lifestyle

Recalibrating our life route

In the summer, we read through Torah portions that sound like very weird vacation routes. As a Shabbat regular joked during our livestreamed service, it sounded like the old-fashioned CAA TripTiks.

In the days before GPS or MapQuest, you went to your local automobile association’s shop. A travel agent would hand you tour books for wherever you were traveling and create a personal set of maps, with highlighted routes, for your journey. With lots of tips for where to stop, eat and how to use your sightseeing time along the way, it was pretty useful. I used those tour books in years past, but my family eschewed the TripTiks; my parents insisted we could read maps on our own.

Considering the long list of places that the Israelites went during their 40 years in the wilderness, it could be compared to a family summer vacation gone wrong. Rather than the fastest, most direct route between two points, the Israelites wandered. In fact, it was their behaviour and relationship with G-d that had gone wrong. This exile and wandering was very much about the journey. In Numbers 32:13, it says: “The Lord was incensed at Israel and for 40 years He made them wander in the wilderness, until the whole generation that had provoked the Lord’s displeasure was gone.”

We often talk in platitudes, like “life’s a journey, not a destination,” but let’s be honest. Most of us want to get places in life – accomplish things and do things properly. We might enjoy hiking or meandering down country roads, but most of us don’t want to see our whole lives as a lot of meaningless wandering.

This issue hit home for me in my recent studying of Tractate Yoma, which is all about how Yom Kippur works. Towards the end of the tractate, on page 86A, the rabbis discuss repentance and the notion of “hillul Hashem” or “desecrating the name of G-d.” Their explanations don’t seem direct at first. Rav suggests it’s like when a public figure, such as him, goes to the butcher, takes meat and doesn’t pay immediately, thus setting a bad example. Rav Yohanan suggests that, if one walks a distance without Torah or tefillin, it indicates a lack of appropriate respect for the Divine.

The tractate continues with when someone’s friends are embarrassed by his reputation, and other examples. Then, finally, a really difficult one: “But one who reads Torah and learns Mishnah and serves Torah scholars, but his business practices are not done faithfully and he does not speak pleasantly with other people, what do people say about him? Woe to so-and-so who studied Torah, woe to his father who taught him Torah, woe to his teacher who taught him Torah. So-and-so who studied Torah, see how destructive are his deeds and how ugly are his ways.” (Tractate Yoma 86a)

There it is, the person who disgraces G-d’s name and struggles when seeking repentance on Yom Kippur. This is because, despite a clear road map of how to behave, he got very lost on his way.

All of the examples touch on how we behave in community, and how it reflects on us and affects others. Shaming oneself or harming others disgraces G-d’s name because, well, we’re all made in G-d’s image. We should know better.

Many of us are still taking summer adventures, but it was helpful for me to read about finding one’s way more existentially, and to consider Yom Kippur. It had remarkable relevance to something else that happened.

Recently, we were involved in what would have been a big real estate purchase for our household. My kids and husband were very excited. We made tons of plans and, like the careful tourists we are, we had the routes on our “roadmaps” highlighted. We knew which steps we had to get through, and how to proceed. This was to be our summer adventure.

However, the experience proved far more challenging than usual – and no map would have helped. In the end, we learned that the seller’s finances were so tangled and she owed so much money that the sale couldn’t go through. Like the story in Tractate Yoma, it felt embarrassing and upsetting. It’s hard to see a person fall off the path that most of us expect to take.

We don’t think of closing an open construction permit or paying property tax bills as being central to our life journeys. Yet, just like the poor behaviour that caused G-d to get angry at the Israelites, sometimes our missteps cause a lot of misery down the line, and to other people.

Being an upstanding person, who promptly pays bills and deals with the chores of adulthood, doesn’t just reflect on one’s own character. As the rabbis pointed out, behaving properly avoids embarrassing others or setting a bad example. It reminds us to talk about “Torah,” or generally upright things. We should apply what we learn – to behave kindly and ethically towards others all the time.

When someone doesn’t do this, it’s not just an issue of seeking individual repentance and everything is fixed. The ramifications go beyond an individual’s bad behaviour. It turns out that not paying taxes or taking care of household maintenance affects many others nearby in a community.

When this failed real estate deal happened, it wasn’t our fault. It felt, I explained to my parents, like we’d put our car in a parking lot with an invisible sinkhole. When the sinkhole opened up, all the cars, including ours, fell in. When we got to the (imagined) parking lot, all was lost, but there was nothing we could have done. We couldn’t have known that this experience would derail us from our journey.

I can’t lie. Being thrown off the highlighted route was disconcerting. I kept thinking about how the car’s GPS voice says “recalculating” when we’re driving and get lost. It’s taken me nearly a week to process the failed home purchase. Now, we must create a new metaphorical summer destination, with fun activities for our kids.

