Getting Invited

Non-Profits need to have a reckoning of their accomplishments each year.  They also need to take notice of their volunteer and contributors.  Some of this clusters in June, after the universities send their new grads into the world but before the families send their younger ones off to camp for the summer.  As much as I had hoped for a travel day in the coming week, PM invitations that I could not ignore fill the entire mid-week.  

My synagogue holds its annual meeting on Tuesday.  Relations with the leadership are mixed, but they offered me a spot on their Board of Governors, which I accepted.  There is perfunctory business, voting on the slate, renewal of a non-controversial contract, and sale of a real estate asset that is more useful as cash than as property.  This one takes place by Zoom.  It is primarily a business meeting.  There are advantages to in-person meetings which allow for better community building or at least getting to know other members, to say nothing of better give and take as people express their thoughts on the three agenda items.  But mainly this meeting is obligatory by by-laws.  Expediency rules the day.  I have skipped it, but as one given a spot going forward by a Nominating Committee that has often received my skeptical comments, I really need to sign on to the electronic forum that evening.  I suppose I can still take SEPTA to some Philly attractions and get home in time.

The following night comes the reception that I most want to attend.  For a few years, I have scored scholarship applications and critiqued the application process for the Delaware Community Foundation, a non-profit that distributes funds on behalf of local philanthropists.  They host a semi-annual reception for staff and volunteers that I always try to attend.  I invariably encounter a mixture of familiar and new people while I sip something with alcohol and sample some nibbles from a buffet.  The people, some staff, some community, are mostly more interesting folks with unique personal stories.  I find it easy to bond.  It's one of those wouldn't miss this events.

Then came an invitation that I did not expect.  My charitable giving goes to places that I think do important work.  While United Way and Federation have each earned a share of my scorn, the communal work they support still has to be done. The DuPont Company aligned with United Way, shaking down its employees, including my wife, for as much as they could coerce.  It made a mostly worthy, even essential effort something of a charitable cliché.  In retirement, I have a contribution for them each summer, as does my wife independently.  Unknown to me, if you donate above a certain threshold you get invited to their June reception.  While both my wife's and my individual donations fell beneath that amount, the staff elected to combine the household contribution, which got us one ticket.  For logistical reasons, I am the recipient.  Ordinarily, I do not engage in social climbing, but it has been years since I was invited to a place where everyone who's anyone will be on site.  Why not attend?

That gives me a busy week, one in which I have a few other ongoing projects to complete, including slides for an upcoming presentation.  But maintaining social interactions, particularly with people unfamiliar to me and likely more accomplished than me, has its own importance.  

Rabbis Going Forward

Commencement season.  Campus turmoil on our screens, on our news feeds.  They are joined by the most provocative of commencement speakers, those with messages to generate the most resentment, which keeps us from exiting one social media site in favor of another.  Those graduates who created a certain mayhem when not really responsible for much beyond completion of their studies, will find jobs that require a certain measure of obedience to those with authority.  Yet their value to their employers also includes exporting what they learned at the university.  We can expect our corporations, civil service, and non-profits to adapt to what the people with those upper-tier university degrees bring to their employers, both technical knowledge and ideology.  At present, our companies still produce efficiently, our civil service serves its constituencies with mostly thoughtful protocols consistently applied, and our non-profits pursue their defined missions with the talent they are able to hire.

America's religious institutions have not achieved parallel stability.  Church attendance has faltered for a lot of reasons. Data over about thirty years from mostly Christian sources show a downward drift in participation with no meaningful upticks. From my Jewish lenses, there are indeed more people studying Talmud today than at any other time in Jewish history.  American Jews are embedded in every element of America's culture and productivity.  Institutions that tend to the needs of Jewish Americans, our commitments to Israel, and more global philanthropy still raise funds needed to invest in the human talent that moves the various agendas forward.  Yet a certain decline, measurable in a variety of ways, appears in many surveys.  The core institution for centuries has been the local synagogue and the individual Rabbi chosen by the membership as its focal individual.  

This commencement season, some of our flagship seminaries publish their commencement programs.  Each newly ordained graduate can expect a career of about thirty years, invested in an assortment of possibilities.  Each spring for the past few years, I have read selected seminary commencement programs published online.  These include The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, American Jewish University, Hebrew Union College in its three American campuses, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and Hebrew College.

