devarim

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Friday night we had a combination birthday party/oneg Shabbat/random drinking of champagne at some time approximating midnight. It was fun, although I (predictably) dozed off on the futon around 1:15, when we were down to only two guests (out of a starting number around twenty). Amazingly enough, I was wide awake at 7:25 AM on Saturday and made it to shul by 8:05 for the rabbi's Hilchot Shabbat class. This week we got up to the part in the Shulchan Aruch about calling women up to read from the Torah on Shabbat. Poor Rabbi G, dealing with me and one other outspoken woman. We got onto an interesting conversation about kavod hatzibbur (dignity of the congregation), but before we knew it (and probably much to Rabbi G's relief) it was 8:45 and time for davening.

No, I didn't forget about last week's weekend update. It's coming.

...and I just noticed that Shmuel wished me a happy birthday on his blog. I should keep up with everyone else at least as often as I keep up with myself.

(To be fair, numerous other people wished me well in the general vicinity of my birthday, either by phone, via email, through the mail, or in person. This may be my first-ever blog shoutout, though, not counting reposted comments on the authors' own blogs.)

We didn't quite make the December 31 tax deadline, but today we finally got around to finishing up the charitable contributions for last year's income (calculated from one Rosh Hashana to the next). Our list, in case you are looking for ideas (alphabetical order, amounts omitted):

• American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee South Asia Tsunami Relief Fund
  
• Congregation Ramath Orah
  
• Cornell Jewish Life Fund
  
• Drisha Institute for Jewish Education
  
• Kehillat Orach Eliezer
  
• The Kollel of Greater Boston
  
• Magen David Adom
  
• Network for Good (to cover processing costs, beyond the ones for our own donations)
  
• Nishmat's Yoatzot program
  
• Providence Hebrew Day School
  
• The West Side (NY) Kollel

OK, not really. Still, as of yesterday, the C line runs all the way to North Station instead of turning around at Government Center. As of today, I started working at the courthouse on New Chardon Street...which is halfway between Haymarket and North Station. My walk to work from the T (in the icky cold winter) just got reduced by about 70%. Yippee!

Of course, I still have to navigate the Big Scary Intersection at Merrimac and New Chardon. Crossing the street alone takes a full five minutes.

I take it back. Today my train (trolley, light rail, streetcar, whatever) spent fifteen minutes sitting in the tunnel between Boylston and Park Street. There was a disabled train on the platform in front of us. Please tell me: did they not know about the disabled train on the platform thirty seconds earlier...y'know, before we left Boylston, when people still could have gotten off of our train? Because, seriously, I could have walked to work faster.

I'm having major anxiety about the wine and cheese event that I'm coordinating for our shul. I haven't finished writing up the pamphlets with all the information on each wine and cheese. I haven't made up the little cards people fill out to say they're interested in future events. (Those two things both neeed to be sent out for copying, so I have to finish them tonight.) We don't have serving platters that I like...we have serving platters, you understand, just none that I'm happy with. I still need to buy fruit (pears, figs, grapes, and apples), though to my credit the grapes shouldn't be purchased too far in advance. I'm not certain how we're going to keep the white and dessert wines cold on Saturday night (I don't like the ice-in-a-disposable-aluminum-pan look). I keep second-guessing the pairings and wishing that I had enough time (and money and spare calories) to sit around and sample everything so I could be confident that the chevre will dance with the emerald riesling, the parmagiano won't scare the pants off either red (a cabernet and a merlot, if you're curious), and the mascarpone will properly stand up to the fruits without overwhelming the light dessert wines.

Oh, and as if that weren't enough (and it is, oh yes, it is), I discovered late last night that one of the wines I selected (and bought already, of course) is not labeled as mevushal. According to our shul's rules, any wine served on the premises must be mevushal. (I don't feel like getting into the explanation of what mevushal means right now. Google it.) Now, I'd bought this wine numerous times in the past, knowing that it was mevushal, so I didn't bother checkng the bottles too carefully when I was making purchases on Sunday. In the store, I noticed that instead of their usual all-English label, the back labels on these bottles were in Hebrew. Whatever.

