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Time is passing quickly! The Jewish High Holidays were a beautiful season of reflection and meaning and now we move into a season of our rejoicing in the sukkah. I’m quite proud of myself that I did not assemble our sukkah this year. It’s just too hot outside and takes a great deal of my time and effort. (I recently did some garden work and came inside with a huge headache, dehydrated and feeling awful. I prefer not to repeat that experience.) Instead, we will fulfill the commandment by sitting in someone else’s sukkah!
I am enjoying three weeks off of school for the holidays, so I’ve had lots of time to read!
Only Yesterday by S.Y. Agnon — This is the novel that brought Israeli writer Agnon his Nobel Prize in Literature. I heard about it 3.5 years ago when I was in Israel, and it took me this long to finally read it. Written in 1945, it tells about a simple man who immigrates to Palestine in the Second Aliya between 1904 and 1914. It’s a surrealist tale that wanders through many stages and is nothing like what the main character (or I) expected. I’m sure there is a good deal of symbolism and nuance that I didn’t pick up on.
The Secret of Love: A Glimpse into the Mystical Wisdom of Rav Kook by Aryeh Ben David — According to Rav Kook, love flows from our souls and brings oneness to the world. I’ve been enjoying Aryeh’s online community for about three years now, taking his classes based on Rav Kook’s private journals. This book is about this, but also how Aryeh’s own life has been transformed through his encounters with Rav Kook’s writing, becoming more patient and loving. The book has many prompts asking how we could become better versions of ourselves and more of a force of oneness in the world.
Yes, Your Teen is Crazy!: Loving Your Kid Without Losing Your Mind by Michael J. Bradley — This book has gone a long way to reassure me that I’m doing ok as a parent. Mr. B definitely misses the sweet, agreeable young girl we had, but has fostered a new and different relationship with our teenager. The onslaught of hormonal, neurological, and physical changes must be overwhelming to a teen, and this book is a guide to understanding this new, often unpredictable, person and to remaining the stable and loving parent they need.
So much of effective teenage parenting is counter-intuitive. Beginning with much humor about the state of the adolescent brain, journeying forward about the importance of trust and respect and finishing with specific guidance for many situations (I appreciated the pages about how to foster academic success), Bradley helped me see the differences between my responsibilities as a parent and my child’s responsibilities, especially in how best to foster learning and growth.
“If you judge a teen’s experience based on your own view of the world, you’ll do no good and possibly a lot of harm to your kid. If you can open your mind and listen ten without judgment, you’ve taken the first step to helping-but it can be very hard to listen to something that sounds nuts.”
“Long-term, high-level academic achievement is a marathon run, not a sprint. It is an event best mastered by kids who possess qualities like self-awareness (identity), emotional resilience (identity), positive outlook (identity), persistence (identity), and self-directedness (identity). In other words, it’s a game for folks who have consolidated their identities. If you think back to our discussions of identity-building, you’ll recall how one good way to impair that identity process is to either over- or under-control your kid. The magic is in the balance.”
Putting these here for my own future reference:
- She must attend and she must pass, but it must be up to her to decide to strive for excellence. This is so for a number of reasons. First, as with religion, this is something, ultimately, you can’t force.
- If you review that list of characteristics that breed long-term academic success, you’ll see that building those qualities is done with that dispassionate engagement approach. Your kid learns to make good decisions when you allow her to sometimes make bad ones.
- Incessantly grinding your child down for the sake of grades will not instill the life-long love of learning that characterizes people who achieve long-term academic success. More likely, your kid will come to hate school and everything associated with it if you become the prison warden.
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird — I wanted to read this biography of Oppenheimer at the suggestion of a new friend who was impressed by it, and I can easily see why it won a Pulitzer. I learned a great deal about his early life and his humanity in this (rather too lengthy) well-researched portrayal of a genius. That he foresaw the dangers for humanity of atomic science and passionately tried to avert catastrophe and encourage international openness makes him very relatable and admirable.
The Lilac Tree: A Rabbi’s Reflections on Love, Courage, and History by Ammiel Hirsch — Hirsch is a Reform rabbi at the Stephen S. Wise synagogue in Manhattan, and I first heard some of his sermons via YouTube because of a Gratz course. Judaism has something to teach about every human condition, and I find these reflections on faith, activism, learning, and the future to be relevant and full of wisdom and peacefulness. Hirsch answers the question, “How do we give meaning and purpose to our infinitesimal smallness within the colossal bigness of the universe?”
