Re-approaching the surface, half-drowned, after our move from LA to DC...
As you probably know, I am composing a longish narrative poem, exploring the myth of the “Eternal Jew,” a myth that has arisen in response to the Jew's inexplicable survival in a long and harsh exile. The existing literature on the subject has, interestingly, spanned the spectrum from philosemitic to antisemitic.
I believe the most definitive academic exploration of the subject is George K. Anderson's The Legend of the Wandering Jew, originally published in 1965. His review of the literature is arranged chronologically, and I have been plowing my way thru that tome, and am now up to the early 20th century. Curiously, however, in one of the other books I'm currently reading, The Jewish Caravan, subtitled “Great Stories of Twenty-five Centuries,” edited by Leo W. Schwartz, I just came across a variant of the myth written by Lion Feuchtwanger, entitled The Eternal Jew. I went to my Anderson, and altho he notes Feuchtwanger for an unexceptional excerpt on the topic from his novel Jud Süss, there is no reference to this 19 page story devoted exclusively to the topic. Shame on you, George.
The Feuchtwanger story is absolutely brilliant: laugh-out-loud funny, bitingly satiric (Feuchtwanger was declared literary enemy number one by Goebbels!), socially critical, psychologically penetrating, politically prescient, and knee-deep in historic and literary references. What a tour de force!
I thought you might enjoy a couple of short excerpts, all taken from a few pages at the end of the story:
A psychological insight:
“Antisemitism is a lifeless thing without a will of its own. If you only say the right kind of abracadabra then it is sure to become animated and active. It stands outside of all ethical evaluation. It is the sworn enemy of the spirit which withers in its presence....”
A sadly prescient scene:
After that the room began to expand as if by enchantment and became transformed into a vast square which reeked with smoke and blood. Towering heaps of Hebrew books were being burned. Stakes had been erected. They were so high they seemed to pierce the clouds. And the innumerable Jews that were tied to them were being toasted to a cinder. A chorus of priests were intoning: Gloria in excelsis Deo....”
Biting political satire:
“Why do you speak with such contempt of the 100% Germans?” he interrupted me. [100% Germans: the "racially pure" Germans that the nazis extolled]
“Contempt? Not that I am aware of. You might have said more correctly – compassion. As a schoolboy I had much to do with the sons of leading 100% German families. Many of them were upright, good natured, but endowed with moderate talents. In the study of languages and history, but particularly in German composition, they were hard put to get by. And several had to thank me for getting out of school a year sooner because they were God-fearing and adroit and copied from my notes.
But remarkably enough they all excelled in sports. … And these good athletes, but miserable logicians, who for decades have undertaken the guidance of German political life, are today as well the leaders of the German Nationalist movement.”
Social criticism (anyone in Iran, Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, et al listening?):
Only that nation whose national ambitions are greater than its ability to realize them, can deteriorate to such an extent as to wish to blame the Jews for something that every healthy nation accepts as a matter of pride: responsibility for its own deeds.
Some Jewish self-criticism:
“You of course notice that the Jews themselves do not take this sudden antisemitic explosion seriously.”
“What then are the Jews doing?”
“They are laughing.”
“They – what?”
“Yes. They are amused by the lack of talent and the grammatical errors of the antisemitic propagandists.”
And this made me laugh out loud, especially the puns on the suggested German names:
We had finally arrived at the home of the newlyweds.... Gertrud proudly exhibited the twins.
“What are their names?” I asked.
“The girl's name is Marie...”
“Marie! Pfui!” exclaimed the Eternal Jew. “That's a Hebrew name. It is a derivative of Miriam. You should have named her Frigg.”
“In any case you will like the boy's name. He is called Hans.”
“Hans! Pfui!” sneered the Eternal Jew. “It is also Hebrew and derived from Johanan. Why didn't you name him Teut?”
Marbod and Gertrud laughed heartily. “If the Jewish and the German are so well tangled together,” said Gertrud, “who can possibly unscramble them again?”
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Wheeling and Dealings, part 7 of 7
Wheeling and Dealings
5/20/2010
But what struck me most on this trip, beyond the details of personal travel narrative, and the philosophic excursions and spiritual geography, are the personal changes I felt, strange, unexpected, outside the frames of development and psychology I have read, and specifically this: I sat next to my son, not as a father, but as a partner, brother, friend, even a son at times, casting me into a new I, and thrusting him into a new he, and us in a new relationship, distinctly and exotically outside of time and history, I in a sixty year old body that had no sense of the passage of time and its progressively insistent fragility, I with my twenty-five year old son, who for all my love and all our experiences together, was totally new and liberated from any constraints of relative age, from his past, and from our past, as I entered a mystical, 5-geared rolling palace, a time-warp inside a dream world, stripped of its awesome and disorienting otherworldliness, and instead a natural, new reality, appropriate and familiar in all its discontinuity.
And it was evening and it was morning, and I picked up my scriber and took a shabbatlik breath, and I began to serve, to write.
