True Ancestor

Jewgenics, Part II: Genes, Identity, History -- and a compelling book on the subject

Cross-posted on Jews By Choice

In a previous post, I've explored the ideas behind a book that looks at the cross-currents of genes, identity and values and tries to answer the question, "Who is a Jew?"

The answer, according to that post, and the book discussed therein, was "almost everyone." A new and perhaps even more compelling book on the subject is Jacob's Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History.

The book -- beautifully reviewed by Jerome Groopman in a recent issue of the New Republic --  views the complexities of identity, and the blurred and often-buried history of Jewish identity specifically, through a scientific lens. Genetic research indicates that there is a clear continuity in genetic makeup amongst the descendents of the Cohanim, the priestly tribe of Israelites, but Groopman -- and, through him, the book's author, David Goldstein -- note that the urge to use science to ratify belonging leads us along dark paths down which we've been dragged before. While genetic research does point to common strands (literally) of experience, Goldstein notes that answers to questions of belonging are as complex as the genetic research that gives rise to them.

In our thirst for answers and connections, and in the profusion of our Google-ized sources, we often seize on the most available answers: they satisfy us without making us work too hard. Media distillations of the implications of genetic research routinely distort the overarching fact that genes don't trump history. The sequence of events, the narrative that captures those events and the environment in which both are produced are even more complex than the microsatellite markers embedded in the Y chromosomes of descendents of Aaron. People who have chosen Judaism -- who have learned it, practiced it, embraced it, lived it -- are Jews.

Genetic history, says Goldstein, "is both more and less significant than it is depicted in popular accounts." Science affirms history's complexity; history shouts down the determinism that springs from simplistic proclamations, and nefarious ambitions, on the subject.

"The great and beautiful irony," Groopman says in his review, "is that this ancient assessment of position and potential in society, this hostility to biological determinism and respect for free human choice and its consequences, is also at the core of modernity. It is refreshing to have this truth now affirmed, and in this context, by a geneticist." 

In plainer terms, the answer to the question, "Who is a Jew?," is:

"Anyone who really, truly wants to be."

(h/t: Me True Ann-Sister)

--T.A.

The Revolution Will Not Be Turbo-charged

I was watching my rampaging White Sox on TV a couple of nights ago and noticed something that any disciplined TV-watcher has probably noticed for awhile now: automobile adds are using phrases redolent of American patriotism and independence in their ad campaigns. Cadillac's tag line is "Life. Liberty. And the Pursuit." Chevrolet promises "An American Revolution." A shade less derivative but no less mock-inspirational, Chrysler says, "Let's Refuel America."

The irony is beyond belief. It seems Cadillac is after a younger demographic with this campaign: a young, George Michael-ish bachelor zooms through the deserted neon canyons of an anonymous cityscape, his internal monologue full of self-congratulation for the wisdom of his purchase of a Cadillac. This ad campaign must be a decade behind the times (ergo the George Michael reference). Younger drivers don't give a turd about these enormous, sclerotic gas-guzzlers driven by Bubbies and Zadies all over the land: they want cars that manage to perform reasonably well while using less gas. That would make them feel pretty cool.

Chevrolet, like Ford, is really all about its trucks, and so this ad campaign at least launches a cluster-bomb toward what it perceives as the patriotic heartland: Hillary-voting, Andrea Mitchell-hating redneck country. Meanwhile, you have to really be an auto-geek (or have a son that's turning into one) to learn that Chevy is going to move ahead with its production of the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt in 2010. Talk about an American revolution: a car company actually doing something about mobility, economy and environmental stewardship! I must be dreaming.

As for Chrysler: you'll be shocked to learn that it's not really refueling America; it's offering a fixed price for unleaded and diesel to go along with its vehicles. Thanks for the diesel deal, guys. Now what about all the health problems attributed to it?

As scary as he can sometimes be, I think Charles Krauthammer was right on this issue: create a U.S. energy tax that keeps gasoline above the panic "price point" (which appears to be about $4 a gallon) so that we incentivize conservation and alternative fuel technology, rather than subsidizing oil companies and emirates.  

Now that's life, liberty and the pursuit.

--T.A.

Neural Buddhists and the Rest of Us

In the space of a couple of weeks, the New York Times ran at least three articles about how therapy, neurology and the search for spiritual fulfillment are converging. On May 13, the Times published a much-discussed column by David Brooks that ran under the headline "The Neural Buddhists." In it, Brooks noted that "scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual states." The moral: "The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits . . . Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings. They're going to have to defend the idea of a personal God, and explain why specific theologies are true guides for behavior day to day."

