Meat & (Jewish) Ethics: The Mercies of the Wicked

My husband came home from his internship spouting a new philosophy that made little sense to me. He was using words like "grass-fed," "free-range," "CAFO," and "Monsanto," none of which meant anything to me. He pushed the chicken I had prepared for dinner around his plate with a decidedly queasy expression on his face. Then, he introduced me to a world of information through having me watch "Food, Inc" alongside him on our date night.

The opening words of the film sound eerily like the classic introduction to Twilight Zone episodes I hungrily devoured on YouTube during my days as a tired undergrad. The narrator begins:

The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000. But the image that's used to sell the food is still the imagery of agrarian America. You go into the supermarket and you see pictures of farmers- the picket fence and the silo and the 30s farmhouse and the green grass. It's the spinning of this pastoral fantasy. The modern American supermarket has on average 47,000 products. There are no seasons in the American supermarket. Now, they're tomatoes all year round, grown halfway around the world, picked when it was green and ripened with Ethylene gas. Although it looks like a tomato, it's kind of a notional tomato; I mean, it's the idea of a tomato. In the meat aisle, there are no bones anymore. There is this deliberate veil, this curtain, that's dropped between us and where our food is coming from. The industry doesn't want you to know the truth about what you're eating. Because if you knew, you might not want to eat it. 

If you follow the food chain back from those shrink-wrapped packages of meat, you find a very different reality. The reality is a factory- it's not a farm; it's a factory. That meat is being processed by huge, multinational corporations that have very little to do with ranches and farmers. Now our food is coming from enormous assembly lines where the animals and the workers are being abused. And the food has become much more dangerous in ways that are being deliberately hidden from us. You've got a small group of multinational corporations that control the entire food system. From seed to the supermarket, they're gaining control of food. This isn't just about what we're eating. This is about what we're allowed to say, what we're allowed to know. It's not just our health that's at risk - the companies don't want farmers talking. They don't want this story told.

 Wait, what's this they're saying? I questioned. What do they mean that our animals are being produced on a factory?

The film introduced me to the idea of factory farming. Unbeknownst to me, who had imagined that steers and cows were being raised on farms and ranches across America and then shipped to slaughterhouses, where they were humanely slaughtered (after all, I've attended two Shechitas), the reality could not be further from my wishful thinking.

It all harks back to our over-production of corn, a fact explored at great length in The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. In short, our government changed the way in which farmers would be compensated for certain crops, especially corn. Now, farmers are compensated for each bushel of corn they sell, and rather than the government holding it back in a national granary to keep from flooding the market (which would lower prices), they do flood the market with it. This to the point that farmers in other countries can be put out of business and out of work due to the fact that it is cheaper to import American corn than it is to buy corn produced by farmers in the native country.

Now that we have a surplus and overabundance of corn, we must come up with uses for it. Luckily, scientists have come up with many uses for it in our food (corn syrup, various 'gums', corn, cornstarch and so forth). But they've also had the bright idea of trying to tamper with either God, evolution or both by deciding to feed it to animals who do not naturally eat it, and who are not cut out for eating it. Enter the idea of CAFOS (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), otherwise known as factory farms. CAFOs are feed lots where animals live under cramped, packed-in conditions, standing and sleeping in their own manure, where they are fed food that is naturally bad for them and which they can only keep down due to the cocktail of antibiotics we give them.

Before we talk about why we are feeding corn to cows even though their stomachs are not built to digest it, let's talk about how cows have traditionally interacted with the land. To put it in Pollan's words:

The coevolutionary relationship between cows and grass is one of nature's underappreciated wonders; it also happens to be the key to understanding just about everything about modern meat. For the grasses, which have evolved to withstand the grazing of ruminants, the cow maintains and expands their habitat by preventing trees and shrubs from gaining a foothold and hogging the sunlight; the animal also spreads grass seed, plants it with his hooves, and then fertilizes it with his manure. In exchange for these services, the grasses offer ruminants a plentiful and exclusive supply of lunch. For cows (like sheep, bison and other ruminants) have evolved the special ability to convert grass- which single-stomached creatures like us can't digest- into high quality protein. They can do this because they possess what is surely the most highly evolved digestive organ in nature: the rumen. About the size of a medicine ball, the organ is essentially a twenty-gallon fermentation tank in which a resident population of bacteria dines on grass. Living their unseen lives at the far end of the food chain that culminates in a hamburger, these bacteria have, like the grasses, coevolved with the cow, whom they feed.

Truly, this is an excellent system for all concerned: for the grasses, for the bacteria, for the animals, and for us, the animal's eaters. While it is true that overgrazing can do ecological harm to a grassland, in recent years ranchers have adopted rotational grazing patterns that more closely mimic the patterns of the bison, a ruminant that sustainably grazed these same grasses for thousands of years before the cow displaced it. In fact, a growing number of ecologists now believe the rangelands are healthier with cattle on them, provided they're moved frequently. Today, the most serious environmental harm associated with the cattle industry takes place on the feedlot. 

[...] 

So then why is it that steer number 534 hasn't tasted a blade of prairie grass since October? Speed, in a word, or in the industry's preferred term, "efficiency." Cows raised on grass simply take longer to reach slaughter weight than cows raised on a richer diet, and for half a century now the industry has devoted itself to shortening a beef animal's allotted span on earth. "In my grandfather's time, cows were four or five years old at slaughter," Rich explained. "In the fifties, when my father was ranching, it was two or three years old. Now we get there at fourteen to sixteen months." Fast food, indeed. What gets a steer from 80 to 1,100 pounds in fourteen months is tremendous quantities of corn, protein and fat supplements and an arsenal of new drugs. 

~pages 70-71

You're probably curious what exactly cows are being fed, then, aren't you? Here's what they get: a mash-up of corn, liquefied fat (carted in from the nearby slaughterhouse), protein supplement (consisting of molasses and urea). Oh, and antibiotics, because their stomachs are not made to digest corn and thus they get sick while eating it. These antibiotics consist of Rumensin (buffers acidity in the rumen), Tylosin (a form of erythromycin which lowers the incidence of liver infection).

But hey! At least it's not as bad as it was. We used to feed cows to cows because "rendered bovine meat and bonemeal represented the cheapest, most convenient way of satisfying a cow's protein requirement (never mind these animals were herbivores by evolution)" (73) and we only stopped (in 1997) because we figured it was causing mad cow disease. And actually, the rules still permit "feedlots to feed nonruminant animal protein to ruminants. Feather meal and chicken litter (that is bedding, feces and discarded bits of feed) are acceptable cattle feeds, as are chicken, fish, and pig meal" (76).

Pollan writes that "most of the health problems that afflict feedlot cattle can be traced either directly or indirectly to their diet" (77). Apparently it is the norm for the cows to be sick to some extent- the issue is just that they don't get 'too' sick per one Dr. Mel Metzin, the staff veterinarian at one CAFO called Poky. Here's what can happen to cows fed corn:

1. Bloat- "The fermentation in the rumen produces copious amounts of gas, which is normally expelled by belching during rumination. But when the diet contains too much starch and too little roughage, rumination all but stops, and a layer of foamy slime forms in the rumen that can trap gas. The rumen inflates like a balloon until it presses against the animal's lungs. Unless action is taken promptly to relieve the pressure (usually by forcing a hose down the animal's esophagus), the animal suffocates" (77-78).

2. Acidosis- "Unlike our own highly acidic stomachs, the normal pH of a rumen is neutral. Corn renders it acidic, causing a kind of bovine heartburn that in some cases can kill the animal, but usually just makes him sick. Acidotic animals go off their feed, pant and salivate excessively, paw and scratch their bellies, and eat dirt. The condition can lead to diarrhea, ulcers, bloat, rumenitis, liver disease,and a general weakening of the immune system that leaves the animal vulnerable to the full panoply of feedlot diseases- pneumonia, coccidiosis, enteroxtoxemia, foodlot polio" (78).

3. Death- "Cattle rarely live on feedlot diets for more than 150 days, which might be about as much as their systems can tolerate" because "over time the acids eat away at the rumen wall, allowing bacteria to enter the animal's bloodstream. These microbes wind up in the liver, where they form abscesses and impair the liver's function. Between 15 percent and 30 percent of feedlot cows are found at slaughter to have abscessed livers" (78).

It turns out that when we eat corn-fed beef, we harm ourselves as well. First, "modern day hunter-gatherers who subsist on wild meat don't have our rates of heart disease" (75) and second, E. coli and other bacteria thrives in feedlot cattle (40% or more carry it in their gut) and when we eat contaminated meat, can cause us to die within a matter of days.

But even aside from our concern for ourselves, what about the animal? This is, after all, a living, breathing animal- God's creation- not an automobile. And this animal is living in a place without grass, packed into small spaces with thousands of others, standing and sleeping and walking around in tons of its own manure, is fattened up within an incredibly small amount of time while suffering all kinds of painful illnesses due to its diet, and then it is finally killed. In short, this animal is tortured in order to become our hamburger. (And this is to say nothing of the environmental issues caused when it comes to getting rid of and siphoning off the waste and manure produced at these CAFOs).