We can’t always control our path. Maybe that’s why those platitudes mention “the journey” instead. While we focus on our destination, the lake or camping or a staycation, it’s so important to think about how we behave and live along the way. Our actions can affect everybody.

I took a long walk with my dog on Shabbat, and spoke with three separate neighbours. They all needed the company and the conversation. Was this one of my new stops, on an entirely different path?

The Israelites wandered 40 years to get to the Promised Land. Sometimes, the things we do along the way are the most important part after all.

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.

To be heroes in our eyes

William Shakespeare designated a minor character in his play Hamlet to express and offer to us profound advice, something that is really an observation about the nature of the human animal. It rattles around in our minds, and probably has since time immemorial.

In Act 1, Scene 3, Polonius’s advice to his son, Laertes, is “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

It may be that many people do not think about it, but some of us – those with aspirations regarding the roles they hope to play in the lives they will lead – have this buzzing around in their conscious and subconscious minds. And it begs the question, who and what is that self?

Some of us, and certainly it was true in my case, concocted, in the days of our youth, fanciful tales of the derring-do we would accomplish in our lives. Aided and abetted by library readings that detailed the accomplishments of heroes in past times, I painted myself into the foreground of these scenarios. Along with this, necessarily, went standards of behaviour that demanded selflessness and virtue. I not only had to be brave and courageous, but I had to be honourable and generous. A hero could not be otherwise.

So, to be true to myself, there were rigid standards of behaviour to which I imagined I should live up. I am sure many of us have been subjected to entreaties from parents, other adults and teachers, as to standards of behaviours that were to be expected of us, and some of these were incorporated into what we wanted from ourselves.

No standards are applied as rigidly or as harshly as the ones we inflict on ourselves. Taking them into account in our private moments, we are aware of every one of our transgressions. Totting up the score, we make judgments all the time as to whether we are worthy of the self-respect we would like to possess. We dearly want to like ourselves if we can. We wrestle with our failings and remember most of them.

And we judge our accomplishments, too, of course. How close did we come to achieving those deeds of derring-do, however we define them, that we promised ourselves we would undertake? Are we on the way to being heroes in our own eyes? Or, at least, can we enjoy a satisfaction for our accomplishments, including meeting our standards of behaviour towards others? If we didn’t make it all the way, did we fight the good fight sufficiently to make us worthy of self-respect? After all, it is ourselves with whom we cannot escape living. How much self-destructive behaviour can be traced to remorse in this arena?

Where have you been in life, you dashing daredevils? What mountains did you climb? What goals did you set for yourself, to reach or exceed? Were they modest and did you achieve them to your satisfaction? Were they vainglorious and did you feel the bitterness of defeat? Was public attention your goal, for good or ill, or did you not need acclaim? Did you find satisfaction in the effort itself? Did you have to be satisfied with only partial accomplishments? Were you like me, who blundered around until the moment caught me, rather than seizing these moments?

If you are just starting out, you have all this to look forward to. Go forth, you heroes and heroines of endeavour!

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.

Balancing our wants and needs

It’s warm out! My kids and I are longing to be outside all the time – but we can’t. Not only is there still remote school, work and other obligations, but our neighbourhood is loud with construction noise. It’s hard to play in the yard when a table saw is screaming through stonework next door. It’s also a constant social-distancing game. Our corner lot is busy. People walk on the sidewalks on two sides, and construction workers on a third.

Some might respond with, “Well, move to the country, why don’t you?!” When we bought our house, it wasn’t so crowded, nor near to so much construction. We’ve made a life here. Moving requires a lot of upheaval. We want to keep our kids in the same school, too.

Like most things, we all must balance our desires and wants (for quiet, for more space, etc.) with our needs (relative safety, proximity to the basics like healthcare, school, work, groceries and a Jewish community). This balancing act is deeply personal. It’s not obvious from the outside what will work best to resolve this, and it’s not always clear “from the inside” either.

In my Talmud study recently in Tractate Yoma, I’ve been learning about how the high priest was to do the rituals of atonement on Yom Kippur on behalf of the Jewish people. It’s a series of very precise, concrete rituals. While deep meaning is assigned to some of these steps, the rabbis mostly want to parse what should be done to make the ritual work effective, as compared to making it invalid. They indicate that, if the high priest does it wrong, a year’s worth of sin remains for the entire Jewish people.

This kind of detailed ritual and accounting sounds like an enormous burden. The Temple high priest must have been under a lot of pressure! After all, when you consider the fate of Nadav and Avihu in Leviticus 10:1, who present “strange fire” as an offering to G-d and die. Or, if you consider Korach, who rises up against Moses – he and his buddies Dathan and Abiram and their families are destroyed when they rebel. In Numbers 16, the ground bursts open and swallows them up. Doing things wrong or inappropriately has consequences.

