Quick: Favorite Holiday?

As a matter of principle, I've never had two "Quick" questions in a row, but it seems the rule is made to be broken. This question was one of my first "quick" questions, when I discovered the idea as a focal point for a wayward class, and it's seasonal...

What IS your favorite holiday? Probably, you like different holidays for different things. But doesn't one stand out?

I have two calendars of holidays....the good ol' American days and the Jewish calendar. On the American front, both July 4th and Thanksgiving rank high - they tend to be relaxed family days with good eats (at least, when I have the opportunity to be with family), and - in my family, anyway - little reason for hassle. Every family has its dysfunctionality, but at least nobody in mine takes issue with being seated next to anyone else, and so on. In fact, these days demonstrate a remarkable lack of family conflict.

My favorite holiday on the Jewish calendar is Shavuot. I think that may even have been the case when I was in 8th grade, and our drama teacher posed the same question (though this makes no sense to me, historically, so perhaps my memory deceives).

Shavuot captures me both because of the experience of the day and the meaning of the day.

Let's start with the experience:

Jewish tradition encourages greenery (flowers), dairy meals (cheesecake), and staying up all night to learn Torah. Personally, I'm in favor of each of these things (though I don't pull all-nighters as often as I used to), which makes all of them together in one day a wonderful trifecta (I may be exaggerating with that term, but you get the point).  To find enticing illustration of the dairy, see here: http://ayalayoung.blogspot.com/2012/05/isnt-it-ironic.html, though my favorite cheesecake is a 1981 recipe from Seventeen Magazine, adapted by my cousin and me (if I had digital pictures, I'd post them...yet another example of the absence of digital pics getting in my way...I'll have to make it and photograph it!). Ayala wouldn't like it, though, because it involves a good number of chocolate chips.

Me, I like the flowers too:

As for meaning, well, historically, the holiday of Shavuot commemorates the season of the beginnings of the harvest. It's the time when the "first fruits" were offered as sacrifices to God in thanksgiving, giving the initial reapings to the One who allows the fields and trees to produce. It's the time when the counting of the Omer is complete - with a bracha every night if you manage it - and the barley sacrifice gives way for wheat.

Not mentioned in the Torah, Shavuot is the anniversary of the giving of the Torah. That would be the "anniversary" of the marriage between God and the Jewish People - with His unbending commitment to the Children of Israel (despite the suffering of Jewish history that follows).

It's also the time when Megillat Ruth is read, and it has long been my sense that this book holds the key to the "secret" of Shavuot (I even wrote about it in 2008 - see page 41).

The day that commemorates the giving of the Law has (essentially) no laws associated with it uniquely (aside from that sacrifice of wheat). In contrast, Pesach (Passover) is the holiday that celebrates freedom - and it is replete with laws that have only grown in number by leaps and bounds over the centuries. If the details of Pesach teach the privilege that accompanies serious assumption of responsibility, then the absence of detail in receiving the Torah highlights the opportunities found in the white space between the letters of the law. What are we to do in areas that inherently, necessarily remain unlegislated?  After all (believe it or not), even the most casuistic legal systems involve their practitioners beyond the letter of the law.

Thus, Megillat Ruth teaches the primacy of "chesed" - lovingkindness, or even just plain old regular kindness. Kindness takes us out of ourselves - and by definition, chesed cannot be mandated. - Yes, acts of chesed are part and parcel of daily living: visiting the sick, helping the orphan, and so on. But the strong, selfless actions of Ruth when she throws her lot in with Naomi and her people are explicitly not required of her when Naomi instructs her to return to her own family (so too Boaz's bounty, when there was another to redeem the family). The mystery of Ruth's commitment is intriguing; more importantly (since it's in the story), by going beyond what is required, she functions as a model for us who read her tale.

The notion that the holiday of the Law is commemorated with a story of one who utterly circumvents the obligatory to do more suggests the manner by which we may embody our fulfillment of that Law. Lest you think, however, that the implication is simple stringency with regard to the details of the laws - let me remind you that we already have Pesach for that.

Rather, Shavuot teaches that the Law imbues us with the intuitive sense - albeit an intuition acquired through study - of how to live beyond the letter of the law - in the white space.

Kazimir Malevich: Suprematist Compisition: White on White, 1918
(from here:  http://paulcorio.blogspot.com/2008/03/paintings-i-like-pt-16.html)One of my favorite abstract paintings, seen at the MOMA in December 1988,
in preparation for Anna Chave's Modern Art & Abstraction (better known as "Spots and Dots")

Quick: The Blink of an Eye or Ponderous Mulling?

I'm sure the honest answer for everyone is that some decisions are made lickety-split, as if without thinking, and others are weighted with intense deliberation.

But can you characterize which decisions fall under which category?

I'm not sure I can.

Sometimes, the heftiest, most difficult, "life-changing" decisions present themselves as a fait accompli before there's even time to consider pros and cons. Sometimes, the "quick" decisions take a long time, and pros and cons rear their heads in arenas usually less philosophical.

Where to live? Which job to take? Whom to marry? What to name a child?- all big decisions that may indeed require thinking and pondering and pros and cons...or maybe not.

What to do tonight? Which flight to take? What to have for dinner? Which shampoo to use? - all (fairly) small decisions that often enough (if you're me) take an inordinate amount of time, only to discover when all is said and done that the alternative was preferable after all.