And compared to chickens (the majority of which live in total darkness in crowded cages where they peck at each other, impale themselves on the wires, defecate on other chickens or might be debeaked so as not to harm the others, never seeing the light of day or being allowed to walk around) or pigs (who live in gestation crates, which thank God are being phased out), these cows have a grand life.

(If you only watch one video on this issue, watch the one about pigs living in gestation crates - it will bring tears to your eyes.)

Here's the part that directly concerns you if you are a Jewish person: צער בעלי חיים, inflicting pain on animals.

I am not a vegetarian, nor do I intend to become one (because thank God, there are alternative meat sources available that allow me to eat animals that have not been tortured in the process of becoming meat). But I wonder whether there are halakhic implications when it comes to profiting directly from a system which absolutely tortures animals. Throughout Tanakh, we are taught to treat animals with respect. We are only permitted to eat animals due to the debt that they owe us because Noah saved them from the flood; original man and woman were vegetarians. We must cover an animal's blood (Leviticus 17:13), assist with the unloading of an enemy's beleaguered donkey (Exodus 23:5), and must allow animals to rest on the Sabbath day (Exodus 20:9). We cannot muzzle an ox to stop it from eating as it works the field (Deuteronomy 25:4). And all these laws, and other laws that are elucidated elsewhere (such as the need to feed your animals before you yourself can sit down to a meal) do not even touch on the stories that show us how to treat animals.

Our nation is a nation of people who treat animals kindly and justly. Yes, they profit from animals, and they even eat them, but they do not destroy their lives wantonly and they do not deliberately cause them suffering. Abraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Moshe and David are all shepherds. Rachel is a shepherdess, and Rebecca offered to water the camels of the servant of Abraham. The story we tell of how Moshe first encountered God at the Burning Bush shows his kindness to the little lamb that had run away from the flock. Elijah owes a debt to the ravens who come to feed him. Jonah owes his life to the large fish that sheltered him. There is the story of King Shlomo and the palace of bird beaks, where the hoopoe teaches him compassion and kindness.

We are taught that one is not allowed to bring a sacrifice to God when the animal for the sacrifice was purchased with stolen money (or when the animal itself was stolen). On the other hand, there are other places (such as by Kilayim), where we ourselves are not allowed to combine plants together to create a new species, but we are allowed to eat what results if someone else who is not a Jew creates it - for example, a strawberry apple, or an apple pear. What I wonder is this: to which situation is the current practice more similar? Are we forbidden to profit (and to eat) animals that have been tortured in direct violation of Tzaar Baalei Chayim, or is this considered a lamentable practice, but since we ourselves are not directly responsible, it is still halakhically permissible?

Leaving that question aside, the question for you to consider is: what can you do? There are several campaigns underway. Here's what you can do in your own life to help.

1. Get informed! You can learn more at Food Inc- Take Part
2. Eat less meat- join the movement for Meatless Mondays
3. Become an ethical omnivore and eat ethically raised meat (pasture-fed or free range). Kosher options include Grow & Behold and Kol Foods
4. Consider becoming a vegetarian or a vegan

In Proverbs 12:10 we are instructed, "A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal; the mercies of the wicked, are cruel." I cannot think of a more obvious application for this axiom than the current CAFO practices. The 'mercies of the wicked' such as giving the animals antibiotics so that they can survive the assault on their stomachs caused by corn- are still cruel. And to be righteous is to choose not to block out that knowledge, but rather, to make decisions about meat (whatever they may be) in an ethical fashion.

I ♥ Steve Behnke

There's a part of 'The Center Cannot Hold' by Elyn R. Saks that is just incredible, and that is in one of her first encounters with Steve.

Excerpt follows.

~

It was late one blustery fall night, in the bowels of the law school, when I was struggling badly, not so long after I'd told Steve about myself. "You can't imagine what it's like in an emergency room- it's god-awful, the way they tie you down and make you wait all night till someone has time to see you. They walk into your room at the crack of dawn, because they're ready to talk. What do they possibly expect you to say except "Let me f'ing go!'"


Steve looked at me with an impish grin. "Quote Hamlet, perhaps?" And in his best Shakesperean accent he intoned, "Lo, noble physician, the 'morn in russet mantle clad walks o'er the dew of yon high easterward hill. So loosen my chains, kind sir, for the tasks of the day await me."

He smiled. I laughed. He got it. I knew this man, whose depth of heart was equal to the speed of his mind, would be a lifelong friend.

-page 196

~

Broken Tablets

My husband shared a beautiful idea with me at dinner today. Its source is Brachot 8b.

והזהרו בזקן ששכח תלמודו מחמת אונסו דאמרינן לוחות ושברי לוחות מונחות בארון


Be careful to respect an old man who has forgotten his learning through no fault of his own [due to old age] for it was said: Both the whole Tablets (Luchot) and the Broken Tablet were stored in the Aron.


I found this idea to be extremely compelling. I thought it was beautiful in that it teaches the value of respect, and especially respect for knowledge, learning and effort, through the use of such beautiful imagery. I now see in my mind's eye the mingled fragments of the Luchot next to the whole ones, each one important and beloved by God in its own right. 


Heshy says that he has actually witnessed this in his community. An elderly man who might be suffering from Alzheimers or dementia or some other illness that takes the mind on a journey to a dark place will still be honored and respected through the day he is buried. 

Book of Hearts

The book of Samuel actually seems to be about hearts. Leadership is obtained through God seeing into one's heart and ascertaining that you are a person who is after His own heart. In fact, God's seer may even be able to tell you what is in your heart due to the fact that God is giving you that new heart. Chana's heart grieves her before she has a son and Michal's heart shows that she despises her husband. There is symmetry between Amnon and Naval, both of whom have hearts that are merry with wine. Ought this to suggest that Naval views Abigail as a possession, much as Amnon viewed Tamar? Those who steal away the hearts of men (Absalom) end up pierced through the heart (a fitting death). Both Eli the Kohen Gadol and Saul the First King have hearts that tremble. That does not seem coincidental. There is also symmetry between the statement the armor bearer makes to Yonatan (Do all that is in your heart, for I am with thee) and the statement Nathan the Prophet makes to David (Do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with thee). Why is that statement repeated? The greatest leader, David, is one who demonstrates the importance of conscience. His heart smites him when he commits sins and he is quick to admit fault. This makes him unique from everyone else in the book, for nobody else in this book has that kind of heart.

BOOK 1

Chapter 1

ח  וַיֹּאמֶר לָהּ אֶלְקָנָה אִישָׁהּ, חַנָּה לָמֶה תִבְכִּי וְלָמֶה לֹא תֹאכְלִי, וְלָמֶה, יֵרַע לְבָבֵךְ:  הֲלוֹא אָנֹכִי טוֹב לָךְ, מֵעֲשָׂרָה בָּנִים.

8 And Elkanah her husband said unto her: 'Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?'

יג  וְחַנָּה, הִיא מְדַבֶּרֶת עַל-לִבָּהּ--רַק שְׂפָתֶיהָ נָּעוֹת, וְקוֹלָהּ לֹא יִשָּׁמֵעַ; וַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ עֵלִי, לְשִׁכֹּרָה.

13 Now Hannah, she spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice could not be heard; therefore, Eli thought she had been drunken.

Chapter 2

א  וַתִּתְפַּלֵּל חַנָּה, וַתֹּאמַר, עָלַץ לִבִּי בַּיהוָה, רָמָה קַרְנִי בַּיהוָה; רָחַב פִּי על-אוֹיְבַי, כִּי שָׂמַחְתִּי בִּישׁוּעָתֶךָ.

1 And Hannah prayed, and said: my heart exulteth in the LORD, my horn is exalted in the LORD; my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; because I rejoice in Thy salvation.

לה  וַהֲקִימֹתִי לִי כֹּהֵן נֶאֱמָן, כַּאֲשֶׁר בִּלְבָבִי וּבְנַפְשִׁי יַעֲשֶׂה; וּבָנִיתִי לוֹ בַּיִת נֶאֱמָן, וְהִתְהַלֵּךְ לִפְנֵי-מְשִׁיחִי כָּל-הַיָּמִים.

35 And I will raise Me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in My heart and in My mind; and I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before Mine anointed for ever.

Chapter 3

None

Chapter 4

יג  וַיָּבוֹא, וְהִנֵּה עֵלִי יֹשֵׁב עַל-הַכִּסֵּא יך (יַד) דֶּרֶךְ מְצַפֶּה--כִּי-הָיָה לִבּוֹ חָרֵד, עַל אֲרוֹן הָאֱלֹהִים; וְהָאִישׁ, בָּא לְהַגִּיד בָּעִיר, וַתִּזְעַק, כָּל-הָעִיר.

13 And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon his seat by the wayside watching; for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out.

