concept versus physical

Yossi mentioned last night an idea that I'd heard before with another teacher. What if the idea of Moshiach -of messiah- is a concept and not an actual person? (l'havdil for those of you who would be offended, seriously this is a thought experiment.) Let's say that "saving" is kind of like nirvana or enlightenment... The concept then is that there is some kind of higher enlightenment... be it a self-awareness or a heightened awareness of the world order and how everything natural and man-made, inanimate and animate, interpersonal between humans, and even the earth and the cosmos interact on a total scale. To exist well, we have to ignore those things and focus just on our small little bit. That we need to feed, clothe ourselves, keep up our interepersonal linkages which enable us to remain in the tapestry of human life, work, etc. is a small piece and a little speck of dust piece of the greater picture. What if when it is written in the Torah that a human cannot know and see "G-d" that what we cannot bear to see is this infinity of how things are so connected and how our daily concerns are nothing in the grand scheme... such thinking leads to such intense self-negation that a person could not stand up under such a burden. Once the mind has tried to see it, the being scared of losing its "selfhood" and scared, too, of the ramifications of such order and disorder hanging in balance -the being and its mind hunker down and agree to accept "the way." So we agree to obey the rules -maybe like the concept of the Bene Gesserit. It is a means of protection.

okay, so the idea of Moshiach then, of Kwisatz Haderach, of Messiah and Savior... what if this idea, planted as it is to drive humanity to reach a certain level of togetherness and to reach a level of purpose and definition about the human condition's goals and what it is that humanity strives for... (do we strive for perfection? do we strive for goodness? do we strive for a certain kind of balanced existence?) ...is merely an idea that is planted to inspire to motivate and not much more? Who was Apollonius? who was Jesus? Who was Mohammed? who was Shabbtai Tzvi? Who was the last Lubavitcher Rebbe? (mind you I odn't equate all these men with each other. Each one had a different kind of impact on people and on different people.) ... they motivated people to behave a certain way. People warped the high ideals of how people are supposed to treat one another and chose instead to lead themselves far far astray into these things which drive wars and alter society. Materialism, though, like communism, like capitalism, is its own god and religion. Is there anyone who is not free of some credo which controls that person like a religion or like a god? If not, how do you choose which god or religoin is for you? (That is, if you are not a believing Jew and have the choice already indicated to you that there is only one true Gd. I'm not encouraging apostasy.) Seriously, though... the Hmong have no worldview which involves a higher power. Their lives focus on a philosophy of balance. The Druze often never even know the deep tenets and instead, believe that faith is most important... faith more than what the belief itself is. If you've ever read the Desiderata on trusting that the world evolves as it should... then you might understand that concept.. in the end thogh.. when push comes to shove.. the deepest part of this is that, perhaps it is true.. whatever you believe in... G-d or not, religion or philosophy/creed, order and disorder...
perhaps what is most powerful and most "right?" or fitting for the world to work as it should is that you believe what you believe...

Believing and having faith these things make the world continue to go as it should.. perhaps these things drive us to do what we do.. and everyone acting in concert or in opposition to others.. we force the movements of the world to unfold as it should... like one great cellular being... ribosomes, mitochodria, etc. ...our universe.

Perhaps that force of faith or belief in whatever we all differently believe in is what drives the world to continue...

After all there is no set reason for why one action should mean one thing more than another action...except that it is in our minds... and our minds have a power far beyond our current uses for them... or far beyond what we are aware w/r/t how we use them.

Diamond in the Rough

I remember looking at Yetispotter’s site (www.yetispotter.blogspot.com) and thinking in a curious manner “is this how one deals with death?” at the time of Yehuda’s death and not quite understanding... but I think now it was more healthy in a lot of ways. He wanted to honor the person, because we were friends with him, by living fully and with color and vigor. Every person does the best she/he can. Each person's values carry them on their journey through life to the successes and growth thatthey achieve. One's friends admire, are inspired by, honor and respect, and rejoice in one's successes and in one's development.

