Yes, your typical American ill-literate here has to confess to a whopping big blooper---I totally forgot that Hebrew, as nearly every other language on this planet, genders its words either masculine or feminine. So "shoteh" (masc.) becomes "shotah" (fem.) when used to describe ME. Or any other female, naturally. Sorry. Big round of applause for Shira, who caught my mistake and emailed me. Now, if I can just figure out how to correct this entire blog without deleting it...
Aha! Didn't screw up AFTER all. Now, for some random brain-droppings (love George Carlin)...
The Republican National Convention/Coronation is adding a significant layer of hot air over the usual smog-laden NYC this week, so expect to see a temperature inversion by early next week from all that gas, proving that conservatives are RIGHT when it comes to their claim that hydroflurocarbons are not promoting global warming---well, ALMOST right, at any rate. With all the protesters busy throwing their "I Wanna Be On TV" tantrums, the place looks like a scene right out of Chicago 1968. In fact, the protesters look like the same ones THERE, except that they've gone gray and wrinkled. Sigh. Oh, to be young, slim, and hip again. About the only thing I still have of those three is "hip(s)", unfortunately. There's just something vaguely disgusting about the sight of a bunch of old geezers parading around like they were still Peaceniks in the 60's. And nothing ever changes. The protesters still claim kazillions more than what's reported on the news, the cops complain about how they're soooo over-worked and under-appreciated, the newscasters make ominous-sounding noises about this election being an earth-shattering event (did the earth move for YOU, too?), and in the end we all get screwed. Well, figuratively speaking, thankfully.
My conclusion? Try to take criticism gracefully, and get off your tuchus and vote!
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Opsimath Versus Oopsimath
I was browsing some of the other blogs and came across one called Verbivore, which had a "Word of the Day" section with the word "opsimath" listed and the definition "one who begins learning late in life". I loved it! Naturally, being of a warped mind, I immediately saw its relevance to me. Of course! I was always a Late Bloomer, but now I have a SCIENTIFIC term for it. How wonderful. Now I can converse with my shrink and casually drop these little bon mots when describing my struggles with daily life. Only in my case, I feel the word should be modified somewhat, as I not only learn "late in life" but not very gracefully, either. So, I propose "oopsimath", meaning someone who is not only a late bloomer but a KLUTZ as well. (For you who may not know this wonderful Yiddish word, it simply means "one who is not well-coordinated") And just think of all the possibilites! Why, the list is endless. Take "woopsimath", for instance---which could describe Dubya's penchant for imperialism. Or "swoopsimath", for John Kerry's handling of the Swiftboat controversy. Or how about "snoopsimath", for journalists in general? I think I'm onto something here! Must call Merriam-Webster immediately, as they'll undoubtably want to include these new terms in the next edition of their dictionary!
Okay, okay, so I'm not that funny. See what you come up with and get back to me.
Okay, okay, so I'm not that funny. See what you come up with and get back to me.
Thursday, August 19, 2004
WHAT IF?
I just had a disconcerting thought. What if the "No Child Left Behind" Act is actually intended, not to improve education, but to destroy all the gains made under IDEA (the "children with disabilities"Act)? Mind you, I don't agree with all the provisions of Special Ed, but there are a great many conservative Republicans who absolutely loathe IDEA (and no, I'm going to resist making a wisecrack about Bush and "ideas" in general). I should tell you straight out that I have a learning disability ( which I may have mentioned before, but I'll risk boring you again), but there were no provisions for Attention Deficit Disorder, etc, when I attended school back in the fifties and sixties. If you couldn't learn, you were labeled Mentally Retarded and placed in either a special class or school; most parents opted to institutionalize a child, out of social pressures and fears of ostracism. Sad, very sad. Babbitry ruled then, I'm afraid.
