Where the author left me

Recently I’ve been thinking about a book nonstop that I finished several days ago. This happens to me from time to time. However, usually I don’t have the opportunity, as I did this evening, to attend a reading and meet the author of a book that holds hostage my brain for days, sometimes weeks, and sometimes years at a time.


It’s not always an entire narrative that captivates my unbridled interest. Sometimes it’s just a scene, a paragraph or a character. In addition, what captivates me need not contribute significantly to the plot. For example, the last scene in “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” has stuck with me since I read it over a month ago.

The novel currently occupying my brain cells is “This is Where I Leave You” by Jonathan Tropper, and what I haven’t (until tonight) been able to resolve is how I could enjoy the journey and the persona of the protagonist, while at the same time loathing his misogynist and superficial summations of women and what a man wants in a women.

In fact, Judd Foxman has confirmed what I’ve suspected men think all along: if you aren’t a woman who looks like a model, you aren’t much of a woman at all.

But still, despite my disappointment in Judd, I still adored him. It reminded me of my favorite quote from Eat, Pray Love, a book that I initially loved and then wanted to burn at the end of reading it: “I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential...I have been a victim of my own optimism. “

Could Judd possibly as big of an asshole as he seemed? Is this really how men are? How they think?

Mr Tropper answered my question. He said, there is a part of all men that are like that. However, Judd is wearing the lenses of a man (and this is on the back of the book so I’m not ruining anything) whose beloved wife has slept with his boss for an entire year and he has just found out about it. He is emasculated, humiliated, and devastated. Of course he is going to look at women negatively.

So Mr. Tropper has rented some sympathy for Judd. But then I realized that had Judd been a woman whose husband had cheated on her, I would have no problem with the male depictions in the book. It is just jarring to read it from a different perspective. The female characters include three adulterous women, a therapist engaged to her patient, and a mother more eccentric than the Barbara Streisand character in Meet the Fockers.

What left me thinking is that despite how empathetic I may think I am, I will inevitably jump to the wrong conclusions sometimes about what motivates people and characters to do what they do and think what they think.

It reminds of a story of when my friend Scott dropped me off at synagogue before Sunday School and I was fretting.

“There’s no way the receptionist actually made the copies or made them correctly. I’m going to just have to do it myself and I’m going to be rushed. I just know it.”

And Scott wisely told me, “Sharna, you don’t know anything.”

And more often than not, he’s right.

Just like, in what I think was the most poignant part the book, Judd realizes what he has thought all along about his relationship with his brother is inaccurate and skewed. I too frequently fall into that pattern and think most of us do.

….

At the book reading I asked Mr. Tropper if he is Jewish. He said that he is and that it would have been really gutsy for someone not Jewish to write a book about a family observing shiva. Then he went on to dismiss the notion (which I didn’t suggest but many other have) that this is a Jewish book.

Mr. Tropper, this is a Jewish book and on your tour you should consider going to Temple B’nai Beth Israel Shalom Emet Sinai Hillel Tikvah. It’s not just the setting that is Jewish, but the conflicts faced by the characters are Jewish problems. It doesn’t mean that the book is not appealing to all audiences, but “This is Where I Leave You” deals with Jewish apathy, identity problems, intermarriage, faithlessness and dysfunctional relationships between parents and their children.

Besides, the spread that they will have at the JCC will probably be better than that ice coffee you drank at Borders.

…..

And one more thing. It is clear that your characters were not very good Hebrew school students as there is a major theological flaw in your entire Shiva premise. Do you know what it is?

…………


New York Times take on the book

Excerpt

Author's Web Site

4th of July Reflections

Sorry I haven't been writing much lately. It happens. Here are my last two articles that I blogged for oychicago.

Reflections on the 4th of July: http://www.oychicago.com/blog.aspx?id=6796

Moses couldn't but you can http://www.oychicago.com/blog.aspx?id=6658

Enjoy and have a Happy 4th.

Help a 27 year old beat cancer

Elissa Froman, 27, lovingly called "Lissy" by her friends has beaten cancer twice.

With your help, she will beat Hodgkins Lymphoma a third time.

I've written a lot about signing up for the Bone Marrow Registry, and maybe you didn't have time or just had too much on your mind.

Don't worry. You have another chance to save someone's life and be treated to brunch if you live in the Chicago area. To sign up, all you do is fill out a form and get your cheek swabbed. It takes about 10 minutes including filling out the form. How slow you eat your breakfast depends on you. If you have any questions contact Beverly Agdern bagern@gmail.com or 773-807-2388.

When: May 23
Time: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Place: Anshe Shalom
540 West Melrose Street

Chicago, IL 60657-3752
(773) 248-9200

(If you don't live in Chicago, you can click here to get a kit mailed to you )

To read more about Lissy, check out her blog.

Good story for a good weekend

Read it in Oy!Chicago http://oychicago.com/blog.aspx?id=6308

Scarpeta launches word game

Scarpeta will post a new word of the day and 10 words that you can't use to describe it. Your goal is to get 3 people to guess it without realizing that they are playing a game. Or make it a ritualized car pool or lunchtime game. All words are to be about something going on in the daily news. For example:

Icelandic Volcano

Any country in Western or Eastern Europe
Atlantic Ocean
Sky
Ash
Any word that does or can start with the word Air
Funeral
President
Obama
Disaster
Natural
Fire
Economic

Reaction to the Million Dollar Bat Mitzvah

Today on my way to work listening to WGN, the morning show was reading from the New York Post about million dollar bar and bat mitzvah parties.

