work

Promises can be motivating

Most of us have to work for a living. Even if we enjoy most of what we do, it’s rare to find someone who feels every moment of their job is a joy. After all, if they’re paying you to do it, my brother and husband would joke with me, “there’s a reason they call it work.”

However, sometimes things happen at work that just aren’t OK or comfortable. Long ago, I worked at an hourly job at a university doing educational administration. It was a mind-boggling number of obligations, managing hundreds of short courses, from instructor attendance lists and access codes to editing course descriptions, proofreading course catalogues and scheduling classrooms. I even set up chairs and tables myself for some courses. It was not my favourite job.

When Passover came along, I had to request time off to clean and cook at home, as I was expecting family to visit. It was not a standard holiday at this university and, although I was asking for time off without pay, the dean questioned me in detail about why it was necessary to grant this to me.

I needed the job. I’d finished my graduate degree but my husband hadn’t finished his yet. We needed the income. I tried to politely field the questions. I knew she was just curious and likely hadn’t ever had the opportunity to ask a Jewish person these kinds of things before. She took pride in wishing me happy holidays – by name – even when she got the Jewish holidays wrong or shared the greetings at the wrong times of year. Even so, she was in a position of power as my boss and I had no option but to answer her if I wanted to keep my job.

The weird part about this encounter is that it doesn’t only happen to religious minorities working for a majority culture boss. I’ve experienced similar questioning as a freelancer working for Jewish organizations, too – everyone wants to know what your observance level is, whether they know your family, if you have a plan for the holidays. Perhaps it’s meant to be friendly and supportive but it can also feel uncomfortable or intrusive. If one answers truthfully, sometimes the outcome doesn’t align with whatever the boss’s preferences would be.

If you work in a large organization with a human resources department, maybe there’s help there, but, most of the time, bringing it up elsewhere can result in more trouble than it’s worth. If diversity and inclusion at your organization don’t recognize “Jewish” as one of the categories, you may have singled yourself out for even more difficulties later on.

The commitments we make Jewishly vary, and everyone chooses their own boundaries. However, these promises we make, to ourselves and our families, are in some ways vows that we must honour and reconcile with our work lives.

This made me think about the talmudic tractate of Nedarim (Vows), which I just finished studying. Much of the tractate is spent trying to help people understand why rabbis think vows of any kind are just a bad idea. Culturally, too, this tractate seems to recognize a time when someone could announce that “all vegetables are forbidden to me” and suddenly this very poorly thought out vow becomes real and must be observed. Hence, the rabbis spent a lot of time suggesting that people just avoid taking vows altogether: better to skip making serious promises you can’t keep. That said, eventually, the Kol Nidre prayer was developed for erev Yom Kippur – it is a blanket prayer releasing us from all the vows we could not keep over the past year.

Rabbi Elliot Goldberg taught an interesting perspective in an online siyyum (celebration at the end of the tractate) on My Jewish Learning. Goldberg points out an example from Nedarim 8a that, even if one is committed to doing mitzvot (commandments), making a vow to do more is motivating: “Rather, it teaches us this: it is permitted for a man to motivate himself to fulfil the mitzvot in this manner, although the oath is not technically valid.” For example, if someone decides that, this year, it would be good to attend services or to donate more to charity, these are not technically vows, but more like New Year’s resolutions. We’re already supposed to do these things, but if we voice a commitment to doing them, it is motivating.

What does this have to do with our uncomfortable moments at work? Sometimes, even knowing that a situation will be awkward, we decide to do it anyway. It would have been easier for me to work right through Passover instead of going through the question-and-answer situation with the university dean. Instead though, this hard encounter motivated me even more to take the time off to clean, cook and spend time with visiting relatives.

Sometimes, finding a way to cope with a difficult situation at work can result in a deeper personal commitment to one’s own beliefs and values. In my case, even though I was very happy to leave that job, I believe that my year working in the Short Course program made a difference. When I left, colleagues told me that they’d learned from me and respected what I’d offered the department.

Our household finances often dictate our work lives – we all have to pay the bills and eat. Yet, sometimes Jewish law, provincial or federal law also affect our finances and ability to make our way in the wider world. We shouldn’t make vows, but promising ourselves to try harder next time to do what’s right just might be motivating in situations that don’t make those choices easy.

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.

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.

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.

חמש שנים לעבודה מהבית

לפני חמש שנים קיבלתי אישור מהמנהלים הבכירים במקום העבודה שלי לעבור לעבוד מהבית. ארזתי את מעט החפצים שלי שהיו במשרד בדאון טאון ונקובר והעברתי אותם לביתי. חברת הובלה העבירה את הכל השאר, כולל: מחשב, שולחן למחשב עם שני מוניטורים, כיסא משרדי, מגירות על גלגלים ועוד.

