okay Mr. Cohen, you were right, of course

My 4th-grade teacher tried to impose a sense of dignity and purpose to us students. He insisted that we try our hardest and held us accountable for everything we did or didn’t do.

So even when I handed in a graph that was done perfectly, he only gave me a B because the paper had a mark embedded in the paper. It wasn’t 100%. So even though today we would say one should not waste the paper, he would answer, “Fine. Use it for someone else’s class who doesn’t care.”

But I’m not talking about appearances here.

I’m talking about another lesson that he gave, among many (that prove how important teachers are, in case anyone questioned that) that I remember even to this day so many many many years later.

(I can still see that brown spot in that paper in my mind’s eye.)

He would call out quite loudly when someone gave an incorrect answer or didn’t know the answer,

“IGNORANCE IS BLISS!”

I can assure you, we knew that he absolutely honored each and every one of us. So we knew that he wanted the best for us and that we were not threatened by this broad gesture.

But we also knew he was totally right.

And oh how I wish I could be ignorant of so many things today. I wish for that bliss, but it’s not my portion in this world.

So many of you might wonder why I’m not a phone or a talky kind of person. I find it so much easier to hold my peace.

So for example, when someone leans over to me on Shabbat and says in the most truly concerned way “Oh so-and-so  told my friend what another so-and-so told him what happened” and I say “Really?  I didn’t think they were talking about it to anyone yet” and she continued saying “Yeah it’s so not clear–was it one person or two or three or” and then I realized she was talking about something else entirely and she said “Why? What are you talking about?” and I said “Oh never mind”.

But by that time, it was planted in her mind that there was something else entirely going on. Even if there isn’t.

But there’s always something else going on, even if only in our minds.

And then there’s the happy news that you’re not supposed to share, but of course you’re ecstatic to know and keep to yourself.

I was also thinking of calling this Stop & Shop’s Pea in the Pod service.

Our DIL#2 is allowing us to tell people that they are expecting a baby in November, baby #1 for them. But apparently, Stop & Shop knew that already. You probably heard about how Target targeted a young lady about her pregnancy, but her father didn’t know.

Target spokeswoman Stacia Smith said the company is focused on delivering great value and relevant offers, and also respecting shoppers’ privacy and operating with integrity.

“Like many companies, we use research tools that help us understand guest shopping trends and preferences so that we can give our guests offers and promotions that are relevant to them. Guests are always welcome to opt out of our marketing programs,” Smith said in the statement.

Well, Target isn’t the only act in town. Stop & Shop sent our DIL and S a sample Pamper.

They’re racking their brains to think of what they could have bought to warrant this behavior.

A jar of baby carrots to make something last year?

Curious and very scary.

So to revisit Mr. Cohen’s lessons, then, am I saying I would rather not know things?

I’m not saying.

math was never this cool

Wow.

Thanks, Bloggess!

And see more on her doodling here.

True Grit

I love this article in the NY Times magazine. I’ll entice you to read the whole thing, if you haven’t already, by this snippet:

Overindulging kids, with the intention of giving them everything and being loving, but at the expense of their character — that’s huge in our population. I think that’s one of the biggest problems we have at Riverdale.”

This is a problem, of course, for all parents, not just affluent ones. It is a central paradox of contemporary parenting, in fact: we have an acute, almost biological impulse to provide for our children, to give them everything they want and need, to protect them from dangers and discomforts both large and small. And yet we all know — on some level, at least — that what kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation that they can overcome, even if just to prove to themselves that they can. As a parent, you struggle with these thorny questions every day, and if you make the right call even half the time, you’re lucky. But it’s one thing to acknowledge this dilemma in the privacy of your own home; it’s quite another to have it addressed in public, at a school where you send your kids at great expense.

This is one of the main reasons I left teaching; I couldn’t stand the overindulgence of parents, which really, when it comes down to it, means not caring about your kids. Hard work is meaningful. Things that come too easily are too easily left behind.

Including love.

more life lessons (well, that didn’t take me that long, did it?)

Continuing from last post:

13.  Be a team player and

14. Know that people depend on you, so

15. Be dependable.

They might be the most important of all.

Except for all the others.

