in the land of the ice giants

I've been visiting the castle of the Ice Queen in the land of the Ice Giants. Anthropologists do things like that.  Spend time. Get to know the natives. Learn the language. But this time, it's a language made up of primarily vowels. O's with lines through them, and the like. My mouth can't capture the language at all.

The castle is tall, and I feel like Alice. Need to drink a bottle of grow-me in order to reach the kitchen cabinet for a cup or a dish. The plates weigh at least three pounds each. The bowls are papa-bear bowls.
And there are all these machines I have no idea how to use—but that's not to the point.

Everything's in black and white and chrome. Scandinavian designs or with a capital D as well. Sleek bleak and shiny. White paint. Black leather. Shiny chrome fixtures.

Anthropologists love such places. Cultural identity on every surface. And in the frig and freezer. The Ice Queen knows who she is. She celebrates her identity. Maintains it in this Nordic diaspora. Even her sweaters speak to her identity. The ring upon her royal hand. Her— well, her everything.

In this, she's just like me.

But I'm a short Jewish person. With short Jewish icons in my house. And short Jewish foods. Like yaprakas (stuffed grape leaves). Doesn't get any shorter than that.

We both eat lox, however.

So. Here's the deal. Anthropologists are committed for the long haul, despite the impossible vowels. But what we want is to immerse in the other in her native ecosystem. That would be: delight in the land of the ice giants. Participant/observation in the castle of the Queen. I mean, how lucky can you get to have a gig like that? I myself am used to peasantry.  Short peasants. Not that dissimilar from me.

While we anthropologists have long observed that there are no pure cultures (or not any more, at least) (and likely never were) (diffusion, and all) (and trade) (etc etc) this comes as close to anywhere I've been to studying an intact culture.

And, miracle of miracles—she's basically doing the same with me.

Mutual exotification.

She laughs when I call her exotic. She's more used to hegemonic. Blonde and blue eyes and white and all that goes with it. Guns and alcohol and hunting-and-fishing. And baseball hats. And Christian of a certain persuasion. In my book, she's a rare species of bird.

I laugh when she calls me exotic. I feel more the global norm. Dark. And dark. And darkness. We peasants ought to stick together, right? But no. I'm drawn to the Ice Queen.

You know the old adage. It's straight out of Fiddler on the Roof. Tevya. Get the lilting accent right.

"A fish may love a bird, but where would they live?"

We're okay, if she's the native and I'm the anthropologist. We're okay, if the Ice Queen's slumming it down here where the short Jewish peasantry resides.

But build a home together?

Disrupt and taint pure systems?

The only way to even think about that is with a sense of humor. Whimsy, crinkly eyes, and a great appreciation for the eclectic. Celebrate diversity, and all that. Syncretism. Heterosis. Mix it up and depurify.

It's the dream I had when I first learned about genetics and evolution. Fifth grade, as I recall.

All the people of the world would blend together. No more pure-bloods. No more this-land-is-my-land/this-land-is-your-land. Lift the borders, mix it up.  And we'd all be merely human.

But that would mean no more ice giants, no more Ice Queen, and no more short and zaftig Jews.

I've never been able to figure it out. Have appreciated those who know their own identity. Who celebrate the intactness of their heritage. How wonderful, right? But I've admired more those who have the courage to let go. Not the ones who steal indigenous ways and take them for their own. But those who bring together the best of multiple ways—and live it.

I'm balled up inside the argument. Ambivalent at best. Pure systems lead to prejudice and outrage. But syncretism makes a mess.

the tzaddik and the negotiator

Malkah was in such awe of the tzaddik that she spent most of her time with him asking questions, and nodding at the wisdom of his responses. Of course, his responses generally started with the need to do more research. Look things up. Even go to the library, when he was stumped. But most of his real sources were at his fingertips.

His own library consisted of wall to wall volumes and treasured manuscripts. The paintings, he kept in the closet on the floor, inserted in rows exactly like the books. If he wanted to look at a painting, he'd slide it out from the row and lean it up against the bookcase for a month or two or three. And then he'd slip it back into place, and pull out another for contemplation.

Nothing was new. He never bought a new book in his life. Not even as a gift. Treasures were either old, vintage, or ancient. They were in dreadful, poor, or fragile condition. Some pieces required temperature control. Those documents he made sure were in the museum's library's rare book room. We were very proud when the climate control was installed, feeling the treasures were safe at last.

The textiles should have been there as well. Ach! What a mess. They'd be rolled up carefully — but textiles really need more care than cardboard boxes and rollers. ... They belong in a museum. I think Indiana Jones said that.

Every gift Malkah ever received from the tzaddik first belonged to someone else. Usually, a lot of someone else's. There was that stamp collection from the 1930's from the flea market. With strange-shaped stamps from all over the world. Malkah was expected to get interested in stamps and keep on collecting the ones that hadn't been included in the volume the tzaddik had given her.