5/20/2010
But what struck me most on this trip, beyond the details of personal travel narrative, and the philosophic excursions and spiritual geography, are the personal changes I felt, strange, unexpected, outside the frames of development and psychology I have read, and specifically this: I sat next to my son, not as a father, but as a partner, brother, friend, even a son at times, casting me into a new I, and thrusting him into a new he, and us in a new relationship, distinctly and exotically outside of time and history, I in a sixty year old body that had no sense of the passage of time and its progressively insistent fragility, I with my twenty-five year old son, who for all my love and all our experiences together, was totally new and liberated from any constraints of relative age, from his past, and from our past, as I entered a mystical, 5-geared rolling palace, a time-warp inside a dream world, stripped of its awesome and disorienting otherworldliness, and instead a natural, new reality, appropriate and familiar in all its discontinuity.
And it was evening and it was morning, and I picked up my scriber and took a shabbatlik breath, and I began to serve, to write.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
A poem interlude
An interlude here, before the 7th and last part of Wheeling and Dealings.
This poem is part of Gottesverdammerung, Bouk 6 of The Song ov Elmallahz Kumming. It came to me as a dream, and I have thus made it a dream-poem of the main character of the story, Rivka, a Jewish woman trying to escape the nazi death net. The poem is, as it were, a communique from an inmate of a concentration camp.
Kessim
A dream-poem dictated to Rivka
by Yitzkhak, her murdered husband.
Sum string here, a butten thare,
A shu lase, a skrap ov kloth.
For a seel starving, a kup ov koffee,
Just a littel sip will be enuf.
Ower lievz wer hanging on a fals ballans,
Delereyus kreecherz dansing on a galloez.
Sum wer unlukkee and got the noos;
The unlukkeyer wunz the mob set loos.
Sum string here, a butten thare,
A shu lase, a skrap ov kloth.
For a werthless life hanging in the ballans
A littel sip mite be enuf.
Seelz dying for a taest ov redempshen.
We toild, owwer feengerz sluggish and numm.
Ower feet freezing; owwer eyz blurrd;
We obsesst on a kup, steeming blak koffee.
Sum string here, a butten thare,
A shu lase, a skrap ov kloth.
Peeking owt ov owwer shrunken boddeez,
Theze skraps koud save, or a kup ov broth.
Louking down on owwer shrunken boddeez
Frum a hiyer plase – no feer, no lakk,
We prepaerd garments for the nu arrivelz,
Thaer lievz exchaenjd for a gram ov ragz.
Sum string here, a butten thare,
A shu lase, a skrap ov kloth.
A seekret trezher karreed on the wind;
Like a wiff ov koffee, then gon aggen.
Tu restraen the helldogz, a seekret kode.
Tu tok abowt praer wuz streng ferbode.
So we kawld it 'kessim', koffee, just a sip.
The wormth, the arroma, just the thot ov it.
This poem is part of Gottesverdammerung, Bouk 6 of The Song ov Elmallahz Kumming. It came to me as a dream, and I have thus made it a dream-poem of the main character of the story, Rivka, a Jewish woman trying to escape the nazi death net. The poem is, as it were, a communique from an inmate of a concentration camp.
Kessim
A dream-poem dictated to Rivka
by Yitzkhak, her murdered husband.
Sum string here, a butten thare,
A shu lase, a skrap ov kloth.
For a seel starving, a kup ov koffee,
Just a littel sip will be enuf.
Ower lievz wer hanging on a fals ballans,
Delereyus kreecherz dansing on a galloez.
Sum wer unlukkee and got the noos;
The unlukkeyer wunz the mob set loos.
Sum string here, a butten thare,
A shu lase, a skrap ov kloth.
For a werthless life hanging in the ballans
A littel sip mite be enuf.
Seelz dying for a taest ov redempshen.
We toild, owwer feengerz sluggish and numm.
Ower feet freezing; owwer eyz blurrd;
We obsesst on a kup, steeming blak koffee.
Sum string here, a butten thare,
A shu lase, a skrap ov kloth.
Peeking owt ov owwer shrunken boddeez,
Theze skraps koud save, or a kup ov broth.
Louking down on owwer shrunken boddeez
Frum a hiyer plase – no feer, no lakk,
We prepaerd garments for the nu arrivelz,
Thaer lievz exchaenjd for a gram ov ragz.
Sum string here, a butten thare,
A shu lase, a skrap ov kloth.
A seekret trezher karreed on the wind;
Like a wiff ov koffee, then gon aggen.
Tu restraen the helldogz, a seekret kode.
Tu tok abowt praer wuz streng ferbode.
So we kawld it 'kessim', koffee, just a sip.
The wormth, the arroma, just the thot ov it.
Wheeling and Dealings, part 6 of 7
Wheeling and Dealings
5/20/2010
Josh and I roll into Bloomington a few minutes after 5pm, unload the truck, sweating and grunting and stumbling our way with my parents’ things into his house, which, piece by piece grows odder, more dissonant, more gratifying, as their things reshape his house, so that his living room for me becomes a museum of living memories; a glass taken from a kitchen cabinet; silverware from a drawer – it was ugly in Monroeville, it's beautiful here; paintings on the wall – two pages from an illuminated Persian manuscript, the girl with her back to us, sitting on a bed playing guitar (my sister's first art purchase), the photo of my father as a little boy, riding a horse-drawn grocery wagon with his father; the skinny, taciturn secretary overseeing the room with her wrinkled glass panes; the massive couch (that was a bitch to carry); the samovar in the corner and its Magyar tea-drinking spirits; all allow me to once again sit with my parents, as I sit with my child who I admire and love with virtually no limits.
