Monica

When the texts for the Melton program include classical sources (e.g. talmud), they include both the Hebrew (or Aramaic) and the English. This came as a pleasant surprise; I don't imagine that most of their target audience reads Hebrew. Last night, as we were looking at one talmudic passage (which I have studied with my rabbi), I said "that translation doesn't sound right" and looked at the Hebrew. One other student was about 10 seconds ahead of me in saying "that's not what that says". (Insert frustration with Melton over misleading translations.)

During the break I was talking with another student (from my congregation); she asked me if I'm fluent and I said no and I'm trying to learn but having to do it on my own. Doesn't AJL teach Hebrew? Modern conversational, I said, but not biblical/written; there's no one other than Pitt teaching that as far as I know, and I can't take time during the work day. That other Hebrew-reading student was nearby and he said "Kollel will teach you". That's news to me; I get their class lists every semester and haven't seen language classes. But what I actually said to the student is "for women?". You see, Kollel is an Orthodox institution and is generally gender-segregated; they mark a very few of their classes as "for women" and I'd been told that if it doesn't say that, it's for men. Most formal learning in the Orthodox community is done by men, so that isn't surprising. But it means I've never actually been in the Kollel, because their women's classes so far either haven't appealed or haven't been at times I could go.

Anyway, so this student said "I'm sure they'll teach you, and if they can't help you I will find you a chevruta (study partner)". Wow! So I'll send email to Kollel, and if they can't help me I'll ask this student for help.

This readiness to help a stranger (I don't know the guy outside of our shared class) is characteristic of the best of Orthodox Judaism. There are unhelpful people in that community to be sure, as there are in any community, and good people outside of it, but if I had to pick a Jewish community in which to seek help from an arbitrary stranger, the Orthodox community is where I'd look. They get this in a way that a lot of the rest of us don't. It makes me a little sad to think that if someone sought similar help from a member of my community, the odds are much higher that the answer would be "I don't know" or "you should ask so-and-so", not "I'll help you get an answer". I am guilty of this too, and it's something I'd like to improve.

I heard a great comeback the other day. Someone had moved in with an SO before marriage, and a holier-than-thou relative was giving her grief. The relative reported that she'd learned about this sinful situation from some mutual acquaintance who also disapproves, and what did she have to say for herself? Her response: "Were you... gossiping?"

Sukkot morning there was a bar mitzvah. I wasn't thrilled to hear that; usually that means the bar-mitzvah family takes over and the regular congregation feels pushed off to the side. So that's not a nice thing to do at a service that is the only option for the greater congregation. (On most Shabbatot we have two services, the one the regulars go to and the bar-mitzvah service that the family pretty much owns. I wish it weren't that way, but it is. On holidays we don't do that, though; there's one service.) However, it worked out; the bar mitzvah was very good and gave one of the best talks I've heard from a kid so far. I hope that was intentional -- that a particularly promising student was given the honor of having his bar mitzvah at a holiday service -- but I don't know if it was. They schedule those pretty far in advance, so he would have had to have been particularly promising two years ago.

Today Dani and I went to the Shadyside home tour. We've never been to one of these before. Other neighborhoods have them too (though I've never heard of one in Squirrel Hill). The tour consisted of seven homes, all of which are clearly objects of obsession for their owners. I had assumed the tour would consist of big impressive mansions (there are several in Shadyside), but it was a mix of mostly "normal-person" homes, though with often-impressive restoration work. One small house was obviously a bachelor pad; the "bedroom" was in a loft visible from everyplace except directly below it, with no curtains or the like. Not the sort of place you live with a non-romantic roommate, or your kids. :-)

Tomorrow we are getting a new furnace. It's the sort of thing you shold do every half-century whether you need it or not. :-) Seriously, we think our current furnace is running at about 50% efficiency, and the new one will be abut 95%, so that should bring some relief on the winter gas bills.

( Hebrew minutiae )

A few weeks ago I went to an open house for the Florence Melton school, a Jewish adult-education program. I've heard good things about the program and I enjoyed the (short) sample class that one of the rabbis gave, but I was also concerned that they say you don't need any background to attend.

