The Sportula and Tzedakah: On Paying it Forward

I spend a lot of time expressing my gratitude to people (even when they refuse to take my thanks), but they often insist that I must "pay it forward." I must take the gifts that they have given to me, and the gifts that have been given to me by the universe or God or whatever you want to call circumstance, and pay them forward to those younger than me and those who are struggling with the things that I have been through in the past (that's sort of why this blog exists in the first place). I had two experiences in the last few days that have sparked this particular post:

First, I had a close friend diagnosed with a chronic illness two days ago. She was confused, upset, and overwhelmed, all justifiable emotions to have on what I call D-Day, diagnosis day (there may be a blogpost coming on the process of diagnosis). And she called me. She called me because she knew that I would sit and listen and empathize. Because I've been where she is, and I was fortunate enough to have people to pull me out of the hole and to say, "I know that this is going to be hard, " but I will be right there beside you. I was able to pay it forward, and in many ways, while I hope I helped her, being able to help (and asked to help) was one of the biggest gifts I could have been given. I suppose I know what my mentor in Israel was talking about when she told me to "pay it forward" every time I tried to thank her.

Second, over the last couple of weeks, there has been a fundraiser going on on Twitter for an organization called the Sportula. The Sportula provides microgrants to students in the Classics and related fields to pay for their books or other supplies for their education. This is an absolutely amazing organization that helps to fight some of the inherent barriers to the field that can come from coming from a lower or middle-class background. I have been lucky enough to have no problem paying for my education or textbooks in the last 16 years of my education, but I am certainly the exception and not the rule. Unfortunately, due to my chronic illness, I am unable to do as much in-person activism or direct service as I would like, but this is something I can do. The Classics field, especially in college, has given me a home, mentors, and friends, and for that I am incredibly grateful. Donating to this fundraiser is a way in which I can pay it forward (if you'd like to check it out too, here's their GoFundMe and their Patreon).

But then I clicked on Sententia Antiquae's post about the fundraiser, and came across this quote:

"Remember to tell the tale of another's kindness many times
But whatever kind deed you do for others, keep quiet." --Dicta Catonis

This immediately reminded me of the levels of Tzedakah (because of course it did): Tzedakah, which can be roughly translated as "giving" is a concept in Judaism. We are instructed to give as much Tzedakah as we can. Maimonides, a prominent Jewish philosopher from the 12th century established the idea of the eight levels of tzedakah. Most relevant to the above Dicta Catonis quote, however, are two of the top levels. The most obvious connection (and how I ended up writing this blog post), is to the third level of tzedakah, where the donor knows to whom they are giving, but the receiver is unaware of who has given the tzedakah. The top level of tzedakah is essentially what we would refer to as "teach a man to fish": give tzedakah to sustain one or help them to establish themselves. It is very important that this is done in a dignified manner. These last two seem quite relevant to the Sportula, and I wish there was someone doing the same thing in the Jewish world. People who are privileged enough to have money to spare give to the Sportula which then dishes the money out in small amounts to those students who ask them for it. Tzedakah (and the Sportula) or not "charity." They are not charity, they are generosity and solidarity, and this is an important thing to remember.

Even if you don't give a damn about Classics, I encourage you to take stock of the gifts that you have been given and look at how you can pay them forward. Stay up a little later with your friend when they need you, donate a couple of dollars to a cause that helped you, give some advice to a younger member of your community. Don't ask for anything in return. Give what you can where you are, and perhaps all of us together can create a better world.

Why I Study Classics (Even Though I'm Going to Rabbinical School)

I want to preface this post by saying thank you to all of the amazing Latin, Greek, and Classical Studies professors and teachers that I have had. They have taught me the nuances of the field and inspired a love for it within me that may not have existed had I had teachers who remained in the "old school" of Classics being only for the elite, white, male, able-bodied members of society. I (obviously) do not fit into that category.