All but the Hebrew College are affiliated with denominations.  Chovevei educates and ordains only men, while the others have students of each gender.  Chovevei, as a small institution, updates the activities of previous graduates on its website.  Some very raw data:

So each site has about a dozen students, half women.  If about 80 graduates a year, that means 2400 mainstream secular rabbis accumulated over about thirty years assuming indefinite comparable enrollment and that none of these places have to close for financial or enrollment shortfalls over the next generation.  I have no crystal ball to project how many will serve as congregational clergy, or even how many congregations will have the means to hire one or more Rabbi's over the coming generation.  I do know from having read these programs for a few years that enrollment has followed a downward drift.  And one seminary honors its 50-year alumni, alive and deceased, by publishing their names.  That class, all men, was considerably larger than current ordination numbers at the same school.

The more difficult assessment might be how well these 80 new entrants reflect the denominations they represent.  And do they need to?  Invariably the congregational Rabbi maintains the Jewish traditions more fastidiously than the congregants.  Kosher diets are the norm.  Shabbat and Holy Days bring the Rabbi to Shul, though there are some leniencies in how they get there.  All Rabbi's make a personal effort, if not a congregational one, to enhance their Jewish knowledge with some regularity, though congregants attend their classes in small fractions of the composite congregation.  

 

And what are the congregants like?  I can speak for my own, and have a good sense of those of the other denominations in my town.  We are invariably older. Our children are older than those graduates.  We have nearly all had traditional marriages that endure a lifetime.  Divorces are rare.  Same sex marriages are rare.  Interfaith marriages are common at the other two congregations, rare at mine.  People have careers.  Relocations are few, though children graduating and pursuing their own careers elsewhere are the norm.  We bought houses that we maintained until sometimes downsizing as empty nesters.  And we have few political outliers, no antti-Zionists but no overt racists either.  While a fraction think it OK to leverage their power, even intimidate, most are committed to being cordial and kind.

With only 80 graduates and with their sponsoring institutions providing biographies of their graduates, it is not hard to add a Google Search to learn a little about nearly all of them.  Few of them really come across as people our Search Committees will sponsor with enthusiasm.  Few have taken the usual career trajectories of ourselves or our children who graduated college, maybe took a gap year or two, then sought either a professional degree or accepted employment.  Very few of this cohort went from college to seminary.  Many did community organizing.  Others worked for non-profits or taught at Day Schools.  And when organizing or agency work, the sponsor would invariably fall in the far left progressive part of the political spectrum.  Gay marriages were common.  Use of neutral pronouns in the bios made some of the bios hard to read.  Some had no clear post-degree destination specified in the bio or by a Google Search.  Reconstructionist graduates seemed the most off-center.  Hebrew College seemed dominated by people leaving their original career to find a second.  Chovevei men, were all very traditional.  They were not particularly attracted to pulpits, drifting toward chaplaincy, teaching, or advocacy careers.  And a few accepted assistant Rabbi positions in metro areas, a small number senior Rabbi positions with smaller congregations in university towns or other places with stable but small Jewish populations.

Other than Chovevei, which updates its entire alumni cohort each year, I cannot really track career paths of recent graduates, prarticularly RRC and Hebrew College which ordain the most non-traditional classes.  Chovevei generates few congregational Rabbi's though some now head large mainstream OU affiliates.  And while we are all ever more sensitive to the spectrum of gender and non-traditional families, our current clergy are all people easy to identify with.  All college graduates, all as literate as their congregants with elite university degrees, all dressing professionally, and none with outlandish hairdo's or skin art.  But also none of our clergy really push the envelope, either in scholarly pursuits, political statements, or even eccentric hobbies.  They are careerists, just like the congregants.  Dependable, reliable, centrist.  Surprisingly few of the ordination class of 2024 left a parallel impression.

What would our synagogues look like if our classes had the same standards as 1974?  Exclusion of half the graduates as women would leave a shortage, for sure.  Where have the men gone?  What have alumni from the feeders from the youth groups of the different dominations that used to go directly from college to seminary opted to pursue instead?  An essay in The Atlantic tries to grapple with the reality of Jewish seminaries' paucity of traditional sources of students.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/american-rabbi-shortage-synagogues-denominations/677423/  

There are declines in enrollment.  There are shifting skills of the new Rabbi's reflected in what they pursued during their gaps between college and seminary.  Eventually these people will take their places in our synagogues, schools, and sponsored agencies.  Whether the institutions will become more like them or they will become more like the institutions as their tenure accrues may be one of the big question marks on American Judaism's future.  For now, the new Rabbinical Class of '24 does not fully reflect the very centrist presence of our congregations and institutions.

