, as Obama noted in his Cleveland talk, "none of these emails [being circulated about Obama] talk about the fact that on the other side, members of my national finance committee, like Lester Crown, are considered about as hawkish and tough when it comes to Israel as anybody in the country. So, there's got to be some balance here. I've got a range of perspectives and a range of advisors who approach this issue."

Lasky's article tries to create the impression that Obama implied reduced military support for Israel when, in his remarks in Cleveland, he gave absolutely no indication of that. Again, not saying specifically that he would increase or maintain support seems to be used by Lasky as evidence that he'll reduce it. That may or may not eventually prove to be the case, but there is no evidence of that in anything Obama said.

Lasky seems eager to paint Obama as evil for not specifically saying everything that a pro-Israel candidate would say (like mentioning Jerusalem by name), when in fact he says so much in this transcript that is very specific and more nuanced than I expected Lasky is reaching -- especially when Obama says, specifically and repeatedly, that Israel must remain a Jewish state and that it needs and deserves continued strong economic and militar support from the U.S.

Lasky calls remarks of Obama's "Clintonian," which seems to me just an attempt to call him the worst thing that's politically acceptable without being specific or accurate.

And although you may have "seen [Obama] refusing guidance from any Jewish institution or government body" when you were in Israel, I wonder: were you traveling with him the entire time, in the highest circles? Did you go with him to Ramallah, where he was more straightforward with the Palestinians than you seem to give him credit for?

"I said this when I was in Ramallah, that you cannot fault Israel for being concerned about any peace agreement if the Palestinian state or Palestinian authority or Palestinian leadership does not seem to be able to follow through on its commitments."

Not sure why you need a derogatory nickname for Obama -- what's that supposed to prove: your impartiality? Do you have derogatory nicknames for the other candidates, or just the Democrats? Or the African American?

And criticizing Peretz for wanting to be a Washington insider is not a safe brush to tar him with: Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Reilly all have the same desire -- only more keenly and desperately so.

By the way, I took a Republican ballot and voted for McCain in the Illinois primary, so before you go painting me as a blind Liberal, think again.

We've got eight months to learn about these candidates and make up our minds -- let's not close them just yet.

Certain Individual:

. . . have they ever heard of pandering? Have they ever heard all the stories about his pro-Palestinian views before he started snooping around for J money when he ran for Senate.
Do they see any analogy behind his postpartisanship speeches (can't we all come together, unity, I can bridge the gaps_ and his ultra partisanship approach as Senator (most liberal-who has shown an inability for the most part to come to agreement with GOP members); his appeal for racial unity, blah, blah ,balh and the fact that he is a proud member and has been of a church which is proudly Afro-centric, has an allegiance to Africa, rejects white middle class values.

So if his rhetoric is the exact opposite of reality in these two crucial areas, why are they so willing to accept him based on rhetorical palaver regarding Israel? Delusional.

He has shown he is a phony in his speeches about bipartisanship, he is a phony in his speeches about racial unity, and he is a phony when he makes rhetorical gestures towards Israel.

If he becomes President ..and when he goes South on Israel...who will pay the price? 5 million Jews in Israel, and then 300 million Americans. His supporters will never own up to the role they played enabling him to gain power.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/02/019885.php

Me:

As Obama has pointed out, George Bush's foreign policy, as pro-Israel as it has been, has served to embolden and strengthen Iran, overextend the US military, and weaken our credibility and reach in the region.

. . .C'mon: every single candidate panders, says the right things to constituencies, and goes to powerful interests for money when they seek higher office. Do you have a candidate who does otherwise? Show me one.

I'm not saying Barack is telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I'm objecting to slanted and outright inaccurate portrayals of him by people who've already made up their mind, and who clearly don't want an African American with a Middle Eastern middle name as president, period end of story.

You haven't sent me anything I consider credible and unbiased. Maybe there is no such thing.

[End of my conversation with Certain Individual. For now.]

Oy.