Wow. Someone else's stamp collection! File under vintage, for it had been under 50 years old.

Then there was the gift, actually from Mrs Tzaddik, that took forever to receive.

"It's coming!" Mrs Tzaddik would announce. "Your birthday's only three months from now — it'll be ready by then!" she said excitedly.

Only it wasn't ready. And not three months after Malkah's birthday either. But at last the day came. The present, not quite a year later from the first tease — and there it was. A smallish object that fit in the palm of your hand, all wrapped in wrinkled white tissue/liner paper. You know, that paper they use on the inside of gift boxes. That stuff.

It was lumpy. And almost jingled. But didn't quite.

Malkah tore off the tissue paper.

"What is it?" she asked. It looked like — well, she didn't know what.

Mrs Tzaddik gave her a look of both expectancy and exasperation. She hadn't expected such a lukewarm response. But ingratitude was Malkah's default setting. What had she been thinking?

"A bracelet made of civil war buttons!" Mrs Tzaddik said excitedly. "Put it on!"

Malkah obeyed. The thing was enormous. About four inches wide and sewn together on some stretchy gold band. It felt like a hundred bulbous brass military buttons. It felt like a thousand. And it was too big for her. And it was heavy. And probably breakable. And the 'buttons' could fall off. And it was a 'treasure' — Malkah thought in dismay. Oh. And it was hideous — but you figured that one out already, right? Malkah was twelve. Where would she wear such a treasure?

"Thanks," she said. What else could she say?

When she grew up, Malkah had a child. Actually, she had two. But this story concerns the first and not the second. The second was too young to notice. Malkah's eldest must have been about four at the time.

It was Chanukkah.

The tzaddik had brought the little one a Chanukkah present.

"What is it?" said the Malkah's firstborn son.

"It's a — " to tell the truth, I don't remember at all what it was. But it was a great find at the flea market.

"How does it work?" the brilliant boy asked.

"Well it would go like this, but it doesn't work —" replied the tzaddik.

"You mean you got me something used and it's broken?"

And Malkah's brilliant firstborn took the tzaddik by the hand and went upstairs to his room. They came back down about 20 minutes later. Both with grins on their faces.

Malkah's firstborn had negotiated something Malkah would never have dreamed possible. The tzaddik was allowed to give his grandson something used — as long as it wasn't broken. Or something new. That also wasn't broken. Or a used book — but it couldn't be missing pages, especially the last page of a story. They had shaken hands on it. Deal.

Firstborn son went to the brass tray and picked up a tiny gift-wrapped something and handed it to Mrs Tzaddik.

"Here, noni, this is for you," he said.

She tore open the little wrapping with 'nona' crayoned on it.

"I don't want this," she said. "It's a Christmas tree ornament!"

Unnegotiable. She was already out the door.

Malkah's firstborn grew up to be a lawyer anyway. You just don't win every case.

the electrical fire — a parable

When Malkah was a little girl of seven or so, the tzaddik gave her a silver chain necklace with a star of David on it. The star was simple enough, and was surrounded by a circle. Malkah wore it every day. I don't think she noticed it at all. Someone put the thing on her, and so it was there. She didn't dare take it off. Not her department.

And so, as she learned how to take a shower, she kept the necklace on.

And when she got herself dressed, the star of David was tucked carefully inside her shirt so it wouldn't get lost. It hung right next to her heart. She took it for granted. She paid it no attention.

It was the mid 1950s, a curious time to be seven.

Someone had just given the tzaddik his first television set. I think it was his brother had sent it from New York. Strange gift indeed. For what does a tzaddik have need of such an abomination?

But he's a tzaddik, right? And sees the good in all things. He discovered the world news was not just in the New York Times or the Jewish Daily Forward — it was inside this box as well, with pictures.

Mrs Tzaddik wasn't so impressed. She knitted her brows and insisted that the abomination, as it was called in Malkah's house, was kept unplugged, except on the rare occasion it might be in use.

One evening, the tzaddik wanted to watch the abomination. He glanced at Mrs Tz for permission, and she consented with a grunt.

"Malkah," she called, from the kitchen, "go turn on the abomination."

And so Malkah went over to the thing itself. And picked up the thick black snakey cord. She had never done this before. It was a vote of confidence. She found the end of the cord with a bulbous head, and metal prongs sticking out. She bent over. She'd seen this done before; she knew what to do. She bent over and stuck the plug into the outlet —

And was thrown into the air across the living room into the furthest wall of the dining room behind it. A Dorothy in a hurricane — but Malkah knew nothing of Dorothy. She was lifted high into the air.

Her head smashed upon the wall, and she fell to the ground. There was smoke and a burst of flame coming from her chest, and a burning there. The whole house smelled of burning flesh.

The tzaddik stood frozen. The whole thing was less than a minute, and still he stood, unmoving. In shock, I think. Though clearly the shock had been Malkah's to bear.

