Fourteen for ’14

Been a long time since I put a post together.  Not sure where the time went but thought that the end of 2013 was a good time to reengage with this.  So here goes with 14 thoughts for 2014.  In no particular order, here they are:

1. Turning 55 — biggest event of the year was hitting the “double nickel” birthday in late November.  While I thought that it would hit me in the same way that turning 50 did (i.e., wow I am really a middle-aged guy now), it didn’t.  I feel good and am generally happy with where my life is right now (happy marriage, generally satisfied professionally, kids seem to moving ahead with their lives, extended family doing okay, etc).
2. Teaching Revelations — I have spent the year teaching college full-time (four courses a semester with about 100 students or so), so I have a number of thoughts about this (probably more than I can fit here).  Bottom line is that the students at the top are the same students at the top when I was a student in the 1970s.  They are conscientious, intellectually curious and focused on the task at hand.  The students at the bottom are also the same students that dwelt there way back when and for the same reasons (the opposite characteristics of the top students — lazy, unfocused and not curious).  The problem is that, unlike when I was a college student, there are not very many students in the middle.  That is, I have a bi-modal distribution of students, which makes it quite tough to teach.  Do I aim at the top and leave the bottom behind or do I aim at the bottom and bore the top to tears?  Tough to know what to do, isn’t it?
3. Yoga —  I have really enjoyed doing yoga this year and have found it a great way to increase flexibility and reduce stress.  I particularly enjoy the “savasana” (the relaxation exercise at the end of the practice), which ironically is often the part of the class that many people pack up and leave before.  It kind of defeats the purpose of the yoga practice, doesn’t it?
4. Baseball —  As a lifelong NY Yankees‘ fan, it pains me to say this, but I actually was glad that the Red Sox won the World Series. I had hoped that the Yankees could learn that a winning team can be put together without breaking the bank and signing over the hill players for a ton of dough.  Yet they seem not to have gotten this lesson and will be destined to be a mediocre expensive team yet again next year.
5. Sportscasting — Why are there so many bad sportscasters out there?  You would think that given the sports crazy society we live in that there would be a demand for quality people on the sidelines and in the booth, but if someone says “scoring the basketball” again I will scream!  Let’s hope that John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman exit stage left and make room for some decent new talent there as well.
6. Tattoos — I know that I am an officially an old fart with this comment, but I still don’t get tattoos, especially the cover the arms and the neck style that so many professional athletes have.  What’s the point, really?  You are going to need to get them removed at some point when they sag and fade, aren’t you?
7. The Weather Channel — I like weather.  I like to follow it and like the statistics about it and used to love watching The Weather Channel to get my fix.  However, watching it now is like watching a train wreck.  We don’t get the weather each day, we get the coming of the apocalypse.  Why can’t you just broadcast the weather and ditch the hyperbole?  Do we really need to name winter storms?  Don’t think so….
8. Master of Sex — My wife thinks that the new Showtime drama about William Masters and Virginia Johnson appeals to my prurient interest, but I disagree.  This is one of the best shows on television, with good writing, well thought out real characters and yes some sex to boot.  Lizzy Caplan and Michael Sheen are terrific as the leads, but there is a good supporting cast as well.  This has replaced Boardwalk Empire as my favorite cable drama (that show got way too gory for my tastes).
9. The New York Times — I love the Times and have since I started getting it every day in the 1970s while a student, but I am a little concerned about the continued exodus of good writers from it.  This year David Pogue, the tech writer par excellant, left to go to Yahoo to do his thing there.  Too bad as I loved his “state of the art” column in the Times and probably won’t follow him to Yahoo.  Let’s hope they don’t lose too many other quality writers.
10. Public Radio — I am so happy that I can get good public radio stations from other areas to listen to on a regular basis.  I now have the WBUR (Boston) app on my phone and can get WNNZ (Amherst) in my car, so I don’t have to listen to our local station and its now almost continuous fundraising appeals.  What other station would announce its February fund drive in mid-December?  No other station, that’s who.
11. Tennis — I am now playing tennis year round two or three times a week and am enjoying it more than ever.  I think I have figured out that the reason that so many people play tennis well into their 60s and 70s and even 80s is because it’s a fun game that can be adapted as you age.  You may run a little slower and not get to shots you might have once upon a time, but that’s where the brain comes in and makes adjustments.  I also love the fact that our 7 am tennis group is like a big family that cares for each other in good times and in bad.
12. Friends — As I wrote during the summer, we have reconnected with lots of old friends this year, and it has made me realize that our lives might be short but they can be rich as well.  I hope that in the coming years I will be able to be a better friend to all.
13. Family — In addition to realizing the blessing of friends, I also know that I am lucky to have a good and supportive family who loves me even if I have the occasionally screw-up.  Let’s hope that we can continue to support each other in the weeks and years ahead.
14. 2014 — My wish to all is for a happy and peaceful year ahead.