Some see that our tradition offers us a lot of fearmongering. There are those who worry that if they do things wrong – Jewishly, professionally, or other life choices – they will be literally “struck down.” Others don’t take any of it seriously and, as a result, their inability to abide by norms – public health orders, religious rules, societal ones, professional ones, etc. – results in a lot of problems for the rest of society.

What does this mean? If we turn it around and look for the gifts around us, instead of the potential hazards, perhaps things clear up and seem better. At least, searching for the gifts helps me cope.

We caught that upside recently – the gift, at 11:30 a.m. on a weekday, when, for whatever reason, the saws next door were quiet. The weather was sunny and cool. My twins stopped fighting. I looked up from the porch to find them in the yard, playing an ad hoc game of badminton, while keeping the dog occupied with her ball instead of fetching (and dismantling) the shuttlecock.

As warmer weather and, hopefully, healthier times are ahead, we have so many positive opportunities. It’s a rare moment where we can actually make personal, religious, social or political changes that might have seemed impossible before. Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely many pandemic moments when I’ve been caught in the detailed burdens or negativity – anxiety and fearmongering – struggling to see the good.

However, watching my kids laugh and chatter as they swung around their rackets, I was reminded of how lucky most of us actually are. Having a home, food and educational access, never mind green space, are great luxuries right now. Further, having a path forward, due to the COVID vaccines, also is a gift. Nobody has done everything right and, in the days of the Temple in Jerusalem, the high priest’s rituals served to help everyone process those mistakes, while we have different paths towards course correction and self-improvement today.

It’s important to recognize the flipside, which is that we haven’t done everything wrong, either. The warm and sunny days ahead can give us a bit of a break. It’s a window into whatever post-pandemic future lies ahead. Just as the warm weather provides us a bit of respite, so, too, do Jewish texts, which help us process our mistakes and concerns, balancing them with the joys, too.

Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” based on Psalm 150, reminds us that the Temple was not just a place for sin offerings. Psalm 150 is filled with music, instruments and happy expression, often in relief after making those Temple offerings. According to the Talmud, huge groups sang Hallel as part of their Passover lamb sacrifice. Their observance made the Temple Mount ring with communal song.

Sometimes, finishing the difficult rituals and processing our experiences and the anxiety can put the noise and the stress behind us. The exercise can offer us a chance to bask in the sunshine and the music. Let’s all hope for that gift of laughter, music and thanks, as we celebrate Canada’s short summer season and lean towards the light.

Accepting a lack of control

Over a year ago, I wrote an article for the CBC with suggestions for parents on how to stay sane while coping with kids during the pandemic. I did some research, thought about it, and set out some points to follow. Now, all these ideas sound, well, familiar, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat them. I mentioned things like making a routine, keeping up with learning and life skills, getting some alone time, exercise and going outside. I included efforts to have intentional fun, and practising gratitude. As I write this, much of Canada is experiencing the third wave. Manitoba, where I live, is now our country’s hot spot. It’s been a long haul for all of us.

I’ve been struggling with what is “new” when, frankly, much has stayed the same. Even as some of us have gotten vaccinated, we still need to stay home. Like everyone, I’ve gone through periods of feeling anxious, as those in charge waver on how best to keep people safe. Then, the most recent war in Israel and the Palestinian Territories erupted … and things seem even scarier.

It’s hard to admit that we have little control as individuals. We choose who to vote for, or to wear a mask, or to social distance. We cannot individually control global pandemics, violence, extremism or antisemitism. That lack of control can be very scary.

I often retreat into absorbing “flow activities” to keep myself well during such difficult times. Often, I’m cooking, sewing, knitting or spinning yarn. I’m reading or taking long walks with the dog and kids. We’re watching geese and goslings on the riverbanks and spotting woodpeckers and warblers. Taking time to see and make new things can be really good for our mental health, and it’s often positive and productive.

I also continue to study my page of Talmud, usually late at night. I recently read Tractate Yoma 35, which discusses, in part, what the high priest would wear in the Temple, as he does his most holy actions of the year, on Yom Kippur. Everything is spelled out in detail. This is done by the rabbis both to explain what used to happen in the Temple and what perhaps might happen again, if the Temple were rebuilt. Even the cost of the priest’s clothing, which must be paid for and owned by the public, is noted.

The high priest acts for the whole community and, at the same time, these rituals have to be performed by him alone, as an individual. It’s an example of where the entire community must support a leader but has no control over that leader’s actions.

In the midst of this careful recounting of how he is to fulfil his duties, it says in Yoma 35b: “Rav Huna bar Yehuda, and some say Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda, taught: after the public service concluded, a priest whose mother made him a priestly tunic may wear it and perform an individual service … provided he transfers it to the possession of the public.”

