I’ve always appreciated how Judaism deals with death
Tuesday night my neighbor on Long Island passed away from prostate cancer. I’ve known him since I was three (which is when we moved into our house, next to his). He was always upbeat, always had a good attitude. He was the principal for a school for troubled youth…he taught them autorepair, how to build things with their hands, how to use tools, how to deal with their lives and how to play the hands they were dealt. He was a wonderful human, a fantastic neighbor and he leaves behind his wife and his children who I know are greiving terribly. These last few months of his life, he lived them to the fullest: he traveled, went on vacation…made every day a celebration. He told his wife he loved her hundreds of times. Only a couple of weeks ago Dad was telling me that he built a ramp for Steve (the two of them often talked shop, my father being a Master Carpenter and Steve being incredibly good with woodworking himself since he made it a major part of his curriculum).
However, Judaism deals with death beautifully. The Shiva process ensures that those who are mourning have people around them to comfort them and that they have food and someone to talk to. Seven days after, a month after, ninety days after, a year after…these are the timings that we go by as we recognize the natural grieving process You do not leave flowers on the grave when you visit so as not to take a life so you can mourn another, but rather you leave a rock or a pebble – something intrepid – on the tombstone, to show that you were there…and no one is ever gone: they live through us…these and many other things will be comforting Bev (Steve’s wife) and their two children (Josh & Hillary).
Steve was one of the good guys, it’s a shame that God extinguished his flame so soon…but it’s quite possible that he needed Steve up there with him more than we needed him down here with us, in which case, He’s got the best of the best.
May the wind be to your back, Steve.
“We are all star dust…”
Dogs have the ability to understand many things; but their knowledge can only go so far in understanding and making sense of the world around them. Humans, though we don’t want to admit it, have the same problem: the limitation that we are what we are and because of that, we have limits to what we can understand (even the greatest scientific minds can only go so far).
I remember when I had a fundamental shift in my religion.
I was at the Natural History Museum in New York City seeing the star show that was narrated by Tom Hanks (the Natural History Museum is my second favorite museum, my first being the Metropolitan Museum of Art)…and I got to see a video of the rebirth of a star…there’s star rebirthing stations in Space created by whatever force created them…and when you look at how small we are in comparison to the universe that surrounds us it’s enough to make anyone stop and just gape in awe…we are a spec…we are so tiny…and after thousands of years we are no closer to knowing how we got here or what happens after we leave here (though we have our suspicions or our faith) than we were when we first started asking the how and the why and all those other important questions.
Too many authors, bloggers, people in general lament that ‘it’s all been done before,’ that nothing is new. And yes, there are archetypes for stories and for human lives but there’s still so much wonder out there that it doesn’t really matter…and it’s as reassuring as it is amazing.
In Jewish tradition we fast to connect ourselves with each other and our ancestors…when you fast in the Jewish tradition you’re doing something that’s been done for a few thousand years and your doing it with the entire community around you at the same time, for the same reasons…it’s been done before, countless times…and it will be done (Alevi!) millions more times. Much like a character or a real human story about someone who had love unrequited, someone who went through a hard time, someone who was or is batteling a disease and winning (or losing), or who is facing adversity, the stories about the kid who made it out of the worst conditions, stories about love behind barricades or even the torture of a humdrum life…it is through these shared experiences (non-fiction, fictional and inspired alike) that we can pull the strength to get through anything: books are amazing, they remind us that we aren’t alone (even if we lock ourselves in a cave in the highest mountain…there’s a book about someone who did it and what they had to say about it somewhere)…and sure the stories are ‘the same’ in many respects (granted, possibly most) but look at where they’re different: I love books where the good guy wins – and I’m not talking about the princess marrying the prince – I’m talking about the prince running off with the stable hand and saying ‘fuck all, I know who I am when I put my head on the pillow at night.’
Perhaps our biggest deficit as humans are that we have to live in both the microcosmic world and the macrocosmic world at the same time…we have to exist thinking about ourselves, our friends, our families, our wants and needs and desires and miniscule or large worries…but we also have to think universally and when the two converge it can be hard to deal with. It’s my contention that at the end of the day the vast majority of humans want the same basic things: someone (or more than one, if you’re polyamorous) to love, someone to love us back, sex (if you’re not asexual), food, shelter, a group of people (biologicaly related to you or not) to call a family, and to be happy. I think very few people actually want war, terror, and chaos (though there are certainly those out there that do)…I just think that too many are manipulated into thinking that those atrocities are a necessary and a justifiable means to an end to reach the same goals that we all want.
But there are some universals that even the most wicked of tryants will one day have to face: that we’re all composed of the same things that make up stars, that we all have the capacity to love, that we all bleed and at the end of the day we’re all human…none greater than the next…though some make the choice to do something great with their lives and others choose to squander their talents…death is still the great equalizer…and it reminds us that there are macrocosmic things that are universally important (love, the battle against hate, peace, ending hunger) that are always (mostly? almost always?) more important than the microcosmic things that fill our lives.
