Challenge Accepted

Today was a turning point. Not in any significant life-event way, but in the subtle sort of epiphany way.

On this blog, I talk a lot about how the last three months have been some of the hardest of my life, though they're slowly getting easier one day at a time. I've tried to keep the details of what makes them so difficult off the internet, though more and more I'm thinking that someday soon, when I'm ready, I may actually discuss them. If I feel they're important enough to discuss.

One detail of the three months, the semester from hell, or whatever else I'm calling it, though, is something I think I want to talk about now. And that's the search for the deep conversation. It's the most minute part of this past semester, but among the tons of things and answers I've been searching for, high up on that list was a simple game of hide-and-seek with a philosophical conversation.

I used to have them all the time. And I used to hate them. Something about debating your innermost views of the world with someone seemed to me a little like changing your clothes in front of an audience. Even if that's your thing, even if you don't have any shame about your body, even in front of a close friend, you may be struck by the thought: what if I wore my ugly underwear today? Are they going to think I always wear something like that? In one way or another, you're exposing yourself.

And the thing with philosophical debates is that if the person you're talking to is smarter or more articulate or better educated than you are, it's very easy to come out of the conversation feeling stupid, or somehow invalidated. And that possibility used to scare me, because I lived life in a way I loved, but also thought was a sort of precarious existence. Boy, this post is going to be longer than I thought it would be. My apologies.

Two years ago, if you asked me what I liked least in the world, right after the taste of fennel, I'd say debating. To me, it was fighting for no reason. What was the point of exchanging life opinions with someone? It wasn't like you were going to change their mind. So why get all aggravated if you weren't going to accomplish anything?

Then, sometime in my last semester of college, I don't know when, how, or why, people started approaching me, and asking me to argue. Specifically about religion. Again, I don't know how this started or who told people to approach me. But soon it seemed like every other week, I was having discussions with agnostic or atheist friends of mine about the existence of G-d, why I keep religion, etc. And at the beginning, I hated it.

I remember being on Gchat with someone I had only recently met, having just such a debate, when I finally thought to ask, "why are you having this discussion with me? I'm not a philosopher. I don't know any more about religion than other Modern Orthodoxers."

To which he replied, "You're harder to argue with."

Apparently, the way I view my Faith is unusual. I still don't quite understand why, but from that point on, I thought, well, if they're going to argue with me, I might as well get into it. 

At the peak of my philosophical arguing (about a year ago), I was having these discussions almost every day. My favorite story to reference was the time a friend I hadn't seen in a while walked up to me at a party and said simply, "Hey, I'm an atheist now. I heard you like religious debates. Let's fight."

Again, I'm still really not sure why me.

Anyway, the debating and questioning was what finally led me, at around this time last year, to apply for my Master's in Judaic Studies. I felt like I had heard some kind of calling. Not a divine thing, but more along the lines of, hey, I seem to be good at this. Maybe I should make something of it.

And three months ago, just as all the proverbial spit was hitting the fan, I started Grad School, and instantly wondered whether I'd made a massive mistake. I felt like the tiniest little goldfish in a shark tank. Everyone knew more than me, and they were more aggressive, and they were not good little religious girls. They were theologians, Bible scholars, grown-ups. And they weren't interested in hearing my innermost thoughts. They wanted me to write papers. Long papers. One of which I should be writing right now, on what one theologian said to one historian two-hundred years ago before this pogrom wiped out the population of that village and how this all affected this theory of that study. I was In. Over. My. Head.

At one point, I confessed to a friend, "all of this academic language and writing, why did I go into this in the first place?"I remembered how much I used to love those conversations.

They used to mean something. They used to be an essential part of my week. And I missed the discussions. I missed talking about things that matter. After a while, I realized that not everyone wants to have those discussions, and I stopped asking.

And then today, I was talking to a boy I'd never met before, when they brought up the topic of Halacha. He expressed his opinion on one right path of following Halacha, which led into a discussion about why I should or shouldn't wear pants, which led into the portrayal of women in the Talmud, which led into law in general, the afterlife, evolution...

I won't go into the details of the arguments for sake of not completely boring those who read this far, but let's just say I disagreed with him on nearly every point. What was interesting though, is that while I'm usually used to playing the right-wing role, the religious gal in the face of someone rather against organized religion, this time I was the modern, left-wing, bra-burning feminist of the discussion.

Man, what a rush.

I knew I missed the discussions. I didn't realize until this afternoon just how much I missed them. As I got more excited and animated in my quoting Gemarah and philosophers, I realized I was probably starting to creep the guy out. But I really didn't care.