The rabbis’ discussion indicates that the tunic the high priest’s mother made him must be donated to the Temple after he wears it. If he is attached to it, this might be hard. Also, it might be worth more than what the high priest’s garb should cost. It’s something a dear one made him, and it could be both emotionally and monetarily valuable. Yet, his mom makes it freely, knowing it might only be worn at this one time, and then donated for wider Temple usage.

Bear in mind what this meant. A high priest’s mother wants only the best for her child and, yet, must submit to the whole community who depends on him. So, she procures the right fibre-linen. She might have to process it, or it might come ready for spinning. She spins enough for a garment on her spindle. (There were no spinning wheels or industrial textile factories back then!) She weaves the fabric, and sews it into the tunic according to the given specifications. Then, she gives all that work away simply for the chance to clothe her son for a short time in her own handiwork for his extremely important event, serving on Yom Kippur on behalf of the Jewish people. This lesson is an ancient one – and, yet, many of us have to learn it over and over.

There’s so much we cannot control. Many huge world events are beyond us. We learn to submit to the experience that we cannot bend to our will. In the meanwhile, though, we can do everything in our power for good, as we see it. We can offer our money, creations and time. We can behave properly and follow instructions … and wait.

Many of my activities feel the same way as that mother’s tunic, although I have no high priests at my house. I spend many hours on meals, making clothing, helping kids learn, exercise, etc. Then, I finish my tasks and give it away. This “disappearing” work makes a difference in the universe, but I’m no closer to controlling the entire pandemic, the unrest in Israel, or beyond.

This is one of the hardest lessons I’ve had as a parent and an adult. We must accept where we are because, in some cases, nothing we’re capable of will control the situation or effect change. However, in the meantime, we can be like that high priest’s mother. We can offer up our love, our handiwork, our peaceful efforts and knowledge. We can expect never to see it again, like that gorgeous linen tunic.

Learning to make things and give them away may be the most important gift. The activity itself is the part that calms me down in the face of so much uncertainty. Last night, I used some knit remnants and my sewing machine and made a lightweight sweater for a 9-year-old. This is an ancient Jewish process, but it’s also another brand new sweater. Tomorrow, he may wear it … in the mud puddles and the rain – and that’s OK, too.

Counting the Omer at home

For university students or professors, like my husband, the end of term is coming. Some universities call this winter term, others say spring term. Even though I haven’t been in school for a long while, I still remember the feeling at the end. Many of my classmates were elated after they sat their last exam. They’d yell loudly after they left the exam hall, or go drinking or do something celebratory and crazy. I often had an entirely different experience.

Most of my coursework, in the humanities and social sciences, required writing papers instead. During the study week and the exam period that followed, I’d line up the due dates, create a calendar and plow through. Each paper would require its set of books, carefully piled up, with scraps of paper as bookmarks or long lists of online references. I’d check the professor’s requirements – five pages? 12? 20? – and sometimes crank out a paper every day or two.

In that era, the professors liked hard copies, so I’d print out my work, staple it, and trudge across campus, leaving it in a professor’s mailbox. Then, I’d walk home and, sometimes, I’d take a break from writing. Other times, I’d just start the next paper. When the last research paper was written and submitted, that was it. No fanfare. No yelling or parties or even shared experience with classmates. In some cases, by the time I finished writing, the dormitories would be emptying out. I’d feel hollow and exhausted, but, even while I was alone, I was triumphant. It was all finished. I could go home.

Real life isn’t a lot like the end of a semester. True, holidays end (buh-bye, Passover!! See ya next year!) and big work projects get turned in, but, many times, there’s no big completion marker, no hurrah. It’s a lot more like turning in those term papers. It’s a lot less like the group partying after exams.

Our triumphs and mile markers during the pandemic have been quieter, overall, for me – a lot like that feeling of turning in my research papers by myself. I cheer every time someone shows off their COVID vaccination information on social media. I’m in awe of what many have accomplished during this independent time in terms of learning new skills (sourdough, pottery, whatever) or in their career trajectory; again, mostly seen via social media. It’s sometimes hard to “see” oneself the same way, though, particularly when vaccinations are going so slowly.

Whlie I know, objectively, that many of us are accomplishing a ton, it’s also equally valid to do a reasonable job just staying afloat during such a crisis. Getting meals on the table, kids educated and – not to be forgotten – working are big accomplishments right now. As some are struggling with mental health, food or housing insecurity, it can be important to recognize how many of us are doing OK, and could potentially help someone else.

The Jewish calendar has really steered our household during this stay-home period. For instance, right now, we’re counting the Omer at home, for the first time ever. My kids did it in preschool, and I’ve been vaguely aware of it some years, but I certainly wasn’t raised with doing this at home.

