Adventures in Toddler Bilingualism
Superfluous plurals.

My Yiddish- and English-speaking* 3-year-old, while playing blocks with me:

Du bist a boyer! ("You're a builder!")
Ikh bin a boyer! ("I'm a builder!")
Mir zaynen beyde boyersn! ("We're both builders'n!", i.e. with the plural form boyers and an added plural suffix-n)

*She also sings a lot of songs in Mandarin, but I don't think she can generate a sentence.

Who cut the khreyn?
And other Passover questions.

I'm thinking about the following questions during this Pesach season. You are invited to roll your eyes at them, ignore them, discuss them, think about them, or suggest your own.

1. Does it matter whether the Exodus story is historical?

2. How can one story (the Exodus) yield contradictory interpretations - e.g. the Jews are God's chosen people, yet the Jews were deserving of extermination in the desert?

3. Did the Israelites do anything to make themselves worthy of redemption - or was it all Moses'/Aaron's/God's doing?

4. What is the connection of chametz to Passover?

5. Can one people redeem another, or is that unwanted interference in the internal affairs of another nation?

6. If God chose the Jews, what did God choose them for?

Halachah Is Not Esthetics
An article in Makor Rishon.

Looks interesting, but I haven't read it yet:

The traditional halachic principle which prohibits "a mitzvah done through sinning" is not all-encompassing. According to a distinction made by the Rabbis of the Talmud, it goes into effect only in the most blatant of circumstances.

I know what your problem is
You're two stents!

I have the sinking feeling (maybe it should be "clotting") that the bare-metal vs. drug-eluting stents debate* is going to be our decade's version of dietary epidemiology: small effects, multiple studies, uncertain conclusions of doubtful clinical relevance. (For example, the latest NEJM-published meta-analysis looks at a four-year follow-up. I really hope our patients with stents live longer than that.)

*Short version: Vessels in which bare-metal stents are inserted tend nevertheless to fail (close off again) after a short time. Stents which elute drugs avoid this first problem but have recently been associated with an increased risk of thrombosis (clotting). Of course, whether these first two statements are true is also open to question . . .

Schaechter z"l: toiling without sentimentality
"What motivated him was the desire that Yiddish should receive the respect of any other language."

Brian Zumhagen talked about him today on WNYC (audio, transcript).

* * *

An evening of remembrance and Yiddish learning

on the shloyshim of Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter z"l

Sunday, March 18th, 5:30 P.M.

at the Workmen’s Circle / Forward Building,

45 East 33rd Street

between Madison and Park Avenues

in New York City

The speakers:

David Braun, Harvard University

Marc Caplan, Johns Hopkins University

Paul Glasser, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Rakhmiel Peltz, Drexel University

David Roskies, Jewish Theological Seminary

A few Yiddish songs especially meaningful to Dr. Schaechter will be

sung.

Primarily in Yiddish.

Take the 6 train to East 33 Street,

or the D, F, N, R train to West 34 Street.

On and Off the Bima

Nice if unsurprising article in the Times about adopted Chinese girls turning bat mitzvah, but please!

“That was my hope when I started her in day school,” Ms. Nealon said, “that when she got up on the bimah” — the lectern where the bat mitzvah girl reads from the Torah — “she would feel like she had the right to be there.”

Sic! Look, you're The New York Times, the only de facto Jewish newspaper some New York Jews ever read. Get the lingo straight, wouldja?

(For reference, the bimah is the platform. The lectern is called the amud. It's called other things too, but I bet no one calls it the shtender in the shuls mentioned in the article.)

On second thought: it could just be that the Times is using lectern in another sense, namely to refer to said platform. If this is the case, they would probably call the reading stand a podium.

Where have you been, Moses?
Look, we made you something. With your brother's help.

This year Parshes Ki Siso (Ki Tisa) almost makes me want to cry. The children of Israel made a mistake born of desperation and fear - they didn't know when Moses was coming back down the mountain. (Rashi says it was all because of a scheduling mixup, whether 40 days included the following night.) What were they supposed to do? And the worst of it is, their sin is a real sin, which shouldn't be blamed on the mixed multitude. They did it (we did it), and are to be blamed, but our reasons were understandable. We were scared and hopeless.

It feels like all the stories I'm hearing from my patients, now that I know enough to ask about depression, suicidal thinking, drug and alcohol abuse, but don't yet have enough experience to see my help taking effect -- or the problems are too deep-rooted for me to help at all. It's like screaming at the train that's about to hit a stalled truck.

