Relationships: A Talmudic Perspective

In the mornings, the Stern Talmud Program has been studying the Jewish Laws of stealing, and what is the thief's relationship to his stolen property-- can he ever own it? Today, we read a Tosafot that said that he can, to a certain degree. A thief who has stolen in front of the owner is called a gazlan, and the Torah gives him an opportunity to rectify the theft by returning the object to the owner. However, once a person despairs from ever getting his object back, the relationship that he has from his property is lost. Ties are severed, and the robber can then sell the object, or move it into the domain of the Temple. These are rights that are usually exclusive to the owner. But the owner has given up on the object. Thus, say Tosafot, while the robber might decide to return the object to the original owner after he's despaired, that does not qualify as a true-corrective hashava that would be required by the Torah. By then, the opportunity has been lost. All he can do is give back the item as a gift, and the rights to selling and dedicating the item to the temple will be returned as well. But, say Tosafot, he is forever a gazlan.
For the last week, I've been creating an analogy between the laws of stealing and breaking up. In my mind, the break-up parallels an act of theft-- a removal of the self from what one was once connected to. After that point, the person is in a quasi connected state/quasi unconnected. It is only with despair and/or movement into another person's domain that one can truly break ties from the original person.
Following this analogy makes me wonder how we relate to our property as that compares to how we relate to people. Are the ties that bind us to people stronger? Weaker? Do we feel broken and lost if we loose a notebook? A pen? A shirt? A friend? Is it only the relationship to the item/to the person that we're mourning? Is it the item/person itself? Obviously, people have their own minds, and therefore cannot be considered quite the same as the item that we've lost. But when the lost item is picked up by another person, does that make us relieved that the item is being put to good use?
Before last summer, I was preparing a class about the mitzvah of hashavat aveida-- the commandment that we have to return lost objects to our fellow Jews. The preparation put me in a mindset that made me think about restoring things to their owners is a kind of metaphysical tikkun-- repairing something that is wrong in the world. I remember feeling that I had to retrieve a cd that I'd left somewhere, as a way of returning something that belonged to me-- not because I needed the cd so badly, but because, it is appropriate for people to be responsible for what they own, and that this was my property that I had to look after. Pirkei Avot might have referred to this when the rabbis said, Marbe kesef marbe da'aga-- the more money we have, the more we worry.
The Talmud calls the act of marriage a kinyan-- a kind of monetary transaction, which also makes me think that perhaps our relationships with people and with property might have more in common than we like to think. I don't have good conclusions on this point, but it's been on my mind for a couple of weeks, and so I'm throwing it out: anyone have any ideas?

Who wants to face facts, anyway?

Ever since a recent post on Underground Heights, I've been thinking about what music I most relate to. I keep thinking of the Carole King song, "Believe in Humanity"(http://www.caroleking.com/index.php?p=discography&subp=ck_song_appears&letter=B&filter=&order=#.)
LYRICS
If you read the papers you may see History in the making
You'll read what they say life is all about
They say it's there for the taking
Yeah, but you should really check it out
If you want to know what's shaking
But don't tell me about the things you've heard
Maybe I'm wrong, but I want to believe in humanity

I know it's often true -- sad to say
We have been unkind to one another
Tell me how many times has the golden rule
Been applied by man to his brother
I believe if I really looked at what's going on
I would lose faith I never could recover
So don't tell me about the things you've heard
Maybe I'm wrong, but I want to believe in humanity

Maybe I'm living With my head in the sand
I just want to see people giving
I want to believe in my fellow man
Yes, I want to believe
© 1973 Elorac Music (ASCAP)

In the song, Carole admits that she might not being honest with herself, and she might be objectively incorrect about her assessment of the situation, but she doesn't care. Her attitude is basically, "Don't tell me every terrible thing that's going on in the world, because I want to believe in humanity." This attitude is of interest to me, since she is extremely self aware-- it's not that she has heard from some people that it's assur (prohibited according to religious law) to read the newspaper. She's read the papers, and she realizes that if you really want to know what's going on in the world, then you ought to keep up with the times. But she finds the facts too depressing to bear, and she cannot go on sustaining her trust and faith in the world while still maintaining a hold on the facts. The cognitive dissonance the reality creates forces her to choose one to the exclusion of the other.
Cognitive dissonance is something that everyone practices, whether or not they like it or are aware of it. The fact that most people find it extremely difficult to coexist with two conflicting conceptions of reality and so they eliminate one is completely dishonest, as far as facts go. But we do this. And so, I think it is fair to conclude that human beings are not merely truth seekers. We seek internal peace and harmony. And that's ok.
The ramifications of this conclusion are huge, but at some point, we have all recognized ourselvelves and our friends overlooking some idea at the expense of another. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's part of being human. We're all in this together. So maybe it's ok that I don't have a hold on conflicting realities, but thankfully, we have other people who will preserve them for us. In my religious observance, I have found this to be especially true. I might be inclined to ignore the problems posed by some parts of Jewish law, since they do not affect my every day life.
Take the aguna problem as an example. I choose to ignore the problem in a day to day sense, because I think that if I were to belabour the point, I wouldn't want to be a part of this system-- unable to reconcile my humanist values with my Jewish commitment. However, while I might not be thinking about this problem day and night, there are people who are-- usually people who are personally affected by it, but sometimes just people like Josh Ross, the Founder of ORA -The Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, ) , who want to make a difference. It is because there are people who have different thresholds for what they can handle, and which beliefs trump which beliefs, that we all end up with different perspectives and pursue different fields. And people keep us all honest.
Thank G-d for people!
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Classroom Considerations