Somehow, I've gone from hating debates to loving every minute of them, if of course, they remain respectful and don't involve yelling. But for my current semester, unfortunately this day was a fluke. I miss talking about these things regularly. I miss having challengers around. I need a challenge. Because it's the ones who challenge you who are the ones who make you think.

How did that happen?

One Day More

It's incredible what a difference small changes make. This week, I cleaned my room, hung up some artwork that had been lying around my apartment, put up the flower-string lights I bought in San Francisco, finished a paper, and made plans for the first big Shabbat meal I'll host since July.

And it works wonders.

Literally from one day to the next, I feel like as quickly as the crazy came, a huge chunk of it has spontaneously abated. Not all of it, but a massive, huge chunk, and that's more than enough to keep it from being overwhelming.

And I've been singing Les Miserables songs all week.

That's not a surprise, since the movie version of this book/play I've known since forever is coming out and I can't wait to see it. I've been humming the tunes for a month now. But I realized this week that things had generally improved when I realized that the tunes I've been singing have changed.

Isn't that weird? I didn't even realize until after, that I'd stopped singing 'I Dreamed a Dream' and 'Master of the House', songs filled with unbearable despair and hostile treachery, respectively, until yesterday, when I was carrying artwork to a friend's place for a project, and found I was marching in tune and singing 'One Day More' a little too loudly, aka people could hear me.

Now, 'One Day More' isn't exactly the happiest song on the planet either. None of Les Miz's songs are exactly cheerful, but the thing about 'One Day More' is its triumphant mood. Which is weird, because its characters are singing about an event that hasn't happened yet, and in most cases, is certain to actually be negative, bloody, and/or heartbreaking. But they're getting pumped anyway.

If you know the story and what eventually occurs when the event comes, you know how ironic some of these verses are. But if you listen to it, you can't help but, for some reason, think the upcoming battle can turn out any way but well. And damn the consequences. Damn the danger. Yeah, you may sweat and bleed, but you will do it while kicking some serious butt.

And I've been seeing things this way too, at least this week. I know that nothing is set, nothing is certain, but for some reason I'm pumped for it.

"Tomorrow we'll discover what our G-d in Heaven has in store. One more dawn, one more day, one day more."

I can't wait to see this movie. Hugh Jackman! Anne Hathaway! They couldn't have picked the cast better. Let's see if it's any good.

"There is a life about to start when tomorrow comes!"

My Wage

I stumbled across this poem during my weekly trip to Zen Pencils:

My Wage
by Jessie B. Rittenhouse

I bargained with life for a penny,
And life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;
For life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.
I worked for a menial's hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of life,
Life would have paid.

It stuck with me like gum in your hair. Haunted me on the way home from work. I scribbled it down into my sketchbook as a reminder. Once in a while, you come across a quote or a poem that you feel is speaking directly to you, where you are, in the time you're experiencing. I got that feeling when I came across this poem; a poet I'd never heard of was trying to teach me something.

In typical me fashion, I failed to attach it to anything having to do with career or work, even though apparently most people do (at least if Google seach results are to be believed). I attached it to what I always do: a search for meaning, love, community, and peace of mind.

I started thinking about the last three months, during which, let's just say, Life and I have been in negotiations over what my wage is to be. I've had to decide: am I going to bargain to be happy now, or later? Am I going to strive to be merely satisfied? Or genuinely happy? Is 'good enough' good enough? Can I bear to set the wages at a penny?

This duality of satisfaction versus happiness reminds me very much of Jeff Smith's awesome comic-book epic, Bone (if you haven't read it, go read it now). In one scene, the Bone cousins Fone Bone and Smiley are captured by the giant puma Roque Ja, the self-proclaimed "master of the eastern border," who demands that the cousins pick a side in the ongoing war between the valley folk and rat creatures. The cat claims that a side and a leader must be followed in order for one people to gain power. And power, he reasons, is the secret to satisfaction.

"A person can be satisfied and still not be happy," the cousins respond.

"I see the problem," Roque Ja replies, "You believe that a person truly can be happy."

I've always loved this scene, mostly because once you get to know these characters, you realize what courage this exchange requires of the Bone cousins (that's how good this book is. You're actually proud of the characters when they do something right). But it also brings to light a question I've had for a long time. Should I content myself with being satisfied, or should I work hard and keep hoping that in the end, there is even the possibility of being happy?

