Between All and Nothing: A Blessing for a Running Catch of the Torah

My Jewish world has always been one of binary choices. Am I in or am I out? Will I take on all or nothing? How can I possibly receive the Torah if I cannot commit to everything within it? Even the phrase “breaking Shabbos” implies: Shabbos is either broken, or it’s not.

From my latest post on Lilith magazine’s blog.

Education: “One of those things that go deep with people”

I really like TEDtalks. This is one of my all-time favorites: Sir Ken Robinson speaks on education, children, creativity, and the arts. His message is important and is delivered with pitch-perfect comedic timing. What more could you possibly want? 

.

I heard a great story recently—I love telling it—of a little girl who was in a drawing lesson. She was six and she was at the back, drawing, and the teacher said this little girl hardly ever paid attention, and in this drawing lesson she did. The teacher was fascinated and she went over to her and she said, “What are you drawing?” And the girl said, “I’m drawing a picture of God.” And the teacher said, “But nobody knows what God looks like.” And the girl said, “They will in a minute.”

- Sir Ken Robinson

Orthodox Judaism, My Soul is Sick with Love for You

On Thursday, the Orthodox Union issued a statement publicly opposing the President’s recent stance on same-sex marriage. I read it that afternoon, got up from my desk, walked into the office bathroom, and cried. If the OU does indeed represent Orthodox Judaism, as they assert, the path towards a more honorable Orthodoxy seemed too long. I conceded to myself that feminism or LGBTQ inclusion within the movement really is an oxymoron, a fantasy. It was time for me to finally break up with Orthodox Judaism.

Yet on Shabbos morning I was back in my Orthodox synagogue, holding the Torah and reading a prayer out loud on behalf of the congregation.

Read the rest on the Lilith blog.

“Before I ever knew, I knew”

Recently, I’ve been giving even more thought than usual to my Jewish identity and my level of religious observance. With the holiday of Shavuos around the corner, I can’t help but think of my first Shavuos, seven years ago, which was the first holiday I fully observed. It also is the anniversary of an important decision I made, that I would later unmake and remake and unmake again. This is what I wrote then:

.

So many parts to a summer. I went to Massachusetts with a group of friends for the holiday of Shavuot, and ate salads and lasagna and quiche and pecan pie and cheesecake and cheesecake and cheesecake and chocolate covered peanut butter filled pretzels. Filled myself with so much good food and basked in the love that swam through my friend’s childhood home like sunlight. Missed the ten commandments in synagogue, but stayed the next day for the Yizkor prayer; the congregation emptied until only the people who had lost one or both parents remained; the page blurred before my eyes but I got all the way through.

We walked down the suburban streets, carrying nothing, mining our brains for more Broadway songs to sing, and each house I passed gave me a pang of longing—especially the ones with gardens where the flowers grew lush-colorful and wild.

Later, a conversation with one of the people in our group about relationships and experience upset me deeply because it was implied that without having had more experience, I am not prepared to be in a really serious relationship. A second conversation with the same person led to being asked what my reasons are for becoming religious, and when my tongue-tied response was deemed unsatisfactory I was told that I should examine my motivations.

And I wanted to scream and cry for being so utterly misunderstood:

Oh, but I have lots of experience with love.
Before I ever loved, I loved.
Oh, but I have always known I would be religious.
Before I ever knew, I knew.

sheaves

An old poem—from 2005—that feels fitting these days.

.

She who sows with tears,
she whose hands are callused from work,
she whose back is bowed from years—
she knows that every second is precious,
that every drop that falls from her cheek
lands on thirsty earth
gives birth
and lives.

She who sows with tears will reap with songs of joy.
She will gather them in her shaking arms,
the weight unlike anything heavy
she has ever had to carry.

Running home, light as song,
she lets the years fall away,
like tears.

The Unbuttoned Pants Dead-lock

Slight problem. I still am not fitting into my pants. They go on alright and look alright, but when I sit down, they hurt me and I have to unbutton them. ”Still” am not fitting into my pants, I say, as if I’ve done anything to ameliorate the situation since admitting a month ago that I’ve gained back some weight. It’s more than ten pounds since the summer—not a whole lot, I realize, but it’s not nothing. And it’s about the same amount that I so proudly documented losing over a year ago.

So now my pants and I are in a bit of a dead-lock. As always, I refuse to buy new and larger pants. That would be defeat. But I also have not been exercising or particularly watching my portion sizes or diet; my only cursory nod to the situation is the regular and discrete unbuttoning of my pants when I sit down at work.

