Eh, She’s Not for Me!

I had a good laugh today when I read that a Taiwanese woman was so disillusioned with the men in her city that she married--herself. The question I ask is, "Who gets to keep the house in case of a divorce?"

It’s not easy being a woman on the blind date circuit, especially in big cities. In “New York, single women outnumber single men by more than 210,000. In the Philadelphia area and greater Washington, D.C., single women outnumber single men by 50,000.”1 Thus, it’s no wonder that a woman spends seven hours in the mirror before a blind date and then, after a whole night of listening to an egotistical man speak only about himself and his ex-wife and turning you into his therapist, a dejected woman returns home to a freezing liter of Haagen-Dazs and a hot shower wherein the pretenses of such nights and layers of makeup gradually clog up the drain.

Women begin questioning, “Will I ever meet anyone?” “Is it me or them?” “Why should I bother anymore?” All these failed dates begin to shape how they see themselves as women. One guy thinks they talk too much, so they tone it down; then, the next guy thinks they have no conversation. It comes to a point where women just don’t know who to be anymore. Then your friends all advise, “Just be yourself.” We would, if we remembered who we were to begin with. All these interludes eat away at us like Hannibal Lecter and what’s left is usually unrecognizable and bitterly unappetizing.

Men, too, have it hard as their cojones are cut off by today’s superwomen who often make more bucks and scream sexual harassment when the guy opens the car door for them, those vain women who never met a mirror they didn’t like. Men also get put off by obnoxious gold diggers—you know the kind—those graduates from the Ivana Trump School of Mergers and Acquisitions who are trained to want the only wedding ring displayed behind bulletproof glass. Males are left no longer sure whether to be gentlemen or jerks. And as we keep banging off of each other in these failed dating expeditions, the definitions of the sexes are constantly evolving as we keep reshaping ourselves to adapt.

I think we have become such a superficial society that even when we seek our mates—the most important relationship in our life--we often overlook substance for external traits.

Then I think about the bible reading of the week wherein Abraham seeks a wife for his son Isaac with the conditions that she comes from a good family and suitable place. And so, the patriarch’s servant looks to find a woman who is also kind and compassionate and of substance, who has common values and is worthy of perpetuating the seed of Abraham. He finds Rebecca. And the Bible tells us that Isaac took her as his wife and he loved her. In today’s society we invert that order. First we think we have to be crazy in love and then we can think about marriage. We have only to look at the statistics of divorces and adultery to see how well that is working out.

Stop thinking of whom you have to impress by having a charm on your arm. Everyone goes home to their lives and no one really cares if you are alone or not, except you. Remember, no matter how good looking a girl is, there is always some guy who is tired of sleeping with her. The search for finding someone "even better" is endless. Ask the Taiwanese woman who is spending her honeymoon in a twin size bed, alone. I just hope she doesn't run out of quarters for the shake-o-matic bed.

Maybe it’s time to look at people a little deeper as to what is “hot” and what is “not” before we whittle away our days alone on our hypercritical perch.

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Footnote:
1.Richard Florida , “A Singles Map of the United States of America,” The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/
bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/30/a_singles_map_of_the_united_states_of_america/

My Eyes Adored You by Aliza Davidovit

I was so angry this morning after I caught someone I love lying to me and manipulating me that I almost couldn’t write this blog. All the calm feelings and even-keeled sentiments needed to compose an inspiring article were nowhere in reach except perhaps at the bottom of a bottle of kosher wine. But it’s only 10 a.m. and still twenty minutes too early to start drinking.

So what do you do when those you trust let you down? Do you close your eyes? Do you open them ever-wider? Do you start an all-out war and put them in their place?
The truth is I have no answers for this today except to look into the biblical teaching of the week and hope something applies to me.

Turns out this week’s portion speaks of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. How apropos because I’m ready to come down like a wrecking ball on this friendship of mine as the betrayal is sticking in my throat like a stubborn long spiky fish bone which won’t come up and won’t go down.

So, I’m with God when He says He is going down to visit this sinning town and wipe it out. But then the words of Abraham come to quantify the wrath and he starts negotiating with God asking if He would save the cities if even only 50 good men could be found and the Good Lord concedes. Abraham keeps whittling away at the number until he is assured that S&G will be saved even if only 10 good men could be found in their midst.

And so I too am forced to start assessing what redeeming qualities can be found in my friend. I’m further reminded of the Talmudic teaching that says a person was created with two eyes so that with the left eye (which represents judgment) he should look at himself to find his own faults and work on eliminating them; and with the right eye (which represents mercy) one should look upon others with compassion and kindness. For certain, since love is blind, when it comes to ourselves we only see perfection; yet when evaluating others in our lives we have 20/20 vision.