Promise
Glyn Maxwell (from his book Nerve)

I made my child a promise, so a weight
was passed to her. I saw how carefully

its power was handled, that it lit the thoughts
around it, and I felt it warm her talk

and urge the hours along. Since I, like you,
no longer know a word like that, the light

she gained was lost to me. It didn’t mean
I’d let her down—I didn’t—but I seemed

to be aligned with those who might in time,
as if I’d somehow set coordinates.

Poem Stuffed into Ziploc Bags With Hamentasch and Raisins
aka shalekhmones doggerel 2007. Hebrew and Yiddish doggerel here.

Esther was greenish. You know that, honey?
It makes me squeamish but she's better than money.

She could have been silent, let the whole thing pass
But the Queen kicked the can of Ahashuerus.
Esther was greenish . . .

Beauty's in the eye, buck stops at the throne
Esther couldn't save us had she slept alone.
Esther was greenish . . .

World Leaders, Jewish and Non-Jewish, Send Purim Greetings
From the United Synagogue, Spam Division, Propaganda Subsection.

President George W. Bush
The White House
WASHINGTON -- Following are remarks that the President made for the press regarding the Festival of Lots, which falls on Saturday night, except when it doesn't.
"I'd like to thank the Prime Minister of Israel for alerting me to the very real danger that exists from President Haman of Persiran. We would admit defeat, and the terrorists would win, if we did not bomb the bastards back to the Stone Age the minute after the megillah is read at my friend Joseph Lieberman's synagogue Kesher Israel."

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
The Kremlin
MOSCOW - Following are remarks the Prime Minister made to his wife before he turned his face to the wall and fell asleep. Some content has been censored.
"I would like to congratulate my Jewish friends on being so devilishly clever as to defeat the nefarious Central Asians. My friend Rabbi Lazar of the warm, friendly, welcoming, and messianist Jewish group Chabad tells me that only one lesson can be learned from the Scroll of Esther: we would be in very real danger if we did not bomb the Chechnyan bastards back to the Soviet Age the minute after I finish this bottle of vodka."

President Moshe Katzav
Beyt Ha-Nasi
JERUSALEM - Following are remarks made by the President to an attractive staff sergeant who brought him coffee this Wednesday.
. . .
On second thought, never mind.

Rabbi Avi Shafran
Spokesman of the World Conference of Grand Jewish Orthodox Charedi Rabbinical Rebbes
SOMEWHERE IN BROOKLYN. QUEENS MAYBE? MONSEY? I FORGET. ANYWAY. - "Since 'the glory of the princess is within doors' and Esther deserves her modesty, the coming Artscroll/Super Charedi (TM) edition of the Megillah will change Queen Esther's name to 'Mister Mister.' While we're at it, 'Mordechai' sounds gay; his name we're changing to 'Mendel.'"

Professor Arnold Eisen
Chancellor of JTS
UPPER WEST SIDE, PARTICULARLY INCONVENIENT TO ANY TRAINS YOU MIGHT EVER WANT TO TAKE. WHY COULDN'T THEY HAVE PUT IT NEARER MIDTOWN? - "First of all, Avi, quit making jokes about what the 'TS' stands for. That's just immature. Second, I'd like to wish an anthropological, sociological, and philosophical Purim to all my constituents. I am pleased to release the results of a comprehensive poll recently taken of the Conservative movement's leadership when they were having lunch together at Katz's. [They were eating the tuna salad. Jeez, you people are so frum!] 50% of the respondents (N=1) agreed with getting shiker-faced on Purim, while another 50% (N=1) held that sugar intoxication was preferred. Another 50% (N=1) wondered when he could finally retire to Jerusalem and join an Orthodox shul. Steve, oh Steve Cohen! Why don't these numbers add up right?..."

Rabbi Elliot Dorff
Professor of Partial Homosexual Heterim
UPPER WEST SIDE, I MEAN THAT'S WHERE HE WORKS, BUT FOR HIS SAKE I HOPE HE LIVES SOMEWHERE ELSE - "I'd like to wish my gay friends an enjoyable Purim. But not too enjoyable."

Informed consent
Notes for a talk

Mr. C. is a 55-year-old Spanish speaking man with abdominal pain that has migrated from the epigastrium to the right lower quadrant of the abdomen. You are asked to “consent” him for a CT scan of the abdomen. Your Spanish is good enough to talk to him, but Mr. C. does not ask any questions, even when you repeatedly press him on the matter. He keeps saying, “Whatever you say, doctor.”