“Until the modern era, the human problem was hot to align ourselves to the reality of the world. We did that through discipline, morals, justice, a sense of right and wrong, and an intuition of the eternal. Now, so many expect to align the world to themselves.”
“The meaning of life is a life of meaning. The purpose of life is a life of purpose. The energy of life is a life of energy. Commitment to life is a life of commitment. Devotion to life is a life of devotion. The promise of life is a life of promise.”
The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez — I really enjoyed this one – a love story through a sweet dog. It sounds so trite, but I thought it was deeply meaningful as well as realistic, at least as far as the difficulty of trusting someone new after a heartbreaking loss.
How We Fight For Our Lives: A Memoir by Saeed Jones — The story of a young black and gay boy in the south, with lots to overcome. Jones tells his story in a poetic fashion, with a difficult childhood and adolescence, alternating between his reality and who he most strives to become.
It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs by Mary Louise Kelly — A true telling of the tension between working and parenting. I listened to Kelly read this on audio and enjoyed her poignant reflections about being present during her son’s last year living at home, interspersed with memories of his birth and childhood. Kelly tells fascinating stories about her career at NPR, as well as her future empty nest. Honestly, my favorite parts were behind the scenes of war reporting, but her motherhood memories had me in tears and have reminded me to stay present in every single moment.
The Dream, the Journey, Eternity, and God: Channeled Answers to Life’s Deepest Questions by Sara Landon and Mike Dooley — Whatever you think of the concept of the book, believe me that you should read this because it’s such a reassuring way to view the world right now and living your purpose. I read this quite slowly, over a few months actually, because there is a lot of substance here. Basically, this is a guide to living and thinking on a higher level, not focused on separation and lack but on how interconnected everything is. I have over a hundred parts highlighted, which you can see on Goodreads, but here are a few of my favorites:
What you focus on creates your reality – “You have the freedom to choose the thoughts that you are thinking, the stories that you are telling, and the level of consciousness in which you are focused.”
“If you can, embrace the perspective that whatever is going on is happening for you, not to you.” This is very Jewish.
“As you shift your focus away from warring, chaos, and division, and stop trying to change people and situations, and stop arguing about who’s right and wrong, you will be elevating your consciousness into a place of inspiration that allows you to perceive optimal potentials for resource-sharing and exchange systems based in understanding one’s own worth and value.”
“Never forget: allow your worthiness to be known by you. Are you worthy of it all coming to you with ease? Are you worthy of doing what you love and having everything else figure itself out? Are you worthy of doing what you most enjoy doing, for you? It doesn’t matter if anyone else approves or likes it. Know your own worthiness to a level that you can be all that you are. And let it be easy and effortless.”
Arranged by Catherine McKenzie — I think I heard of this love story from a magazine recommendation and it really was engaging. Can you imagine agreeing to an arranged marriage? This was a quick read that was actually believable. Plus, it was well-written with likable characters and prompted me to ask myself what needless barriers to happiness I may have.
Golda Meir: Israel’s Matriarch By Deborah Lipstadt — When my rabbi mentioned this biography in his Kol Nidre sermon about the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, I went home and started reading it. I learned many new things about the years leading up to the creation of the state! In combination with Arc of a Covenant (see below), this book has given me a much more fleshed-out picture of that time. Always a fan of Deborah Lipstadt, I appreciate her balanced portrayal of one of Israel’s formative Labor Zionists and the few instances when she injected humor into her text. Not necessarily the best wife and mother, Meir built her own future with almost no support and with most people underestimating her. She was instrumental in building the social infrastructure of the state, as well as uniquely talented in connecting with American Jews to invoke a sense of shared responsibility. I enjoyed reading about the different perceptions that Israelis held about her, as well as their list of criticisms. Ultimately, she lived by her values and beliefs and spoke truth to power, and Lipstadt wonders in her Epilogue whether a man with her talents would have faced the same criticisms.
