If Religion is an Expression of Love...

Skipping to the punch-line of a longer discussion, if the relationship between God and Israel is one of love and affection, and the acceptance of the Torah is an expression of that love, one glaring conclusion will be that rather than seek out the minimum necessary for us to do to uphold the Torah, we will seek out the maximum.  If my lover gives me a list of things that will make him happy, I will happily try to do everything I can and more.

But there is also this: Our lover will not demand of us more than we can do, and will understand when we fall short that we have done our best.  We will work out together how best to manage the love relationship, how best to satisfy each other's needs, and the extent to which we will accept compromise.  And disappointment. 

The challenge is this: Being honest about what we are capable of.  Being honest in our self-assessment.  Not tricking our lover into accepting less than is possible.  

So in the end, religion being an expression of love means two things at once: First, we will want to do as much as we can.  Second, it will be ok if we cannot - or simply do not - live up to the expectations set upon us, as long as we are honest with ourselves and with the Lord.  

Looking forward to Shavuos.

Shavuos

God said, "Be my people."

And we said, "Ok."

But then we said, "No wait, can we talk first?

And God sighed.  

We said, "We're just not sure.  Can we talk first?"

And God said, "Yes, my children.  We can talk."

So we stood there at the mountain, and we talked.  

We talked for hours.  Like old friends.

We talked about our relationship, about where we'd been together, and how far we'd come.

We talked about our future. And our fears. 

We talked about promises, and about uncertainties.

We cried some.  And a few times we laughed, but not in a silly way.  

We looked into each other's eyes.  We imagined the Lord's eyes.  

And God said, "Be my people."

And we said, "Ok.  For now."

And we said, "We love you."

And God said, "I know."

And a few years later we had children.  And then some years after that, they had children of their own...

Yet another reason to love academia

The room I'm in right now, in Bobst Hall  at Princeton University, has four long tables arranged in a rectangle, with a podium behind the front table, the top of the rectangle.  About 25 people sit around, a bit less than half of whom are prominent professors in rabbinics (Yale, Princeton, U Penn, University of Chicago, Tel Aviv University, and JTS are represented), and the rest of whom are graduate students in rabbinics from around the world (America, France, Austria, Germany, and Israel).  This is a 2-day conference entitled, "The Rabbis and Others in Conversation" - meaning, the ancient rabbis of talmudic literature and the "conversations" represented in the literature  between them and various non-rabbis (right up my dissertation league).  

There are as many women as men.  

Everyone is polite.

There is fervent discussion of everyone's ideas, agreeing, disagreeing, suggesting further research, asking and answering questions.

Many of the women are beautiful, and they are also full-voiced and smart, and many of the men are soft-spoken.

The ages span from about 25 to about 70.  

Some are religious Jews, some are secular, and some are Christian.  And some are something else.

Over breakfast, lunch, and dinner we discuss the papers, or Hebrew grammar, or sports.

No one is belittled.  No one is exalted.

But mainly it's the women.  They are beautiful and smart and strong - old and young - and that's just the way it is.  It is all as it should be.  There is a fantastic feeling of equality and freedom.  Gender is in the room in a comfortable way, not in a way that puts any of us into a box.  Smart women are not desexualized, and intelligent men are not macho.  It is not all about power - who has it and who doesn't and how it's wielded.  This room is about collegiality and learning.  And there are an equal amount of men and women, scattered together around the table.

This is not how it always feels in academic environments, and certainly not in the field of rabbinics.  But sometimes it feels this way, and today is one of those days.  It never feels this way in other environments though, at least not in Jewish ones.  I love academia.  I love being a part of this world.  This is the world in which to cultivate the freedom and equality, particularly regarding gender but also regarding religious orientations and other matters, that I've described at this table in Bobst Hall at Princeton.

Hoorah!

Right, Wrong, Convincing, Compelling, Interesting, Important

What does it mean to do a good dissertation in the Humanities?

For certain subjects it's clear: Prove that something existed that nobody has noticed so far.  Answer a question that has bothered us for decades.  Introduce an entirely new hermeneutic to your field.

You heard it here first: I am NOT going to do any of those things.  I have a perfectly fine sense of my own capabilities, and they are not nill, so I do not mean this self-deprecatingly, but I am not one of those who will write a ground-breaking, stop-the-presses dissertation.  (And incidentally, I'll be perfectly satisfied and proud of a career that includes nothing of the sort.)

But I do want to write a good dissertation.  I'd kind of like to write a damn good one.  It's just very hard to figure out what the criteria are, and then how to achieve that.  

I know I don't want it to be "wrong."  That would be awful.  Gotta not be wrong.  But not being wrong doesn't exactly lead to being "right."  I'd like to make a "compelling" argument, but if I succeed at that, it doesn't necessarily mean my argument is "convincing."  And even if I'm both "right" and "convincing," my work might still not be "interesting."  And even if it's "interesting," that doesn't mean it's "important."  

Oyoyoy!

Then there's this problem, especially when working with midrash.  Let's say I'm commenting about a given story in rabbinic literature.  Then someone comes along and says, "Meh, it's just a story.  It's a good story!  But stop making it into such a big deal.  It's clearly just about [fill in the blank]."  A major scholar at this graduate student conference at Princeton that I'm at right now has essentially done that to both me and another student.  How do you counter that?  

Here's my advice to myself: What do you do? You make suggestions and see if they resonate with colleagues and teachers.  You don't assume you can prove anything, and you dismiss those who would dismiss you because of that.  You find your voice, knowing that while yes, there are a million things that could be said about this stuff, you have something of your own to say.  You accept that, inevitably, some people won't like your work.  And inevitably, some people will.  You try to decide whose opinion matters to you, and you refuse to be paralyzed by insecurities, fears, and ego.  

At least you try.  And sometimes you remind yourself: It's just a job.