Chicago was so lovely. I arrived there on Monday morning, dropped my stuff off at the hostel where I stayed and then zipped downtown. I spent the rest of the day traipsing about downtown. I first ate lunch by Lake Michigan. The lake is so blue. (The Chicago River, by contrast, bears an uncanny resemblance to the Hudson in color, albeit not in size.) Then I walked back towards the city and wandered down the Magnificent Mile, a mile or so of stores and hotels. At this point, I was exhausted from having gotten up so early, so I zipped back to the hostel and conked out almost immediately.
I got up bright and early Tuesday morning and went down to The Art Institute of Chicago. This museum alone is worth the trip to Chicago. It is full of beautiful paintings, jade and porcelain from bygone days. I sought to acquire prints of a number of works, chief among them Dali's Visions of Eternity but apparently none of the works I liked were popular enough to warrant sale in poster form to the unwashed masses.
I generally go to art museums to feel cultured, not because I especially get anything out of them. At first, The Art Institute of Chicago was no different. As I approached the modern art section, I very nearly skipped it since I never find such work accessible in the least. However, a voice rose up in my head from the professors who taught and invited me to take a modern chamber performance music class, telling me that part of understanding art is opening up one's mind to it. It was the best class of my undergraduacy. As such, I entered those wings and was pleasantly surprised to discover the art of Mel Bochner. It's the work of a mathematician bored with empty abstraction of it all. I climbed the stairs at the end of the wing. The next level was 'modern' but much darker, peculiarly evocative of death. As I turned another corner, there was a lovely explanatory museum paragraph about the popular surrealist game "The Exquisite Corpse".
Tuesday night I heard Mahler's 7th Symphony played by the CSO. There is something about listening to excellent concerts that makes me wonder what life would be like if I had pursued music performance as a career.
Wednesday I went to the Museum of Science and Industry. I went there once at the age of 10 or so, and my memory definitely exceeded the experience. It was a bit young for me, and heavily populated by small children. The exhibits didn't provoke much thinking on my part, but the information contained in them was mostly accurate. (There were some that were outdated.) The more adult exhibits were quite good. There was a series of photographs/posters about how and how much people around the world eat. It had pictures of families with all the food they would eat in one week. The Western families looked so gluttonous. I had root beer, carrots, and chocolate chip granola bars for lunch. Also of note, the U-505 exhibit was quite well put together. (The U-505 was a German U-boat that the US captured in 1944, providing valuable intelligence to the Allies.) It struck me that there is no moral high ground any more. World War II was the last great moral stand. We were a country of heroes, and a world of heroes. Do we have heroes now?
I wanted to go to a restaurant on Wednesday night for dinner. I found one. I was determined. However, when I got off the train it was dark and rainy and some hard-wired evolutionary rule stating that not wandering about in the dark in an unfamiliar section of an unfamiliar city is more important than determination or a desire for meat. Chicago needs a kosher restaurant downtown. A cheap one. Like Mama's Vegetarian in Philly.
The EL is an amazing feat of engineering.
I left at the crack of dawn this morning and am home now.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Rashi (Bereshit 1:1)
בראשית א:א
בְּרֵאשִית בָּרָא אֱלֹקִים אֵת הַשָּמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ
In the beginning of... God created the heavens and the land.
[Rashi is famous for his modest choice of opening by quoting a midrash from Yalqut Shim`oni, rather than beginning with his own opinion(s).]
בְּרֶאשִית: אָמַר רַבִּי יִצְחָק לֹא הָיָה צָרִיךְ הַתּוֹרָה אֶלָּא מֵהַחֹדֶש הַזֶּה לָכֶם שֶהִיא מִצְוָה רִאשוֹנָה שֶנִצְטַוּוּ בָהּ יִשׂרָאֵל
Rabbi Isaac said 'It was not necessary to begin the Torah except from 'This month is for you...' since that was the first mitzvoh that was commanded on Israel.
