Transience and Transcendence

It didn't take long after Tomm and I became members of our synagogue that I dove in to contribute to this vibrant new community which had welcomed us so warmly. I quickly joined the newly-formed Kiddush Committee (which organizes the weekly community-sponsored snack 'n' schmooze after services on Saturdays) and we sponsored our own to kick it off. Not long after, the rabbinic intern approached me and asked me to consider taking on the role of "Gabbai Sheni" to help organize roles and responsibilities on the women's side during services. We even moved to the neighborhood of the shul in order to be closer to it and to the people who belong. In both social and religious capacities I have created a niche for myself in the shul community, and I am loving it. This is, after all, exactly what I was looking for so fervently when we first moved to New York. I am blessed to have found it.

I did not, however, expect so many people to leave so soon after we arrived.

I shouldn't think it odd considering we will only be in New York for a predetermined period of time, but Brooklyn is the site of constantly and rapidly changing scenery. Anyone and everyone will tell you that many areas of Brooklyn have changed beyond recognition within the last 20, 10, and even five years. This neighborhood is no different and the synagogue is, unsurprisingly, a microcosm of that vicissitude. Since we became members in late spring, at least five other families or individuals have joined our community. But in that same time frame, at least four families have moved or announced their intention to move away. Some are moving because of job opportunities, some because of growing families, and even though I haven't been a part of this community for that long it pains me to see these people leave.

Yet the growth continues, most recently with the addition of a rabbi. It may strike some of you as odd that our shul could exist without a rabbi, but Jewish congregations do not require a rabbi to lead services, and a strong lay leadership can sufficiently support a full congregation. We have been working with a rabbinic intern from a yeshiva (seminary) in the Bronx who has led classes, read Torah, and helped guide the community through holidays and other events and will continue to do so, but now the community has grown to a point where we needed something - someone - to guide us further.

So the shul has hired a rabbi to work with us a couple times a month with holidays, to lead classes bi-weekly, and to serve as our posek, the rabbinic go-to for questions about how we as individuals and as a community practice an ancient religion in the 21st century. Yesterday was his first Shabbat with us, and despite being a significant new presence in our community, he let the members lead the service just as we always have. He only stepped up to receive an honor during the Torah reading and to give a d'var torah, literally a "word of Torah," or a sermon.  I was duly impressed.

Loudly and clearly, he spoke of how the Torah presents multiple models of leadership and described them as each being viable ways of finding transcendence in our lives, suggesting that sometimes we need law to create order for us, sometimes we need spiritual guidance, and sometimes we just need the advice of a wise individual who's seen a bit more of the world. He then spoke of our need to expound upon this pluralism in order to find 21st century solutions to 21st century problems, and to embrace not only the multiple paths that exist in our personal search for significance but also the varied paths others take to find it, even when it differs from our own.

The d'var torah got dark when he described the deplorable state of our world - the disease ravaging Africa, the explosions destroying the Middle East, the flames consuming our country from within - and while it may have been a little heavy-handed, I don't entirely disagree with him. But in the end he brought it back and made his message clear: it is up to us to not only find meaning in our own lives, but to share that meaning with the world and, in doing so, repair it.

As we finished services and enjoyed kiddush with nearly 60 people (a significant group in our limited space), we made introductions and said goodbyes. We schmoozed and caught up, snacked on kugel and deli roll, said l'chaim over wine and whiskey, and enjoyed each other's company. And on the way home I thought about what our Rabbi had said about finding meaning and sharing it in the world. In my own little world, in my own little way, I am finding some of that meaning through my interactions with my community, hoping that as new people join us they feel welcome and invited, and as others leave they do so with fond memories, good friendships, and a place to come back to.

Isn't that what we all yearn for, anyway? A place to call home, with people to call our friends? To feel welcomed and accepted, safe from scrutiny and free from adversity? It may not be significant in the grand scheme of things, but it doesn't seem so bad a place to start changing the world.

Going to Hell in a handbasket

Remember when I said that after a long day of work, I enjoy plopping down and doing something mindless? Well, this summer my pursuit of mindless activity led me to the series Supernatural. And oh how I have binged!

