Bob Schwartz

November 2, 2016

Bar Mitzvah: The Spiritual Edge of Thirteen and Clueless

Mitzvah Magazine

Like many Jewish young people, I marked my thirteenth birthday by participating in a bar mitzvah (bat mitzvah for girls). This is a traditional rite of passage, marking the time when you take on the privileges and responsibilities of being a full adult member of the community. There are services and celebrations, but as a religious matter, you don’t actually have to do anything or say anything to achieve this status. It just happens with time.

I attended religious school classes, before and after my bar mitzvah. I took part in the bar mitzvah services and celebration. I performed well at the services and enjoyed the celebration. Here’s the thing, speaking only for myself, and not for any others who went before or after me, including the most recent bar mitzvah of a family member I lovingly attended: I see now that I was pretty much religiously and spiritually clueless. This isn’t surprising, given that thirteen year olds are a bit—or a lot—clueless in general, no matter what they think at the moment.

This doesn’t mean that not understanding or thinking very deeply, if at all, about the spiritual particulars you are taught and that are recommended to you by earnest teachers and rabbis, or about the bigger picture of Judaism or other traditions, is a bad thing. You might well go from thirteen to 20 or 30 and not think often or ever about these. Some do, some don’t. You might actually go all the way to the very end without giving this much consideration. No blame.

But seeds are planted, and you never know what grows. Water, light, and fertilizer. I sent my beloved family member a bunch of books about Judaism, which may be read, now or eventually, sooner or later. They are a much more complete and interesting collection than the few I received when I was a bar mitzvah, but that doesn’t guarantee anything. I wasn’t interested when I was thirteen. That changed, a lot. My rabbi, my cantor, my congregation expected good things of me religiously. It took a few years to grow, and grow it did, although I’m not sure the fruit is exactly what they expected or thought would be good for Judaism or the community.

Me, I had no thoughts about stuff like that at the time. Being bar mitzvah, thirteen and clueless.

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November 1, 2016

Mirror Telescope Microscope

Mirror Telescope Microscope

The mirror is an accident
An incident above the sink
A reluctant glance
With the first water
Of the morning.
The telescope
The microscope
Are no accident.
Seeking words
Long and wide
To guide me
Tell me
What this is
Who this is
In the mirror.

The morning begins with coffee, reading, and sitting. It actually begins a few moments earlier, with a visit to the bathroom, where, naturally, there is a mirror. There is little to learn from the mirror. There is more to learn from the texts.

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October 31, 2016

Another Joke Break: Snail on the Front Porch

Jokes

The half-life of a blog post is about a day. Within a week, nobody is reading. Within a year, it might as well never have been published.

Which is what makes my post Joke Break: Duck Walks into a Drugstore so amazing to me. Not a day passes when somebody doesn’t read that post—which was published three years ago.

It is a great joke, and I am so happy that so many people are getting a much-needed laugh, especially these days. But it makes me feel like maybe I can dip into my well of classic jokes and find just one more that would have legs (web feet?) like that. (If you’re wondering what a Jokes folder looks like, see the photo above.)

 

Guy finds a snail on his front porch. He picks it up and throws it across the street. One year later, he hears a knock at his door. The man goes to the door, opens the door, looks down, and there he sees the same snail on his front porch. The snail looks up at the guy and says, “What the hell was that all about?”

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October 31, 2016

Three Orchids

Orchid

Three Orchids

Three orchids.
One blooming
One resting
One dying without hope.
I care for the two
But the the third,
Leaves still green
But curling,
What am I to do?

Note: As mentioned earlier, orchids have floated into my usually non-green world. I have begun learning how to reward the gift they give. They are, as experts say, and as is obvious, unusual plants. They rest for a while and, with proper care, will wake up more beautiful than ever.

But not always. And not forever.

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October 29, 2016

Beresheet: The Beginning

bereshit

Today the annual Torah reading cycle begins again with the portion Beresheet (also transliterated as Bereshit, Genesis 1:1-6:8).

It is a big Torah, a bigger Jewish Bible (Tanakh), and an even bigger Christian Bible. In all that expanse, nothing compares to the way it begins.

Bereshit: “When God Created …” This first word of the first book of the Bible serves both as the Hebrew name for the book Genesis and as an idiom for “Creation.” Because of its pride of position at the “start” of creation, as well as its uniqueness (the word never appears again in Scriptures), the word is subjected to intensive and varied exegetical analysis. Many, many meanings are derived from this one six-letter word….Jewish tradition has also held the six letters contain secrets that the wise will understand. (The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism, Geoffrey W. Dennis)

In English, it goes like this:

When God began to create heaven and earth—the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God. (New Jewish Publication Society translation)

Or this:

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. (New Revised Standard Version translation)

Or this:

When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God’s breath hovering over the waters, God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. (Robert Alter translation)

Unformed. Void. Darkness. Wind. Welter. Waste. Light. When God began to create.

Maybe you once read or studied the Bible, in any of its versions. Maybe you still do. Maybe you don’t anymore or maybe you never did. Maybe you had deep discussions about God, about creation, and about whether there was something out of which creation was made or whether there was nothing and then there was something (ex nihilo). Then again, maybe not.

No matter your beliefs, consider this first portion, the first words, and the very first of the first words consisting of six Hebrew letters. Are there “secrets the wise will understand”? Are you that wise one?

