Opinion

No promises to reach goals

Imagine being in a meeting where everyone is asked to set “reach” goals for the next season. How about those self-help gurus who invite you to visualize your ultimate success? Perhaps there’s a social media post where you’re invited to dream, with reels of beautiful drivers in fancy cars, enormous luxury estates and vacations in exotic locales.

I was once part of an online writing group that emphasized setting goals. This included how many words you’d write a day, where you’d sell your work and how much you would earn. They repeated a refrain: “Writing is a positive addiction.” I retained a healthy cynicism about it all, but the thing I actually fell for was an exercise where you drew the cover of the book you were creating.

I drew the cover of the novel manuscript I was writing. Now, I’m happy to say that, since then, I’ve published books (all non-fiction) and articles with reputable publishers. I once won a fiction short story contest. I’m an actual writer and get paid for my work. I’m proud of this achievement! It’s also a real milestone for many who start out as grade school scribblers.

But, despite many attempts, I never sold that novel manuscript. Those who read it said it was good – but it remains unpublished. That book cover I posted above my desk for motivation makes me feel embarrassed. Who did I think I was? It’s hard for me to let go of my goals and cut myself a break. I held myself accountable.

This feeling of shame grew when I had a family because, as anyone with kids knows, it’s hard to make solid promises when dependents are in the picture. Even with family, spousal and childcare support, things can happen. The pandemic reminded us all that we have much less control over our lives than we thought. Sick kids happen. My children’s needs will always come before my work. There are no guarantees that you’ll always meet that deadline or reach the goals you set.

All this came to mind as I studied the Babylonian Talmud tractate Nedarim (Vows) and got to daf (page) 9. Nedarim is all about how to understand a vow, which, in Judaism, is taken very seriously. The rabbis explore definitions of how a vow works. Even though I’d never been taught these texts directly before, I have always hesitated to promise things that perhaps I can’t deliver. Just as we should not “swear” to things, we shouldn’t even promise anything if we think something might come up.

In Nedarim 9b, there’s a question about making a vow when it comes to bringing an offering. This itself could be strange, as the rabbis in the Gemara are reflecting on a time they never experienced. Very few of these rabbis were alive before the destruction of the Temple. They’re still concerned with the protocol of bringing an offering there, just in case the Temple is rebuilt. The real lesson is in how it’s theoretically done, even if no one’s ever making a physical offering again.

A person shouldn’t make a vow to bring an offering, the Gemara says, because “perhaps he will encounter a stumbling block” that would violate the prohibition against delaying. That delay would interfere with fulfilling the vow. Further, it’s a bad idea to designate a specific animal for the offering in advance because, again, something might happen to it. For instance, say it is a sheep, but it’s shorn by someone by accident. Perhaps someone works with a consecrated animal in some way when he shouldn’t. This is a misuse of a consecrated animal, and it’s prohibited. The animal can no longer be used as an offering.

Then, a story is told about Hillel the Elder. No one ever misused his offering. Why? He would bring it to the Temple courtyard unconsecrated. Only after he arrived, would he consecrate it. Then he’d place his hand on its head and slaughter it. There was no opportunity for misuse.

Upon reading this, I better understood my hesitancy in terms of big goals. The generations of parents who said to their children “We’ll see” rather than promising things? This made good sense. The rabbis understood the concern that sometimes even sure things fall through.

Some traditionally religious Jews say “bli neder,” or “without a vow,” when committing to something. It means – I’ll try to the best of my abilities, but I’m not making a serious vow. I’ve never used this, but it has such power. Yes, we all want to reach milestones and accomplish huge things. Absolutely! However, it can be heartbreaking when we don’t quite get there, even if we have valid reasons for why we didn’t.

It can be anti-climactic to be like Hillel the Elder. After all, there was no announcement, anticipation or build up for him around his vows. It was very low key.

I remembered something similar that happened long ago, when I was an undergraduate. Friends doing science degrees would plan big parties after their last exams, bar-hopping and celebrating when the semester ended. I often had only one or two exams. Mostly, I wrote many final papers in my dorm room. With stacks of books everywhere, I’d write alone at my computer each morning. Then, I’d print the paper, walk across campus and put it in a professor’s mailbox. That was it. When the last paper was finished, boom, end of my semester. No big announcement or party followed. I packed up by myself and traveled home.

Sometimes Jewish texts can be hard to connect to, because the issues seem old, irrelevant or don’t include me as a woman. This time, though, I was right there with the rabbis’ stumbling blocks and the low-key anti-climax of Hillel the Elder. I wish that everyone could hit those big reach goals and fulfil their aspirations – but perhaps we might not voice them as promises ahead of time. According to the rabbis, that quieter approach is entirely OK, too.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Overcoming diabetes

Two years ago, I was 58 years old, weighed 200 pounds and was in a wheelchair because of chronic ankle pain when my doctor told me I had diabetes. Six months later, I was 20 pounds lighter and my blood glucose level had lowered so much that I was considered pre-diabetic. This meant that diabetes was no longer harming my body.