Now I take a slow, deep sixth breath.
5/20/2010
Josh and I roll into Bloomington a few minutes after 5pm, unload the truck, sweating and grunting and stumbling our way with my parents’ things into his house, which, piece by piece grows odder, more dissonant, more gratifying, as their things reshape his house, so that his living room for me becomes a museum of living memories; a glass taken from a kitchen cabinet; silverware from a drawer – it was ugly in Monroeville, it's beautiful here; paintings on the wall – two pages from an illuminated Persian manuscript, the girl with her back to us, sitting on a bed playing guitar (my sister's first art purchase), the photo of my father as a little boy, riding a horse-drawn grocery wagon with his father; the skinny, taciturn secretary overseeing the room with her wrinkled glass panes; the massive couch (that was a bitch to carry); the samovar in the corner and its Magyar tea-drinking spirits; all allow me to once again sit with my parents, as I sit with my child who I admire and love with virtually no limits.
Now I take a slow, deep sixth breath.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Wheeling and Dealings, part 5 of 7
Wheeling and Dealings
5/20/2010
But, in truth, it's not that one
because, how can I make a contract with myself?, how can I, or anyone be so divided?, and yet this is a common psychological representation, for me an example of inaccurate analysis, of sloppy use of language and an artificial architecture of introspection, long time shaping our psychology, at least back to Laing and others who explore in depth a “divided self,” creating false images, as if there is more than one mind, rather than a mind confronted with multiple options, uncertain, conflicted, confused by its choices, its decisions, its risks, of who to be and what to do, but like a sack full of all that we travel with, treasures, necessities, leaky containers, things we should have long ago discarded, trash and broken objects, a rumpled sack, a torn sack from which things are lost, but all that is in the sack, pressed together, perhaps grinding, perhaps breaking, all of this is what our self is made of, and this is its wholeness, however empty or overstuffed or jumbled the sack may be; and thus my contention: I cannot make a contract with myself! since such an idea is built on the illusion that I am also not-I; and yet, and yet... one identity can dominate another, can gobble up possibilities and prey on the needs of conflicting identities, as if, or until I am not-I, or I am hurting I...
But in this case, at least, no, Josh, I am not breaking a contract with myself, but with the One that sent me here, that lifted me from inconscience, however minute that lifting may have been, that inspired me and told me, “go forth and study this world and report back to Me; go forth and explore this world and reflect and evaluate all you see and offer it up to those who would listen, because what you see well, I will have shown you, and what you say well, I will have dictated, but what you mis-see and what you mis-tell will fall away, like chaff blown away by the wind, but after all, if the harvest is good, then grain will be gathered and Souls will be fed and strengthened; this I believe as a caster of seeds and a gleaner of sheaves, even tho I have planted and wandered on, and, having wandered, cannot perceive the harvest, altho in my rounds it appears that few have gathered what has grown behind me, and fewer, surely, perhaps none at all, are sustained by the produce; yes, I realize this, and worse, I realize that of the many wonders I have seen, perhaps all are but illusions, and all I have told is but chaff, yet this I believe: where I have shirked my contract, there will I be held accountable, but where I have served, God will know, and where I have served well, God will use it and increase it.
And I take a fifth breath.
5/20/2010
But, in truth, it's not that one
because, how can I make a contract with myself?, how can I, or anyone be so divided?, and yet this is a common psychological representation, for me an example of inaccurate analysis, of sloppy use of language and an artificial architecture of introspection, long time shaping our psychology, at least back to Laing and others who explore in depth a “divided self,” creating false images, as if there is more than one mind, rather than a mind confronted with multiple options, uncertain, conflicted, confused by its choices, its decisions, its risks, of who to be and what to do, but like a sack full of all that we travel with, treasures, necessities, leaky containers, things we should have long ago discarded, trash and broken objects, a rumpled sack, a torn sack from which things are lost, but all that is in the sack, pressed together, perhaps grinding, perhaps breaking, all of this is what our self is made of, and this is its wholeness, however empty or overstuffed or jumbled the sack may be; and thus my contention: I cannot make a contract with myself! since such an idea is built on the illusion that I am also not-I; and yet, and yet... one identity can dominate another, can gobble up possibilities and prey on the needs of conflicting identities, as if, or until I am not-I, or I am hurting I...
But in this case, at least, no, Josh, I am not breaking a contract with myself, but with the One that sent me here, that lifted me from inconscience, however minute that lifting may have been, that inspired me and told me, “go forth and study this world and report back to Me; go forth and explore this world and reflect and evaluate all you see and offer it up to those who would listen, because what you see well, I will have shown you, and what you say well, I will have dictated, but what you mis-see and what you mis-tell will fall away, like chaff blown away by the wind, but after all, if the harvest is good, then grain will be gathered and Souls will be fed and strengthened; this I believe as a caster of seeds and a gleaner of sheaves, even tho I have planted and wandered on, and, having wandered, cannot perceive the harvest, altho in my rounds it appears that few have gathered what has grown behind me, and fewer, surely, perhaps none at all, are sustained by the produce; yes, I realize this, and worse, I realize that of the many wonders I have seen, perhaps all are but illusions, and all I have told is but chaff, yet this I believe: where I have shirked my contract, there will I be held accountable, but where I have served, God will know, and where I have served well, God will use it and increase it.