Here's what I'm afraid of:

• Obama will get elected and get blamed for every problem Israel faces.
• This Certain Individual and others will say "I told you so," every time Sderot gets hit or a bus gets blown up, even though these things have been happening for years now.
• Obama will get shot at, or worse, and Jews or Jewish interests will take the heat.
• Once again, we won't have gotten at the truth.

Or:

• Obama won't get elected.
• Jews and Jewish interests will take the heat.
• Once again, we won't have gotten at the truth.

My advice:

Just Say No to Hysteria.

--T.A.

Coming to Term(s)

You could conceive a child tonight (with some help, of course), and it could be brought to term, or nearly so, before this year's general election.

This is an exhausting thought.

The problem with choosing a candidate is that the process is so lengthy, so costly, so complex and yet so misunderstood that the candidate her/himself is a mere figurehead of their own campaign: a symbol of the vast but largely unknowable propaganda and fund-raising machine that undergirds the so-called Democratic Process.

And so, despite all the talk and all the debates, all the coverage and the blogolalia, probably 80 per cent of likely voters already have their minds made up, based not on policy but on promises, not on substance but on symbolism. To wit:

John McCain: Old Warhorse. Maverick confirmist. Inside outsider. Principled chameleon. Symbolizes traditional values, Return to a More Innocent Time, True Grit, American ability to grin while kicking ass. Represents our national remorse at having twice elected an empty cowboy hat. McCain is our National Do-Over.

Hillary Clinton: Compassionate, Corporate Mom. The View meets The West Wing. Competent, Steely Fembot. Mrs. Miniver for the Minivan set. Wants America to find its voice. The kind of president that could throw a fine party and present a balanced budget: Martha Stewart meets Suze Orman, with a dash of Margaret Thatcher thrown in for spice. Stands for all excesses and relative innocence of the 1990s, whether she wants to or not.

Barack Obama: Computer-generated image of the ideal Multi-racial American. Black enough to rivet your attention, but not enough to scare you. Stands for Change, which, given the times, seems exotic and hopeful, but could also be turned against him by Rovian character assassins. Wants you to believe that mountains can be moved, as long as you do the heavy lifting. The Right sees him as the Manchurian Candidate of the Mullahs. The Left sees him as a Kennedy without the repressed appetites. Repository of our greatest hopes, in a way that can make us relive our worst national nightmares.

So one candidate represents our distant and already mythologized past; another, our recent past, before the whole enterprise jumped the rails; and the third represents those eternal intoxicants, Hope and The Future.

Nothing these candidates say now will significantly alter our opinions of them, unless it's a faux pas, or they're caught in a lie, a Federal probe or a YouTube video. Meanwhile, they will pronounce and prevaricate and we will cease to pay attention at a critical moment.

And as we cease to pay attention, they'll be building their teams, promising cabinet posts to key advisers whose names we don't even know, making deals with presidential candidates past, present and future as a way to keep their rickety coalitions together as the Day of Reckoning approaches at the speed of sound. Eight months out, their candidacies, their images, their very ideas already are no longer in their control. Their days are a miasma of polls, interviews, briefing papers and plane rides into towns-full of high-school marching bands and soccer moms, looking for a chance to be seen in the background during a speech or a rally.

This process is not at all what it seems. Every debate between candidates, every office-kitchen argument about politics is a dreary detour from the real, essential truth. We are focused on figureheads perched atop a vast and increasingly bloodless bureaucracy that cannot be said to even vaguely represent our interests, or resemble what our Founders might have had in mind. Could those periwigged patriarchs see us now, they would be thrilled (almost to a person) that an old white guy, a middle-aged woman and a relatively young African American man all stand a reasonable chance of being the Chief Executive.

Beyond that, they would be horrified: we are deep in debt and disenfranchised. We are simultaneously at war and mired in angry apathy. We have a mountain of information and very little in the way of useful fact. Rich beyond those Founders' dreams, we are bankrupt. More informed than most potentates, we are illiterate. We have everything and nothing, and our next president will reflect this.

Someone tell me I'm wrong.

--T.A.