וּמַה טַעַם פָּתַח בִּבְרֶאשִית
And what is the reason it opens with 'In the beginning of...'?
[Now it is clear why Rashi opened with the quote. According to Rabbi Isaac, we don't have to begin the Torah until Israel starts receiving law as a nation. Therefore, it is necessary to ask why we started here.]
מִשוּם: כֹּחַ מַעֲשָׂיו לְעַמּוֹ לָתֵת לָכֶם נַחֲלַת גוֹיִם
Because 'Strength of His deeds in for his people, to give to you an inheritance of nations.' [Psalms 111:6.]
שֶאִם יֹאמְרוּ אוּמוֹת הָעוֹלָם לֹיִשְׂרָאֵל: לִסְטִים אַתֶּם שֶכְּבַשְתֶּם אַרְצוֹת שִבְעָה גוֹיִם, הֵם אוֹמְרִים לָהֶם: כָּל הָאָרֶץ שֶל הַקָּדוֹש בָּרוּךְ הוּא היִא. הוּא בְרָאָהּ, וּנְתָנָהּ לַאֲשֶר יָשַר בְּעֵינָיו. בִּרְצוֹנוֹ נְטָלָהּ מֵהֶם וּנְתָנָּהּ לָנוּ
That if the nations of the world will say to Israel: 'You are thieves, that you conquered the lands of the seven nations (of Canaan)' they will say to them 'All the land belongs to the Holy One, Blessed Be He. He created it, and gives it to those who are upright in his eyes. In His will he gave it to them, and in His will he took it from them and gave it to us.'
Sunday, October 8, 2006
Sukkot
`Hag was lovely. The significant other of a friend was in town, and he, and I, and a Columbia undergrad found ourselves at the Bayit sukkah for second night dinner, and for once, I was zoche to talk math at a meal. The S.O. of the friend also pointed me to the song that I dream my bashert will sing to me right before he asks me to marry him. I'll prepare an annotated version, I hope.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Once upon a time there were three bears, Daddy Bear, Mommy Bear, and Baby Bear. They lived in a small enclave of bears, and loved above all else porridge, sleep and walks in the woods. One day while they were out walking in the woods, a little girl named Goldilocks entered their cottage and ate all the porridge and fell asleep there. Returning home, the bears were hungry. Lacking porridge, they dismembered Goldilocks and devoured her on the spot. She was so tender and delicious that from that day forth they ceased eating porridge and dined exclusively on the flesh of young virgin girls.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Snow White
Once upon a time there were a king and queen who lived in a fine palace with everything they wanted in life, except a child. One day, the queen was thrilled to realize that she was with child, and the overjoyed couple welcomed Rivke bas Elkanah veChanah into the world about 8 months later. Alas, childbirth weakened the queen, and she was niftar before the child was even a year old.
The king was consumed with grief, but strove mightily to bring Rivke up to be the bas Torah that he and his wife had envisioned. She was a bright, sweet child, and she and her father were `osqim batorah and her progress was quite rapid.
When Rivke was six, her father met an eishes chayil from the next kingdom over, and they were wed. Unfortunately, the new queen had a hidden jealous streak, and when she saw how tznius and makpid Rivke was, her heart was consumed with fear that the girl should overtake her in learning and in mitzvos. However, the queen had a magic seifer that she consulted each morning
'Seifer seifer on the shtender!
Who's the Torah's best defender?'
And each day the seifer reassured her:
'You are the Torah's best defender.'
Still, the queen's insecure heart gnawed at her, and though she desperately wanted to have Rivke murdered in the middle of nowhere, but closer to the adjacent kingdom's borders, she knew that if she did so the magic seifer would cease to assure her of her frumkeit. Therefore, she arranged a marriage for Rivke to a nice enough boy, but not a talmid chacham in the least and far enough away that the king wouldn't retrieve the girl. The king and queen lost all track of her.
