Independence Day bits & bobs

A smattering of my postings du jour from around the interwebnet :

• We were actually herded off of the National Mall from 5pm until 7+pm because of thunderstorms. They chased us all into the surrounding museums (we chose the Sackler b/c it has an exhibit my mom had wanted to see), which should have been closing at 5:30 but stayed open (though the lights went out --on the automatic timers!--around 6pm on several floors of the Sackler, and it took them at least 20 min to get them back up) until the point when they got the all-clear and could close up the museum and chase us all back out again...

• Over here:

It's easy to forget how uncertain the future of this new nation seemed, and how very much stood in our way. Even the optimists among the founders might have thought it would be too much to hope, to think that their creation, with its "new birth of liberty," would be here to celebrate its 231st birthday.

I've had a thing or two to say on SunDog's other 4th of July thread and no1's To All the Vets thread --

but I'll go ahead and say some of it again --

Happy 4th to all!

I am thinking right now of all that America meant to the poet and writer Stephen Vincent Benét -- he was no politician, but to me he understood what our country is, has been, and can be better than any other thinker I know (though yes, de Tocqueville, Crevecoeur, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, and more had some pretty darn good ideas & words for us too!).

My father loves Benét's work, and gave me a middle name (Melora) after a character in his epic poem John Brown's Body...but he also gave me this shared dream of our country, and a shared sense of pride in its successes and responsibility for its failings -- with the power and the obligation to work to sustain the former and redress the latter.

I've posted an excerpt from his Independence Day 1941 radio drama "Listen to the People" over in the thread To All the Vets, and I'll just share part of it here with you now (with emphasis on some of my favorite lines):

We made this thing, this dream,
This land unsatisfied by little ways,
This peaceless vision, groping for the stars,
Not as a huge devouring machine
Rolling and clanking with remorseless force
Over submitted bodies and the dead
But as live earth where anything could grow,
Your crankiness, my notions and his dream,
Grow and be looked at, grow and live or die.
But get their chance of growing and the sun.
We made it and we make it and it's ours.
We shall maintain it. It shall be sustained.

Happy Independence Day to everyone, all around the world --

today we Americans celebrate the creation of this nation,
but it is also the creation of a certain kind of dream that has inspired many across the globe:

a dream of free women and men, bound by a common hope rather than a common bloodline or territory,
free to dream their own dreams and to put their hands to making them a reality
for themselves and for their children, for those they know and those they have never met,
for those who share their language and culture and for those who seek refuge here as strangers in a strange land--
until they find their home here, create their home here, both joining and transforming our common dream.

We shall maintain it. It shall be sustained.

• (edited from here)

I love the national ideals that our flag embodies--

but I fear and deplore what some have done in its name or under its cover, and I will fight to maintain that it belongs to me and to others as much as to them.
...
I love the flag because it is a symbol of our nation -- the "land of the free and the home of the brave," yes, but I actually prefer the words of "America the Beautiful," because to me they speak more powerfully and fully to what our nation is and is about (particularly the sections I italicize here):

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassion'd stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness.

America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

O beautiful for heroes prov'd
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.

America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev'ry gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.


(lyrics by Katherine Lee Bates;
music composed by Samuel A. Ward)

A Little Bit of History....
The lyrics to this beautiful song were written by Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) an instructor at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, after an inspiring trip to the top of Pikes Peak, Colorado, in 1893. Her poem, America the Beautiful first appeared in print in The Congregationalist, a weekly journal, on July 4, 1895. Ms. Bates revised the lyrics in 1904 and again in 1913. In addition to those changes in the words, it is notable that the poem was not always sung to the tune presented on this website ("Materna," composed by Samuel A. Ward in 1882, nearly a decade before the poem was written). In fact, for two years after it was written it was sung to just about any popular or folk tune that would fit with the lyrics, with "Auld Lang Syne" being the most notable of those. The words were not published together with "Materna" until 1910, and even after that time, the tune to be used was challenged to some degree. For example, in 1926 the National Federation of Music Clubs held a contest to put the poem to new, reportedly "less somber," music, but no other entry was determined to be more acceptable. Before her death in 1929, Ms. Bates never indicated publicly which music she liked best, but it now appears likely that America the Beautiful will forever be associated with "Materna."
(source)

Ikh hob lib yidish (un RUSH!)

Sholem-aleykhem, yidish-redners!