I'm not naive enough to suppose that being happy is a goal to be reached and a state that will just be achieved. But I do believe in an eventual goal of living truly happy with your decisions, and that's when you live a life that's meaningful, within your moral standards... one you've worked hard for, and thought of something bigger, higher, and better than just you. A life you can look back on and say, this was a good life. I did a good job. And it meant something. For me, this is a life where I feel I've found meaning, and where I've done the very best I can, and where I didn't throw myself away to despair, convenience, or denial, and where if I made mistakes or did something self-destructive, I didn't drag others down with me.

So can I stand to bargain with life for a penny?

My answer is heck no. I will not settle for satisfaction. I will strive to be happy. And it's true that this means a few inconveniences, annoyances, and frustrations right now. I've been writing and rewriting the same paper for the last week and a half, and with its hyper-vague instructions, I could just as well have churned out a single draft of crap. But I'm doing it so that I'll get the good grade at semester's end. I've been exploring new communities and meeting new people, trying out new experiences, and visiting old friends when sometimes all I want to do is confine myself to the bubble of the same six or seven people who live within a three block radius of my apartment. But that's convenience, not taking action.

I guess what I'm saying is, I can find a penny any old day on the subway platform, in a gutter, left behind on the counter at Starbucks. I'm looking for something of greater value. If I've learned anything in the past three months, it's that the lowest common denominator comes too easily. It's anywhere you happen to look. Something that's worthwhile takes some work. Happiness takes work. Someone who is satisfied isn't necessarily happy, and heck, their satisfaction is often fleeting. Someone who is happy, I'd say is pretty darn satisfied.

The Megillah Project: Finished!

It's finally finished! The Kohelet project is at long last done, and it feels like a milestone, another chapter finished. Literally, all that's left now of this semester of challenges is time. Three more weeks, and that's it!

Every word of Kohelet was hand-written into this 42-inch-long project, expressing my own past months of questions and searching and plain old not knowing. Now that it's finished, I feel like there's a sense of release, even though none of my questions were actually answered. But that's not to say that there hasn't been growth or progress.

This project was a reaction to the biggest disappointment I've ever suffered. It was a letdown that shook my faith in humanity and even in G-d, and facing it was the most challenging thing I've ever done. I'm not ashamed to admit this, because in stating it out loud, I've also acknowledged it, and faced it head-on. I never denied it was happening, or pushed it off to deal with later. I confronted it face-to-face, came to several decisions, and fought my way through on my own.

And here I am, still confused about a few things, but most definitely past any point where I'm afraid I won't be able to get through it. I did get through it, and I found a lot of new things and had a lot of new experiences along the way. Some were good, some were bad, some were frightening as all heck. But the point is, I had them, and I didn't have to compromise my principles, or change who I am. I'm still me, and I'm still here.

I fought my way through three months of uncertainty and fear, and now I have this project to show for it, one of the most labor-intensive paper-cuts I've ever made. I'm done now. And I never have to look back. And as soon as this semester's over, I can exhale and know that I did the very best I could with the tools I had. Maybe it's a little egotistical, but I'm proud of me.

Summer in San Francisco: The Kickoff and Conclusion

Today is a very big day for me, in both the real-world and cosmic sense.

Today is the day Studio G-dcast releases my video.

In August, I spent two weeks in San Francisco, of which six very intense days were filled by Studio G-dcast, the Jewish-Educational fellowship I'd signed on for. For those of you unfamiliar with G-dcast, you can find all the info you need here, but in a nutshell, they're an awesome organization that creates animated short films based on Jewish topics for use in educational settings. Bible stories, holiday tales, etc.

This summer, they flew in twelve of us college-grad school-age artists, some writer-storytellers and the others animators, to the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco to work long hours and intense sessions reading up on, writing, recording, animating, and directing our own three-four minute Jewish educational short films. Each group of one writer/one animator was assigned a famous story from the Talmud, a few awesome teachers/staff members to work with, supplies, and work space, and told to get to it.

My amazingly amazing animation partner, Adina and I were assigned one of the more difficult stories to work with. Depressing, not all that exciting in terms of action sequence or dialogue, and yet meaningful and thought-provoking. We were pretty much assigned with that most Jewish of all questions, why, G-d, why? Well, at long last, here it is, the fruit of our labor:

Adina and I wrote the script together, and decided we would animate it using the classic Jewish medium and favorite of mine, papercuts. So I got to work, sketching and cutting like some crazed human weed whacker,

Pic courtesy of the Covenant Foundation, Photo taken by Peter Marcus

And with every finished letter, puppet, or scenery piece, Adina had a new item to computer-animate. We chose voice actors and musicians and recorded with them in a professional studio. And after five utterly-exhausting days, we presented our work-in-progress to an audience of Museum donors and G-dcast supporters. It was brutal. (FYI that pic has been featured in articles and stuff! The top of my head is famous!)