Fast forward to last night, when I'm working on the aforementioned pamphlet. I turn the bottle over to see if I can piece together anything from the blurb that would be useful in my description, and I notice that I don't see the word "mevushal" anywhere, in any language. I read it all through a couple of times--nope. Julian looked as well--not there. I called the store this morning and their wine guy put in a call to the distributors (or something) to ask about the status of the wine. In the meantime, I am planning to buy three bottles of a comparable wine to use instead of this one. It's not a tremendously big deal, but it will eat up precious time this evening and it throws a bit of a wrench into my already uncertain pairings.

On a positive note, we now have about fifteen RSVPs for the event, not counting myself, Julian, or the shul's programming director and his wife. My goal was twenty (and at thirty we have to send someone out for emergency provisions), so at least we're in good shape numbers-wise.

We're up to twenty-seven RSVPs for the wine and cheese tasting tomorrow night, or twenty-nine people counting Julian and me. Jabbett, our fearless programming director, and his wife skabbett procured only thirty wine glasses on their impromptu purchasing adventure a few weeks ago. At the time, I thought thirty glasses were far too many, that the skjabbetts (I just invented that) had wasted money and that I'd have to hide half the glasses so people wouldn't think we'd planned for so many people.

Yeah, so...now I'm thinking that some people will be drinking out of plastic cups. I debated sending a friend out to buy those plastic wine cups (actually, she offerred), but they cost almost as much as our real glasses did, and that seems like even more of a waste, since the point of spending money of glasses instead of using plastic wasn't so much for the look as it was for avoiding that horrible plastic smell and taste.

It's not immortalized in my blog, but I know there are people out there who will back me up when I say that I predicted this two weeks ago. "Either no one will come or else the masses will descend and we will run out of everything," I said. Emergency provisions (wine, fruit, crackers, cheeses) are available in a few local stores Saturday night, though the wine and cheese selection will be more limited. No one selling pre-toveled wine glasses, though. Maybe I'll get lucky and while firty-five* people will show up over the course of the evening (it is not unreasonable to expect a dozen or more people to come without RSVPing), they will be thoughtful enough to space out their arrivals such that some people leave early, allowing me to dash into the kitchen to wash their glasses.

Also, I forgot to buy grapes. Julian, sweetheart, darling, love of my life, have I mentioned recently how important you and your grape-buying skills are to me?

* I realize that "firty-five" is not a number. It was a typo that originally said "firty-fove," and I only fixed half of it. However, I think that "firty-five" is a very good description of both my mental state and an imagined number of people that would otherwise be described as "too many," so I'm leaving this alone.

Well, technically, the pain is in the small of my back, but that's too low down to be a pain in the neck and "pain in the small of the back" doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Last night I carried a very overloaded backpack around the block to our shul, full of stuff needed for this weekend's wine tasting that had not been brought over Wednesday night (either because it needs refrigeration or because I didn't have it yet). Among these items was a jar of olives. I say "among" but what I really mean is "wedged into the bottom of the backpack in such a position as it jammed into the top of my pelvic bone no matter how I rearranged the bag." So now there is a bruised sore spot on the right side of my very-lower back, just where it hits the lower in-curve part of the back of my desk chair.

I don't have the time to devote a proper post to this at the moment, but I want to put a thought out there and let it molder for a little while until I can compose a property writing on it. You see, there are a plethora of bloggers out there who can be loosely described as closeted atheists living as observant Jews. I have been reading their writings with interest, and I will post some links in the near future, but I have noticed a flaw in the reasoning that some of them espouse. A primary argument is that as between faith/belief in God and logic/belief in science, logic and science must win. (We'll set aside the reasons for now. Just bear with me.) The missing question is: why can't there be another reason besides faith, a logical reason, why one would choose to follow a set of rules, even if such rules are arbitrary?