What’s the Omer? It’s the verbal counting of the days between Passover and Shavuot. While we no longer bring a grain offering to the Temple in Jerusalem on Shavuot, we still measure this stretch between the holidays. The kabbalistic mystics added a level of meditative imagery, too, a way of preparing ourselves to mark the gift of the Torah to the Jewish people on Shavuot.

One of my twins is keen to cross days off the calendar. He and I are counting the Omer together. To remember, I’ve been writing the right number on a chalkboard and he and I turn to each other at some point and announce, “It’s the Xth day of the Omer!” Then we say, for instance, “NINE, NINE, NINE!” and laugh. But, in all seriousness, for us, it has become a way of keeping track of time. It’s an accomplishment, if not a divine mystical meditation.

I’m very much looking forward to being vaccinated – and I’m hoping to say the Shehecheyanu blessing (being grateful for having reached this moment and season). I can’t wait to feel, with the vaccination, that I’ve done all I can to cherish life, according to Jewish tradition, and be healthy for my family.

On the Jewish calendar, we’re looking forward to having a family barbeque on Lag b’Omer. Both 9-year-olds here are excited about their hot dogs and maybe getting to eat them outside.

It still feels like an absolutely uphill trudge in the snow, though. This is literal – we’re also in the midst of a big April snowstorm in Winnipeg. The plows are working outside my home as I write this. However, using this ancient system to count the days, or the Omer, both connects us to our past and helps us make incremental gains towards whatever is to come in our hopefully brighter, post-pandemic future.

Every year, we receive the Torah on Shavuot, and it’s something to celebrate, a milestone. Each moment, no matter how mundane, is something for which to feel grateful.

Many say that, when the pandemic is over, there will be a roaring ’20s feel, that people will party wildly in the streets. I suspect it’s going to be a lot more like the trickling sensation of writing and turning in one paper at a time, until I’d met all my undergraduate course load deadlines. Even so, I’m counting the days until I can feel relieved at the end, and celebrate with family, at home. Since no one knows when that end will be scheduled on any calendar, I’ll just keep counting the Omer, instead.

Can we learn from COVID?

Spring and the holiday of Passover are all about renewal and hope. This year, as our elders begin receiving the coronavirus vaccines and our economy appears to be recovering from the most critical disruption in living memory, things seem promising. We anticipate fleeing our bondage of social isolation and being transported to a land, if not of milk and honey, at least to a place of mixing and hugging.

We have (hopefully) learned a great deal. There have been many opportunities to benefit from the disruption in our lives. At the individual level, we may have learned new skills or crafts – like cross stitch or baking sourdough! – or used the time to study new fields or languages. On the collective level, we have learned that the entire world, regardless of governance, religion, language and every other difference, could mobilize (albeit not equally well) to respond to a crisis.

We also learned that, when necessary, many governments and societies could rise to the occasion (again, with different levels of competence) to save lives. Billions of dollars were “found” to save potentially devastated economies and support businesses and households. Scientists and medical professionals cooperated across boundaries to search for vaccines and to care for the ill. Ordinary people – not just first responders and others in the direct line of care but grocery clerks and those who provide services previously taken for granted – became heroes of the moment.

As the months dragged on, divisions emerged. People and their governments sometimes differed on the best responses, or any response at all. A cohort emerged questioning everything, from the best ways to stop the spread of the virus to the very existence of the virus that has infected more than 100 million and killed more than 2.5 million.

As we hopefully approach the beginning of the end of this extraordinary era, let us remember its beginning – not the fear of the unknown that engulfed us, but the unity the world seemed to exhibit in coming together to confront a danger that knows no borders.

Imagine the challenges we might be able to face and resolve if we could mobilize the world the way we did in those earliest moments of the pandemic. Can we come together to finally confront the climate emergency, which could be every bit as fatal as an unchecked virus if not addressed? Can we unite to overcome racial divisions and inequality? Can we even marginally close the chasm between richest and poorest in Canada and across the planet?

The incredible hurdle that was thrown across our civilization’s path a year ago showed our capacity for coming together when the stakes were high enough.

There are a lot of areas where the stakes are high. Can we take the lessons we’ve learned over the past 12 months and apply them there?

Change can be a good thing

One of my twins is always looking for something new to learn online. For awhile, he was fascinated by a Massachusetts service dog project, where Great Danes are trained to provide support to those with balance and mobility impediments. He found this amazing service dog program through the website explore.org. It has live cams of animals all over the world. While we’re not traveling anywhere, my kid is bird watching, seeing service dogs, polar bears, and more. When we least expect it, he rushes up with his iPad and demands that I admire a nesting owl, or that his biologist dad identify an animal he’s never seen before.

This kind of intellectual curiosity is something I’m excited to see. Open-ended questioning about the world and how it works is a special kind of Jewish exploration. This intensity and enthusiasm is how we delve into studying Torah and Talmud, or how we engage with the world in general.