27 Years and Counting

Yesterday my wife and I celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary.  It’s hard to believe that I have been married to someone for over half of my life and that I continue to enjoy being married so much.

The secret of our success?  It’s really no secret.  We both got incredibly lucky to find someone who is so compatible and so understanding of each others quirks.  I think that, while we are different in a number of ways (e.g., I am an incredible Myers-Briggs E and she is more of an I), we share enough things in common that makes it fun to spend lots of time together.  For example, we both love food, cooking it, eating it and talking about it.  My wife, who is almost ten inches shorter and eighty pounds lighter than I am, often remarks that she needed to find someone who could eat more than she could (and she did!).  We also love to be outdoors, whether it’s to bike or hike or walk or ski, whatever the season.  Having heart to heart talks on a bike ride or run makes it go by very quickly.

While we don’t share everything ( I haven’t convinced her to take up tennis again and she really can’t drag me to the ballet on a consistent basis), we share so many things that we find spending time together enjoyable and worthwhile.  We also like to laugh, both with and at each other, and that keeps the mood from being too intense most of the time.

I  have seen the trailer for the new Meryl Streep/Tommy Lee Jones movie, Hope Springs, and, while we all know couple like them (drifting apart for a long time and having to seek a way to “spice up” their marriage), I am happy that, for me, their relationship is the thing of movies and not of reality.

I look forward to 27 year more years of happy marriage!

The Tipping Point?

This week I watched the HBO documentary on obesity called The Weight of the Nation,  and despite my pretty good awareness of the expanding waistlines of Americans (travel overseas, especially to a third world country, and you get a sense of how really big we are compared to many places in the world), I was shocked at how big a problem this is, not just for the overweight or the obese, but for all of us.

It got me thinking that, like a number of other issues we are confronting (e.g., global warming, long-term budget deficits, social security and medicare trust funds), small steps can go a long way until they can’t anymore.  In other words, we seem to be in a situation in our public life where we need to get to the brink of disaster before we make changes in our _______ (fill in the blank) to start to make a difference.  Except that, like in Malcolm Gladwell‘s book The Tipping Point, there may come a time when little changes in our diet, lifestyles, choice of transportation, tax payments, etc  may not be enough to keep us from going over a cliff, either personally or as a society.

Yet, whether it’s human nature or just a product of our “no bad news” society (where all of the children are above average), we seem to be reluctant to tell people that you can’t have you cake and eat it too (or fight two wars and have a tax cut or have health care reform with no individual sacrifice or drink Diet Coke with that supersized package of french fries etc).  Bottom line is that most people or at least many people don’t want to hear bad news, especially catastrophic bad news, such that they shut down and pretend it’s someone else’s problem and not theirs.  The mattress that gets dropped in the middle of the room doesn’t get picked up by any single driver because it isn’t in her interest to do so, but if she could be convinced that the time she takes to pick up the mattress will help everyone, then we all benefit.

Right now, many people in our society aren’t picking up mattresses from the road or doing much else to help stem the tide of large social problems.  While many of us are trying to “do the right thing” and move the debate along so that we can make a difference for us and children, it can be lonely out there to do so, and many of us may get to the point where we get “compassion fatigue” and just shut it down.