One of the first things I did was to cut out refined sugar, honey and junk food from my diet. This was not easy, as I grew up with a mother whose idea of making you feel better was to give you food like waffles with maple syrup and Sephardi delicacies like zangoola – deep fried pastry filled with treacle – on Hanukkah. But, with the help of a dietician, I lowered the amount of carbohydrates and sugar that I ate. She said that I could have artificial sweetener in my tea, so I decided to do that.

I noticed that food tasted better when my overall diet had very little sugar added. I also made sure to have a lot of vegetables with my meals. I treated myself to a simple spinach omelette with feta cheese and tomatoes almost every week.

I ate strawberries, blueberries and cantaloupe instead of high fructose fruits like watermelon. But I made sure to cheat a bit, too, at least once a week, with a few squares of fruit-and-nut dark chocolate. Whenever I went kayaking and got a good workout for an hour-and-a-half, I rewarded myself with a small chocolate ice cream.

If I can’t see it I won’t eat it! My husband eats ice cream and I asked him to put it at the very back of the freezer so I can’t see it. He also has a special cubbyhole where he puts his snacks that are high in carbs.

I spent some time on the Diabetes Canada website and found a chart there that tells you what food to eat some of the time, what food to eat most of the time and what foods to avoid altogether, which was very helpful.

Going to restaurants is still possible. When I order salads, I always ask the server to leave the dressing on the side, since dressings are sometimes high in sugar. I also found out that all sit-down restaurants have a nutrition guide, which will tell you how many carbohydrates or sugars are in their foods.

The second thing I did was find a diabetes clinic that had a case manager and an endocrinologist that I could see for free. I can’t say how important it was to find a specialist who knew so much about the disease and was so optimistic that I could lower my blood glucose level. He gave me a blood glucose monitor for free for two weeks and, during this time, I found out which foods spiked my levels and which foods didn’t. Everyone is different.

It took about six weeks but after trying three different drugs I was finally given one I could tolerate and that I could get on special authority so I didn’t have to pay for it. My pharmacist insists that it was the drug that lowered my blood sugar level from 6.8 to 6.2 in six months. I think other factors helped, too.

I found that exercising for even 15 minutes a day made a difference in my weight. There are unlimited exercises on the internet that you can do while sitting. And if you Google “exercises for seniors,” you will find many examples.

I started swimming twice a week. Swimming increases blood flow and tones almost all of the muscles in your body. Also, I figured that during the two hours I was getting ready to swim, then swimming, then going into the whirlpool and sauna – if that didn’t take the pounds off, at least I wasn’t eating for that amount of time!

I tried five different indoor swimming pools in Vancouver and they all had lifts that take you out of your wheelchair and into the pool. It’s different at outdoor pools though. It’s best to call ahead and see if they have the equipment that’s required.

I found social media helpful, as well, especially Facebook, since there are a few different pages for people who have diabetes. It was helpful to know that I was not alone – while also being cautious, since there were people who really wanted to make money off of my condition.

Now I am 60 years old and I can walk again. I am hoping to lose more weight so that I will be able to walk pain-free. I’m still getting medical treatments and I am hopeful that I will slowly but surely get rid of my diabetic belly. Here’s to hoping!

Cassandra Freeman is a freelance writer living in Vancouver.

Being vs. feeling old

Being old! That is so different from feeling old. Being old is what I think of other people, or what others may think of me. Feeling old is so much more personal. Feeling old is something that has crept up on me so much more recently.

I have noticed being old for a long time, as the ranks of my contemporaries has been thinning out. But now, I am noticing how the distances I want to cover, have to cover, seem so much further away. I am much slower in my reach, slower to pick up things, slower to get up and go. When did I develop that tremor that I never noticed before? Why do I not recall the name, the word, that I used to instantly recall? What’s happening? I must be getting old. It makes me feel old.

I have always reveled in the richness of my memories – memories of things that so many around me have not the least idea about. My past has become an irrelevancy. I have had to comfort myself with the private knowledge that the present all of us so take for granted is based on what I and my contemporaries had built so solidly in the past. If we were to dare recount our triumphs, we would be written off as old bores.

I find I now have a reluctance to add new articles to my closet. What I have there are the things I put on like old companions, which wrap me in comfort. The odds and ends I have accumulated are the precious reminders of my days of derring-do, when I traveled to the heart of darkness without a thought to the dangers that were present on every side. Those days we knew we were immortal.