Chapter 5
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Chapter 6

ו  וְלָמָּה תְכַבְּדוּ אֶת-לְבַבְכֶם, כַּאֲשֶׁר כִּבְּדוּ מִצְרַיִם וּפַרְעֹה אֶת-לִבָּם:  הֲלוֹא כַּאֲשֶׁר הִתְעַלֵּל בָּהֶם, וַיְשַׁלְּחוּם וַיֵּלֵכוּ.

6 Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when He had wrought among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed?

Chapter 7

ג  וַיֹּאמֶר שְׁמוּאֵל, אֶל-כָּל-בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר, אִם-בְּכָל-לְבַבְכֶם אַתֶּם שָׁבִים אֶל-יְהוָה, הָסִירוּ אֶת-אֱלֹהֵי הַנֵּכָר מִתּוֹכְכֶם וְהָעַשְׁתָּרוֹת; וְהָכִינוּ לְבַבְכֶם אֶל-יְהוָה וְעִבְדֻהוּ לְבַדּוֹ, וְיַצֵּל אֶתְכֶם מִיַּד פְּלִשְׁתִּים.

3 And Samuel spoke unto all the house of Israel, saying: 'If ye do return unto the LORD with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and direct your hearts unto the LORD, and serve Him only; and He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.

Chapter 8
None

Chapter 9

יט  וַיַּעַן שְׁמוּאֵל אֶת-שָׁאוּל, וַיֹּאמֶר אָנֹכִי הָרֹאֶה--עֲלֵה לְפָנַי הַבָּמָה, וַאֲכַלְתֶּם עִמִּי הַיּוֹם; וְשִׁלַּחְתִּיךָ בַבֹּקֶר, וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר בִּלְבָבְךָ אַגִּיד לָךְ.

19 And Samuel answered Saul, and said: 'I am the seer; go up before me unto the high place, for ye shall eat with me to-day; and in the morning I will let thee go, and will tell thee all that is in thy heart.

Chapter 10

ט  וְהָיָה, כְּהַפְנֹתוֹ שִׁכְמוֹ לָלֶכֶת מֵעִם שְׁמוּאֵל, וַיַּהֲפָךְ-לוֹ אֱלֹהִים, לֵב אַחֵר; וַיָּבֹאוּ כָּל-הָאֹתוֹת הָאֵלֶּה, בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא.  {ס}

9 And it was so, that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart; and all those signs came to pass that day. {S}

כו  וְגַם-שָׁאוּל--הָלַךְ לְבֵיתוֹ, גִּבְעָתָה; וַיֵּלְכוּ עִמּוֹ--הַחַיִל, אֲשֶׁר-נָגַע אֱלֹהִים בְּלִבָּם.

26 And Saul also went to his house to Gibeah; and there went with him the men of valour, whose hearts God had touched.

Chapter 11

None

Chapter 12

כ  וַיֹּאמֶר שְׁמוּאֵל אֶל-הָעָם, אַל-תִּירָאוּ--אַתֶּם עֲשִׂיתֶם, אֵת כָּל-הָרָעָה הַזֹּאת; אַךְ, אַל-תָּסוּרוּ מֵאַחֲרֵי יְהוָה, וַעֲבַדְתֶּם אֶת-יְהוָה, בְּכָל-לְבַבְכֶם.

20 And Samuel said unto the people: 'Fear not; ye have indeed done all this evil; yet turn not aside from following the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart;

כד  אַךְ יְראוּ אֶת-יְהוָה, וַעֲבַדְתֶּם אֹתוֹ בֶּאֱמֶת--בְּכָל-לְבַבְכֶם:  כִּי רְאוּ, אֵת אֲשֶׁר-הִגְדִּל עִמָּכֶם.

24 Only fear the LORD, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider how great things He hath done for you.

Chapter 13

יד  וְעַתָּה, מַמְלַכְתְּךָ לֹא-תָקוּם:  בִּקֵּשׁ יְהוָה לוֹ אִישׁ כִּלְבָבוֹ, וַיְצַוֵּהוּ יְהוָה לְנָגִיד עַל-עַמּוֹ--כִּי לֹא שָׁמַרְתָּ, אֵת אֲשֶׁר-צִוְּךָ יְהוָה.  {ס}

14 But now thy kingdom shall not continue; the LORD hath sought him a man after His own heart, and the LORD hath appointed him to be prince over His people, because thou hast not kept that which the LORD commanded thee.' {S}

Chapter 14

ז  וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ נֹשֵׂא כֵלָיו, עֲשֵׂה כָּל-אֲשֶׁר בִּלְבָבֶךָ; נְטֵה לָךְ, הִנְנִי עִמְּךָ כִּלְבָבֶךָ.  {ס}

7 And his armour-bearer said unto him: 'Do all that is in thy heart; turn thee, behold I am with thee according to thy heart.' {S}

Chapter 15
None

Chapter 16

ז  וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-שְׁמוּאֵל, אַל-תַּבֵּט אֶל-מַרְאֵהוּ וְאֶל-גְּבֹהַּ קוֹמָתוֹ--כִּי מְאַסְתִּיהוּ:  כִּי לֹא, אֲשֶׁר יִרְאֶה הָאָדָם--כִּי הָאָדָם יִרְאֶה לַעֵינַיִם, וַיהוָה יִרְאֶה לַלֵּבָב.

7 But the LORD said unto Samuel: 'Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him; for it is not as man seeth: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.'

Chapter 17

כח  וַיִּשְׁמַע אֱלִיאָב אָחִיו הַגָּדוֹל, בְּדַבְּרוֹ אֶל-הָאֲנָשִׁים; וַיִּחַר-אַף אֱלִיאָב בְּדָוִד וַיֹּאמֶר לָמָּה-זֶּה יָרַדְתָּ, וְעַל-מִי נָטַשְׁתָּ מְעַט הַצֹּאן הָהֵנָּה בַּמִּדְבָּר--אֲנִי יָדַעְתִּי אֶת-זְדֹנְךָ וְאֵת רֹעַ לְבָבֶךָ, כִּי לְמַעַן רְאוֹת הַמִּלְחָמָה יָרָדְתָּ.

28 And Eliab his eldest brother heard when he spoke unto the men; and Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said: 'Why art thou come down? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy presumptuousness, and the naughtiness of thy heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle.'

לב  וַיֹּאמֶר דָּוִד אֶל-שָׁאוּל, אַל-יִפֹּל לֵב-אָדָם עָלָיו; עַבְדְּךָ יֵלֵךְ, וְנִלְחַם עִם-הַפְּלִשְׁתִּי הַזֶּה.

32 And David said to Saul: 'Let no man's heart fail within him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine.'

Chapter 18
None

Chapter 19
None

Chapter 20
None

Chapter 21

יג  וַיָּשֶׂם דָּוִד אֶת-הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה, בִּלְבָבוֹ; וַיִּרָא מְאֹד, מִפְּנֵי אָכִישׁ מֶלֶךְ-גַּת.

13 And David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish the king of Gath.

Chapter 22
None

Chapter 23
None

Chapter 24

ה  וַיְהִי, אַחֲרֵי-כֵן, וַיַּךְ לֵב-דָּוִד, אֹתוֹ--עַל אֲשֶׁר כָּרַת, אֶת-כָּנָף אֲשֶׁר לְשָׁאוּל.

5 And it came to pass afterward, that David's heart smote him, because he had cut off Saul's skirt.

Chapter 25

לא  וְלֹא תִהְיֶה זֹאת לְךָ לְפוּקָה וּלְמִכְשׁוֹל לֵב לַאדֹנִי, וְלִשְׁפָּךְ-דָּם חִנָּם, וּלְהוֹשִׁיעַ אֲדֹנִי, לוֹ; וְהֵיטִב יְהוָה לַאדֹנִי, וְזָכַרְתָּ אֶת-אֲמָתֶךָ.  {ס}

31 that this shall be no stumbling-block unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood without cause, or that my lord hath found redress for himself. And when the LORD shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thy handmaid.' {S}

לו  וַתָּבֹא אֲבִיגַיִל אֶל-נָבָל וְהִנֵּה-לוֹ מִשְׁתֶּה בְּבֵיתוֹ כְּמִשְׁתֵּה הַמֶּלֶךְ, וְלֵב נָבָל טוֹב עָלָיו, וְהוּא שִׁכֹּר, עַד-מְאֹד; וְלֹא-הִגִּידָה לּוֹ, דָּבָר קָטֹן וְגָדוֹל--עַד-אוֹר הַבֹּקֶר.	36 And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken; wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light.
לז  וַיְהִי בַבֹּקֶר, בְּצֵאת הַיַּיִן מִנָּבָל, וַתַּגֶּד-לוֹ אִשְׁתּוֹ, אֶת-הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה; וַיָּמָת לִבּוֹ בְּקִרְבּוֹ, וְהוּא הָיָה לְאָבֶן.	37 And it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, that his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.