Then one day it emerged that the local sho`het was in fact selling treif chicken to all the families in the kingdom. Instead of accepting responsibility for their role in the mess, the rabbeim who hadn't supervised him immediately proclaimed a fast across the kingdom, and demanded kashering and replacement of all dishes that might have been touched by the chicken of doom. The queen, eager to be seen by her subjects (and the seifer) as frum, and sure that Rivke and her husband could not afford to follow her act, immediately replaced all the dishes in the castle and began a great fast.
Rivke's husband was horrified by the apparent imminent expense, since they could ill afford to replace the dishes in the cottage. However, Rivke had diligently toiled in the beis midrash every evening after work since their marriage. Calmly, she reassured her husband that they need neither fast nor kasher dishes, nor replace any of them.
The next day the queen got up and said:
'Seifer seifer on the shtender!
Who's the Toiroh's best defender?'
Unexpectedly, the seifer replied:
'Your emunah is misaligned
Rivke's frumkeit is divine.'
Furious, the queen hunted down the rabbeim and the sho`het and had them exiled to the Gobi Desert. Rivke and her husband learned happily ever after.
Glossary:
bas Torah - Nice Frum Girl
beis midrash - house of study
eishes chayil - woman of valor
emunah - faith
frum - observant Jewish
frumkeit -- general state and style of Jewish religious observance
kasher - to make kosher
kosher - fit for Jewish religious use
`osqim batorah - people engrossed in (learning) Torah (sing masc `oseiq battoiroh fem `oseqes battoiroh)
makpid - concerned (with mitzvois)
mitzvos -- commandments
Niftar - 'Was exempted' -- passed away
Rabbeim - plural of rabbi (teacher)
Seifer - book, here implicitly a Jewish religious one
sho`het - butcher (does kosher meat)
Shtender - book stand that props a seifer at a good angle for learning
talmid chacham - student of a wise person
Torah - Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)
treif - food that is not kosher
tznius - modest
The king was consumed with grief, but strove mightily to bring Rivke up to be the bas Torah that he and his wife had envisioned. She was a bright, sweet child, and she and her father were `osqim batorah and her progress was quite rapid.
When Rivke was six, her father met an eishes chayil from the next kingdom over, and they were wed. Unfortunately, the new queen had a hidden jealous streak, and when she saw how tznius and makpid Rivke was, her heart was consumed with fear that the girl should overtake her in learning and in mitzvos. However, the queen had a magic seifer that she consulted each morning
'Seifer seifer on the shtender!
Who's the Torah's best defender?'
And each day the seifer reassured her:
'You are the Torah's best defender.'
Still, the queen's insecure heart gnawed at her, and though she desperately wanted to have Rivke murdered in the middle of nowhere, but closer to the adjacent kingdom's borders, she knew that if she did so the magic seifer would cease to assure her of her frumkeit. Therefore, she arranged a marriage for Rivke to a nice enough boy, but not a talmid chacham in the least and far enough away that the king wouldn't retrieve the girl. The king and queen lost all track of her.
Then one day it emerged that the local sho`het was in fact selling treif chicken to all the families in the kingdom. Instead of accepting responsibility for their role in the mess, the rabbeim who hadn't supervised him immediately proclaimed a fast across the kingdom, and demanded kashering and replacement of all dishes that might have been touched by the chicken of doom. The queen, eager to be seen by her subjects (and the seifer) as frum, and sure that Rivke and her husband could not afford to follow her act, immediately replaced all the dishes in the castle and began a great fast.
Rivke's husband was horrified by the apparent imminent expense, since they could ill afford to replace the dishes in the cottage. However, Rivke had diligently toiled in the beis midrash every evening after work since their marriage. Calmly, she reassured her husband that they need neither fast nor kasher dishes, nor replace any of them.
The next day the queen got up and said:
'Seifer seifer on the shtender!
Who's the Toiroh's best defender?'
Unexpectedly, the seifer replied:
'Your emunah is misaligned
Rivke's frumkeit is divine.'
