Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 55
March 8, 2011
March 7, 2011
For IWD: a Literature of Prayer, A Woman's Heaven
In honour of International Women's Day, I'd like to go back to my ancestors, the women of small Jewish villages in Eastern Europe, who prayed in their own language, Yiddish, rather than the holy one–Hebrew.
Being just women, they weren't expected (or allowed) to learn this holy language, to pray in it, or to study the bible. Instead they did what had less status in their community. They worked, they ran small shops, they traded, learning to read and write often in two languages, their own and their Gentile neighbours.
Craving another use for literacy, they pored over the Tzena Urena, a cherished commentary on the bible written for women in Yiddish, and scoured the book peddlers' carts for novels (when such literature came to be written in the late 19th century in Yiddish) and for prayers.
The prayers written for women in Yiddish, some written by women, were different from the Hebrew liturgy canonized in earlier centuries. It was unfixed, flexible, immediate, timely. It expressed their concerns about their daily lives, sickness, dependence ("Please God, don't let me become ill and dependent on others"), their children and spouses, ("Don't let my husband gamble or chase after women when he's gone from town peddling"). Often the women spoke to God as an intimate ("Only you know my secrets that I can't tell anyone else"). They also spoke to the spirits of biblical women as one might a saint who had the ear of God, but was also one's best friend ("Rachel, dearest Rachel, you know what it's like to be barren.")
But one of my favourite of the Tehinas (these women's prayers) is really more the expression of a vision of heaven, written in the 18th c by a woman known only as Sarah Bas Tovim. Here is an excerpt from the "3 Gates Tehina" as translated by Norman Tarnor in A Book of Jewish Women's Prayers (p 32):
In Paradise there exist six chambers in which dwell thousands of righteous women…There is Bithia, daughter of Pharoah…In a third chamber is our Mother Yocheved, mother of Moses our teacher, with many [women] praising God, blessed be…There is Miriam the prophetess with drum in hand…Many Holy angels with her praise the name…In a fourth chamber sits Deborah the prophetess with many thousands of women…and sing the Song…The chambers of the Matriarchs are indescribable. No one is admitted. What pleasure there is!
Filed under: Uplifting Tagged: tehinas, women's prayer
language as evidence of identity: i'm the kind of person who…
Remember, answering a poll is a way of asserting identity. Beliefs tend to be reverse engineered, as it were: People tend to construct an identity around what they (and their tribe) do. That suggests that they will only construct a different identity when they start doing different things.
So imagine the same guy who rejected human-caused climate change in the poll. Imagine that bike riding were made convenient and useful enough that he started doing it. Imagine that his neighbors started getting solar panels, to the point that he felt pressured to do it, and he became a power producer. Imagine he's in the military and his platoon started insulating their tents and carrying solar water purifiers.
via grist.org
Fascinating short article on what polls really measure and how people's actions with regard to the environment can change.
Filed under: Interesting Tagged: psychology of climate change
what's in a word? climate change and language
Writing in the journal Public Opinion Quarterly, a research team led by University of Michigan psychologist Jonathon Schuldt reports Republicans are far more skeptical of "global warming" than of "climate change." In an experiment conducted as part of a large survey, the researchers found 44 percent of Republicans endorsed the notion that "global warming" is real, but 60.2 percent said the same of "climate change."
In contrast, 86 to 87 percent of Democrats endorsed the reality of a changing climate, no matter which descriptive phrase was used. This means the partisan divide over the issue is either overwhelmingly enormous or potentially bridgeable, depending upon the terminology one uses.
via grist.org
Filed under: Miscellany
My Weekend
This morning I woke up to sunshine and thought, it must be a cold day because, in Toronto, winter sun comes with frigid air. Saturday morning we had spring rain, today we are smash back in winter again.
I am slow today, slow of mind and slow of movement. I would like to write, read, and sew, but I may do little of anything because the body and brain, at least mine, shuts down after a certain level of frenetic activity.
Saturday morning I expected to sleep in. I haven't slept in for months what with one thing and another, and this was the day I was going to catch up on my sleep. Around 8:00 am I heard a steady tip tap tip tap sound. I thought it might be a mouse. I didn't really to be honest, but I wanted to think it was a mouse, because as much as I dislike mice in the house, there is something I dislike even more, and I knew in my heart of hearts that it was the source of the sound.
A leak. We had a new roof put on just 2 years ago and ever since, when there's a heavy rain with east winds, we have had a mysterious leak that appears in different places on the east side of the house. This one was big. The drip bloomed on the ceiling and when the bud was fat and heavy it dropped into the bucket A put on the floor.
I have called the roofer each time. This time I'd had enough and it was apparent in the message I left, which stated exactly my intentions on how I intended to proceed, for I got a call back and a promise (fulfilled!) to send someone over immediately. If necessary, he'd get the entire side of the roof reshingled, he said.
Thank God (yes the divine supreme) for old, skilled people of trades. The spry 64 year old who came to us was confident that he would see the problem from outside. You won't, A said. Nobody has before. You need to look in the attic. I'll see it outside, D said, roofers can see problems right away. About a half hour later, he was back inside the house on the 3rd floor. Leaping from our slightly short ladder, he got into the attic. (I want to be like him when I'm in my 60′s). And there he located the source of the problem. Outside again he took another look. Some shingles hadn't been properly staggered. He put tar under them, and the tip tap, plip plop stopped.
That was just the start of my weekend. You get the idea. Everything ended well, but there were unexpected extra chores in an already filled weekend. At the end of it, I have a fixed roof, a daughter who had her first sleepover ever and a doozy it was (with 100′s of Girl Guides, Brownies and Sparks), a new used sewing machine, and applications from prospective tenants. Also one tired brain.
Filed under: Personal Tagged: leaks
March 6, 2011
courtroom bloopers
Was that the same nose you broke as a child?
Now, doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, in most cases he just passes quietly away and doesn't know anything about it until the next morning?
What happened then?
He told me, he says, "I have to kill you because you can identify me."
Did he kill you?
via duhaime.org
Click on the link above for more! It's laugh out loud funny.
Filed under: Fun Tagged: courtroom humour
March 5, 2011
Today I Walked In Rain
My 9 yo held a big umbrella. I carried a sewing machine bought on Craigs List. She sheltered me uncomplainingly.
Filed under: Miscellany
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