Chapter 26
None

Chapter 27

א  וַיֹּאמֶר דָּוִד אֶל-לִבּוֹ, עַתָּה אֶסָּפֶה יוֹם-אֶחָד בְּיַד-שָׁאוּל; אֵין-לִי טוֹב כִּי הִמָּלֵט אִמָּלֵט אֶל-אֶרֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּים, וְנוֹאַשׁ מִמֶּנִּי שָׁאוּל לְבַקְשֵׁנִי עוֹד בְּכָל-גְּבוּל יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְנִמְלַטְתִּי, מִיָּדוֹ.

1 And David said in his heart: 'I shall now be swept away one day by the hand of Saul; there is nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul will despair of me, to seek me any more in all the borders of Israel; so shall I escape out of his hand.

Chapter 28

ה  וַיַּרְא שָׁאוּל, אֶת-מַחֲנֵה פְלִשְׁתִּים; וַיִּרָא, וַיֶּחֱרַד לִבּוֹ מְאֹד.

5 And when Saul saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly.

Chapter 29
None

Chapter 30
None

Chapter 31
None

BOOK 2

Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
None

Chapter 6

טז  וְהָיָה אֲרוֹן יְהוָה, בָּא עִיר דָּוִד; וּמִיכַל בַּת-שָׁאוּל נִשְׁקְפָה בְּעַד הַחַלּוֹן, וַתֵּרֶא אֶת-הַמֶּלֶךְ דָּוִד מְפַזֵּז וּמְכַרְכֵּר לִפְנֵי יְהוָה, וַתִּבֶז לוֹ, בְּלִבָּהּ.

16 And it was so, as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, that Michal the daughter of Saul looked out at the window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart.

Chapter 7

וַיֹּאמֶר נָתָן אֶל-הַמֶּלֶךְ, כֹּל אֲשֶׁר בִּלְבָבְךָ לֵךְ עֲשֵׂה:  כִּי יְהוָה, עִמָּךְ.

3 And Nathan said to the king: 'Go, do all that is in thy heart; for the LORD is with thee.'

כא  בַּעֲבוּר דְּבָרְךָ, וּכְלִבְּךָ, עָשִׂיתָ, אֵת כָּל-הַגְּדוּלָּה הַזֹּאת--לְהוֹדִיעַ, אֶת-עַבְדֶּךָ.

21 For Thy word's sake, and according to Thine own heart, hast Thou wrought all this greatness, to make Thy servant know it.

כז  כִּי-אַתָּה יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, גָּלִיתָה אֶת-אֹזֶן עַבְדְּךָ לֵאמֹר, בַּיִת, אֶבְנֶה-לָּךְ; עַל-כֵּן, מָצָא עַבְדְּךָ אֶת-לִבּוֹ, לְהִתְפַּלֵּל אֵלֶיךָ, אֶת-הַתְּפִלָּה הַזֹּאת.

27 For Thou, O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, hast revealed to Thy servant, saying: I will build thee a house; therefore hath Thy servant taken heart to pray this prayer unto Thee.

Chapter 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
None

Chapter 13

כ  וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלֶיהָ אַבְשָׁלוֹם אָחִיהָ, הַאֲמִינוֹן אָחִיךְ הָיָה עִמָּךְ, וְעַתָּה אֲחוֹתִי הַחֲרִישִׁי אָחִיךְ הוּא, אַל-תָּשִׁיתִי אֶת-לִבֵּךְ לַדָּבָר הַזֶּה; וַתֵּשֶׁב תָּמָר וְשֹׁמֵמָה, בֵּית אַבְשָׁלוֹם אָחִיהָ.

20 And Absalom her brother said unto her: 'Hath Amnon thy brother been with thee? but now hold thy peace, my sister: he is thy brother; take not this thing to heart.' So Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absalom's house.

כח  וַיְצַו אַבְשָׁלוֹם אֶת-נְעָרָיו לֵאמֹר, רְאוּ נָא כְּטוֹב לֵב-אַמְנוֹן בַּיַּיִן וְאָמַרְתִּי אֲלֵיכֶם הַכּוּ אֶת-אַמְנוֹן וַהֲמִתֶּם אֹתוֹ--אַל-תִּירָאוּ:  הֲלוֹא, כִּי אָנֹכִי צִוִּיתִי אֶתְכֶם--חִזְקוּ, וִהְיוּ לִבְנֵי-חָיִל.

28 And Absalom commanded his servants, saying: 'Mark ye now, when Amnon's heart is merry with wine; and when I say unto you: Smite Amnon, then kill him, fear not; have not I commanded you? be courageous, and be valiant.'

לג  וְעַתָּה אַל-יָשֵׂם אֲדֹנִי הַמֶּלֶךְ אֶל-לִבּוֹ, דָּבָר לֵאמֹר, כָּל-בְּנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ, מֵתוּ:  כִּי-אם (  ) אַמְנוֹן לְבַדּוֹ, מֵת.  {פ}

33 Now therefore let not my lord the king take the thing to his heart, to think that all the king's sons are dead; for Amnon only is dead.' {P}

Chapter 14

א  וַיֵּדַע, יוֹאָב בֶּן-צְרֻיָה:  כִּי-לֵב הַמֶּלֶךְ, עַל-אַבְשָׁלוֹם.

1 Now Joab the son of Zeruiah perceived that the king's heart was toward Absalom.

Chapter 15

ו  וַיַּעַשׂ אַבְשָׁלוֹם כַּדָּבָר הַזֶּה, לְכָל-יִשְׂרָאֵל, אֲשֶׁר-יָבֹאוּ לַמִּשְׁפָּט, אֶל-הַמֶּלֶךְ; וַיְגַנֵּב, אַבְשָׁלוֹם, אֶת-לֵב, אַנְשֵׁי יִשְׂרָאֵל.  {פ}

6 And on this manner did Absalom to all Israel that came to the king for judgment; so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. {P}

יג  וַיָּבֹא, הַמַּגִּיד, אֶל-דָּוִד, לֵאמֹר:  הָיָה לֶב-אִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל, אַחֲרֵי אַבְשָׁלוֹם.

13 And there came a messenger to David, saying: 'The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom.'

Chapter 16
None

Chapter 17

י  וְהוּא גַם-בֶּן-חַיִל, אֲשֶׁר לִבּוֹ כְּלֵב הָאַרְיֵה--הִמֵּס יִמָּס:  כִּי-יֹדֵעַ כָּל-יִשְׂרָאֵל כִּי-גִבּוֹר אָבִיךָ, וּבְנֵי-חַיִל אֲשֶׁר אִתּוֹ.

10 then even he that is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a lion, will utterly melt; for all Israel knoweth that thy father is a mighty man, and they that are with him are valiant men.

Chapter 18

יד  וַיֹּאמֶר יוֹאָב, לֹא-כֵן אֹחִילָה לְפָנֶיךָ; וַיִּקַּח שְׁלֹשָׁה שְׁבָטִים בְּכַפּוֹ, וַיִּתְקָעֵם בְּלֵב אַבְשָׁלוֹם--עוֹדֶנּוּ חַי, בְּלֵב הָאֵלָה.

14 Then said Joab: 'I may not tarry thus with thee.' And he took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the terebinth.

Chapter 19

ח  וְעַתָּה קוּם צֵא, וְדַבֵּר עַל-לֵב עֲבָדֶיךָ:  {ס}  כִּי בַיהוָה נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי כִּי-אֵינְךָ יוֹצֵא, אִם-יָלִין אִישׁ אִתְּךָ הַלַּיְלָה, וְרָעָה לְךָ זֹאת מִכָּל-הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר-בָּאָה עָלֶיךָ, מִנְּעֻרֶיךָ עַד-עָתָּה.  {ס}

8 Now therefore arise, go forth, and speak to the heart of thy servants; {S} for I swear by the LORD, if thou go not forth, there will not tarry a man with thee this night; and that will be worse unto thee than all the evil that hath befallen thee from thy youth until now.' {S}

טו  וַיַּט אֶת-לְבַב כָּל-אִישׁ-יְהוּדָה, כְּאִישׁ אֶחָד; וַיִּשְׁלְחוּ, אֶל-הַמֶּלֶךְ, שׁוּב אַתָּה, וְכָל-עֲבָדֶיךָ.

15 And he bowed the heart of all the men of Judah, even as the heart of one man; so that they sent unto the king: 'Return thou, and all thy servants.'

Chapter 20, 21, 22, 23
None

Chapter 24

י  וַיַּךְ לֵב-דָּוִד אֹתוֹ, אַחֲרֵי-כֵן סָפַר אֶת-הָעָם;  {פ} וַיֹּאמֶר דָּוִד אֶל-יְהוָה, חָטָאתִי מְאֹד אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי, וְעַתָּה יְהוָה הַעֲבֶר-נָא אֶת-עֲו‍ֹן עַבְדְּךָ, כִּי נִסְכַּלְתִּי מְאֹד.

10 And David's heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. {P} And David said unto the LORD: 'I have sinned greatly in what I have done; but now, O LORD, put away, I beseech Thee, the iniquity of Thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.'

First Year of Teaching is OVER

This year was hard.

But then, a teacher's first year of teaching is probably always hard.

I learned a lot- these are just some bullet points.