My problems were mainly ADD and an inability to learn math. The first made me impulsive, immature, etc, but the second impacted my prognostic tests negatively---SO negatively that my IQ score was once thought to be a measly 93. As IQ scores are believed to fluctuate up or down about ten points, you can see that something like THAT on my school records didn't endear me to many teachers. Mathmatical Reasoning, as it was known then (and may still be, for all I know), was a test-able quantity that pretty much defined intelligence. I tested poorly, so obviously I didn't have much "intelligence", as the conventional wisdom went. In order to go on to college, you needed an IQ of at least 110, the "experts" said. Many years later, at 42 ( having been out of college---which I managed to finish---since 1972), I learned my son had ADHD and, as these things are usually hereditary, I was tested myself. It came as a shock to find that my IQ had actually increased, from 93 to 119! Now, if my math isn't TOO bad, that's about 27 points, right? A "standard deviation" is only 15 pts. , and I'm not going to go into the Bell Curve Theory here. Suffice it to say that a standard deviation is the MOST an IQ is supposed to fluctuate, and NEVER in an individual that old. Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's basically the formula even today. I took one of those IQ tests on the internet a month ago, and came out with a score of 122. Hmmm.
Getting back to my main point, Special Ed isn't so great, but without it we'd have lots of perfectly intelligent kids being shuffled off to institutions. My son, who will be going to college soon, was a "graduate", for want of a better term (actually, I can think of several, but they're not printable), of a Special Ed program here in NH, but his education came straight out of my husband's checkbook, not from what he "learned" in public school. God knows, I can't blame his teachers for lack of trying, but Congress has been reneging on their agreement to fund 40% of Special Ed ever since 1973. Conservatives have been screaming about "unfunded mandates", and over the years I've seen and heard many ingenious (and ingenuous) arguements for abolishing them (the mandates, not the Conservatives. Sigh, if only the latter COULD be abolished).
Now for the scary part. What if, as I said above, this NCLB Act was meant to be a kind of "backdoor" attempt to abolish IDEA by making Special Ed impossible? Think about it. This law relies on nationwide school testing, which is stupid but I won't bore you with the details here. Kids with learning disabilities have problems with tests; some, like my son, never learn to write legibly, and others have problems with processing information fast enough to finish on time. These are REAL issues, folks, not just some "Liberal Propaganda"(as I'm sure you've heard Rush Limbaugh bloviate about on his radio show). When these kids take tests that rely on a specific amount of time in which to answer questions, they fail---often miserably. In the past, it was customary for schools to test these students separately, applying the time rules as specified in the state's special ed guidelines. Yes, I often thought that time was extended a bit too much for these students, but now I see that I might have been wrong; with nationalized testing, many schools will be forced to test special ed kids no differently than the rest, which will result in many schools being ranked poorly. Naturally, parents will be furious, and I can hardly blame them, yet I have to wonder if anyone will realize just WHOSE "fault" this is. Not the poor special ed kids, surely. They will be blamed, though, as they have in the past. What next, then? It frightens me. It should frighten you, too.
My problems were mainly ADD and an inability to learn math. The first made me impulsive, immature, etc, but the second impacted my prognostic tests negatively---SO negatively that my IQ score was once thought to be a measly 93. As IQ scores are believed to fluctuate up or down about ten points, you can see that something like THAT on my school records didn't endear me to many teachers. Mathmatical Reasoning, as it was known then (and may still be, for all I know), was a test-able quantity that pretty much defined intelligence. I tested poorly, so obviously I didn't have much "intelligence", as the conventional wisdom went. In order to go on to college, you needed an IQ of at least 110, the "experts" said. Many years later, at 42 ( having been out of college---which I managed to finish---since 1972), I learned my son had ADHD and, as these things are usually hereditary, I was tested myself. It came as a shock to find that my IQ had actually increased, from 93 to 119! Now, if my math isn't TOO bad, that's about 27 points, right? A "standard deviation" is only 15 pts. , and I'm not going to go into the Bell Curve Theory here. Suffice it to say that a standard deviation is the MOST an IQ is supposed to fluctuate, and NEVER in an individual that old. Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's basically the formula even today. I took one of those IQ tests on the internet a month ago, and came out with a score of 122. Hmmm.
