Happy New Year, blogland friends!! I hope it has been a fresh start for you. Let’s hope for some good news soon about hostages in Israel. My little family went on a Celebrity cruise and had so much fun celebrating the new year on the top deck of the ship. It was a very nice week and truly the entire ship felt like extended family in a way.
I had a good end to my school trimester and have even fit in a short intensive 1-credit required science course last week on psychopharmacology. It was fascinating to learn about the autonomous nervous system, how medications work in the body, and all the various possible side effects. Generally, clergy need to know how to counsel a person or family member who may be dealing with addiction, mental illness, or anxiety disorders. That is a different set of classes, but this was excellent background knowledge.
Just out of curiosity, I am creating a comparison spreadsheet of Israeli and Palestinian narratives from events of the last 100 years. It has grown to 12 pages! Each side, of course, has a different story of events, even different names for the same wars, but what is interesting is how they are filtered through cultural beliefs. My thoughts so far, in no particular order: Respect is needed, not agreement. The Palestinian narrative uses provocative terms and strong emotion to idealize victimhood. Victimhood narratives are good for gaining support from others, but not for achieving reconciliation. Could the Zionist project have been accomplished without forcefully displacing Palestinians? The Palestinian experience involves denial of personal freedoms and opportunities. Each side seems to be comparing who has suffered more. Basic universal psychological needs for security must be met before any reconciliation. Conflict is stuck in beliefs about the justness of each side’s goals (which negates and delegitimizes the other side’s goals).
Next week begins a new trimester and three new courses that I’m looking forward to. THIS week is all about catching up. I have some webinar recordings to listen to while I do some diamond painting, some doctor appointments, a few scrapbooks to put together, and this post that I’ve been putting off. I am also giving a presentation on Wednesday evening for the Mussar community about my MA thesis, and to make it entertaining, I’ve had to find photos and maps that were not in the thesis. I’m doing a bit of pleasure reading too, in advance of my courses starting again. I’ll be taking Hebrew, Bioethics, and Pluralism.
If you saw the weekly schedule of non-credit classes that I just typed up so as to keep it all straight in my head, you might be disappointed in me. I’m doing too much again, but this doesn’t feel stressful to me. I know what needs my focus and all these are truly extra and enjoyable learning. If I can’t get to some, that’s fine too.
I have about 100 screenshots on my phone of books I want to look into or read soon. I’ll be sorting through those as I organize photos for the scrapbooks this week.
2023, I read 107 books. That seems fairly good to me, considering my time constraints! Due to those constraints, I’m afraid I’m not going to sort them into fiction and non and determine my faves this year. I’m also not going to find links to these books that I read in November and December…
Side by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine by Sami Adwan – Amazing idea. Teachers attempt to bridge the gulf between the two cultures. Literally the left side is the Israeli narrative and the right page is the Palestinian. Eye-opening how from the Palestinian perspective, nothing is ever their fault!
How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks – highly recommend. I love everything David Brooks writes. This one should be intuitive but I think most people could benefit from reading it. I’m going to re-read it and then give a talk on it for the Mussar community… some day soon.
Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder – I thought it was so interesting to learn about the large number of people who live in camper vans and travel around the country full-time, sometimes working at an Amazon factory or National Park. This was fascinating.
Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses by Bruce Feiler – I’d hoped to learn more about history at the time of the Bible, what the land looks like, etc. In the end, pure speculation.
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer – Super interesting. Literally how to create mental structures in order to help yourself remember long lists of items or numbers. Fascinating.
The Aleppo Codex: In Pursuit of One of the World’s Most Coveted, Sacred, and Mysterious Books – by Matti Friedman – I didn’t realize how much of this document was stolen! This reads like a detective novel.
A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism by David Hartman – Hartman was my “mentor” in a theology course I just finished. I used his thoughts as a departure point to learn about some major themes of religion and modernity.
Soul Construction by Ruchi Koval – I’m taking a Mussar course that Ruchi is leading based on this book. Useful tactics toward becoming less judgmental and much a more loving person.
The Librarian of Burned Books by Briana Labuskes – A sort of cultural exchange program for an author to go to Germany during WWII. A couple of interesting character studies.
The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner – Really good story about a family during the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Good character depth.
Judaism in a Digital Age: An Ancient Tradition Confronts a Transformative Era by Danny Schiff – Wow. Excellent book, especially if you are concerned about the future of organized community.
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer – enjoyable, magical, childlike
Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon – good story, nothing special
That’s it for now. I’ll try to be better about posting book reviews monthly. Good luck with your resolutions (if you still have them!).