We are so limited in what we can control. Our abilities to change the world are so limited... well, as one Archbishop wrote as an epitaph for his own tombstone... “If only I had known that to change the world, my country, my neighbors, even my family, that I first had to change myself…” People can create new edifices and build things, but they often cannot change another person. Every person has free will. They can choose where they go regardless of our desires. Freedom is paramount in a being’s existence... hence, how great the paradox of the fortunate fall...giving us choice! hence, how much greater we are than robots or angels, giving us options! We may choose-- we may seek goodness-- and in such choices, we have power greater than anything else created in the world.

Each human chooses many things, but what I’m thinking of tonight more than anything else.. is our choices of friendships and our choices in life. The nature of true friendship is that…X chooses to be friends with Y, because Y exhibits traits X admires. Humans are drawn to the sparks of greatness in each other. It is why each person matters and why each person is deserving of love. All the more so precious are those special people we are more strongly drawn to than the other people we meet in daily interactions. Some people tap into our core more strongly than other people and somehow we see in them something that is really special and admirable. It is not just the spark that attracts us, but the deep level of admiration, of respect, of being inspired to be better and more than we are now, and that depth of spirit and nobility which touches us and reminds us of how good it is to be human, too. Those people meet a need within me for my own standards.

Oftentimes I have felt a sense of shame over my deep desire for respect and acknowledgement from someone I admire that deeply. I can ask someone I don't have such a deep closeness to for help, because the shame doesn't burn as far down into me that I have to be weak and helpless before someone whose opinion is so valued. More often lately I’ve been working on nullifying that feeling and simply accepting that I can love people and that someone else’s opinion of me shouldn’t and doesn’t define me.

I think that essence of friendship is a comment unspoken really from one human to another that says: “Hey, My Friend, who you are (now, then and in the future) is worth my time and energy. I choose you and see in you things that you do not see, but that I recognize as great. It may be the intangibles, but it is surely that our souls recognize each other. I know we are lucky to walk together for however long we have.”

* * * * *

In A Few Good Men, Demi Moore’s character says she loves the Marines because "they stand up and say nothing's going to hurt you, not on my watch" .. well that same nobility of character is something that when I see it in my friends. When one of them stands up and says, “I’m not going to sell myself short. I’m not going to let injustices that I can change stand,” I see nobility... a piece of a human’s character that makes me fall to my knees –happy, awed, shamed, hopeful, inspired, and stronger. When someone cares about the world and about people and about life, when someone stands up and pushes onwards, because that person believes in him/herself. I am in awe of that piece of nobility. Even when that person has doubts inside and falters, it is that piece of character that brings him/her time and time again back to this path, which is awesome and I am reminded…of a hard lesson to keep in mind, but one worth the repetition to learn well… that it is my honor and my privilege to be traveling this path with you, my friend.

it's never too late

to tell someone that you love them...
or to tell others that a person is treasured and loved...
how better to honor someone than to publicly acknowledge them for their good?

...even when they're dead.

when he and I overturned in our raft on the Yarden,
I laughed...
When you danced in the back of the bus, with Judith's bikini on,
I laughed...
Thanks, B*, for remembering and letting me know that something, too, is missing for you


******
When the group of us were dancing the "shag" on the beach, shoes kicked off, listening to _Brown-Eyed Girl_ wafting over the sand from a local dive... and we danced, twirled, swung around, feeling alive, and thrilled that the world was our oyster...
I laughed...
V. turning and saying when we were lost on the sand... hey follow the moon... :) It was so innocently beautiful to me.
thanks, E*, for reminding me that life goes on...
I've got to dance again ...

When we skated across the rink, enjoying the calming feeling of ice under our feet...
The late nights awake on the floor chattering about personal growth...
Our motto: "never worry alone..."
I was comforted...
thanks, M*, for being part of the fabric of my existence...
I'll go to Millenium Park sometime ...

until then I've got memories I treasure. Thanks.

inspired by precision-blogger

http://precision-blogging.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_precision-blogging_archive.html#110840757461968236

It reminds me of the things people would tell me in the music camps when I would stay with my sister as a child.

