interviewed by filkerdave

[cellio]

Hey lookie -- daylight savings time. More time before Shabbat means time to finish this. (I've been gradually ansering these questions over the past couple days.)

1) What's the least-interesting section of the Torah to you, the one that would be most improved if you read it in the original Klingon.

It's got to be something in Leviticus. This week's portion (Tazria) and next week's (Metzora) are strong contenders -- emissions that cause ritual impurity (including giving birth), afflictions (usually translated as "leprosy") of the skin, clothing, and house, and how to handle them. Neither gripping nor especially relevant to us today (at least in the p'shat, or plain meaning), though you can draw some lessons about interpersonal relations from it. I talked about that last year when I drew this portion.

On the other hand, I also find the double run-through of mishkan-building in Exodus a little tedious. First we get several chapters of "this is how you will build the portable sanctuary", and then we get the golden calf, and then we get several more chapters of "this is how they built the portable sanctuary", and I just don't find enough in all that to warrant going through it twice. Once would have been fine.

It would be fascinating to learn the original Klingon for some of the obscure vocabulary in all this, though. :-)

2) Nature or nurture?

The latter limited by the former.

I think nurture is critically important in how a person comes out, but you are limited in some ways by the genes you're dealt. How you deal with that limitation, though, is a result of how one has learned to cope with life -- and that's pure nurture from what I can see. (I'm not any sort of relevant expert, so this is an opinion, not an Authoritative Statement.)

3) Have you ever worn SCA garb as your street clothes (i.e, not on the way too/from an event, just because you felt like it).

Nope. I've never been all that comfortable with "freaking the mundanes", even in college. I usually change into garb at the event site rather than dressing at home, too (though not always). I remember a time when I felt very uncomfortable because I had put on garb at home and then gotten lost trying to find the home of the person I was giving a ride to, with the result that I had to stop somewhere and ask to use a phone. (This was a while ago, before (1) cell phones and (2) my disinclination to drive on Shabbat.)

4) You have been granted a wish to meet one of the great Jewish sages (and commensurate ability to understand and be understood). Who do you meet and why?

There are lots of interesting possibilities, but I'm going to pick Shammai. He and Hillel were at odds over just about everything, and in most cases Hillel won (and got most of the press). Shammai was a smart guy too, though, and I'd be interested in hearing more about his views on things. Oh, and the stories of the floor fights might be fun. :-)

5) Some say the world will end in fire, others say in ice. Which do you choose?

I'm not the right kind of scientist, so this is pure gut feeling here. I think the sun going supernova, or us cooking ourselves all on our own, is more likely than a planet-wide ice age. So fire.

Comments

[zachkessin.livejournal.com]

No no, the world will end in a flood of paperwork :)

[jducoeur]

I've never been all that comfortable with "freaking the mundanes", even in college.

It's odd, but I've stopping thinking of wearing my garb in public *as* freaking the mundanes, and it makes an enormous difference. How people perceive you has a huge amount to do with affect and bearing. If you feel like you're dressed freakishly, everyone will treat you accordingly. If you don't, people just kind of glance at you, go "Huh. Costume." and move on.

The result is that I've gotten a lot more comfortable with traveling in garb, precisely because I don't think of it as freaking the mundanes. When I just treat it as the clothes I happen to be wearing at the moment, I don't get more than the occasional curious question...

[cellio]

Touche'.

(So who's got worse tax paperwork, the US or Israel?)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Afaik, there's no chance that the sun will go supernova, but it's expected to turn into a red giant and engulf the earth eventually, so you still get fire. I don't know if there's a chance of a planet-wide ice age before that.

I suppose it's theoretically possible that people or whoever will move the earth far enough away from the sun so as not to be engulfed, in which case you might eventually get ice as the sun dims.