לראשונה בחיי עבדתי מהבית בקביעות וזה מאוד מאוד מתאים לי. כמבקר החברה אני צריך שקט בסביבה, בזמן שאני עובד ובודק האם הכל נעשה בחברה כשורה. מכל מקום בגלל אופיי אני מעדיף תדיר לעבוד לבד, לא בקבוצות, לא בצוותים ולא עם אחרים. סוף סוף הגשמתי את רצוני ואני עובד מהבית וזאת עוד הרבה לפני מגפת הקוביד.

המשרד של החברה נמצא במרחק של פחות מחמש עשרה דקות הליכה מביתי, כך שאם אני צריך להגיע לפגישה או לדיון כלשהו, זה נמצא ממש קרוב אלי. ובעצם אני יכול ליהנות משני העולמות: לבצע את העבודה יומיומית שלי מהבית ולהגיע למשרד כשצריך.

אחרי הצבא עת גרתי בישראל: התחלתי לעבוד בדרך כלל במקומות עבודה שיותר קרובים לביתי בזמן שגרתי אז בירושלים. הדבר נמשך עת עברתי לתל אביב. גרתי במרכז העיר ומקום עבודתי תמיד היה במרחק הליכה קצר.

כשעברתי לוונקובר לפני שבעה עשרה וחצי שנים, במרבית הזמן אותו נוהג שלי נשמר. אני גר במרכז ומקום העבודה קרוב. במשך עשר השנים הראשונות כאן שכרתי דירה קטנה ברחוב בארקלי בווסט אנד בסמוך לסנטלי פארק. אחרי שבעה חודשים של חיפושים אחרי עבודה התחלתי לעבוד במחסן של חברה לאספקת תכשיטים. כל יום צעדתי למחסן במשך כ-45 דקות. את אותה דרך עשיתי בהליכה בחזרה לבית. לאחר מספר חודשים עברתי לחברה העוסקת בגבייה ותפקידי היה לחפש מידע ובעיקר מספרי טלפון של חייבים. (זאת, עקב התמחותי בחיפוש מידע ולאור העובדה ששימשתי עיתונאי בישראל במשך שנים רבות). כמובן שמיקומה של החברה היה בדאון טאון של ונקובר, ובמרחק של כעשרים דקות מביתי לכל היותר. עבדתי בחברת הגבייה למעלה משבע שנים ורק בשנה האחרונה שלי שם קרה שינוי מהותי. בגלל שינוי בבעלות בקרב בעלי המניות והעליה המהותית בשכר הדירה, החברה עזבה את הדאון טאון ועברה לעיר ברנבי הסמוכה לונקובר. המשרדים החדשים מוקמו בצפון ברנבי בסמוך לברנדווד מול. כיוון שאני לא מחזיק ברכב מאז שעברתי לוונקובר, נאלצתי כל יום לבזבז קרוב לשעה כדי להגיע לעבודה. הייתי נוהג ללכת ברגל עד תחנת הרכבת הקלה של סקייטריין, ברחוב בווררד. ומשם הייתי מגיע לתחנת הרכבת של ברנדווד מול בברנבי, והולך ברגל עוד מספר דקות עד למשרד.

זו הייתה השנה האחרונה שלי בחברת הגבייה. משם עברתי לעבוד בחברה המספקת הלוואות בסב-פריים למי שאינו יכול לקבל הלוואות מהבנק, בשל קרדיט גרוע. בחברה זאת אני עובד במשך למעלה משמונה השנים האחרונות ממש עד היום.

בחצי השנה הראשונה שלי: משרדי החברה היו ממוקמים במערב העיר (במקריות בקרוב למחסן התכשיטים בו עבדתי בעבר). לאחר מכן עברנו לשמחתי לדאון טאון, כך שהייתי צועד כיום יום כחמש עשרה דקות למשרד. לפני כשבע שנים עברתי לדירה משלי בצד השני של רחוב בארקלי, בסמוך לרחוב בווררד. שוב מדובר היה במרחק הליכה קצר של כחמש עשרה דקות מהבית למשרד. ולפיכך העיקרון שלי לעבוד קרוב לבית נמשך כמעט כל חיי בישראל וכן בקנדה.

כאמור לפני חמש שנים ממש שברתי את העיקרון של עצמי והתחלתי לעבוד מהבית. אני מקווה שזה ימשך לעד.