Like the just desserts for the conquering hero, I earned my reward, albeit at the age of 71. Correcting the errors and omissions of a callow youth, lacking the courage of my convictions, throwing caution to the winds, I gained the love and companionship of my true love after an interregnum of more than 50 years. Thereafter, I had to learn how to appreciate the needs of others as the road to ultimately meeting my own. It took the reasoning and wisdom of advancing age, and altered priorities, to gain the knowledge that enabled me to reengineer the person that I was.

Each day, we launch our enterprise to meet the challenges of life. If the objective is to fill the pantry or the fridge, we count it a victory if we return home without having forgotten any of the items on the grocery list we carried in our minds. If we meet up with others to share a community activity, we count ourselves brilliant if we remember the names of our comrades. We have taken to the practice of notation to ensure we do not miss birthdays and anniversaries of even our closest kin. If all else fails, we resort to internet searches to compensate for any breaches we may come across in the things we surely know by heart. It is always a joint product as we seek to light the fires of memory in each other.

We are engaged in the habit of doing puzzles. I hate puzzles, but they are one of the medicines I faithfully take to counter the breaches in my armour that have accumulated over time. We exercise. Ditto to my personal appreciation of the activity. We socialize. I am most happy at home with a book or an exciting mystery or bang-up violence on my TV.

I do like to be surrounded by younger folk. That gives me a charge. The spontaneity of children is just marvelous to behold. And they are so beautiful to behold. I am sure having them in one’s life keeps one young, even if they sometimes tire you out. It is a good tired!

Generally, I happily do all those things the doctors tell us are good for our health. But no serious food exclusions. I am sure I will expire consuming one of those things we have been warned is bound to bring us to the edge of existence. I bear these admonitions in mind but am an inveterate cheater. Even if the time comes sooner, we have had a good run and I will go out smiling. (Don’t tell my wife, because she absolutely won’t hear of my going off without her.)

Some of us may miss the cut and thrust of being out in the world, struggling with the demons we all have to face, but it is a relief, in the end, to no longer worry about what might be happening behind our backs. We gaze out at the world more or less secure.

Being old without feeling old is the secret, isn’t it?

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

Concerning elections

On Remembrance Day, we reflect on the sacrifices made by Canadians who fought to defend freedom. Many of us recall the solemnity of our childhoods standing in a school auditorium, first beginning to understand the meaning behind the poem “In Flanders Fields” and the moment of silence.

Similar ceremonies occur worldwide, including in places where the loss of life in wars has been far greater and more recent than our nation’s experience.

At the same time, it is impossible not to reflect on how some of the messages of tolerance, coexistence and peace seem to have been lost on leaders of various countries – as well as those who vote for them.

Across Europe, the Americas and some other places, extremism is growing. Far-right governments in Italy, Poland and Hungary advance xenophobic and scapegoating policies. While not yet reaching the highest echelons of power, far-right groups in Germany and France are growing in popularity. The defeat of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s extreme-right and volatile president, is a bright spot, though the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat him only by a hair, demonstrated in his previous term as president that he is also no archetype of impeccable governance.

Enormously alarming were this week’s midterm elections in the United States. More than half of the Republican candidates for Congress and state offices, including crucial officials who oversee election processes, are “election deniers” who claim that the 2020 presidential race was not rightfully won by Joe Biden. The refusal of the former president to acknowledge defeat and accede to the peaceful transition of power, hand-in-hand with the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, represent the greatest threat to American democracy since that country’s Civil War. The last two years have shown how fragile this form of governance is and how dependent it is on the goodwill of its participants to abide by the rules and accept the will of the people. The fact that about half of American voters don’t seem the least bit bothered by this reality is the scariest part.

Then, and by no means least, are the results of Israel’s most recent national elections. The good news is that, after five elections in three years, the country will apparently have a stable coalition government. The bad news is that it will include individuals whose political and moral values should be scorned by people who support democracy, pluralism and respect. Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the third-largest bloc, was forbidden from serving in the Israel Defence Forces because military leaders deemed him too extreme. Until he decided to get serious about politics, Ben-Gvir had a framed photo in his home of Baruch Goldstein, the extremist who murdered 29 Palestinians in Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994. His policies include annexing the West Bank and forcibly expelling (at least some of) its residents, an idea that is, put mildly, against international law, and would almost certainly lead to a serious regional conflagration.

Israelis must deal with the situation they have created. Diaspora Jews and other supporters of Israel have a tough row to hoe as well.

Jewish organizations worldwide have issued unprecedented statements of concern and condemnation about internal Israeli affairs. There has always been tension, ranging from a low simmer to a full boil, between Israel and the Diaspora over a vast range of issues. Israelis, we must state, are the ones who put their lives, and those of their children, on the line to defend the Jewish state and they alone have the right to determine its direction. This does not mean, however, that the opinions and concerns of overseas family and allies do not matter.