I shared that concern with my rabbi and asked whether I'm past that already or whether I'd benefit from taking it. He said yes and yes -- that is, I am rather more advanced than that, but there is still significant value to be had. So between that and the fact that the person who will be teaching "my" section of Hebrew this semester is the teacher I don't like, I decided to go for it. First class is the week after next.

(Meanwhile, perhaps I will pursue private tutoring with the teacher I do like.)

Sometimes while praying I notice things in the text and make mental notes about them, but usually they don't survive until the time when I can do something about them. (And anyway, when I'm praying I'm trying to pray, not study the liturgy or the language.) Nonetheless, a few things have survived in the buffer.

( some wording things, and verb tenses in prayer )

Tangentially related (maybe), it looks like I won't be taking a Hebrew class this fall. The person who's teaching the section I would be in has a teaching approach that is not a good match for my learning approach. (Was that diplomatic enough? :-) ) I really liked the teacher we had this summer, but she's only doing daytime classes (during work hours) this fall. So I either wait until spring (not necessarily bad) or find some other way to continue. A fellow congregant is getting private lessons from the teacher I like and suggested (a couple months ago) that I join her, so maybe I'll do that. I could, of course, spend the time on my individual study of biblical Hebrew; I'd like to be more fluent there.

My printer is currently holding hostage half a sheet of mangled paper, and the manual's instructions for clearing jams presume that (1) the "release the grip, darnit" button works and (2) you have access to enough paper to grab hold. I hope this doesn't involve a screwdriver...

But hey, at least one of my appliances is working, so here's another attempt to communicate little nothings in a foreign language. ( Read more... )

Tonight was the last night of the ulpan (Hebrew class). I have mixed feelings about it, but there was enough that was positive that I let myself get talked into a weekly follow-on class (five sessions), after hearing who would be teaching it. :-)

I'm going to try an experiment. Occasionally I'll post short passages in Hebrew. I'll never include anything important only in Hebrew, so you're not missing anything if you don't read the language, but if you do read, I welcome corrections, replies in Hebrew, comments, etc. If you reply in Hebrew and you don't use vowels, try not to be too subtle -- I'm not too good with unpointed text yet. And my vocabulary isn't very large yet, but I have a dictionary and 501 Hebrew Verbs. Until I find a reasonable way to typeset, I'm going to take advantage of LJ's vast stores of disk space to store scanned handwriting.( Read more... )

(Deeper posts coming, but maybe not for a day or two due to other time pressures.)

You know your cat-sitters love you (and/or your cats) when they're willing to learn how to give subcutaneous fluids. Thank you lorimelton and ralphmelton! I do hope you don't need to apply that knowledge.

This morning at work the (reported) temperature was 66 and the landlord was working on it. This afternoon I saw it hit 79 and we had to poke the landlord again. On average the temperature was ok, but has no one explained to the landlord about variance? (This is a new building and our first summer in it. I do hope this isn't a sign of things to come.)

Bill Walsh posted a link to this review of the Da Vinci code. Fun read! I have no idea about the spoiler severity, as I've neither read the book nor seen the movie.

They say that shared pain is diminished, so let me diminish mine: Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheeseburger. autographedcat has it right: "That is quite possibly the most horrifying thing I've ever seen served on a plate".

Ulpan (intense Hebrew course) so far: I have a choice between being somewhat bored and being lost. I expected better calibration. I have hopes that the pace will pick up (I opted for the former) tomorrow or Thursday. (It's divided into two sessions, with two different teachers. In the first one, for reasons unknown to me, they grouped my class and the rank beginners together. I was already near the head of my (pre-combined) class. I visited the next-level class for 10 minutes and couldn't follow it, mostly due to vocabulary. The second session was significantly better.) On the positive side, I don't have the underwhelming teacher for either session.

My email provider is currently experiencing delays, apparently due to a flood of spam. Don't assume I've seen your LJ-comment mail (or anything else) just at the moment.

(By which I mean "words", not the book of the torah with the same name.)