Furious, the queen hunted down the rabbeim and the sho`het and had them exiled to the Gobi Desert. Rivke and her husband learned happily ever after.
Glossary:
bas Torah - Nice Frum Girl
beis midrash - house of study
eishes chayil - woman of valor
emunah - faith
frum - observant Jewish
frumkeit -- general state and style of Jewish religious observance
kasher - to make kosher
kosher - fit for Jewish religious use
`osqim batorah - people engrossed in (learning) Torah (sing masc `oseiq battoiroh fem `oseqes battoiroh)
makpid - concerned (with mitzvois)
mitzvos -- commandments
Niftar - 'Was exempted' -- passed away
Rabbeim - plural of rabbi (teacher)
Seifer - book, here implicitly a Jewish religious one
sho`het - butcher (does kosher meat)
Shtender - book stand that props a seifer at a good angle for learning
talmid chacham - student of a wise person
Torah - Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)
treif - food that is not kosher
tznius - modest
Sunday, April 2, 2006
Rapunzel
Once upon a time there was a poor farmer and his wife who lived in a little hut at the edge of the shtetl. Despite their poverty, they lived happy lives, except that they were childless. However, the farmer davened and davened and one day they found that they would soon have a daughter.
Next to the couple's little cottage there was a fine magnificent home in which lived a talmidat hakham, who was regarded with some suspicion by the other talmidim of the shtetl since she was a woman. Next to the home was a fine magnificent garden with some fine magnificent rampion. One night, the farmer's wife was seized with a terrible desire for rampion salad. Her distress was so severe that the farmer crept into the neighboring garden to fetch his wife some rampion. The talmidat hakham was horrified when she saw him and cried out: !לא תגנב If only you had asked me, I would gladly have given it to you! Horrified, the poor farmer asked how he could do teshuvah. Seeing a perfect opportunity to expand the ranks of talmidot hakham, she said that she would grant mechilah if the farmer would send his daughter to learn with her. The farmer gratefully agreed.
Not long after, the couple had a daughter, Chava, and when she reached the age of chinuch, the farmer sent her to learn with the talmidat hakham. Chava proved extremely bright, and before long, she and the talmidat hakham opened a girl's yeshivah in the shtetl. There, Chava shut herself in a high tower so that she could better focus on her learning. One day, she chanced to see her bashert from the tower, and she called after him to invite him for shabbos. Horrified, the bashert called back אל תרבה שיחה עם האשה and ran away. So Chava lived the rest of her life learning 17 hours a day.
Glossary:
Shtetl -- village, where Jews live
Davened -- prayed
Talmidat hakham -- (feminine) A student of a wise person
לא תגנב -- (Lo Signov) Thou shalt not steal (Exodus)
Teshuvah -- Repentance/making amends
Mechilah -- forgiveness
Chinuch -- education
Yeshivah -- place in which one studies Torah
Bashert -- one's fated spouse
Shabbos -- Jewish Sabbath
אל תרבה שיחה עם האשה -- (Al tarbeh sichah im haishah) Don't engage in idle conversation with women (Eruvin 53b)
'Learning' -- studying something Torah related
Next to the couple's little cottage there was a fine magnificent home in which lived a talmidat hakham, who was regarded with some suspicion by the other talmidim of the shtetl since she was a woman. Next to the home was a fine magnificent garden with some fine magnificent rampion. One night, the farmer's wife was seized with a terrible desire for rampion salad. Her distress was so severe that the farmer crept into the neighboring garden to fetch his wife some rampion. The talmidat hakham was horrified when she saw him and cried out: !לא תגנב If only you had asked me, I would gladly have given it to you! Horrified, the poor farmer asked how he could do teshuvah. Seeing a perfect opportunity to expand the ranks of talmidot hakham, she said that she would grant mechilah if the farmer would send his daughter to learn with her. The farmer gratefully agreed.