Today in Halacha (Jewish Law) class, Rabbi Berger presented to us an apparent contradiction between two Talmudic sources:
Shabbat 97b recorded that a person who intends to throw something within the public domain on Shabbat four cubit (the minimal prohibition), but he overthrows and throws it eight cubits, he is patur (exempt). What can be understood from this exemption is that we are not liable for violating laws in ways that we did not intend to violate them. Shabbat 73b records that if a person meant to throw only two cubits (which would be biblically allowed), and he overthrew to four, in that instance, there is a disagreement whether he would be patur (exempt) or chayav (obligated). Now, Rabbi Berger recognized that the second case could not be a case where he was going to be stoned for throwing four cubits, since it was only a biblical prohibition done by accident. However, the possibility that you might be obligated to bring a sin-offering for overthrowing into four and not into two, but completely exempt from everything for overthrowing eight instead of four doesn't make much logical sense. All Rabbi Berger could come up with was that the two Gemaras are in contradiction with one another. I suggested, instead, that the first Gemara could be addressing the possibility of being stoned exclusively, and the second Gemara could be discussing only the potential requirement to bring a sin offering. Rabbi Berger thought about this for a minute, and he approved of the suggestion, saying that this is a definite possible reading.
The details of this legal discussion are secondary to this post. What I wanted to comment on was the aftermath of these events. The other women in the shiur (class) cheered, and I got the two other students in my row to give me five in the middle of class. I felt so great about the experience. I was so pumped, I called out, "Creativity rocks!" and that also elicited a hysterical response. Now, this class that we're in can get a bit rowdy, but I've never seen it quite like this before.
Thinking back, my idea wasn't so brilliant, and wasn't necessarily correct. But the energy that the idea created in the classroom was fantastic, and it made me feel so much more motivated to understand the material better in the future.
It might be that I'm exceptional, and that I like attention, and I thrive on experiences like these, while other people would hate them, and that is precisely why most people do not even make efforts to come up with their own ideas in classrooms, let alone express them to a teacher. But, if I'm anything like other people, I think that encouraging class participation-- particularly when it involves the students' own thoughts and creativity, is beneficial to the classroom in so many ways. Firstly, any variety in a classroom will keep people interested. It is the monotony of lecture that puts people to sleep most effectively.
Not only does interaction in the classroom improve the students' participation and enthusiasm in the material, but it also builds self confidence, if done properly. Also, when a student participates in a process of discovery within the material, the material becomes her own, and that acquisition is priceless.
Rav Shmuel Klitzner, a wonderful Tanakh (Bible) teacher from Midreshet Lindenbaum, incredible scholar and tremendous human being, has just published his second book, "Wrestling Jacob: Deception, Identity, and Freudian Slips in Genesis," published by Urim Publications (His first book was a children's book called The Lost Children of Tarshish, which I'm sure many of you read in your childhood). Rav Klitzner's book includes much of what he taught us in his Parshanut class, and he told me that he included something that I once mentioned in class in a footnote. That's what I'm talking about. Real appreciation of your student's ideas.
I think this tendency also demonstrates an openness to other people's ideas and minds outside of your own. This is a wonderful model for students to see in their teachers. I think that this is a potential opportunity to help form more open, thoughtful people who are personally invested in their learning and make it a real part of their lives.