In biblical -- and, I believe, modern -- Hebrew, "zeh" and "zot" both mean "this is" (the difference is gender), and "eileh" means "these are". A famous passage from the mishna (included in the liturgy) begins "eilu d'varim", "these are the obligations". Is "eilu" Aramaic for "eileh", or is this Hebrew and some permutation I'm not yet familiar with?

(Every siddur I've seen translates that as "these are the obligations", though it appears a more literal translation would be "these are the things". Hmm.)

And on a different vocabulary subject, is there a word suitable for use in the Orthodox community that conveys "observant" or "religious" without conveying "frum" (which seems to imply a theology, as I've heard the word used)?

Edit: I realize now that this was a little unclear. For the second question, I'm looking for a word I can use to describe myself; I am serious about Judaism and am fairly observant, but if I say "observant" in an Orthodox context I perhaps imply "by Orthodox standards and for Orthodox reasons", and I don't want to seem pretentious. (I was talking with someone at a congregation I'll be visiting in a few weeks and was trying to fend off the potential awkwardness around accepting a lunch invitation for myself when I have local-to-them relatives. I wrote (about why I'd be alone) that I'm the observant member of the family, but that might have connotations I didn't intend. Hence the question. I want to cast it as a positive statement about myself and not a negative statement about others, for reasons of lashon hara.)

My fourth-season Blake's 7 DVDs came last week. In this season they have a new-to-them ship with a computer named Slave. I don't think I had previously noticed that the computer addresses Avon as "master" but the others as "sir". I wonder if Avon threatened it. :-)

Sunday night we joined ralphmelton (birthday boy), lorimelton, and mrpeck at John Harvard's in Monroeville. Dani and I ordered a beer sampler to explore the options; we got the smaller one, which is five five-ounce glasses (your choice of beers). They deliver the sampler on a placemat with a key (so your glasses go on specific places on the mat); I hadn't noticed that the list was ordered from less to more hoppy/bitter until they lined ours up on one side of the sheet. :-)

Tonight's dinner was almost a case of "grandfather's axe": I followed the recipe on the can of coconut milk, except that I used chicken instead of shrimp and broccoli instead of asparagus and onions instead of bell peppers, but it's still the recipe on the side of the can. (Verdict for next time: needs spices; try ginger.)

Dani and I talked about making reservations for an upcoming SCA event (war practice) tonight and we both realized that we're going entirely on inertia. Neither of us is actually drawn to this particular event this year; we're just running on auto-pilot. So we might not do that. Don't know yet. (It was actually Dani who pointed this out; I've become less active in the SCA and am being careful not to influence him in that direction, but he's feeling "eh" about this one on his own. We were just at an event a couple weeks ago, and that seems to have satisfied us both for the nonce.)

At the shabbaton I talked with someone who's currently taking private Hebrew lessons, and she suggested that we share a lesson slot and pair up as partners. I think she's more advanced than I am and I pointed this out, and she said that's fine. We'll probably start this after the ulpan. (Different teacher. She doesn't like the one I'm currently taking classes from and she says her tutor is much better.) This should be quite helpful, and if not, I can drop out and she can go back to what she was doing.

Quote of the day: "If you ask an engineer at KFC to describe their product, he'll tell you they make deep-fried dead chicken parts. If you ask a marketing person, he'll tell you it's finger-licking good." (Anonymous marketing person, to Dani.)

Today I learned that the company I work for gives employees small gifts on (certain) anniversaries. I learned this when my manager walked up to me with a framed certificate and a catalogue of stuff from which I can choose one item. That was a surprise. On the one hand, I've never made it to five years anywhere else (nature of the industry); on the other hand, I don't think I've ever worked in a place that would have given me loot for doing so.

I think Erik's fever broke; his nose doesn't feel hot today like it did last night. His appetite is picking up (though not quite at normal levels yet).

Once a year there is a local ulpan for teaching conversational Hebrew -- five 3-hour sessions in a bit over a week. This morning I hunted down the coordinator of the program (after finding an unsatisfying web site) and signed up. (It's in early June.) She asked me what level and I said that was a good question. After I described my background she suggested a level but said it would be easy to move to a different class if we discover on the first day that it's a bad fit. (I'm mildly surprised that this conversation occurred entirely in English; I figured she'd try to talk to me in Hebrew and see what happened.) Then five minutes later she called to invite me to the last few sessions of a currently-running (weekly) class. I can do that, and then maybe we'll have a better idea of placement for the ulpan.