Mrs Tzaddik ran to Malkah. Opened her shirt where now only the smoke and sizzle stood.

There, she saw what there was to see.

The star of David completely intact, with the circle around it burnt to a crisp. She held it up by the chain, and smiled a beatific smile.

"Look!" she said, to to the world at large. "You can try to burn us in a Holocaust, but see this? The Jewish People still survive!" She was ecstatic. Moved by the momentous quality of such a miracle of her People's continued existence. And then the moment was over. She stood up, left the room and went back to her cooking.

The tzaddik nodded. What else could he do? It was, after all, a miracle.

dwelling in despair

"We don't have to dwell in despair," she said. "We get one life, that we know of, and do we want to dwell in despair, or do we want to laugh and create and love and carry on?"

I'm sorry. I don't speak this language. And I'm not sure I can learn it either.

It's not what I was taught at all.

I was taught that we do have to dwell in despair. That the problem is that people don't take the despair seriously enough. That if we don't immerse in it, no one will remember it. And then where would we be? According to this argument, articulated best by Mrs Tzaddik (not the tzaddik himself, who would never have put it this way) — according to this argument, it all boils down to two words, and you can guess what they are:

1) Holocaust
2) Responsibility
3) Holocaust

Actually, there's also:

4) Inquisition, Spanish

which is tied to the

5) Reconquista and the
6) Expulsion and
7) Holocaust ...

Ah, you see what happens? The words start just rolling off the tongue, and there's this snowball effect — the despair doesn't diminish. No. It accumulates. The more you think, the more there is of it.

The tzaddik put it differently. Of course he would.

There are fragments of lives cut short out there — fragments that have been dispersed throughout the globe. And it is our job to bring those fragments back. Piece them together. And send them off to where they need to be. This is, after all, what the Shekhinah is after as well, is it not?

He wasn't about keeping all those shards themselves. No. He knew that someone out there wanted them back. This is the kind of Collector that he was.

Collect the fragments.
Piece the bits together.
Discover their history.
Find their rightful place.
Return them.

All those bits of junk! Every bit of junk — that was his task. Piece by piece, putting the world aright.

So, yeah, it was dwelling in despair. He'd piece the fragments together. And she'd drive home the despair.

"Lest we forget!" she would say. "Lest the world forget." All the wrongdoings of planet earth were hers to remember, remind others — and teach them to change their ways. And that if each person did his part ... But it begins with immersing in despair.

It wasn't personal, really. Or maybe it's all personal.

Dwelling in despair was just something that had to be done. And so they did it, and did it right. They created a Dwelling of Despair. A museum to bring all the bits and pieces together. Not a Holocaust Museum. No, not that at all. For the Holocaust itself is only another set of fragments — but there's so much more than that.

So. I was raised in such a way that the point was not to laugh and love and carry on. The point was to collect the fragments and help put them back together. And ship them back wherever it was that they belong.

Think of it like working at the Post Office. There's always more. And your work is never done. Not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all.

peter pan and the indian

It's probably the nature of Peter Pan to be an asshole who thinks he's a hero — the excuse being that he's so thoroughly adorable, how could anyone fail to appreciate his preciousness, or not fall for the twinkle in his eye? It is (unfortunately) undeniable that he is also pretty good at what he does.

I happen to know Peter...

At the time, Peter was playing shaman. As you know, he flies around a lot, and so he had taken bits and pieces of the rituals, practices, music and songs of indigenous folk around the world, and put them all together into a powerful experience he could give others. He lit his feathered pipe. He warbled. He drummed. He was a digiridude, and a good one too. In the dark, and with your eyes closed, he could make you feel the forest. The dangerous four-leggeds brushed past you. The birds whisked past your head. you could smell the humidity, feel the leaves and feathers close in on you. Pretty neat, huh? He could turn a classroom into a full-blown vision quest in very little time. Sprinkle a little fairy dust and fly the whole lot of you off to Never-Never Land. Very effective. What matter that Peter was not a real Indian?

Until one night there was an Indian in the circle. He stood up tall, shaking with rage and said only, "I can't be here!" as he stormed out.

And Peter stopped. The spell was broken. Peter then gave a lecture on how he was given the pipe, given the digiridu, given the songs, the drums. That he was a Sun-Dancer. That he was allowed to do all this. He had permission. But the spell was broken. And everyone went home more than a bit down from the experience. All I could think of, was I wanted the Indian to come back again so we could talk it out.

And the next week he returned. And I turned to him, and this is what he said:

"That boy was singing my song."

And he told the story of the song, and how it is used in the Sun-Dance, and what a Sun-Dance really is, and what the song was for. For three hours. And as he spoke, he poured out the lore and practice of his people, and it became clear that singing that song in a university classroom was wrong, as was the display of his pipe.

And then he turned to me and said, "You wanted that to happen, didn't you?"