War and Peace

It was my first time in Boston. This past weekend, I took the bus in on Friday morning and spend Shabbos with my cousin, who's studying in Harvard Divinity school, and then I returned last night. So, with all this traveling, I had the opportunity to finish listening to a dramatization of War and Peace that I have been taking with me on my commute, lately.
A word or two about Cambridge, before I address Tolstoy's work. I like the city, since it's not so much a city as is New York. The neighborhood that I was in, between Harvard and Porter Squares, was a quaint, quiet neighborhood with small, colonial looking homes. It was really lovely to walk around there, with Universities and Colleges at every street-corner, bookcases filled with books lining the laundromat walls. Some of the more athletic students running on the sidewalks in their shorts and tee-shirts. The big Harvard-Yale game was on Saturday afternoon, so there were hundreds of young people walking around sporting Crimson Sweatshirts. Yale won, if you're curious. Apparently, that hasn't happened in a while. It's kind of ironic and sort of telling that, despite all of their academic standing, it is the football league that sets these schools apart from others.
Anyway, we ate at my cousin's apartment for dinner on Friday night, and at Chabbad for lunch. The community is very small, but everyone I spoke to was at least moderately friendly, and some people seemed exceptionally nice. It was nice to get away. I recommend Boston for a getaway weekend to anyone who needs to get out of New York.
This brings me to War and Peace. I originally thought I was getting a regular book on tape from Amazon.com, but when it came in the mail, I realized that it was a dramatization, done by BBC. So all of the Russians, the French people and everyone else, had British accents.
(I've just discovered an website with the entire text on it http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/war_and_peace/)
The author presents the Russian nobility's perspective on the Napoleonic wars. He bounces the reader back and forth between the characters at home, concerned with love, money, pride and religion and the generals and soldiers on the battlefront, faced with starvation, life, death and illness on a daily basis. The sense that I got from the novel was that the author was really saying that there are times of war and times of peace in both the domestic and military spheres. People can discover that their trapped in their home with spouses they do not love, and all they want is to die for a purpose greater than themselves. People at war can be captured, taken prisoner, and starved, and they can meet someone who changes their whole lives and makes them feel more happy than they ever where in their state of physical comfort.
There are, of course, Christ figures in the book, and messages that we are to take away from the novel. For instance: Life's not always fair. Sonia, the poor orphaned cousin who her cousin Nicolai promised to marry, gets left single and alone while her cousins enjoy a life of love, fulfillment and family. Or: After much suffering, people can revive themselves, and discover that they still have a love of life. After Prince Andre dies, Natasha discovers that she can forgive herself for her mistakes and can move on and marry Pierre Bezukhov. And so on.
Before entering 11th grade in Ma'ayanot, we had to read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. We spent the first couple of months analyzing the book in groups and writing logs with an in-depth analysis. This experience made me fall in love-- not only with the book, but with war stories in general. I love reading about the way people are stripped so bare when they are confronted with possible death. The soul is forced into its most naked form, and people are seen for what they are. I love people like that. O'Brien didn't fight in the Napoleonic wars. He fought in Vietnam, and he had a much less noble perspective on the war that did Tolstoy on defending Russian soil from Napoleon in 1812. He writes that if a war story has a moral, then it isn't a true war story. I thought of him especially at moments when Tolstoy used almost identical language to O'Brien with regards to morality. There was a sense, I guess as reflected by much of the era's romantic literature and art, that experiences were meaningful, and that we could learn lessons from everything. O'Brien doesn't feel that way. War is something that takes a lot out of people, and that no one can really justify completely. Granted, Tolstoy does have the same stripped bare sort of soldiers that I find so appealing, but in the end, he needs to find something else to talk about. He needs to transcend the war. O'Brien questions the war from start to finish, but he doesn't need to learn a moral.
I realize that I really am not qualified to discuss Tolstoy's novel in its entirety, since I only listened to BBC's dramatization, and didn't read through the thousand-page novel. But it's a start. And it was great fun, listening to what was a kind of audio book-movie.

Disconnected

Two and a half weeks ago, I ended an eleven month relationship. Since then, I've been feeling disconnected. I felt very connected to one person, and this seemed to take over my whole self, such that I don't even feel ties to anyone or anything anymore. My family, my closest friends, my favorite books and music all seem strange to me. The self that once related to all these people no longer feels that she is the same self, but instead, a new, different self.
So in some ways, it isn't the family and friends who are the strangers, but instead it is me.
I've chosen to start a blog instead of just writing into my computer and leaving it there, because, I, like many writers poets and musicians need to be acknowledged by readers and listeners. So anyone who wants to comment on this blog, you will be doing a big mitzvah, giving me a reason to live-- something to which I can be connected.
Why the title? Kankan was the name I chose for my band, where I am the drummer, but my fellow band-members recently insisted we abandon for something else, still undecided. I feel it is my duty to preserve this name. Why Kankan? Kankan means vessel. The phrase from Pirkei Avot, Ethics of Our Fathers, "Al tistakel bikankan, ela b'ma sheyesh bo" means, to not examine the container, but rather what is in it. Basya Schechter once sang a song with these words at a Mima'amakim event, and I was with my Bass player, and I said to her, "That's it! Kankan!"
People don't get it-- they all asked me, Do you, or don't you want us to look past your externals? Fair question. I think I liked this name so much because it has implications of looking past externals, but in some way, what you see is what you get.
I think that I developed a lot of my ideas in college and since then about looking at medium and externals to understand things about the world. A composer might want to express elation, but he needs to work in the right modulation and chord progression with voice leading etc. Technique in writing poetry either inhibits expression or allows for communication. I think I had the sense before that one's thoughts were all she needed. But the kankan is the way we get through life in this world.
Similarly, Chasidic masters have described a person as inherently a soul, and the body as a vessel that merely contains the true self. But psychology today has shown us that so much of our minds (perhaps discussion of the soul should be saved for another time) is manipulated and arranged by chemical reactions in the brain. additionally, our whole lives, we're constantly being affected by how people react to us, which is largely a response to our physical appearance. Studies show that babies who smile more are paid more attention by adults, and then that will affect them forever. Al tistakel bikankan? Ha! Whether we like it or not, we are the Kankan.
But I'm still convinced that I have some inherent thought or feelings that make me acceptable-- even without the fancy externals. It's been ingrained it me. Any thoughts? Please! Feel free to share your thoughts on this matter, or anything else.