External competition
Something I have always wanted to know is why I am driven by both extrenal competion, while being pulled equally by internal competition
I have a strong streak of jealousy in me. I really can't stand it when in some way, someone is better than me in a way that cuts at something that I consider to be something that I am naturally.
Of course, being that on some level, I don't trust that i am naturally anything, and therefore feel constantly undercut, I feel a strong need to prove that I am naturally enough of something.
It pains me then, to see that my good friend and my ex are seeminly better at being Jewish on campus and getting better grades than me. And I don't have a good reason either to be so jealous. it is just something I am.
I guess, it is mostly becuase I am insecure with myself. This insecurity has given me hell as I have been adapting through college, making my improvements slow to come by. I finally do not have anymore Cs, and I am finally in the catagory of all Bs (or various types) . I am hoping next quarter to finally start getting some A's as I get the hang of University.
So why does it bother me that thse two people seem ot be getting the hang of it.
True, I am not taking a subject which I know I would do well in, such as the "history" requirement, or certain aspects of biology, both of which require skills of understanding patterns and connections in random sets of Data. (don't tell me polisci and history do not, and do not tell me that they are easy...because on some level, if you can be able to make generalizations depsite the implict bias of both first hand accounts, data sets, and the interpreter's own human nature, you are doing very well in life. Sciences and Math may be very hard to understand becuase of the "numbers" involved, but they have a certain black and white nature that makes the truth in them very easy to understand and inherently truthful once the rules are in place. The social sciences, on the other hand, do not have the same kinds of limitations put on them. They only depend on how much you notice things in the world, and I have met very few people who notice both little details in the context of the wider world...) true, I spend a lot of time goofing off, becuase I don't know how to deal with everything soemtimes (though that is slowly changing). But I still don't see why they are doing better than me, if only becuase when I work, I work my butt off, and becuase from people my age's reactions, I am not writing nor saying things dumb nor irrelevant. So why won't my grades compare?
Part of this is my ability to write. My writing is not the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's a disorganized mess, much like my mind. My hebrew teacher says she finds it fustrating at times to work with me, becuase she can see that I make these implict connections, that show I have something up there, but I can't express them. It becomes more fustrating for her becuase my questions reflect that I am looking for different thigns in the language than the class is, which often veers the class off topic. (yes I am slowly learning to shut up...) It also makes my very broad. ambitious, ideas hard to write about, if only becuase I have a hard time expressing all the logic in it. Sometiems I wish I could write abotu anything for as long as I wanted, becuase at least then I could get more of the little details out onto paper...but that isn't quite realistic. I've also had a really hard trime answering prompts for some reason....mostly becuase I can't always think the way people ant me to, and feel that the connections they want us to write about aren't helpful to deal with. I really need to stop doing that.
I also am finally having some sense of decency about it all being a ok that I am crisising about Judaism. But it is extremely fustrating to be crisisng about Judaism and life, while watching other people seem more sure about it. I don't really care if killing Amaleck is what bothers you deeply on some level (sorry babe), I want to know why the system matters at all, where I am within the system, how I affect the system, how the system affects me, and are all of these influences right, and if so why? It's like walking around in the face of Documentary Hypothesis and ignoring the truths espoused there (thought hat would be like ignoring the Ibn Ezra....which of course some of us do every day...) , while also not knowing about the truths of Umberto Cassuto... I would personally guess the truth lies somewhere in between.
It is also like knowing that we spin interpretation to have certain social customs, but we refuse to accept that fact. it turns out that there is nothing wrong with premarital sex in a relationship if ou are ashkenazi (i don't care what everyone will yell, ashkenazim do not hold by the Rambam consistenly, and there have defiantly beeen periods of time where we did not hold by the Rambam about pilegshot). I would throw my weight on Tamar Ross, who is short says the torah is always being revealed consituously. This cuts close to Conservative theology, which the Orthodox Movement refuses to recongize any truth in (or even that of reform...or reconstructionist....) Considering that Torah and Halacha is supposed to be blind Law., why is everyone reacting rather than acting...preserving through change? And where Do I lie in that kind of world?
Sometimes I wish they were less openly pious, becuase it really doesn't matter very much, and in some ways it is more fustrating, If only becuase piety in and of itself seems half-assed. It matters more to know where your piety and beleif in God and law come from, otherwise on some level you are being Falshe Frum. Don't just do something becuase It has always been right, do it becuase you have discovered why it is right....and don't be afraid of not giving blanket statements about it either. It bothers me so much that no one I know is willing to talk about why they beleive a certain behavior is justified or not....
