For younger Readers--"The Fisherman and his Wife"

I got an email from a reader who said that the Tolstoy story I recommended was too difficult for her younger kids. Did I have anything like that story but on a younger level?

The classic Grimm's tale "The Fisherman and his Wife" is available online at
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm019.html
or at
http://www.ongoing-tales.com/SERIALS/oldtime/FAIRYTALES/fisherman1.html

There is an animated, downloadable copy of the story available at
http://www.ipl.org.ar/youth/StoryHour/Fisherman/fishdwnld.html

The progression of wants and needs is similar in idea to that of the Tolstoy story.

Defining Hashkafah--Part II

Part I Defining Hashkafah--the Impossible and the Improbable basically stated that hashkafah is hard to pin down. It means different things to different people. It is different things to different people. And since hashkafah applies to all areas of Jewish life, and for Jews, to secular life as well, there can be a multitude of differences, even when people say they have the "same" hashkafah as others do.

A posting on Orthonomics in June dealt with a rebbetzin who felt that the most important thing in choosing a mate was to find out what his/her harshkafahs are. I won't argue with the theory but just how does that work out in practice?

First you would need to define for yourself what your own hashkafah is. Is ALL of what you presently do something that you want to continuing doing in the future? Every little thing? Where are you flexible? Where have you been unhappy and are looking to replace a practice with something else? Where has a practice that you hold dear gotten you flack from someone else? Do you care? Is it even possible to examine in minute detail all aspects that are covered by a hashkafah? Has your hashkafah changed over time? In which areas? In what way? Why has it changed? Now, be honest. In what areas do you imagine your hashkafah changing in the future? Can you even know?

So there you are, someone whose hashkafah is made up of zillions of smaller parts, some of which are replaced regularly, some of which have been enhanced or changed in some way, some of which don't seem to go with one another except that they do. And now you are supposed to examine someone else's hashkafah to see what he/she believes, what he/she does so that you can see if it meshes with your own hashkafah or with the hashkafah you want to acquire when married?

Just what is MO hashkafah really? Or yeshivish hashkafah? Just what hashkafah does someone follow who is middle of the road but right of center? Pray tell what hashkafah attaches to Modern Orthodox Machmir? When someone lives with their parents are they a product of the hashkafah of their home? How much of a product? Where does hashkafah end and following your father's minhagim begin?

When you get married in one sense all bets are off. A choson and kallah are building their own unique entity. While it is true that they will carry into their marriage a lot of what they have seen/done in their lives before marriage, their marriage will not be a duplicate in every aspect to the marriages of their parents/family/friends/neighbors/morahs/rabbanim. If hashkafah is generally understood to be your belief system (with lots of input from a plethora of others) that governs everything that is not strictly halacha (another problem all on its own), then look at yourself in the mirror and swear that you have not changed in any way, shape or form in your hashkafah from 10 years ago. 20 years ago. 30 years ago. Now imagine yourself in a situation where it will not be about "my" hashkafah or "your" hashkafah but about "our" hashkafah. And then let the years pass.

I don't agree with the rebbetzin that the major thing of importance in deciding on a spouse is what hashkafah is present. Hashkafah is not carved in stone. Perhaps a better "test" to use is to determine how stubborn someone is or how capable of dealing with compromise. Is that person a realist or is that person someone who believes that change doesn't happen and isn't necessary?

A Little Blog Redecorating

Having just that wee bit of time more than usual I've made a change to the blog. On the left side I've finally added a "labels" section. Readers have sometimes asked me about previous postings, and finding them required scrolling down through hundreds of postings. I don't have all the archived postings cross referenced to the labels, but it should be done fairly soon. Hopefully the labels will be useful for you as well as for me.

Schools versus Parents, yet again

It's not exactly a secret that I believe that schools are competing with "biological progenitors" (that's moms and dads) for who will be supreme in a child's life. Brooklyn Wolf at wolfishmusings has put up a posting that I think illustrates that the competition is real and that it has some really unsavory aspects.

Destroying A Young Person's Respect For Their Parents

The Care and Feeding of Labels--Part #2

In part #1 I established the idea that labels are about sub-groups of a larger named whole. We have a "species" named Jews. (Let's keep in mind that there is a lot of discussion going on today about the requirements for belonging to that "species" and the "Who is a Jew" question is being debated.) And there are a lot of labels that are attached to sub-groups of Jews. But what do those labels actually signify? What are the requirements for being in one of those sub-groups? And what about the sub-groups of sub-groups of sub-groups?

We've attached a lot of labels to the sub-groups of Judaism, labels that mean many different things to many different people. Two people having a conversation about someone labeled "MO" may not be discussing the same thing at all. Go ahead, give me a definitive definition of MO. Keep in mind that to be a label it must apply to all members of a sub-group at all times. MO has itself spawned many sub-group labels precisely because MO is too nebulous a term and too broad to be useful. So, tell me what an MO Machmir is? What is a right-wing MO Machmir as compared to a left-wing MO Machmir? What does it mean if you are heimish? What constitutes being traditional? What does it mean to be a Chareidi? And is it different if you are a Litvish Chareidi? What about being Yeshivish? If all it takes to be Yeshivish is having your boys in yeshiva then YU boys are yeshivish aren't they? Nor do the labels Ashkenazic and Sefardic work out too well. As one Moroccan woman complained to me many years ago: "We are not Syrians! People hear Sefardi in NY and right away they think Syrian."

Is it clothing that is a basic requirement for a label to fit? Is it practices? Which practices and when? Is it beliefs? Which beliefs applied to what? Is it where you live? Is it how you live?