Israel has always lacked dependable overseas allies. In far too many instances, this has been an unfair situation driven by geopolitical issues and, to an extent, bigotry and antisemitism. But Israel is not entirely blameless in its isolation. Decades ago, Golda Meir said, “I prefer to stay alive and be criticized than be sympathized.” Sometimes, Israel needs to make unpopular choices in the interest of its security.

There are moments when Israel’s hand has been forced, when its leaders have made choices that are unpopular among outside observers but deemed necessary for national security. This is not one of those moments. Israeli voters have chosen some extremely unsavoury people to represent them. They have sown the wind. It is the responsibility of decent people in Israel and abroad – including Jewish institutions – to advocate for tolerance and human rights in order to moderate the inevitable storm.

New learning, old discoveries

On Sundays, we work together as a family to clean the house. We’ve just moved to an historic home that is in the midst of renovations. We aren’t fixing the house to create new modern luxury, but rather so that all the plumbing works and nothing freezes in the wintertime. We’re excited about creating updated versions of what this house might have looked like when it was built in 1913 – with necessary improvements like removing knob and tube wiring and asbestos, as well as insulating and fixing pipes.

A friend was excited about the house’s historic details. She said her husband wouldn’t consider moving to an older home because of ghosts. While I won’t belittle anyone, I’m not particularly worried about ghosts in old houses. Instead, I love knowing that people lived, died, gave birth and had many important, regular and extraordinary life events, both happy and sad, inside these same walls. Imagining past inhabitants who washed their faces at the sink, ate meals in the dining room or celebrated birthdays with loved ones, just as we do, gives me great joy.

Like any house, ours has its creaks and groans. It’s perhaps worse than usual because we’re new here. We haven’t yet effectively bled the radiators. Maybe we don’t always properly close a storm window. This morning I heard sounds, but I suspect there’s a squirrel in the attic. Even this annoying intruder reminds me that our family’s not the first one here. Hopefully, not the last either, although I hope we can get the squirrel to leave first!

When I think about Jewish tradition, it’s a lot like this opportunity to inhabit an old house. Judaism is old, but as each of us “moves in” to our identity or tradition and makes a place for ourselves, both the tradition and the people grow and change. Jewish practice isn’t exactly the same as it was 2,000 years ago, no matter how much some people would like it to be. Similarly, when we’re done fixing up our old house, it will be different, functional for today, and perhaps even better than when we got here. The same, but different, and that’s OK.

I reflected on this when we hit this Jewish month of Heshvan, sometimes called by its older name, likely connected to Akkadian, Marheshvan. In English, this could be translated to “Bitter Heshvan.” As time passed, language changed. With the connections to other ancient languages forgotten, the rabbis called this month “bitter” because, in their understanding, it didn’t contain any big holidays. To some, this might be a relief after the fall High Holidays and, to others, it’s a weird thing to say. Shabbat still happens every week and that’s important, too. There’s even a little-observed Ashkenazi tradition, the Fast of Behav, which I just learned about while writing this column, and it happens during Heshvan.

This learning process is one of those chances where I realized Judaism can grow and change just as we do with our old house. A year ago, I wrote about Heshvan as the time when I would begin to learn to chant Torah – and, yes, while I still have a long way to go, I learned to do that well enough to read Torah twice.

This year, I realized that, actually, Heshvan isn’t mar or bitter due to a lack of holidays because Sigd is on the 29th of Heshvan. As of 2008, Sigd is an official holiday in Israel. It’s a Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jewish) holiday, 50 days after Yom Kippur, and it celebrates the acceptance of Torah. Today, it’s celebrated by fasting, reciting psalms and gathering in Jerusalem to hear the Kessim (priests, like the Kohanim) read the Orit (the Octateuch, or eight biblical books: the five books of the Torah, plus the books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth). Then, when the ritual ends, it’s time to break the fast, dance and celebrate.

I learned this from Wikipedia and other sources online. I haven’t experienced this in Israel or met Jews who celebrate the holiday. However, that doesn’t mean the holiday doesn’t exist! Our tradition has multiple ways to celebrate and observe. For instance, many Jewish organizations take two days off for some holidays, even though only part of the Jewish community observes for two days. Many Jews don’t observe minor fast days, such as the Fast of Behav, which I just heard of today.

How do Heshvan and Sigd relate to living in an old house? Living in old houses has offered me so many ways to learn the social histories of our ancestors. Discovering the plumbing of a bedroom sink, long removed, or a window that was blocked off during a renovation helps me see not only how the original owners of the house used it, but also how subsequent families and businesses chose to reinvent their living spaces. While we can’t understand everything about their lives, we find reminders of the past that can inform us now.

In my house, the contractors recently removed the quarter-sawn oak flooring of a room to deal with the water damage from a long-ago flood. We found a 1925 penny on the subfloor. Perhaps it fell out of the pocket of the house’s first owner, a doctor, as he undressed, or a worker lost it during a renovation. That penny was produced nearly 100 years ago, but 12 years after the house was built. Sometime later, it fell between the boards.