Getting back to my main point, Special Ed isn't so great, but without it we'd have lots of perfectly intelligent kids being shuffled off to institutions. My son, who will be going to college soon, was a "graduate", for want of a better term (actually, I can think of several, but they're not printable), of a Special Ed program here in NH, but his education came straight out of my husband's checkbook, not from what he "learned" in public school. God knows, I can't blame his teachers for lack of trying, but Congress has been reneging on their agreement to fund 40% of Special Ed ever since 1973. Conservatives have been screaming about "unfunded mandates", and over the years I've seen and heard many ingenious (and ingenuous) arguements for abolishing them (the mandates, not the Conservatives. Sigh, if only the latter COULD be abolished).
Now for the scary part. What if, as I said above, this NCLB Act was meant to be a kind of "backdoor" attempt to abolish IDEA by making Special Ed impossible? Think about it. This law relies on nationwide school testing, which is stupid but I won't bore you with the details here. Kids with learning disabilities have problems with tests; some, like my son, never learn to write legibly, and others have problems with processing information fast enough to finish on time. These are REAL issues, folks, not just some "Liberal Propaganda"(as I'm sure you've heard Rush Limbaugh bloviate about on his radio show). When these kids take tests that rely on a specific amount of time in which to answer questions, they fail---often miserably. In the past, it was customary for schools to test these students separately, applying the time rules as specified in the state's special ed guidelines. Yes, I often thought that time was extended a bit too much for these students, but now I see that I might have been wrong; with nationalized testing, many schools will be forced to test special ed kids no differently than the rest, which will result in many schools being ranked poorly. Naturally, parents will be furious, and I can hardly blame them, yet I have to wonder if anyone will realize just WHOSE "fault" this is. Not the poor special ed kids, surely. They will be blamed, though, as they have in the past. What next, then? It frightens me. It should frighten you, too.
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
ME
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Orthopraxy? Part2 of Crazy Orthodoxy
Orthopraxy is "correct practice", which is what this form of Othodoxy should REALLY be named! It seems that "normal" Orthodoxy has been hijacked by the "mehadrin" (which I think means "glorifiers", those who go beyond the necessary to "glorify" God), and they don't know when to STOP. Case in point: about a year into my new life, I began to realize more and more things were being rated "treif" (and not just FOOD, either). I was attending a weekly Torah session for women, most of us newly Orthodox, and we all had the usual questions about being properly "frum", but I became increasingly worried when every week ANOTHER product/practice/book, etc. was ruled as treif. As I said, the "chumra of the week" approach was catching a lot of these women off-guard (who among us HADN'T done/consumed something on that list the previous week?), and many of them were extremely distraught at somehow "failing" to be a "Torah-True" Jew. When I turned to a trusted rabbi with the question of "where does it all end?", he laughed and replied that it DOESN'T. Well, I had no intention of becoming so "machmir" that I'd be paranoid about everything until some big rabbi (they were called the "Gedolai Torah") or some rabbinical organization ruled whatever-it-was kosher. Worse yet, many of the newspapers and books published for this Torah-True bunch advocated that one have NO opinions except those deemed "kosher" by the Gedolai Torah! Feeling trapped, I asked the rebbetzin if I could maybe scale back my observance somewhat---only to be told that, as I had become frum, to do so would be tantamount to treason. So, I panicked. Thankfully, we moved, but now we're in a place where there's almost NO reasonably well-informed Jewish community.
At the height of my religious frenzy I sported a sheitl, long sleeves, skirt---the works. I still miss the predominantly Jewish areas we lived in back in Brooklyn, but I don't miss the feeling of always being "watched" for signs of "apikorsus" (heresy---leanings toward Conservative, Reform, or even MODERN Orthodoxy!). Frankly, I also hated always being introduced to others as a "geress" ("gyoret"?), as if my Orthodox conversion somehow made ME a little "treif". Of course, you have to realize that halacha says a convert does NOT have a "Jewish" soul (which REALLY ticks me off, considering what I had to go through to convert), but the source of this idea seems to have come from either the Tanya (written by one of the Lubavitcher rebbeim) or the Kuzari (I think that's the title). If I'm wrong, please don't hesitate to correct me, but it seems to me that this Torah-True Orthodoxy is fast becoming a most NASTY ethno-centric bunch indeed.