* Be consistent
* Be explicit (in directions, expectations - you need to be EXTREMELY clear and specific)
* Do your best to distance yourself from mean statements or words that you know to be untrue (accept critique but do not accept criticism that is not phrased in a constructive way)
*  If you say you will do something, do it. The kids will remember it.
* More than what you actually taught, the kids will remember HOW you taught it. What was your attitude like? Were you passionate about it? Were you kind?
*  Kids are not our idealized versions of them. They are real breathing human beings and sometimes they can be mean. You will have to determine limits and what behavior or actions are unacceptable to you.
* It is okay if some kids hate you. You are teaching to try to get material and knowledge across, not in order to win a popularity contest or to be validated by students.
*  Lessons must be flexible.
*  If you've never taught before and it's your first year of teaching, read 'The First Days of School' before embarking on the journey.
* You will cry before the year is over. This is normal. (See article below that was helpful in this regard).
* You will also want to kill someone before the year is over (this could range from yourself to uncooperative others). This is also normal.
*  Some of your students will come to you at the end of the year to tell you that they want you to be their teacher again next year, and this will make you feel better about yourself. It will also make you feel like maybe you have done something right.
~
This is an article I found helpful that was forwarded to me by my mentor this year:


I'm Just Surviving Right Now                
by Emma McDonald

As a new teacher are you feeling as though you aren't living up to your own expectations of what a teacher should be and do? Are you feeling a sense of despair that perhaps you aren't cut out to be a classroom teacher? Do you wonder if your administrator and the other veteran teachers in your school are second guessing the decision to hire you? If you are feeling this way, then you are not alone. The majority of new teachers experience these same feelings during their first year of teaching. Some continue to experience these feelings during their second year as well.

Why is it that you started the year with energy and excitement, but now you feel as though all of the energy has been drained out of you? Research completed by Dr. Mark Littleton of Tarleton State University shows that beginning educators hit a period of disillusionment that begins around November and lasts through January or February. The realities of what teaching really entails is so different from what most new teachers imagine - the politics, the lack of support, and the energy required.

Student teaching offers a small taste of the life of a teacher, but sometimes the full dish is simply too overwhelming. This is also normal. It will get better. Right now you are drained from trying to learn everything as quickly as possible so that you can provide the best possible education to your students. It isn't just about teaching lessons, you have had to learn how to interact with the other staff, the students, and the parents. You've also had to learn the policies and procedures of the school, both written and unwritten. All of these little details cannot be fully experienced as a student teacher and can be overwhelming. Just think about it this way - your brain is trying to absorb, process, and use an incredible amount of information and skills. As a new teacher you are not given time to absorb each part one at a time - you have to absorb it all at once. This takes an enormous amount of energy and as such is very draining physically, mentally, and emotionally. As you continue, it will get better - we promise! Below are some tips and thoughts to help you make it through a period of disillusionment.

Use holiday breaks to recharge. Over Thanksgiving break, don't do anything school related. Take the time to get your lessons and your classroom ready (board set up, materials out, lesson plan on desk) for the Monday after Thanksgiving so that you can do this. Don't take papers home to grade either. Leave everything at school. It will feel strange, but you can do it. Walk out of your classroom the day before your Thanksgiving break with just personal items. Over the break do the things that you enjoy - visiting friends, going to the gym, reading a book YOU want to read, seeing a movie, and so on.

 For winter break, you want to take at least a week to do nothing at all but relax. Then, take the next week to think about what worked for you last semester and what you want to do differently next semester. While it doesn't seem so right now, by the end of winter break you'll be ready to try new ideas in the classroom.

Here are a few more thoughts:

 *   Don't stress out that you aren't Mr. or Ms. Innovation in the classroom. Right now you are still in survival mode. If you feel as though you need to be doing fun creative things in your classroom, then pick ONE activity or one lesson to be creative. The entire day does not have to be full of innovative creative activities. That can be overwhelming to your students as much as it is to you.

 *   Right now you must actively think about each aspect of the classroom - managing behavior, planning lessons, lesson flow, transitions, closure, interactions with students and staff, school paperwork and procedures, etc. The longer you stay in the classroom, the more some of these issues will become instinctual and habit. You won't have to actively think about behavior management strategies - you'll just do them. You won't have to think about lesson flow or transitions - they'll just happen. At that point you'll find that you have more energy and excitement to try new activities and new strategies in your classroom.

 *   You won't be a Master teacher overnight and no one expects you to, so stop expecting that of yourself. The job of your professors in school was to give you as much of an overview of effective teaching as possible. This doesn't mean they expected you to start your new job with the knowledge and experience of a Master teacher. Becoming an effective teacher and a Masterteacher is a journey - just like everything else in life. Right now you are at the first step of that journey. Don't beat yourself up because you are not yet at step 150 of that journey. Accept where you are, do your best, and when you feel ready - move forward.

 *   One way to do this is to set one goal per year or one goal per semester and work towards that. Right now your goal is to survive through the end of the semester. Over winter break set a new goal. What do you want to accomplish professionally for yourself over the course of the next semester? Right now you don't want to think of that, so put it aside and think about it over winter break.

 *   Don't talk to non-teachers about your concerns and feelings about teaching. They won't understand. You need to find another new teacher who is experiencing the same thing, or even better would be a 2nd or 3rd year teacher who has made it past the firsthurtle but still remembers what it feels like to be overwhelmed, stressed out, and tired all the time.

 *   If your administrator has an open door policy and has encouraged you to come by and talk, don't be embarrassed to go to him or her with questions, especially to check on your progress. Obviously you don't want to go in and ask every little question that pops into your head, but it doesn't hurt to ask for clarification. It especially doesn't hurt (and will help you in the long run) to ask what he or she expects to see in the classroom. If the principal discusses a strategy in faculty meetings, make an appointment later to talk one-on-one about that strategy. Explain how you interpreted the information and then ask if you are on the right track. Your administrator will let you know what it is he or she is looking for. It is also okay to talk to your administrator about where he or she thinks you are professionally - Do you think I'm on target with my teaching? Is there something I should be doing differently? Are there any glaring issues that you feel I need to think about and work on right now? Think of it as a status check. Be honest, and let him and her know that right now you still feel in survival mode, but hope it will get better. Your administrator will probably agree and encourage you, which will help you feel better about the situation.

 *   Crying at least once a week is perfectly normal. Crying every day after school is also perfectly normal. Again, you are going through an intense physical, mental, and emotional time in your life - teaching is not easy. Crying is one way your body releases tension and stress. So go ahead and enjoy a good crying jag. When you're finished, take a deep breath, pull yourself together, and remember that it will get better. You are making a difference in the lives of your students, even if it doesn't feel like it.

 *   Don't quit, even if you feel like it. Make a commitment to stick with teaching through at least the end of your second year. I think you'll find that by the time you hit the end of your second year everything will seem much easier and you won't want to quit.

    Being a new teacher is tough and stressful. You will make it through this stage, though, with determination and persistence. Each year gets better. Before you know it a new teacher will be looking at YOU for guidance and help. For now just do your best and keep your chin up.

Vote CHAIA to be TAC Vice President!

My sister is sweet and hilarious and has decided to campaign for the title of TAC (Torah Activities Council) Vice President on the streets of Chicago....vote for her!

Response To The FlyerTalk Forum

I thought that no one in FlyerTalk was interested in doing anything except scolding me until I read the post written by MrAndy1369 who said exactly what I was trying to convey- that both I and AA were in the wrong. That having been said, I thought I would address some of the questions people had/ points people made, as maybe they were being sincere.

1. We could not fly Thursday night. It was not possible due to my husband's schedule. If we could have flown on Thursday, we would have and we would then have avoided the debacle of flying on Friday.

2. $324 for a round-trip ticket, while not necessarily expensive from the point of view of someone who is a businessman, is expensive on a teacher's salary.

3. We are aware (which is why we said so in the blogpost) that it is OUR FAULT that we were late to the airport. We take full responsibility for that. Regarding check-in of baggage, in other airports we've flown in (such as LGA and ORD), you can check baggage on the same floor as the security check-in and gatepoint is at. We weren't familiar with this airport and thus didn't know we would have to go to the third floor to check in baggage.

4. The section where I describe the situation that occurred regarding check-in, the patdown and so forth was not intended to blame AA. It was just intended to show that things kept going from bad to worse and that we were becoming more frustrated due to what was happening.

5. We had not known that airlines reserve the right to allow their planes to leave 15 minutes early. This is why we were surprised (and upset) to discover the plane left at 8:10am rather than 8:20am, when it was scheduled to leave.

6. We were not told the airport was doing us a special favor by putting us on standby. This was treated as being the routine procedure/ next step. This is why we did not know being put on standby was a privilege. It is also why we felt 'entitled' (to use your term) to fly.

7. We did try to pay more money to book tickets on a different AA flight rather than just staying on standby. No flights were available.

8. We did not, contrary to your impression, yell at people in the airport, swear at them or otherwise insult them. We just explained to them what had happened and what our needs were in order to be able to fly that day (leaving on the 3:40 pm flight at the latest). And then I got emotional (started crying) when I saw that there didn't seem a way for this to happen. That's it.