Views on various occupations

COVID-19 changed a lot of people’s perceptions as to what types of jobs are essential. Not only doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers are on the front lines, but so are retail clerks, maintenance workers, truck drivers and many others. In this context, it is interesting to think about what occupations, if any, have been promoted or praised in Judaism.

As it turns out, Jewish scholars gave work considerable attention. Talmudic sages advocated for working rather than living off charity. Indeed, this principle provides some food for thought for modern-day Israel, where many ultra-Orthodox do live off charity. According to a January 2020 report by Dr. Lee Cahaner and Dr. Gilad Malach for the Israel Democratic Institute, between the years 2003 and 2018, about 50% of ultra-Orthodox men aged 25-64 and 76% of women in the same age bracket worked.

Scholars had a great deal of respect for labour. The Talmud abhorred idleness and argues that it leads to mental illness and sexual immorality. (See Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ketubot 59b, at jlaw.com/articles/idealoccupa.html.)

“Rabban Gamliel the son of Rabbi Judah HaNasi would say: Beautiful is the study of Torah with the way of the world, for the toil of them both causes sin to be forgotten. Ultimately, all Torah study that is not accompanied with work is destined to cease and to cause sin.” (Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, 2:2). Midrash Rabbah Bereshit (Vayetze chapter) goes even further, saying that practising a craft saved lives.

Yet, the sages believed that being absorbed with making money is not the ideal for an individual. Again referring to the Pirkei Avot (4:10), Rabbi Meir asserted: “Rather limit your business activities and occupy yourself with the Torah instead.”

Historically, teachers were valued – but only to a point. The high priest Joshua ben Gamla (circa the first century CE) issued an opinion that “teachers had to be appointed in each district and every city and that boys of the age of six or seven should be sent.” Where the boy had a father, it was the father’s responsibility to make sure his son had a basic education. Significantly, between the third and the fifth century CE, providing the salary of the Torah and Mishnah teacher became a communal task. Even those without children contributed to the teacher’s wages.

But teachers were not fully trusted. The Mishnah of Tractate Kiddushin 82a teaches that a single man or single woman should not become a teacher. The Gemara explains that the rabbis worried that such a teacher might have an affair with a parent of one of the students.

On torahinmotion.org, Rabbi Jay Kelman contends that the Gemara initially suggests that the Mishnah is afraid that an unmarried teacher might molest his students, but then rejects this explanation, noting that molestation is not something we need to suspect happening. Kelman, however, says, “this is something which no longer can be said with any degree of certainty. What we can say with certainty is such a fear is warranted even with those who are married and that, while rare, when it occurs, the results are devastating and tragic.”

While on the subject of sexual misconduct in certain occupations, here is an idea that might resonate with the #MeToo movement: the Talmud lists certain precarious trades that require men to often be alone with women. For example, a male goldsmith who makes jewelry for women. Talmud scholars were uneasy that such a businessman would be tempted to sin.

Curiously, harsh words were said about doctors. Tractate Kiddushin 82a ends with this statement by Rabbi Yehudah: “The best of physicians deserves Gehenna.” Why do they deserve a damned place? An article on talmudology.com contends that the opinion was based either on the belief that doctors were haughty before G-d or the fact that their treatment sometimes killed the patient.

Even though Israeli citizens highly value their army, Shalom Sabar points out in a Forward video that, in Medieval Haggadot, the “bad son” was portrayed as a soldier. This was because, at the time, non-Jewish soldiers would come to kill Jews.

Sailors, on the other hand, “are mostly pious … with many a ship sinking, sailors were in constant fear causing most to be super honest in the hope that G-d would protect them.” As Kelman summarizes, there really are no atheists in the foxhole.

On myjewishlearning.com, Rabbi Jill Jacobs states that, since Mishnah Zeraim (Seeds) deals solely with agricultural issues, we have proof that Judaism emerged from an agriculturally based community. Yet, in the Torah, farmers get off to a really bad start. Early in Genesis, we learn that Cain was the first farmer. Notwithstanding, G-d refused to accept his offering, accepting only his brother Abel’s. Cain couldn’t accept this rejection. In a jealous rage, Cain killed his brother and hid what he had done. G-d, consequently, reduced Cain to a life of wandering.

