Tish'a B'Av and Thoughts on the Modern American Diet

Tish’a B’Av and Thoughts on the Modern American Diet
July 19th, 2010, the evening before Tish’a B’Av

For those who have not heard of the 9th of Av, it is the day repeatedly chosen by people (most likely) or by God or nature (perhaps) to inflict terrible punishments on mankind, but especially on the Jewish people.

Traditionally Jews around the world gather after nightfall the evening before to mourn and to meditate, quietly in dim light, with shoes off.

I expected an evening of candlelight and wailing. I arrived early, despite being warned that the juncture of West Coast time and Jewish time is at least half an hour after I have checked my schedule to see if I showed up on the wrong day.

I asked Rabbi Yitz how I could help and he asked me to pass out copies of liturgy to the arriving congregants. I was happy to do so; I socialize better when I have a job to do.

Possibly thirty people arrived. I handed out liturgy and we whispered hellos. We removed our shoes at the door and entered the sanctuary quietly. There were cushions on the floor in front of the pews. Two large pots were tipped over sideways before fabric in a wave pattern and a dead bird lying feet up: a visual reference to the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf.

I was disappointed that we read paragraphs from Lamentations by turns around the room. It seemed we were distracted from the spirit of the event by paying attention to whose turn it was. I would have preferred that two or three people shared the reading under lights while the rest of us absorbed words in near darkness.

I found myself looking at everyone, noting who looked Israeli, who had an accent, who looked as much a convert as I do. There were two men with pleasant baritone voices and strong lungs, a woman whose radiant smile is incredibly contagious, a tattooed man who looks tough but is very sweet. I admired the family I always see together: an Israeli-looking man with his fine hawk nose and copper skin, his wife, son and a twenty-ish daughter with glorious, curly, dark hair. She went up before the congregation at Shabbat services a few days before and did very well.

I worried over my inglorious bare feet with untrimmed toenails. I had forgotten we would be removing our shoes.

I recognized one lady as the daughter of Holocaust survivors and wondered if any others were present.

Two men held their heads in their hands. One looked like he could be the brother of the man I had loved sadly for eighteen years. At the beginning of the service, Rabbi said we needed to reach inside us and find the place where this deep sorrow for all humanity lay. Although he said some of us found this sorrow in relationships, I did not want to think about this man tonight.

I wanted to think about the histories of all of our families, how some distant ancestor of mine may have caused pain to some distant ancestor of someone in the room and vici versa. I wanted to remember how universal human wants and needs are, regardless of social station or religion. How pointless and wrong are our fights over minor differences!

I remembered the conclusion of Middlemarch, which I found frustrating as a budding feminist when I read it in high school. An intelligent and loving woman used her influence where she was able, in reaching out to those in her immediate surroundings.

I surprised myself now by finding that ending noble and good. Can I do that? Can I begin a little domino effect? If I am mindful to radiate peace, can I influence others to radiate peace? I remember hearing a famous relationship coach say to give honest compliments whenever you can. This I do daily, without thought. They roll out of me because I admire and love easily. But peace? Peace I really need to work on.

Peace comes partially from gratitude, from not worrying about the future because you are thankful for what and who you have now. In the worst recession in Oregon’s history, probably many people are struggling to feel thankful.

Who I have has always been a problem for me, although I feel more peace in a quiet single life than a difficult married life.

I have given up the farm and now live in a motor home, but I am not hungry. Although I earn a fifth of what I made just a few years ago, I remember far worse times, when I only had $4.00 a week with which to buy groceries. I bought brown flour or brown rice, a dozen eggs, a pound of carrots and an onion. I made bread, pancakes, rice burgers, stir fries over rice… as much variety as I could manage. I searched for dandelion greens and onion grass in our city neighborhood. I fed the children at every meal but usually only ate one small meal a day, myself. Someone I knew started calling me The Amazing Two Inch Wide Woman. As I shrunk from a snug size 8 to a loose 4, I heard Auschwitz comments, as well.

In Lamentations, we read aloud of mind numbing hunger, of how much worse it was to watch people waste away or eat their children than to die in battle. I shuddered with horror, although I‘d read it before.

I remember hunger, but experienced nothing like that of the Jews while the Romans raged at Jerusalem’s walls or of the Jews crowded into concentration camps.

It occurred to me as I drove home that I should commemorate the 9th of Av by eating small quantities of flavorless livestock fodder like people ate in concentration camps: part of a potato in broth that was really just the cooking water. If they didn’t eat potatoes, they ate lumps of bread, but I am afraid to do that since I react badly to gluten. I’m not trying to die, to get sick, or even to fast for weight loss, since I love food and hate dieting. I need to have enough energy to get up early, drive to work, help people bigger than I am get in and out of beds and wheel chairs, drive home, walk the dogs, etc. It wouldn’t be a mitzvah to the living if I was so fuzzy headed I was unable to help them. I guess what I seek is the dietary equivalent of wearing a sackcloth - making myself uncomfortable so I remember and repent.