And I take a fifth breath.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Wheeling and Dealings, part 4 of 7
Wheeling and Dealings
5/20/2010
Once we broke out of the Pittsburgh traffic, our ramblings really ramped up. “Ninety miles an hour, girl, is the speed I drive...”
Josh, he's mapping out South Central Asia by language, politics, history, and culture, Caucasus overlapped in Aryan migration and Tartar conflicts, inexplicable compatibilities, mixed into Josh's own inexplicable incompatibilities, and his compulsion to see and record the grammars and grammothers of the region.
Now that he's warmed up, Josh powers on in high gear,
you see, there's personal folklore in every moment, but especially life cycle events, and the recording of people’s narratives, as strangely coincident, Rach falls out of her dream of photo journalism as a career in empathy and relationship, realizing it's a life of move-in – shoot – forget 'em – blow your horn, as she wakes up disillusioned, and takes a game-changing move towards recording personal stories for the sake of healing; not quite folklore, but close – examples: a journey thru addiction; the death of a sibling; surviving cancer; recording the last days and weeks of a patient in hospice – and from there to the virtue, the value, the need for families and individuals to record their histories in regular intervals, and construct extended genealogies built from images and recorded statements, talking not just about favorite foods and favorite colors, but rather, moments of change, success and failures, where we are going, where we have been, what we want and what we avoid, and in other words the perception of forces that have shaped both our interior and exterior lives, and what kinds of tools and software and professional guidance is necessary and possible to produce this (now that's folklore, by the way),
and from there after a long moment’s silence considering wide fields of bright flowering yellow clover and the verdant rolling landscapes of scrub-lined fields and second growth woodlands, such a contrast to the parched straw and washed-out olive shades of SoCal and Yemen, I hesitate and dive into my recurrent discontents and thoughts to drop out of my safe and affluent life, to live in an Airstream (I found a nice one online for 5000 bucks) as an old bohemian/hippy recluse, with limited need of money, it's so easy to take that mental step, but the next step is all bramble: wanting to be local to a vibrant culture, especially Jewish, searching the country and the world to find such a place and realizing that if it exists I don't know where, even or especially in Israel; which led to Josh asking, 'why my discontent?,' and without much delay – should I talk about it?, how should I tell it?, is this the truth or just a layer on something deeper and truer? – my answer that I am not fulfilling my contract, and he, 'the contract with yourself?,' and me, 'yes, that one.'
And a fourth breath.
5/20/2010
Once we broke out of the Pittsburgh traffic, our ramblings really ramped up. “Ninety miles an hour, girl, is the speed I drive...”
Josh, he's mapping out South Central Asia by language, politics, history, and culture, Caucasus overlapped in Aryan migration and Tartar conflicts, inexplicable compatibilities, mixed into Josh's own inexplicable incompatibilities, and his compulsion to see and record the grammars and grammothers of the region.
Now that he's warmed up, Josh powers on in high gear,
you see, there's personal folklore in every moment, but especially life cycle events, and the recording of people’s narratives, as strangely coincident, Rach falls out of her dream of photo journalism as a career in empathy and relationship, realizing it's a life of move-in – shoot – forget 'em – blow your horn, as she wakes up disillusioned, and takes a game-changing move towards recording personal stories for the sake of healing; not quite folklore, but close – examples: a journey thru addiction; the death of a sibling; surviving cancer; recording the last days and weeks of a patient in hospice – and from there to the virtue, the value, the need for families and individuals to record their histories in regular intervals, and construct extended genealogies built from images and recorded statements, talking not just about favorite foods and favorite colors, but rather, moments of change, success and failures, where we are going, where we have been, what we want and what we avoid, and in other words the perception of forces that have shaped both our interior and exterior lives, and what kinds of tools and software and professional guidance is necessary and possible to produce this (now that's folklore, by the way),
and from there after a long moment’s silence considering wide fields of bright flowering yellow clover and the verdant rolling landscapes of scrub-lined fields and second growth woodlands, such a contrast to the parched straw and washed-out olive shades of SoCal and Yemen, I hesitate and dive into my recurrent discontents and thoughts to drop out of my safe and affluent life, to live in an Airstream (I found a nice one online for 5000 bucks) as an old bohemian/hippy recluse, with limited need of money, it's so easy to take that mental step, but the next step is all bramble: wanting to be local to a vibrant culture, especially Jewish, searching the country and the world to find such a place and realizing that if it exists I don't know where, even or especially in Israel; which led to Josh asking, 'why my discontent?,' and without much delay – should I talk about it?, how should I tell it?, is this the truth or just a layer on something deeper and truer? – my answer that I am not fulfilling my contract, and he, 'the contract with yourself?,' and me, 'yes, that one.'
And a fourth breath.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Wheeling and Dealings, part 3 of 7
Wheeling and Dealings
5/20/2010
The next morning we set off on foot, slip-sliding away with suitcase and backpack down a muddy embankment between the hotel parking lot and the truck rental office, affirming my status as a trucker, not a CEO, and where, appropriately, the rental agent discovered that my driver’s license had expired. Shite! I had imagined I’d do all the driving, but, flip-flop, splish-splash, and I was a co-pilot, with nothing more to do than give directions, help with lane-changes, do food prep (primarily, unwrapping the remaining sandwich). East, down Rt. 22 past the Miracle Mile and up Mosside a half mile to the storage locker, a stone’s throw from my father’s office (may his memory be a blessing) where we loaded the truck, which turned out to be vastly larger than we needed, and we were on the road by 9:30am.