At a time when, around the globe, people are learning more about the extreme misconduct of some police officers, it is worth looking further into the Torah to see what Deuteronomy 16:18 and later commentators wrote about the police. Deuteronomy points out that both judges and police should be appointed to govern the people with due justice. Drawing on various Jewish sources, Rabbi Jacobs divides the function of the Deuteronomy-based police into several specific, but integrated parts: the patroling police person who “reminds the public to obey the law”; the roving inspector who ensures fair pricing and compliance with local ordinances; the arresting police officer who, while assuming the person is innocent until judged guilty, nevertheless begins the judgment process by arresting the suspect; the bill collector police officer who extracts payment from the obligated party to give to the aggrieved party; and the police officer who is a leader in his/her community. From Jacob’s assessment on truah.org, it would appear that today’s police have what to improve, especially when it comes to trust-building measures.

Over the centuries, Jewish scholars have taken into account the fallibility of people engaged in certain occupations. With tremendous insight into human behaviour, our sages apparently realized progress is not always in a forward direction. We have a long way to go in (re)establishing the integrity that Jewish scholars outlined for certain professions.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

***

The abstract of the article “Jewish Occupational Selection: Education, Restrictions or Minorities?” (The Journal of Economic History 65, no. 4 [2005]), Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein reads: “Before the eighth-ninth centuries CE, most Jews, like the rest of the population, were farmers. With the establishment of the Muslim Empire, almost all Jews entered urban occupations

despite no restrictions prohibiting them from remaining in agriculture. This occupational selection remained their distinctive mark thereafter. Our thesis is that this transition away from agriculture into crafts and trade was the outcome of their widespread literacy, prompted by a religious and educational reform in Judaism in the first and second centuries CE, which gave them a comparative advantage in urban, skilled occupations.”

The full article is available at jstor.org.

– DRF

Keeping busy in lockdown

When someone suggested this as the title of an article I should write, I roared with laughter. Me, who has been climbing the walls, thinking of taking to drink, or killing myself or others. But, after all, I pride myself on being creative, so I decided to have a stab at it.

I am very communal-minded, so I thought I should entertain the neighbours. I don’t play any instrument, but I know hundreds of songs dating back to the 1940s. In my imagination, I saw all my Jerusalem neighbours coming out to join in, sending their children to the street below to dance, keeping their social distance, of course. Well, that’s not exactly what happened. After I began singing – I chose my favourite aria from Madame Butterfly, “One Fine Day” – what I heard was doors being closed with great force and windows being slammed down. But, I persevered, until all the birds in the trees outside my balcony decided to migrate early this year and flew off to Australia or Siberia (whichever was the furthest), and even the cats that hang around our building also disappeared.

I next decided I could keep busy by tidying up my office. I know I have a very nice writing desk. I haven’t actually seen it for a few years because my printer sits on it, plus a pile of ideas for articles and stories that I intend to use one day. I decided to be ruthless and get rid of them, but then I thought I should read them first, after which I decided maybe to keep them for happier times. At least, this activity kept me busy for a couple of hours.

By then, it was lunch time, and I decided to use my creativity to prepare a gourmet meal for my husband from the ingredients I could find, after not having gone shopping for about five weeks. I put things on the kitchen counter and looked at them: one sad-looking turnip, some potatoes, three packets of desiccated coconut (where did they come from?), a tin of chickpeas and a packet of potato flour left over from Pesach. This assortment really taxed my imagination, especially as my husband, these last few days, has been giving me looks that say, “You don’t really expect me to eat this!” I haven’t done violence to him yet, which is a tribute to my self-restraint. Oh, I’ve thought about it, and I think a good lawyer could get me acquitted if I did – I’m sure there’s something called “justifiable homicide.”

I did the laundry, and then made the mistake of looking in the mirror. My hair hasn’t had the tender ministrations of a hairdresser for more than a month. I’m reminded of the song “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top” from the musical Oklahoma. I now have a fringe – or “bangs,” as I think North Americans say – and a strange triangle of hair that sticks out on the side. It is very depressing, but, if I put on my facemask and use the elastic to push it away, it doesn’t look too bad. In fact, when I wear the facemask, I look quite good.

So, I guess I am keeping busy under lockdown after all. I would like to say that I keep a balanced diet – a block of dark chocolate in one hand and a block of milk chocolate in the other – but I don’t actually have any chocolate. I like the story of a doctor who told his elderly patient that it would be a good idea if she put a bar in her shower, and she did – with bottles of whiskey, brandy, wine and vodka. I can’t do it though, because my soap holder won’t support even a bottle of wine.

Nonetheless, I hope I’ve given readers some ideas of how to keep busy under the restrictions that COVID-19 requires. It’s just a matter of initiative and creativity, and the time will pass constructively. I wish everyone good health until this traumatic time comes to an end.

Dvora Waysman is a Jerusalem-based author. She has written 14 books, including The Pomegranate Pendant, which was made into a movie, and her latest novella, Searching for Sarah. She can be contacted at [email protected] or through her blog dvorawaysman.com.