Let's start out with how I got to where I am today: a Hellenist (sort of) writing an interdisciplinary thesis about wisdom literature in the Ancient Near East and Ancient Greece. I fell in love with Greek mythology and with Latin at the same time: 5th grade. I chose to take Latin in an impulse decision. But I found a community there. I found friends who supported me through the ups and downs of middle and high school. These friends supported me through some of the darkest times in my life, and I always knew that the Latin classroom was a safe place for me (I even hid from my bullies there). Fast forward a couple of years, through a battle with Ancient Greek (that I'm still not sure that I've won) and some other hard experiences and I find myself with a wonderful community, both online and off. I have no idea how I ended up a Hellenist, but that's a whole other story. At Brandeis, our Classics Department is small, but mighty. I've been involved in it from pretty much the day I set foot on campus, and my close friends from there are those who I turn too when the politics within the Jewish community gets to me too much or I need to talk about Classics with someone who won't roll their eyes and as about those damn Percy Jackson books.

The Classics community online has also played a large role in the last few months of my life. As you may be able to assume, since I have a chronic illness, I spend a lot of time in doctors' waiting rooms. During a particularly difficult medical experience about two months ago, I started engaging with the Classics community on Twitter. I had been lurking for a little while, but I finally started posting myself. This community, as seemingly odd as it may be to its outsiders is so REAL for us. It allows students to communicate with academics and for in-depth considerations of issues in the field (as well as quite amusing memes). Social media, in this regard, allows us to cross some of the boundaries that have traditionally been put up in academia. It has allowed me an escape into a place where people understand my feelings about Aristotle, and it has provided me with advice and distraction on difficult health days.

People in the Jewish community (and even in the Biblical Studies community), are often confused when they hear how much time and energy I put into my work in Classics, especially if they know that I want to be a rabbi. They often ask what Classics has to to with the modern world and with so-called "real people." This is fine. I don't know very many Jewish Classicists either.  I'm tired of talking about this (and procrastinating studying for a myth final), so here's a blog post.

So, what does Classics have to do with the modern world? As much as we would like to pretend that we have changed a ton over the last 2000 (ish) years, we still think of things much the same way. For example, just as we talked about our political leaders thousands of years ago, we criticize them today. It is interesting to me that people put such value on very old books when they are religious texts (such as the Bible), but discount the other texts from those time periods. The values and ideas that are presented in those texts are still very applicable to humans today.

And that leads me to the second question: what does Classics have to do with real people? It is much easier to look at ourselves and our own structural biases and issues when they are presented as allegory in mythological texts. We can struggle with the idea of death through quotes from ancient historians and authors (see this blog post from my thesis advisor) and with constructions of gender by looking at the myth of Pandora in Hesiod.

Humanities, in theory, is supposed to teach us how to be more human. The only way that we can do that is by reading and working with what other humans thought about and said. Every time we read the Odyssey thoughtfully, we can use it to think about our agency over our lives. And that's just the first example that comes to mind. Classics has taught me how to think about those who are different than me and how to treat those around me.

At the end of the day, what does Classics have to do with Judaism? Classics has taught me that no culture develops in a vacuum and that there are two sides to every story (even when those stories include the destruction of Jewish sacred sites). It has taught me to think critically about the world in which I live by looking at the world through its texts as a lens, just as so many Jewish texts have. It has challenged my theology and philosophy of life, just as Judaism has. And it has given me so many wonderful people, just as my life in the Jewish community continues to do.

Frankly, I'm not so sure how I got to where I am today, but all I can say is that I am profoundly grateful to be here. I may not be going into Classics after college (and that may be disappointing to some of the amazing professors and teachers I've had), but I will forever hold it close to my heart.

The Ruby: The Power of Stories Across Time And Place

This afternoon, a Reconstructionist Rabbi visited my college. he told a story that my camp director told when I was growing up, and I found myself bursting with emotions, so I decided to write about it. The story goes like this:

There once was a king who had all of the possessions that he could want in the world. He had gold, a huge library, and many gardens. But his prized possession was a red ruby that he only looked at on his birthday. Every year, he would sit down at a long table on his birthday, and his servants would bring him the box with the ruby in it. He would open the box and look at the ruby, and his face would light up with the biggest smile. But one year, he opened the box and there was a scratch on the ruby. 

The king was devastated. He recruited all of the best jewelers, magicians, and scientists and his kingdom, and they all tried one by own to repair the damage, but none of them were successful. But then a little girl approached the king. She told him that if he just gave her some food and water and a little bit of space to work, she would try to fix the ruby.