If there is a Heaven, which I have doubted my whole life, I want to show an honest effort to understand the pain of those in Heaven who were killed inhumanely. Who knows? Perhaps I will reach a state like American Indians who went into the wilds alone seeking visions. Perhaps I will have a vision.

Since I’m not a junk food junkie, I suppose I have a head start on this. But I am exceptionally fond of Larabars and coconut milk. I came home and put them away, out of sight. I opened the refrigerator and set limits: no spices, no sauces, no butter. I’ll eat the cantaloupe and mango only because it would be a shame to let them spoil. I’ll freeze the bananas. I started a pot of plain rice and boiled ten small potatoes.

I wondered how far to carry this sackcloth concept. I don’t go out for meals, rent movies, drink alcohol or otherwise participate in normal luxuries. Should I not read? No, then I can’t study. Should I not go to the park? No, the dogs and I need the exercise. Should I not think of men? That might not work, either...

And how long do I go? One day would teach me little and would be unlikely to impress the Heavens. A week? Two weeks? Through the fasting of the High Holy Days? Until my 45th birthday, which is at the beginning of the High Holy Days?

Tonight, I do not know. I may decide by watching my blood pressure and pulse. If I do well, I will keep it up until after Yom Kippur. If I do not, I will end it early.

July 20.

I ate about a cup and a half of brown rice with leftover sweet potatoes twice today, plain potatoes once and plain rice once. I drank plain coffee and herbal tea. I can’t exactly say I’m starving myself and impressing the Heavens, but it is true that none of this tastes very gourmand.

I checked the blood pressure and pulse readings stored in my digital blood pressure gauge. I have had heart trouble nearly my whole life, with consistently high blood pressure from last August until this June, when it began to come down for two or three days at a time. Given the wide disparities in readings, I guess I would only quit the Tish’a B’Av diet if my systolic pressure was consistently above 150. Because I have (likely permanent) tachycardia (pulse over 100, even at rest), a systolic pressure of 150 or more means minor chest pain during even low impact activities like bending over or walking and serious pain on strenuous activity. Since I do not eat packaged food anyway, my readings may not change. I will take a multivitamin/multimineral as a precaution, take my herbal diuretic and try to make myself sleep on the bed wedge. (Sigh.)

July 21

I ate rice and potatoes. I have had no revelations from on high yet but I do notice I am content today. Yesterday I really, really wanted butter, chocolate, coconut oil… anything with fat in it.

July 22
This morning before work I was reading selections from the Talmud on the prohibition against having hametz (leaven) in the homes during Passover. As the rabbis were wont to do, they digressed… I enjoyed the details of whether or not people should concern themselves about mice who carried hametz into their homes and of how a man who enjoyed feasting too much would make his wife a widow, his children orphans and bring “himself, his children and all his grandchildren for generations into disrepute…What does it mean by disrepute? Abbaye said people will call his children ‘Son of the oven heater’… Rav Papa said ‘Son of the pan licker’… Rav Shemaia said ‘Son of the one who collapsed on the ground.’”

Although I laughed at these insults, it occurred to me that greed and obesity are so normal now that no one would ever call anyone “son of a pan licker” now. We are nearly all pan lickers, except perhaps those who participate in other obsessions such as drinking and smoking.

I weigh 10 to 15 pounds more than I would like, which is less excess weight than most middle aged women carry, but I am well aware that it is because I eat out of habit and comfort rather than need. I am a lot less physically active than I was from my teens through my early thirties. The only real change I have made was forced because I was so sick: I removed all relatives of wheat and corn from my diet. However, I frequently eat snacks because they taste good, I am bored or because I am trying to substitute food for sleep. Sometimes I eat a “second dinner” because I ate my first one when I got home at 4pm and then wanted a second dinner at 9 or 10. Last week I bought food I do not ordinarily buy because I thought I was going somewhere where I would want to bring an impressive dessert. I didn’t go. I ate it myself in three days instead of freezing most of it for later.

I do not intend to make myself ill by eating like a true Soviet work camp or German concentration camp resident, so I doubt I'll lose most of that 10-15 pounds. However, I am starting to realize that I do indeed suffer from subtle gluttony.

Early this morning I dreamed of my main patient, the one who is declining. He is incapable of eating or drinking on his own and has to be told repeatedly to swallow after every spoon he is fed. Much of his food dribbles out of his mouth when he gasps for air or falls asleep before swallowing. Two days ago I put pants on him that were tight in June. They are very loose now. If he were capable of standing, they would fall to his ankles. I dreamed he was lying in a fetal position on a concrete floor, unable to move anything but his eyes.

July 26

I appear to mostly have gone off the diet, since I've shared a couple of very nice meals with a lovely man from synagogue.  But I think I have had a serious talk with myself and will be more mindful in the future.