But I think the deeper lesson here is what we tend to focus on, be it the good or the bad, will grow and will change us. They say every single thing has a negative and positive aspect to it and the one that will dominate is the one you “feed” the most. If I focus on the “lie,” then from now on every sneeze my friend makes will be subject to my analytical scrutiny and to my second guessing. In the process, I become the ugly one, the one who becomes obsessed with deviousness even as I try to dodge it, whereas the great Patriarch Abraham focused only on the good, even in the vilest of places. In this same biblical portion we also read about Ishmael’s mother, Hagar, who in thirsty despair focused only on the parched desert around her and therefore did not see that a well was right beside her too.

Friends, despite these great biblical lessons, this is one of those situations where personally, I just don’t know where to look. So in the meantime, I’m looking for the corkscrew.

Yes You Can! by Aliza Davidovit

Sometimes the biggest impediment between what we want and where we are is our own voice inside our head. “I can’t do it,” “It’s too late for me,” “I don’t have what it takes,” etc. We sit in the bleachers watching our lives pass us by and instead of cheering ourselves on, we boo ourselves out of the game even before we start playing. And in this cold world where everyone tries to drown you out either because of jealousy or their own insecurities, we join them in self-deprecating language as to why we can never be what we strive to be or to get where we want to go. Our own negative words erect blockades before us where none have to be.

Now, whether you like her or not is your affair, but I can’t help but think of Oprah Winfrey when I think about words. Hers is the epitome of the triumph of the underdog story. Everyone told her she wouldn’t make it. Whatever it is, she didn’t have it. All kinds of negativity was hurled at her. Yet she never let the words, not her own or those of others, shackle her--a daughter of slaves who chose to free herself. Not words nor negativity would she permit to be her taskmasters.

We all know that speaking disparagingly of others is not a nice thing to do. So what makes it nicer when we can’t find a kind, encouraging or hopeful word for ourselves? We must choose the vocabulary of our days very deliberately because it becomes the narrative of our lives. How can you really believe in God if you don’t believe He gave you everything you need to forge forward? You may not have had the economic advantages of your neighbor, or the education of your brother, or the looks of your sister, but you have something they will never have, YOU! Moses held in his hand not a golden gilded sword for the task ahead of him, he had but the staff of a shepherd and he made it work for him, with faith not fear.

When we look at many of the biblical giants, none of them were perfect. Moses had a speech impediment; Jacob had a limp; Issac became blind. Yet each of them had the self-confidence to take chances. None of them stayed home all day watching soap operas and living their lives vicariously bemoaning their lot in life.

So dear friends, I urge you to let go of all the negative words that are shackling you to your discontent--just as the Patriarch Abraham in this week’s Bible reading left all the things that defined him behind. It may be interesting to note that the Hebrew words that command Abraham to get up and go (lech lecha) have the numerical value of 100, the same as his age when his son Isaac was born. All his potential, the seeds of destiny, were bred in his optimism in breaking with yesterday, in seeking new definitions of himself, so much so that even God renamed him changing Abram to Abraham.

Look in the mirror and say “Yes I can” over and over again until the mirror reflects your potential even before you show up. Great things await you; they are just waiting for you to put in a good word.

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And the Congeniality Award Goes To... by Aliza Davidovit

It starts early on our desire to be accepted. Often the price for admission is our individuality. We suppress what is different about us either in opinions, morality, stance or proclivities because we don’t want to stand out, or be laughed at or be disliked. How often on Facebook or other blogging sites do you find yourself among fellow conservatives or liberals pandering to the conversation with trepidation that if you say something out of the accepted norm of your “clan” that you will be ostracized?

But our potential dear friends lies not in sublimating what is unique about us and in squelching our voice but rather speaking boldly, come what may. A herd mentality is a dangerous thing no matter which part of the political or religious spectrum you may be on.

In this week’s Biblical reading we read about the Tower of Babel wherein God looked down upon those who set to build this tower into the sky and said: "Lo! [they are] one people, and they all have one language.” So what’s wrong with that? It’s not like they were committing murder. What is wrong with it is that they were so single-minded, so much in lockstep, so much of “one language” that no one questioned the other or challenged the other as to whether their actions were correct or not. Such uniformity in mind and action is a dangerous thing as it is bound to succeed, as did the Nazis to a great extent.