Over a curb or two, onto the Parkway West, past the slag heap by the Squirrel Hill Tunnel that is now a vast condo patch, down along the river thru downtown, over the Fort Pitt Bridge and thru the tunnel, whining the transmission into full scream up the Duquesne Heights, swerving onto 79 South (almost missed that one), detoured east thru downtown Wheeling, whoa! that ole girl never seems to throw off her lingering air of depression,
and on autopilot out 70 East, where I would take a third breath.
5/20/2010
The next morning we set off on foot, slip-sliding away with suitcase and backpack down a muddy embankment between the hotel parking lot and the truck rental office, affirming my status as a trucker, not a CEO, and where, appropriately, the rental agent discovered that my driver’s license had expired. Shite! I had imagined I’d do all the driving, but, flip-flop, splish-splash, and I was a co-pilot, with nothing more to do than give directions, help with lane-changes, do food prep (primarily, unwrapping the remaining sandwich). East, down Rt. 22 past the Miracle Mile and up Mosside a half mile to the storage locker, a stone’s throw from my father’s office (may his memory be a blessing) where we loaded the truck, which turned out to be vastly larger than we needed, and we were on the road by 9:30am.
Over a curb or two, onto the Parkway West, past the slag heap by the Squirrel Hill Tunnel that is now a vast condo patch, down along the river thru downtown, over the Fort Pitt Bridge and thru the tunnel, whining the transmission into full scream up the Duquesne Heights, swerving onto 79 South (almost missed that one), detoured east thru downtown Wheeling, whoa! that ole girl never seems to throw off her lingering air of depression,
and on autopilot out 70 East, where I would take a third breath.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Wheeling and Dealings, part 2 of 7
Wheeling and Dealings
5/20/2010
Josh and I took a shuttle van to Monroeville, the last stop. Our conversation was a pastiche of little revelations about our dealings and seeings, ranging from the far-flung to the near-crazy: South Central Asia, to Israel, to our schools, to inner compulsions, swirled into bad music on the radio, and fellow passengers’ blurtings and bleatings, tho it's fair to reflect that, most likely to them, we were the bleaters and blurters.
Our hotel was next to Pirmanti’s (as it’s pronounced, tho not spelled). It was 11:30pm, and concerned for road food, we went over to see if they were open. Inside, we downed a couple of vodkas and ordered three monster fish sandwiches to go (you know, the ones with double cheese, don't spare the tartar, and an order of fries and coleslaw dumped right into the sandwich), of which we immediately gobbled two, while we continued our bleatings and blurtings, in more detailed forms of revelation and magical realism: courses in dominant and endangered central Asian languages; exotic places we have explored, especially Yemen, Hevron, hell, the Grand Canyon; bizarre examples of student behavior that can be observed on any given day in any given classroom; lesson plans that included Bedouin mosques and non-violent resistance; Potok and The Chosen and Hebrew and Modernity; brothers, sisters, mothers, and lovers, but not D.H. Lawrence; moves to Bloomington and DC and the narrow and empty spaces in both of those places.
We were asleep within minutes of returning to the hotel, allowing for the time to take a second breath.
5/20/2010
Josh and I took a shuttle van to Monroeville, the last stop. Our conversation was a pastiche of little revelations about our dealings and seeings, ranging from the far-flung to the near-crazy: South Central Asia, to Israel, to our schools, to inner compulsions, swirled into bad music on the radio, and fellow passengers’ blurtings and bleatings, tho it's fair to reflect that, most likely to them, we were the bleaters and blurters.
Our hotel was next to Pirmanti’s (as it’s pronounced, tho not spelled). It was 11:30pm, and concerned for road food, we went over to see if they were open. Inside, we downed a couple of vodkas and ordered three monster fish sandwiches to go (you know, the ones with double cheese, don't spare the tartar, and an order of fries and coleslaw dumped right into the sandwich), of which we immediately gobbled two, while we continued our bleatings and blurtings, in more detailed forms of revelation and magical realism: courses in dominant and endangered central Asian languages; exotic places we have explored, especially Yemen, Hevron, hell, the Grand Canyon; bizarre examples of student behavior that can be observed on any given day in any given classroom; lesson plans that included Bedouin mosques and non-violent resistance; Potok and The Chosen and Hebrew and Modernity; brothers, sisters, mothers, and lovers, but not D.H. Lawrence; moves to Bloomington and DC and the narrow and empty spaces in both of those places.
We were asleep within minutes of returning to the hotel, allowing for the time to take a second breath.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Wheeling and Dealings, part 1
In mid-May my son and I each flew from our various places to Pittsburgh, where we rented a truck and moved the remaining portion of my parents' estate to his house in Bloomington. Here's how I recorded the trip, its multiple breaths...