We’re often so immersed in our rituals, as family members, congregants or people in a particular ethnic or national group, that we miss out on other ways to enrich our knowledge and traditions. If we look beyond the easy, and later, interpretation of the word Marheshvan and consider its Akkadian roots, or the diverse holidays that in fact do happen this time of year, we can turn around this bitter message.

Wishing you a happy Heshvan, full of both new learning and old discoveries.

Israel’s best revenge

In an email briefing this week, the English-language news platform Times of Israel declared: “UN releases 2nd damning report on Israel; real estate soars.”

These were two unrelated stories. The United Nations had unveiled another in its persistent condemnations of the Jewish state and, on a completely different issue, it reported that Israeli housing prices have spiked 19% this year over last – the largest jump in recorded history.

As curious as this combination of stories was, it could hardly compete with an adjacent mashup about two of Israel’s leading far-right politicians, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the latter of whom, in an apparent effort at humanizing himself, appeared on a cooking program: “Ben-Gvir stuffs peppers and Smotrich proposes legal reforms.”

But, returning to the first items. The connection between UN condemnation of Israel and soaring real estate prices in Israel may be remote but perhaps not random. In any country, high real estate prices indicate a demand for housing that is larger than the supply, a situation due in part to rising economic prosperity (which is not generally shared equally, it should be said, and is too complex to fully discuss in this space).

The larger issues, for our purposes, are the curious parallels between this fact and the accompanying story, about yet another of the UN’s broadsides against Israel. Late last week, a report by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory declared that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is illegal. Not a surprise considering the commission’s mandate, to say the least. Leaving aside whatever legitimacy that investment of resources may or may not have on the ground, it is safe to say it will have little impact on most Israelis beyond a déjà vu. UN condemnations against Israel come fast and furious.

In their 2009 book Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, Dan Senor and Saul Singer argue that Israel’s economic miracle is not despite the external and internal challenges the country and its people have faced but, to a large extent, because of them. Political and economic isolation bred a degree of self-sufficiency. Military and terrorist threats demand enormous investments, which have had the largely unintended consequence of building a range of high-tech and other industry sectors. The imposition on young adults just out of high school with life-and-death decision-making authority accounts in part for the risk-taking that drives Israel’s entrepreneurship.

On a daily basis, Israelis may not make the connection between their broad economic successes and the incessant rhetorical assaults it receives from the UN and self-appointed arbiters of righteousness worldwide. Even in times of war and other existential threats, Israelis have traditionally continued building their individual and collective futures. What is more, they are consistently ranked in surveys and studies as among the world’s happiest people.

Fighting inflation and inequality, resolving the ongoing conflict, addressing infringements of human rights and all of the other challenges facing Israel must be addressed – and, in the seemingly endless successions of national elections the country is mired, there is no shortage of inventive and outlandish suggestions for resolving every issue.

There is a saying: living well is the best revenge. The world, including the world’s ostensible parliament, can rail all it likes. We should not ignore criticism. But we should celebrate the achievements that others ignore or defame. The arrows aimed at Israel, whether we or the slings that shot them like it or not, seem to strengthen rather than weaken the resolve of its people.

How much is your work worth?

Imagine an interview where the interviewer wanders around the office, conducting work while asking intrusive personal questions. The interviewee trails behind. An hour-long appointment stretches into two. Things get further off track. The potential employee, apologizing profusely, gets herself out of the building and into the safety of her car. Cheeks burning, she drives herself home, wondering, “What the heck was that?” Days later, she fields phone calls from the interviewer, asking why she won’t accept an offer that is a dollar or two more than minimum wage. The amount would not likely cover the gas, taxes, work clothes and household/childcare coverage it would take to do the job. Advanced degrees and experience don’t matter, she hears. This is the going rate.

Meanwhile, at home, the same potential employee “works” at the numerous tasks that pop up every day. She self-drafts a clothing pattern, because a kid needs pyjamas of the right size and the pattern she has doesn’t fit. She mends a favourite pair of school pants. She prepares multiple meals in advance, baking bread ahead, too. These tasks are lined up for quick moments to spare amid managing homework and extracurricular activities. She contacts tradespeople to see if they can provide affordable repair quotes, responds to school emails and fits in applying for other jobs or doing her current work as she can. She is sadly behind in keeping up with her friends and family, but doesn’t know when to fit that in.

In between, she walks the dog, meets the kids at the school bus, takes them to medical appointments, or pays bills. She politely tries to get out of volunteer commitments that moms “should” do for the school and community organizations.