Middle Daughter, Oldest Daughter: A Study in Contrasts

Middle Daughter is on the third leg of a four-country, eight-month adventure, doing volunteer work and seeing the world before entering college in the Fall. Now, she's sweeping barns and caring for cows at a large dairy farm/kibbutz in the Negev Desert in Israel.

Her blog, and the blogs of her one female and one male fellow traveler, reveal the astonishing contradictions of life in India, and the exhausting realities of life in even relatively well-to-do Costa Rica.

Oldest Daughter was aghast last year, when her younger sister revealed this plan: how could she delay college? Didn't her younger sister want to make something of herself?! To the older sibling -- very directed, very ambitious -- it seemed self-indulgent and hippy-ish.

Middle Daughter responded that heading straight to college was staying sheltered and pampered -- learning from books instead of experience. She wanted to see the world, free of encumbrances and commitments, and she wanted to at least try to do some good while she was at it. She may be academically rusty next Fall, but she'll have a better idea than most of her classmates about what lies beyond the campus.

Oldest Daughter, meanwhile, is trying to line up high-falutin internships with consulting firms in DC or, preferably, Chicago. She is all about Making It. She has a high-powered Washington wardrobe, a burnished resume; she's babysat for high-level officials and she interns with the US Court of Appeals. She knows what's what and who's who in Washington.

This will be the first national election in which both daughters will vote. That will be really interesting to watch. My bet is that Oldest Daughter goes for McCain, Middle Daughter for Obama. Tells you a lot, right there.

They are as close as two completely different people can be. They love each other -- even more now that they don't live under the same roof.

I miss them both.

--T.A.

The Righteous Indignation of the Jewish Left

At the invitation of Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, the editor who published my piece in Zeek, I attended a talk and author event yesterday in the mezzanine meeting room of a Gold Coast apartment building on Chicago's Near North Side.

The location was somewhat ironic, as the occasion was the publication of Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice, which, according to Publishers Weekly, "seek[s] to provide a set of intellectual and spiritual resources to encourage a sophisticated conversation about Judaism, social justice and environmental responsibility." Ms. Kaiser (whose parents hosted the event), Rabbi Or Rose and Margie Klein edited the book and solicited the contributions, which show Judaism's contemporary, left-leaning edge as being committed to both the social justice and spiritual aspects of the concept of Tikkun Olam, or repairing the world.

Today's young, progressive Jews are adamant that world-healing happens in increments, through very specific, very hard work; they believe they, and we all, have the tools and the will to make significant progress against prevailing inequity and injustice; and they believe that the practice of Judaism, in all its various forms, by all its diverse adherents, has an important role to play in that work.

I probably heard the phrase "grass-roots coalition" at least 50 times, but aside from that, the event was inspiring. I had to admit that, whether or not I shared these peoples' views (and I did roughly half the time), I admired their moxie, their organizational smarts and the ideas represented in the few pages I had the chance to read in their book (example: did you know that the phrase Tikkun ha-Olam first appeared in the Mishnah, circa 200 C.E.? And did you know that it had primarily to do with maintaining an almost karmic balance among diverse alliances, interests and relationships within society?).

This is an important book, because it shows the direction being taken by the next generation of Jewish leaders. They're young and smart, and they're not inclined to whine and hand-wring in advance of this election. They're already planning a reprease of "Operation Bubbie," in which they'll be taking elderly voters to the polls in the swing state of Florida during the November election.

The book addresses the pressing issues of our imbalanced world from a progressive Jewish perspective. Can't be all bad.

--T.A.

The Closing of the American Campus

Yesterday's shooting at Northern Illinois University is big news today: bigger than Rush hating McCain, bigger than Clemens lying his swollen butt off, bigger than Hillary and Barack wooing voters and booing each other.

You can detect, in media coverage of this latest campus shooting, a little less shock than was evident in coverage of the Louisiana technical college shootings, the Virginia Tech shootings and the numerous college and high-school rampages going all the way back to Columbine, an event that shocked and repulsed us all but which apparently set the precedent for everyone between 15 and 30 who's got a screw loose.