So many of the bitter divisions in Klal fall along the line of which "label" you belong to. Some labels are given more cachet than others, usually by those who claim to be adherents of the requirements of their own label. The "other" side thinks they are the better label. I remember once reading a column in Women's Wear Daily in which two reporters were arguing about who was the better designer--Chanel or Yves St. Laurent. I remember thinking that you can't have that argument--it's a question of taste, and you can't argue taste--De Gustibus non Disputandum est. A lot of the label arguments in Klal are also about taste, although some will say that it is about halacha, yet another war of the labels.

So, what are the labels of Klal? Some are: Traditional, Heimish, Litvish, Yeshivish, Misnagdish, Chasidish, Ashkenazic, Sefardic, MO, MO Machmir, Orthodox, Frum, Modern, Religious, Right-Wing, Left-Wing, Shomer Torah uMitzvos, BT, Long-term BT, Learner, Earner, Learner-Earners,Young Israel-ish, Agudaniks, OU-niks, Out-of-Town-ish, Lakewoodites, Brooklyners, Williamsburgers, Chabadniks, Shtibble-people, etc. etc. If you have any other labels to contribute, by all means do so. Let's get them all out in the open and let's finally have some intelligent discussion about why we have so many labels, about what those labels could/should/do mean to all members of Klal. Why do we find it so necessary to divide and classify ourselves into ever smaller and smaller sub-groupings? In what way is Klal served by doing this?

In part #1 I made the point that "If you've seen one Yew, you've seen them all." We surely cannot say "If you've seen one Jew, you've seen them all."

Post-Script: Ask yourself how much of that vaunted "Shidduch Crisis" might be due to the plethora of nebulous labels. Gee, you match two people up according to their label's hashkafa and discover that they don't believe the same things at all. The shadchan at fault? The singles at fault? Or perhaps the labels at fault.

Tolstoy, Wants and Needs and the Mega-mansion Syndrome

As I seem to be in the mood for posting summer reading lists that somehow relate to things I've written about, you might want to check out Leo Tolstoy's story "How much land does a man need." It's available at http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2738/ There is a lot of discussion about wants and needs and how to determine which is which. How much is enough? The story might get some thinking flowing.

Both this story and the Asimov story I linked to before would make excellent summer reading for your older children as well. Sorry, but I am really not much of a fan of the English stories written for frum kids that proliferate today. My reasons for that are a subject for a different posting.

The Care and Feeding of Labels--Part #1

Mankind uses language to organize the world. Through language we can talk about what we see and about what we would like to see. We can report on what is and what isn't present. One of the processes of language is the giving of "names." We look at that sphere in front of us and call it a ball. And all those who speak the same language have through social convention agreed to call that thing a ball--that is its name. There is absolutely no "real" connection between the signifier "ball" and the entity for which it stands. That is why I am a woman in English but a frau in German; both point to the same external entity.

Some people use the word "label" interchangeably with the word "name." In usage, however, they aren't the same thing. Labels are used for classification and division purposes. "Tree" is the name of a class or species defined by us as having particular characteristics that make a tree a tree and not a bush or a flower. But that class can be divided into subgroups or types that, in addition to sharing the required characteristics for being a tree, also share other characteristics not found outside that subgroup. The names of all these subdivisions are more correctly called labels. So now we have something we have labeled evergreen trees and deciduous trees: one class, different divisions. Those divisions can be further subdivided, thus evergreen trees will yield Yews, Spruces, Pines etc. And yes, even these divisions can be further subdivided so we can have Norway spruce, white spruce, Colorado blue spruce, black spruce, and more.

Thus labels are specifically used for putting you into a group. And when they put you in that group anyone hearing that label or seeing it will know that you share the characteristics of others in your group. In fact you can't be in that group unless you have precisely all the characteristics necessary for joining it.

Trees are the really easy part of understanding how labels work. Those labels have horticultural reasons for being. We can talk about needle type or branching habit. We can talk about sun or shade requirements. We can talk about water requirements. And while nature may have some oddities here and there, by and large if you've seen one Yew you've seen them all. What makes them a Yew is clear to everyone.

Huge problems arise, however, when you try to treat people as if they were trees. I'm not talking here about biological classifications--that can be done. I'm talking about the other types of classification and division.

Let's use politics as an illustration. What are you actually saying if you label me as one of the following:

Radical ==Left-wing== Left-wing liberal== Left-leaning== Leftist== Right-wing
Conservative== Ultra-conservative== Arch-conservative== Moderate== Religious right
Democrat== Tax-and-spend-Democrat== Republican== Old-Guard Republican
Regan Republican== Liberal== Libertarian== Independent== Extremist== Contrarian
Soccer mom== Patriot== Flaming liberal== Centrist== Populist== Silent majority
Moral majority== Heartland centrist== Elitist== Special interest lobby== God-fearing
Anarchist== Principled== Unprincipled== Wrong-thinking== Wrong-minded
Dyed-in-the-wool ==NASCAR dads== Security moms ==neocon== Isolationist== Hawk
Dove== Pro-choice== Pro-life== Bleeding heart liberal== Majority== Minority
Oppressed minority.

Yup, that's me, an independent extremist contrarian with moral majority centrist leanings that are right wing conservative except when they are left-leaning centrist. And that's only on the issue of taxing cigarettes. Ask me about something else and you'll get a whole different set of labels.

It should be fairly obvious that merely attaching a label to someone does not 1) tell us anything about what that label actually means and 2) doesn't mean that the label actually fits the person so labeled.

I've belabored this point because next up, in Part #2, I'd like to look at Jewish labeling.