This might sound familiar to parents, mostly mothers. It’s all the work that goes unnoticed and is uncompensated in our society. Daring to seek compensation for some of these skills is seen as selfish. After all, these parents (usually mothers) are told, “If you expect to earn anything for your experience or education, you’re mistaken. You ‘chose’ not to stay consistently in the full-time workforce. You chose to have children/get married/study a less-lucrative topic in university….” The list goes on.

Our society functions in many ways because of the unpaid labour. It’s most often women’s physical, emotional, social labour done behind the scenes. It feels new and unfair in every generation, I suspect, even as some things change for women slowly over time.

As I study Ketubot, which is a Babylonian talmudic tractate dedicated, at least in theory, to marriage contracts, I’ve had competing demands on my time. It’s forced me to read aspects of the text differently. When the rabbis debated these issues (1,600 to 2,100 years ago, give or take), women’s roles were more circumscribed. However, some of the basic arguments seem to arise in ways that don’t surprise me.

Some of the takeaway nuggets from this tractate…. When a woman marries, her husband is owed her labour and the fruit from her properties. Even if she brings servants into the marriage, there are certain tasks she must do herself. Her virtue and loyalty are worth a monetary value in the marriage.

There are surprises though. If the husband dies, the woman is owed the price of her marriage contract, or the husband’s heirs must take care of her upkeep. She (or her representatives) may write obligations into the marriage contract that the husband will be required to honour. For instance, if she brings a daughter from a previous marriage with her, she can obligate the new husband to pay for the daughter’s physical support in the contract. (Ketubot 102)

Long story short, smart women can sometimes find ways to protect themselves. This is true even in a rabbinic system that isn’t designed necessarily for them. In these texts, women – and their families – both look out for one another and treat each other unfairly.

What can we draw from all this? I feel less alone when considering that expectations may have changed a bit in 2,000 years, but that many of our sometimes truly overwhelming expectations and commitments remain. Further, clever people have protected themselves whenever they can, throughout the centuries. It’s not new to look out for one’s own interests and avoid being taken advantage of by creating some safe boundaries.

Studying these texts at this point in my life offers me a level of maturity that I didn’t have the first time I went through a bad interview. More than once, I was offered a job that took a lot of skill but offered only a low wage. I remember feeling torn up about these experiences, wondering if I was worth so little. It was also a feeling of desperation. I needed a certain amount to live, and this offer wouldn’t provide it.

One privilege of being older is that women who value themselves aren’t embarrassed to ask for what they’re worth. Earning less than what we need doesn’t do us or our families any favours but, of course, in financial desperation, many women must take those jobs anyway. This is what fuels the cycle of low wage work in the first place.

We aren’t all experts in everything. Drafting a sewing pattern doesn’t make one a professional fashion designer. Finding the right document in a bunch of storage boxes is like finding a needle in a haystack, but it doesn’t make me an archivist or a research librarian. We all have our areas of true expertise. Also, just as the rabbis debated the value of one’s roles and responsibilities in marriage, we do the same. Is our work worth something? Heck, yes.

Tractate Ketubot’s messages about the value of a woman or a wife sometimes seem mercenary, but this, too, is Torah. Sometimes, being mercenary is the way to have our work be seen, valued or compensated appropriately.

Make voting a priority

Voters throughout British Columbia will elect new mayors, councilors, school trustees and (depending on the jurisdiction) other officials on Oct. 15.

Over the past several decades, terms for municipal officials have gone from two years to three years to, now, four years. This makes the significance of these elections greater, as the choices we make as voters will last four years. (This longer commitment also may be one reason for what seems like an unusually large number of elected officials opting not to seek reelection this year.)

It is notable that voter turnout in municipal elections is almost always lower – often far lower – than in provincial and federal elections. In some ways, this is understandable. The “senior” levels of government are associated with greater powers, which may be true, and with portfolios that may seem “sexier.” Foreign affairs are more exciting than sewage (generally speaking) and the proper functioning of our healthcare system is, for many of us, literally a life-and-death matter, which the mowing of boulevards is not.

Local government issues, however, often affect our lives in the most intimate and powerful ways. Anyone who has traveled in places without well-functioning local governments sees the evidence around them. Uncollected garbage amasses on boulevards and in public spaces. Feral cats, dogs and rodents roam largely unhampered. Petty, even serious, crime may be rampant. In other words, when civic government is running as it should, it is often invisible. When it is not, it can make ordinary life difficult or, at worst, impossible.

As often-privileged citizens of developed Western countries, we can sometimes use hyperbole about the challenges facing our communities. Overheated rhetoric about issues as comparatively banal as bike lanes, which demand that car drivers share a bit of the road with cyclists, can become so frenzied one might think a cabal of medieval tyrants had stormed the ramparts at 12th and Cambie. We should really put things in perspective.