The show follows two brothers who travel around the country fighting and destroying the evil things that go bump in the night. Werewolves, vampires, spirits, possessed objects, ancient gods, demons, and even angels (who, according to the show, have really horrible people skills). Every episode follows essentially the same pattern: some random person dies in a bizarre and inexplicable way, the brothers read about it in a newspaper or online, they travel to the scene disguised as FBI agents or insurance adjusters, then they spend the rest of the episode figuring out what they're up against and how to kill it, then doing so. Each episode features at least one grotesque and totally inaccurate blood spatter, lots of punching sounds (still trying to figure out how Sam and Dean have retained their beautiful faces and haven't died of excessive concussions), some broken furniture or walls, and ends with someone getting stabbed in the heart, decapitated, or burned alive (though, really, that last one is for ghosts and their remains have to get burned to destroy them so really they're...burned dead?). Occasionally one or the other of the brothers dies and is inevitably resurrected to keep fighting the good fight, and if I've learned anything from the show it's that whenever a person is stabbed to death, they will definitely bleed out of their mouth. Always.

Man, I love this show.

I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with Supernatural, but I am using it as a way to pass time. Lots of time. The supremely sad moments, while touching, have yet to make me cry, and my favorite episode is still the one anomaly that featured slapstick comedy. I am not a squealing fangirl who posts and reposts Supernatural pictures and GIFs on Facebook, nor do I peruse Tumblr in search of every Supernatural tag I can find.  I enjoy the show, I enjoy the references, and I want to see where it goes while I have the time to waste.  

And frankly, it's better than reality sometimes.

I have started to wonder if I should limit my time on Facebook, not because I'm wasting so much of it but because most of the time I spend on the site leaves me depressed and concerned for the future of our world. For months on end it's been nothing but

                                                                                                                                             Word cloud made at Tagxedo.com

At first, I tried to keep up with the news articles, blog posts, op-eds, and reports on the issues. It didn't take long to realize, though, that the vast majority of what I was reading was highly biased, poorly informed, inflammatory, judgmental, or just plain wrong. I started having to weed through my news feed based on who was posting and the source which they were sharing. Was it an impassioned acquaintance who was sharing something with LOTS OF CAPITALIZATION? Was it a Huffpost op-ed written specifically for their readership? Was it a blog post disguised as an article, or an article written like a blog post? I tried to avoid reading only what I agreed with and pushed myself to read the opposing viewpoint until both sides made me so sick that I stopped reading that altogether. Then I made a rule for myself that I would only read published articles by reputable news sources and avoid anything that suggested opinion. The result? I had nothing to read, and a lot more free time.

Adults of my parents' generation sometimes ask me how I can even hope to remain informed without a subscription to a newspaper or a television to watch. I wonder how they can hope to remain informed with those things. I am a frustrated consumer of current events, and much like my distaste for sucralose in my soda, I'm not terribly interested in someone else's opinions dressing up in an article and calling itself news. But because I want to remain informed, I generally have to muddle through at least a few of those sources to find out what's going on. At some point though, it becomes too much to handle, and as the realization of my white, privileged, American middle-class existence sets in I tune out and turn on a show that occupies my brain for an hour or two. (Or five on a Sunday when Tomm is on call.) 

There isn't much I can really do about most of what's going on. My opinions on the Middle East aren't going to change the minds of the ones doing the killing, I don't feel I can affect the police force in Missouri, and the anti-Semites in Europe aren't going to stop harassing Jews and destroying their property because I say so. It's a defeatist attitude, I know. I did make a sizable donation to the ALS Association as part of the Ice Bucket Challenge, so at least that was one good thing to come out of a sad circumstance. Still, unlike Sam and Dean Winchester, we can't summon and destroy the demon in charge and we can't burn the bones of the offending evil spirit responsible for the deaths. As Dean says in one episode when confronted not by monsters but by sick and twisted human killers, "Demons I get. People are crazy." And these are crazy times in which we live.

So, at a time and in a world where I feel so frustrated by the news I hear and so unable to do anything about it, can you really blame me for wanting to see this instead?

What I Did Over My Summer Vacation

The mood to write doesn't strike me as often as I'd like. When I am overworked, stressed, or just plain tired after each day of hard work, I find I am simply uninterested in the prospect of sitting in front of my computer and doing anything productive.  I'd much rather sit back and enjoy mindless amusement in as passive a manner as possible.  And usually that's what I do.