"Yes," I whispered. "If it was there, I wanted it to happen." And this revelation took me by surprise. Somehow, I knew exactly what he meant. And he understood me as well.

He had taken off the previous week and headed up to his People, up to his Land and his own Shaman (who, he explained, stayed on the Land, and didn't run off to play pretend in university classrooms. This was serious business.

Peter Pan flew off to Europe to play digiridude-shaman over there, build sweat lodges, give workshops, make some bucks, see the sights.

When he got back I got a call. He had been evicted. Lost his job. Car was wrecked.

"Did he do that?" he wanted to know.

So I emailed the Indian and asked. And this is what he wrote:

"I believe in IT. If you do wrong, IT'll get you." I gave Peter the message. He didn't like it.

I mean, in shamanism shouldn't you take these things as a sign? Cease and desist? But no, this was Peter. And Peter never takes no for an answer.

Maybe a year later, emails from the Indian. A picnic? A waterfall? We started hiking together. He poured out his lore at me.

"I'm the enemy, aren't I? Evil anthropologist! Stop telling me your tales! Watch me," I protested, "I'm not gonna write any of this down!"

"That's why I can tell you," he said. "Because you know who you are. Because you have your own People, Land, Identity — and you won't go out trying to steal mine."

His shaman had told him that the Peter Incident meant that he was supposed to give the talks. That he was gonna have to learn how to tell the tale himself. Properly. He wasn't thrilled. He became a spokesman. An advocate. An Elder.

More waterfalls...

Another call from Peter. This time his wife had been killed in an accident. (Yes, Peter had had a wife!)

More hikes...

I never saw Peter again. He's still out there doing what he did. Maybe he saw the suffering as what he has to endure to achieve authenticity, I don't know. Maybe he still blames the Indian for his terrible misfortune. But he still flies, he still crows... Nothing stops him. And I keep thinking, how strange that just maybe Peter changed the Indian. Peter. The hero? I asked my friend, the Voudou Priestess. She said, "Hell no!" He's just a fraud.

The Indian began to speak. Publicly. He's still pissed about it, to tell the truth.

And I still keep my silence about Indians. Their tales are just not my tales to tell. But I do like the waterfalls.

this little piggy and the scape-chicken

Religions have this thing called 'take-backs' or maybe 'do-overs.' Usually framed in terms of regret and/or repentance and often accompanied with little rituals of absolution. I understand that afterwords, the penitent feels better, maybe relieved, and maybe absolved. Cleansed. Purified. Sinless. And a lot of crap like that.

This is one of the things that makes me despise religion, and why I've seen it as a (dare I say it) cosmic joke that I have somehow ended up teaching about religion when I set out to do anything but. Anything!

My specialty was land reform. Agrarian development. The study of risk management, State control, peasant strategies. Sheep, goats, chickens, camels. Anything but religion. Mud brick architecture. Kinship patterns. Alliance and descent. Cycles of history. Oscillation of elites. Royal dynasties and political elites. Oops, here we go ... sliding dangerously close to religion. Back to peasantry. Farm labor. Migration. Anything, anything but religion.

It's not just the god problem. I mean, that's a pretty obvious objection. But this absolution thing just feels like cheating. Same with notions of a potentially punitive afterlife. Fear school and absolution. It feels like a cheat because it implies that we can make up for our mistakes. That there's the possibility of redemption. And, to be blunt, I don't think so.

There's something too safe about the idea of repentance. And knowing that you can repent your misdeeds, accept your absolution, and poof start over with a clean slate.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no clean slate.

What if, instead, we acknowledge what we consider our mistakes — and live with them. Knowing that we've done something just terrible and that there really isn't any way to make it better. Being more responsible in the future is fine, right, and even righteous maybe — but it doesn't erase the past.

Yom Kippur rolls around and we're supposed to think about the year that has just passed. Think about our misdeeds, and prepare to make amends in the following year. I'm okay with that. Okay with living the future more in accord with who we aspire to be. But that doesn't absolve us of what we have done in the past.

There's an ancient ashkenazi custom called kaporos that appears to be alive and well, especially in the bowels of Brooklyn and other abodes of highly ritualized orthodoxy. On the eve of Yom Kippur, the sins of the penitent are ritually transferred to a live chicken. Hens for the women, roosters for the men. The penitent then invokes a prayer of atonement (kippur / kaporos are permutations of the grammatical root for atonement), waves the chicken overhead three times, killing the now sin-laden chicken. The year's sins are thereby magically transferred, the human is atoned, and the chicken gets eaten by the poor.

I think scape-goats have just been too pricey in the past couple millennia. Lucky for the goats. Maybe people think their sins are (conveniently) chicken-sized and that a goat would be just a little too melodramatic for modern times. Imagine Brooklyn, for example, with all those scape-goats trying to run for the hills to make those sins disappear.