Ikh bin geven afn konsert fun RUSH nekhtn in Nissan Pavilion -- un ikh hob getrogt mayn "REDT MIT MIR YIDISH" knepl [button: tsi nutst men dos vort af pin-button un nisht nor af kleyder-knepl?] af mayn "RUSHTOUR.COM" hemdl. (Vayls 's iz mer kheynevdik vi mayn "MAYDELE" hemdl, vos iz a bisl groys af mir.) Baym hofsoke hob ikh bashlisn az ikh darf es gebn tsu Geddy Lee (der zinger un basist), vos is a flisik yidish-redner (zayn eltern hobn geshtamt fun Poyln, un hobn ibergelebt di lagers un gevoynt in Toronto). Azoy hob ikh es gegebn -- mit eyn fun mayne arbet-kartlekh af dem -- tsu eyn shoymer [? security guard] vos hot gezogt az er vet ez gebn tsu emetsn vos ken es im gebn. Nohkn konsert hor er gezogt az er hot es gegebn dem tour manager, vos hot gezogt az er vet es gebn tsu Geddy. Az, ver veyst!

Afn kartl hob ikh geshribn mayn kontakt-informatsye (arayngerekht di dozike blog-adres, az: oyb du leynst dos, Geddy--a grus aykh un di gantse mishpokhe!), un oykhet di datn fun Yidish-Vokh 2007 un www.yugntruf.org far informatsye. Vayl ikh meyn az oyb Geddys mame hot lib tsu zayn mit andere yidish-redners in a sheynem ort, volt zi take hanoe hobn fun Y-V. Un oyb ir zun (oder zin: mistome zayn bruder redt yidish oykhet) vil kumen...dos volt geven gor sheyn un a shpas!

Mikhl-Avrom hot mir gekoyft a bas mit a vokh tsurik. Ikh ken vern a musikant un nisht nor a zinger/vokalist! (lol) Az, itst muzn mir zikh greytn tsu zayn a gute "cover band" far zakhn af yidish -- RUSH lider, dakht zikh, ober mir hobn oykhet an interes in farshidene andere (Pat Benatar: oftmol zingt Mikhl-Avrom af yidish nor di shure "mir loyfn mit di shotns fun der nakht"; ua"v). :)

Ikh kuk shtark aroys af di ha-yorike Yidish-Vokh. Mir hobn es farfeln di letste 2 yor, un dos is geven a shod. Az ha-yor viln mir kumen af di sof-vokh, un ikh meyn az 's darf zayn meglekh!

Midrash, metaphor, and Messiah

A "Liberal Buddhist Agnostic Christian"(did I get that right, Scott?) of my online acquaintance has posted a discussion about midrash (and how it might affect understandings of the New Testament) on some messageboards I frequent. In the ensuing discussion, I added the following in response to a more traditional Christian's post:

A quick thought from a Jew, not a Christian:

Understanding some of the gospel accounts midrashically can add to our common Scriptural ground, where you & I "agree to disagree" about Jesus as the son of God/a divine member of the Trinity vs. as a gifted human teacher. I have no particular stake in persuading you that Jesus did not, say, turn water into wine, walk on water, raise Lazarus from the dead -- just as I have no particular stake in persuading some Orthodox Jews that the Torah we have is not the product of God's dictation to Moses on Mount Sinai, or that Abraham and Sarah observed the Jewish dietary laws and other elements of halakhah (Jewish law) long before they were revealed at Sinai [which is a story contained in Jewish midrash]. But if I don't believe those things, a midrashic understanding of them gives us some common basis on which we can discuss them as having spiritual significance, rather than my saying "well, I don't believe that's literally true, so it's false/nonsense/'a lie.'" My main academic background is in literary interpretation (and in Jewish Studies: so I do read Hebrew, some Greek, and a little Aramaic [at this point], as well as Yiddish, Spanish, French, some German, and can make my way with Italian and some medieval/simpler Latin) -- most of the texts I love and that say, to me, "true" things about the world, are fiction or poetry: their facts are not always literally true (even real experiences put into a poem or story may be altered in some way), but that doesn't mean that they're false. Plato thought this was the case (poets are liars, so they get banished from his Republic) -- but I disagree. :)

That said, since I'm NOT a scholar of the New Testament I can't speak definitively without more research, but I suspect that at least some of Jesus's followers and those who wrote down or transmitted the Gospel accounts did in fact believe in a more "literal" understanding of what we see there: that Jesus really did turn water into wine, or heal the sick. Some people believe in various kinds of miraculous occurrences today: faith healing, miraculous rescue, divine apparitions in everyday objects, etc. Schmoo and I may see such things more metaphorically, but that doesn't mean there aren't others that do take them literally. But our willingness to see them as important -- rather than saying, as a pure logical rationalist might, that such stories only show the folly of believers and how duped they are -- means that we can share in a common love and exploration of these religious texts and traditions with you.

The New Testament is not part of my religious tradition, except inasmuch as it grows out of it -- it is, however, part of my cultural and literary heritage as part of the Western world, and I treasure it for both of these aspects.