The cumulative effect of these shootings is slow, but it accelerates with each incident. And the ultimate effect will be the closing of the American campus, that last bastion of semi-innocent, youthful freedom. All our kids' kids will have metal detectors and security guards in their dorms (of course, many of our kids already do), pat-downs in lecture halls, random drug tests and even spot-mental health checks. Any guy who stops shaving and grows his hair, who stays up two nights studying and looks a little deranged, who gets in a dust-up with a kid from another frat may be thrown into a van and taken into the student health center for a quick and compassionate interrogation.

My daughters reported, when they were in high school, about the stunning numbers of kids who were trundled off to rehab after one good binge, and how they came back strangely zombified, with a new vocabulary and outlook implanted. It sounded very 1984, the way they described it. And yet, as a parent, you say a silent "thank God" when you hear that one more kid has at least faced some consequences without having to wrap him- or herself around a light pole.

Oldest Daughter is in school in Washington, DC -- hardly a threat-free zone. Tomorrow, Middle Daughter heads from India to Israel, which is hearing more sabre-rattling from Hezbollah, and eventually from there to Tanzania, which is next door to happy places like Kenya, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Perhaps there were always nut-jobs shooting up saloons and Moose lodges and we just didn't have the media saturation we do now. Or perhaps we're a nation off our rockers, and our meds.

Next year, if all goes well, both girls will be in college. Oldest Daughter will be a senior, living off-campus in our nation's capitol. Middle Daughter will, I fervently hope and pray, have returned from eight months of work with children in exotic and sometimes dangerous locales to begin her college career.

And I may lose even more sleep next academic year than I've lost so far in this one.

--T.A.

"We are here because we institutionalized creativity."

(Cross-posted on Jews By Choice)

So Said Larry Hoffman, our most recent teacher in the Wexner Heritage Program, who last night began leading us into a deep exploration of the Siddur, the Jewish prayer book.

Hoffman has a PhD in Liturgy and is also a rabbi. He teaches at Hebrew Union College in New York, and is pretty geeked out about the complexities of Jewish prayer and the marvels of the Siddur.

He pointed out that, unlike most books, the Siddur isn't bought to be read. You never start it at the beginning, and you never get to the end. What's more, it's made, unlike most books, to be used in a public, communal, ritualized setting.

Professor/Rabbi Hoffman said the Siddur takes something from all forms of literature, but is perhaps most like Drama: it is the script of the Jewish people's relationship with God through time. We all have roles to play in the drama, the central one being "to change you and make you a better person and a better Jew."

After leading us through the basic structure of many blessings in the Siddur, and applying it to the Shema, Professor/Rabbi Hoffman pointed out that, in its historical context, the Siddur arose along with the Rabbinic tradition as a way of institutionalizing creativity -- the central, oxymoronic challenge of Jewish observance. Hoffman said that Jewish prayer, before the advent of the Rabbis, was most akin to the extemporizing of gospel preachers, who use practiced rhetorical devices applied to Scripture, in dialogue with a rapt audience, to create something that is (one hopes) radically new each time.

The rabbinic tradition and the printing press, however, conspired (along with other historical events, like the destruction of the Temple, Diaspora and the need to survive) to lead us down the path toward setting the means and methods of our prayer in stone. That has, said Hoffman, been both our continuity and our undoing.

When you get beneath the surface of any Jewish practice, you see that it is an improvisation dropped in a pool of amber. You are both forbidden and encouraged to set it free. You have to adhere to a set of standards and traditions. You have to make it radically new. You have to be yourself; you have to be counted in, and counted on by, the community.

And your 'self' is a core sample of continuity -- fresh and individuated at the top, rooted in eons of debate and discussion and persecution and fervent prayer. The only way to begin to make sense of it all is to understand that the Siddur is the script of centuries of improvisation, telescoped into your moment of encounter with it.

You're in the orchestra -- musician and instrument, playing and being played; no two performances the same, never the same musicians in the pit; the score, the sounds and you a triple-helix of Jewish inventiveness that never changes and yet never holds still.