I once furnished an apartment with the unexpected. That is, I went to the stores with specifics in mind, and discovered there that something else that wouldn't usually appeal "felt right." Time bore me out - those quick selections were among the best (in the context of the apartment). Which is not to say that making decisions quickly is inherently a good idea. Just that some quick decisions may well serve surprisingly well.

Alternatively, choosing something quickly may simply be a tool to help us know what we really want, when the pros and cons clamor equally. To wit, Phoebe's game (I'd like to embed the video, but for some reason, I can't, so find it here for much more fun than reading permits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwziXSeabd4):

Scene: Central Perk, Joey is reading a map as Phoebe enters.

Phoebe: Oh hey Joey! What’s up?

Joey: I can’t decide which route to take to Vegas. Hey, you’ve traveled a lot right?

Phoebe: Yeah, I’ve been around.

Joey: Okay, so-so which route should I take the northern route or the southern route?

Phoebe: Ooh, if you take the northern route there’s a man in Illinois with a beard of bees. {Okay, I must protest this, I’ve lived in Illinois all my life and know of no man with a beard of bees! Wisconsin, on the other hand, might be a different story.}

Joey: Great! Problem solved!

Phoebe: But on the southern route there’s a chicken that plays tic-tac-toe.

Joey: Well, back to square one.

Phoebe: Oh, I know a way that you can decide! All right, I’m going to ask you a series of questions and you answer as quickly as you can.

Joey: (quickly) Yes!

Phoebe: Good, but wait. Okay, all right, here we go. Now I want you to relax. Take a deep breath. Clear your mind. (Quickly) Which do you like better peanut butter or egg whites?

Joey: Peanut butter!

Phoebe: Which would you rather be a fireman or a swimmer?

Joey: A swimmer!

Phoebe: Who would you rather sleep with Monica or Rachel?

Joey: Monica. Oh… huh, I always thought it would be Rachel.

Phoebe: No thinking! No thinking! Tie or ascot?

Joey: Ascot!

Phoebe: North route or south route?

Joey: North route!

Phoebe: Bamn! There you go! Huh?

Joey: Wow! That was incredible! Beard of bees, here I come!

As it happens, I'm in the mood for quick decisions today...though nothing is at stake this very day....Maybe change is in the air...but as far as I can foresee, no big quick choices will be made today by me.

Take the Puppy to Work Day

One June day thirty-three years ago, a woman brought a black and white puppy with floppy ears and the requisite beseeching brown eyes to my mother's business. The puppy was one of a sizeable litter, and her new owner was supposed to pick her up from the office, presumably for convenience's sake.

The owner-to-be never showed. I know this because my mother drove home that warm, sunny day with said puppy sprawled in her lap.

To this day, I do not know what possessed my mom (who has never struck me, neither before nor since, as a random animal lover) to take the doglet home. Perhaps it was a wag of a tail or the cock of an ear...or a recognition of the fact that back then, my sister and I had hopes for a pet (I recall my sister wanting a horse, though). Maybe Mom will comment below and explain what captured her, what pushed her decision.  At the time, what I know is that we were simply beside ourselves with excitement.

Granted, soon thereafter, in addition to all that was wonderful about Freckles, she became a nuisance and pain in the neck. She shed. She ate not only my homework, but my entire Science folder. She pished on our beds. She barked through the night, and jumped on visitors (we figured she'd be friendly to burglars, however). She wrestled the mail from the mailman's hand as he dropped it through the slot (yes, the bills often had chunks torn out). She ate most of a lettuce souffle from its casserole dish, with her "elbows" perched on the dining room table and her nose in the food. Also half a carved roast beef. And she needed to be walked constantly.

Part Cocker Spaniel, part Wire-haired Terrier, Freckles was quick, and alert, and a hunter by nature. She brought us offerings of fish from the lake and birds from the...air? At least once, when we girls were ice skating for hours, Mom sent her outside to find us, skittering across the ice, ears perked, with a note attached to her collar via twist-tie, inviting us in for hot cocoa. Freckles was frisky and energetic and would race herself down the long hallway and turn around and race back. She'd play catch with herself when we pushed her away - and she'd catch the ball she'd tossed in the air. Of course, she'd also nose the ball over the landing of a split-level house and tumble down two sets of stairs to discover that gravity - always - beat her to the punch. But she'd pick up the ball, trot upstairs, and try again. She might have been insane for expecting different results the next time, but we always thought the "dumb dog" was pretty smart to engineer these games (and exercise) all by herself.

At the end of her life, she was sadly pathetic...losing the strength of her legs necessary to engage in her lively pursuits of choice. She dozed curled up in a comfy dog bed, perking up when the family was present. With the historical dog-walkers out of the house, my father carried her outside gently to do her business. And eventually, kidney disease brought her to her end. We cried.

All this was a long time ago...but yesterday, May 3, would have been Freckles' 33rd birthday, if dogs lived that long. Which brings me to consider the actions of my never-impulsive mother, when she chose to bring home that hapless puppy, changing the demographics and actions and responsibilities and perhaps even personalities of our family for 15 years.

With no digital images from then, I did a quick search to find a semblance....(hey, family, if you have any photos of Freckles converted to digital, send 'em along so I can post)

This dog is the product of a Cocker Spaniel and a Wire-haired Terrier, and reminds me of Freckles' alertness  (http://www.i5net.net/~treatmemorial/ )
But her coloring....

...was more like the dog above, right. Freckles had slightly floppier ears (http://www.kilkennyspca.ie/ ).