More Miscellaneous Thoughts (and Confessions – It Is, After All, Elul)

Read more about the Month of Elul

Ulpan

I just finished the essay, the 2^nd and final portion of the midterm exam. It may shock one or two of you to find out that I am a slow learner. I know I am about to give away all my deep secrets, but the truth that I have kept hidden from you all (except Sandra who has discovered such things) is that I only learn concepts easily. The detailed stuff—that is another thing entirely. The method to my madness is that I am persistent, and will spend ridiculous amounts of time focusing on the minutiae behind the concepts to make the outward appearances as they are. Is my German ability with only one year college German a product of some crazy learning ability? Heck no! What you don’t see behind the scenes is that I have spent the last year+ reading any fiction I wanted to read only in German. Then when I travel I listen to German Radio on the Internet, record German Podcasts on my MP3 player (thanks again, Sandra, Amy, and DJ!) It is just a weird sort persistence—not any real intelligence.

So in walks the Ulpan: Class is from 8 AM to 1:30 every day but Shabbat with two 15 minute breaks. Every day adds another 10-40 words of vocabulary that upon which we are often tested the next day. Homework usually takes 2-4 hours a day to complete. As Sandra can attest, it takes me about 4 days and 40 repetitions of a word in context before I learn it. In Ulpan, that has meant that by the time I have learned the words for a day, I am dozens of more words behind. On the midterm, as I studied the nights before, I was about 150 words behind.

Ahh, the joys of humility. I think part of the many things I am struggling with this Elul is that not only have I fooled others with my apparent ease of learning, but have as well fooled myself. Once again, I am glad I am learning all this before I go back to school next year, but for now this has been an interesting journey of self-discovery. I did well on the Essay test because I could choose my own words, but I did extremely poorly on Monday’s written portion. Tomorrow I am going to move back from class 7 to about class 5 to get caught up on my vocabulary and move at a pace more appropriate to my actual learning ability related to detail and auditory learning. What an interesting T’shuva this year.

But On The Other Hand . . . .

My mother-in-law wanted to know if I was enjoying being able to just focus on learning without being at work. O my. This is definitely the flip side of the equation. In the last two weeks alone, I have begun some serious self Talmud study for the for the first time in my life, have been learning High Holy Days chant and Haftarah Cantillation, and have continued to study the Sefer ha Tania (and old Chassidic text) with a Chassidic rabbi and what has now almost grown into a minyan in our apartment. This in addition to reading two books on aspects of Judaism in German, studying Israeli history, and a few other small this’ and that’s. Am I enjoying my self? Oh my, I say once again. Other than being away from Sandra, I am the proverbial kid in the candy store (or the kosher pig-in-the-mud?) I may be struggling with the words, but I am grateful, so grateful, for this opportunity to do that which is so dear to my soul – learning those concepts and the accompanying details that, in my own time, as I am able.

Speaking of Chassidism . . .

I have come to the conclusion that the Mystical aspects of Judaism are the bonds that today can tie the Progressive and Traditional views of our faith/religion/way-of-life together. We don’t agree on so much that seems fundamental—what constitutes a Minyan, the place of the Talmud in our lives, the required duties of the Mitzvot, and on and on. But yet I sit every Tuesday with a man that holds deeply fundamentalist views of Judaism, and I agree with, or at least am inspired by, the vast majority of what he says. Why? One small small small example: We are discussing the nature of G-d and humanity from a mystical perspective, and how only by being in physical bodies where the “immediacy” of G-d is a matter of faith is what allows “choice.” One analogy used was that a choice between accepting 100 and 1000 dollars is not a choice. Only among two seemingly equal things (saying a blessing over wine or not, for example) does actual choice exists. Any one bathing in a tangible or physical “reality” of G-d would not have “choice” as the tangible “presence” of G-d would contain the answer to all choices—that level of action that we struggle with in a daily basis in all of our walks through each of our different faiths (or no faiths.) This, I know, is a short example that does nothing of our full conversations justice, but let me just say that even though the “reality” of the situation is that my understanding of the nature of G-d and the Rabbi’s are completely different, what we are really talking about is that the existence of some indescribable, universal greater reality calls us to some action in that relationship, As Jews we simply call them Mitzvot, and struggling with them, after all, is one of the cores of our own unique covenant. We all say the Sh’ma. Yes, my conceptualization of “Hear Oh Israel, the Eternal is God and the Eternal is a Unity” is different than this Rabbi’s, but in the end, we are still saying the same prayer.

Shalom Shalom!

Paul

(Note on the photo -- a few years ago Hamas targeted the cafeteria adjacent to where my classes take place killing nine and injuring over 80 at the University. The bomb was packed with shrapnel (nails) to ensure maximum civilian casualties. I realize that to those that are worried about my safety this is not comforting, but, not only has safety and security been completely overhauled on campus, but even more important, living with the reality of such things so close to me has already taught me a huge lesson-- not to ignore reality for the sake of "feeling" safe. I remember at Temple University in one of the worst neighborhoods in Philaldephia-- in the whole country-- that we were always amazed that there was less campus crime than on Penn campus, an Ivy League University. But there is actually no mystery to this-- the day you walked onto Temple campus, the school's literature said, "We are in an econmically challanged neighborhood-- be smart." At Penn? Well, let's just say that making the parents feel good with the rosy outlook always took priority over brutal honesty-- and everyone was surprised when freshmen walking through the neighborhood at 3 in the morning got mugged. All I am saying, for the third time now in this blog, is that safety is an illusion. Does that mean that we should shrink and shriek in fear and terror until the Homeland Security warning hits red? On the contrary, it just means that we should be aware. Aware of ourselves, aware of those around us, aware of the larger community in our lives that is sometime peaceful, sometimes not, sometimes crazy, sometimes not. We just need to continue living and doing our best to find our place in healing the world-- aware, sane, and willing to question those that want us to only live in fear. So back to the photo: The tree you see was blown at an angle away from where the bomber hit, and as a memorial, a planter was built around the tree to preserve at least one small moment of the blast. What an extraordinary country I am living in. Baruch HaShem.)