At the height of my religious frenzy I sported a sheitl, long sleeves, skirt---the works. I still miss the predominantly Jewish areas we lived in back in Brooklyn, but I don't miss the feeling of always being "watched" for signs of "apikorsus" (heresy---leanings toward Conservative, Reform, or even MODERN Orthodoxy!). Frankly, I also hated always being introduced to others as a "geress" ("gyoret"?), as if my Orthodox conversion somehow made ME a little "treif". Of course, you have to realize that halacha says a convert does NOT have a "Jewish" soul (which REALLY ticks me off, considering what I had to go through to convert), but the source of this idea seems to have come from either the Tanya (written by one of the Lubavitcher rebbeim) or the Kuzari (I think that's the title). If I'm wrong, please don't hesitate to correct me, but it seems to me that this Torah-True Orthodoxy is fast becoming a most NASTY ethno-centric bunch indeed.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Crazy Orthodoxy And Me
I fully intended to be a Conservative Jew when I converted, but living in Brooklyn made that somewhat impossible. Not that there were no
Conservative or Reform shuls, mind you, but most Noo Yawkahs seem to believe that if you're not Orthodox, you're just not authentic---regardless of their level of observance/unobservance. When I worked, I had Jewish co-workers and bosses question my desire to get home early enough on Fridays to bentschlicht Shabbos on time. To them, if I wasn't Orthodox, I was just trying to get out of work early. I finally gave up and made Shabbos when I got home (usually after dark, a no-no halachically). I never dreamed I would soon be hijacked into a form of Orthodoxy that drove me nuts!
It all started with pre-Pesach cleaning, and a question as to whether our new dishwasher could be kashered properly. The local rabbi (whom I will not name because he was nice) sounded modern and "with it" on the phone, and I quickly agreed to come for a Shabbos meal. I can't blame HIM for my gullibility, but I was just too eager to find "The Way", I'm afraid. My husband's family were the usual "non-observant- -but-when-they-were-it-had-to-be-Orthodox" Jews, which was typical for second-generationers, and they hadn't wanted me to convert because I might get "religious" (a term meaning anything from lighting Shabbos candles to keeping kosher, etc,). In short, they wanted their son to marry a nice, non-observant non-Jew. You know the rest, I'm sure; there's the joke about the shiksa who marries the son and all's fine till she converts and demands he be a Jew for REAL, so the parents moan about how their son is now a religious "fanatic" because he goes to services on Shabbos instead of working, ad nauseum.
So I went to the rabbi's house, saw this scene right out of Fiddler On The Roof, and fell for it. I don't consider myself a romantic, but I sure had a loose screw SOMEWHERE; from there I went to sheitl, long sleeves, long shirts, dark stockings, and nearly wrecked my marriage. You'd be amazed how easy it is to believe you have a direct line to God (no, I'm not doing that silly dash-instead-of-middle-letter. It's the Hebrew name that counts), when you "see the light"; suddenly, everyone else is an apikoros (a term taken from the Greek "epicurean", meaning hedonist and general sinner), or an am-ha-eretz (literally, "people of the land", but used to denote the ignorant) or, worse yet, a letz (scoffer and downright unbeliever, horror of horrors.). YOU, of course, are a wonderful, sincere and loving Torah-True Jew, so it's okay to say terrible things about everyone else who ISN'T.
Yes, it's lashon hora (literally "evil tongue", gossip), and absolutely wrong according to halacha, but there are ways of bending the meaning to get around the aveirah (a REAL sin, not the "chet", the "missing the mark" kind of sin we usually commit), because for every WORD of lashon hora you break some 31 thou-shalt-nots (too technical to go into here---read the book Guard Your Tongue, translated by Rabbi Pliskin, I believe, from the Hafetz Chaim). At any rate, it seems as if you have God's blessing to trash everyone you don't like. If they're Orthodox you find some flaw; a woman's skirt is knee-length, so she's lacking in tznius (modesty), or a man's yarmulkah isn't big enough, etc. It's Competitive Piety time, and who's more machmir (observant) than the next person. This is not true of ALL Orthodoxy, but it's the kind in which I found myself mired. I'll continue later...
