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multislackerkim( Read more... )
If you want a set of questions, leave a comment asking for some. (It may take me a few days to respond.)
loosecanonloosecanon.
( Read more... )
If you want to participate, post a comment asking to be interviewed
and I'll ask you questions, which you'll then answer in your own
journal.
indigodove.
I've removed questions for which I knew my answers would be boring or
pointless.
( Read more... )From the morning service:
For transgressions against God, the Day of Atonement atones; but for transgressions of one human being against another, the Day of Atonement does not atone until they have made peace with one another.The first time I was faced with those words I argued with them. Write a blank check? Are you kidding? It wasn't that I had a particular grievance in mind; it's just that it felt wrong somehow. After all, we're told that we have to ask forgiveness and make amends; just feeling sorry doesn't cut it.I hereby forgive all who have hurt me, all who have wronged me, whether deliberately or inadvertently, whether by word or by deed. May no one be punished on my account.
As I forgive and pardon those who have wronged me, may those whom I have wronged forgive and pardon me, whether whether I acted deliberately or inadvertently, whether by word or by deed.
The next time I reasoned that there was a quid pro quo involved, and I wanted to say "I forgive and pardon anyone else who is making this declaration today". I don't now remember if that's what I actually said. I know that for a while I've been mentally inserting "those Jews" rather than just anyone, because while not all Jews keep Yom Kippur, it seemed a reasonable compromise.
This year I was able to say it as written. I was able to realize that yeah, there are people who've wronged me who will never apologize (perhaps because they don't even realize it), and I've surely done such things to other people, and it's just not important enough to hang onto. For wrongs that are known and more serious, well, there's a difference between forgiveness and forgetfulness -- I might not rely on certain people in the future, but I don't have to carry the weight of their misdeeds around on a mental scorecard either. I can inform my future behavior without holding out on forgiveness.
This would be much harder, perhaps impossible, if there were a major outstanding wrong against me. I am blessed to not have suffered the kinds of wrongdoing (abuse, major betrayal, etc) that some people have. The small stuff just isn't worth getting worked up about.
As I said, it wasn't so much that I had specific grievances I wanted to hold onto; it was more that I had trouble making the blanket statement. I don't know what's changed, but I don't seem to have that trouble now. I'm happy about this.
I'm glad I'm a Jew -- the annual introspection and sanity check is helpful. And, quite demonstrably, when it wasn't required of me I didn't do it. (Maybe others are more dilligent in such things.) In all seriousness, I would recommend something like the high holy days to my thoughtful gentile friends.
stevenFor the two or three people reading this who haven't already seen the interview game, here's how this works:
kitanzikitanzi
asked me some questions:
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Here's the rules:
Unbeknownst to me at the time, I spent my first two weeks or so of kindergarten in the "dumb" section. Then someone got the clue that a vision problem is not the same as a learning disability, and they moved me. Maybe they noticed that I already knew how to read, but that I was holding the books really close. (This was before the cataract surgery.)
For the first couple years of school, the books had giant-sized print. Then in, I think, second grade, the print got smaller and I told a teacher "I can't see this". Time passed, and then one day I was presented with large-print versions of my textbooks.
One day shortly after that, I was called out of class to meet Miss H. She was from the organization that sent the books, and from now on she would be spending one class period a week with me. There seemed to be no agenda at first; only later did I realize I was being assessed.
These visits were like manna from heaven. We solved puzzles. (Well, she presented and I solved. At that age I wouldn't have known an IQ test if it walked up and introduced itself.) We worked through the entire body of Encyclopedia Brown mysteries. We did the basics of algebra in, I think, fourth grade. In fifth grade she taught me to type (which was fortuitous in several ways). She taught me shorthand (you win some, you lose some :-) ). We played games. I think we diagrammed sentences (yay grammar). We did other stuff (some now forgotten). I had a blast.
Sometime in middle school I caught on: she was a tutor, and her job was to provide remedial education -- because obviously handicapped students would have trouble keeping up in classes. It was an institutional assumption, not hers, and institutional assumptions can be hard to challenge. But why challenge this one? After a visit or two she must have realized that I wasn't suffering from learning problems, but both of us thought this was the best hour of our respective school weeks. I don't know what she told her employers; I simply (and truthfully) told anyone who asked that I enjoyed the visits and was learning a lot.
There were no accommodations for above-average students when I was in school, but through a quirk of nature I got my own private gifted program until high school. By then my eyes had adapted enough that I could read normal-sized books -- not the tiny print that sometimes shows up, but for that I had started carrying a pocket magnifying glass (which I still do). The large-print books and the special visits ended with the move to high school. I was glad not to need the books, but sad not to get the visits.
I wonder whatever happened to Miss H. (I know she became Mrs. something-other-than-H, but aside from that.) I hope her memories of those years are half as fond as mine are.
dyanearden( Read more... )
