My brain is melting. I know that studying 13 hours a day must get easier with practice, like running or writing or anything else. Right now though, my brain feels like... um... I can't even press my thoughts together enough to come up with a good analogy.
Today was entirely a study day, so this will be entirely a nerdy post. I'm suppose to get my camera back next Tuesday, at which point I promise the entertaining posts will return.
`We started the day studying Mishnah and Talmud. Extreme summary: Mishnah is a text that summarizes and comments on the laws and rules for Jews outlined in the Bible. Talmud coments on the Bible and the comments of the Mishnah. If that sounds like it gets ridiculous... well in my opinion, you're right. It gets pretty absurd. Talmud is not my favorite.
The portions we discussed related to time, specifically the times to say the shema, or the sort of one quintessential Jewish prayer. Our instructor criticized the karaites (a sect of Jews who put their stock only in the Bible and not any rabbinic commentary) for not participating in their faith. He said that Mishnah and Talmud are our way of taking ownership and responsibility for our Judaism, of playing the game instead of just watching it. Then I said, but putting stock in Talmud and Mishnah... isn't that just the same as expanding the game you're watching? We're not playing, we're just watching a longer more complicated game. He said no, proper Talmud scholars add their own criticism as they study.
I guess this just breaks down for me because people in power in the Jewish world use the Talmud to make rules for other Jews. It's not just about study - it's about enforcement and what rules you enforce. The more you study religious texts, in my opinion, the more absurd it feels to enforce any rules.
Anyway.
After lunch we had a pretty intense discussion about American Zionism, the point of Zionism, and Israeli vs. Diaspora Jews. Things got emotional.. I was pretty calm, which is rare for me. I've done a pretty good job not taking anything personally this trip.
Another girl on the trip brought up an issue she and I had discussed earlier. People here basically treat us like silly little girls. We want to come here because we're ignorant. We're innocent. We don't know what we're getting into. We have fanciful dreams of glory and hunky soldiers and don't consider Israeli realities. I guess this could be discouraging.
But one Israeli dude in the group pointed this out: "When an Israeli says to you, 'idiot American girl, what are you thinking coming here?' you have to realize that this is the question he is asking himself: 'I'm joining the army, my friends are dying, what am I doing here? Am I an idiot?'"
And that's the thing about people in general, right? Do we ever really ask people questions about themselves? Or are we asking about ourselves? When we say things about other people, aren't we commenting more on ourselves? Our fears or anxieties, our own bullshit?
I think ever since that rabbi said she thought I was a Jew and I realized it made no difference to me, that it was no consolation, my stock in the opinions of others about me has plummeted. It really doesn't make a difference if people think I'm an idealist or an idiot. I think that's why I'm so unimpacted by these kinds of discussions that would normally get me all agitated.
Here's some questions I've had for myself over the past few days:
-Should I go to law school?
-Am I German and Norwegian and Lutheran as much as I'm Jewish? What does that other part of me count for?
-Does the value of a Jewish society outweigh the value of a diverse one TO ME?
-My faith is a personal one, and my life philosophy is, too. How does that fit into a religion that consistently demands community in order to have a relationship with God?
CLASS HIGHLIGHTS:
-"In a world where nations and peoples increasingly intermingle and intermarry at will; where cultural and national impediments to communication have all but collapsed; where more and more of us have multiple elective identities and would feel falsely constrained if we had to answer to just one of them; in such a world Israel is truly an anachronism And not just an anachronism but a dysfunctional one." -Tony Judt, 2003
-When told by Kissinger that he was an American first, then the Secretary of State, and then a Jew, Golda Meir told him that was fine since, in Hebrew, people read from right to left.
-Meir wrote: "As for Jews being the chosen people, I never quite accepted that. It seemed, and still seems to me, more reasonable to believe, not that God chose the Jews, but that the Jews were the first people that chose God, the first people in history to have done something truly revolutionary, and it was that choice that made them unique"
-"I am a Zionist because I share the past, present, and future of my people, the Jewish people Our nerve endings are uniquely intertwined. When one of us suffers, we share the pain; when many of us advance communal ideals together, we - and the world - benefit." - Gil Troy
-More Troy: "I am a Zionist because I am an idealist. Just as a century ago, the notion of a viable, independent, sovereign Jewish state was an impossible dream - yet worth fighting for - so, too, today, the notion of a thriving, independent, sovereign Jewish state living in true peace with its neighbors appears to be an impossible dream - yet worth seeking"
-From Washington Holocaust memorial: "Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but above all, thou shalt not be a bystander."
-"I am a Zionist. I already laid down on my back to admire the Sistine Chapel, I bought a postcard at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, and I was deeply impressed by the emerald Buddha at the king's palace in Bangkok. Yet I still believe that Tel Aviv is more entertaining, the Red Sea is greener, and the Western Wall Tunnels provide for a much more powerful spiritual experience. It is true that I'm not objective, but I'm also not objective in respect to my wife or children." - Yair Lapid
-"Self-deprecation is, after all, a classic form of Jewish humor."
"Not Jewish humor! No! Ghetto humor."
-Phillip Roth
-"Aliyah is not shallow submission to Zionist propaganda, but a deep compulsion, elemental, mocking death. This the members saw again with their own eyes in ships that bore to Palestine the exiled and the slain, in camps that shelter those who ran the gauntlet." -David Ben Gurion
And this, I think, sums up the rather magical difference between European/American Jews and Israeli Jews... and also has deep significance for me personally and my experience...:
"We would have preferred to develop our bodies rather than kill them or to have them - figuratively and actually - killed by others We know how to make rational use of our life and appreciate its value. If, unlike most other peoples, we do not conceive of (physical) life as our highest possession, it is nevertheless very valuable to us and thus worthy of careful treatment. During long centuries we have not been able to give it such treatment. All the elements of Aristotelian physics - light, air, water, and earth - were measured out to us very sparingly. In the narrow Jewish street our poor limbs soon forgot their gay movements; in the dimness of sunless houses our eyes began to blink shyly; the fear of constant persecution turned our powerful voices into frightened whispers, which rose in a crescendo only when our martyrs on the stakes cried out their dying prayers in the face of their executioners. But now, all coercion has become a memory of the past, and at least we are allowed space enough for our bodies to live again. Let us take up our oldest traditions; let us once again become deep-chested, sturdy, sharp-eyed men."
Aaaaaand a joke:
An Israeli, a Brit, Russian, a Vietnamese, and an American are sitting in a restaurant. A reporter comes by and asks, "Excuse me, but can I get your opinion on the recent grain shortage in the third world?"
The Brit asks: "What's a 'shortage'?"
The Vietnamese asks: "What's 'grain'?"
The Russian asks: "What's an 'opinion'?"
The American asks: "What's the 'third world'?"
The Israeli asks: "What's 'excuse me'?"
Which makes me think of "Give me some milk, Cow!" and I laugh all over again.
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