Dora Short, a quite good violinist and a contemporary of Dorothy Delay though neither so successful nor so mean, told me a story once as I waited in a large concert hall waiting for my sister to finish packing up after a nice master class... my other sister had studied with a eccentrically classy pianist whose last name only I remember now Hertzer.. He was a dandy man, with this great concert grand and a baby grand in his living room, which was decorated in this very New York old style music school. (Mr. Hertzer was an amazing man.. quite old when I met him and has died since, but he reminded me a lot of Horowitz in that he too wore a classic bowtie always had a dapper suited look.) Anyway, Dora and Hertzer were playing a trio with some unnamed cellist and at one point the coach/maestro who was working with them, got very angry, because Mr.Hertzer liked to do his own thing.. rather an individual one could say.. anyway, he so infuriated the maestro that, the man vigiorously took his cane shouted for the last time, you will play it as I say! He then motioned that the group should start again and the maestro began pounding the ebat out with his cane and chanted as the piece went on... "Hertzer go to hell, Hertzer go to hell..." in this very punctuated and unmistakably forceful rhythm.

When she finished telling me the story, I remembered once seeing Mr. Hertzer smiling this boyish impish grin and sat down at the piano to play a trilling and tappity berceuse on the piano when we stood joking around after one lesson. What memories!

shame and self-esteem

One thing I read about with Grigoriy last night while we were trekking through Rabbi Teichtal's book was this idea that peole feel shame and suffering (within their sense of self-esteem) when fellows they identify with are humiliated. R"T's idea is that when the Jews of America (1930's-40's G noted that this was a period of time when Judaism in America was on a severe decline) heard about the way Jews of Europe suffered at the hands of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers that they paid a psychological price -a mild refinement as he calls it ...refinement being the suffering one endures to better oneself Zohar-style... -anyway, the part of this I find interesting is that.. R"T is sensitive to the fact that one's media image influences one's self-image. He implies that the emotional and psychological suffering that one endures with adverse media images is actually quite serious. This reminds me of the argument in Brown v. Board (I think.. have to look it up properly) of course where the experts asserted that African-American children were affected by the society to want to be white. Now, years later, we still think that this is probably true, but no one has really done much about that. The overwhelming truth is that whether you're talking about American/European, third-world/Western privilege, Jew/non-Jew, White/Black/Asian, Ashkenazi/Sephardi differences the influence that media (advertisements, pop culture, film/tv, etc.) has on one's self-esteem is great. We don't do anything about it really though. I don't know why and I wonder about it a lot.

People are so strange.

by the way, for those of you who're looking...
http://public.fotki.com/gTitievsky/kollel_torah_mitzion/2004-2005/kollel_torah_mitzio/img_5125.html
shtei sephardim -chatul v'haim

meals, food, just rambling thoughts....

So, I was reflecting on my life and how I used to host people over for these huge dinners and it would be tremendous fun,e specially because I had this policy that meals don't come for free.. and so people had to tell me something torah-related to be excused from the table at the end of the meal...that often made for some funny commentary. One fellow once was so caught on the spot he made up things and blatantly so.. but it was still fun.. of course, that meal was primarily all people who didn't know all this stuff and so to accomodate that, in the end I asked them for a story about how something interesting happened in their lives or what they were thankful for and then concluded by reading a lesson from Nechama Leibowitz's book of shiurim/gilyonot.

I remembered too when in my first year here I made a lot of meals at my place for people in my department, there I would often do a lot of things to chat with them and get to know them.. food is to CHinese people such a binding thing.. it helps to smooth over the world and life... even so it's a suggestion of who you are and a concrete way to express love and caring.