No, it is not easy to stand against the establishment; it is not easy to be that only voice which speaks out against wrong or injustice, but it is our duty to destiny which lies not only in the Kingdom of God but our kingdom here on Earth.

I’m reluctant to point to it, but I can’t begin to tell you how many people laughed at me when I ripped up my masters diploma from Columbia University in protest of its invitation to Iran’s President Ahmadinejad. One blogger wrote that I ripped all proof of having any brains at all. I was pretty much called every name under the sun from Zionist bitch to, well, it doesn’t matter. Throughout, I kept in mind the famous quote, “It doesn’t matter what they call you, it’s what you answer to!” And I was answering to a call of duty, not to those who looked down on me, but to those who looked up to me.

I urge you all to be that voice that rings out in the silent halls of consent, the one to make a ruckus when something is not right whether it’s on a national scale or an old lady being mistreated by a checkout clerk at the supermarket. Let’s not pretend we like to mind our own business while every other second of the day we are on information overload seeking out what’s going on in every dark place in the world from celebrity to gossip to local riffs and tiffs.

Also in this week’s biblical portion we read about the story of Noah. In a world of complete depravity, he had the courage to be the sole voice of decency, to walk a righteous path and to live by example. For certain he wasn’t winning any popularity contests as he was hardly speaking “the language” of the times. Both he and his ark were oddities to deride until came the rain and the rising of the tide. In the end the “joke” was not on him at all.

I’ll bring this blog to a close with a poem I learned as a little girl:

No Enemies?

You have no enemies, you say?
Alas, my friend, the boast is poor;
He who has mingled in the fray
Of duty, that the brave endure,
Must have made foes! If you have none,
Small is the work that you have done.
You've hit no traitor on the hip,
You've dashed no cup from perjured lip,
You've never turned the wrong to right,
You've been a coward in the fight.

~ Charles MacKay (l814-l889)

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All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned from a Cup by Aliza Davidovit

Who says we can only learn things from other people? This week I learned a lot from a porcelain cup. As I warmed up a delicious soup and poured it into my favorite mug, I started reading the ingredients on the can searching for the calorie count only to realize this soup I was lusting over had ingredients that rendered it not kosher. As I tearfully bid farewell to the noodles as I threw the soup away, it dawned on me that the content had also rendered the cup itself not-kosher as per Jewish law. The porous nature of porcelain makes it an absorbent and it is thus altered, however minutely, by that with which it commingles.

It made me think, that we too, humans, are all vessels, “cups,” who must be on constant vigilance of what we are allowing to fill us up. Do your cups runneth over with honeysuckle wine or with artificially-sweetened poison that slowly kills the great person you are, putting the best of you to rest one sip at a time.

Our fives sense are the openings through which we take it all in, the means through which we fill that "cup" which is "us." So I ask: What are you looking at? Who are you listening to? What are you eating? What are you touching? What are you smelling? These senses are all gifts from God. Ask the blind man or deaf man if you don’t believe that it is so. Ask an elderly person who no longer has the ability to taste, or a brain tumor patient, such as my dad was, whose sense of smell was destroyed. Do not for one moment take for granted the access points through which we imbibe life. When you learn to appreciate and cherish them, you will learn to use them wisely and put a burly bouncer at each entry to ward off the crap from entering your life.

We may think we are impervious to listening to hateful things; we may think we can watch whatever we want on TV and just close the channel and it’s over, and so on. But it is not the case. Human beings are evermore porous and continually altered by what they allow in both physically and spiritually.

This week we begin the Bible reading again with the story of creation and Adam and Eve. We learn that it was all the senses, except the sense of smell, that led Eve to sin. She opened her ears to the snake’s beguiling tongue; she visually lusted over the beauty of the forbidden fruit; she touched it; she tasted it. She let in all the wrong things—one fateful step at a time—and shattered the pure vessel that she was, bringing mankind down with her.

So my friends, before you fill your cups, take a good look at the ingredients and make sure that you are always drinking “to life.”

As an addendum, I also learned something from another inanimate object in my home, a crystal snake? Someone once gave me this expensive Daum crystal serpent as a gift which I abhorred for obvious reasons. For many months I’d pass by it and say, “Feh, I hate it” and dreamed of ways to get rid of it or break it without insulting the giver. But as time passed by, I completely stopped noticing it. And that too is a lesson. Our senses eventually become lulled by over exposure (ask any perfume sales girl), and you can have a snake right before your eyes and not even see it for what it is. So, don’t let your senses fall asleep on the job. But rather, stand guard, be on alert, for there is no interaction that leaves you as you were before.