Passover is an obvious time to think about questions and how we approach and answer them. Our families have been telling the Exodus and “Once we were slaves and now we are free” story for thousands of years! Still, our questioning can’t just stick to the Four Questions and be done. Sometimes, even with good intentions, we get hung up on the rote narrative of the seder. We know we have to get through it. We start at the beginning and head to the end. It’s a yearly ritual routine, punctuated by matzah, lots of other foods, wine, and, in normal times, family and guests.

When we were first married, I once attended a smaller seder with some of my husband’s family. I was excited and nervous to engage over the Haggadah’s ideas – but it didn’t turn out as I expected. The family was committed to getting through the ritual traditionally and to the food part. They looked uncomfortable when I tried to talk about ideas or ask questions. In retrospect, I realized I knocked them off their game. There was a seder routine – and I wasn’t following theirs.

My other twin is also learning. He’s not into the animal live cams. Instead, he comes up with questions about school projects. He brainstorms and makes suggestions, even when they’re not welcome. The remote learning teacher suggested he limit his research on one social studies project to their “class time” online rather than do more research later.

Of course, the minute he logs off, I help him look up his questions and learn – whenever he wants. His teacher maybe wants to slow down the group learning, or avoid making more social studies lesson plans, but feeding intense curiosity with knowledge helps enthusiastic learners blossom. In my experience, putting somebody off when they want to learn more feels negative and does the opposite.

For many people, the pandemic has knocked them off their game. Losing regular routines may have felt negative. As people anticipate getting vaccinated, they talk more about which things they miss the most and long to do when things return to “normal.” For another view, I recently read a CBC news article that quoted David Eagleman, a neuroscientist.

Eagleman suggested that, in fact, the pandemic might be good for people’s brains, because the huge lifestyle changes we’ve experienced have forced us off our “path of least resistance.” We’ve been forced to be more flexible and innovate. This can be positive for our brain health. In some cases, forcing our brains to adapt may result in positive growth and changes in our work or home lives.

In a Jewish context though, when we consider our ritual routines, we must balance the comfort of what’s familiar with the opportunity to learn. Questioning and continuing to grow intellectually are valuable, particularly during Passover.

In the talmudic tractate of Pesachim, on page 105a, there’s a discussion about when to say certain blessings such as the Kiddush. Should we interrupt a meal in the middle to do Kiddush? Rav Hamnuna the Elder says, “You don’t need to do this, because Shabbat establishes itself.” In other words, our holidays, like Shabbat or Pesach, will happen whether we are ready or not. We must automatically rise to the obligations associated with them. So, yes, we do a lot of things by rote and habit.

Even so, the next page, Pesachim 106, teaches that there are times where leaders must do things extemporaneously, or work to learn more to figure out what to do. A good leader both continues with the routines and remains able to ask questions, be flexible and learn.

It’s too early for me to conclude whether our freeform research online this year has helped my twins become lifelong learners. (I hope so!) I don’t know if observing animals via live cam will result in a career like field biologist or even a hobby like bird-watching. Whatever they choose, creating a routine-based learning environment that encourages and cultivates questioning, improvisational thinking and flexibility may go a long way towards helping them succeed later on.

It’s true, as Rav Hamnuna the Elder explains, that holidays happen whether or not we’re ready for them. As Rabbi Sari Laufer explains on My Jewish Learning’s explanation of Pesachim 105, “Kiddush doesn’t make Shabbat begin, we make Kiddush because Shabbat has begun.” Yet, once our holidays begin, it’s our obligation to engage with them, to learn and to question.

“Due to the pandemic” is a phrase we’ve heard too often, usually in relation to cancelations or programs offered exclusively online. Perhaps we might add a positive “due to the pandemic” twist. We’re forced to be more flexible thinkers in our ritual routines, too. We can question why we always did them this way. In the end, we might be all the better for that brain jostling and chance for intellectual inquiry.

My family and I wish you a wonderful, thoughtful, questioning Passover, full of joy this year, however different it may be from your usual routines. Chag sameach.

Passover’s second chances

Passover is coming! I’m actually looking forward to this second chance at the pandemic seder. Sounds crazy, perhaps, but the rabbis in talmudic times believed in second chances, and this is one of them – an opportunity to make a smaller holiday experience meaningful.

The second-chance concept has a long history. Have you ever noticed Pesach Sheini on the Jewish calendar and wondered? Well, a month after Passover started, there was a second opportunity. Those who’d been impure (interacted with a corpse, for instance) or been on a distant journey, could still potentially sacrifice the Paschal lamb at the Temple on this second Passover date.