Wheeling and Dealings
5/20/2010
Bloomington, in an empty bedroom, and an airport
After flying across country on Saturday, Shabbat Bemidbar, to look at a dozen or more houses in DC and decide we didn’t like any of them and then flying back on Sunday, a long gulp of Israeli coffee and facing Monday at school, I then returned to the snaking security lines, the undressing – shoes, belts, phones, keys, coins, watch, kippa – and the public display of all I was carrying, so I might be packed into a plane, I among so many other misfits – we humans being very poorly designed to fit into the narrow and mishapen spaces airlines allocate to us -- to find myself (as if I had lost myself) in Pittsburgh, where I waited four hours at the airport to meet Josh, my son.
And that was one breath, although at the time I imagined myself gasping and panting like some hapless greyhound 2 minutes past the boom when the gates swing open.
Wheeling and Dealings
5/20/2010
Bloomington, in an empty bedroom, and an airport
After flying across country on Saturday, Shabbat Bemidbar, to look at a dozen or more houses in DC and decide we didn’t like any of them and then flying back on Sunday, a long gulp of Israeli coffee and facing Monday at school, I then returned to the snaking security lines, the undressing – shoes, belts, phones, keys, coins, watch, kippa – and the public display of all I was carrying, so I might be packed into a plane, I among so many other misfits – we humans being very poorly designed to fit into the narrow and mishapen spaces airlines allocate to us -- to find myself (as if I had lost myself) in Pittsburgh, where I waited four hours at the airport to meet Josh, my son.
And that was one breath, although at the time I imagined myself gasping and panting like some hapless greyhound 2 minutes past the boom when the gates swing open.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Anti-Zionist flotilla, and Israel's dilemma
My son and I had this exchange on facebook:
Josh Berer
hey, I'm sick of all these people dissing Israel! Israel has the right to defend its borders... from unarmed international aid workers.... in international waters... wait.
Stephen Berer
... oh wait again... unarmed?
Josh Berer
and you would kill everyone who didnt share your viewpoint. tell me, when people brand israel a pariah state do you scratch your head and wonder why? or does this look like the actions of a government that cares about a meaningful peace with her neighbors? or one that aspires to be a light unto the nations? when Israel talks about how much she wants peace but the palestinians just won't have it, do actions like these just disappear from your memory?
24 minutes ago
Stephen Berer
easy to talk and criticize from the comfort of the US. This event has made me sick, but Israel has to impress more people than liberals. It has to impress the Jew-hating, Israel-hating politicos from Europe, that they play hardball with Israel at their peril. It has to let Iran know that public opinion will not shape Israel's policies, and it will not be intimidated by ANYONE. It has to let Hezbollah and Hamas know that it will defend it's positions aggressively, ruthlessly, if necessary. Honestly Josh, Israel doesn't need to give a good goddam about your opinion or mine. It has more important fish to fry. Sorry bud.
Josh Berer
hey, I'm sick of all these people dissing Israel! Israel has the right to defend its borders... from unarmed international aid workers.... in international waters... wait.
Stephen Berer
... oh wait again... unarmed?
Josh Berer
and you would kill everyone who didnt share your viewpoint. tell me, when people brand israel a pariah state do you scratch your head and wonder why? or does this look like the actions of a government that cares about a meaningful peace with her neighbors? or one that aspires to be a light unto the nations? when Israel talks about how much she wants peace but the palestinians just won't have it, do actions like these just disappear from your memory?
24 minutes ago
Stephen Berer
easy to talk and criticize from the comfort of the US. This event has made me sick, but Israel has to impress more people than liberals. It has to impress the Jew-hating, Israel-hating politicos from Europe, that they play hardball with Israel at their peril. It has to let Iran know that public opinion will not shape Israel's policies, and it will not be intimidated by ANYONE. It has to let Hezbollah and Hamas know that it will defend it's positions aggressively, ruthlessly, if necessary. Honestly Josh, Israel doesn't need to give a good goddam about your opinion or mine. It has more important fish to fry. Sorry bud.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Invocation for Mithz ov the Atternen Jew
Opening scene for Miths ov the Atternen Jew
Yu hav ask me tu preparen a jernee,
An report tu Yu ov wut iz my seen*.
* Utherz sayd “wut I am seez”
Heren the Pardaes Lanz ov the bliend;
Heren the Perdaeshen howlz in the holeez.
All superpozen theze lifenz abloen
By rowdee winz akross seez unfathem.
Heren thay werdenz ov Yur markabbel werlz
Twisten the vois a wun a Yur Addomz,
A man hu kno not Yur holee tung
But speken it ennee wayz. Here me Lor!
Taken wut iz goud and punnish me not
For how I miss tell and miss take wut iz Yuez.
Heren my jernee ov Yur testen pepelz
Az Yu ar rekwiyer, a long-aggo send me
Intu the inner rumen* Yur Pallas.
* Utherz sayz “ruwen”
Yu hav ask me tu preparen a jernee,
An report tu Yu ov wut iz my seen*.
* Utherz sayd “wut I am seez”
Heren the Pardaes Lanz ov the bliend;
Heren the Perdaeshen howlz in the holeez.
All superpozen theze lifenz abloen
By rowdee winz akross seez unfathem.
Heren thay werdenz ov Yur markabbel werlz
Twisten the vois a wun a Yur Addomz,
A man hu kno not Yur holee tung
But speken it ennee wayz. Here me Lor!
Taken wut iz goud and punnish me not
For how I miss tell and miss take wut iz Yuez.