So the king left the little girl alone with the ruby for a few days, and a few days later, she exited the room in which she had been working and presented the box with the ruby in it to the king. The king was holding his breath when he opened the box, but when he saw what was inside, his face lit up. The scratch was still there, but now, etched on the face of the ruby, was a beautiful rose. 

The first time that I heard this story I was nine-years-old. I was squished in a building with all of camp, and I was not so happy. I didn't know the songs very well, and I was quite homesick. But I remember being drawn to that story. Looking back on it, perhaps I felt empowered by that story. The little girl is the one who saves the day. None of the grown-ups were successful, but she was.

This story means something different to me today: this story shows the difference between perfection and meaning. Something can be perfect but completely without meaning. A blank notebook means very little without its pages filled. This is true about humans as well. We can live more meaningful and dare I say, beautiful lives if we accept our broken parts and use them to continue to shape ourselves. And stories help us to do this. This story, apparently, had an impact on my heart. It taught me that having a "scratch" does not make me broken or any less beautiful. Rather, we are an anthology of our stories, our parents' stories, and the stories of our religion and culture. 

Stories have always been important to me. At a young age, I fell in love simultaneously with biblical stories and Greek mythology (post on why I love/study Classics coming next week), which coincidentally are the two things I major in in college. I am a completely different person than I was when I was nine when I heard the Ruby, but throughout my life, it has taught me the beauty within the  (apparent) brokenness and the power of the little voice speaking from the back of the room. 

Breathe in, Breathe Out: How Do We Balance Nourishing Ourselves and Others?

Being cared for. Inhale.
Nurturing others. Exhale.

The tight, warm embraces from two female rabbis who inspire me. Inhale.
Creating religious space for others. Exhale.

Praying. Inhale.
Leading Prayer. Exhale.

Friday night services in an unfamiliar place with a community that felt familiar. Inhale.
Schmoozing at Shabbat Dinner. Exhale.

Therapy. Inhale.
Helping. Exhale.

The kind words of friends who remind me I'm loved. Inhale.
Counseling a friend. Exhale.

Learning. Inhale.
Teaching. Exhale.

Learning Aggadah at midnight (due to a time difference) from the teacher who helped me to fall in love with Talmud. Inhale.
Teaching about the history of Reform Judaism. Exhale.

Journaling. Inhale.
Blogging. Exhale.

The breath gives us life, and as such, can serve as an excellent metaphor for the input and output of our lives even though not all of the "inhales" above are actual input and not all of the "exhales" are actual output. The most important thing to remember about the metaphor of the breath is that both parts, the inhale and the exhale are equally as necessary. We must breathe in to bring oxygen into our body and breathe out to release the carbon dioxide. The things that help me to inhale are not any more (or less) valuable than those that help me to exhale.

This is a hard time of year. We forget to pay attention to what is helping us "inhale" or "exhale" let alone actually make sure we have both in our lives. We forget to breathe. But we need to breathe; it's how we stay alive. We need a balance of the "inhale" and "exhale": If we have too much "inhale," we may become lonely and isolated because humans are meant to share, but if we have too much of the "exhale," we may get burnt out to the extent that it becomes detrimental to our well-being to continue to "exhale" until we are able to "inhale" once more.

Healing and Judgement: Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5779

This summer, I spent a chunk of my time compiling a Prayer book for Neilah, the closing service of Yom Kippur for the nursing home in which I worked. Writing creative translations and liturgical poems, as well as typing out pretty much every prayer in the service, got me thinking a lot about judgement, the idea of begging for our sins to be pardoned. In the same internship,I watched the magic of chaplaincy: how much a kind conversation or sitting by someone’s side can really make a difference. This, got me thinking about healing.

The High Holiday season, which we have been approaching since Rosh Chodesh Elul in August, is intended to be one of renewal and healing through self reflection and judgement. We are instructed to better ourselves and heal ourselves for the coming year, but at the same time, we fast, we exact penance on ourselves for the sins that we have committed in the past year. But how do we heal ourselves in this time of judgement? We have lots of instruction and liturgy on how to repent, how to judge ourselves. But if we judge ourselves too harshly, there will be nothing left of us to live into the coming year so we need to heal as well.