By sheer coincidence, or maybe not, it was also the week my life changed from the distinct "last year" to the challenge of "this year." It was the informal kickoff to what would prove to be the most challenging three months of my life (so far. G-d, that's not a hint. Don't take it as one). I received the first of many emotional blows, the first of a few health scares, the first of too many moments of self-doubt. I left for San Francisco naively optimistic, secure, and sure. I returned stressed to my core, uncertain, and eight pounds lighter due to a stomach thing I'd picked up.

This weekend, with the much-anticipated, finally! release of the video we worked so hard on, I naturally started relating it to where I am now. In the past two days, one of my health scares at long last abated (Thank. You. G-d.), and on that front I can breathe easier. I also (finally) came to a few conclusions in the self-worth department. I regained a small sense of the security I thought lost forever back in August, even though it's in an entirely different form. I've gained back a few of the in-total fifteen pounds I dropped in that most unhealthy few months. I'm not the same person I was before San Francisco, though. I doubt I ever will be. And to me, my own process during this semester only makes the video I worked so hard on all the more poignant.

Just like Moshe Rabbeinu in the video, I've also found myself turning to G-d many times recently and asking, "Master of the Universe... such Torah/effort/time/energy/love/determination/prayer (take your pick)... and yet, such a reward?"Only to feel like I'm being met with an order to be silent, for this is what G-d has decided.

I don't know. To me it feels significant. I feel like, with the official release of this video, some part of the last three months has paid off, even if my own major effort with regard to this project was finished back in San Francisco (Thank you, Adina, for your much longer work time!). For some reason, I feel like this is a major hurdle cleared on my race for security, normalcy, and well, life. All I've got to do now is finish that Kohelet project, hand in my last papers, and finish the semester. Call me superstitious or stupid or unrealistically optimistic, but I can't help but feel, in the deepest depths of my gut, that once this semester's run its course, so will have my rough patch, and I'll be back on top, in my true fighting form.

Here We Are Now, No. 2

Chasing Answers: A Prayer

Avinu She BaShamayim (Our Father in Heaven),
Some of us are sleeping in shelters tonight
Others in the comfort of our beds
Three families at least are in unbearable mourning
Countless more are in fear
We prayed for rain, Hashem,
We meant water
We prayed to be united,
We didn't mean under terror
Now, we pray for the hurt to stop for everyone involved
Now, again, we pray for a real, true peace.

Avinu, Malkenu,
I can't imagine what it's like
To live in fear for your life while sirens go off
While mortar and rockets and shells fall
And politicians and fighters promise doom and revenge
I'm absuredly lucky
I'm as blessed as they come
I'm safe and I'm healthy.
I'll try to understand
Try to put myself in their shoes
And pray, pray that they come out okay
Without scars, physical, emotional, or mental
Please watch over them/us/them, please stop this before it gets worse.

Malkenu, Chaneinu,
Help me
And those of us who are lucky
See beyond just the fact that we are lucky
Let us FEEL that we are,
Let us gain the strength and perspective to toss away those stupid hurts
That we just can't seem to shake,
The ones that keep us up at night for the wrong reasons.

Chaneinu, Ma'areinu,
Take them away.
Let us put them behind us, let them stop distracting us
From the fact that this is not real suffering.
Give us the perspective to stop hurting one another
Intentionally or unintentionally,
Give us the tools to think ahead, and make better decisions,
Give us the inability to sit thinking only of ourselves,
Make us demand to be heard,
Make us demand justice, and improvement, and peace, and truth in our words, and an end to pettiness.
Let us unite and see where there is real suffering
And let us end it.

Ki Ein Banu Ma'asim
God, we've done wrong to ourselves and each other
You alone have the power to give sight to the blind,
If there's to be injustice, let us be unable to take it,
Give us an allergy to others' pain.
And if you can't make empathy and action the rule,
Ease the suffering.
Heal the scars, restore the Faith we've lost in each other and the Universe, in You Who is Everywhere.
Because down here, there's nothing we can do,
Arguing doesn't help
Shouting falls on deaf ears
And crying doesn't sway anyone
And the pressure keeps building from stomach to chest to throat to head
We expel what we've swallowed
We dull our pain with whatever's there.
Give us a cure, not a placebo.
Or give us something we CAN do.

Asei imanu tzedakah v'chessed, v'hoshienu.
Give us your charity and kindness, and save us
From ourselves.
I've had enough.
We've had enough.
Haven't You?