desh | (no subject)

First warm day today! Lunch with

flyinbutrs in Rittenhouse Square. Quite lovely.

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I'm quite scared of my email inbox.

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Today, to satisfy years of curiosity, I asked the driver of a fuel tanker truck how he refuels the truck itself. Does he just siphon stuff from the back, or does he have to refuel like anyone else? The answer: the latter. Except not exactly like anyone else, because he just pumps it from storage down at the plant. But not from the back of the truck like I'd hoped.

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I posted something in a forum I'm quite proud of. I didn't get responses for a few days, and then some started to come in. I'm very happy about this.

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Jewish legalistic catch-22, at least based on the information I currently have:

Some dishes and surfaces can be kashered (made kosher) through various means, depending on how they were made unkosher in the first place and on what they're made of. The same process can be used to remove a kashrut (noun of the adjective "kosher") "flavor" of something: for example, you can kasher a dairy pot, making it non-dairy, and then use it for a meat dish; or you can kasher non-kosher-for-Passover silverware and then use it on Passover. The usual way of kashering something that's completely metal involves boiling water in it if it's a pot (and then somehow pouring or spilling some of the water out -- opinions vary), dunking it into boiling water if it's small, or pouring boiling water onto every inch of its surface if it's something else. This can be awkward, because usually hot things like boiling water add "flavors" or make things unkosher, not the reverse.

My roommate and I have to kasher our sink and our biggest pot, among other things, before Passover. I'm told by one friend that the process of kashering a sink by pouring water onto it from a pot renders the sink the same flavor as the pot, and so must be done from a kosher-for-Passover pot if the point is to have a kosher-for-Passover sink. I'm told by another friend that the process of kashering a pot by spilling out boiling water into your sink will render the pot the same flavor as your sink, because lots of steam will rise up from the sink surface and hit the pot.

So there are clearly ways out of this catch-22 (such as kashering the pot first, and pouring out the boiling water into something other than a sink, such as onto the ground), but I find it hilarious as it stands. Was one of my two friends wrong? Or is it really impossible to kasher a non-kosher sink and a non-kosher pot if those are the only two places you have to put boiling water?

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So despite the cut text, I'm not really having a crisis of faith. But maybe it's along the same lines?

You see, I believe in God. And I practice religion. But those two things don't associate in my mind as much as you might think. Yes, belief in God certainly helps while I'm praying, for example, because praying would seem completely absurd if I didn't. (Not that it doesn't feel absurd sometimes anyway.) But a lot of my religious practice isn't necessarily tied to my personal theology. For example, I keep the rules of Shabbat the way I do in large part because I like the community I can become a part of by doing so. I keep kosher the way I do in large part because I like the continuity it provides with Jewish people across time and space. I go to services in large part because I like the routine of it. I go to the services that I go to (rather than just any services) and the retreats I go to and the potluck dinners I go to because they're fun, dammit. And so on.

The trouble is, those reasons were good enough for awhile, but perhaps aren't anymore. I was adding gradually to my Jewish practices starting in maybe 1999, and in earnest in 2001 as I started to observe things in much the way I do now, and as I started becoming part of a Jewish community. This process of me adding things to the way I practice started to plateau maybe around 2005 or so, and I thought I was settling into a set of practices that would serve me more or less for life.

But now I'm starting to feel the pull to cut things out. Especially Shabbat-related things. There are things I want to do on Friday nights and Saturdays that are just incompatible with the way I observe Shabbat now. Some of them are one-off things, and some of them are more ongoing. Some of them would be compatible with the way some people in my communities observe Shabbat, and some of them wouldn't.

So what do I do? I think the only answer is to bring God back into the equation. If there's something non-Shabbostic I want to do that wouldn't really hurt my involvement with my communities, then can I decide to do it in good conscience, or would I really think that God doesn't want me to do it? (And of course the question I need to ask of myself is a bit more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it.) If there's something non-Shabbostic I want to do that would hurt my involvement with my communities, then is taking some time away to explore that something I'm willing to do both from a community perspective and from a God perspective?

I don't really know, partly because I've never even thought to ask the question until recently. I've had enough compelling interpersonal reasons that it never mattered.

On the whole, this "crisis" is probably a good thing, isn't it?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, like I said, it's not the realm of pure reason. I can sorta see the logic, it's just different from my base assumptions. Of course, if you want to focus on the second reason... there's you're solution built-in. Stand on something as tall as the basin of the sink, and logically, boom, no more steam transfer than dumping to ground! Passover is saved! ;)

Moving to the more serious topic - faith - I've been there, in a different sense. While it does go back to God, for me, I think the big question isn't so much "How do I get in the good graces of the Lord," so much as "What sort of God would I want to be in the graces of?" Admittedly, there's the whole "human mind is incapable of understanding the ways of the most high", and, technically, that means you can't comprehend why X is asked of you... but for me, it was basically a case of "If, in fact, there is a God who asks this of people, He wouldn't be the kind of God I want to spend eternity with."

