Rumblings

First of all, very exciting new values found to be held by marijuana.

Next, it seems that there is a new book all the rage in child-rearing called “The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children,” by a Los Angeles clinical psychologist named Wendy Mogel. There is a very legnthy feature in the New York times magazine here or you can just look at some excerpts from your favorite online bookseller.

In other news, I've been trying to find something to push me over the edge and start talking about how the fashion world is up in arms about model sizes. It all started a few weeks ago when Milan banned models with an officially unhealthy body mass index from appearing in the Spring 2007 fashion week. In the recent weeks that have followed everyone seems to have weighed in on the "size 0 debate." They are going in circles and nobody in New York or Paris or anywhere else has really committed themselves to making an impact in one direction or another. However it is intersting to see Jean-Paul Gaultier's take on the matter. It's kind of a "fuck-you" to the whole thing regardless of who's side you're on. In his 30th anniversary collection just a couple days ago he featured this model.



A Chorus Line is back on Broadway, and apparantly there are pretty much no changes to the entire show except for the cast. I find it very interesting that this revival is actually a revival and not a revisal as has been the trend. It opened to mixed reviews. I might be inclined to see it. But first on the list is Sondheim's COMPANY revival starring Raul Esparza.


And finally, earlier in the week I found an article I was planning on releasing sometime this week. It's something I wrote for the Koach (Conservative Judaism on Campus!) national newsletter sometime in the fall of 1999. R. Elyse Winnick, one of my favorite teachers, asked me to write something about Sukkot - a Chag I never felt particularly connected to. But, not being one to let down a teacher (nor decline an offer to see my name in print) I obliged and you can read what I came up with below. -I am going to pretend that I did not recieve an email from Salome within the last hour in which she passed on a beautiful dvar torah from a friend of hers in Israel who is much better educated and significantly more eloquent than I was 7 years ago.

Coming to Terms With Sukkot

When I sit and think about Chag HaSukkot, there are a few words and images that automatically come to mind. Obviously "Sukkah" is one of them, as well as your standard: lulav, etrog, big meals, family and friends gathering, and all the rest of the usual Jewish holiday accomodations. When I really think about it though, I'm torn. Sure, I love that medeival scholar Moses Maimonides tells me to buy a new dress for the occasion (no joke! check out the Mishnah Torah, book 3, chapter 6, paragraph 18). I enjoy looking up at the stars and watching all the fruits and veggies hangin' from the walls of the Sukkah go bad. But I also feel somewhat disconnected. Sukkot is the one holiday that I could blow off or forget about. It just doesn't have that connection for me that the rest of the Jewish holidays do. You know what I mean. I can't build my own Sukkah because I live in an apartment building (and there's a pool in the courtyard, so trust me, there's no space). Also, quite frankly, the idea of a bunch of people marching around on Hoshannah Rabbah shaking a lulav and etrog while chanting the word "HoShannah" over and over again in different intonations freaks me out every time! It seems so cultish, so primitave. And I'd just as well sing the song "Hosanah" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar. That's when it hits me. Instead of singing, "Hey J.C., J.C. you're alright by me," instead of giving into the religion of the masses that we are all surrounded by in America, I was born into and have come to love this other religion. One rich with customs and traditions older than everything else I have come to accept as a norm in my life. So, I go to shul on Sukkot! I wave the lulav and etrog all around me and remember that God is everywhere. I visit the Sukkah on campus, and at my synagogue, and I go to friends' and family's houses, and I sit in their Sukkot. It's a pretty special thing, you know? So maybe I'm not a farmer, and don't feel an important need to pray for rain this year, or a good harvest. Maybe I don't have the space to build my own personal Sukkah. But one day I will. I'll want my children to help me come up with a theme for the interior decoration of it. I'll watch them explain to my grandchildren how many years people have built Sukkot. And hey, look at that! I'll be fulfilling the obligation from God written in Leviticus 23; 42-43 that says, "You shall live in booths ...in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt..." Maybe you will too. Chag Sameach.