Oddly, I know these fustrations are all really petty, and if I relax and just compete with myself (once I figure out that I am me and that I am ok), I will do much better as a Jeiwhs person and gradewise. But figuring all that out is really hard. Rediculously so.
I wish I could just make it better.
(and PS...it doesn't matter if you are a merit scholar....but to me at least...it does matter if you can write a theory about something, pushing your mind to create something...that is all...I just needed to say that to make myslef feel better)
As I sit listening to Goa
I keep thinking about school and life.
I realize I care a little less every day now that people consider me strange. t's so hard to let go to the fact that I am normal, just not the kind of person that other people would like me to turn into (aka become frumified).
What is awkward about all of this though is that in college I lack a sense of community with what I do. There aren't so many orthodox Jews around that are also confornting what I am confronting. When I go home and see my frienmds (as I did yesterday, wehn I got a friend to take me to her commuter college so I could do some research for Model UN), I realize how similar and how different I have become. They also are not confronting the things I am confronting, so they are not changing the way I am changing (though they are changing a lot, I cna see it). On the other hand, becuase we all share the same background, the way we think in some ways come from the same places. It is interesting to watch these changes, as people become more comfortable in thier skins (some needing to take more time to do that than others.)
It is also interesting to see what problems people are confronting. Probably the first one in the orhodox community is suddenly seeing people starting to date seriously, with shadchans (matchmaker people), etc. In some way I am really sheltered from that pressure, becuase I am so far away from home, in a place with a small orthodox community, in a college where marriage is far from people's minds. The most important question is: buisness, law school, or grad school. It's a totally different frame of reference out in college. While I never seen people who are more in love with what they study (or in one case, what she is not studying, for fear of feeling inadequate.), the thought patterns that cause people to live through thier work are so much different than those at home. Sometimes, I notice that at home, people are more in love with the ability to live in society, with family, kids, and the ability to be a pillar of the community at all costs. The competiveness to be part of the community in its fullest forms cause a lot of white collar crime, a lot of unhappy marriages (apparently there is a high rate of infidelities where I live), and a lot of bruised egos among people who feel like they can't keep up.
Out in college, the only people who will eat your ego is yourself. I know one guy who is in some way committed to the fact that he will fail, despite being a very smart guy overall. It seems that people know that they have to be reliant on thier talents in order to survive (which I am managing, thank god), and in order to fall in love with what they are doing.
It seems to be a place where becuase of this love of knowledge is so pervasive in the atmosphere, an eqaul if not greater love of God often falls by the wayside. There seems to be more resoucres for studnets who are not OJ though, if only becuase we are the tiniest minority on campus.(3 people out of about 4,000 undergraduates)(and yes I am happy there)
I wish there were more resources for students like me, but those resources seem to be more prevalient when you have the power of numbers.
In other news, When you think back to high school, and think on what people thoguht of you, your memories might actually be in conflict with what happened. i thought I was always one of those girls ont he sidelines..but apparently there was one guy who was just intimidated..who knew?
I kind of wish I did at the time. Despite from my memory his tendency to be argumentive, underneath he had his very nice moments. It probably wou;ld hav ebeen fun and more respectful than the bf who I did have in high school.
Remind me to write a post abouts sex, etc, instead of just guys.
A proof I saw
In my previous (aka the really long previous) post, I mentioned that something that was asked of me is to delineate the difference between God and Law.
I saw somewhere (but can't say where...for personal reasons you see, wasn't suppose to find it) a proof written up about why one should follow the torah.
The end results is that it does not matter if God exists in order to follow the torah, becuase the torah is seen as a better system for interpersonal relations. However if there is a God, then it should be innately logical to follows its statutes.
I take strong issue with such a proof. First on a basic level (understanding Jewish law, and later on the very realm of its philisophic proof)
A) Siniactic (did I make up a word?) law is based on the principle of chok, becuase laws of catagories such as purities and impurities cannot be explained, the most famous law being the laws invovled in
Parah Aduma. I challenge anyone in the Olam Hablog to explain why the process of creating the ashes to purify those contamentated with impurity of death will make impure the priest who made the ashes.
This proof, in fact, cannot really quantify the existence of any form of impurity, including those who's practices are still around today (ie Tumat Niddah u'Zava).