9. When it comes to the part most of you are vehemently upset about, namely that I would like AA to perhaps take into account the customer's religion- as I said, they don't have to do that. I'm aware of that. I just think it would have been nice as a gesture of goodwill to do that. I think it would have made a great story that I would have been happy to share about how kind, caring and accommodating and easy-to-work-with they were. I was also frustrated because with the exception of one woman, the people at the gates did not say, "I am sorry to hear your story although I cannot help you" but instead just said tersely "It's your fault you missed your flight." Just hearing that someone cared about our situation, even if they couldn't help us, would have made us a lot happier. It's about customer service and what could have been- but wasn't.

10. The rest of this has to do with mistakes AA made. The woman named Pamela said we could still fly the second round of our flight, we did not receive any email, call or text saying it was cancelled, did not know it was cancelled and indeed received an email saying our flight was available for check-in. All of this was extremely misleading. This is why AA sent us vouchers.

11. Finally, I am extremely appreciative to AA for the vouchers and would like to post the email they sent us to show an example of kind and respectful customer service. This is why I emailed them to thank them and ask whether it would be okay to post their email, since it says the information in it is confidential. I have not received a response from them yet.

The reason I didn't really respond to you before this was because so many of you were so busy attacking me and just making me out to be a 'kettle' and 'do you know who I am' foaming-at-the-mouth person (which I'm not) that it didn't seem to be worth it. But since MrAndy1369 was kind, I'm taking the time to respond.

The Lightning Strike

I discovered a new song by "Snow Patrol." It's called 'The Lightning Strike' and has three parts. Part 1 is called 'What If This Storm Ends?' Part 2 is called 'The Sunlight Through the Flags.' Part 3 is called 'Daybreak.'

Of course, of the three I only like Part 1. I like the chaos and darkness and the illumination of the savior figure. I don't generally like the calm after the storm. The storm itself is more exciting. That's the trouble with people who love literature, generally. We love all the roiling and darkness and tumult. Resolutions can bore and generally signify the end of a book. (Unless, of course, the resolution has a twist, or is bittersweet. Then I like it.)

Of course, one must take care to ensure that one's actual life is not merely a quest to create trouble in order to have the experience of living through it. This is more difficult than one would think. If you feel most alive in the midst of a storm, you would want to go storm-hunting. To sit back and say 'Let me refrain from that' is difficult.

This is nothing new, of course. In Judaism, self control is seen as the greatest indication that one is strong. 'Who is strong? One who conquers his inclination.' Especially in our modern-day society, this is not easy.

I love these lyrics:

Painted in flames
All peeling thunder
Be the lightning in me
That strikes relentless

What that comes back to is the need to be awoken. Most of us crave awakening. We need to be awakened from the dullness of our lives, which is why we look to literature, films or music to shock our systems. I sometimes think of it as similar to the way that you have to shock the heart, when it is failing, back into its rhythm. The difficulty is that we always crave more sensation, more stimulation. It's like drugs- you start off with a bit, and then you become addicted.

We joke sometimes about being addicted to drama, but I think that the reason some of us accept the flashiness and explosions of media is because we sense a lacking deep within ourselves. We are looking for something to awaken us and we haven't found it yet. In the meantime, to quell that sense, we watch things blow up and hope that will suffice.

It won't.

The Real Story About Round-Trip Airline Tickets

UPDATE on April 10: American Airlines responded to our complaint and gave us vouchers. I emailed to ask whether I can post the full content of their email. I was very happy to finally get to have someone listen to us.

I've written a response to the FlyerTalk forum addressing your points here.

~

My husband and I are in the midst of having an extremely unpleasant experience with American Airlines during this Passover break. My husband is a law student and I am a teacher. We are not the wealthiest of consumers. However, we were excited and looking forward to our Passover vacation, which is why we booked expensive round-trip tickets at $324 per person out of DC heading to Chicago on Friday, April 9 at 8:20am.

We decided to save some money by taking the bus to the metro to the airport. This was a big mistake as we ended up in the airport at 7:50am. (Yes, we freely admit it was our fault that we were late to the airport). Nevertheless, since our flight was at 8:20am, we figured we'd still make it. After all, we were there a half an hour in advance. We tried to get in line to check in but then were told that the place to check baggage was upstairs. We went upstairs and were told it was too late to check our baggage. We headed back downstairs with the baggage, which we were now told they would accommodate by allowing us to take as a carry-on. An airline lady was trying to assist us and she went on ahead to try to get to our flight while we went through the security checkpoint. During the checkpoint, they discovered liquid in our baggage-turned-carry on and decided to look through the entire suitcase. The TSA also asked me to remove my hat. When I explained that I was a religious Jew, they took me aside and had a female pat down my hat to make sure I wasn't carrying anything problematic within it. We wasted about 10-20 minutes during this time.

When we finally got to the gate, it was 8:10am. The person manning the gate informed us our flight had left without us, despite the fact that it had been scheduled to depart at 8:20am. I had not known that planes reserve the ability to depart 15 minutes before departure time (as we later found out when my husband spoke to the manager). The gentleman manning the gate told the woman who had tried to help us that she ought to have called ahead and he would have held the plane for us. I got extremely upset and started crying. The man told me that it wasn't a problem; he would just roll us on over to Standby.

We then endured waiting for the following American Airlines standby flights: 10:00am flight, 12:00pm flight, 2:10pm flight and finally the 3:40pm flight. (Yes, we were in the airport shuffling around for over 7 and 1/2 hours). Due to the fact that this was Easter, Good Friday and Passover all rolled into one, American Airlines had overbooked and oversold all their planes. What this meant is that we were consistently bumped to being #6, 7, 8 or 9 in the standby line because passengers with actual tickets were the first five people on the list.

My husband talked to the manager about our situation. She said that they could issue us a refund for our tickets and we could reschedule them for a different day, but that was it. This wasn't exactly an option due to the fact that Passover and Yom Tov was happening that evening.

So instead, we waited as time and time again we were not called as standby passengers. I became very emotional and told the lady manning the booth that if we did not get on the 3:40pm flight, we would end up stranded in DC because we were observant Jews. As observant Jews, we cannot fly after sundown, and the 3:40pm flight was the last flight that would enable us to get into Chicago with enough time for us to get home before sundown. The lady said she would try to get us out of there but guess what...once again, we weren't called.

At around 3pm, I decided we needed to find a different way to get out of there- since American Airlines wasn't allowing us to rebook our tickets or fly standby. We booked one-way tickets on a 3:35pm United Airlines flight. It cost us $600 total. We got to Chicago in time to celebrate the Passover holiday.

Meanwhile, my father called American Airlines and spoke with a woman named Pamela. He explained that we had missed the first leg of our round-trip flight and he wanted to know whether the returning leg of the trip still stood. She told him that yes, that would be fine, and we were good to go with no additional fees or changes. Reassured, my father went into Yom Tov with good and happy spirits.

Last night (April 8) after Yom Tov had concluded, my husband received an email saying 'Your Trip is Now Eligible for Check-In.' When we attempted to check in, we received a red warning saying that this ticket could not be processed online and that my husband would have to see a ticket agent. I was worried about this and decided to call the airlines to figure out what was going on. I was then informed that in fact, if you miss the first leg of your round trip ticket the entire ticket is void and gone. The only way to proceed is to pay the difference between the amount you paid for your round-trip ticket and what is now a one-way ticket, plus a $150 change fee.

We protested that a) my husband had been told by the American Airlines manager in DC that he could get a refund for the ticket b) my father had been told by Pamela that we could still take the second leg of the trip and c) we had at no time been notified of this policy. In fact, we had received the very misleading automated email that said 'Your Trip is Now Eligible For Check-In' which in no way informed us that in fact, our trip had been cancelled and was now gone and my husband's seat had likely been sold to someone else. (You can read more about this unpleasant and irrational phenomenon here and here). When speaking to two extremely unhelpful supervisors (especially the female one), we were informed that this information regarding the round trip policy had been in the fine print of the agreement we made with the airport when we purchased our tickets. Furthermore, she claimed that our first ticket had not been a standby ticket and that the airport had been doing us a favor when they tried to have us fly standby in the first place because they were under no obligation to do so.

Here are my questions on this matter:

1. Why is it that no one in DC, including the man who rolled us over to standby from our first missed flight, told us that they were doing us a favor and that this was not standard policy? We were told that this was standard.

2. Why is it that even though we explained to every single person that would listen that we were observant Jews and thus had a certain time past which we could not fly, that was not taken into consideration when it came to the order of passengers on the Standby list? There were other passengers who could easily have taken 5pm flights; we, on the other hand, could not.

3. Why did the American Airlines manager in DC claim that we could receive a refund on our ticket?

4. Why did Pamela tell my father that we could still fly the second leg of our trip even if we had missed the first leg of it?