Heren my jernee ov Yur testen pepelz
Az Yu ar rekwiyer, a long-aggo send me
Intu the inner rumen* Yur Pallas.
* Utherz sayz “ruwen”
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Kabbalistic wise men, 2
Here's part 2 of Plowmen Hav Taelz. Part 1 was posted May 4, 2010.
Plowmen Hav Taelz, Part 2
The street sweep say in hiz koffen spit,
“Wut iz the feelz the hav no soyel,
“Ware Addom iz plowman and Addom the plowd?
“So plowd he kan barelee stand in iz wind;
“He bent tu iz feelz, hiz boddeez a trembel.
“Yet, a pass ov him plow, an mennee feeldz ferro.”
“Wut iz the seed that iz skatter this plowwen?
“Like meteyor fallerz thru the sky he plunj
“Intu poolz ov rippellen lite, till the werk
“Him komplete, and Addom aggen iz arrest
“In a garden ware serpenz ar delietning the Eve.”
“This iz the Torrah ov Addom a-dans,
“Gronen ov the feelz that he mus plant.”
The ox will say with a muten louk,
“My seel tu iz groen! I wuns wuz a man,
“With a littel prik tu plow in the feelz.
“Tuday he drag it ware the femaelz ar feed,
“Tumarro the haroez, dens the klod;
“No telling the day he will spred hiz seed!
“Him ov narro shoelder, ov spindellee arm;
“Iz dullish hed porz forth no horn*.
* utherz say: “Lite” or “Gloree”
“Ah, galdlee I am not a man ennee mor,
“But an ox, huze seel iz all hide an hoof.
“My way is straet; the berden a law
“Uppon my brod shoeld iz a miysteree yoke.
“Frivvolus emoeshen, I kno nun ov that!
“Just a studdee strenth and a temper az vile
“Az the erth that wimperz az I thrust an plow.”
The ox duz nun ov Torrah kno
But he skribe it krude in a krouked ro.
Plowmen Hav Taelz, Part 2
The street sweep say in hiz koffen spit,
“Wut iz the feelz the hav no soyel,
“Ware Addom iz plowman and Addom the plowd?
“So plowd he kan barelee stand in iz wind;
“He bent tu iz feelz, hiz boddeez a trembel.
“Yet, a pass ov him plow, an mennee feeldz ferro.”
“Wut iz the seed that iz skatter this plowwen?
“Like meteyor fallerz thru the sky he plunj
“Intu poolz ov rippellen lite, till the werk
“Him komplete, and Addom aggen iz arrest
“In a garden ware serpenz ar delietning the Eve.”
“This iz the Torrah ov Addom a-dans,
“Gronen ov the feelz that he mus plant.”
The ox will say with a muten louk,
“My seel tu iz groen! I wuns wuz a man,
“With a littel prik tu plow in the feelz.
“Tuday he drag it ware the femaelz ar feed,
“Tumarro the haroez, dens the klod;
“No telling the day he will spred hiz seed!
“Him ov narro shoelder, ov spindellee arm;
“Iz dullish hed porz forth no horn*.
* utherz say: “Lite” or “Gloree”
“Ah, galdlee I am not a man ennee mor,
“But an ox, huze seel iz all hide an hoof.
“My way is straet; the berden a law
“Uppon my brod shoeld iz a miysteree yoke.
“Frivvolus emoeshen, I kno nun ov that!
“Just a studdee strenth and a temper az vile
“Az the erth that wimperz az I thrust an plow.”
The ox duz nun ov Torrah kno
But he skribe it krude in a krouked ro.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
The Architectonics of Poetry
sketched 5/9/2010
descending Bright Angel Trail, Grand Canyon
As Cal and I began our hike down the Bright Angel Trail, it struck me, overlooking the Canyon, that here, in the presence of time-defiant carvings, vaster, more slowly and minutely sculpted than any imaginable human endeavor, that in this scene of staggering contrasts, one may postulate and reflect upon the most significant distinction between American and European culture.
I will speak specifically of poetry.
In broad strokes, we may say that Europe has inherited and developed highly structured, metered, rhymed, and decorative forms of poetic expression. The many forms this has taken yet reflect a unifying, underlying purpose: that the human enterprise is about managing and controlling nature. It is a poetry of architectonics, asserting the human rejection of randomness, insignificance, minuteness. Even where, in this body of work, the human enterprise, personally or on a grand scale pales or fails, still, the divine and especially the messianic is tangent and prepared to assume authority. Yes, that is it: the structuring of European poetry represents a literature of an authoritarian human will conquering nature, and where that fails, of divine interventions that either shape or crush us.
Not so the quintessential American poetry, vis, Whitman, Neihardt, Jeffers, Turner, Thoreau (as if prose poetry), and their intellectual and spiritual colleagues in Bierstadt, Moran, Cole, Remington. The architectonics of their art are not driven by or contained in the formalities of fixed structures. Their vision is an outpouring of an epic narrative, following the non-linear and unexpected contours of consciousness, and emulating nature, rather than trying to control, restructure, or geometricize it. Natural beauty and natural structure are the virtue of this art and its vision, and the divine is not tangent or removed or above, nor waiting to intervene with redemptions and punishments, but embedded and present, immanent. And as the divine is immanent, so is the human responsibility to moral action, here, now, not deferred, not waiting for a messiah, but acting with a messianic agency.