Ugh.

Bar and Bat Mitzvahs began their out of control spiral in the 1950s when American Jews, during the beginning of national consumerism as we now know it, began celebrating the children’s rite of passage (more boys than girls at the time) with lavish parties to mark not only a Jewish kid’s entry into adulthood, but the fact that Jews finally found a country that, besides a few drinking fountains, park benches, fraternities, sororities and country clubs, let its Jewish community succeed and thrive to be full members of society.

As I listened to the outlandish Bat Mitzvah story, I wondered if there is a defense of this. One of the bat mitzvah parental sponsors said the Bat Mitzvah cost the correct percentage of the family’s income.

Alright, creative answer.

In my attempt to look at the other side, I thought of all the people who are employed because of a lavish Bar or Bat Mitzvah: catering, servers, dancers, choreographers, security, tailors, Jon Bon Jovi (he has a lot of kids!), band members, janitorial staff, florists, dry cleaners, babysitters and plastic surgeons, hair stylists and makeup artists.

After all the Talmud says,

"Give someone a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach someone to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Another reason is that in a religion that marks so many tragedies, Jewish simchas (happy occasions) are notoriously lavish (especially in the Orthodox community) because it’s important to give it your all during the good times. In fact, Jewish people don’t have double weddings, because it’s not right to do a 2 for one party, because you short the community one party.

So then why is the million dollar bat mitzvah so distasteful, more so than a big wedding? And why can’t Rabbis stop one from happening?

The second question is easier than the first. It’s hard not to stop your congregant from throwing a big party when 1. It’s a free country 2. It’s not prohibited by Jewish law 3. The new wing is named after the bat mitzvah girl’s great grandparents, may they rest in peace. The greater good of the new classrooms to teach Jewish values outweighs the problematic pageantry.

One argument is that a big party takes away from the point: a bar or bat mitzvah is a time to enter the covenant as an adult. The celebration detracts from the ritual.

This is true, but it needs to be tweaked.

The ritual is not necessarily so important or meaningful. Ask any kid who tries to draw meaning from a Torah portion about leprosy or archaic sacrifices. Ask the kid whose voice is changing and has to sing in front of 300 people. LOVE THAT KID.

What is important is that the child becomes a full-fledged member of the community and is the best way to teach a kid to enter a communal setting, and Judaism is supposed to be about the community and less about the individual, through extravagance when there are people who have nothing to feed their children or the ability to pay for basic necessities?

It’s just not. I’m sure the same people who spend a million dollar on a bat mitzvah, donate that much or more to charities. And that’s wonderful. But your 13 year old needs to understand, and you have the obligation to ”teach them diligently,” that happiness does not emerge from grossly lavish celebrations, but from the open arms of a community that (should) welcomes you because of who you are, the values you commit to and not the number of ice cream flavors you have on the sundae bar.

The New York Post article

Tea Party's Kettle has finally boiled over

Scarpetta has uncovered shocking news that the Tea Party movement is not filled with sore loser Republicans who still haven’t gotten over the 2008 election. Rather it is the work again of greedy corporations trying to take advantage of a divided country by promoting their products.

A source who asked to be called “Lief” said the CFOs of Argo Tea, Tazo, Republic of Tea and Lipton will be called before Congress to testify about this unfair scheme to change Americans into tea drinkers to reap profits.

It is no secret that all of the listed companies endorsed John McCain except Celestial Seasons who donated money to the Obama campaign.

The Tea Party Movement came under suspicion when Glenn Beck wrote on his chalkboard:: Everyone needs some honey in their tea. Male bee + female bee = honey. Two male bees = no honey/Nutrasweet.

When a blogger pointed out to Beck that honey isn’t made through reproduction, Rush Limbaugh jumped to Beck’s defense saying that the “honey smear” campaign was just part of the Homosexual agenda and if gay bees start making honey, "I'm moving to Costa Rica."

Meanwhile the Tea Party movement is beginning to splinter. A fascist group called “White Tea For Me” wants to cut the black tea production and ban the sale of Wissotzky tea in the United States.

On the left are the Green Tea and Herbal Tea movements. It is unclear if they are pro environment or pro marijuana or both or too high to know for sure.

Tea Party supporters were hoping to have “tea time” every day to protest the Obama administration, but once dudes tasted tea sandwiches and scones they asked for real food because as Lief said, “That stuff tastes like crap and everyone just pretends to like it so they don’t look uncultured.”

The Tea Party movement has spread to average corporations. A blogger by the name of Beansforever is asking the ACLU for help.

“One day, I got to work, and the only Keurig single cups left were Keurig English Tea. I tore apart the office, and there was no French Roast Keurig to be found,” Beansforever wrote. “Also those weird tea ball strainer things were around the office placed on all our desks. I don’t want to strain stuff to drink it.”

However a coworker of Beansforever discredited him when he posted a picture of Beansforever’s first generation hybrid with bumper stickers of, “Al Gore is my President” and “Kerry/Edwards” still prominently stuck to his car.

Folgers is riding out the controversy. “Yeah, we’ve survived Starbucks, we will survive this, too.”