Last weekend I worked with about 20 people on a project for the Yale Day of Service, the national and international day of service organized by the Association of Yale Alumni.  We helped do some work for a local non-profit to prepare a inner-city drop-in center for people in need in Troy, New York.  It was wonderful to see people ranging in age from nine (the daughter of an alum) to 83 working together to help people that most of us will never meet and with no reward other than the feeling of satisfaction of helping others (and the beer and chips that I provided at the end!).

While I think it’s great that a group of us spent a Saturday helping others locally and this model was repeated across the country and the world on a very small scale, it is not enough.  How do we get everyone to understand that?  I don’t know….

Twelve Thoughts for 2012

As we approach 2012, I have twelve thoughts to share, some big, some little, some important, some not so important, but all worth sharing in my humble opinion.  Fasten your seat belts and here we go!

(1) The Olympics — there was much to like about the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, most notably Michael Phelps and the swimming contests (I love the relays in particular) and Usain Bolt and his insane running (the 200 meters is even more impressive than 100).  However, I think that having an Olympics in a closer time zone and in a country that won’t stifle all political protests will work better for me.  Can’t wait to see it!

(2) The Presidential Election — On the other hand, I am already quite tired of Presidential politics and can’t wait for the election to be over.  The Republican primary process has not brought out the best in the candidates (or the best candidates for that matter!), and I am hopeful that both parties will actually propose center right and center left solutions to problems and not just talk about extreme ideologies.  Let’s solve some problems, folks, not just kick the can down the road so my kids have to clean it up!

(3) Newspapers — While the “King” of Indie Albany and Indie Moines, Eric Smith, has already covered this ground quite well, I wanted to add a comment about this.  I am old school in many ways in that I like to hold a newspaper in my hand to read it and think that there will be room for some kind of paper product in the future, in the same way that I think that books will be around for a long time.  However, I think that we will get more of a both the global (think New York Times and Wall Street Journal) and local (the town weeklies) and less of the smaller all purpose papers.

(4) College Students — I have now taught freshman economics at a local college for the last year and have some observations about the next generation of college students (which includes my younger daughter).  While I had a number of really good students, who seem genuinely interested in the material, I had a number of students who didn’t really belong in the classroom.  It was not because they don’t deserve a college education.  It was that there are not ready for one.  They seemed totally disengaged with the material and really uninterested in getting engaged.  Hard to teach people who don’t seem to care.  Let’s not force kids to go four year colleges when they just aren’t ready to.  How about some more national service opportunities?

(5) The NBA — It’s weird when you think that you aren’t going to miss something (and I didn’t), but when it comes back you are re-engaged quickly.  That’s the way I felt about the NBA lockout.  I didn’t miss meaningless pre-season games or the first two months of the season, but now that it’s back I am actually quite glad.  While I think that the season should be shorter (as I do for all pro sports, except maybe the NFL) and that the competitive balance is still skewed to largely big market teams (Oklahoma City a notable exception, but it’s the only game in town after college football is over), I am happy to be watching my beloved Knicks, who may actually be somewhat competitive this year.  Miami is going to be really tough and probably will win it all (LeBron has benefited from his diet of humble pie over the summer).

(6) 24/7 — Once again, one of the more compelling sports documentaries is HBO’s series, 24/7 The Road to the NHL Winter Classic, which tracks the Rangers and the Flyers as they prepare for the January 2 outdoor hockey game in Philadelphia.  Whether its the wonderful photography or the personal stories of the coaches and players, I absolutely love it!!  This kind of story telling is really limited these days, and I am glad that HBO continues to do it.  Real Sports is another example of such story telling and that show, now 17 years old, just gets better and better!

(7) Trader Joe’s — After many years of trying, the Capital Region looks like it is finally going to get that quirkiest of grocery chains, Trader Joe’s.  I have been a Trader Joe’s fan since I first went to one near my sister’s in Boston a number of years ago.  Part health food store, part warehouse store and part funky California boutique, it carries things that either can’t be found in other stores or at a price that the grocery stores can’t approach.  While I am thrilled that it coming to town, I hope that it doesn’t put our local food co-op out of business.

(8) Greek Yogurt — Greek yogurt is one those products that I didn’t know I needed until I had it and now I am not sure how I lived without it.  Even in its plain variety, it is creamier and less sour than its regular counterpart.  In addition, the two local producers of it — Fage and Chobani (ironically I think both owned by Turks) — have expanded greatly and are hiring people.  So I feel like I am not only having a yummy treat, but I am helping support the local economy.