Kaporos, it seems to me, makes the selling of indulgences seem downright admirable and thoroughly benign.

And how do you atone for the sin of trying to slough off your sins onto a chicken?

I've only ever regretted one thing in my entire life, and there's just no shaking it off. I can hear my son groan: "Oh no, not this again. I'm so sick of hearing about this!"

But here's the thing. Nothing, nothing can make it better. The horrible guilt just doesn't go away. There's nothing I can do to change the past. Being mindful in the present is fine, of course, but it doesn't change anything.

Here's what happened.

It was Christmas time in NYC. Christmas tree with all the bells and whistles at gramma's house on the upper East Side. One of the main reasons we spent every single Christmas in NYC in those years is that I refused to have a Christmas tree in my house. I mean, my parents just couldn't have handled it. And clearly neither could I.

I remember it as clear as day ('cause I can't get it out of my mind). R was about two, which means that M was probably five and a half. She, the pampered baby, was sitting in my lap and I was doing this-little-piggy with her. (Okay, piggies, Christmas, I know— but all the treif is actually irrelevant here). And she would say, "Again, mommy! Again!" And I'd do it again. And again. And again.

And M, my perfect first-born came up to us, and said (after the millionth piggy), "Do me, mommy! Do my little piggies," or something reasonable like that.

And I turned to him and said, "You're too old for this ..." and returned to indulging the babe in arms.

That was it.

The big crime. And what made it a crime was the look on his face. That look that I still can't get out of my mind. That brings me close to tears even today. This was the terrible deed — a sin, as it were, if I understand the term correctly.

And I've apologized, year after year. And my son just thinks I'm nuts. And I've been absolved again and again, by the only one who counts — my son — and it's not enough.

So what's this about? Would wagging a chicken over my head three times make this crime or any other disappear? Do indulgences or repentance make one blameless? Can you give a heartfelt apology and be forgiven? Can you forgive yourself ?

I don't think I believe in forgiveness, either. Because I don't think anything really washes away. Maybe the real lesson I learned too young: I can see Lady Macbeth sleepwalking, trying to wash that blood off her hands:

Here's the smell of blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand ... (Act 5, Scene 1)

If she could just swing a chicken over her head three times, we'd all have been spared the delicious torment of her soul. And we'd never bother giving Macbeth a second read.

Now, objectively speaking I know that this-little-piggy pales in comparison to Lady Macbeth... but it feels the same to me.

I disappointed my son. I favored my daughter. In that moment I forced him to grow up. As if he were now beyond any trivial silliness that I might share with his little sister. I wasn't fair...

And over and over and over again. The Lady Macbeth thing, ad nauseum.

"Out damned spot, out I say ..." but it never washes clean.

Which is why I much prefer Freud to religion. No chickens. No goats. No take-backs. No do-overs. Just a comfy couch and charging by the 50-minute hour. Until you bore yourself to tears. Give it up. Get on with it.

And then it's done.

And then you feel cleansed. Purified. Absolved. And there we are, back again, getting dangerously close to religion. And this is why I so love teaching about religion. Because we get to explore the myriad ways that humans seek to alleviate their suffering. And the lengths they go when they cannot wash it away.

Oh. And nobody gives a shit about land reform anymore. Even the families in mountains of North Africa that I've worked with all these years — would much rather talk about religion these days — or even Freud — anything but land or chickens or goats.

and everybody hates the jews

The biggest words I ever learned as a kid I learned from Tom Lehrer. Starting around 6th grade I think. Have no idea where I heard his songs — it's not like he was on the radio or anything. But when I discovered that I liked his lyrics a whole lot better than anything emerging in rock-n-roll, (and that my favorite songs on the radio were things like 'Runnin' Bear' and 'Woverton Mountain' and Marty Robbins ballads, I knew too, that I just wasn't a regular kid.

Here's some of the vocab I first became aware of through his songs:

virility — clearly had something to do with something I would never have (or care about).

fertility — the opposite of virility.

sterility — A great word! These words just all sounded so terrific together.

futility — this was the only word in the batch that I was already familiar with.

liability — = kids, apparently.

senility — which rhymed with 'lose your ability' as I recall.

elements — all of them. And that's pretty much the last I ever heard of them.

cyanide — this was the only one I ended up learning a lot about, later. Apricot pits, for example, have enough cyanide in them that they've long been used for camel birth control (a pit being inserted into the cervix to block and kill off the swimmers...).

solicit — which still sounds pretty dumb.

masochism — which still sounds pretty familiar.

tango — which still sounds pretty incomprehensible.

plagiarize — little did I know that of all his terms, this is the one I'd become the most familiar with.

genuflect — turned out to be davvening.

transubstantiation — still very unclear.

vatican — right. I had never heard of the Vatican.


You get the idea...