But then there’s this:

16. Know when something is a matter of life and death, and take life seriously when you need to.

Okay, my challah is probably done now.

life lessons from a visit to the fire station

And they have nothing to do with 9/11.

My son and I caught up with his family after their romp in the playground today, but with the express wish from their big little one to go see the fire station. He had been there a few weeks ago with his cousins, but you can never go back enough when you’re closing in on 3. When we got there, we joined in a tour being led by Fireman Ted for a family (cousins, also with weird Israeli names. What must they think of us?) It’s the first time I’ve been there in many years and I learned a lot. And I realized that these are good lessons to pass along, so here goes (Feel free to add on any lessons that you can think of, please):

1. Always be prepared–Now that goes without saying, but here it doesn’t. Be prepared for many things, not just fires. After all, Fireman Ted wasn’t expecting us to join in, nor was the other group preregistered. But he was ready to show us the ropes and the whistles, and all the gear in a delightful way, which leads me to the next point–
2. Enjoy what you do–Fireman Ted was clearly in love with his work, which included educating the public and interacting with them. And with this, I saw the next points.
3. Take pride in your workplace,
4. Clean up as you go along, and
5. Cleanliness shows pride (not the same thing as either 3 or 4).
6. Safety first! You’d think this is a duh, but he was great about showing the kids how to line up single file while going in the road. He was showing discipline, which I guess should be the next one.
7. Discipline matters. But at the same time,
8. Always expect the unexpected. (Okay, a variation on 1.)
9. Always be ready for guests to stop by.
10. Always greet your guests with a smile.
11. Enjoy your toys, big and small, but always know where things belong. And (most important of all?)
12. Always put things away in their proper place so you won’t have to search for them when you really really need them.

I can’t think of any more right now; I’m going back to bake my challah now.

why doesn’t the great divide bother us more?

I think it’s pretty obvious that if you don’t keep growing, you lose it. This refers to all parts of life, I think.

I think a lot of things are obvious that obviously aren’t to most people. Obviously, or they’d be doing the things I think are…

Okay you get what I’m saying, right?

But why is it that so many people are satisfied with staying in place? Treading water?

Why is it that they think it’s imperative to advance in all kinds of ways except for their emotional and spiritual well-being? Is it because they’re too busy advancing in their professional worlds?

Is it that they think things are good enough?

It seems that they just don’t care enough to even care.

And if that’s so, how do we get them to care?

The reality is that they/we could point to those who do seem to care and say we don’t want to have anything to do with those nuts. That’s probably a reasonable statement when it comes to a lot of the kinds of people who do put effort into advancing themselves in these matters.

Or we could say that for their children to care about such things, they have to care. That only goes so far, though.

We still have to make them care enough to make it real.

If you haven’t figured out yet, I’m talking in particular about grown-up Torah learning. Yes, for sure, too often it’s too dry or circular or uninspired.

But I think we need desperately to figure out how to inspire teachers who can inspire us to grown up our Torah in the most meaningful ways. I’ve talked about this before at least once.

Anybody have any ideas out there?

But maybe Nike and my father-in-law are right–

Just do it.

between the rock of 17th of Tammuz and the hard place of Tisha B’Av

The time between these two fasts is known as Bein Hametzarim, between the straits.

The oldest extant reference to these days as Bein haMetzarim - which is also the first source for a special status of the Three Weeks – is found in Eikhah Rabbati 1.29 (Lamentations Rabbah, fourth century CE?). This midrash glosses Lamentations 1.3, “All [Zion's] pursuers overtook her between the straits.”

This was one of my motivators for writing this today:

A Borough Park resident named Ephraim told The New York Jewish Week that the incident was a “a double murder — one was the child, and the other is the image of a Jew.”

Actually, now that I remember it, this was the first thing that set me off this morning, an email from Jdeal (“seriously surprising deals”–they got that right (: ):

Wish you could find your soulmate, get a better job and keep your family in good health (“gay gazinta hate!”)? Buy this jdeal for $38 and a Torah scholar will pray on your behalf at the Kotel for 40 consecutive days ($95 value). 

Of course, it would be such a m’chaya if you could get there yourself…but unless you won our recent seriously surprising jdeal for a free ticket to Israel via the HAS Advantage card, it may not be in the cards. Let a Torah scholar do it for you with daily trips to the Kotel (come wind, hail, rain or snow) where he will daven with kavana and say all the right things to help get your prayers answered. You too can join the countless individuals who found their beshert, and improved their jobs and health after these prayers. The best part: Your $38 will go to charity to support Jerusalem families.