(9) College Bowl Games — The aforementioned Real Sports did a feature on college bowl games and found that they are basically a taxpayer supported (they are non-profits) boondoggle for the people that run them.  Why is Division I men’s football the only college sport that does not have a playoff?  Why is this tolerated?  I could do another whole post on college athletics but I will hold back on that one until next year.

(10) Groupon — When I first got the invite to get the bargain of the day on “Groupon” I was pretty excited about it, but how many offers for pizza and manicures can one man tolerate?  The bloom is off that rose in my opinion…

(11) Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas? — As a member of the non-Christian minority in this country, I always felt sort of left out at this time of the year.  Hanukkah is not a major holiday, notwithstanding retailers desires to make it so, and while Chinese food and a movie on Christmas are fun, it’s not the highlight of my year.  That having been said, I don’t really object when people say either Merry Christmas (if they don’t know me) or Happy Holidays (if they do).  People are trying to be friendly and share their good feelings with me, not kidnap me and stuff me under a Christmas tree.  We have a party ever fall for the harvest festival of Sukkot, where we build a booth in our backyard and decorate it with fruits and vegetables and other harvest symbols.  We invite lots of non-Jews and they always seem to have a good time (the food and wine help!), but I don’t expect that any of them leave the party saying, “gosh I feel uncomfortable because they wished me a happy Sukkot.”  So let’s just turn it down a notch or two and not worry about offending someone, okay?

(12) New Year’s Resolutions — Not surprisingly, I will end my list with a comment about the most famous list that people make, the proverbial list of “New Year’s Resolutions.”  While I tend to think more about this list at Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) in the fall, I also use the secular new year to think about plans for the year to come.  I think that any opportunity to slow down and take stock of where one is in one’s life is always a useful exercise, especially in our constantly plugged in and tuned in world.  So whether you make lists or not, take a moment this New Year’s and think about how life might improve for you and your family in the new year and then do something about it.

A happy, healthy 2012 to all!

Happiness and the Human Spirit?

The current issue of Reform Judaism, the magazine of the Union for Reform Judaism, the governing body of the 900 plus Reform Jewish synagogues in North America, has a cover story and several articles about finding happiness in the modern age.  And while some of the ideas clearly have a progressive Jewish bent to them, most of them have a pretty universal set of themes that I found quite compelling and wanted to share with the Indie Albany universe for reflection and comment.

One of the most interesting articles in the magazine was by Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski (who is both a rabbi and a licensed psychiatrist), called Healing “Spiritual Deficiency Syndrome” and excerpted from his 2007 book Happiness and the Human Spirit: The Spirituality of Becoming the Best You Can Be (Jewish Lights Publishing).  While I recommend the entire article and several of the other articles in the magazine, I thought this section was particularly meaningful and captured much of what I think about when I think of the human spirit.

I would be interested in your comments about this, particularly from the non-Jewish followers of our blog (Jews can comment too!).

Enjoy!

To me, the human spirit is an integral part of being human. The human body makes its needs known dramatically through hunger, thirst, anger, sex drive, pain, weariness, and more. The human spirit, however, is intangible. We cannot see nor touch it, and it is much less emphatic about what it needs.

Still, it is present in these attributes:

• The ability to be self-aware. We as human beings can be introspective, analyze our psychological composition, know our strengths and weaknesses, work to develop desirable traits, and seek to eliminate the undesirable ones.
• The ability to be humble. We as human beings can know truths about our knowledge, skills, and talents, yet not think of ourselves as superior to or more worthy than others.
• The ability to choose. We as human beings can defy gratifying a desire when we believe it to be morally wrong.
• The ability to be patient. We as human beings can control our urges.
• The ability to make the most out of circumstances. We as human beings can come to adjust to the vicissitudes of life, and look for the silver linings in adversities.
• The ability to improve. We as human beings can acquire knowledge and become wise. We can also learn to control our anger and to be considerate of others.
• The ability to be compassionate. We as human beings can identify with others’ suffering, and try to alleviate it.
• The ability to have perspective. We as human beings can plan ahead, and consider the consequences of our actions.
• The ability to have purpose. We as human beings can dedicate ourselves to an ultimate goal, asking “What do I want to accomplish with my life?”
• The ability to search for truth. We as human beings can dedicate ourselves to dealing honestly in the world.
• The ability to change. “A leopard cannot change its spots,” but we human beings with strong selfish desires or a “short fuse” can make changes in our character.