But the main thing that I got from Tom Lehrer was that refrain that he punched up that echoed in my brain from the first time that I heard it until now:

— and-everybody-hates-the-jews —

And what do you do with that? It just hit to the core, and I didn't understand it, and yet the evidence seemed in that he was right... And then there was the Six Day War, and Occupied Territory, and not returning that territory, and Lebanon, and Syria, and Gaza (at the moment) — and the policies of the State of Israel being equated with just plain being Jewish. I mean, even apart from the Holocaust and Inquisition that I'd been raised on.

And Tom Lehrer had said it out loud, clear, concise and simple.

And recently, there was a Facebook stream I was following, that came to exactly the same point: Kill all the Jews, and everything will be just fine after that. Blunt and clear.

Not, "I disagree with Israeli occupation..."

Not, "We must build a Palestinian State..."

No, just "Kill the Jews."

On Facebook.

And what do you do with that? It just hit to the core (again), and I don't understand it (again). And yet it appears to be one of those 'eternal truths' that I was raised with, raised to expect, raised to prepare for (somehow). But Tom Lehrer didn't provide a template for what to do about it, did he?

I picture my dad playing Anu anu ha-Palmach on the record player and us marching around the dining room table, a little army of two.

And what do you do with that?

Go upstairs and sing along with Tom Lehrer. National Brotherhood Week. But the bloody song always ends the same.

the tzaddik and the vavlings

A tzaddik walks into a bar, and ...

I really want to start that way, only the Tzaddik didn't pick up the vav in a bar. The tzaddik has only been in a bar once in his life and that was when he was stranded (with a vavling, actually) in the middle of nowhere and the third game of the World Series was just starting and they couldn't make it home.

No, actually the tzaddik was minding his own business, just walking up the garden path, when he saw the lovely vav sleeping on the stone bench under the redwood tree, and surrounded by luscious ferns. What a vision! He walked up to the lad and leaned over him. The tzaddik tugged at his long beard a bit and examined the find. Jeans and a white t-shirt, though I'm not sure the tzaddik knew about 'jeans.' Long bronze curls upon his head. No keppeleh. Dirty bare feet, with a pair of tanakhim sitting carefully placed under the stone bench. The tanakhim put the tzaddik at ease (not just a lost sheep but a lost potential shepherd), and so he shook the boy's shoulder gently.

The vav awoke. Not startled at all, but as if he were maybe inside still his dream.

"Is this paradise?" he asked in English.

For what he saw was a real live tzaddik bending over him, surrounded by filtered light threading its way through the redwoods. The smell of the ferns and the nearby roses heady on his mind.

The tzaddik took the vavling home, of course. Made him to wash. Fed him. Mrs. Tzaddik took to him as well; he was a pretty boy. She would trap him with a cup of tea and hold him hostage with her higher intellect. But the vav had eyes (and ears) for the tzaddik only, and the tzaddik put him to work.

The function of the vav is to uphold the yud. The yud is the head, the king, inspiration, alchemical fire, the learned one. You can often see him wearing a crown upon the page. The vav is the heart and the spine — a connector — upholding the head as best he can. The vav (at his best) stands tall, but he knows his place. Alchemical air, he's got lots of ideas, but he just can't manifest. And here he was trying to do his job (uphold the tzaddik, his yud) but the upper hei maintained her relentless seduction. She was not subtle. He turned away.

This tzaddik was a lamed-vavnik, to tell the truth — one of the 36 concealed ones who roam this earth at any one time in times of trouble. This isn't just my opinion. People have come up to me and whispered it in my ear. Of course the vavlings would be drawn. How could they not? Max Weber would call it something else, of course. Charisma, he would say. That 'uncanny personal power to persuade' — but that sounds so terribly social science.

The tzaddik put the vavling to work. At first it was to paint the fence around the garden. And then it was the stairs themselves. And when the boy's mind had settled, he set him to selling the Encyclopedia Judaica to members of the tribe. With the boy's natural charm and humor, he soon lost most of his hippy curls and tattered clothes and now wore fine button up white linen peasant shirts tucked into better pairs of jeans. The sidelocks he kept.

The vavling began studying Torah and Talmud. He became captivated by the law.

Soon there were other vavlings drawn to the tzaddik, each with his own talent and capacity. They formed a corporation together, and called it Gan Eden. And so, from that small primordial garden, they set out to grow a paradise together.

All the tzaddik ever wanted was to watch the vavlings thrive. His face lit up in their presence. He did not touch them, despite the rumors. No, he merely reveled in their company. And they were loyal to him until the day he was laid to rest. The vavs did not transmute into yuds themselves. Funny, that. They did not become the tzaddik, nor did they internalize him, nor emulate him. No, they merely saw him. They could see the concealed one!

Not once in my life did the tzaddik ever look at me the way that he beheld his vavlings. What he gave to me was something else entirely. And that is the gift the lamed-vavnik brings: to give each what is his due, each his attention, each her protection. I did not need to be awakened like the tzaddik's first vavling in the garden. I was raised to this garden. I am the gardener. I need no awakening.