I feel very frustrated by the lack of transparency and the unwillingness to work with the customer in this situation. When it comes to your driver's license, you amass points; it doesn't necessarily automatically get taken away the first time you are caught speeding. Yet even though this was the first time that I or my husband had ever missed a flight (and we've taken many flights on American Airlines), we were treated like we had deliberately attempted to defraud them.

Furthermore, while I am aware that it is not necessarily the airline's responsibility to accommodate the religious beliefs of its customers, surely if it had been explained to the people who were first in line on the standby list that there were two people who would literally be stranded without food they could eat for the Passover holiday unless they got on a flight by a certain time, they would have been willing to allow us to take their places. It would certainly have been nice of the airline to at least consider the religious customs of its consumers.

Third, while it may be true that the fine print that you click when you buy a ticket online tells you this information about your not being able to take the second leg of your flight if you miss the first leg of your flight, I would wager that the majority of consumers do not know this unless they are frequent flyers. Thus, there ought to be an automated system that sends an immediate email notification to a customer who has missed their round-trip flight that says 'You have missed the first leg of your flight. Your round trip is now void. Please take the following steps to reschedule.' Had we received such a clear, transparent email about American Airline policies, we would then have been able to take the steps that would have prevented me from being in a situation where, since I reached out to them tonight, I was informed I would have to pay $400 on top of the $324 we had already paid in order to take a 6:40am flight tomorrow morning from Chicago to DC.

And fourth, there was no consistency when it came to the message we were given. The manager in DC claimed we could get a refund. Pamela said we could take the second leg of our flight and all would be well. The supervisors I talked to tonight told me that if you miss the first leg of your flight, you are screwed. Why is there not one clear, easy-to-read policy that every employee is aware of so that they can all give the same, non-contradictory answer?

What this comes down to is that my husband and I have now spent over $2000 to fly from Chicago to DC and back for this Passover holiday. We might as well have booked an international trip. And all of this because we missed....one flight.

The moral of the story? Never be late to the airport. But more importantly, never fly American Airlines.

Bully

Dear God,

So I sit here on my sofa starting at an empty room and I think to myself: I should be grading papers. But really what I focus on is that I wish "Smash" would hurry up and start playing because then I could focus on the glitz and the glamour and the story of the young ingenue-in-training, all of which would be a perfect escape from what I'm currently thinking. I like escapes, because they are another way of working on avoiding, and avoidance is important.

So I'm listening to "Breathless" by Dan Wilson and figuring I should say hi.

There's a new film coming out. It's called "Bully." It's a really important movie. And just watching the trailer brings back a lot of memories.

A lot of memories.

We never really outrun or outgrow our pasts, now do we? Instead we carry them with us, as the turtle carries his shell.

I will always be that sensitive kid. It was my weakness and now it's my strength. It's what makes television and movies and books a totally different experience for me than it is for most people. It's what makes me see through to issues and morals that others don't carry with them. It's what makes my life more difficult and more complicated. It's also what makes me hate confrontation and feel like my only option is to shut down when it comes to that. I don't cry anymore, but I laugh...nervously. Nervous laughter is my weapon of choice because I still don't have the tools for more sophisticated ones.

I find it ironic that I teach 7th grade. That was the worst grade of my existence, the loneliest grade of my existence, the year of my life I would never repeat over, not for all the money in the world. It's like in this, too, God takes my hand and shapes my life and says that out of ashes there will come the phoenix, and all things build on one another.

Because in my life, they always do. Don't they, God. Everything is just another step to take me to the next level in the drama in which I star.

Some days I see that fully, understand it, respect it, work with it. Other days I struggle.

There are the days where I feel like crying, but instead I laugh. In the face of an absurd and difficult existence, I laugh. I feel like Gandalf at the maw of the bridge. "You shall not pass," I declare to my Balrog. "I shall conquer you." I wander through catacombs and mazes in search of the path that will finally lead me out of here and into somewhere brighter. I will get there through sheer effort of will and of course, with Your help.

I have my "The Show Must Go On" days where I wonder, "Empty spaces- what are we living for?" But in the end, as always, I concede to the song and determine that indeed, the show must go on, the curtain must rise, and it's time to dance my way across the stage again. (To be sure, I sometimes invoke a bit of the Black Swan when I do so. No one ever pegged me for a cooperative mortal.)

Let there be meaning! is my warcry. For in the absence of any, I find that I fade.

Thanks for the lessons,
Chana

The Hunger Games Is Morally Bereft

I went to see "The Hunger Games." I found it sickening. This was surprising, given that I had read the book and found it to be moving, important and value-driven.

I'm trying to pin down what I found so horrifying about the movie adaptation. As I was considering, I remembered learning 2 Samuel 2:14 in 6th grade.

Here, too, murder is considered a game. Here, too, there are 24 people who must fight to the death. The difference is that they are grown men and 12 are on Avner's side representing Ishboshes and 12 are on Yoav's side representing David.

I remember that when we learned about the bloodbath that ensued, the teacher pounded it into our heads that this was a horrific tragedy and that both Yoav and Avner die horrible deaths in part because of the fact that they were too lenient with the lives of these men. Even if their intentions were only to have the men duel with one another, the fact that it turned into mass murder was considered their fault.

The difference between "The Hunger Games" movie adaptation and this section of Tanakh is that in the movie adaptation, Peeta and Katniss survive and seemingly, move on. We don't see their remorse. We don't see the nightmares that keep them awake at night. We don't see their grief and horror. We just see them smiling sweetly at Caesar on a talk show and then heading back to their district. We have to imagine their inner torment.

And that's where I think the movie gets it wrong. If your point is to show how violence is wrong and how children should not be in a position where they are killing other children, you can't leave the inner torment to the imagination. You have to demonstrate it. Show it. Let us see the toll it takes to be the survivor, even though the game is not of your making. Let us understand how horrible this is. Don't let our last image be of a triumphant Peeta and Katniss in a big poofy gown and a nice suit, heading home.

Kafka said that "a book should be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." But in order for a book- or a movie- to accomplish this, it needs to really be that axe. "The Hunger Games'" moral should be about the toll and horror that these games take on everyone, even and especially the survivors. Otherwise, what is the point? To have us root for District 12's potential love story? Is everything okay- all the macabre violence I just witnessed acceptable- so long as these two make it out alive?

I find that idea extremely troubling, and I think it is absolutely the wrong message to send to young kids. Perhaps I feel this more personally as someone who has read and learned so much about survivor's guilt due to its prevalence in Holocaust literature. But I think it's wrong to end such a disturbing movie on this seemingly happy note. If you're going to talk about horror, take the horror all the way through. Make it matter. Don't try to feed us the message that everything was bad, and kids killing kids was bad, but it's okay because these two nice-looking kids survived so it's all hunky-dory.

Granted, adults who understand subtleties and nuances will be able to fill in these gaps, but I'm willing to bet that most children won't. And that most kids will just leave talking about the Gale-Peeta-Katniss love triangle, untouched by the carnage that took place before their eyes. Which to me is simply a new means of teaching indifference of the highest degree- ironically, the exact antithesis of the presumed goals of these books and this movie.

Slaves and the Megillah

I was learning alongside a student of mine, who for purposes of this post will be called Yankel, when I realized the following thing.

It had always bothered me that Esther made the following statement:

ג וַתַּעַן אֶסְתֵּר הַמַּלְכָּה, וַתֹּאמַר--אִם-מָצָאתִי חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ הַמֶּלֶךְ, וְאִם-עַל-הַמֶּלֶךְ טוֹב: תִּנָּתֶן-לִי נַפְשִׁי בִּשְׁאֵלָתִי, וְעַמִּי בְּבַקָּשָׁתִי. 3 Then Esther the queen answered and said: 'If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request;
ד כִּי נִמְכַּרְנוּ אֲנִי וְעַמִּי, לְהַשְׁמִיד לַהֲרוֹג וּלְאַבֵּד; וְאִלּוּ לַעֲבָדִים וְלִשְׁפָחוֹת נִמְכַּרְנוּ, הֶחֱרַשְׁתִּי--כִּי אֵין הַצָּר שֹׁוֶה, בְּנֵזֶק הַמֶּלֶךְ. {ס} 4 for we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my peace, for the adversary is not worthy that the king be endamaged.' (Esther 7:3-4)

Why would Esther have been okay with having the Jews sold as slaves? It's obvious why she's not happy about their extermination, but why is slaving okay?

The answer to this question occurred to me due to my student reminding me of the following tale regarding Mordechai and Haman based on Megillah 15a: "There was a tradition that Mordecai once went with a deputation to the king of Persia to ask permission for the Jews to rebuild the Temple, v. Jast. [Rashi: One (Mordecai) came as a rich man, the other (Haman) as a debtor. Haman according to the legend had sold himself during one of the wars as a slave to Mordecai for a loaf of bread.]"

Per the more elaborate rendering of this legend in Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg, Mordechai used to show his shoe and/or his kneecap, where the contract had been written regarding Haman selling himself as a slave to Mordechai, which provoked him.

