(no subject)

In theory, new windows are being installed in our house as I write this. I really hope they're careful about the cats! (They assured me that they haven't lost a cat yet, and with all the noise they'll be making I expect the cats will find someplace else to be, but...)

Some of the windows have wood frames, and we'll need to get those painted. I wonder where we can find someone who'll take a job that small. It's not like we're painting the whole house or anything, but I don't want us to do it ourselves with all the nice woodwork in the living room that could be damaged if we're not careful. I'd rather that be a pro's problem.

Bad-timing moment: I think the cleaning lady might be coming today. Oops. We should have remembered that. (We only found out Tuesday night that they were coming today to do the windows, though, so it might have been too late for her to reschedule.)

blessings: on whose authority?

This isn't the first time I've wondered about this, but the first relevant Torah portion just came around again so it's now fresh.

(For those following along, we're in Parsha Toldot, Gen 25:19 - 28:9.)

Rivka and Yaakov engage in a bit of trickery to enable Yaakov to "steal" Esav's blessing from Yitzchak. (Yaakov disguises himself as Esav, Yitzchak blesses him as the first-born, and then Esav shows up and says "hey, where's my blessing?".) Later, we will see Yaakov bless all of *his* children. And the content of these blessings is about future fortunes -- who rules over whom, who will have plentiful harvests, who will receive riches, and so on.

There's just one problem with all of this: why do *men* have the power to hand out these blessings? Blessings of this sort are in God's jurisdiction, not man's. *We* can't control who will be rich vs. poor, satisfied vs. hungry, and so on. At best, Yitzchak is making a *prayer* for Yaakov's future (and so on for the others who hand out blessings in the Torah).

The author of one of the parsha commentaries I read every week (Rabbi Mordecai Kamenetzky) just sent his out for this week, and he talked about the blessings. (Not on this point -- something else about the whole exchange.) So I took the opportunity to write and ask about this.

His response was interesting: just as we need physical additives for some aspects of life (God makes the grain but *we* make the bread -- we have to add our work), we also need spiritual additives (prayer augments God's actions). In other words (this is me talking now, not the rabbi), we can through our actions enhance God's actions, and our participation is at least sometimes actually *necessary*. We can't just sit back and wait for God to bail us out or whatever.

This resonates. A few years back when I was just starting to "get religion", it felt as if God was trying to get my attention but it would have stopped if I hadn't then turned around and reached out to Him. My active participation was necessary to build the relationship that eventually grew from those first tentative steps (when I wasn't even sure God existed).

And as an aside, rabbis who answer email from random strangers within minutes are pretty darn cool. :-)

charity for dummies?

The United Way folks were here today. I decided that I dislike United Way many years ago, so I didn't go to the meeting, but I was disappointed to notice a side effect. A couple of large trays of pastries appeared in our kitchen after the meeting. These were the leftovers. So in addition to spending money on overhead, United Way also spends some of the money on food to bribe potential donors with? This is as bad as the charities who send out unsolicited T-shirts and photo albums and umbrellas (to name 3 things I have received in the last month). At least those charities are only diverting money from themselves, but it still bugs me that it's not going to the cause or necessary overhead, but to trinkets.

(Yes, I do write to most of the folks who send this kind of stuff and ask them to stop. Sometimes it works, but often it doesn't.)

This sort of thing isn't my main reason for disliking United Way, by the way. It's just a minor but visible one. I didn't like their allocation algorithm the last time I heard them explain it, and I prefer to support my causes directly and see no reason to pay for an additional layer of overhead.