Results of the Experiment: Jackpot!

Jackpot!

Apparently it's not enough to include subtle digs at Protocols as a whole. I need to be irritated by something peculiar to Luke Ford himself. Which isn't tough.

I realize that blogging about Luke just feeds into his madness. So I'll stop now.

--FrumDad

It's not just kids that are looking for attention.

This is more in the way of an experiment than anything else.

Apparently my mention of Luke Ford here (which was, in turn, a reponse to this) was enough to get me mentioned on the consistently trafficked (though only rarely worthwhile) Protocols blog. I'm curious if this post will get picked up over there as well.

I was on Car Talk once. My friends and I joked that it was going to come out of my fifteen minutes, but since it was Public Radio there'd be a discount multiplier, since NPR only counts as maybe 25% famous.

I wonder if there's a similar multiplier with respect to blogs.

--FrumDad

UPDATE
See, this ridiculousness is the kind of thing that made me not want to be associated with Luke Ford in the first place, even if we did happen to come down on the same side of a debate.

Mr. Ford calls it an exchange of contentious email, but the only contentious emails come from Ford himself; Teresa Watanabe's emails seem consistently civil, if a little annoyed.

I'm trying very hard to keep this blog narrowly focused, but there's a part of me that's sorely tempted to sound off on various issues, including politics, non-parenting Jewish issues, and general blogsphere issues, and once in a while (like right now) I will allow myself a small indulgence.

More than Animals, More than Angels

Almost every morning, as part of the morning ritual I've mentioned before, I pick Rachel up out of her crib, say "Modeh Ani," change her diaper, and then take her into the bathroom to "do negel vasser." (Do you believe I couldn't find an adequate link for that term?)

Negel Vasser is the common term for a ritual washing of the hands that Judaism requires at certain points during the day. I think the words are actually Yiddish or German for "nail water," referring to the actual water used to wash the hands, but there's been some semantic spread of the term, so that now "the negel vasser" is the term for the two-handled cup used for that washing, and to "do negel vasser" is to actually engage in the ritual.

What I really need to narrow down for my purposes here, though, is that there are actually two different types of ritual washing of the hands. In the morning, after sleep, and at certain other specific times (to be discussed), a Jew is obligated to pour water over their hands three times, alternately: Right-Left-Right-Left-Right-Left.[fn1] There's also the other kind, which even some pretty non-religious Jews will have experienced at least around Passover time, which is done before eating bread (and praying, and other specific times), which is twice each hand, successively: Right Right Left Left.[fn2]

[fn1:]Right first, for a reason, but that's a whole different post.
[fn2:]Right first again; see fn1.

I want to focus on the first one, and from here on, unless I make it clear otherwise, when I talk about negel vasser I'm referring to that one (RLRLRL).

I do this with Rachel first thing, because I do it for myself first thing. I wake up, say "Modeh Ani," and then go do negel vasser. There's not an Orthodox Jew (hopefully) out there who isn't doing the same thing. And by doing it with Rachel, regularly and consistently and first thing, I'm helping train her into it as well, so that she develops a habit and builds on it, and so that eventually just like I wake up and do certain steps almost automatically, she will, too.

But the important word in that last sentence is almost. Because there's very little (if not nothing) in Judaism that's ritual without meaning. That's always been one of my favorite things about Judaism: even the times you hear, "this is something we can never understand," it's usually just a preamble to, "but let's try to understand it anyway."

So there must be some message behind the act of negel vasser. And by doing the act, I'm enforcing the message. As pop-psych as it sounds, it's nonetheless entirely true that if you wake up every morning and say out loud to yourself, "I'm wonderful," then eventually you start to believe that about yourself. If you wake up, look in the mirror, and say, "I'm ugly," then you'll eventually believe that about yourself, too.

As importantly (if a little tautologically), the action itself is more meaningful if the actor is aware of the meaning. So while I want Rachel to do this almost automatically, it's pretty important that she be aware of the deeper meaning behind what she's doing, first so that she can do it with more joy and understanding (which is axiomatically better) but also to reinforce the action.[fn3]

[fn3:] There's a parable/story about a guy in the Russian (pre-glasnost) Gulag who turns a heavy wheel for years, thinking he's grinding grain for a village, during which time he never cries and never gives up hope. On his release the guards, laughing, inform him that the wheel was connected to nothing; only then does the prisoner break down and weep. It feels weird to quote Nietzsche, but still: "He who has a why can endure any how."