Buy this jdeal today and thank Hashem for always being there…even when you can’t be.

Please follow redemption instructions on voucher. On the sign up form, you’ll be able to indicate name of the person the prayer is for, what the prayer is for, etc.

Expires 07/29/2011. May buy unlimited vouchers. Voucher redeemable 1 business day after purchase. Sign up form needs to be completed within 10 days after run date. No limit to sign ups per person. One person will be prayed for per sign up. Prayers will begin within 2 weeks of sign up. Must use in one sign up. Tax included. No cash or credit back. Not valid with other offers. Subject to availability. Redeemable online only.

Do you want to ask the obvious? Please, go ahead.

If you dare to look at the website, it gets even worse. This is marketing at its most terrifying, I think. I’ll just quote a little bit more from the end.

Batya trained and certified as a spiritual therapist under Rabbi Efim Svirsky (head of the Aish HaTorah Russian program). She brings these skills to her role at Western Wall Prayers, using an understanding and intuitive approach to help applicants articulate their personal prayers. She sees her involvement in Western Wall Prayers as a true calling, an opportunity to help people get closer to their Creator and develop their power of prayer.

Do you want to ask the obvious, again? Please, go ahead. I’m still reeling.

Apparently, there are takers. Since I started this thing (yes, I don’t write it straight), two more people bought in. I mean, bought the deal. That’s up to 61. Unless they’re padding it with fakers.*

Which is possible in marketingland.

But enough about that for now.

From the ridiculous to the infuriating now:

Americans for Peace Now backing settlement boycott

July 20, 2011

(JTA) – The board of directors of Americans for Peace Now voted unanimously to support a boycott of products manufactured in West Bank Jewish settlements.

The board, meeting Tuesday in special session to discuss Israel’s new anti-boycott law, endorsed the Israeli Peace Now’s campaign to challenge the law and voted to join in the settlement boycott, according to a statement issued by Americans for Peace Now.

Debra DeLee, the organization’s president and CEO, called the law passed last week by Israel’s Knesset “a travesty of democracy.”

“APN proudly supports our colleagues in the Israeli Peace Now movement as they lead domestic efforts to challenge the new law,” DeLee said. “They understand what this law means for Israel and for their future as Israelis. They know that it is not just their own ability to fight for peace, but also the very soul of Israel that it is at stake.”

DeLee said that APN continues to oppose boycotts and other forms of BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions) against Israel and the Israeli people as a whole, and urged consumers to buy Israeli products.

“However,” she said, “today it is clear that Israeli extremists are exploiting concerns about BDS, turning them into a pretext to effectively outlaw peaceful opposition to settlements and the occupation. In light of these attacks, no one who cares about Israel can afford to be squeamish about the issue of settlement boycotts.”

DeLee said the new law is not about boycotts or settlements, but rather is “about stifling dissent, smothering activism, and suppressing freedom of expression.”

Do you want to point out the obvious, or should I?

So I’ll just end with another quote about these days of mourning that we have now entered:

Rambam (Hilchot Ta’aniyot Chapter 1) — as noted by Chasam Sofer (Orach Chaim 208) and later by Rav Soloveitchik — highlights a different aspect of these days — that of repentance. By contemplating the past tragedies and realizing that any generation that has not merited the restoration of the Mikdash is also considered guilty of the same crimes which led to its destruction, the individual is spurred to repent for the misdeeds of both his ancestors’ and his own generations.

If only…

* up to 67 now!!! Oh my Hashem…

new marshmallows, kosher perhaps?

What is the key to a successful life? Remember the old marshmallow test? Here’s an excellent review of the background and the practical applications of this, why it is essential to teach more than the basics:

“Educators like to talk about character skills when kids are in kindergarten—we send young kids home with a report card about ‘working well with others’ or ‘not talking out of turn.’ But then, just when these skills start to matter, we stop trying to improve them. We just throw up our hands and complain.”