Not long after, the couple had a daughter, Chava, and when she reached the age of chinuch, the farmer sent her to learn with the talmidat hakham. Chava proved extremely bright, and before long, she and the talmidat hakham opened a girl's yeshivah in the shtetl. There, Chava shut herself in a high tower so that she could better focus on her learning. One day, she chanced to see her bashert from the tower, and she called after him to invite him for shabbos. Horrified, the bashert called back אל תרבה שיחה עם האשה and ran away. So Chava lived the rest of her life learning 17 hours a day.
Glossary:
Shtetl -- village, where Jews live
Davened -- prayed
Talmidat hakham -- (feminine) A student of a wise person
לא תגנב -- (Lo Signov) Thou shalt not steal (Exodus)
Teshuvah -- Repentance/making amends
Mechilah -- forgiveness
Chinuch -- education
Yeshivah -- place in which one studies Torah
Bashert -- one's fated spouse
Shabbos -- Jewish Sabbath
אל תרבה שיחה עם האשה -- (Al tarbeh sichah im haishah) Don't engage in idle conversation with women (Eruvin 53b)
'Learning' -- studying something Torah related
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Sleeping Beauty
Once upon a time there lived a king and queen. All was bright in their lives except they had no children. So the king davened and davened and the queen wept and joy of joys, the davenen and the crying went up to shomayim and the couple had a beautiful daughter. The next shabbos they named her Shoshana Makabeya and made a big kiddush at the castle and almost everyone in the realm was invited.
Alas for their daughter, they did not invite the fairies, since such nonsense was assur d'oraisa. Nonetheless, the fairies came unbidden. Citing Vayiqra 22:17: You shall not let a sorceress live, the king and queen killed the fairies as fast as they could. Enraged, the evil fairy descended upon the castle to avenge her fallen comrades and pronounced a terrible curse upon Shoshana Makabeya: On her 15th birthday, she will prick her finger on a spindle and die. Grief-stricken, the king and queen failed to stop a final heathen magic-working party-crasher from making an appearance on the scene. This fairy gasped at all the carnage and addressed the dumbstruck crowd: I cannot remove the curse, but I can soften it. Shoshana Makabeya will not die; she will merely sleep for 100 years, after which she will be awakened by a kiss from her bashert. Then the last fairy ran away, lest the king and queen come to their senses and kill her too.
The king and queen were at a loss. They had never dreamed that halakhic adherence could produce such dreadful results. They determined to shelter Shoshana Makabeya from any and all knowledge that could possibly have protected her and decreed that all spindles should be burned within the year. The people of the realm complied and thus it was that at the mature age of 14 years and 364 days, Shoshana Makabeya was going on shiddukh dates without the slightest clue of how to spin thread to sew the clothes of her future husband.
On her fifteenth birthday, the king and queen threw a grand party in their daughter's honor. Her naivete concerning the curse placed on her from birth made the evil fairy's mission entirely too easy. When the crowd dispersed to play a merry game of hide and go seek, the evil fairy planted herself and a spindle in the top-most tower of the castle and waited. Inevitably, Shoshana Makabeya slipped up to the tower. She of course had never seen a spindle and was instantly intrigued by the fairy's tools and asked if she might try. Lo! She pricked her finger and fell into a deep sleep. The evil fairy promptly vanished and the good fairy promptly appeared. The good fairy cast a state of suspended animation over the entire kingdom so that 100 years hence when the bashert would presumably arrive to wake the princess, her parents would be around to enjoy the simcha.
About 35,964 days later, the bashert was preparing for his departure to rescue the princess. Unfortunately for Shoshana Makabeya, the bashert's rav poskened that it was assur to kiss her, and it was assur to be in the tower in the first place because of yihud. So the bashert settled down with some other nice Jewish girl, leaving Shoshana Makabeya, her parents and the citizens of the realm to sleep happily ever after.
Edit: Here's a glossary. Please don't take this as totally authoritative.