So, if I'm teaching Rachel to do this to herself every morning (setting aside the fact that I do it and G does it every morning as well) then it's important to look at and think about what it is, exactly, I'm teaching Rachel to say to herself every morning.

Basically, negel vasser is done right after waking up from sleep, after going to the bathroom, after touching "private" areas, after touching your shoes (I don't remember if it's just the soles, just leather shoes, or just leather soles), and in a few other situations I don't need to get into.

Usually, the morning negel vasser is explained as a function of washing off the "tumah" (loosely, "impurity") of death that attaches to a person when they sleep. And while I think that's fair, as far as it goes, I don't think it captures the broader nature of negel vasser.

Judaism has this core idea. Angels stand, Men walk. Which is to say that angels are bound to the will of Hashem, and do always and exactly what He "wants" them to do. But it is to humans alone that Hashem gives the ability to choose -- good or evil, closeness or separation.

Of course, the choice we're supposed to make is to move us closer to the angels. Not closer to the angels in the sense of losing free will,[fn4] but closer to the angels in the sense of doing the will of Hashem at any given turn.

[fn4:] Though there is an element of choosing to give up choice. It's a beautiful and deep idea, that deserves its own post, but without going into it too much, I feel safe saying that for the vast majority of people reading this, it's probably true that you've structured your world so you don't have to make a moral choice between, say, killing someone or not; essentially you've chosen to have no choice.

At the same time, Judaism recognizes (and celebrates) the physical aspect of being a human. Much of the daily life of a Jew revolves around celebrating and elevating physical acts.

Eating can be holy. Singing can be holy. Working can be holy. As long as a person is alive, they have that ability to elevate even the most apparently mundane thing to holiness.

How is that elevation achieved? The trick to being alive is to remember that the elevation is possible, that there's a Self, and an animal being, and they're intertwined -- But in the end the Self is in charge.

And death, then, can be understood as the moment the Self separates from the animal being. Without the Self, that ability to elevate and sanctify is lost. Capital-D Death is the permanent[fn5] version. But there are a number of situations where there's a "tam" (taste) of the same thing, where the same loss is perceived, if perhaps only temporarily or partially.

[fn5:] Mostly permanent, anyway. See Principle 13.

That explains the washing. We wash negel vasser at those moments when we are most in danger of mistaking the animal being for the Self.

When we sleep, not only are we unable to consciously think about or even control fully the physical acts we do, but we are engaged in an act that is easily perceived as purely animal. Our higher cognitive functions are tucked away, not turned off but also not interacting with the physical world, and our physical bodies demand rest.[fn6] When we go to the bathroom, we're engaged in a function of the body, and we could easily make the mistake of thinking (as many do) that humans are nothing more than fancy apes with liquid-cooled brains.

[fn6:] That our minds need sleep as well doesn't cut against this. The work our minds are said to do during sleep is sorting, connecting, management, learning… all processes that deal with the input of the day, not that seek more input. Of course the mind and the spirit are still functioning, they don't need rest the same way the body does. They're just disconnected from the physical world so that the body can get the rest it needs.

Yes, there's a part of us that is (one way or another) a fancy ape with a liquid-cooled brain. But there's also a part of us that's higher, and better, and can recognize the miracle that is sleep or going to the bathroom. That's the part that we're in danger of forgetting when we think of ourselves in wholly animal terms.

Our hands are, essentially, the mechanism we use to interact with the world around us. If we interact with the world around us without the awareness of a higher Self governing those interactions, we are walking, moving, and doing, but at the same time we're kind of a little dead.

So we wash our hands. In a specific way for various reasons, I'm sure, but not least to connect it to all the other times we wash our hands in that specific way. So that when I wash after going to the bathroom I realize it's the same message as when I just woke up as when I touched my leather-soled shoes[fn7] as when I touch covered areas of my body as when I do any of the other things that trigger a need to wash in that way.

[fn7:] Briefly, about the shoes. The give-away is Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). On Yom Kippur we don't wear leather-soled shoes because on that day we're supposed to be like angels. Shoes are designed to protect us and separate us a little from the world, so that as we walk (Man walks, remember) we can disconnect from the things that might harm us. Angels see the world for what it is: a perfect and loving gift to us from a kind and loving father. So nothing can harm them, and they don't wear shoes. When we're like them, we recognize the same thing, so we don't either. To bring it home here, touching the shoes is connecting our hands (with which we interact with the world) with the shoes (that disconnect us from the world, because there are things in the world that can hurt us just as there are things in the world that can hurt an animal who doesn't understand the world to be the gift that it is.

