Archives for February 2005

There is a new entry on the Fragments of Fiction blog. Some of this story is pretty rough. It feels rather formulaic to me, very child like. I find that to be a little frustrating. Sooner or later I have to go back in and start polishing and refining it.

I have been meaning to write about this for a while now. Each week I play in a regular game of pickup basketball. After the games we retreat to the steam room where we engage in all sorts of macho nonsense. Or should I say there is a lot of storytelling going on and not all of it is believable or nice.

One of the guys that I play with is having problems with his teenage son. I don’t know all the details and it is not really my business but if the man is who I think he is the problem is him. You can’t be a friend to your childen until they grow up, try to be their buddy and you set yourself up for a problem.

Let’s cut to the chase here. The man told his son that if he (son) disappeared he wouldn’t notice. What a horrible thing to say. When I heard it I considered punching him in the mouth because it sickened me to hear it. I understand fighting between parents and siblings, my parents and I went through it. I expect to deal with it as a parent, but I promise that my child will never hear that out of my mouth.

To make a long story longer I asked him if he meant it and he said yes. And then I asked him what he thought people’s reactions would be if he suddenly disappeared and he said that no one would care because the world doesn’t care about people.

And I realized that he was in a tremendous amount of pain. And my anger softened a little. I still cannot accept saying anything like that to a child, but in context it made more sense. While I sat there schvitzing I wondered to myself what would happen if I suddenly disappeared. I made it an exercise of sorts, concentric circles of relationships.

First I considered what would happen if my blog suddenly disappeared. Would there be any sort of outcry, would people wonder or would they just shrug their shoulders and move on.

Then I thought about the people at the office. If I left for lunch and never returned would it make a difference

That followed with considering how my friends would react if I was suddenly removed from their lives.

And then finally I thought about my family and the impact it would make upon them.

The answer was and is that I am important to people. Not that it has ever been a problem for me. I don’t have self esteem issues, but I think that it is healthy to consider these things and remind ourselves that we matter and that what we do impacts the people we love and care about.
It is a good feeling to know that you belong to someone and that you are loved.

It is too bad that so many people have problems feeling this way.

I recently heard from a friend of mine. She called to ask me some questions about a friend of hers who in her words is “growing to be very Jewish.” My friend is not Jewish and had a number of questions. I was able to answer all of them, but I don’t think that she was buying any of it.

The truth is that she doesn’t have to accept anything I say, it is her friend’s choice and that should be enough. But the conversation was similar to others that I have had with people who are Jewish.

I think that the primary thing that bothers this friend of mine is that she feels like there are now restrictions upon her friendship. She doesn’t understand what keeping Kosher is about and Shabbos just overwhelms her. I am kind of curious to speak with the friend who is going BT because it sounds to me like she hit her with a ton of information aboout Shabbos, primarily the restrictions on what you can or cannot do.

I thought that was kind of sad, because Shabbos offers so much more than that. If you are going to explain to someone that you are not driving, writing or doing so many of the other non-Shabbos activities you need to provide a context for why.

My friend asked me why I still drive on Shabbos, why I am willing to do so many things that you are not supposed to do. She said that since I seemed to know the reasons why a Jewish person should not do these things it seemed strange to her. I told her that I would be willing to have an extended discussion about it if she was willing to do some learning on her own and that otherwise I meant to keep it short.

Not because I am afraid to discuss it, but I frankly I wasn’t convinced that she was really interested and I didn’t want to get involved in a personal discussion without that interest.

There are some proscriptions that I dobut that I will ever take on, but that is for a different entry. What we try to do in my home is emphasize that Shabbos is family time. It is a time for us to slow down and take stock of ourselves and our lives.

It is a time to speak with the children about values and things that we think are important and a time to consider for ourselves what is important to us, a time to reflect and consider. It is nice to stop running and just ‘be.’

As for the issue of Kashrut I explained to my friend that I didn’t think that it was fair for her to be so judgemental about her other friend’s desire to keep Kosher. If she was a vegetarian she wouldn’t say anything. If she had food allergies she wouldn’t criticize her decision, but because of a religious belief that she doesn’t share she is upset, it is just silly to me.

She didn’t ask me to tell her why I do not keep Kosher. There are a number of reasons why, one of which is that there are certain meals that I love, that I have a hard time considering giving up. But that is not really what is holding me back.

I think that I could give those things up and move ahead. There are many Kosher restaurants in my neighborhood, so it is not unusual to find me there or to find me purchasing Kosher items at the market.

I think that the thing that has held me back from going all the way is this. I haven’t bought into the reasons for keeping Kosher, up to now I haven’t found anything compelling other than the guilt I feel for not doing it. And guilt is not enough for me to make the change right now.

“Palestinian security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah orchestrated the blast. They said they had tracked recent communications between Hezbollah militant Kais Obeid and an unidentified Palestinian who they believed was the attacker.

But a Hezbollah official in Beirut denied involvement. “As far as we are concerned, there is no need to respond to such lies that we have become used to it,” the official said.

Hezbollah has emerged as the biggest threat to the fragile Israeli-Palestinian truce, with Lebanese guerrillas offering West Bank gunmen thousands of dollars to attack Israelis. The Iranian-funded Lebanese guerrillas, who have hundreds of West Bank gunmen on their payroll, have stepped up pressure recently.”

Call me a cynic, but part of me wonders if there isn’t some collusion between the groups, a good cop, bad cop kind of thing.

“DETROIT – Robert Kearns, the inventor of intermittent windshield wipers, has died of cancer, according to family members. He was 77.”

Another unsung hero moves on.

Click here to read it.