 

 

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October 28, 2016

Friendly Fire and Ice

Friendly Fire and Ice
based almost entirely on Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say that friendships end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

With deep apologies and appreciation to Robert Frost for the misuse of his poem.

The phenomenon of friendships fading and ending is for me akin to observing or experiencing illness and death. Of all the many things I don’t pretend to understand, this is in some ways the deepest mystery. As many reasons and explanations as I can come up with—time, distance, divergence, ignorance—the extinction of the flame of friendship remains as chilly as the extinction of the flame of love. Maybe because the best friendships, for me at least, are identical with and indistinguishable from love.

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October 28, 2016

Making America Crazy Again: How to Survive and Thrive After the Election

make-america-crazy-again

You don’t want to hear this, but things may get crazier after the election.

If Hillary Clinton wins, she will be the least liked, least trusted President to ever take office. All the assumptions and suppositions about how the Clintons’ good intentions have been mixed with and compromised by expedient centrism, ambition, greed, secrecy and overall ugliness have been confirmed.

Progressives who tried an insurgency within the Democratic Party will learn that if they have a place at the table, it will be set with modest meals, if not mere crumbs.

Republicans will be gleeful at the prospect of obstructing everything and unwinding anything, without much of a plan of their own. Their glee is misplaced, since there is no Republican Party left, not one recognizable as such. Instead, it is merely the shaky platform for another set of would-be Presidents to start jockeying for position as the candidate in 2020.

And then of course there’s Donald Trump, whose hat should have first read Make The GOP Crazy, then Make The Election Crazy, and finally Make America Crazy Again. He is good at each of these. There is no doubt, whatever form his public pathology takes, he will help make 2017 a year we will not forget, just as 2016 is an election we will not forget, no matter how we try.

And so, some suggestions for getting on with our lives, not just surviving, but thriving, after the election.

  1. Religion, spirituality, philosophy, or something like them. Principled views of reality and the world can be very helpful. There is nothing inherently wrong with making stuff up as we go along. Except that when the wind blows, which it does pretty much all the time, and sometimes with hurricane force, we might want to have something to keep us steady.
  1. Media diet. When I see the ad for that cheeseburger with six strips of crisp bacon on top, something in me wants one. Except I don’t eat cheeseburgers any more, don’t eat bacon anymore, and if I did, I don’t think it would be in that particular configuration, since I plan to live a long and healthy life. The news media, even the supposedly respectable ones, are mostly offering us the equivalent of 1-pound burgers with an entire package of bacon on top, hour after hour. If you don’t want to be crazy unhealthy, please watch what you eat.
  1. Learning. You don’t have to learn about anything or anyone. You can learn exactly as much as you need to get on with your life and through the day. If you do choose to be interested in something, including public affairs, do try to learn and discern. We have spent the past year in a storm of misinformation and disinformation, lies and nonsense. That is not going to stop after the election. In fact, it could get worse, hard as that is to believe.
  1. Silence.
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October 27, 2016

Hidden

Hidden

Morning
The sun
Could not be more hidden.
The book says:
“The bright is appearing over the earth.”
Where is it
The fire?

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October 27, 2016

Baseball: You’ve Gotta Have Heart

Damn Yankees - Heart

With the World Series tied at 1-1, it’s a good time to look back to the baseball musical Damn Yankees. Its most famous song, sung in the clubhouse of a losing team, is Heart. (The same trope appears in one of the only really great football movies, The Replacements. Coach Jimmy McGinty (Gene Hackman) is asked by a reporter the secret to his ragged team of replacement players. He just pounds his chest and simply says “Heart”.)

So whether you’re an Indians fan, a Cubs fan, or no fan of baseball whatsoever, here’s some encouragement. You’ve gotta have…. Well, you know.

You’ve gotta have heart
All you really need is heart
When the odds are sayin’ you’ll never win
That’s when the grin should start

You’ve gotta have hope
Mustn’t sit around and mope
Nothin’s half as bad as it may appear
Wait’ll next year and hope

When your luck is battin’ zero
Get your chin up off the floor
Mister you can be a hero
You can open any door, there’s nothin’ to it but to do it

You’ve gotta have heart
Miles ‘n miles n’ miles of heart
Oh, it’s fine to be a genius of course
But keep that old horse
Before the cart
First you’ve gotta have heart

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October 26, 2016

Cigarette Ads Circa 1960: Size Matters

TV Guide - July 9 1960

Above is an ad from the back cover of TV Guide from July 9, 1960. It is for Parliament cigarettes. The image shows a man (judging by the hands) measuring a cigarette with a ruler, while a woman looks on with a mysterious, Mona Lisa-like expression. Is she thinking about taste? About how “your lips and tongue never touch” the filter? She is also holding a cigarette. Hers is lit and smoking.

In 1957, journalist and social critic Vance Packard published his groundbreaking bestseller The Hidden Persuaders, “the first book to expose the hidden world of “motivation research,” the psychological technique that advertisers use to probe our minds in order to control our actions as consumers.” Chapter 8 is entitled The Built-in Sexual Overtone.

Since then, discussions about the role of psychology in advertising have continued unabated. Setting aside those discussions, it can be said that sometimes a cigarette is just a cigarette, a ruler is just a ruler, etc. On the other hand, every picture tells a story. So what’s the story here?

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