Shalom,

MiriyaB

...sheg’malani kol tov (...who has granted me all kindness)

My husband and I got to "bentsh gomel" this morning at synagogue.

On Thursday night, returning after drinks with friends at a bar in theNew Haven neighborhood we used to live in (the "grad ghetto"), my husband and I were robbed at gunpoint. But we're fine--and that's the important part. His wallet, my purse and its contents, even my wedding ring (which is the loss that stings most to me right now: I'm just glad they didn't take my husband's, which is of the same design, commissioned from a jewelry-maker in Vicenza, Italy on a visit there a few months before our wedding, almost 10 years ago) -- these are just objects; these can be replaced or lived without. Human life? Irreplaceable.

Ritualwell posts the Birkat Ha-Gomel (traditional prayer of thanks recited by someone who has survived a dangerous situation) in both masculine and feminine God-language here.

May God bless and keep you...

There's a discussion going on over at the Shefa Network about Birkat Kohanim. Here's the 2 cents' worth I had to contribute:

For what it's worth, until 1991 (my first year of college) I had never been in a shul where Birkat Kohanim occurred at any point--and these were all shuls that DID give Kohen & Levi aliyot, not rishon & sheni.

At the student-led egalitarian Conservative high holiday services my roommate and I went to, she was apparently the only person (male or female) whose father was a kohen and so could perform Birkat Kohanim. Her parents had not been observant Jews and had raised her without much of a religious upbringing, but she had become far more interested in traditional Judaism and had in fact been keeping kosher since 10th grade (telling her parents she was becoming vegetarian, since bad blood between them & an Orthodox relative made her reluctant to thrust her new observance in their faces). In this case, the tradition of having the person pronouncing the blessing be "fed" it word by word had exactly the desired effect: having never performed this ritual before -- indeed, probably never having seen it performed before either -- she was able to convey this blessing to all of us, without concern about whether she would remember all of the words. It was a wonderful moment.

Since then, I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen birkat kohanim done in any shul of any sort*, but in many of those places it had been added to the practices of the shul or minyan relatively recently, having either never been done or not done within memory of anyone there.

Me, I can take it or leave it -- as with kohen-levi aliyot vs. rishon-sheni -- as long as all those whose fathers are kohanim or levi'im (i.e., including b'not kohen/levi) have these ritual roles/honors extended to them regardless of gender.

But I concur in the understanding that several have voiced here that birkat kohanim, which is extended through but not on behalf of the kohanim, need not be anathema in a shul that dispenses with kohen/levi aliyot -- as well as in thinking that other ways of conveying this blessing may also be valuable in making the members of the congregation feel the impact of receiving this blessing in some way that is more striking or immediate than its recitation by the shaliach as part of ordinary Amidah repetition.

* Those occasions were:

• Rosh Hashanah at an egalitarian Conservative syagogue in Albany, NY (done by both women and men whose fathers are kohanim);
• a Sukkot service of traditional egalitarian Conservative minyan members in a friend's backyard in Washington DC (both men and women whose fathers are kohanim -- though I heard some grumbling/challenging from some traditionalist men re: having a bat kohen up there);
• high holiday services at a Conservative synagogue in Maryland (egalitarian shul, though only men were up there; according to one authority I asked afterwards, b'not kohen are also allowed to do so -- but I heard from others that at some point in the past a bat kohen had done so & then been given some grief about it);
• chag services at Young Israel in Manhattan (Orthodox, not egalitarian, so only men);
• Pesach services at a Chabah shul in Cleveland (ditto).
  

"I Love Organized Religion"

You might think that all I do is rant about religious matters on some band's messageboard.

Some nights, I think you'd be right.

In response to one defense of Organized Religion, I felt moved to add:

In my circles, there are 20-and-30something Jews who are Too Cool For Shul and want to express their Jewish identity in various non-synagogue forms (which I have no problem with, and am sometimes part of) AND only talk trash about the established/pre-existing religious & cultural institutions (& why they can't be bothered to be part of them or work to improve them instead of Taking Their Toys & Going Home -- which I do have a problem with).

That's all well and good, while you're young & healthy & life's going well.

And yeah, you might rather hang out with each other right now than with the bourgeois mommies (and their aging mothers & dads) at the Big Suburban Synagogue I work at...

But that Big Suburban Synagogue has, among other things:

-- clergy who always take care of community members, visiting the sick in the hospital and the ill at home;
-- an active Social Action Committee whose projects feed the hungry, clothe the needy, cheer the wounded and lonely, and try to make the world a better place;
-- a Caring Committee that brings meals to members who are sick or who are in mourning;
-- a Special Needs Committee that tries to make sure that no one in the community is kept from being part of Jewish life & activities at the shul because of physical, developmental, or other handicaps or challenges

... and these forms of organization help its members care for one another.