Twelve days later, under the headline "A Superhighway to Bliss," Times Reporter Leslie Kaufman wrote an article about Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard neuroscientist who experienced nirvana when she had stroke that temporarily silenced the left lobe of her brain.  Dr. Taylor was able to "see that the atoms and molecules making up her body blended with the space around her; the whole world and the creatures in it were all part of the same magnificent field of shimmering energy." The article goes on to describe her electrifying speech at the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference and a subsequent appearance on Oprah. (I've embedded a link to the talk, below, but it doesn't seem to be working. Use the link above as an alternative.)

The moral: "I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world, and the more peaceful our planet will be."

And two days after that, Benedict Carey wrote the lead piece in the May 27th Science Times section. It described how mindfulness meditation is rapidly gaining credence with therapists across a variety of disciplines. Although research doesn't seem to indicate that meditation is universally helpful, the "Buddha-like effort to move beyond language to change fundamental psychological processes" is changing the focus of many therapists from merely reframing thoughts to changing one's relationship to the content of one's thoughts.

It seems that the underlying premise of these articles is that science will help discern the real essence of what religionists have been misunderstanding and exploiting all these millennia -- that by understanding the processes at work within distinct and diverse regions of the brain, we'll be able to put the poetic nonsense aside and get at Oneness the way we might get at a flu vaccine or an endoscopy.

It's an intriguing thought, but in the end, I don't think it'll work out that way. There is a mystery that neither religion nor science can own. Religion at its best celebrates, at its worst exploits this mystery. Science at its best exploits that mystery, and at its worst turns it to deadly effect.

In my mind, neither will ever corner the market on Truth.

I'm writing this in the few moments before the beginning of Shavuot, the Jewish holiday celebrating the giving of the Torah to Moses at Mt. Sinai. We will never know what truly happened to a band of Jews on the run in the wilderness. But if all that happened was that Moses had a stroke, or ate some 'shrooms, and the event had been handed down to us with that narrative, we'd have a religion where we went about inducing strokes and hallucinations in ourselves (some would say this is, in fact, the case).

Thankfully, this isn't what happened. We received the narrative of that event and its aftermath in the form of a system of laws that, according to an intriguing paper by a Maryland undergraduate named Eitan Freedenberg,  "start at a single point and expand into a vast array of wavelengths." That point is Mt. Sinai -- wherever it is -- and those wavelengths are the spokes of law and custom, narrative and ritual that are the bedrock of at least three major religions and much of the moral and ethical framework of modern life.

But sometimes I wonder: if Moses had been Jill Bolte Taylor and taken a detached view of his revelatory experience, would we really be that different? After all, Moses said the word of God is "in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it" (Deut. 30:14). Professor Taylor says that anyone can choose to live a more peaceful, spiritual life (by sidestepping their left brain).

As the sun sets and Shavuot dawns, I find myself hoping -- praying, really -- that we take advantage of the confluence of these mighty rivers of thought, and ride them to a new sea of wisdom, still riding our rudimentary rafts of choice.

--T.A.

Why Hillary Should Not Be Obama's Veep: Two Top Ten Lists

1. It shows a stunning lack of imagination.
2. What's a running mate for? The short answer is: to make you look good, in places and with people where you don't look so good. Hillary doesn't help Obama with that -- at least, not enough to outweigh the negatives she also brings.
3. Per number 1, it may be worse than a lack of imagination: choosing Hillary would look like the kind of back-room dealing with which Obama claims to represent a break.
4. Hate to say it, but if Obama is assassinated, and Hillary is his VP, she'll be blamed, forever, no matter the evidence.
5. She's basically useless as a vice president. She'd be a creditable secretary of state, attorney general or labor secretary.
6. They don't make a good team.
7. The Democratic Party needs to put the Clintons behind them.
8. She won't be his advocate. 
9. Obama needs a VP who's been in some kind of trench.
10. She will not do well as minister without portfolio: she needs to be in charge of something.

And now, for my list a la Letterman. Terribly politically incorrect. Sorry.

10.  Make her a "secretary" of something; after all, she's a woman!

9.   OK, but only if they split Lincoln Bedroom "rental" proceeds 50/50.

8.   The vice president's mansion is perfect for someone self-obsessed like Hillary: it's on the grounds of the "Navel" observatory!

7.  "And if you make me vice president, I have some great vacation property in Arkansas you can have for next to nothing."

6.  The White House is a No-Cackle Zone.

5.  Can't have an executive team where both members wear pants.

4.  On the other hand, with that outfit and head-dress Barack wore . . .

3.  Can't have a veep who's hotter than the president.

2.  If passed over, she'd throw a great pity party.

1.  Bears an eerie resemblance to Aaron Burr, last sitting vice president to shoot a member of the Cabinet.

  

--T.A.