Conservative or Reform shuls, mind you, but most Noo Yawkahs seem to believe that if you're not Orthodox, you're just not authentic---regardless of their level of observance/unobservance. When I worked, I had Jewish co-workers and bosses question my desire to get home early enough on Fridays to bentschlicht Shabbos on time. To them, if I wasn't Orthodox, I was just trying to get out of work early. I finally gave up and made Shabbos when I got home (usually after dark, a no-no halachically). I never dreamed I would soon be hijacked into a form of Orthodoxy that drove me nuts!
It all started with pre-Pesach cleaning, and a question as to whether our new dishwasher could be kashered properly. The local rabbi (whom I will not name because he was nice) sounded modern and "with it" on the phone, and I quickly agreed to come for a Shabbos meal. I can't blame HIM for my gullibility, but I was just too eager to find "The Way", I'm afraid. My husband's family were the usual "non-observant- -but-when-they-were-it-had-to-be-Orthodox" Jews, which was typical for second-generationers, and they hadn't wanted me to convert because I might get "religious" (a term meaning anything from lighting Shabbos candles to keeping kosher, etc,). In short, they wanted their son to marry a nice, non-observant non-Jew. You know the rest, I'm sure; there's the joke about the shiksa who marries the son and all's fine till she converts and demands he be a Jew for REAL, so the parents moan about how their son is now a religious "fanatic" because he goes to services on Shabbos instead of working, ad nauseum.
So I went to the rabbi's house, saw this scene right out of Fiddler On The Roof, and fell for it. I don't consider myself a romantic, but I sure had a loose screw SOMEWHERE; from there I went to sheitl, long sleeves, long shirts, dark stockings, and nearly wrecked my marriage. You'd be amazed how easy it is to believe you have a direct line to God (no, I'm not doing that silly dash-instead-of-middle-letter. It's the Hebrew name that counts), when you "see the light"; suddenly, everyone else is an apikoros (a term taken from the Greek "epicurean", meaning hedonist and general sinner), or an am-ha-eretz (literally, "people of the land", but used to denote the ignorant) or, worse yet, a letz (scoffer and downright unbeliever, horror of horrors.). YOU, of course, are a wonderful, sincere and loving Torah-True Jew, so it's okay to say terrible things about everyone else who ISN'T.
Yes, it's lashon hora (literally "evil tongue", gossip), and absolutely wrong according to halacha, but there are ways of bending the meaning to get around the aveirah (a REAL sin, not the "chet", the "missing the mark" kind of sin we usually commit), because for every WORD of lashon hora you break some 31 thou-shalt-nots (too technical to go into here---read the book Guard Your Tongue, translated by Rabbi Pliskin, I believe, from the Hafetz Chaim). At any rate, it seems as if you have God's blessing to trash everyone you don't like. If they're Orthodox you find some flaw; a woman's skirt is knee-length, so she's lacking in tznius (modesty), or a man's yarmulkah isn't big enough, etc. It's Competitive Piety time, and who's more machmir (observant) than the next person. This is not true of ALL Orthodoxy, but it's the kind in which I found myself mired. I'll continue later...
Saturday, August 07, 2004
Shoteh defined
A "shoteh" is Hebrew for a fool or crazy person, as in the expression "chassid shoteh", which literally means a pious fool and can be used to refer to someone so overly religious that he/she seems crazy. In Brooklyn, we used the term "Crazy Orthodoxy" to refer to the kind of Ultra-Orthodox whose rabbis issued "chumrahs" (or chumrat) by the minute! Interestingly, a chumrah is supposed to be a VOLUNTARY strict practice, but these guys decreed everything as "das torah", which I assume means something similar to "halacha l'Moshe m'Sinai", or given to Moses at Sinai. Also, a shoteh is listed among the categories of people considered to be "unfit" to testify at a Beth Din. The other categories are women (except for testifying about other women), children, and deaf-mutes. Shoteh may include deaf-mutes, and may refer to the mentally deficient as well. As for me, being a misfit I chose shotah to decribe my general weirdness and misfit-ness. Be well.
(Edited because dumb ol' me forgot that Hebrew, as most languages on the planet, has no neuter gender)
(Edited because dumb ol' me forgot that Hebrew, as most languages on the planet, has no neuter gender)
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