I propose that the sum total of all of these traits constitutes the human spirit.

(from Reform Judaism Magazine, Winter 2011 issue)

Turning Over a New Leaf?

The holiest days of the Jewish calendar ended last Saturday with Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), and I wanted to reflect on how this time of the year is useful to me (and hopefully others) as we navigate our way through this all too imperfect life.

While Jews are certainly not the only ones who have a designated time of the year to reflect on their frailties (e.g., Christians during Lent, Muslims during Ramadan, many people around their respective New Years), to me it is a real gift to be able to take even a short period of time and use it to disconnect a bit from the constant motion and noise that has become our lives in the early 21st century.

While most of us enjoy being part of the action, I would argue that sometimes this constant need to be connected is a bit like a drug that gradually loses its efficacy over time which necessitates more and more of it to get the same effect.  All of the articles about the world of the distracted modern youth testify to this phenomena.

So, how I did use the time between Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur to reflect and what great insights did I come up with?

Well, I think that the greatest insights that I came up with this year was that I need to reengage and do some things that will make me feel more a part of the community.  The hardest thing about only working part-time is that I am spending more and more time by myself and that tends to be a little bit of vicious cycle, where when you are not seen, people forget about you.  That isn’t a way to blame others for ignoring me, but as a way for me to get off my rear end and make some efforts to reconnect.  In addition, I want to spend more time helping others in whatever way I can.  While ultimately I would love to find another full-time job, I think that I can use some of my down-time to do some volunteer projects around the area.

Though I know that I have many more years of work ahead, this effort to get out into the community and do something of value may be a way for me to practice what I will do when I do stop working for pay.  Despite the fact that my father never really had a retirement (he died at age 70, eight days before his semi-retirement was due to begin), I think that he would have spent much of spare time working in the community (as he did when he was alive).  My mother, who is in her mid-70s, continues to be an active member of the community and devotes a good bit of time to volunteer pursuits.

I close with one of my favorite quotes (actually in my college yearbook), from the early common era rabbi and philosopher, Hillel, who said:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am not for others, what am I?
And if not now, when?

Five Friday Bloviations for the Blogosphere

Not sure if “bloviations” is a word, but given our friends at Metroland and their obsession with our fearless leader, I had to work it into a post.

So here goes:

(1) Google + — Not sure how I am going to like Google+ or whether I will replace Facebook or if I will keep both, but over the first two weeks, I can observe that it is far cleaner and less full of the stuff that made our fearless leader leave Facebook behind.  Time will tell if there is enough “critical mass” to make it useful for me.  Today’s Wall Street Journal seems to imply that there will be.

(2) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II — My wife and I went to see this film last night.  We sprung for the 3D version and largely enjoyed it.  I think that it is one of the best of the Potter films, but if you haven’t read the book or seen the other films you would largely be lost trying to figure out what things like “horcruxes” are or how the “pensieve” works.  While the 3D effects work well, I am not sure it’s worth the extra four bucks.  It will be interesting to see if the three leads can make careers in new and different roles going forward.

(3) Debt Ceiling — This debate reminds me of college students pulling all-nighters before a big paper was due.  Most of the time the end-product gets done but it is never as good as something done in advance that is proofed and reread to catch errors.  I hope that the solution proposed by the “Gang of Six” is the framework for a long-term budget deal and that this opportunity to both reform the tax system (lower rates and fewer deductions) and entitlement system (more actuarily sustainable in the long term) and make defense spending based on “defense” and not  big offensive weapons systems.

(4) Empty Nest — My older daughter has begun her year teaching English in Asia, and my younger daughter is a camp counselor at a sleep away camp, so we are getting a four week taste of what next year will be like.  The grocery bills are much smaller, the noise level in the house much lower, and the flexibility to be spontaneous much greater (see item #2), but I do miss them.  It will be interesting to see how we adapt going forward.