By washing my hands, I send myself the message that I am more than the animal version of myself that I've just encountered. That my job in this world is connect this world and all its physical aspects to the higher spiritual reality that I understand exists. And when I've put myself (necessarily) in a situation that might lead to forgetting that, then I'm obligated to remind myself.

When I wash negel vasser in the morning, I'm essentially looking in the mirror and telling myself, "I am holy. I am more than a beast." Hopefully, over time, I'll internalize that message, and truly believe it about myself.

And when I teach Rachel to wash negel vasser, I'm sending her that message, too. As she grows and becomes more independent, I'm also teaching her to wake up in the morning and tell it to herself.

The message behind negel vasser is of holiness, and sanctification. That my daughter is more than an animal, and has potential for infinite greatness. I'm happy to be teaching her that, even in this small way. And I'm especially happy to teach her that she's responsible for teaching it and reteaching it to herself, every day.
--FrumDad

Welcome Protocols readers

I don't really get the joke in this post by Luke Ford over at Protocols, though I am a bit concerned about Luke Ford's interest in my body.
 
But it's bringing some eyeballs, so maybe there's an upside.
 
Welcome.  This blog is primarily about how being an Orthodox Jew informs my being a parent, and how being a parent informs my Orthodoxy.  My most recent substantive post is a look at the connection between Torah and breastmilk.
 
I try to post something substantive every 10 days or so.  I don't always keep to that schedule, and usually get traffic spikes in the slow bits. (See here and here.)
 
In his link here, LF calls me Frum "Don't Associate Me With Luke Ford In Any Way" Dad.  I don't feel a need to explain fully here, but for the curious it stems from a series of comments surrounding the minor controversy between Stephen Weiss at the now-defunct Fiddish and Chayyei Sarah at her epo- and pseudo- nymous blog.
 
Substantive content coming soon, we hope.
 
That is all.
 
--FD

Blog-to-blog the Other Way.

Zowie.

This is the third or fourth time I've been linked to in the main text of someone else's blog, and each time I've been humbled and appreciative, not least to be considered even in small measure a compatriot of these fine people who think and express themselves so clearly and exquisitely.

This time is no exception.

--FD

Missin' the loooove.

Hello!?!?!? How about a little love from the folks over at
Jewish Week?

Okay, so I come up #128 on the Google search for [orthodox jewish blog].

But I come in ahead of Shmuley, even!!!

Of course, he wasn't in the article either. So maybe that's not such a good point.

I also come in ahead of AidelMaidel, who did get mentioned. But there's probably another search, like maybe "Jewish Blogs that People Actually Read."

Okay, I just did that search. AidelMaidel comes in soemwhere around 600, and I, erm... well... don't so much show up at all.

Well, let's fix that right now:

Jewish Blogs that People Actually Read!
Hey, If you're into Jewish Blogs and you, like, Actually Read them, and you're a People, you would be interested in reading THIS, which is a Jewish Blog that People Actually Read.

I know this has nothing to do with my daughter, or with how my Judaism informs my being a father...

Oh well.

--FrumDad.
 
[UPDATE] Seems the Google Dance has a sense of humor.  I now come in 168 on the "Orthodox Jewish Blog" search, lower than I was and way behind Shmuley and AidelMaidel.  Maybe if I look up "tying self-esteem to blog hits and google rank."  (Which I just did.  Can you believe there aren't more hits on that search!?)

Mother's Milk: My Turn.

I should probably make clear as early as possible that the title of this post is not meant to imply that I would be taking a turn breastfeeding Rachel anytime soon. (And how disturbing is that link?) It's just that I pretty regularly read a number of other Dad-blogs (and parent-blogs)[fn1] and it seems almost obligatory to do a post about breastfeeding. I'm not going to go and find all the different relevant spot-links, you can Google this (or this) if you must. As is not unusual, BenMac over at TTU has done the definitive post, and I'd probably be wisest just to point you there and be done. (Also worth checking out: Milk Week.)

[Fn1]: I know, I know; I have to really work on my margin. I've already mentioned it's high on the project list, with a bullet. For now, a few of the regular stops on my blog local: The Trixie Update; Celebrating Colum; Laid-Off Dad; DaddyZine; DaddyTypes; DadTalk; Dooce (a girl); Leelo and His Potty Mouthed Mom (another non-boy. Warning – she is potty mouthed as advertised.) (Actually, so is Dooce.)