Tonight/tomorrow is the last day of Pesach, which, like the first, is a holiday.

Dan Simmons recently published this story on his web site. It's part SF, part commentary on current events, part dystopia, but I enjoyed reading it. (I did see half of the ending revelation coming somewhat early; I don't know if that was intentional.)

I had not heard of the lost gospel of Judas until I saw the news stories a few days ago. I haven't seen the text itself, of course (only what's quoted in the news), but it sounds like it makes an argument that I made for years with teachers in the church I grew up in: if Jesus's execution and resurrection were required for redemption to happen, then wasn't it necessary for Judas to betray Jesus and for the Romans to kill him? Why get mad at either in that case? (It makes sense to get mad at the Romans for their cruelty, but that's different.) By the same logic, those who blame the Jews for killing Jesus miss this point. I'm pretty sure this was one of those questions that generated a note home from Sunday school.

My parents stopped by for a visit today. They brought a loaf of fresh, home-made bread. I'm so glad this visit didn't happen next weekend, during Pesach. :-) (It's a small-enough loaf that we'll finish it before Wednesday.) We haven't seen them in a little while, so it was nice to visit. They report that my neice, who is in Italy for the semester, is a little homesick, but she's also taking the time to explore the country so it doesn't sound all bad. She did ask a friend who was coming to visit to bring her some peanut butter. Who knew that you can't find peanut butter in Florence?

Pesach prep is mostly under control. I've cleared out most of the chametz that I'll be selling (except what we need for the next couple days), and tomorrow the cleaning fairy comes to scrub the kitchen, and then I can bring up the other dishes and stuff. I'm really fortunate to have a large-enough kitchen (not that it's large, but it's large enough) that I can stuff all the current dishes, pans, etc into certain cabinets and then just close them up for the week. Much easier than shlepping it all to the basement.

I have a transliterated haggadah published by Artscroll that I will never use. (I don't need the transliteration and I have other Artscroll haggadot for the core content.) If any of my friends could make use of this, let me know. It won't arrive in time for this year, but you'd have it for the future (maybe even second night this year, depending on the speed of the postal service). Note that as with all transliterations published by Artscroll, it's Ashkenazi pronunciation.

For the last several months, during torah study, my rabbi has been explaining more of the grammar in the Hebrew. (Mostly basic stuff, but more than he used to.) More recently, he's been prefixing some of these comments by addressing me. This week he asked "does anyone other than Monica know...?". We haven't actually had a Hebrew lesson together, but I guess I'm making progress that's visible to him. Nifty -- though I'm a little boggled that he might consider me the most knowledgable of the people in the group, as there are at least two who (I think) know way more than I do.

I've been saying the Sh'ma daily for years (including the paragraphs that follow, though mostly with the Reform filter). I've known enough Hebrew to understand, broadly, what I'm looking at for at least a few years, and now, of course, I'm studying the language in more detail. Even so, because I learned the meaning first from the English translation and only later from the Hebrew, I was slow to pick up on something. Until, err, last week.

English needs more verb forms, like it used to have. Specifically, it needs both singular and plural "you".

The first paragraph after the Sh'ma (v'ahavta...) is translated "you shall love God with all your heart, with all your soul, etc etc". That's all singular "you", and both verbs and possessive nouns carry number so that's pretty darn clear. This is the intimate, one-on-one directive from God.

Then, however, it moves on to the plural you -- you will receive rain in its season, etc, and you shall remember the exodus and do the mitzvot, and so on. If I didn't know anything about Hebrew, this change in number would completely elude me. Lots of Jews don't know a lot about Hebrew, rely on the English translations of everything, and, presumably, miss this.

I knew at some level that this happens, that the blessings after the Sh'ma speak to us both individually and corporately. But somehow I didn't make the connection at the deep level that produces "aha" moments. And then one night last week, pretty randomly, it jumped off the page at me.

It might not be very dignified for the siddur to say "y'all shall remember the exodus" etc, but it might be a public service.