This second Passover was not a huge, inclusive repeat opportunity. The Jewish community was required to plan ahead. It wasn’t acceptable to say, “Oops, I missed #1, so now I have a free do-over.” The only opportunities to do Pesach Sheini were spelled out very clearly. Most of those who messed up the first time weren’t eligible for the second round.

Planning ahead for the Passover sacrifice was spelled out in the Talmud. It struck me as interesting because, even now, like many big Jewish holidays, Passover requires a ton of planning. Even when the Temple was standing, one had to “register” to sacrifice a lamb. For Passover, everyone needed to do it, so imagine that version of old-fashioned registration, long before curbside pickup, cellphones, computers or online platforms came on the scene!

We all know many people who are more “in the moment” and aren’t good at the planning-ahead parts of life. Whether it’s a holiday, a big winter storm or a pandemic, some people are just better able to prepare in advance. This isn’t a modern issue, it’s a human one. It’s something akin to Aesop’s poem about the ant and the cricket. While the cricket sings and dances away the summer, the ant prepares for winter.

In some ways, my household was oddly ready for a pandemic. To clarify, no one is really ready for emergencies like this. However, our household had an odd assortment of skills that allowed us to make the best of a difficult situation. I’m not making light of the situation, not at all – having lost a relative during this time, we know the virus means business. Even with such a serious challenge, however, it’s possible to see things that worked out.

For one thing, I’m married to a biology professor. Although he scared the pants off me in early 2020, I can’t say I wasn’t warned about what might happen as the coronavirus spread. It gave me an early warning system that worked, although it was hard to manage my anxiety at the beginning, too, since no one else seemed as alarmed.

We might have been practically prepared in some ways. We have always tried to eat carefully, with homemade local foods. We had full freezers. Our canning closet was stocked with homemade jams, pickles, and more. We had homebody skills, too. I’ve been making bread (and not just challah!) for years. We were fine in the food department.

The transition to learning and staying at home involved screaming, upset twin 8-year-olds at first. Again, though, we felt oddly lucky. I used to be a teacher and, while that never involved grade school students for anything other than religious school, we got into the swing of things. “Once a teacher, always a teacher” is apparently true. I wasn’t swayed by the screaming – I taught high school and community college in urban U.S. environments, where occasional weapons (and screams) weren’t unusual. I’ve figured it out. We’re still voluntarily remote schooling. It has worked for us.

We’re also mostly introverted. As creative folk, our stash of things to do has kept us sustained. There’s been lots of reading, as well as sewing, knitting, weaving and spinning, as well as coin collecting and building with Lego, and we’ve made good use of the kids’ art supplies. We’ve felt well-occupied.

Yet, the story of “second Passover” and planning ahead struck hard these past few weeks. We had a serious issue with our car. Then our boiler needed repairs during a frigid part of Winnipeg’s winter. And our hot water heater needed replacing.

When the weather began to warm up, we glibly thought we’d solved all the hard stuff. Whew. Never think that! On a Sunday evening, my husband went to the basement to get the dog food. He heard a trickling sound. In short order, he was dismantling part of the basement. We had a radiator pipe that froze and then burst as things warmed up. This cued yet another round of emergency plumbers’ visits during a pandemic, with the kind of repairs for which you just can’t plan ahead.

All this led me to thinking about our second, upcoming pandemic Passover. Passover is always a home-based holiday. We can make plans. We can save up and attempt to make everything work. Yet, some things are like the Yiddish saying, “Man plans. G-d laughs.” Even so, we keep trying. My parents in Virginia have already told us that they plan to join us (via Zoom) for the first seder. Our twins seem surprisingly motivated to clean up a mountain of toys, as we tidy the house before the holiday. We’re getting ready.

These days, Jews mostly don’t observe Pesach Sheini, but I’m really hopeful about enjoying another “first” Passover while apart. For months to come, a continuation of the Purim “everything’s upside down” spirit will be normal. We’re not done with this pandemic yet, so we must both plan ahead – and be grateful for flexibility and all these second chances.

Chicken soup and life

I don’t know what the reason is, but I note a change in my attitudes, ideas and emotional makeup. Could it be my advancing age, or was what I’m feeling always there, hidden under the impedimenta of getting through life?

We all start out, when getting on our feet, stumbling about – in choosing our direction, determining a focus, finally forging the path or paths that will be the ones we follow through most of our lives. Our background cannot help but be important in that process and, for some people, it is the essence of who they are. For me, I never felt it was of much matter.

These days, however, as I advance toward the final curtain, with a burgeoning altered perspective, I become more and more certain that I am all about what I was when I started. This may mean nothing to so many of you out there who have re-made yourselves into the images of what you wanted to be, rather than that what you were, but this seems to be the truth for me. I am extremely conscious of this because I had a spouse who totally remade herself into what she wanted to be by conscious effort, but I find now that that was not to be for me.