Successful cities are, in their way, modern miracles. It is precisely their success that blinds us to their exceptionalism. Imagine: no matter where you live in Vancouver, a truck comes past your home once a week to collect the recycling you leave on the curb, knowing it will be collected (depending on the weather) without incident. Your children are within walking distance of public schools that are of truly outstanding quality by any measure of time or place. The bus we curse for not showing up at the exact moment we arrive at the stop is, for all our complaining, a remarkable operation. Hundreds of small cogs combine to make a city run.

Of course, we have complaints. A recent Leger poll indicates that 48% of Vancouver respondents (and, for example, 60% in Surrey) said things in their city have gotten worse in the past four years. This may be true. Certainly there are serious issues affecting residents, including but not limited to a housing affordability crisis, widening inequality, a drug poisoning crisis, and the impacts of climate change. And yet, for many, things are still pretty good.

This is not to say that voters should not always be pushing our elected officials to be better and do much, much better; merely that we need to remember that we live in one of the most fortunate places in the world, with millions of people envying that which we take for granted. Things can be better, at all levels of government, but the occasional language we hear that our governments are “broken” or “failing” is shortsighted and out of proportion.

The at-large system, which operates in Vancouver and every other city in British Columbia, is a barrier to an informed electorate. Voters in the City of Vancouver, for example, are expected to make educated choices for one mayor, 10 city councilors, nine school trustees and seven park commissioners from – by our count – 138 candidates who are contesting these positions this year. There is no earthly way even the wonkiest voter could adequately inform themselves about the pros and cons of this many contestants.

But we should do our best. The adage that those who don’t vote have no right to complain is nonsense. Everyone has the right to complain.

But voting is not only a right, a franchise. It is an obligation. For whatever flaws B.C. communities might have, all of our cities and towns remain among the finest societies anyone could hope to live in. To preserve and strengthen the places where we live, voting is, almost literally, the least we can do.

Free expression in workplace

I heard once about an executive who explained in an interview: we debate a lot behind the scenes, but when we present our opinion or policy, it is a united front. We expect all employees to avoid saying or writing anything that would contradict this in public, they continued. Further, it’s spelled out in the work contract what you can and cannot say, and employees must stand behind the policy decisions of the organization.

If you find this kind of approach unsettling, you wouldn’t be alone. Yet, it’s not an uncommon requirement of employees. I wondered, after hearing this, how much money employees have to earn to make it worthwhile to give up their opinions or their right to free speech. Also, what happens if, during the debate behind the scenes, a younger or less powerful employee has a viewpoint that is starkly different than the party line? How does that go? Must an employee then give up her income or change jobs in order to have freedom of expression on those topics? If mainstream, moderate opinions and moderate disagreements are swept under the rug, what else isn’t allowed?

After hearing of this model, which shuts down dissent or situations that might conflict with the policy, I felt nervous. I ended up joking around. This felt like the Mafia. Disagree with the boss? What happens if nobody likes what you have to say? You too could end up in the river wearing some concrete overshoes!

These issues around employment and freedom of expression loom large in democracies and rightly so. If we look back to Judaism’s most foundational texts, written and oral Torah, we see that, consistently, Judaism values hearing all the opinions. Minority voices or rejected outcasts also have their views included and written down. We’re still reading and hearing about rabbis and even outsiders to the community who expressed minority opinions 2,000 years ago that didn’t go forward. In other words, their views did not become “policy.”

For instance, in the Talmud, we learn about Hillel versus Shammai, but mostly Hillel, who is more lenient. The rabbis and, therefore, Jewish law, tend to follow Hillel’s lead. That said, nobody got rid of Shammai’s point of view. He didn’t get fired from the rabbis’ club for having an unpopular opinion.

I recently had a couple of informational interviews. Well, they were really just Zoom chats, which came about because a friend reposted something from a small advocacy group on Instagram. Beware of social media if you are a novice like me. I prodded my friend with an off-the-cuff comment, saying, “So, don’t you think this is just a PR scam?!” Oops … I wasn’t just writing my online friend.

To my surprise, both the chief executive officer and the education and programming lead of the group got in touch with me. They wanted to tell me all about their efforts to make positive change – it wasn’t a publicity stunt. They explained what they hoped to achieve. I was pretty embarrassed by my post. By the end of the first chat, I was impressed with the information they had offered me and how they had engaged. They welcomed all opinions. They asked me if I wanted to contribute in an open and friendly way.

Our second meeting resulted in them recruiting me to serve on a volunteer advisory panel because of what they saw as my expertise. I agreed willingly because our exchange had been such a positive experience.

There’s a meme offered this time of year, that, while how we behave between Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah matters, it’s how we behave the rest of the year that counts.

Choosing to be open to differing opinions and innovation keeps us learning and growing. It also aligns us with the model of the rabbis, who discussed and debated and recorded it all in plain view, with minority views counting, too. Also, admitting one’s mistakes – wow, how embarrassing was I on social media? – helps us grow and become better people.