Memo to Sharon Stone: Just Shut Up.

Sharon Stone has just given a lecture on bad karma.

To which I reply: Oy.

When are we going to stop being juvenile about the unseen workings of the Universe?

Do we really think hundreds of thousands of Chinese needed to die because the Chinese government is mean to the Dalai Lama?

Or that thousands were swept away in the Tsunami because of Israel's disengagement from Gaza?

And how about those naughty Burmese? We're not sure what goes on there, but their government sure sucks! Guess that's why the powerful were spared, while the poor folks in the Irrawaddy Delta got washed away.

If there were a God that had such terrible aim and such flawed execution, don't you think that God would have tripped on His robe and stumbled into our midst by now?

Or if that God had such a deep investment in current affairs and a love for Tibetan Buddhism, don't you think that God would have stepped into the situation, oh, maybe 50 years ago?

Or is God's timing off because 50 years is, like, a millisecond to Her, and She was late because She forgot her keys and had to run back and get them?

Sharon, if karma works as you say, then your house should slide into the ocean in a week or two. But no, bad karma, so they say, is spread across many lifetimes and takes many lifetimes to clean up. It's a complex idea that can be distilled down to cause and effect -- between living beings, not between one government and the ground under its people's homes and schools. 

Show me how Beijing's repression of Tibet caused the movement of tectonic plates in Sichuan Province.

Go on. I'm waiting.

It'll probably be awhile, so in the meantime, could I just ask the MSM, pleez o pleez, to stop treating Hollywood celebs like major thinkers and powerful diplomats? Show us their lovely houses and their most excellent cosmetic surgeries. Show 'em on the red carpet and the runway.

But I beg you: no microphones.

--T.A.

Going Negative

I'm in one of those periods in which my skin is incredibly thin, my patience terribly short. I'm hurting people around me, and their expression of hurt only pisses me off more, as if I'm the one being wronged.

I can discern a couple of contributing factors. One is my anxiety about going back to school. Another is the interrogations to which I'm regularly subjected about this midlife adventure, and the incredulity and condescension with which it's often greeted. I suppose if I were able to hold onto a shred of equanimity I'd see that some people are jealous, some are threatened, and most are just plain ol' surprised that a guy with a family and a mortgage and a decent job would chuck it all. They have every right to be surprised, don't they? Heck, I'm still surprised.

Another factor: I'm sort of between worlds right now -- still focusing a lot of energy on work, even though it's now official that I'll be cutting my hours back. People have begun to take over some of my duties. School doesn't start until late Fall. I feel a little untethered. I'm not so good at that.

Also, I'm not meditating enough. When spiritual discipline goes, everything becomes personal. There's a direct correlation between how much you cast yourself at the mercy of the Great Mystery, and how personally you take things. Of course, some things are meant to be taken personally. Still, when you viscerally understand how interconnected It all is, we all are, even the barbs aimed at you don't hurt so much. You have a better understanding of the force that propels them, and better medicine with which to salve the wound.

But when I'm feeling like this, I feel claustrophobic. I can't get enough space. Every interaction is an interruption. Everything nettles. The closer someone is to me, the harder I push them away. The One True Wife has had just about enough, and I guess I don't blame her. The Daughters, in various stages of transition out of the house, want nothing but space anyway, and are blissfully unaware. Gabe, whose life is still centered in the house, takes it all in and says not a word. But at times like this, he has a nickname for me: Mean. It's not an accusation -- it's a moniker.

Buddhism helps you cultivate a peaceful acceptance of even the unsatisfactory. Judaism sets you at odds with it. Buddhism goes with the flow. Judaism struggles upstream. Buddhism meditates. Judaism thinks, prays (equal parts petition, praise and thanksgiving) and thinks some more. Buddhism grows silent. Judaism grows loud. Buddhism opens its arms. Judaism takes up its tools. Buddhism nods and smiles. Judaism shakes its head and cries.

With all this turning around in the overheated dryer of my cranium, I have several simultaneous responses to every world event, every snotty remark, every casual injustice. I can't sort them out or express them clearly. On the one hand, I think I'm suffering from a wider syndrome, a kind of ethical hypochondria (on which Charles Martin waxes eloquent), in which all actions are weighed for their ethical and moral content, and, if found wanting, merit Fixing. On the other hand, I am sick unto death of fuming invective, obnoxious, anonymous commentary and high-handed judgment from people who have no skin in the game.