There are two stories from our tradition that I think can help us address this relationship,. The first is about meeting ourselves where we are and allowing the same kindness to those around us. Let me explain. In Genesis 21, the Torah portion which many communities will read tomorrow morning, we read of Hagar, the slave woman who had a child with Abraham at Sarah’s bequest, and her son Ishmael being exiled by Sarah after the birth of Isaac. While Abraham and Sarah leave them out to dry, God does not exact the same judgement. We are told that God hears Ishmael’s cries, b’asher hu sham, “where he is.” Ishmael is not forced to seek God’s grace or kindness, instead God comes to him and provides him and his mother with a well. Bereshit Rabbah says that God defends His choice to provide a well to Ishmael by saying, “I judge people as they are when they are being judged.” This can teach us a powerful lesson: God meets us where we are, and so should we. As we reflect, we need to see ourselves and judge ourselves as we are in this moment, not in the moments of last week or last year. And when it comes to healing, we need to meet each other where we are with openness and honesty and love.

Second, There is a common idea that while we are judged every year around this time, ultimate judgement will come when we face death. A number of the rabbis, particularly in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ketubot are fascinated by this moment, and their supposed conversations with the Angel of Death are chronicled. Many of these conversations are interesting but there is one that I feel is especially pertinent to this juxtaposition of healing and judgement that we’ve been discussing, and that is the idea of “attaching oneself” to the sick. We are told in Bavli Ketubot 77b that R. Yehoshua B. Levi “attached himself” to the raatan, the person with a certain kind of illness, leper, and then later on the page, the Angel of Death asks R. Hanina b. Papa if he has done so and he is told that not attaching himself to the leper is what is keeping him out of heaven.

From this, we can assume that, at the time of judgement, one of the qualifications of getting into heaven is whether we “attached ourselves” to the sick, the “other.” Illness and suffering can be unbelievably isolating, an experience I know firsthand as someone who has been both the healer and the one in need of healing. But it is important that even though the sick, the broken, may scare us, we must stand by them in any way that we can. And I would argue that In a world where anyone who is seen as an “other”, or different is ostracized and isolated, “attaching ourselves” in any way possible to them is even more important.

Interestingly enough, in Ketubot, there is no qualification that we heal the raatan, the sick, just that we must stand by them. Surely, it would be ideal to heal but I find the absence of a direct instruction to heal profound. While we must stand and bear witness to the pain, the Talmud, at least indirectly, recognizes that there is pain  that cannot be “solved.” The unfortunate reality of the world is that there is illnesses that cannot be cured and problems that cannot be fixed and transgressions that can’t be forgiven. There are some moments that are filled with such suffering that it is hard for us to even speak--I invoke the words of Les Mis, “There’s a grief that can’t be spoken, there’s a pain goes on and on… “ In those moments, binding ourselves to the people that are suffering and being empathetic and supportive and kind is all that we can do. Even though we are doing our best to make ourselves better for the coming year, the process doesn’t have to involve complete, forced healing. Because we will only be judged on our effort and our openness to healing.

These stories can teach us a little about what’s important at the end of the day, or in this case, at the end of the year. We must meet our souls where they are and bear witness to the pain and suffering in our messy world as God and the rabbis prompt us to do. We must keep the ideas of healing and judgement in balance with one another. At the end of the day, perhaps the questions of how can I heal and how will I be judged may be close to the same: we will be judged, perhaps, on many things, but one of the most important is our ability to be resilient, to keep pushing through and holding hope in our hearts when life is difficult. With that, I wish you a Shana Tova, and hope that your high holiday season is one of meaningful reflection and deep connection.

Something Gold Can Stay: The Power Of Literature

"When I stepped into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I only had two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home."

One of my clearest memories of the year I turned 12 was sitting in the corner of my sixth grade classroom on the day that my little sister was having surgery reading the Outsiders by S.E Hinton. I remember clutching that book like it was a safety blanket, a reality that I could get lost in that made me forget about the fear. In the coming weeks, I read the Outsiders over and over, but eventually I put it down.

Fast forward to a day a few weeks ago in 2018, approximately nine years after I first picked up the book, and on an impulse, I bought the audiobook of the Outsiders. Over the last few weeks I have listened to it, and this book has taught me some lessons that I would like to share with you as well as allowed me to travel back in time through my own life.