The least Jewish model, I think, is the example with which I led off this article, where everyone is allowed to debate, in theory, but all opinions aside from the official party line are discarded or silenced. We’re speaking here of relatively mainstream opinions, not radical ones. Want the kicker? From what I understood, this is a model used by some nonprofit Jewish organizations.

The smaller advocacy group isn’t a Jewish organization, but one of their employees is. Part of our chat involved a bit of Canadian Jewish geography regarding their Winnipeg relatives. Also, they suggested that I perhaps write up a Jewish topic for their group one day. They were open and excited about diverse voices.

Work life and individual identity can sometimes be entirely separate things. Yet, in others’ lives, Jewish identity, values and models and careers go hand in hand. I want to address my Jewish identity through making the world a better place, including at work. Watching these two different models emerge on my radar recently reminded me that, in fact, non-Jewish organizations can model Jewish ways of questioning and validating ideas, while some Jewish groups choose not to do so.

In a perfect world, we’d all do meaningful, life-changing work. In real life, we know that compromises and the bottom line matter. Sometimes, work isn’t that place of deep meaning or free expression, and we can’t always say everything we think in the workplace, either. However, perhaps there’s a way to avoid stifling creativity – having multiple voices valued in the workplace, while still communicating the basic mission of the organization. Perhaps we can all learn and grow better this way, making educated debate matter, just as the rabbis did 2,000 years ago.

Extremism not helpful

Over the Labour Day weekend, while many Canadians were soaking up the declining rays of summer or doing last-minute back-to-school shopping, Middle East politics eclipsed everything else – well, for those of us who track these things closely, which, it turns out includes Jagmeet Singh, leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party.

In fairness, it is not clear when Singh hit send on an email that made the rounds over the holiday weekend. But the contents led the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs to send out not one but two urgent emails on the issue, both of which included the word “outraged” in the subject line.

And “outrage” is a fair reaction to the contents of Singh’s missive.

“We believe Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories is at the centre of the challenges facing the Palestinian and Israeli people,” wrote Singh. This essentialist view ignores the reality that the occupation continues due to a complex interplay between anti-Israel terrorism, a lack of political will, and intractability around a two-state solution or some other coexistence plan that would lead to greater peace, which includes a lack of willingness to coexist from factions on both sides of the conflict.

“We all want to see a future where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side, in peace,” Singh writes. But then he goes on to outline a list of grievances that places responsibility only on Israelis and which, therefore, is unlikely to do anything to realize such a future.

The demands include that the Canadian government increase funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, “which supports Palestinian refugees.” The letter makes no reference to the controversial nature of UNRWA’s definition of refugees, which has refugee status passing down generations, thereby continually increasing their number, perpetuating rather than ameliorating the problem. Nor does the NDP letter mention the organization’s Palestinian education curriculum, which contains antisemitic elements that directly impede any progress towards peace in the region; allegations of corruption and mismanagement of the agency; and even UNWRA’s witting or unwitting aid of the terrorist group Hamas, with tunnels reportedly being found under UNRWA schools and rockets stored on their premises. Instead, the letter calls on Canada to “condemn the Israeli government’s attacks on civil society in Israel and Palestine, including the recent designation of six Palestinian human rights groups as ‘terrorist.’”

There are wishes for “peace in Israel and Palestine” in the NDP letter, but the lack of peace is blamed solely on one side, without acknowledging the violence and harms inflicted on Israelis. The fundamental fact of the issue is that no blatantly one-sided position will make things better for either Palestinians or Israelis and any position that places all the blame on one side will not lead to a resolution. Such a stance will only perpetuate conflict. Peace and coexistence in that region will depend on compromise on both sides.

In the larger scheme of world events, an imbalanced missive from the leader of a Canadian political party is largely irrelevant. Singh’s catalogue of blame will move the dial in Israel and Palestine not an inch. What it does is inflame the issue here at home and reinforce the trend in Canadian politics that sees this issue as a political football. At the same time as there are legitimate and important critiques of Israel’s behaviour and treatment of Palestinians, particularly those under occupation, Jewish self-determination should not be anyone’s campaign talking point.

There is a lesson here for those who support Israel, too. There is a strain that sees Israel supporters as more moral, more fair and more realistic than the activists who march against “apartheid,” “genocide” and what Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas recently called “50 holocausts” against Palestinians. However, the incessant and dishonourable contesting of the very existence of Palestinian people – if you haven’t seen it, you’re not on Jewish social media – does nothing to advance the cause of Jewish self-determination or end the human suffering or move anyone towards peace.

Extremism is not a Canadian value, nor a Jewish one – and it will not result in an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nor will it solve any of the countless challenges we are facing around the world. We need to resist the attraction of simplistic solutions to complex human problems. We need to do, think and behave better. And we need to demand that our leaders to do so, as well.