Trash-tralking hipsters have the luxury of ignoring this structure in part because they expect it to be there for them if/when they need it -- not considering the fact that if they keep themselves aloof from it, it may not be.

Yeah, I know -- sounds like the opposite of my complaint 2 posts ago about the Organized Jewish Community not getting what 20-and-30-somethings are up to & why it won't kill them. Eilu v'eilu ("these and these [are the words of the living God]"; Eruvin 13b) -- there's truth to both.

"Be A Proud Jew": MiriyaB Gets Mad

She was a vixen when she went to school,
And though she be but little, she is fierce.

I put these lines from A Midsummer Night's Dream on my senior yearbook page. I have the feeling they continue to apply.

When I get mad, I get mad. And I just got mad.

Another Jewish member of one messageboard I'm part of posted this, under the heading ""Be a Proud Jew", So Says Ron Blomberg.......":

For those who never heard of Ron Blomberg, he played for the Yankees from 1969-1976. He was the first DH in MLB history, and happens to be Jewish.

He was doing a signing today in White Plains, NY and I took Sammy [his 6-yr-old son] to go see him. Sam has no idea who he is, but I do, and we got an autograph. We greeted him by saying Shalom, and I had told Sammy that he is Jewish. When we left Ron looked at Sam and said "be a proud Jew". It was great to hear this from a ballplayer of my youth, and even greater to know he has not forgotten his roots.

Among the replies from one of the other members of the board was the following:

"I thought most peeps had moved beyond ethno-cultural identification as a determinant of self.

I guess I was wrong."

I was Not Pleased. And let my Rather Extreme Displeasure be known in more or less the following words:

I thought most peeps might understand if another peep finds it meaningful that a childhood hero encourages them & their progeny in positively embracing an ethno-cultural identification that has, in the past century alone, been the basis for subjecting members of that group to legal discrimination, lynching, and genocide.

I guess I was wrong.

Besides that -- there's also nothing wrong with valuing a cultural, ethnic, and/or religious heritage for particular and specific positive elements within it. To say "Be a proud Jew" [Mexican, Pole, American...or heck, other identifiers of whatever distinguishing sort, particularly if ever stigmatized by others: queer, fat girl, weirdo] is, to me, a perfectly acceptable shorthand for not hating what others have used as a reason to hate, and finding the elements in that identity (which is never, and need never be, your sole identity or an impediment to your individuality--it is, rather, a part of your individuality) that you value and embrace.

I'm sure it means different things to different people -- me, my husband (a convert to Judaism), any kids we may have, etc. -- but to be free to embrace that aspect, along with others? Not to think of it as something negative to hide? Yeah, I do hope for that.

Sorry: I think you Just Don't Get It.

I'm really kinda p.o.'d (maybe you can tell?) -- I don't hold it against you personally -- and I'm far from saying that as a Jew growing up in DC & KY in the '80s & '90s & living in 21st-century America, I have it sooooo tough as compared to Lots Of People (especially members of more "obviously Othered" groups, particularly if based on highly visible identifiers like skin color) -- but I'm guessing that you're not part of a minority/historically discriminated-against ethno-cultural group.

How would you like to wonder if your new school-friend, who's African-American, is going to hate you when she learns you're Jewish, because of fraught public interactions between the Black & Jewish communities that have nothing to do with these 2 like-minded 7th-grade girls -- but could still give her a reason to see you as an enemy? (Thankfully, that wasn't how she saw it.)

How would you like to grow up having nightmares--not often, but now & again--about being dragged first off of the hijacked plane, along with all the others of Your Kind, because you're singled out as being hated?

How would you like spend your childhood knowing that with a move of countries or decades, you could have your opportunities and freedoms curtailed (Soviet refuseniks, anyone? not to mention that even here, many fields [including academia], jobs, neighborhoods, social clubs, etc., remained closed or limited in their acceptance of Jews until at least the 1960s) -- presuming that you weren't just killed outright?

How would you like to be told you're going to hell because Your People believe the wrong thing?

Or how would you like being told -- in 1996, in Oxford, by a female grad student from Northern Ireland for crying out loud! who you would think would know better -- to watch out when you go to Israel because "you know, those people are supposed to be so clever with money." (Hello? Are you totally unaware that I and one of your best buddies in the college are Jewish? Apparently so!)

How about having to wonder whether it's safe, in a particular time & place & context (Berlin, Budapest, Paris, Istanbul; bright daylight, nighttime; lots of people around or just a few), to be an Identifiable Jew -- to be wearing a kippah, or be seen with my kippah-wearing husband, or whether we'd better wear hats over them?

Funny? Or just sad? Hard to say...