(5) Old Dog New Tricks — I got back on the bike this week, one month after my bike crash.  While I would be lying if I said that I didn’t have any trepidations getting back on the bike, I largely enjoyed the twenty five mile ride (even if I couldn’t  climb hills quite the way I did a few weeks ago).  I think that “getting back on the horse” is the right strategy, even if it means being a little more cautious and practicing some preventative behavior (checking tire pressure, wiping the tires off after the ride, etc).  I am moving forward and that’s the important thing, isn’t it?

Enjoy the weekend and stay cool!

Betty Ford, RIP

The former first lady in her White House years

Today is the funeral of former first lady Betty Ford, and while at first blush, it would seem to be a less compelling reason for a post, I am inspired to do so.  Let me tell you why….

Although Mrs. Ford is almost a generation older than my own parents (93 at her death), she and Gerry Ford got married late (she was a divorcee) and had kids not much older than me, and so I kind of related to her and her family as being contemporaries of my own family.  She and Gerry were also moderate Republicans from the Midwest (Michigan to be exact), and not so different from my moderate Republican Upstate New York parents.  They believed in small, effective government and were socially moderate to liberal (almost libertarian), so that the government basically had a consistently small role in people’s lives.  It didn’t try and do too much or too little, but like Goldilocks’s porridge it tried to get things just right.

However, what I most remember Mrs. Ford about was her willingness to take on her own personal demons and make that fight an example for others.  Her very public treatment for breast cancer came at a time when, Woodstock and Hair notwithstanding, most people didn’t utter the word “breast” in public much less talk about radical mastectomies to cure cancer.  Though the sensibilities of the mid-1970s did not have graphic diagrams of the surgery in the newspaper or on the yet-to-be-invented World Wide Web, the picture of her in her hospital bed and a discussion of the surgery gave many women the courage to “go public” about this eminently treatable disease (to wit, she lived 37 years beyond the cancer treatment) and saved countless lives through early detection screenings such as mammograms and monthly breast self-exams.  Most of us know at least one person who is a breast cancer survivor, and while we can’t solely attribute all of those live to Mrs. Ford, we can probably attribute many of them to her.

Her second living legacy is the Betty Ford Clinic in California.  This clinic for the treatment of substance abuse and addiction sometimes gets the rap as the place where movie stars go to “dry out” (e.g., Lindsay Lohan), but I think like the breast cancer treatment, the fact that a former first lady admitted to her addictions and then went out and not only solved her own problem but made it possible for many others, not just movie stars, to do the same will be a lasting legacy for her.

Rest in peace, Betty Ford.  You have earned in it in a life well lived.  May your example be one for not just your children and grandchildren but for all of us.

2011.5

"Lucky"

It’s July 1st, and that means that the calendar year is half over.  Normally that would be of little interest to me, but this has been far from a normal year for me.  A number of less-than-wonderful things, a few very wonderful things and lots of highly average things have made this a six months to remember or to forget, depending on your view of the proverbial glass of water.

So that you might actually want to read further, I’ll — to quote the old song — “accentuate the positive” first.  As I wrote about in my “Rites de Passage” post in May, my older daughter graduated from college and is on her way to spend a year in Cambodia teaching English.  Her sister joined the graduation parade in late June completing her high school career.  Both of these events brought family together in a way I found touching but a bit less emotional than I would have thought.  It’s almost as if I am trying to prepare myself emotionally for the “empty nest” that will come in the fall.  I am sure that there will tears at the airport and at the dorm drop-off, but right now I am not dwelling on that (despite lots of inquiries from well-meaning friends!).  Needless to say, I am very proud of both of my girls and think that they will go onto to do really interesting things in life.