Everyone's had a go at this milk business; I'm just taking my turn. Someday soon I'll post about poop, too, and then I'll be a full-fledged member of this blogging fathers club.

In any event, over the past few weeks, I've noticed Rachel being much more active in her learning. She's always, B'H, been pretty much right in the middle of the curve w/r/t most of the standard developmental milestones, with a little deviation here and there, but recently I've noticed that she's moving into a new phase, where she generalizes from one lesson to another. So that learning to put the round block into the round hole is no longer just about that one toy (and why can't I find a picture of the one we actually have?) but has become a larger proposition, where Rachel now generalizes the concept and has started putting things in and on each other in ways that not only has she never been able to before but, more importantly, that she's never seen anyone else do before; she'll look at the soda can, then at the roll of packing tape, and try (with moderate success) to put the can inside the roll of tape. Not because she’s seen me do the same thing, but because she herself has done a similar thing in another context, and is generalizing to this context.

This change is a quantum developmental leap in Rachel's learning, and it's got a lot of implications for G and me. It's got me thinking about chinuch (Jewish education), which in turn got me thinking about breastmilk.

I know that seems like a big jump, but stay with me here. I'm not sure I'll be able to pull it together, but I've got something in mind, at least as I write these words.

We'll start with a schtickle (little bit of) Torah. Let me quickly summarize a lot of the necessary background: After receiving the Torah, the Jews in the desert spent some time (about 40 years) traveling. During that time, every time they moved they would have to disassemble, move, and reassemble the Mishkan (Tabernacle). Some of the items to be moved were built with rings attached, for the insertion of poles or staves to facilitate moving them. One such item was the Aron -- the Ark of the Covenant. Yeah, that one.

If you look again at the image of the Ark itself on that page (or here), you'll see the rings and the poles. There's some beautiful Torah about the details of those poles, especially with respect to the Ark and who's carrying what (or vice-versa), but that's not where I want to focus.

For all the other items that were moved in that manner, when it was time to set up the Tabernacle again, the staves would be removed (and presumably stored). For the Ark, the poles stayed in. A curtain (the "Parochet") was hung around the Ark, such that the curtain would hang down over the staves, but the staves would rest against the Parochet, causing two protrusions in the curtain.

They look like breasts. I wouldn't say this if I didn't have legitimate rabbinical authority backing me up. They're supposed to look like breasts.

The idea is a beautiful one. We are humans, and live in a physical, limited world. But we yearn for (and are obligated to pursue) connection to Hashem, which are transcendent, unlimited, super-physical things. The universe as conceived of by Hashem is too much for us; if we tried to interact with it directly it would destroy us.

So Hashem gave us the Torah, which serves as a sort of interface between us and Him. The Torah (represented by the Ark, which contains the Tablets) interacts with the "true" universe, and then frames it and gives us a construct through which we can deal with it.

That's why the breasts. It's to explain that the Torah is serving the same function at one level that a mother's breasts serve at another.

The world is a beautiful place, full of wonderful things to eat and from which we can derive sustenance. But an infant can't handle it, and if they tried it would destroy them. No matter how much G or I might enjoy a big fat steak with fried onions and garlic, Rachel couldn't have handled that when she first got here, and even now with teeth and hands and everything, that's probably not the best way to go about feeding her.

So this is what a mother does: She interacts with the world. She takes it in, and processes it, and takes out of it only what will be perfectly useful to her child, what won't destroy the child, and gives only that over to her child.

Something that gets missed very often in the discussion of nursing is that breastmilk is, in many ways, a perfect food. It's not unusual for a child to go days without pooping when they're breastfeeding exclusively, and it's not unhealthy. The food is giving the child everything they need, as well as nothing they don't need. Even the part that eventually does get pooped out is really only there to teach the baby's body how to poop, how to process the unnecessary bits.

This idea is even reflected in halacha (Jewish law). Normally, a person can't pray or study Torah when in the presence of feces. It's not so much a question of distastefulness or even respect, but rather a function of feces "separating" a person from the most elevated image of themselves. But one is allowed to do those things in the presence of the excrement of an infant who is only breastfeeding. Even though essentially waste is waste, the halacha recognizes that the waste from breastmilk isn't really waste at all; it's just the satisfaction of a different kind of need.

(I managed to mention poop in this post after all.)