True to my culture, I recalled plenty of meals where my aunts would try to outdo one another.. I recall these incredible meals that we would make under my mother's tutelage.. the incredible eggplants stufed "sandwiches" for dim sum, the phenomenal lotus seed paste buns I would make, and the coconut custards we'd make in those tiny pie crusts, I remember making these awesome riceballs which were fried up... at the Cetner for Jewish Life at Princeton, we'd call that.. "made with luv" luv, being out euphemism for a lot of oil... Joy's way of letting us know she cared and wanted to give us "Jewish soul food". There wre fantastic meals that were made of incredible foods, which I'm painfully aware and sad that I don't get anymore, lately being sad a lot and hurt a lot I've got this nagging inner feeling tat I want to be eating those foods again. I'll have to make time to make those foods and to "feed myself" like that again. Somehow a part of me thinks that learning to do that kind of self-nurturing in a very self-aware way.. would be beauty.

It'll be great to do and fun.. but lonely to be the only one there... inthe kitchen. Somehow to a HCinese person, the idea of food, conjures up massive numbers of people... people filling the house and the ktichen... helping, tasting and joking around... There are times when I prefer to be alone and to think I will never marry and I will always be separate. I think that way of life while lonely is the more productive and more efficient way of life.. it's cleaner, neater, and more streamlined... but I was built up with a culture of food, love, and large groups of people. I think little else could make me happy.

Chinese-American culture is all about loving and nurturing other people. So little of what makes an Asian-merican woman tick is her outward success. So much of it is really her inner nurturing soul.. her ability to make the world beautiful, to help other people to grow, to right social wrongs, and I wonder how it is that in Chinese-american culture we breed women like this so easily. The world would be a better place if more people were like Chinese-American women, hah... well, maybe.. . Chinese-American women are passionate and deeply idealistic -which is the root of the do-gooder soul. Oddly, I think it is taught to us through the culture. I get upset when people think of religion as religion and not as a way of life.. why? because take Buddhism. Few people realize that Buddhists have dietary restrictions, much like kosher-keeping Jews. Few people realize that religion is a means of self-discipline and not necessarily just a dogma to rotely follow. Only in Christianity, which I find very very empty, is there this silliness of just following the dogma and not having a rich psychological and deeply self-refining discipline. I know next to nothing of Islam, so I cna't speak for them,,b ut Iknow in Judaism and Cuddhism that these tow religions as they're called.. have such a deep committment to the growth of the individual. I find it highly unsatisfactory when people think it's some kind of stupid panacea for fears or pain. The acestic rigors of a Buddhist lifestyle, pushing oneself to his or her limit and trying to marshal one's mind into an acute self-awareness and an acute awareness of the world around one. This is however not so different from Judaism.. particularly if you read mussar stuff.

so I am intrigued.

People who are as several of my friends are... those who believe that people are animals, just highly evolved without animus/soul and without a God --what one concieves of as the nature of God, etc. will be left to another debate...-- how do those people refine themselves? How do they achieve self-awareness without having any framework? I see plenty of relgious folk who have a framework, don't utilise it and end up in this bin of not knowing why or how or what they are doing here...

me... I have a short vignette that spoke to my inner core deeply and I knew when it hit me deeply that this was true for my own self... (now I can hardly retell it well, so you'll have to find it on your own at some point to get the full impact, but) it went something like this:

One dark, rainy day, I saw a homeless little girl on the street corner, without adequate clothing or food, and inwardly raging, I asked God, "Why do you not do anything about this?!"
Later that night, in my mind, I heard a response, "I did do something about it. I made you."
I remember when I heard that story that I wept inside my heart and realized that this story applied to me, too. Perhaps because my background made me particularly sensitive to humanity and to social injustice, I knew that no matter what or where I was, that all my life I would want to be helping people on an emotional and personal level to find their way out of the cdarkness and out of the uncaring cold. Every human deserves love and respect. It is probably the number one rule of my very inner being. God is nothing without people taking care of each other. Religion is useless if we only fret about rules and where someone else is or where we are in contrast to that other person. At our very core... we creatures of the world are at our best when we love and we share that love. And that... is what food is to a Chinese-American woman... an expression of love.