Obviously, from the Christian side of the fence, this was more about proselytizing, about issues of birth control/abortion/homosexuality, obedience to dictates that seemed to lack moral justification. I basically got to a place where I said to myself, "If the Lord exists, and is just, this would not be enough to turn away from Him. If the Lord is so unjust that it would be, then I won't please Him anyway." In childlike-simple essence, from Catholicism's side of the aisle, if my gay/Protestant/Jewish/condom-wearing friends aren't good enough, I'll wait outside with them. Different picture, obviously, but I figure personal anecdote can't hurt.

If there's a belief I hold strongly, I make it compatible with my faith. That's non-negotiable. There's no "well, Judaism's cool, but I really don't like the baby-killing part" for me. If I can't make something compatible (which I don't expect will ever happen), then I'm gone.

And it's also a personal thing, for me only. I'm happy to talk about religion in general, and how I practice in particular, pretty much constantly. And about how other people practice too, if they bring it up. But I'm never going to tell someone else how they should practice (Jewish or otherwise) unless I'm asked directly, and perhaps not even then.

Short of those extremes, though, there's a lot of gray area. Is it okay to take a train to see a concert on a Friday night, and miss services and dinner? Well, it's not currently okay given the way I practice, no. But some close friends of mine, in some of the same Jewish communities as I'm in, would be okay with themselves doing that. So why am I not? Well, because I buy into the system of Jewish law that, as I see it, says I'm not allowed to do that. But why do I buy into the system the way I do, as a more-or-less whole unit but with lots of room (but not infinite room) for interpretation? Well, I don't know. And I think it's not fair for me to try to answer that for myself without bringing the theological reasoning into the discussion about legalistic reasoning. That's all I'm saying.

*nod* Same basic idea. I don't tell other folks what they should do, and appreciate the same. I figure, spirituality is between you and your beliefs/deity. It's the main issue I have with most organized religions, as they tend to accrete big-R Rules that aren't, necessarily, universally appropriate or natural extensions of core beliefs.

Faith something you can come at yourself, but, again, can't much meaningfully discuss beyond a point. There's a definite intertwining between established theology and religious law, for obvious reasons. Not a lot of it can be boiled down to a lawyerly approach or a purely rational determination, or can only be loosely approached in that vein (as we've remarked on the flippant topic). By definition, while you can interpolate a lot, and while you can reason out some tricky areas, there's a realm of "This just is what it is, because of someone else's divine revelation." You don't have the revelation itself, you just have the texts that come of it.

I think you're already spot on. It's not so much a "crisis" as an examination of faith - which is the difference (IMHO) between a real, abiding faith, and a superficial/dogmatic keeping of practice. I've found, for the most part, those with a deep and present faith - in whatever religious/spiritual structure - tend to be the most comfortable with questions, and potential problems, with overcoming "failures", or mistakes, because their faith is based on an actual understanding of their relationship with the divine, rather than someone else's "recipe" they just follow to the letter.

And I think "relationship" is the right word - it encompasses the real sense of connection, both with divine and community. Like any relationship, it's something you work on, a bit of a give-and-take. It's a personal determination of what you are and are not comfortable with, and it takes some discussion, even if the other party doesn't answer in obvious ways. You balance reason and gut feeling, and somewhere in the middle, you find a comfortable equilibrium that works for you.

I've found, for the most part, those with a deep and present faith - in whatever religious/spiritual structure - tend to be the most comfortable with questions, and potential problems, with overcoming "failures", or mistakes, because their faith is based on an actual understanding of their relationship with the divine, rather than someone else's "recipe" they just follow to the letter.

That's exactly it. One of the things I've always loved about Judaism is that it's always opening to questioning and debating. There are lots of Jewish "recipes" out there, and you can blindly follow them if you like, but that's not what most knowledgeable Jews do, and it's not what they're encouraged to do either. (Sometimes it's encouraged to question but still follow a particular "recipe" exactly, which is slightly different, I think.) And yes, a relationship with the divine is probably the best basis on which to deviate from whatever you were following before. Quite useful to keep that in mind. Otherwise even Judaism is just a cult.

It's one of the things that always impressed me too, even just attending Seder (oooh, seasonal topicality!): the four questions, the four sons... Every year, the questions may be pre-scripted, but the message is there: Ask, so you know.

And yeah, let the wicked son sit, answer that pointed question; smartass or not, at least he's asking, maybe you can shake him up. He wants it to be about you, so fire right back about you, and maybe eventually it'll sink in and be about him too (At least, that's how it was explained to me, way back when, and I liked that explanation).

And that's just from the outside looking in, on one night... admittedly, one not like all other nights. ;)

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