What is clear to me now is that Esther is saying the following: "I understand that Haman was incensed by Mordechai's constantly reminding him that he once sold himself as a slave to Mordechai. Therefore, it would have been understandable if Haman in return decided to enslave Mordechai and all the Jews. However, Haman has gone even farther than that and has decided to exterminate the Jews. At this point, I must step in."

Unorthodox

Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of 'Unorthodox.'

Deborah Feldman's memoir, Unorthodox, is a delicately painted portrait of her world, her questions and her struggle. Contrary to what others have said, the writing is even-handed and her portrayal of the Hasidic world is fair and accurate. Interestingly, her articles, interviews and comments online have come across as far more bitter than the actual memoir is. Her memoir paints a portrait while those articles express feelings; I believe this is what accounts for the difference.

This memoir is highly evocative and extremely well-written. Deborah's portraits of her Zeidy, Bubby, Aunt Chaya and friend Mindy are painted particularly well. It is easy to imagine the wealthy patriarch who refuses to spend money, the hard-working woman who finds solace and pleasure in her cooking and feeding of others, the cold, aloof, emotionally frigid woman who rules Deborah's life and the girl who was her confidante and fellow rebel but who ended up fitting into the system in the end. The cast of characters is not composed of stereotypes or archetypes but real people, with strengths and weaknesses that express themselves over the course of the story.

Deborah has a way of turning a phrase or giving salient details that paint an immediate picture in the reader's mind. This paragraph, for example, stood out to me:

Perhaps in an adult, eccentricity is more easily forgiven. But who can explain an adult who hoards cake for months, until the smell of mold is unbearable? Who can explain the row of bottles in the refrigerator, each containing the pink liquid antibiotics that children take, that my father insists on imbibing every day for some invisible illness that no doctor can detect? (Feldman 10)

Deborah's book tackles incredibly tough issues, ranging from the status of women within the Hasidic world to mental health, mental illness, abuse of power (in the specific case mentioned, by a mikvah lady who enjoys embarrassing young kallot), molestation and attempted rape, sexual dysfunction and the search for selfhood. Much of her narrative focuses on her wanting to feel control over her own destiny and ownership of herself. When she begins to wear clothing like jeans or smokes her first cigarette, this is a way for her to reclaim her ability to make decisions for herself- and to feel like she owns her body.

Deborah's mother was one of the women who participated in the film 'Trembling Before God.' She either left or was deliberately made to leave the community for being a lesbian. However, Deborah was never told this- she was only told that her mother had left, and when pressed, that she had had a nervous breakdown. In another section, Deborah addresses mental illness in the following way:

My father wasn't the first misfortune to befall our family, and he wasn't the last. Only recently my uncle Shulem's son went insane at the age of seventeen. Baruch's nervous collapse hit Zeidy especially hard. He had been the prodigy of his family; his rabbis and teachers praised him for his outstanding Talmudic genius. By the time Baruch was diagnosed with acute paranoid schizophrenia, he had lost the ability to form coherent sentences, speaking in a strange language no one could comprehend. Zeidy kept him locked up in a room in his office for months, slipping trays of food that Bubby had prepared through a little slot in the door. He didn't want to release him, fearing the damage that could be done to our family if we had another raving lunatic roaming around Williamsburg. One night Baruch got out somehow, smashing through the door with his fists, emerging with bloody gashes on his arms. His screams were guttural; they burst endlessly out of his throat like those of a wild animal in pain. He destroyed everything he could get his hands on. They had to wrestle him down in the hallway, the paramedics, and sedate him. I watched from the upstairs landing, tears streaming down my face.

Later, when Bubby finished cleaning up the mess he had left, she sat white-faced at the kitchen table. I heard her whispering into the phone as I folded dish towels. He had defecated everywhere, leaving neat piles of stool on the carpet. My heart hurt for Bubby, who had never thought it was a good idea to keep Baruch locked up downstairs but had acquiesced like she did every time Zeidy made a unilateral decision.

Still, I understood why Zeidy had acted the way he did; in our community it was unheard of to place a mentally ill person in an institution. How could we trust an asylum run by gentiles to care for a Hasidic Jew and meet his needs? Even the insane are not exempt from the laws and customs of Judaism. In a way, Zeidy was brave to undertake the care of Baruch's soul, even though he was ill equipped to deal with the effects of his psychosis. (Feldman 41-42)

Something I found odd but interesting was that despite her claim to want individuality, at the end of the day, what Deborah really wanted was to conform to something else. She wasn't very good at conforming to the world she was born into, but she expresses deep relief and happiness at being able to conform to secular America.

When a literary agent informs Deborah that she is nothing like she expected, Deborah is "secretly overjoyed to hear her confirmation, to know that I blend in here, that I look just like everyone else. To think, on the Upper East Side, I finally know what it feels like to not stand out in the way I always have" (Feldman 240).

Later, Deborah writes:

I'm wearing jeans and a V-neck, and my hair is long and straight and snakes around my shoulder to dangle like a thick, dark ribbon down my side. I must look just like everyone else here. Finally, the blessed feeling of anonymity, of belonging; are they not the same? Can anyone see past my nonchalant poise to the nervous joy underneath? (Feldman 241)

To me, this desire to conform is sad. Despite everything she writes about being an individualist, in the end of the day, all that Deborah wants is a society to which she feels she can conform, unlike the society in which she was raised.

While Deborah realizes by the end of her work that she can keep aspects of her past with her, and even be proud of them, I think this deep-rooted wish to conform and not to stand out is one of the lingering negative aspects of her upbringing. It seems to me that Deborah still has more steps to take and strides to make in reclaiming her individuality - so that she can be different from her society but not totally in step with American secular society, either.

Cult of Personality & Female Abusers

As the issue of emotional abuse by a particular rabbi has been tackled by The Jewish Week, different thoughts have been running through my mind. The two most frequent: 1) We have created a cult of personality that leads to people in positions of power taking advantage of our children. 2) Every article or book currently out in the Orthodox world addresses the issue of male (usually rabbinic) abuse. Why have the female abusers not been mentioned?

With regard to the cult of personality, I think this is part and parcel with the points made in Dr. Hayyim Soloveichik's 'Rupture and Reconstruction.' He talks about our preference for texts and textual sources post-Holocaust. Well, post-Holocaust our veneration for those who are intimately versed in those texts has also grown. In order to rejuvenate Jewry, different strategies came into place. One of these was the creation of informal education youth groups such as NCSY and the other was the creation of the post-high school gap year at a yeshiva or seminary in Israel.

Everyone knows about the potential for the power wielded by the charismatic kiruv rebbe to be abused (see Baruch Lanner). But though we joke about the seminary/ yeshiva flip out reactions, until this article in The Jewish Week, I don't think people viewed the fact that we relinquish our students into the care of people we don't know in Israel as problematic. I have personally always felt distaste for this system and the amount of (disturbing) power wielded by these seminary rabbis and morahs. I have seen students at Stern who would call these people to discuss relationships, engagements and dates and who had these people veto or advocate for prospective suitors. I think the fact that students have created a culture of giving their brain over to these morahs/ rabbis is really disturbing. There are some decisions you really ought to have autonomy over and your seminary rabbi who you had a crush on has no business interfering.

Books that have explored the year in Israel phenomenon say that often the students grow because they feel like they are finally experiencing authentic Judaism. They meet people who can serve as their role models. And yet these same role models sometimes advocate for the children to stay a second year in Israel against their parents' wishes, give up their college aspirations, go to kollel rather than work a job etc. I do not think disturbing peace between family members and students should be the role of a rabbi. A rabbi and a guide needs to be a responsible person. You need to use texts responsibly, teach responsibly and meddle in family politics (if you feel it's your place to meddle) responsibly. Fervent zealotry has its place, but that place is not working with impressionable teenagers.

Aside from the issue of the cult of personality that we have fostered within Judaism, there is the issue of who exactly we are reaming out as abusers. I am glad that we are speaking openly about the flaws within the system, but not once (not once!) have I read an article talking about a woman who is abusive. Now, it's possible that most women within our community aren't slapping the teenage girls under their care, but they come up with more insidious ways to abuse them. The worst is what I call religious abuse. They use religion as an abuse textbook. They say things like, "Sweetie, I'm just worried about your neshama. You used to be so tznius. What happened? Is it those friends of yours? I just feel like you're slipping. I'm always available to help, you know, if you want to talk to me." The school that I went to included a teacher who was totally unsuitable. She was verbally abusive to me and others. Why is it that she and people like her get a free pass? Why are we focusing specifically on the men? There are women who have ruined the lives of many Bais Yaakov girls. When will we comment on the impact that they are having, the fact that they rip their students' self-esteem to shreds and pit them against each other for their approval?

Aquifers

Heshy: Do you know what aquifers are? I'm learning the laws of aquifers.

Chana: Yes.

Heshy: If the surface tract is on their land, they can use the water.

Chana: My heart goes out to all men obsessed with aquifers.

Heshy: It should. They lead miserable lives.

~

(Chana takes pizza out of oven)

Heshy: Oh, baby.

Chana: You make strange noises.

Heshy: (smiles) Is this a general rule?