Shabbat 7/17 near the 9th of Av

Shabbat 7/17: thoughts on peace between cultures and my own awkward self


I enjoy my Saturday morning Torah class, largely because of the widely variant perspectives in class, from the more militant and conservative to the more peaceful and kabbalistic.

Today, on the Shabbat nearest the 9th of Av, we remembered tragic events in Jewish history, nearly all acts of violent anti-Semitism. Rabbi Yitz, who came to Oregon in a VW bus in 1971, confessed his discomfort in knowing that some anti-Semitism is influenced by how Jews are portrayed during a surface reading of the Torah. It appears that our ancestors, filled with land lust, killed mercilessly. They also plundered, forced conversions and sometimes took as wives the women whose husbands they had slain (after allowing them some small period of grieving).

Rabbi Yitz said God was with the Israelites, people who often grumbled and seemed undeserving, but who also had great leaders and who made attempts to worship and follow the commandments. The communities the Israelites dispossessed were horrid. As Jews forgot their God and became more like the idolaters, they were also routed out of Israel.

Although there were moments when Abraham and Moses pleaded with God for a kinder type of justice, there were many others when they followed orders that we do not today understand. Jews and Moslems both in the Promised Land today seem to be following such harsh ideology. It is difficult to reason with people who believe they emulate heroes from their holy books!

Rabbi said much hatred stems from fear. When we encounter anti-Semitism, we should respond with loving education. One of the biggest and most urgent duties for American Jews is to work for peace between the various religions, here and in Israel. And we must remember to deserve the land we have been given.

Several people told me they were hesitant to make aliyah to a land where only the promise of war seems to remain. However, at the crumbling Western Wall, thronged with people praying and stuffing written wishes into its cracks, the visitors are moved to tears.

In synagogue services I am frequently awed to witness the response of congregants called up to carry the Torah scroll, light Shabbat candles and lead us in prayerful song. It is almost indescribably beautiful for me to see some ordinary American in jeans and sandals go joyfully to the podium and sing beautifully in Hebrew. I wish others could see this.

In my teens and twenties I attended services at a variety of religious institutions. Of the twenty five or so places I went (including the Morman Tabernacle, The Franciscan Monestary, a Buddhist temple and The National Cathedral, all in Washington, DC), the one that most impressed me was a small Baptist church during a revival, when the congregation was very involved. I had tears in my eyes at that church, but when I went back for services a few weeks later, the congregation simply sat and listened to the minister or dozed off.

At Temple Beth Israel and at many other synagogues, the congregation is very involved. I have no desire to proselytize because I think religion is a very personal matter, like who you choose to love and marry. However, those who think Jews feel smug and haughty in our “chosenness”, need only to come to services to witness joy and humble devotion.

I appreciate the Devars, teachings by individual congregants. Someone I may walk past in a grocery store without knowing their hidden talents, expounds on the weekly Torah portion, sharing their learning, personal insights and philosophies. Often they are inspired by wishes for peace.

I confessed to Zachary at the conclusion of service that I want to give a Devar, but I feel inadequate. It seems to me that Jewish people are born with the confidence to speak and sing beautifully before a crowd. Perhaps, I said, the culture creates that poise. Zachary smiled, “If you come to services for ten years, you learn.”

I said hello to a couple of people, then slipped out as I often do because I feel clumsy and gawkish. I am articulate for a sentence or two, then suddenly remember myself and crumble into a stuttering, red faced mess, no doubt confusing onlookers, who must wonder what happened.  Something to work on. I like these people.

Last week I found a listing in TBI’s newsletter for a service that coordinated volunteers to help the elderly. I assumed it was a Jewish run organization. While I was waiting for my own wheelchair-bound patient at the hospital, I called to offer my services to pick up patients and bring them to Shabbat or High Holy Day services. The lady on the phone didn’t know what I meant. She asked if I planned to take someone to church on a Friday night…? I said “to synagogue” and she answered, “Well, we don’t have many wheelchair bound clients…” My patient arrived, so I had to end the conversation. I resolved to ask the Rabbis if they knew of someone who would like the company of a bumbling but sincere person who could assist them physically. It would be a mitzvah for both of us.

***
The holidays I fear the most are coming up: the High Holy Days. The holiday concept is beautiful: We reflect seriously on our transgressions individually and as a people. We repent to God, who will accept if we are sincere. However, we must approach directly those people we have hurt and seek reconciliation from them - simply apologizing to God is not enough. God is said to witness and record whether or not we make heartfelt amends and also whether we give selflessly to charity during the ten days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. (Of course I have heard stories of secular Jews who only give to charity and attend services during this ten day period to quiet their nagging mothers.)

I understand now why people usually convert for marriage and not alone, but I am determined to attend as many of the High Holy Day services as I can, nervous or not. Again, something to work on. I like these people.