“Okay, now what did we learn from all this!?”
So I’m doing an independent study with Wolfgang Wölck (which probably means nothing to you if you aren’t in the field of Sociolinguistics or Diglosia or Language Planning and Policy…the U.S. begged him to accept citizenship in the 70s, he calls three continents home, he’s a leader in our field and the Lead Adviser to the E.U. on Minority Language Rights)…suffice it to say, he’s my Linguistics Hero…I’ve often thought of getting him a cape with a giant paw print on it (get it…Wolf…yeah…).
The independent study I’ve been working on is exploring the 1965 Language Riots in India from a Sociolinguistic Perspective. Anyways, I meet with him regularly on Thursdays.
Today after meeting with me where I was going over my paper (I have the statistics memorized at this point for both 1950, 1965 and 2007) and we were getting into the thick of it. It’s a twisted, dark, comedy (though there’s very little that’s actually funny about it)…where inept language planning lead to the death of 66~ people, the arrest of 1,500+ and nearly brought about civil war…all this and it only lasted for a period of three months. I’ve even tracked down the TIME articles written about it at the time.
Sadly, the government seems to have learned nothing from the entire thing since very little has changed except for the fact that the wealthy elite within the Hindi Speaking community have had a lower birthrate than the other language communities – often seen among those who are affluent are lower birth rates – and therefore the population who speaks Hindi has gone down from 40% to 30% though this doesn’t take into account that there were only 40 Million people in India then and now there are 1.21 Billion or so) he told me “It’s too bad you won’t be here next semester…” to which I responded “I know, I saw the courses you’re teaching…I’m upset I’m missing the policy course” and he goes “no…no…I would have asked you to present this paper at my Seminar…it would have been nice to have a current statement on the affairs presented…maybe if you get a chance to come back…”
On one hand, I’m really…really…well…that’s a big compliment….on the other hand, it puts worlds more pressure on me to make sure that this paper deserves that kind of compliment…so now I’m doing a scheduling tap dance; it’s due in two weeks…it will be turned in, in two weeks…and it will be fabulous.
Yes, Rabbi Gurary…
Rabbi Gurary is not my Rabbi. Rabbi Gurary is the local Chabad Rabbi at UB that everyone knows (one of many on campus, actually, but he’s essentially their spokesperson).
Every now and then we wrap tefillin together which is an odd site in a Mutt and Jeff sort of way: I’m tattooed, pierced, short and wearing a t-shirt that says “don’t hate me because I’m Gay, hate me because I stole your boyfriend” and he’s tall and wearing his big black hat and his black suit looking very Rabbi-esque.
So as we were wrapping tefillin and he looked at my new tattoo and asked what it was for and I told him my favorite Psalm and coincidentally my lucky number. He began to recite the Psalm from memory in both Hebrew and then in English, which I give him credit for and he goes into his Brooklyn accent “Maaaaataaaan next time, just buy a New T-Shirt…” and we got into a brief discussion about Jewish law and then he gave me this look like “what would Rabbi Schneerson Say?” and I gave him the look of “What WOULDN’T Rabbi Schneerson say?”
We approach Judaism from two (or maybe more than that) very different angles: he likes working with a college students, I like working with the other group that my letter of hire from Hillel has me working with as ‘special projects intern’: the poor and the homeless and the druggies. He gets people to wrap Tefillin, I get people to wrap their cocks with condoms. He helps his students pass their tests, I help mine fail theirs.
I told him if he wants me to, I’ll bring messages for him to the Kotel.
“And that’s when he came along, the one night stand that never went away…”
– Queer as Folk UK – The Whole Love Thing Sorted
I have 54 days (as of today – Friday) until I land in Israel…I already have a few dates lined up with some of the gentlemen (rogues?) I’ve met…of them, I think two have potential to turn into something fun, not long term (though possibly, why rule anything out?)…but certainly fun…an experience…so we’ll see where that goes…hopefully in the direction I want it to.
Shirah found a nice Gay club in Jerusalem (that apparently has a really, really good drag show as well), and I still need to check out TLV. I’ve also been getting a ton of email from the underground party scenes (Israelis have – apparently – just discovered facebook all at the same time and are sending mass invites to anyone who meets their criteria, which as far as I can tell based on the four or five party invites I get a day is ‘male’ and ‘gay’).
So I have my first month mostly worked out: get paperwork in order (Shirah has generously offered to stand on line with me at the various bureaucracies – bless her) , party (you’re only 23 and fresh out of undergrad once), read (I have stacks of linguistics publications I’ve been dying to have time to read including the new publications for Translatology), relax (mnmmbeaches) and work out (mnmmmuscles) and do some touring (mnmmhistory)…oh…and sleep (mnmmcuddlingwithhotIsraelis).
And now, I go to finish my Phonetics homework and maybe get more than two hours of sleep….oh that would be so nice…aaaand back to work.
moocowinthecity