--T.A.

Fade to Black(berry)

Ah, one could hear the cries of anguish and withdrawal all over North America today, as service on the ubiquitous Blackberry suffered a massive outage.

I didn't even notice. Not til I saw this article. By then I was safely ensconced in the family room, trolling restlessly for news while Gabe watched an episode of Family Guy that he must already have seen five times.

I feel somewhat reclusive, even misanthropic lately. I let loose a muffled hurrah when networks go down or airports grind to a halt in abysmal weather. I'm cheered by empty big-box stores and feel strangely vindicated by abandoned, unfinished condo developments. I confess that, when in this frame of mind, I even find plunges in the stock market reassuring: after all, I think to myself, if everything's going to go to hell in a handbasket, why shouldn't it be obvious?

And speaking of where everything's going -- get a load of all the alarming (alarmist?) medical news: the long decline in heart disease rates is over, it appears; and those of us who lost our virginity either quite early or quite late are going to suffer more health problems and greater sexual dysfunction.

Take your pick: the moral of the story is --

• Too much information is bad for the soul
• Too much information distorts the truth and makes every finding sound like an ominous trend
• Nothing matters as much as everything seems to matter
• Get yer head outta yer butt
• Explicit movies and lyrics are a plot by Big Pharma to sell us Viagra
• It's all one, big Oliver-Stone like conspiracy
• I'm not getting enough sleep

--T.A.

Major Dickason and Me

My sister Martha, one of my favorite people in the world, always brightens my day, but she improved my mornings, on the occasion of my most recent birthday, by getting me a six-month susbcription to Peet's Coffee -- a different roast every two weeks, delivered to my doorstep.

The most recent caffeinated confection is Major Dickason's Blend, which, according to some coffeeholics, has attained near-cult status and which, according to Peet's web site, is their most popular blend.

Midwestern mornings in February are routinely brutal affairs. This has been an especially gray, snowy and cold winter, so, in my snow-madness, I have taken to greeting Major Dickason by name each morning, in a poor Scottish brogue recalled from my acting days:

"Stand at attention, Major Dickason!," I'll say, stumbling toward the coffee-maker. Or: "Top o' the mornin', Major! Got yer work cut out for ye today!"

Turns out that Key Dickason was a retired Army officer and a regular at Peet's flagship store at the corner of Walnut and Vine streets in Berkeley. At Peet's you can create your own blend; Major Dickason (who was actually a lieutenant) was one of the first, and most successful, to do so, working with founder Alfred Peet to perfect Major Dickason's blend in 1969.

When you search for Dickasons online you run into some pretty creative people, like this bunch, which features both yarmulkes and cowboy hats, and whose artists create some very stirring works, many of them Jewish-themed. They have a bunch of their own web sites, and are somehow connected to this very cool-looking synagogue in Tucson.

Are they related to Key Dickason . . . ? Well, there's a link to Major Dickason's blend on their "Dickason links" page.

For some reason, I like knowing that there's a connection between my coffee and people who create beautiful works of Jewish art, are committed to spiritually awake and searching synagogues, and who also wear cowboy hats.

Shabbat Shalom.

--T.A.

The gentlest person in the world

She was a woman who worked for our family. She was part African American, part Creek Indian. She saw ghosts and loved Jesus and especially the Virgin Mary, and she was really good at finding lost objects.

She had one of those Bibles with thin, translucent pages edged in what looked like gold leaf. She had porcelain front teeth rimmed in gold that looked like the edges of the pages of her Bible. She had a dent in one leg from where she was struck by a car. She had very black, very straight hair and very pale skin. She wore gingham aprons and said "Bless you, Angel Boy," when I went off to school.

My memories are vague and impressionistic because I was a little kid. But I remember her eyes, and the way she covered her mouth when she smiled or laughed, and the way she smelled, and how deeply she loved God and lived life.

She was born 100 years ago today. I miss her.

Happy Birthday, Rosie.

--T.A.