Assur: (adj) Forbidden
Assur d'oraisa: (adj) Forbidden in Torah law (a branch of Jewish law, the other being rabbinic law)
Bashert: Soulmate
Daven: (v.i.) Pray
Davenen: (n) Prayer, praying
Halakhic: (adj): Having to do with Jewish law
Kiddush: (n) Snack hour after davenen on shabbos
Posken: (v.i.) Issue a halakhic ruling
Rav: (n) Rabbi
Shabbos: (n) Sabbath
Shiddukh Date: (n) The occasion you meet a person before the occasion on which you decide whether to get married to the person
Shomayim: (n) Heaven(s)
Shoshana Makabeya: (n) Rosie the Riveter
Simcha: (n) Celebration. Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs....
Yihud: (n) People who should not be alone together being alone together
Alas for their daughter, they did not invite the fairies, since such nonsense was assur d'oraisa. Nonetheless, the fairies came unbidden. Citing Vayiqra 22:17: You shall not let a sorceress live, the king and queen killed the fairies as fast as they could. Enraged, the evil fairy descended upon the castle to avenge her fallen comrades and pronounced a terrible curse upon Shoshana Makabeya: On her 15th birthday, she will prick her finger on a spindle and die. Grief-stricken, the king and queen failed to stop a final heathen magic-working party-crasher from making an appearance on the scene. This fairy gasped at all the carnage and addressed the dumbstruck crowd: I cannot remove the curse, but I can soften it. Shoshana Makabeya will not die; she will merely sleep for 100 years, after which she will be awakened by a kiss from her bashert. Then the last fairy ran away, lest the king and queen come to their senses and kill her too.
The king and queen were at a loss. They had never dreamed that halakhic adherence could produce such dreadful results. They determined to shelter Shoshana Makabeya from any and all knowledge that could possibly have protected her and decreed that all spindles should be burned within the year. The people of the realm complied and thus it was that at the mature age of 14 years and 364 days, Shoshana Makabeya was going on shiddukh dates without the slightest clue of how to spin thread to sew the clothes of her future husband.
On her fifteenth birthday, the king and queen threw a grand party in their daughter's honor. Her naivete concerning the curse placed on her from birth made the evil fairy's mission entirely too easy. When the crowd dispersed to play a merry game of hide and go seek, the evil fairy planted herself and a spindle in the top-most tower of the castle and waited. Inevitably, Shoshana Makabeya slipped up to the tower. She of course had never seen a spindle and was instantly intrigued by the fairy's tools and asked if she might try. Lo! She pricked her finger and fell into a deep sleep. The evil fairy promptly vanished and the good fairy promptly appeared. The good fairy cast a state of suspended animation over the entire kingdom so that 100 years hence when the bashert would presumably arrive to wake the princess, her parents would be around to enjoy the simcha.
About 35,964 days later, the bashert was preparing for his departure to rescue the princess. Unfortunately for Shoshana Makabeya, the bashert's rav poskened that it was assur to kiss her, and it was assur to be in the tower in the first place because of yihud. So the bashert settled down with some other nice Jewish girl, leaving Shoshana Makabeya, her parents and the citizens of the realm to sleep happily ever after.
Edit: Here's a glossary. Please don't take this as totally authoritative.
Assur: (adj) Forbidden
Assur d'oraisa: (adj) Forbidden in Torah law (a branch of Jewish law, the other being rabbinic law)
Bashert: Soulmate
Daven: (v.i.) Pray
Davenen: (n) Prayer, praying
Halakhic: (adj): Having to do with Jewish law
Kiddush: (n) Snack hour after davenen on shabbos
Posken: (v.i.) Issue a halakhic ruling
Rav: (n) Rabbi
Shabbos: (n) Sabbath
Shiddukh Date: (n) The occasion you meet a person before the occasion on which you decide whether to get married to the person
Shomayim: (n) Heaven(s)
Shoshana Makabeya: (n) Rosie the Riveter
Simcha: (n) Celebration. Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs....
Yihud: (n) People who should not be alone together being alone together
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