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How Sweet It Is to Be Loved By YOU! by Aliza Davidovit

As I sat before a blank page one year ago with only the will to write these blogs but not certain I had the words, I really wasn’t sure I’d make it through the year. I’ll be honest, I’ve tried it before. But wandering through the desert for 40 years was a difficult task, even from the comfort of my living room. Usually by the second book of the Bible, I’d say, “Sundays are for relaxing,” and I’d put my pen to rest. But as the Jewish people are apt to do, I ask myself a few questions: “Why was this year different than all the other years? What gave me the incentive to keep on going?” The answer was “YOU!” From week to week the support and encouragement you gave me has kept me fired up and inspired, even the criticism too. For it is impossible to have two Jews and one Jewish mother among your readers and not be met with criticism. But, I just want to say that I have never had friends like you before. God has truly surrounded me with very special people from every faith and almost every country. I believe each of you has been handpicked by Him and your friendship has touched me deeply. As I enter the Jewish New Year, I pray for all of you to have friends like YOU who will lovingly get you to whatever finish line means the most to you.

The famous Rabbi Lapin has said that anything good that happens in life involves the coming together of things: molecules need other molecules for matter to form; letters need other letters to make words and sentences; notes need other notes to make music. And most of all people need other people. The hermit in me never knew that—until I met all of you! As Barbara Streisand once sang, “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.” I need all of you and consider myself now the luckiest person to have found you.

So as we enter Rosh Hashana, my friends of all faiths, I pray that God showers you all with blessings and with true and righteous friends who encourage you to grow and to be better, people who look upon your face and see that you are made in God’s image and remind you everyday that you can surely live up to the part.
Shana Tova!

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Jew to Jew: On the eve of the high holidays! by Aliza Davidovit

I’m sure mothers are the same in every ethnic group but please oblige me if I pick on Jewish mothers because it’s just plain fun. Last weeks’ Bible reading in which God lists 98 curses that will befall the Jewish people if they don’t behave reminded me of a Jewish mother’s warning every time her child leaves the house: wear your hat or you’ll catch pneumonia; don’t forget lunch or you’ll get an ulcer; park close to the door or you’ll get mugged; call me as soon as you get there or my blood pressure will go up and you won’t have a mother to worry about you, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Then they bid you to have a good day. We didn’t even leave the house yet and we are already advised of 98 ways our lives will be ruined.

Perhaps the above approach does not engender the current trends of positive thinking. But one thing is sure, every advisory, from God and our mothers is packed with deep, deep love. Our souls are all on journeys and when they leave their heavenly house they too are not sent off with such platitudes as “have a nice trip,” but rather are given warnings and codes of behavior. It’s almost like a travel advisory from the State Department.

But when God hides his face from his people and our dear mothers are no longer, who is left to love us? Judaism teaches that each Jew must love the other and watch out for his physical and spiritual well being because even though one may be on the political left and the other on the right, they are in essence part of one body and the injury of any part is deleterious to the whole. The one thing that can sustain the Jewish people is their love and respect for each other--just as Rabbi Hillel summed up the entire Bible by saying what is hateful to you do not do to another. The second temple was destroyed not as a punishment for lascivious behavior but because Jews showed hatred toward each other and lack of compassion, love and understanding.

As a people we cannot preserve ourselves or what we love by hating each other. There are times when the religious right frustrates me and there are times when liberal leaning Jews exasperate me. But just as Hitler did not discriminate over which Jew he hated, the antidote for our people is that we can’t discriminate over which Jew we love. In the open courtyards the Nazis stripped Jews down to nakedness and there were no rich or poor, liberal or conservative, religious or secular. “You are standing today, ALL OF YOU, before Hashem, your God.”

On the eve of the high holidays, all Jews must recognize that we are responsible for one another which also means that as a Jew when you engage in the secular world, in business, and in all affairs you must conduct yourself with decency and integrity so that when the next Jew walks into the building there are no aspersions cast upon him because of your dealings.

My friends, if the blood or bone marrow of a Jew you disagree with or hate was the only one that could save your child’s or your life, would you reject it? Of course not! So, don’t be so quick in hating. Our survival is symbiotic whether you like it or not. The mitzvah of ahavas Yisrael (Jews loving one another) is said to be the deed which hastens the coming of the Messiah. If we don’t love each other, why are we surprised that antisemites hate us? Yes, we are our brother’s keeper, so here, take my hat. It’s a cold, cold world out there.
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