Further, to call a system better or worse when it comes to interpersonal contact ignores completely the point of this upcoming week's parasha, Parshat Zachor. Running around killing people..yup makes for a great interpersonal system.
Or how about this: Cohanim marrying giyoriot. Unless you can prove by medical examination that she is betulah (a virgin) (something unlikely in this day and age where the hymen can be destroyed by such wonderful childhood activities as ballet!), she ia automatically zonah. That's right, she is like a prostitute. A female convert is assumed to have led a prostitute like life before she converted. If you think this makes for great interpersonal conduct, guess what...you are wrong (I would like to say thank God for people like my rabbi from Israel, who's rabbinic speciality was hard marriage cases for cohanim...he tried finding as many loopholes as possible for love's sake, though it won't work in all cases, so I have heard of a number of situations of what would be assumed as impossible situations actually being solved)
And Judaism is assumed to be the nice religion.
B) There are two huge philisophical assumptions that need warrants in this proof.
1) You can objectively measure a social system as being better or worse.
and
2)If there is god, god comes with the caveat of it being able to communicate with us, and hence can give us directives.
1) As a person who like reading anthropology and sociology papers sometimes, I can tell you that the David Buss (evolutionary psychology) reasoning works to a limited degree. A society that allows for its people to flourish will be the one that exists, no if and or ors about it. Just because one society works at a given point in time and place, doesn't mean that that fact will always hold true. In order to justify that a social system in a better social system, one has to justify why there is a dropping Jewish birthrate in both Israel and the United States and a dropping affilations in both countries (see both the
Jewish population survey see the line about weakening ties among jews and the
AviChai study). In other words, Judiasm as a whole, by the numbers, is losing ground to the other world(s) out there, which seem to satisify something that allows an individual to think that he is flourishing.
It seems that in the long term, this trend is going to continue. A religious lifestyle actually has to offer soemthing to keep its numbers up (and yes you can tell me all you want about the gains in numbers by the religiously modern orthodox...this is due to the ba'ale teshuva movement, and less so to actual population increases...a good chunk of those raised religious "fall off the derech" ASAP...plus there is a rising marriage age among the modern orthodox...which will result in
this and
the many articles here...)
To call it a better system may not be true in the sense of numbers.
Then you have the moral question....of course, this bring up a huge amount of questions as to objective morality, and if we know of whatever that objective standard might be when it comes to communal behavior. Remember, although you think mechizahs are the end all and be all perfect way to concentration in prayer, others might see it as a hinderance. (And this is why we get both the Shira Chadasha and the Belz approach in Jerusalem, let alone lack of mechizahs in UTJ-type Concervative synagoges) Which is the most moral mechizah...I don't know, and if you can tell me, then you have told me a lot, becuase people have perspectives about morality.
it is like knowing that the death penalty is the right thing to do...there is no absolute way to be sure, you can only go with your gut on the issue.
2)This fallacy is a little more straightfoward. This is about the defintion of god. Something that made a strong impression on me in midrasha is that it is impossible to define gods existence (or non-existence) on a yes/no system of logic. Otherwise you end up with assumptions about god (or even that god exists).
We have absolutely no way of knowing if the bible hold true as god word beyond that it says that it is god's words....this is a circuitous fallacy and should not be encouraged...this holds true for all religious works claiming that it is god's word. There is no way of knowing anything about God, and to automatically link God and word is a suppostion, and should not be part of the proof itself. The proof only says otherwise that god exists; we know nothing about the nature of god. For all we know, by not going around fornicating becuase of the bible's statues, we might be displeasing God (I mean I doubt that, but still...)
The proof would require a whole bunch of other steps to prove that that bible is true without using the bible's own logic, plus show it's divine authorship, ir order to say one should follow it becuase it is the word of god.
As it is, despite it's awe inspiring beauty, I always wanted to know where the matching pottery shards filled with writing about biblical events have dissapeared to....
The best I can do on the bible is to follow Umberto Cassuto thoughts against the Documentary Hypothesis...so I don't see how his epic poem theory of Shemot translates into the word of God. (I would like to put here that Umberto Cassuto was an italian orthodox rabbi...those italians liberalness)
In conclusion:
Stop trying to walk around with proofs...they can be taken apart easily by those looking.
Note: I have not put foward anything as a new arguement for any of these problesm...to those who ask why..you can still apriciate the tree despite knowign (or in this case, not knowing) where it comes from.