The not-so-positive can be summed up in two words — jobs and health.  Despite having an interesting part-time teaching gig this past spring teaching economics at a small local college and writing an article for the state bar association’s policy journal, my search for meaningful full-time employment is now in month 10.  I thought I had a good option recently but that seems to less certain that it was.  I have tried to stay positive and have lots of people in my corner.  I have money in the bank and a wife with an excellent full-time job and benefits.  Yet, it still is hard to go from day-to-day with such uncertainty in my future.  This combined with the empty nest is making me less excited about “freedom and flexibility” than it might.  In addition, although I recovered beautifully from surgery six months ago, my bike crash of two weeks ago has again kept me away from doing the active things that keep body and spirit together.  Could it be worse?  Sure it could, but that doesn’t mean it’s always fun writing job letters and sitting with ice packs.

So, what do I hope for in the next six months?  I hope to be gainfully employed.  I hope to be fully healed and avoid further accidents.  But most importantly, I hope that whatever my health and job status is, I am able to continue to look at that glass and see the water in it as half-full.  I am so lucky in so many ways, and if I were inclined to get a tattoo (which I am most certainly not!), it probably would be of a glass half full of water inscribed “lucky”.

Happy 4th of July!  Stay safe and be happy.

 

Taking Risks?

Joshua and Caleb in Numbers 13

(Note: Each week at synagogues all over the world, Jews read the same portion of Hebrew bible, the Torah, on a cycle that completes the reading of the five books of Moses over the course of a year on the Hebrew lunar calendar, which can be slightly shorter or longer than the normal secular solar calendar depending on the year.  This posting relates to this week’s Torah portion, Sh’lach L’cha, from the Book of Numbers, Chapter 13:1 – 15:41, and will be read at services at my synagogue this evening).

This week’s Torah portion, Sh’lach L’cha (literally — to “send out”), from the Book of Numbers tells of the famous story of Moses sending “scouts” (sometimes erroneously translated as spies) from the twelve tribes of Israel to investigate the Land of Canaan (aka the “Promised Land”).  Moses instructs them to “Go up there into the Negev [desert] and on into the hill country, and see what kind of country it is.  Are the people who dwell there in it strong or weak, few or many?  Is the country in which they dwell good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or fortified?  Is the soil rich or poor?  Is it wooded or not? And take pains to bring back some of the fruit of the land.” (Numbers 13:17-20)

After 40 days of scouting, the men come back to Moses and report what they had found.  “This is what they told him:  ‘We came to the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit [grapes].  However, the people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large; moreover, we saw the Anakites there.  Amalekites dwell in the Negev region, Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites inhabit the hill country; and Canaanites dwell by the Sea and along the Jordan.'” (Numbers 13:27-29)

However, one of the scouts, Caleb, then told Moses and the rest of those assembled that he was certain that the Israelites could overcome any resistance from the inhabitants of the land. (Numbers 13:30).  Yet, the rest of the scouts (save Joshua) then basically shouted down Caleb and said that the inhabitants were “giants” who would have devoured the Israelites like “grasshoppers” (or locusts).  (Numbers 13:31-33).  This  lead the rest of the Israelites to wail and complain that they would have been better off not leaving the land of Egypt and should head back there at once.

The thrust of the rest of the portion is that God, hearing all of the complaining about the journey to the  “Promised Land”, basically tells the Israelites that only Joshua and Caleb will live long enough to actually enter Canaan and the rest of the Israelite leadership (including Moses) will be destined to die in the desert after 38 years more of wandering.  The reason for this punishment is that God sees that only Caleb and Joshua trusted in God’s leadership in taking them from the land of Egypt and delivering them to the promised land (See e.g., Numbers 14:24), while the others did not have the trust or the faith to follow God into Canaan.

Regardless of your view of this story, as an allegory, as literal history, or somewhere in-between, its message is particularly timely for me and my wife as we are about to send our two daughters out into the world — one to start college at the University of Michigan and the other to teach English in Cambodia for a year.

The message that I take from this parasha (Torah portion) is that, despite the obstacles that we might encounter when we embark on a new journey to find our own “promised land”, we generally are better off taking some risks and moving ahead than looking back and trying to recreate the “good old days,” which in most cases aren’t actually so good.  That isn’t to say that every day will find us overflowing in milk and honey, or that there won’t be times where forward progress is hard to measure, but I think, and I hope that my daughters do as well, that life is not about finding a destination but a wonderful journey forward that can bring lots of self-discovery and joy.

Shabbat Shalom!