OK, more to come at some undefined future date.

The event was a success. There were fifty-two people there, fifty-three counting Rabbi G (who stopped by to shmooze but didn't really partake and of course wasn't charged), comprising a nice mix of singles, young couples, and grown-ups. I'm not quite sure whether that's more or fewer than firty-five people, but it's a lot, and that's cool. Of course, we ran out of some things (OK, we ran out of everything except the mascarpone, which I'll find a recipe for, and the merlot and carbernet, which Jim, Julian and I managed to take care of without a problem). Had I known that nearly thirty non-RSVP people would show up, I would have bought a lot more of the sweet wines and the brie. It was also a little annoying that eight people who RSVP'd did not show in the end, meaning that eight non-RSVPers with plastic cups could have had real glasses. I can't be too annoyed, though; one of the couples that didn't show are good friends of ours, and we know the wife in that pair was feeling rather ill. The other half dozen no-shows deserve the same benefit of the doubt.

Many thanks are due to jabbett, who helped tremendously with set-up, and skabbett, who also helped (when we weren't yelling at her to study) and faithfully took names, made change, and distributed glasses and pamphlets throughout the evening. You two rock. Further gratitude to Jim, Ari B---r (not to be confused with Ari B.), Carol, Bonnie, and whoever else helped us with cleanup.

And Julian. My spectacular husband, who put up with my craziness all week (including the small bout of panic during the last hour or so of Shabbat); who ran from store to store Saturday evening to get last-minute items; who shloshed through snow, sleet, and slush to be at my side at the earliest possible moment; who did not falter at his post and valiantly wielded his corkscrew in the face of danger and empty bottles; who did not leave me in my hour of need (that would be about 11:30 PM until about 12:30 AM), and instead joined me, Cyndi (Lauper!), Meatloaf, Alphaville, and the Beastie Boys in our mission to purge the room of trash, wash and dry glasses and platters, pack up leftovers, return (most) items to their rightful places, and dance like fools by the light of the--

oh, right. No moon last night.

I love him anyway.

Since it looks like that fabled weekend update is not happening any time soon, I want to at least put this out there. When we last went to New York (December 25-26), I dug up my old Nintendo...the original mid-1980s NES. I have only four games (five, if you count Duck Hunt), but the machine in all its retro glory will soon find a new home under our living room television.

In somewhat related news, we have canceled our cable subscription. Oh well...more time (and money) for movie rentals!

It's Shevat!

If you haven't seen this yet, you must.

(My favorite part was the excessive political correctness of the final subtitle. Ahhh, gendered language, thy name is clumsiness.)

I went through three pairs of pantyhose this morning. Three. The first two, by the way, were fresh-out-of-the-package new. (Granted, said packages came from Filene's Basement, but that's no excuse for them to be completely unusable from the start.) Pair #1 - pull on; notice a tiny hole and run near the front of my ankle; decide to patch with nail polish and turn around so it will be at my heel; do so and notice that there is a much bigger run on the (now-)front of the hose; pair #1 into garbage, three dollars down the drain. Pair #2 - open package with much grumbling; pull on carefully; finish getting ready for work; put on socks and boots; tie first boot and hear Julian say, "Uh, Shanna...I think you have a run on that leg"; look down...he's right; pair #2 into garbage, now six dollars gone. Take off boots and socks; dig through drawer full off too-large hose (I've lost fifteen pounds since October); pull on a pair of lower-quality, too-big hose (rather noticeable when they're black); mutter curses; put socks and boots back on; dash out the door.

Oh, and sometime around when I was getting out pair #2, I noticed that one of the other pairs of hose I bought last night is in my old (larger) size. Damn. Unless I go back to return the suit or blazer I bought last night, that's another three dollars wasted.