The thing is, and a big part of the reason it’s been a dead-lock, I haven’t been panicking like I did the last time I weighed this much. “Worse than the actual weight gain, though,” I wrote in December of 2010, “is that I feel like a blob.” See, this time I don’t feel like a blob at all! I feel great and happy in my skin and in my shape. When I went to the doctor last week for a general check-up, I asked if I should be concerned about the weight gain… maybe this is just where I’m supposed to be? Maybe a larger pants size isn’t defeat, but acceptance?

It was a nice idea, but my doctor felt that gaining thirteen pounds since August wasn’t healthy and that I should—surprise surprise—eat better, slow down, and exercise. “Don’t think of it as a red light,” she said. “Think of it as a yellow one.” Slow down, slow down. So here we go, maybe. Okay, fine. I’m going to the gym on Thursday.

Overall, I’m fascinated by my perception of myself and my body. So much is, apparently, dependent on context. I was in a very different place emotionally a year and a half ago, and when my weight peaked I felt gross, unseemly. Popping out of my clothes. Now, frankly, I wasn’t even sure if I needed to lose the weight until I spoke to my doctor. I feel like me… just a little bit bigger.

The dead-lock continues. The kettle bell, the one-month Crunch membership, the gym buddy, the jump rope—all await. It’s hard to get off my (slightly larger) butt and get going, but sooner or later I must. Ultimately, I want exercise to be a part of my life, and not a scramble every time I’m straining at my waist-line. Any words of advice?

Statement of Purpose

I wrote this for my application to an MFA program in Playwriting. Waiting to hear back. Wish me luck.

—

Recently, at my old job, I was talking to a student I had never met before. He was in school for acting and I shared that I had studied playwriting. Usually I pepper students with questions about their lives, but this time the student asked me something. “Who inspires you as a playwright?” he said. I became very quiet, turned bright red… and eventually mumbled something about Tennessee Williams or perhaps Arthur Miller. The conversation was over; a twenty-year-old had caught me in the act. I was a complete fraud.

—

I worked for two and a half years as an “engagement professional” in the Jewish community on a college campus. What does that mean? The job was not, as one might imagine, about encouraging marriage, but was rather about getting to know Jewish-identified college students who were uninvolved in Jewish life on campus, and connecting them to opportunities, programs, and resources. (That is the official answer, anyway. The unofficial answer is that I treated a lot of students to coffee or tea.)

Sometimes, when I met students who were uninvolved in Jewish life, they would blanche when I mentioned where I worked. “Oh,” they would say, “I’m a bad Jew.” This could mean a lot of different things. It meant growing up totally secular, or could also mean growing up somewhat involved in Jewish life and then ceasing all Jewish activities upon entering college. It meant knowing about Shabbat—the Jewish Sabbath—and Jewish holidays, but not observing any of it. It could also mean not really knowing anything about Shabbat or holidays. Mostly, though, it meant a sense of being “checked out” of one’s Jewish identity—whether it was through ignorance or guilt or indifference or shame.

“There’s no such thing as a bad Jew!” I would exclaim. They rarely believed me. An enthusiastic Jewish professional cannot undo, in one fell swoop, years of self-incrimination.

Only recently have I realized that I have been doing the exact same thing as these particular students. In college, the distinction between “studying playwriting” and “being a playwright” was an important one that I availed myself of often; it was just too hard to introduce myself as a playwright with a straight face. Since graduation and during the occasional, terrible moments of interacting with people who actually are knowledgeable of theater and playwrights, I soon confess: I’m a bad playwright.

I’m a bad playwright because I don’t go to enough theater, because I don’t have Theater History 101 down pat, because I don’t read enough plays. I don’t have a substantial body of work. I have only had one proper production—and that was five years ago, at my undergraduate college. My joke at the time was that it was either my grand debut or my grand finale as a playwright. Until recently, the latter bore true.

Thank goodness for my last job, which saved me in so many ways that I am still unraveling and understanding. The response to someone who considers themselves a bad playwright or a bad Jew is, surprisingly, the same:

Own your identity. Own your background and your voice. Is your background less formal, less experienced? Own it. Do you have doubts and insecurities? Own them, too. The questions are part of who you are. Is the path ahead of you long? Great. Don’t be scared. Go for it. Learn, and grow.

This is why I am applying for an MFA in Playwriting. This is my voice. This is the person I want to fully be. I cannot imagine learning and growing anywhere else.