I know that I am being arbitrary by appropriating the “chicken soup” theme as an ethnocentric symbol of my Jewish background. Surely it is available and present in the culinary arrays offered by so many cultural groups. Nevertheless, I have seized on it because of what it means to me and to so many of my co-religionists. How often was it a centrepiece of the Sabbath meal, when chicken was the only meat offering even in a spare week’s diet, in the shtetl and on the tables of recently arrived immigrants in the “new world”?

For me, no matter how important the item was in the diet, making the sparse stretch so much further, it has a context for me that goes much further, even beyond its important role as “Jewish penicillin.” For me, it speaks of home and hearth. For me, it speaks of a mother’s love for her children, her family and her home. It speaks to me of taking something small and making it into something big that had ramifications for a person all of their lives.

For many us, our lives are shaped by the happenstance of our early experiences. Child psychologists can confirm that the impressions we absorb in our early days can have important implications for the people we become in our later years. I believe that one of the important things parents can offer their children is to provide evidence to them of unconditional love. We absorb that into the essence of our beings unconsciously and it can set us up well for life.

Chicken soup speaks to me of unconditional love. Whoever we are, whatever it is, that love can impart a sense of self-confidence that can otherwise take years of positive experience to generate. It can give us the strength to try, and fail, and try again and again until we succeed, or choose to move on.

For me, the humble chicken soup speaks of that unconditional love. For me, in the Jewish home of my upbringing, that was the message I received. So, now, after many decades of pursuing a life in nonsectarian environments – for the most part, a Jew among non-Jews – I trace back my capacity to arrive and thrive, to the original environment from which I drew my strength.

Am I being too ethnocentric? Surely, working in an environment that was much more merit-based than the one my grandfather and father were born into made an enormous difference? All too true! And yet, for me, I feel the difference of how I grew up.

Whatever your background, from where do you draw the drive that powers you through life? Mine leads back to chicken soup.

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.

BI hosts Zoom scholar series

On Feb. 16, Congregation Beth Israel welcomed the first of four renowned Jewish scholars in a made-for-Zoom series, The BI Scholars. Canadian-born Dr. Henry Abramson, dean of Touro College in New York and a specialist in Jewish thought and history, kicked off the series with a talk entitled Becoming the People of the Byte: The Internet, Talmud and the Future of the Jewish People.

photo - Dr. Henry Abramson launched The BI Scholars series on Feb. 16 — Dr. Henry Abramson launched The BI Scholars series on Feb. 16. *(photo from Beth Israel)*

His discourse looked at how Jews, over time, and to this day, use and relate to new information technology, and how it changes our modes of learning and disseminating texts. Abramson explained that Jews are generally early adopters of technology, beginning in the second century CE when, under the guidance of Judah Ha-Nasi, we moved from an oral tradition to the documentation of the Mishna in manuscript form, a big change that encountered significant resistance along the way. This was followed by the era of the printing press and, now, digital technology.

These communications technologies allow for significant democratization, and Abramson pointed out the value of the internet in that learning is available to all, whereas “treasured texts were previously not accessible to 50% of the Jewish community – namely, women.”

However, technology also presents dangers in terms of knowing the authenticity and authority of texts. It is our job, said Abramson, “to discover what we can trust and what we can discard.”

One of the female scholars about whom Abramson speaks is Ilana Kurshan, who has completed a remarkable feat of Talmud study – finishing the whole Talmud in seven-and-half years, Daf Yomi, a page a day. Kurshan will speak at the March 9 instalment of the Zoom series about her award-winning memoir If All the Seas Were Ink, which takes readers on a guided tour of the Talmud, while detailing her personal stories of love, loss, marriage and motherhood.

It is, indeed, one of the most unique Talmud commentaries ever written, as she explains: “The memoir is secondary. The way I happened to write this commentary on the Talmud is through my life.”

During her years studying the Talmud, Kurshan, a rabbi’s daughter from Long Island, N.Y., came to discover the terminology to understand her own daily experiences. “Talmud speaks to the human dimension of experience and, in many ways, that does not change,” she said. According to Kurshan, you cannot divorce the human experience from one’s own experience. “Just as the Talmud is a commentary on life, my life became a commentary on Talmud.”

On April 20, Dr. Benjamin Gampel, the Dina and Eli Field Family Chair in Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary, will speak on the topic Riots, Inquisitions and Expulsions, and the Emergence of the Sephardic Diaspora. Gempel is a specialist in medieval and early modern Jewish history.

The series ends with Yuri Vedenyapin from McGill University, whose topic is The Adventures of a Yiddish Teacher. An actor and a singer-songwriter, his areas of academic interest include Yiddish language and culture.

All BI Scholars Zooms start at 7:30 p.m. To register, visit bethisraelvan.ca/happenings/adult-programs/bischolars.