The Outsiders, published in 1967 by an 18 year old S. E. Hinton, tells the story of two gangs, divided by socioeconomic status, focusing on a member of the Greasers, the lower class gang, Ponyboy Curtis. The story is told in first person from the perspective of Ponyboy. By the way, I will try to keep this blog post spoiler-free, but if you're worried about spoilers, just go read the book. It's worth it. You can also watch the movie, but it's substantially worse than the book.

1. "Things are rough all over."

In the beginning of the book, Ponyboy and his friend Dally go to the movies, and they happen upon two girls from the other gang, the Socs, Cherry and Marcia. During this encounter, Ponyboy and Cherry have a conversation about the problems that they experience on their respective sides of town, and when Ponyboy tries to say that the problems of the Greasers are worse than those of the Socs, she counters with the phrase, "things are rough all over." It takes Ponyboy only a few weeks to learn this lesson, but it's taken me years.

So often, we think of our own problems as the worst things in the world, and we look at someone else's Facebook or Instagram feed and say, "hey, that's not fair. I'm struggling, and they're out there having brunch." Now I don't want to invalidate your pain (or my own pain) because whatever you are feeling is real and valid, but we need, especially in the age of social media, to remind ourselves that what you see on the screen is not the complete picture. Everyone has struggled in some way at some point. Every person, as Walt Whitman says in his poem, Song of Myself, "contains multitudes." Every picture, every post, every interaction is more complex than we usually realize (Come to think of it, this also applies to Talmudic texts, but blog post on that coming later). We need to remember this. The grass may seem to always be greener, but in reality, "things are rough all over."

2. "Nothing gold can stay."

Note: this is not an original quote from the Outsiders. It's from a poem by Robert Frost that you can find here.

This line is quoted a number of times throughout the novel. Ponyboy quotes the whole poem to Johnny at one point. Johnny says to Ponyboy that he thinks the poem is about childhood and the passing of time. Somehow, I both agree and disagree with this line. We can't stay in that golden age of innocence. We can't ignore reality forever. And that's okay. We need to make peace with the fact that everything will change over time, but that doesn't mean it won't stay "gold." There are beautiful things that can be found even in the roughest of times.

When I first opened this book, I was 11 years old, three years younger than Ponyboy. Now I am 21 years old, making me older than almost every character in the novel. My life has changed a lot since I first sat with this book. I went through high school, made it to college, acquired an iPhone, spent a full semester (almost) in Israel. Heck, Claire, my little sister, who was 8 at the time, is now going to be a senior in high school.  So I guess I disagree with the poem, as Johnny interpreted it. Sitting here in my apartment in Jerusalem, overlooking the Old City, my life feels pretty "golden," even though I no longer consider myself a child. The gold has stayed in some ways and hasn't in others.

Before I started listening to the audiobook, I hesitated, wondering what I would do if the book didn't hold up. I had been saying that the Outsiders was one of my favorite books for so many years, but what if I didn't like it anymore? But it held up. As I was listening to the words that I had read so long ago, they evoked exactly the same feelings as I felt back then. I still sobbed at the sad parts (if you have read the book, you should know exactly what I'm talking about), and I still laughed at the jokes. I now noticed more of the themes and subtleties throughout the book, but if anything, it made the reading/listening experience better--and I didn't flinch every time that a character swore. And I guess that's the power of literature. It allows you to travel through time in a way nothing else can. And it stays constant, a friend on your bookshelf, just waiting for you to take it on an adventure again. So maybe, at the end of the day, something gold CAN stay (if you want it to).

Everything Is Awful And I Am Not Okay: How to Survive A Flare

A note before I begin:
Thank you so much to every single person who has helped me to work through this flare. You know who you are. Thank you for calling, texting, and having patience with me while I was very, very stubborn about taking your help. It is impossible to create a list of suggestions that will apply to everyone who is struggling with chronic illness. I just hope that my words can be helpful to somebody who is reading them. Also, these are in no particular order, and I didn't come up with most of them myself.

1.  Let yourself wallow (but not forever).
It's important to grieve the temporary (or permanent) loss of your health. Noone ever teaches us that we can grieve for things other than the dead, and the grief that you may be feeling in this case is valid and natural and complicated just like all grief is. It's okay to be sad and eat ice cream (or rugelach in my case) in bed and feel sorry for yourself. Some days are just going to be hard, and at the end of the day, you are going to have to just take the loss and crawl into bed with the dignity and health you've got.