The vavs, they saw the tzaddik. They saw the lamed-vavnik. The concealed one, blessed be he. But they never saw the man himself. That was left to me.

eating treif

When I was little I used to sleep with two other little girls down the block. In those days, they were called 'colored' and we were called 'jew' — small 'j', said with attitude. It was an adjective. But it was also a verb. Their names were J and J and they were twins, a year older than I. J and I would play under the covers. J, her twin would cry.

One day, J and J came home from Sunday School with the bad news.

"We're going to hell!" she cried. Sister J cried too.

I felt really bad for them. They were going to hell? I mean, I knew that I wasn't. So. Something we were doing was bad for them, but I hadn't a clue exactly what. I think right there I became a little anthropologist, wanting to figure it out.

J went and washed her mouth out with soap — providing herself with her mother's usual punishment. When dad was around, it was the strap — but he was a cook in the Navy, and was close to never home.

The whole world of moral imperatives became something exciting and fun, and worth exploring. I mean, what did it feel like to get your mouth washed out with soap? (The strap sounded interesting too, come to think of it). It all sounded so exotic and quaint.

Their whole house smelled intoxicating, especially weekend mornings. Mrs J made it clear to me that what was sizzling in her skillet was not for me, and eventually I got the idea that she thought that if I ate it, that I'd go to hell too.

I knew that wasn't true.

One morning, J (my J, not crying J) brought me a gift under the covers. One piece of stolen perfectly crisp bacon, right out of the frying pan. The taste was, well, exotic, intoxicating, and downright ineffable (was this my first mystical experience? The salt and fat combo so irresistible to humans?).

And then there was a scream from the kitchen. Of course Mrs J would have counted out the pieces and discovered that one was missing. She hollered at J (my J, it could only have been my J), and then (what a thrill!) she hollered at me.

"Go wash that mouth out with soap!" she commanded, fearing for my soul. I jumped up and complied instantly. What a let down. Boring. And I didn't feel any different. This just reinforced that all these rules, punishments, and eternal hellfire stuff was theirs and not mine.

Fall Semester is coming up, and it looks like the enrollment in my Jewish Mysticism class just isn't going to make it — and the first thing I thought of was this tale of J and J, and the delights of eating treif.

Why?

Don't get me wrong; I love this class. I'll miss teaching it this semester. But still, it brought up the treif story first. Most of all, it seems, I'm gonna miss the treif. After all, I can study Jewish Mysticism on my own, right? You might also say that I could really eat treif at any time I want, too, but it just wouldn't taste the same, would it?

Here's what I discovered. Every time I teach a class on Jewish something or other, I seem to eat a meal that includes treif before the class begins. I've apparently been doing this for, well, decades. At first I thought it was funny, a coincidence, or a just plain balancing things out (like making my kids study Arabic if they want to study Hebrew). But now, I'm not so sure.

Cause when I think of treif, I remember J. And when I remember J, I remember her terror at the possibility of going to hell. I remember great irresistible salty smells, broken 'rules' and the letdown of a mouth full of soap bubbles (maybe I hadn't done it right), and then well, I get stuck.

Pork and parsha? Forbidden fruits, so to speak... I mean, what's the connection?

My default for the moment is still the 'balancing things out' explanation, until someone can come up with something more satisfying. That the treif somehow reaffirms my identity as an anthropologist and not, say, as a theologian (god forbid!), not a practitioner, but a rational, analytical being.

Bottom line: for Fall Semester, it looks like no Jewish Mysticism (at the university, anyway) and (an equal sorrow) it looks like ... no treif.

glossary, as requested (with apologies)

In no particular order, maybe this will help:

shikse — (aka shiksa) — term of endearment (or not) for women of the non-Jewish persuasion. the most important sub-category is, of course, the shikse-goddess.

shul — synagogue, small or large, in which members of the tribe congregate for ritual acts and moments of imposed solidarity.

shabbes — the hours of the week between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday devoted to rest, repose, debate and very good sex. It's a sin to grade papers on shabbes.

sin — (khet) — something we decide is wrong, unless we want to do it. Unless calling it a 'sin' makes it more fun to do...

rebbe — (to be distinguished from rabbi) — a wise rabbi we consider as our teacher and treat with reverence, which everyone else we know thinks is misplaced.

yenta — a matchmaker, who generally speaking, can't keep her mouth shut and can't stop minding other people's business. Not to be confused with Yentl, the title of a Sholem Aleichem story made into a dreadful soppy movie with too much singing.

Reconstructionist — the rational branch of Judaism, devoted to reason and, for the most part, understanding the physical circumstances under which we live.

bireishit — Genesis of the Hebrew Bible. Usually translated as, "in the beginning..." bireishit could also be rendered as "in her head..." which in one fell blow makes us have to reconsider all the text that follows.

god forbid — (aka g-d forbid) — a colloquialism I consider hysterical, at least when I use it, given that I'm a righteous and devout atheist.