What is the worth of work?

Recently, I’ve had numerous encounters with middle-aged women. This isn’t strange. I’m talking to women who are a lot like me: dealing with school-aged kids, piano lessons, finding childcare, etc. What’s remarkable is that the same conversation pops up – about work.

One friend, an author and artist, said that she does the math every time she’s invited to do a workshop or a special event. Will the cost of travel, supplies and teaching preparation be worth the return? She’s often told, “Well, we can’t afford to pay you to teach” but, when she shows up for the single event she agreed to do for payment, what happens? People surround her, saying, “Well, if we’d only known you were coming, we would have paid for you to do a multi-day workshop!”

Another woman explained that she is only now, after years of staying at home, getting back to very part-time work in her field. Why? The cost of childcare would have canceled out anything she would have earned with part-time work.

Among women who juggle a full-time job with conventional hours, there’s an acknowledgement that it’s extremely hard to manage. In some cases, their partners step up to do the childrearing and run the household. In others, there are moms who are obligated to work full-time, be “on call” as the primary caretaker and either do, or hire someone to do, all the household chores. For many, this works because everyone’s healthy and they have support from extended family. In case of illness or lack of family support? Forget it. Of course, since these women do manage it, anyone who struggles is seen as “not as capable” as a woman who “has it all.”

This is a big topic, and it’s also (surprise!) a Jewish topic. We’ve been wrestling with it forever. In Exodus, the Israelites flee Egypt and slavery. Yet, in Exodus 14:12, the Israelites are afraid and they actually suggest to Moses that it would be better to return to Egypt and slavery (work without being paid) than to die in the wilderness. Lacking faith, they struggle with how they will be fed, and manna appears for them.

The first question is, what is the value of our work? For the Israelites, they were willing to live for nothing more than food and housing, as Egyptian slaves, rather than cope with being tossed out into the unknown. They didn’t value their work, and perhaps didn’t have the confidence that things could be different. Yet, when they take that risk, miraculously, their basic needs are met.

There are no guarantees. We can offer up our work for free – in whatever professional fields we’re qualified to do so – but there’s no surety that, at the end, we’ll have any offer of full-time, paying work. I see women doing this all around me. There’s an expectation that you’ll volunteer to offer your presentation, and you’ll also tack on free teaching, writing, editing, professional-level creative work or even childcare for others’ children. (Yes, I’ve been asked to do all these things for free.)

Here’s the second question. Is the Israelites’ manna in the desert the ancient equivalent of the “guaranteed minimum income” or “basic income” concept? At what point in modern society do we decide that everyone should get enough to eat? When is it acceptable to say, “Everyone should have a warm place to live, no matter what you earn or your special needs or other health challenges”?

In the Talmud, in Berachot 17a, the sages of Yavneh say that we are all G-d’s creatures, those who learn Torah in the city and those who labour in the fields. That both kinds of people rise early. Neither one is superior. Their work has equal merit as long as they “direct his heart towards Heaven.” This includes the idea that the labourer doesn’t presume to do the Torah scholar’s work and the scholar doesn’t presume to do the labourer’s. In this gendered ancient world, this leaves out women. Then Rav Hiyya acknowledges that women are offered “ease and confidence” because they do an enormous amount to sustain Jewish learning through raising their kids Jewishly and supporting their husbands who study Mishnah.

So, even in talmudic times, work was valuable and considered important, no matter what you did. Further, a woman who is doing “traditional” things like taking care of her children’s education or her husband is owed “ease and confidence” for her efforts.

Our work has meaning. It has important economic and social value. However, sometimes, when we compare our resumés, we feel lacking; certainly if we are being asked to do work for free. It turns out that we shouldn’t be expected to work for free, because our work, no matter what it is, is equivalent and necessary.

A more modern reminder: Martin Luther King, Jr., preached that all work is crucial and deserves fair pay. He supported the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ strike. To be healthy, we need trash collection. Garbage collectors matter.

There’s also no such thing as being out of the workforce. That dinner you cooked, the snow shoveled, the cleaning you did to keep someone healthy, the child you kept safe – according to the rabbis, if you do your work with the right intention, it’s all equally important.

I was recently invited by a favourite undergrad professor of mine to submit a short bio for the Cornell University Near Eastern studies department’s alumni page. I read some previous ones – doctors, rabbis, professors and others – and felt out of my league. Then I talked about it with my husband and thought about it. Being asked to share my work experience on that forum means, like the rabbis’ view of work, mine is valuable too – and so is yours.