“Golda built her career on a synthesis of a variety of impulses: the fears she internalized in Russia, the unique life lessons she encountered in America, her profound sense of Jewish impotence during the Holocaust, her deep-seated conviction that Arabs want to deny Israel the right to exist, and her sense of betrayal by foreigners, whom she perceived as being ready to generously tell Israel what to do while being unwilling to help it at critical moments. Ultimately, all these strains were wound around a central fiber: her total devotion to the Zionist dream realized in a socialist context. For Golda, Zionism, socialism, and the equality that she fervently believed was embedded therein remained the foundations of her life.“
The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People by Walter Russell Mead — Along with Lipstadt’s Golda biography, I had my eyes opened to how the state of Israel was formed. I did not realize that the British were so against ostracizing the Arabs and thus put up barrier after barrier for the Jews, nor did I know that it was the Soviets who rescued Israel in its war for statehood in 1948 by allowing Czechoslovakia to sell them Nazi weapon overstock (the U.N. had an arms embargo in place).
Since the early 1800s, Jews in America and Europe were mostly anti-Zionist, focused as they were on acculturating to their new freedoms in their societies. This book is a thorough walk through the creation of the State, its early years when there was not an alliance with the U.S., into the 1960’s when that changed, as well as a heartfelt assessment of the challenges and tragedies for the Palestinian people and the likelihood of reconciliation. A bonus is that antisemitism on the left was finally explained in a way I now grasp. Ultimately, American policy toward Israel has a complex history and continues to be about far more than it seems.
Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell by Sy Montgomery — I have been waiting for this one to come out! Did you know that some turtles can live for hundreds of years? Yet it’s easy to see why they are endangered. Modern humans have introduced cars, poaching, pollution, habitat destruction, and climate change. Montgomery tells of her time at the Turtle Rescue League where she and illustrator and fellow turtle lover Matt Patterson help rescue injured turtles and learn about the rehabilitation process with their dedicated rescuers. Such a great read!
“I am nervous. Mine is a snapper nest, Natasha tells me, and to reach the topmost eggs, I may have to dig half a foot or more, past rocks, roots, dirt, and sand. I am fearful of piercing an egg. This is most likely to happen at the very moment you finally locate the nest cavity, as your finger pops through a hard layer of compacted sand, dirt, and rocks to the chamber itself. “It’s not just a hole,” Natasha tells me. “It’s a structure, with definite walls, and even a roof. You’ll know immediately when you find it.” I have dug down five inches and now am brushing away less than a quarter inch of sand at a time, using only the tips of my fingers. And then the first glimmer of shell appears. Until this moment, I didn’t fully believe they would be there. The eggs are perfectly round, about the size of Ping-Pong balls, and just as white. I look at them in startled wonder. I feel like a person who has never before looked into the night sky, who suddenly beholds—hanging right there!—the full moon. I gently lift the first egg I find, careful to keep the sphere perfectly level as I transfer it to the transporter, lest I slosh the contents and kill someone who could live over a century. And next to it, the sand reveals another, and then another ...
“I’ve uncovered twenty eggs by now, and I’m still digging. At the edge of the parking lot, my seat and thighs are baking. Sweat drips off my nose. Ants crawl up my hands, onto my arms, and under my shirt. “The ants are another reason we need to take these eggs,” Natasha reminds me. Her voice seems strangely far away. It is as if I’ve entered a reverse nesting trance. Nothing in this world could be more momentous, more fulfilling, or more joyous than excavating these eggs. Finally, I lift what is clearly the last, precious egg from the nest. There were thirty-one.”
A Tap on the Shoulder: Rabbi Meir Schuster and the magical era of Teshuvah by Yonoson Rosenbum — Rabbi Akiva Tatz recommended this one about a shy and modest rabbi who devoted his life to Jewish outreach. I found it fascinating because Jews do not proselytize… like at all. (If you’d like to join us, you are most welcome, but it takes initiative on your part.) So the fact that Rabbi Schuster went around Jerusalem every day for years of his life looking for young Jewish people who were looking for meaning and offering to take them to a class or home for a meal – is remarkable. The book is full of beautiful stories and I enjoyed it immensely. (The reason Rabbi Tatz mentioned it is that Rabbi Schuster died with a list in his suit pocket that he carried around every day of things he wanted to improve about himself. Interestingly, he thought he talked too much on the phone, was distracted by unimportant things, and didn’t tell his wife he loved her enough.)
Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Everyday Tools for Life’s Ups & Downs by Dr. Julie Smith — This book is rich in topics: building self-awareness, self-doubt, loneliness, expressing grief, strength, motivation, taking care of body and mental health, holding boundaries, facing fears, building confidence. It also has practical, real suggestions in a “tool kit” section at the end of each chapter.