Hebrew School — an after school rite of passage devoted to indoctrination into the secrets of the tribe, its sacred language, and its obsessive devotion to territorial claims tracing back to g-d's land grant to the tribal patriarch, Abraham.

akeda — the ritual almost-sacrifice of Abraham's son, whom the Bible names by name as Yitzhak (Isaac, Abraham's younger son), and which the Qur'an assumes (thus, no need to name him), could only be Abraham's elder son, Ismail (Ishmael), given that the rest of the passage makes no sense at all otherwise.

Did I miss anything, or will that do for now?

Words I did not explain: pasties, packing, and secular humanism. Oh, and labia menorah (which will have to wait for a post all its own, maybe—although here, a picture might really be worth a thousand words).

straight shikse/queer shikse

When I left my husband, we both headed for the shikses. For him, no surprise. He'd had a shikse thing for longer than I'd known him—and I'd known him since I was still a teenager and he was barely 21. So, well, plenty has been written about the Jewish prince and the shikse. No need to go there. But why Jewish women head for the shikses is worth, well, research. I'm an anthropologist, right? Time for a little fieldwork.

It started one Friday night when I had an out-of-town friend over who was looking for action. What are the best bars, bla bla bla — this is after all, San Francisco, isn't it? There's gotta be alotta action in this town. She was from Argentina, and she was used to alotta action. But she was asking the wrong person. I only knew one place to go: and that was 'In Bed with Fairy Butch' — a great lesbian cabaret. My friend was not disappointed.

It was Hanukkah with Fairy Butch. Jewish leatherdyke cabaret. A davenning striptease with payess and pasties. Prayers over the labia menorah, with everyone singing along. And of course, Yenta the Matchmaker. A great night. But at one point, Fairy Butch calls out to the packed (and packing) crowd, "How many of you are Jewish?" And half the hands go up. "And how many of you with your hands up are with another Jewish woman?" And every single hand goes down. Every single one (who wasn't single) was with a shikse. Including me. What's with that?

A worthy piece of research indeed. I started interviewing. Starting with my therapist. She said, go for it! "You could get a major grant from some Jewish organization to fund you — you don't know how many patients I have who want to get their sons away from the shikses!" The shikse problem, she said, was a worthy cause for exploration, especially among the hetero-normative.

But what of the attraction of queer Jewish women to the shikse? Of the women I talked to, here's a small sample:

The Jewish women:

— When like meets like, there has to be some kind of Other—thus, the shikse.

— You can bump into your trick and your Rabbi on the very same block—no problem.

— What is it about shikses? It's those ice-cold blue eyes. And freckles.

— They're exotic! They eat things like mayonnaise, only they call it 'mayo.' And they slather it on, with things like 'fried bologna'! Revolting—but exotic.

— Things are simpler. We don't have to argue all sides of every question.

— Ha-shem is waiting for the answer to that one as well!


The Shikses answer:

— When I do a search on say, Planet Out, and use the word 'intellect' that's what draws them. I don't have to say I'm looking for a Jewish woman. They just pop up in the search.

— I'm drawn to their suffering.

— They are exclusive, chosen, and don't let anyone in — and I WANT IN!

— Shikses are not so demanding. You don't have to be faithful to a shikse. And that's okay.

— I'm German. We have strong bonds between us, the Germans and the Jews.

— I like secrets. What are they doing?

— Psychology tells us that Jewish men demand respect for Jewish women, like their mother. The Jewish woman rules the household. But with the shikse, the Jew can run the household. This goes for dykes as well.

I ended up collecting piles and piles of material on the shikse 'problem' and the more I looked at it, the more depressing it became. When I looked online, I found some of the scariest websites I've ever seen. Mostly about the hetero-shikse problem. Neo-Nazi sites accusing Jewish men of kidnapping, hypnotizing and ruining their women. The poster girl for this being Marilyn Monroe. And equally paranoid Orthodox Jewish sites accusing the shikses of polluting bloodlines and turning Jewish men's heads to mush.

But at Fairy Butch's cabaret, the 'problem' was more palpable. There was Fairy Butch discovering out loud and on stage, that many of the Jewish dykes in the crowd really did want a Jewish partner. Someone they could make shabbes with, light candles with, go to shul with. And Fairy Butch played yenta, and once a year—on Hanukkah—yenta matched Jewish/Jewish couples (for however long it might last), and then went home (or so I imagine) with her very own ... shikse goddess.

Is the shikse thing something as primal as heterosis, insuring hybrid vigor to the next generation, or some kind of reductionist 'Othering'? The appeal, the ambivalence, the aversion are all the stuff of stand-up comedy, not-so-romantic novels, and apparently lots and lots of protracted psychotherapy. More research needs to be done, of course. And what better method than anthropology's participant-observation?