With the aid of my Zen training, I hereby rededicate myself to making peace with the Unsatisfactory. And, with the anchor of my Jewish soul and all to which it answers, I resolve to make peace with the Unsatisfactory by slowly, persistently, challenging it.

Starting with my self.

--T.A.

Time to Grow Your Own

From a young age, I fantasized about living on a farm. I decided at about age 5 that, in the summer before I turned 17, I was going to work on a farm. It never happened, so I still dream about it, even though 17 is long gone.

I loved the sight of farms from a young age. I adored the orderly rows of crops, ridged like corduroy, zipping past the window of our VW bus as it made its pokey way along  the highway on long trips. I loved barns. The smell of hay. The idea of coming in exhausted at the end of the day and having a huge meal.

I was idealizing farm life, in a way, but I was a kid. I worked harder at understanding farm life than any other city kid I knew. I got up early every morning to watch the Farm Report on Channel 9, and hear the orotund orations of Orien Samuelson as he read and analyzed the latest commodity prices, and I loved the fact that farmers were watching right along with me.

When I was at summer camp, at around age 13, I told a counselor of my yearning to work on a farm.

"Well, my aunt and uncle will put you to work on their farm in Virginia anytime," Dave said. "But you'd better be ready to work your ass off about 12 hours a day, hurt over every inch of your body, and sit around in the evenings, drinking stuff you shouldn't be drinking and shooting cans and road signs with a shotgun."

I never worked for Dave's aunt and uncle, or any other farmers, for that matter.

I regret it more than ever after reading about the nascent movement of "energy survivalism." It features learning the skills to cultivate energy and food independence, or at least self-reliance, and removing oneself from the collapsing grid of modern excess. The pioneers of energy survivalism may tend to the wild-eyed prophetic types: some anticipate having to fend off hordes of starving disoriented urbanites -- folks who can't grow an herb or make their own latte but who might use their GPS systems to head to the country in search of food, or a least a B&B at which to weather the storm.

I find it pleasingly ironic that, at the possible onset of global upheaval, I'm heading to Divinity School -- and facing a 60-mile round-trip commute to school. A less practical choice could hardly be invented, especially by a person who's been the primary breadwinner in a family with three children, two of whom will be in college next year; especially in a time of rising oil and food prices.

I still can't believe I made this choice. I quake in bed at night and curse myself during the day.

And yet I can't shake the notion that on many levels -- including the practical -- it's a choice I won't regret.

Tomorrow, however, I'm digging a hole to begin a compost heap in the back yard. More vegetables are going in this year.

But face it: I was a city kid, now I'm a suburban dad. I couldn't build a cabin out of Lincoln Logs, much less the real thing. And I couldn't grow a weed without fertilizer.

But farming life, on a smaller scale, may be the wave of the very near future.

--T.A.

Season of our Liberation --or End of Days?

When, within the space of a few days, in the thawing Midwest,a wild cougar appears and people are rattled in their beds by an earthquake, it can be safely be said that we're living in interesting times. Need more proof?

• When the Cubs and Sox have near-identical records -- and sit at or near the top of their respective divisions;
• When an African American man and a white woman are vying for the presidential nomination of a major party;
• When the announcement of dismal financial results is deemed by the markets to be good news because the results aren't as dismal as they could have been;
• When a baby with two faces is born,
• And a woman survives a gunshot between the eyes;
• When a man, living with a transplanted heart, kills himself in the same way as the heart donor did;
• When the Pope meets abuse victims face to face,
• A praying passenger is removed from a commercial flight,
• And Jimmy Carter meets with leaders of Hamas;
• When a blind woman makes a hole in one
• And a deaf player scores in the NBA,

well, then, my friends, these are interesting times, indeed.

Chag Sameach/Happy Passover and a season of liberation to one and all --

--T.A.

Another Angry Preacher, Another Missed Point

In an e-mail and interview that are popping up like fungi on conservative blogs, Los Angeles philanthropist Daphna Ziman tells the disturbing story of being the target of an anti-Semitic diatribe from Reverend Eric Lee, an African American minister and head of the Los Angeles Branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Ironically, Rev. Lee delivered this rant from the dais at an April 4 event, looking directly at Ms. Ziman, just after she had received the Tom Bradley Award for her charitable work in the African American community from Kappa Alpha Si, an African American fraternity.

What's interesting to me is that the conservative blogs are using this incident to say, "See? We told you: Obama is a hater!" This, apparently, because Lee is an Obama supporter. But if you read Lee's remarks and listen to Ms. Ziman's interview with Roger Simon (CEO of Pajamas Media), you get a different picture (never mind that the event had nothing to do with Obama, nor was he there).