2. Be gentle with yourself. 
This is hard, and I am not good at it. This being said, when the world seems to be against us, it is our time to help ourselves. The more situational factors or outside issues that we are experience, the more physical symptoms that we are dealing with, the more we MUST try to be kind to ourselves. This means not pushing ourselves beyond our limits or doing things that make our lives harder just because we want to be seem in a certain way. Use a mobility aid if it will make your life easier. Don't torture yourself over missing a class because your whole body is hurting. Don't make your life harder than it has to be.

3. Try to be grateful for the people who have stayed in your life through the flare instead of focusing on those who haven't.
Going through a flare or a crisis situation of any kind can show you who your true allies are. Some people will be with you at the beginning (at the acute stage), but a few days or weeks later they are nowhere to be found. Some people will come in and out throughout the flare. Some will drop off the face of the earth the first time you talk about a single symptom. But some will be with you every step of the way (sometimes literally when the elevator breaks and you have to walk up 3.5 flights of stairs). And those are the important ones who we must be grateful for. Those are the people who you'll remember in years when you look back at this difficult times. Even though going through a flare can drive many of the people who were previously close to you away, there is a big difference between having one or two people by your side and being alone. You are never completely alone, no matter how much it feels like you are. Try your hardest (and I know how hard it is) to focus on your gratitude for those who have stayed as opposed to focusing on your disappointment and frustration over those who haven't.

4. Do your best to do one thing that you love every day. 
Justifying doing something that seems "stupid" or "silly" is difficult when you are at the point at which normal life is already incredibly difficult. But when our bodies or minds are not cooperating, we have to also remember to take care of our souls because every part of ourselves is connected. This can be getting your favorite drink at the coffee shop on your way to work or school, listening to a favorite podcast, or coloring in a coloring book. I, myself, have found listening to music from when I was in middle school to be very comforting to get my mind off of how my body is feeling even if I can't get up and dance to it like I used to.

5. Check in with yourself. 
I can be in a ton of pain and not notice. I can be starving and not notice. Because I am used to feeling pain most of the time, I tend to ignore it and just push through the day like everything is normal. This doesn't work during a flare because you end up stuck somewhere because you didn't check in with yourself to determine how much energy you had left before you left. I am told that this is a common experience of others who experience chronic illness and chronic pain as well. Checking in with yourself can just involve taking a deep breath and doing a quick body scan to figure out your energy and pain levels. I find it helpful to do this at the beginning and end of each day. Knowing how you are feeling also will help you to determine what you need whether that be medicine, a cup of coffee or a nap.

6. Make a list. 
Make a list of either everything that needs to be done or literally just everything that's in your mind. Somebody suggested this to me at the beginning of my most recent flare, and I hadn't thought about it before. Often the reason that things are overwhelming is because they are all bouncing around in your head with no way to get out, and if you have brain fog like I do, you'll remember one thing that needs to be done, promptly forget it, and then remember another thing that needs to be done and go through exactly the same process with every thing that's bothering you. Writing everything down, whether in a note on your phone or just on a piece of paper, can help you to get your thoughts in order and recognize what you can control and what is just happening. It clears your mind so that you can focus on eating or sleeping or bathing, things that are absolutely necessary to your survival.

7. Take the help that's being offered if it will be helpful. 
This is another one that I happen to be terrible at. For some reason, even though it would definitely make it easier for me to walk, I refuse to let anyone carry my backpack. I don't know why I do this. It's just stupid, so do as I say, not as I do. Some help will not be helpful. The person means well, but they don't know how to help you, and that's okay. But if the help will be helpful to you, please take it. If it will help you to talk to someone, please pick up the phone. If it will help you to have someone come over to help do your laundry, ask them. Don't let your pride get in the way of you getting better. Being vulnerable is the only way that we can form strong relationships with one another at the end of the day. Yes, sometimes if you are vulnerable, you can get hurt, but sometimes, when the right person is sitting across the table from you, vulnerability can truly pay off, and you can get exactly the help that you need.

Thank you for reading, and as usual, I'd love to hear your thoughts or additions.