More here.

My favorite gay-and-lesbian teshuvah

It took me this long to read Rabbi Gordon Tucker's teshuvah? It's as if all the questions and problems I have been having, all the points I have been fumbling after (and wasting precious bandwidth on, inelegantly and ineloquently, in this blog) have been encapsulated and justified. Go read. Let's talk. Dov W., are you out there? Come challenge.

Choni the Furrow-maker
A.k.a. the Plasterer. Or the Roof-smoother.

All these are alternate translations of חוני המעגל, generally known in English as Choni the Circle-Drawer. Listen to this particularly satisfying explanation of his name, from an article by Dr. Israel Rosenson.

There is a similarity between the עוגה (ugah) in this story and the עוגיות (ugiyos), round furrows around trees, mentioned in the laws of the intermediate days of festivals. "Irrigation ditches are watered during the intermediate days . . . but furrows are not made for vines" (Mishna Moed Katan 1:1).

According to this, Choni stands in the middle of the circle like a tree in the midst of its furrow-circle . . . to emphasize the dependence of a man's strength on his Creator.

Dietary epidemiology strikes again
The interesting epidemiological abstract of the week. Do you believe it?

Keep in mind that dietary patterns are devilishly hard to establish (never mind corroborate). (I talked here about the problems of dietary epidemiology. Michael Pollan debunked the whole field in a brilliant essay in the New York Times Magazine a few weeks ago.) Also, keep in mind that factor analysis is susceptible to subjective, nay idiosyncratic, notions of how factors should be defined. Nevertheless, this is an interesting abstract, particularly with the suggestion that a "Mediterranean" diet (olive oil, veggies) is associated with country of origin but not associated (negatively or positively) with diabetes.

Dietary Patterns and Diabetes Incidence in the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study
Hodge et al.
American Journal of Epidemiology 2007 165(6):603-610

The authors investigated the association of dietary patterns and type 2 diabetes in a 4-year prospective study of 36,787 adults in the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study (1990–1994). A total of 31,641 (86%) participants completed follow-up, and 365 cases were identified. Four factors with eigenvalues of greater than 2 were identified using the principal factor method with 124 foods/beverages, followed by orthogonal rotation. Variables with factor loadings having absolute values of 0.3 or greater were used in interpreting the factors. Odds ratios for diabetes incidence across quintiles of factor scores were computed by use of logistic regression, adjusting for age, energy intake, family history of diabetes, country of birth, and other factor scores. Factor 1, characterized by olive oil, salad vegetables, and legumes and by avoidance of sweet bakery items, margarine, and tea, was associated with country of birth but not with diabetes. Factor 2, characterized by salad and cooked vegetables, was inversely associated with diabetes. Factor 3, characterized by meats and fatty foods, was associated with increased diabetes risk. A range of fruits loaded strongly on factor 4, which showed little association with diabetes. Avoidance of a dietary pattern including meats and fatty foods, as well as adherence to a pattern including salad and cooked vegetables, is recommended.

The Emperor of Yiddish Words
Schaechter z"l, from 72nd Street to Bainbridgevke.

Mordkhe Schaechter, a linguist, lexicographer and rebbe of secular Yiddishists, died February 15. He was 79.

I became attracted to Yiddish when I was growing up in Louisville, Ky. Sitting in the back of Ms. Donsky’s German class, I often encountered Schaechter’s name while stumbling through week-old issues of the Forverts. On the basis of these references, I came to imagine a one-man Yiddish empire, an Academy of the Yiddish Language, publishing books, issuing edicts and deciding issues of style from a Yiddish Palace perched high in the mountains of Eastern Europe.

Read more in the Forward.

And you shall bind them (2)

A few days ago I talked about Rabbi Michael Broyde's prediction of the Conservative movement's imminent demise. What interested me were two throwaway statements: (1) "halachah is binding" (implying that this statement is unquestionably true for everyone, in the same way, at all times), and (2) American Jews can be divided into those who believe (1) is true and those who don't.

Comes a recent post by Jonathan Woocher on the Conservative e-mail list Shefa which nicely addresses point 2. So I'll quote it here in its entirety. Two points: although Broyde was trying to classify the whole of the Jewish community, Woocher talks here about the difficulty of defining the Conservative movement. I think the same difficulties apply to either, which is why I'm citing this. Second, the poster thinks it would be problematic for the Conservative movement to define itself based on behavioral criteria. I agree with this, probably for same reason as the poster. Indeed, it would be curious if behavioral criteria were not part of the C. movement's self-definition (such criteria being an essential part of halachah) - but only a part, since if it were the whole definition we would be a movement dedicated to self-policing and ruling people out rather than in.