This summer I have been working at a Jewish day camp for children ages 5 to 12 and Friday was our last day.  It has been an astonishing experience and I finally have the wherewithal to sit down and reflect on it.

The camp was located on Staten Island which, though technically part of New York City, has a fair share of roughly wooded areas that are home to a number of summer camps. Every day I took a yellow school bus full of young campers over the Verrazano and into a campground where instead of car horns and angry commuters I heard insects and laughing children. Every day I enjoyed escaping the right-angled city to a place with open-sided shelters and winding gravel paths, preferring the shade of trees to the shade of apartment buildings. I came home covered in bug bites, dirt, and tan lines, (although honestly, I think I've sustained more mosquito bites from the couple of mosquitoes living in our apartment than I did all summer at camp.) and I was happy.

My position at the camp was a Division Head, and I was in charge of all the campers and counselors in 2nd grade, known at camp as the Grapes Division. I developed and enforced systems and procedures used in our shelter, supervised and directed all the counselors in the division, responded to all parent questions and concerns, and worked closely with the directing staff to ensure a successful summer for everyone. I worked a great deal beyond the 7.5 hours we spent at camp five days a week, but although the hours were long I enjoyed the summer immensely.

Never before have I been in a supervisory or administrative position, and I am incredibly happy I took this opportunity. At first, I thought the most challenging aspect of the job would be working with parents and their anxieties. I was warned there would be crazy parents, kind parents, aggressive parents, and over-sensitive parents. It was true, I encountered all those types of parents, but what they didn't tell me that all most parents are looking for is to be assured and reassured that their child is receiving the best care possible when they aren't around to supervise. And once I was able to calm or assuage their concerns and fears, it was usually smooth sailing from that point forward.

What they didn't tell me was that the most challenging part would be supervising high school and college-aged counselors who are not as receptive to suggestion or reprimand as the average 2nd grader. While I am confident in my classroom and behavior management skills as an elementary school music teacher, I found that reminding a 20-year-old to hand in progress reports on time or reprimanding a slew of staff members for their poor attendance was not nearly so straightforward. I constantly wondered how I was doing: if I was too harsh or not harsh enough, too friendly, too standoffish, too accommodating, too forgiving. You name it, I considered it. I compared myself constantly to the other division heads whose personalities and supervising styles were so drastically different from my own. By the end of the summer I knew that my counselors liked me, but did they respect me? Was I effective?

Ultimately, I think the answer to that question is yes, I was effective, because the Grapes Division was among the most well-run on camp and had some of the happiest counselors. Still, I am already thinking of ways to change and improve for next year.

Unlike the other Division Heads, I had no prior experience at a day camp. When I was younger I attended an overnight camp for four weeks every summer, but the two camping experiences are drastically different in many ways. (In fact, I remember all of us campers dreading the week when the young kids from the affiliated day camp came to see what sleepaway camp was all about. I regret that we made fun of them mercilessly behind their backs. Day camp simply wasn't nearly as cool as sleepaway camp. We were clearly just obnoxious teenagers.) Not only have I never had experience at a day camp, but I had never so much as worked at a camp before this. I was truly jumping into the deep end with little more than a bachelor's, a teaching license, and ambition to keep me afloat. Now, at summer's end, I can honestly say that not only did I not sink, but I swam with the best of 'em.

While I'm sure Tomm would tell you a different story based on my occasional rants at home, I really did have a wonderful summer. Today I got so many hugs by campers and counselors alike, and my directors told me in no uncertain terms that they intend to see me next summer. I feel buoyed by the success of the summer, especially considering it was a job that required a very different set of skills than what I use during the school year. I was challenged, I learned, I taught, I guided, I planned. I used my skills and developed new ones. I grew. And so did my campers and counselors.

I am still a music teacher. I will still return to the public school in a few weeks to teach lessons on steady beat and dynamics and playing rhythm sticks. I am still dedicated to the pursuit of education through sound and song. But spending my NYC summers in a forest with sun and mosquitoes and smiling children doesn't seem so bad.