Matisyahu is playing at Gann Academy (aka "New Jew") this Saturday night. Tickets are $10 in advance or $12 at the door. This time we're actually going. And I am definitely wearing this mitpachat (I have the one on the left)...is there any more appropriate setting for it?

Wessel is looking for some help in her quest to come up with the perfect nickname for her ex-husband. You have to read this post first. Hopefully you can come up with something better than my suggestion.

The concert was wonderful. I strongly recommend that you go if he's going to be in your area, even if you're not Jewish. It's worth it just for the head trip, and the music is pretty damn good too.

What she said. (I also have a comment in there...scroll down to read it.)

I also recommend this post from Wesel, although it is on a different topic. More on that topic soon...

So, I've been reading Getupgrrl's blog for months now, but I never linked to it from here. I guess I don't want to out myself as an infertility-blog lurker (with no good reason besides interest and compassion), but with both in the barren season and Tales of a Wessel on my side bar, there's really no denying it. (Of course, those women have something else in common as well, but that's another story for another time, hopefully sooner rather than later.)

Anyway, after yesterday's post, there is no way I could keep Getupgrrl from you any longer.

I know I'm being cryptic about this, but I have to say that the project I've alluded to is in its serious planning stages, and I'm getting very excited. For those of you who know what I'm talking about...thank you!

It's snowing...but it's not just snowing; it's snowing beautifully. Perfectly. Magically. There is no wind, and the soft, translucent snowflakes drift out of the sky just so, catching and dancing with the beams of the streetlamps on their way down. They nestle into the crooks of the trees and along windowsills. They settle over the ground, making a glistening, glitteringblanket, the kind you only see in the movies and ceramic Christmas villages. Each step kicks up just a bit of sparkling powder, and it dusts the tops of my boots as it settles back to soften my intrusive footprints.

Is there a bracha for snow?

I just got a run into today's (also new, albeit "imperfect") pantyhose. It's really frustrating, because I never had problems like this until very recently, and now they're all revolting at once. Still, I don't think I can spend thirty dollars on a single pair of hose...that's just crazy.

Don't get your hopes up; it's not a long, thoughtful essay detailing my thoughts on the subject (which are probably more complicated than most of you think). This is just a brief public service announcement:

If you are local (to me, obviously) and interested in an all-women, Carlebach-style, non-minyan, Friday night (kabbalat Shabbat and ma'ariv) davening that may or may not occur on a monthly basis, please email me and let me know, or else post in the comments, being sure to include your email address.

(And, no, this is not the project.)

I still think snow is pretty and magical, but this is a bit excessive. The view from our balcony:

"The courts are always open," my supervisor said. "Unless there is a state of emergency, you must report to work." She told us, "You are essential government employees; even if the news says that there is a snow emergency and state employees are not to report to work, they are not talking about you."

From today's Boston Globe, "Governor Mitt Romney, who declared a state of emergency on Saturday because of the storm, gave state employees in Eastern Massachusetts the day off today."

Well, that's great for them, but I'm essential *eyeroll*, right? How about I ring up the administrative office and see whether there's a snow day message? Would you believe...the Suffolk courthouse is closed today! So is the Probate Court administrative office, so they can't very well expect me to report to work there!

In my excitement, I managed to get attacked by the rug in our living room:

Poor Julian...my screams (of joy and pain) woke him up. Oh, and the Worcester area is apparently in much better shape than we are, so he still has to go to work.

In other news, the Patriots are going to the Superbowl. Lest anyone think that that my baseball views extend to all New England sports teams, allow me to set the record straight and say that this makes me very, very happy.

Hashekadiah porachat
Veshemesh paz zorachat
Tzipporim m'rosh kol gag
Mevasrot et bo hachag

Tu B'Shevat higiyah
Chag ha'ilanot...
Tu B'Shevat higiyah
Chag ha'ilanot!

Update, February 7: At this point, I'm not looking for regular contributors any longer. This announcement will drop off the top of the page soon.