Thus my meandering thoughts as we climb down the steep trail that follows native contours, crossing paths with speakers of a dozen languages or more, the California Condor brooding silently overhead, cliffs and steep drops but a step or two away, awestruck and inspired, thinking of this conflicted, flawed, and glorious nation and the unexpected changes it has generated in the human soul, in the human word.
descending Bright Angel Trail, Grand Canyon
As Cal and I began our hike down the Bright Angel Trail, it struck me, overlooking the Canyon, that here, in the presence of time-defiant carvings, vaster, more slowly and minutely sculpted than any imaginable human endeavor, that in this scene of staggering contrasts, one may postulate and reflect upon the most significant distinction between American and European culture.
I will speak specifically of poetry.
In broad strokes, we may say that Europe has inherited and developed highly structured, metered, rhymed, and decorative forms of poetic expression. The many forms this has taken yet reflect a unifying, underlying purpose: that the human enterprise is about managing and controlling nature. It is a poetry of architectonics, asserting the human rejection of randomness, insignificance, minuteness. Even where, in this body of work, the human enterprise, personally or on a grand scale pales or fails, still, the divine and especially the messianic is tangent and prepared to assume authority. Yes, that is it: the structuring of European poetry represents a literature of an authoritarian human will conquering nature, and where that fails, of divine interventions that either shape or crush us.
Not so the quintessential American poetry, vis, Whitman, Neihardt, Jeffers, Turner, Thoreau (as if prose poetry), and their intellectual and spiritual colleagues in Bierstadt, Moran, Cole, Remington. The architectonics of their art are not driven by or contained in the formalities of fixed structures. Their vision is an outpouring of an epic narrative, following the non-linear and unexpected contours of consciousness, and emulating nature, rather than trying to control, restructure, or geometricize it. Natural beauty and natural structure are the virtue of this art and its vision, and the divine is not tangent or removed or above, nor waiting to intervene with redemptions and punishments, but embedded and present, immanent. And as the divine is immanent, so is the human responsibility to moral action, here, now, not deferred, not waiting for a messiah, but acting with a messianic agency.
Thus my meandering thoughts as we climb down the steep trail that follows native contours, crossing paths with speakers of a dozen languages or more, the California Condor brooding silently overhead, cliffs and steep drops but a step or two away, awestruck and inspired, thinking of this conflicted, flawed, and glorious nation and the unexpected changes it has generated in the human soul, in the human word.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Plowmen and donkey drivers - Kabbalistic wise men
The following 2 stanzas are part of a series of poems in Pardaes Dokkumen, in the section Plowmen at Faer. Donkey drivers and other lowly tradespeople appear in the Zohar occasionally, often as messianic figures or hidden holy men. You can decide for yourself who they are here:
Plowmen Hav Taelz
A donkee driver sed,
“I met a plowman reterning frum feeldz,
“Hu sed, ‘This partikkuler vallee a fludz,
“‘And the oxxen ar serlee and I hav plow
“‘The muk and klay intu thik slerree.
“‘Up tu my waest I hav groen and drivven
“‘The beests, foemen at nostrel and kikken;
“‘The plow in my handz a sord tu the erth.
“‘That iz the Torrah ov my narro vale.
“‘The ferro ar fludden and no wun dissern
“‘The seed frum the staen in the eenkee lien
“‘I skrach on a serf a this limminal feeld.’”
A wotter kareyer then pord iz dreenk,
“I met a plowman a reternen frum feelz.
“He sez, ‘For jennerratenz I the plow this expanz.
“‘My ling ar groen in its oxxide dust.
“‘In morning iz sault iz kurst on my iy.
“‘My fout print pressen in dune and drift.
“‘My skin a reenkelz az my plowwen reenkelz.
“‘Wut I du tu the lan, it duz tu me.
“‘That iz the Torrah ov this endless ekspan.
“‘The sun and the wind strips us ov breth.
“‘We kut owwer ferro; it shaeps ar deth’”
Plowmen Hav Taelz
A donkee driver sed,
“I met a plowman reterning frum feeldz,
“Hu sed, ‘This partikkuler vallee a fludz,
“‘And the oxxen ar serlee and I hav plow
“‘The muk and klay intu thik slerree.
“‘Up tu my waest I hav groen and drivven
“‘The beests, foemen at nostrel and kikken;
“‘The plow in my handz a sord tu the erth.
“‘That iz the Torrah ov my narro vale.
“‘The ferro ar fludden and no wun dissern
“‘The seed frum the staen in the eenkee lien
“‘I skrach on a serf a this limminal feeld.’”
A wotter kareyer then pord iz dreenk,
“I met a plowman a reternen frum feelz.
“He sez, ‘For jennerratenz I the plow this expanz.
“‘My ling ar groen in its oxxide dust.
“‘In morning iz sault iz kurst on my iy.
“‘My fout print pressen in dune and drift.
“‘My skin a reenkelz az my plowwen reenkelz.
“‘Wut I du tu the lan, it duz tu me.
“‘That iz the Torrah ov this endless ekspan.
“‘The sun and the wind strips us ov breth.
“‘We kut owwer ferro; it shaeps ar deth’”
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