Thought of in those terms, it makes somewhat clearer the role of a parent in general, and particularly with respect to Rachel's education. I don't mean the standard Readin' Ritin' Rithmatic education, though that's certainly included. I mean the education she gets from dealing with the world on a daily basis. Everything from the Physics experiments that are hidden in the way she throws her pacifier out of the crib to the Sociology experiments hidden in my repeated but increasingly frustrated retrieval of said pacifier to the Peer Group Management lessons involved in times G and I decide to let Rachel play with someone, or be held by someone, and so on.

Rachel's growing up. Fast. She's interacting with the world that's expanded beyond me and G and maybe her
Pack-N-Play. And she's learning from it.

The lesson of mother's milk is that as her parent, it's my job to interact with what's going to be too much for her, break it down into chunks she can handle, and then let her handle them. And as importantly, just like eventually the babies get weaned and eventually Rachel will be (hopefully) tuckin' into Steak and Onions right next to me, I also have to make sure not to stand too much in her way. The things I break down for her now, so she can handle them in small chunks, those are the same things that eventually, after having handled enough small chunks, she'll be able to deal with directly.

I also have to make sure that I remember to teach her not only how to deal with the useful, the psychologically and spiritually and emotionally nutritious parts of the world, but also the detritus, the husks. I can't give her such a perfect food that she never learns how to poop. I have to remember that in that way sometimes the husk is as much food as the food part is.

There's much that amazes me about mother's milk, but not least this idea, new to me at least, that it carries a lesson in raising and educating my child.

--FrumDad

PS: See, I told you I could pull it together.

PPS: Bonus Links!

          schlepping

          . . . only by theKohanim. . . .

          . . . a recasting of the "protect the baby" idea I've mentioned before . . .

          biting gold coins to test them.

PPPS: See, I told you. I got a post up by Wednesday. I still need to doodle with the formatting, though.

PPPPS: How lame is the multiple-P-S format?

PPPPPS: Very Lame.

I will be soooo grumpy.

I'm getting a nice little traffic spike thanks to this very nice link from DaddyTypes. And of course, I spent this week actually (a) trying to make some money and (b) doofing around with the format instead of (c) putting up content.

Now, I've posted on the subject of my conflict over the traffic issue before. It's actually sort of settled down a bit: I write for me but I enjoy the traffic. And there is a certain community aspect to the blogsphere (silly word, that) and particularly my little chunk of it, overlapping as I hope it does the Fatherhood/Parenthood, Faith and Religion, and tacitly left-leaning neighborhoods that it does.

(As well as the poorly-edited-because-I-have-to-get-home-before-sundown neighborhood. I'll try to fix the preceeding paragraph along with the hundred other things that need fixing in the near future.)

So anyway, this has happened once before, and I gotta say I'm gonna be grumpy if it happens the same way again. I mean, given the relatively narrowband content I'm only going to get a very low stick percentage anyway, but I'd be bothered if I missed the opportunity to grow this space, even if just a little.

Hopefully, barring unforeseen circumstance, I'll have a substantive post up by Wednesday (or sooner). Any returning visitors will hae seen posts like this before; to all you new visitors, "Hello from [a] child[] of [the father of] FrumDad".

Okay, that last sentence was pretty lame too. I was just thinking of that movie from 1984 where the spaceman comes back supposedly quoting from the Golden Record on Voyager.

Okay. I'm clearly tangenting out of control here. Which means it must be time for Shabbos!!

--FrumDad

Noodlin' and Doodlin' and like that

Just checking in. I'm working on a post or two, but I'm also noodling around with the formatting and stuff. Learning about this stuff on the fly brings me back to the heady days of my geeky youth.

[UPDATE] You can see I've made some changes. I know my side-bar's a mess; I just imported chunks of the old one whole cloth until I can figure out this "style" business. It seems pretty cool.

I accidentally ate the old comments, but I'm going to figure out how to put them back up, just so I can import them into the new comments, then get rid of them. So sorry to the commenters who've been lost. It's temporary (I hope).

I changed the "description" above, but I want to hold onto the old text, so here it is:

All of a sudden, I'm a father. . . and as is true of many of the best things in life, all of my preparation has left me entirely unprepared. This is a space for me to figure out What I'm learning, and what I'm teaching, and what I'm chosing to leave out. Here I can tie a string to my hopes and wants and thoughts and hold them up to the breeze and see if they're kites or stones, or (on their best days) balloons and birds. I know I love my daughter with heartbreaking completeness. Here is where I can try to understand what to do if that's not enough.

"Children aren't happy without something to ignore,
and that's what parents were created for."

--FD