And further:

Mischel’s main worry is that, even if his lesson plan proves to be effective, it might still be overwhelmed by variables the scientists can’t control, such as the home environment. He knows that it’s not enough just to teach kids mental tricks—the real challenge is turning those tricks into habits, and that requires years of diligent practice. “This is where your parents are important,” Mischel says. “Have they established rituals that force you to delay on a daily basis? Do they encourage you to wait? And do they make waiting worthwhile?” According to Mischel, even the most mundane routines of childhood—such as not snacking before dinner, or saving up your allowance, or holding out until Christmas morning—are really sly exercises in cognitive training: we’re teaching ourselves how to think so that we can outsmart our desires. But Mischel isn’t satisfied with such an informal approach. “We should give marshmallows to every kindergartner,” he says. “We should say, ‘You see this marshmallow? You don’t have to eat it. You can wait. Here’s how.’ ”

So now there’s another researcher who has been tracking kids in New Zealand, teaching them social skills of delayed gratification, and that’s what got me thinking again of the whole process. It should be, shouldn’t it, that we who teach our little ones to sit and wait to eat, either at the Shabbos table or in preschools for snacks, until everyone has been seated and say the appropriate brachah together, that we frum Jews should have lots and lots of self-control.

Shouldn’t we?

Oh, we don’t?

So what’s wrong with the picture and what do we do about it?

all politics are as local as a tree in the wilderness

Last week’s haftarah for Parashat Bechukotai contained a phrase that overwhelmed me. It took me this long to process it, or at least to put it into some context. And context is the name of the game, actually.

The haftarah, especially this chapter of Yirmiyahu,  contains some of the most familiar phrases. For example, this one, from Birkat HaMazon:

בָּרוּךְ הַגֶּבֶר, אֲשֶׁר יִבְטַח בַּיהוָה; וְהָיָה יְהוָה, מִבְטַחוֹ.

7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose trust the LORD is.

and this one,

יד  רְפָאֵנִי יְהוָה וְאֵרָפֵא, הוֹשִׁיעֵנִי וְאִוָּשֵׁעָה:  כִּי תְהִלָּתִי, אָתָּה.

14 Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved; for Thou art my praise.

But I, of course, hyperfocused on this sentence earlier:

ו  וְהָיָה כְּעַרְעָר בָּעֲרָבָה, וְלֹא יִרְאֶה כִּי-יָבוֹא טוֹב; וְשָׁכַן חֲרֵרִים בַּמִּדְבָּר, אֶרֶץ מְלֵחָה וְלֹא תֵשֵׁב.  {ס}

6 For he shall be like a … in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. {S}

I’ve wiped out the translation of the word כְּעַרְעָר, if you’ve noticed.  The Stone Humash has as its translation, tree. I think this becomes the “normal” way that this phrase is used–”like a tree alone in the wilderness”.

Israel these days seems to be the lone tree. And is it because of the previous verse in the chapter?

ה  כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה, אָרוּר הַגֶּבֶר אֲשֶׁר יִבְטַח בָּאָדָם, וְשָׂם בָּשָׂר, זְרֹעוֹ; וּמִן-יְהוָה, יָסוּר לִבּוֹ.

5 Thus saith the LORD: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.

Could this be what the wearisome Satmar/anti-state Jews of all stripes could be thinking?

There’s another very interesting article I read a few weeks ago in the Week. Here’s the subheading:

Since political beliefs are rooted in emotions, says Chris Mooney, the facts are often irrelevant.

Is this true? Are all the articles and letters that we write into newspapers all for naught? People have already been swayed by their emotions and you can’t get them to change their minds?

No, the point is to lead with emotions. That’s why photos of “victims” are so often powerfully effective, even if they are posed and so effectively fabricated.

Here’s another quote from the article:

The upshot? Left or right, conservative or liberal, we all wear blinders in some situations. Then the question becomes: What can be done to counteract human nature itself? Given the power of our prior beliefs, one idea is becoming clear: If you want someone to accept new evidence, make sure to present it in a context that doesn’t trigger a defensive, emotional reaction.

So that’s why you have this article about Hamas: Agents of terror, partners in peace, or both?

There is another way to view [Hamas], said Alastair Crooke, author of Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution and a member of the Mitchell Report on the causes of the second Palestinian intifada.

“Hamas sees resistance as the means to generate the feelings that go into building community cohesion and self-respect,” Mr. Crooke said.