Update, February 4: The site is scheduled to go live in less than two weeks. If you're still interested in coming on board from the start, that's great, but email me soon!

-=-

Yes, this is the project. If you currently observe taharat hamishpacha (or did in the past, or plan to in the near future), have something to say about it, and would like to be a part of an exciting endeavor, please email me. All halachic and philosophical approaches are welcome.

Please also relay this message to your friends, sisters, mothers, grandmothers, and anyone else who you think may be interested. At this point we are particularly looking for members of the "older" generation who would be willing to share their unique perspectives and describe how things have changed over the years.

I was very happy to see this news story in today's New York Times (free registration required; story expires in seven days):

CAIRO, Jan. 25 - The standard three-step program for any unmarried upper-class Egyptian girl who becomes pregnant is an abortion, an operation to refurbish her virginity with a new hymen and then marriage to the first unwitting suitor the family can snare.

But Hind el-Hinnawy, a vivacious 27-year-old costume designer, decided she was not going to playact her way through the virgin-marriage pageant. Instead she did the unthinkable here: she had the child and then filed a public paternity suit, igniting a major scandal and prompting a national debate over the clandestine marriage contracts that young couples are using to have sex in this conservative, religious society.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not really into the clandestine marriage idea, nor am I a huge proponent of casual sex. However, I think it is very important that a society value honesty above honor, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for those people who defy and seek to eradicate the practice described in the first paragraph of the article and, worse yet, so-called honor killings. It's also making me wonder how many good little Catholic* girls go through the same process (perhaps without the hymen restoration) in this country, because the public shame of an out-of-wedlock birth outweighs the private sin of abortion. Putting so much emphasis on what your neighbor thinks of you, at the expense of remaining true to yourself and the actual ideals of your belief system, is no way to help your children see the beauty of your faith.

* OK, OK, it's not just Catholicism. I apologize.

The Out of Step Jew's take on Artscroll is spot on:

Let's face it - Art Scroll publishers have created an Art Scroll Judaism that can be compared to the Jordan River from the Kinneret to the Dead Sea- it is narrow, shallow, snake like and it leads to a stale lifeless pond of an intellectual life.

This is important: another Palestinian hoax.

(In only orthoginally related news...yes, I realize that today marks the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. No, I'm not going to write about it. Ask me in forty years.)

From an article in today's New York Times titled, "Suspect in Train Crash Is Charged With Multiple Murder Counts":

GLENDALE, Calif., Jan. 27 - The Los Angeles County district attorney said today that he would probably seek the death penalty for the suicidal man who abandoned his S.U.V. on a heavily traveled commuter rail track here early Wednesday, causing a violent wreck involving three trains that left at least 11 people dead and nearly 200 injured.

Er, yes. Threaten the suicidal man with death. That'll show him!

Julian and I went suit shopping today...for him. After much digging-through at Filene's Basement and a quick turn through DSW, we came home with two fairly nice suits, a dress shirt, four ties, and a pair of burgundy dress shoes. (And a pair of Tevas for me.) The best buy of the day was a brown suit with olive undertones, which we both really liked. Once we got it home, though, we discovered that the suit was mismatched...the pants are three sizes too big! You see, Julian wasn't crazy about the fitting room setup at Filene's Basement (really, who is?), and since both suits came from the same designer and (supposedly) were the same size, he ddn't bother trying on this brown one and so we never noticed that the sizes were different. You'd think that either we or the cashier would have bothed to check the match numbers before we walked out the store with the suit, but apparently none of us are that smart. So I get to drag the suit on the T with me tomorrow and then shlep it back to the store tomorrow, and hope beyond all hope that they can look up the match number for the jacket (correct size) and find the pants to go with it. Because it really is an awfully nice suit...

update: No such luck. To the store's credit, though, the guy in the suit department spent close to half an hour looking for the matching pants. Oh well.