Lee is purported to have said some terrible things. It sounds as if what's behind those utterances is delight at the prospect of an African American who can win the White House and right all the wrongs done to the AA community. Those wrongs, according to Lee, include negative stereotypes of African Americans, perpetuated and made profitable by Jews in the entertainment industry.

Ms. Ziman does not directly blame Obama for Rev. Lee's diatribe, although she hints at finding Obama guilty by association. But in her interview with Simon, after telling the story of the incident -- and the apologies delivered immediately afterwards by some African Americans in attendance, she says this:

"I find that this is opening the gates to something that isn't healthy for this country. . . It's time for Reverend Lee to apologize to the entire Jewish community . . . This is racism at its highest. And I believe that Barack Obama can change that."

She goes on to say that Obama has to take responsibility for attending for two decades a church that espoused views similar to Rev. Lee's -- but in saying she believes Obama can change the tide of anger that is rising in some parts of the AA community, seems to me she's actually agreeing with Reverend Lee. According to Ziman, Lee began his speech "by thanking Jesus for Obama, who's going to be the leader of the world." 

Conservative bloggers seem to see this incident as proof of some kind of underground AA conspiracy to legitimize hatred and launch Obama like a missile at the heart of white America.

They're missing the point.

Obama's candidacy is a lightning rod, and the electricity is creating all kinds of sparks. To use another metaphor, the promise of an African American president is proving to be a valve for the pressurized anger of the African American community, and for the hopes of people of all backgrounds who think Obama represents some kind of national coming of age. Obama is viewed by some AA pastors as a righteous avenger and by others as a healer. Some condemn him for cozying up to haters; others see him as the only (or the most immediate) cure for what ails us.

It would be hard to live up to either image, let alone both. And that's assuming he wins both the Democratic nomination and the general election.

--T.A.

Oh, now I get it: I don't get it.

I just don't get it.

Which means I get it.

Which means I don't get it.

What I don't get is how much bile and invective there is in the blogosphere.

But it's not like I never excoriate anyone, never lose my temper. I do that all the time (just did it again this week). I like to think about and study religion, but I really, really don't get it. I get it less than ever. Not only do I not seem to be able to learn Hebrew, but I don't seem to be able to absorb the lessons of Judaism or retain what I learned from Buddhism. I'm the same cranky, thin-skinned misanthrope I was before I studied any of this stuff.

I don't get how we've wound up with three such seriously flawed presidential candidates. One has little in the way of experience but posesses tremendous vision; one has tremendous experience but little or no vision; one is just someone who puts you in a bad mood, and you can't put your finger on why.

Each one of them represents some aspect of our national persona: the war hero, the cool, ambitious climber, the valiant outsider. These individuals have subjected themselves and their families to the most unending scrutiny, the most horrendous slander, the straight-up danger of running for the presidency, and you just know there's got to be something wrong with each of them.

But our consummate wrongness, our flawed decision-making is already reinstalled in the White House. Do we just have a system that rewards and enshrines thick-skinned mistake-makers?

But this isn't about them. As usual, it's about me.

As Passover nears, I see, more clearly than ever that the story of liberation doesn't make sense on a peoplehood level unless you can make sense of it on a personal level. Through the preparation for and observance of Passover, we're supposedly affirming belief through memory. Of course, you can't remember something you never experienced. Can you...? What, then, are you remembering? And what are you believing in? Are you remembering beyond the horizon of your own lifetime? Or are you engaging in existential self-examination and dogmatic myth-making?

The real question Passover poses is: What do you need to get liberated from?

Me: I guess it's my thin skin. My concern for whether people like me or not. My lack of certainty. Which gives me a temper. Which begins the cycle all over again. So where do I interrupt the circuit?

I think I begin with the trait of Equanimity. As a good friend reminded me today, it says in Cheshbon ha Nefesh (Accounting of the Soul) by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Satanov: "Rise above events that are inconsequential - both bad and good - for they are not worth disturbing your equanimity."

Easy for him to say. That's just an old-fashioned way of saying "Don't worry, be happy."

Or maybe it's Humility. If you're worried and uncertain and easily offended, you're probably overestimating your own importance. You can learn this from your sacred texts, but I just started catching on when I saw an episode of South Park last week, in which Kyle spends the better part of an episode trying to show Token that he, Kyle, understands what it feels like to be African American and suffer discrimination. Token gets angrier the more sensitive Kyle tries to be.

At the end of the episode, Kyle has his epiphany, and tells Token: "I get it, Token! I finally get it: I don't get it."

Token smiles and says: "Now ya got it."

Shabbat Shalom.

--T.A.