The group “does not believe that their armed resistance, per se, can bring about the defeat of Israel militarily.”

Rather, by “refusing subservience,” he said, Hamas seeks to create “a psychological balance with Israel that may eventually facilitate a political solution.”

In an interview with Mr. Crooke, Mr. Meshaal explained that Israel “needs to understand that, in Hamas, there is a tough negotiator, but one that, unlike others, stands by its commitments when given.

“We in Hamas,” he said, “like most of the Palestinian factions, have accepted the idea of a state with the borders of 4 June, 1967. However, we have said that we will not recognize Israel.”

Why is that? “It is because the Palestinian people are convinced that the land which Israel occupied is their land.

So, while they accept a state with the borders of 1967, they do not want to give legitimacy to those who occupied their lands 60 or 70 years ago.”

The Hamas formula, Mr. Meshaal said, is simply this: “If through politics we come to agree to a Palestinian state with the borders of 1967, why should we be forced to renounce our beliefs and feelings too, by recognizing Israel?”

But wait! I wanted to identify the עַרְעָר!

Is it tree? bush? juniper? tamarisk (as I deleted from the Mechon Mamre translation)?

Or another kind of tree?

Hmm. I think I’ll continue in another blentry with what I found out.

what indeed is the mystery of fading memories

This morning, I had read this article about the aforesaid mystery that someone actually took on as a real scientific study. Here are just a drop in the bucket of conclusions:

“The whole phenomenon of infantile amnesia is clearly a moving target in children, because as children move from 4 to 10, their [earliest] memories get later and later,” Peterson said. “But by age 10, those memories seem to get crystallized.”

…

As for what kids remembered, Peterson was surprised the traumatic or otherwise emotionally charged events didn’t turn up very often. “One child remembered playing peek-a-boo with her grandfather around her mother’s pregnant round belly,” Peterson told LiveScience. Another remembered waiting for a bus with her mom and there was a flower growing up through a crack in the sidewalk.

Other memories included: a child who couldn’t find her favorite bathing suit and so ripped apart her drawers to locate it; a child who would hide the new puppy the family had gotten so others had to look for it; and a child swallowing a small yellow Lego while in the backseat of the car and feeling like he was going to die, but being too scared to tell his parents.

Peterson hopes to figure out what makes some memories stick and others vanish, with this study suggesting neither the content nor the emotion attached to the memory play major roles.

The study, detailed in the current issue of the journal Child Development, suggests that our “psychological childhood” begins much later than our actual childhood.

“As we lose those memories of those early years, years that we previously could recall, we’re losing part of our childhood — in essence, we’re losing all or almost all of those events that occurred to us then,” Peterson said.

A la recherche du temps perdu, peut-etre?

And then there’s this comment from D#2 on FB this evening:

Quote from a letter I wrote to my sister  when I was in 11th grade: “I just had a conversation with [insert name of boy I have nothing to do with anymore] about theological and philosophical stuff that I will NEVER forget. It was amazing; he changed my perspective on everything.” Yep, totally forgotten.

And someone commented thusly:

Don’t be too sure: You may carry vestiges of that conversation in your attitudes or understanding, even if you no longer recall the details or the boy.

To which she responds:

Very true, very true. It’s totally and obviously true with so many people; in this case, it doesn’t seem very true. (And I know who the boy was. )

And then a very dear friend of mine tells me about why she had some problems 10 years ago and didn’t I remember why? I don’t remember knowing. Would I have known? Or would I want to remember?

There’s a system of teaching that I studied over 12 years ago called 4mat. It’s based every-so briefly, on making emotional connections for the learner to make sure that the material means something and therefore is retained (better than something you have no interest in). Here’s a graphic I copied from the website, just for fun:

When I learned it, you had to make sure that there was material in each of the 4 quadrants to reinforce all the others. There was no website, there was no software to prepare the material for you, and basically, I found it too tedious to work, especially in preschool settings. But I got the emotional connecting part–I really did.

But now I see that it doesn’t matter.

There’s clearly more at stake here. Why we do hold on to our old anxieties and not let them go? That’s pretty easy. We have to resolve things to move on.

No, to move on successfully. And that things come back–that’s just to give us another chance to get it right.

Or at least better than the first time.