I believe that part of the difficulty in addressing questions of denominational identity, boundaries, etc., is that there are multiple dimensions of what we might mean by, say, “the Conservative movement.” We might be talking about the movement’s 1) ideology (and, of course, none of the movements has a single, coherent ideology, but rather at best a set of ideologies with certain common elements); 2) program (different than an ideology; this is what it actually focuses its collective energies on at any given point in time); 3) institutions (synagogues, seminaries, USCJ, RA, etc.); 4) people (not just the public figures, but the people one encounters or encountered in the past in shul, school, camp, etc.; and/or 5) style (as with ideologies, movements do have multiple styles, but the “styles” of Conservative and Reform Judaism are generally fairly distinct). My observation is that what attracts individuals to a particular movement may be any of these (singly or in combination). So, one may well be ideologically “Reform,” but have a social network largely made up of Conservative Jews and prefer a service with more Hebrew.

There is a natural and understandable inclination to believe that ideology should be the trump card in this deck. This would lead to saying, e.g., that if you don’t believe in the normative authority of Halakha (leaving aside for the moment what we understand Halakha and its normative authority to be), you really don’t belong in the Conservative movement. However, it’s not clear to me that we should privilege ideology in this fashion, especially since it is an arena in which multiple positions coexist. So, unless one is prepared to set either strict ideological boundaries (how would we enforce these?) or – even more problematic – behavioral boundaries (which is where this thread began: questioning whether those who do not follow “normative Conservative practice,” e.g., not eating non-Kosher food outside the home, should have their opinions counted on an issue like gay ordination), I’m afraid we are stuck with an ambiguous movement in an ambiguous world.

I, for one, am comfortable with this, since the alternative would in my view be far worse, namely a movement constantly checking its tzitzes. I would not find this a very appealing landscape on which to take my Jewish journey.

Happy 100th, Wystan!

This is always worth hearing -- not his best poem (or his best reading), but one of my favorites.

Should not have been a talmid-khokhem

I am trying to express my appreciation of Schaechter (as everyone called him) in a limit-yourself-to-800-words sort of way. Meanwhile, a thought from today's shiva call, where someone quoted a frum acquaintance of the deceased. "It's a pity [Dr. Schaechter] wasn't a Torah scholar," the acquaintance supposedly said, "because he was so medakdek [punctilious]."

Two possible responses: no, he shouldn't have been a Torah scholar, because then he wouldn't have been what he was. Torah scholarship is not so destitute, nor the Jewish world of intellectual endeavor so narrow, that every talent must be yeshiva-fied. We have minds aplenty and lots of problems to work on, from the nature of God to the proper number of bird sacrifices - to questions of language preservation and standardization.

In fact, Schaechter was a secular Jew. Some friends and I (they are academic Yiddishists who devote their life to the language and literature) are discussing his passing over e-mail, and one pointed out that our subject line (borekh dayen emes, "Blessed be the True Judge"), while an appropriate and natural response for some of us, is not appropriate for Schaechter. He was many things in his appreciation of the Jewish people, but religious he was not. He was a secular Yiddishist, an ideology with its own powerful advantages, blindnesses, and failings, not to be lumped into our own personal categories, no matter how much we are beholden to them.

Second is that being medakdek (הקפדה, דקדקניות) is not what I think of as necessary for a Torah scholar. Encyclopedic knowledge, certainly; exactitude, yes; but above all an inspired creativity. But creativity is a dirty word in some circles.

Mordkhe Schaechter olevasholem

Dr. Schaechter, the linguist, teacher, editor, lexicographer, and (for lack of a better word) rebbe of Yiddishists everywhere, has died. The funeral will be tomorrow.

Update: The Times obituary.

The first Valentine’s day

was Valentine’s last --
his head bid on by an apothecary.
A cut-rate martyr.
The last thing in his head (save the blade)
a tavern:

close, smoky, ringing with soldiers’ serenades to others’ wives
while in a darkened corner
he brooded over a wine-stained tabletop
carved with pairs of small crosses: Valentine’s
illegal young marrieds,
contra legem imperatoris.

He’s under the deepest coldest
dirt in Rome. On that spot, now, a couple stands,
kissing each other breathless,
waiting and forgetting
for the light to change -- hot blood and

no head.