Expensive Supermarket

Weekly supermarket expedition.  Credit card charged a bit over $116.  Filled all the reusable bags I brought with me.  Expect to eat well in the coming week.  No department skipped.  Many individual items skipped, usually from unwillingness to accept price, occasionally from lack of availability.

As a Kosher consumer, my principal loyalty has been to the store that stocks Kosher meat, though I rarely buy more than one or two items each trip.  Their weekly ad arrives in the mail midweek.  I take it to my desk where I create a list as I read each page of the colored print circular.  On the front, I jot down the definite will gets, either because of discount or need.  On the back, I note everything I might consider purchasing, again driven by a lower price than what I usually encounter there.  Must list always short, Might list usually exceeds a full column on a rather long note sheet.

On Sundays, the coupons become downloadable on the store's web site.  There being no penalty for downloading items I end up not purchasing, I designate anything attractive.  

List available, pen in pocket, and about five reusable bags in car's trunk, I set out for the store one morning, usually mid-week when not very crowded and when I am not pressured for an upcoming appointment someplace else.  Then department by department, aisle by aisle, matching wits with the various managers and psych majors who think they can entice me to fill my cart with items that bring the highest margins.

By the time I reach checkout, the contents of my basket will fill all the reusable bags that I put into my cart when I arrived.  Ample food.  Nutritious food.  And some storage bags, household paper, and sunscreen.

While it's easy to tabulate what I purchased, as the register tape does that with each scan, what I declined to buy may be more telling.  It likely will have indirect political implications at the highest levels, as my experience gets replicated by nearly every other American voter of every region and financial circumstance with often distressing regularity.  Due to cumulative good fortune and deferred gratification, I enter my retirement years with ample pension income and considerable wealth.  I need not deny myself any supermarket product based on price.  But I do.  And in every aisle.  It makes no difference if one brand of pickle captures the essence of dill better than another, the less desirable discounted that week goes into the cart.  Same with cookies.  Kosher meat is expensive, but subject to economizing.  Parsley or potatoes, more than I want to pay, I can create satisfying menus with something else.  However, there are some staples.  Flour, sugar, coffee, bread, some form of cheese cannot be avoided.  Many items are rejected by price.  I buy only the discounted cereal, pasta, peanut butter even though I might find a competing form more satisfying to eat.  And that's from the perspective of somebody who when analyzed rationally has enough income to buy the preferred items.  

The perspective of somebody with serious budget constraints will differ, defaulting to not buying irrespective of desire, or making the purchase and assigning blame for the high price.  And as all Presidents from Truman onward well know, The Buck Stops Here.  The ability to use earnings for the things you most want drives some blend of satisfaction and resentment.  Wanting that cereal and not purchasing it, filling the gas tank to a fixed dollar amount instead of to the top, compromising on a preferred hotel room all generate some disappointment and for many an anger target, whether conspiracies of the wealthy or a political party that is insensitive to what is happening or beholden to the wrong groups.

There are also public rationalizations by our elected officials.  Prices are high because of the need for higher wages driven by pandemic recovery, transportation supply chain glitches, bad weather someplace else in the world, siphoning my tax money to support the unworthy.  All plausible, but not the consumer's concern.  The response by those holding office would be something to the effect of look how many more people have jobs and how much your 401K has risen.  With traditional unemployment figures of about 5%, the other 95% had jobs all along and will not be tapping into their retirement funds until they retire.  The deprivation is new to them, and it is now.  Communal prosperity data does not change anybody's supermarket, gas station, or housing payments this month.

Who will be left holding the bag politically?  The person that can be blamed.  Does not look good for the current White House occupant, or so my crystal ball hints.

Jewish American Heritage Month

Got a little testy with my professional organization, The Endocrine Society, which I continue to hold in utmost esteem, dedicated its latest issue of Endocrine News to Asian American and Pacific Islander Month.  No challenge to the worthiness of these professional colleagues or to the many contributions that people of that background have made to enhance American life.  Recognition is due, respect is ongoing.  A number of other organizations have posted parallel recognition in print and electronic media.

Concurrently, somebody also designated this Jewish American Heritage Month.  Recognitions are much fewer.  A Google search largely posts recognition to places where Jewish presence is already well established, as in towns or universities with substantial Jewish representation.  An exception might be Notre Dame.  But my medical alma mater gives a thumbs up to Asians but no recognition to Jews.  Same with the Endocrine Society.  

At present, we Jews happen to be the daily besieged.  Asians can walk across campus without threatening gestures from others walking in the opposite direction.  Not true for the Jews this past academic semester.  From time to time a report appears that the parent organization was receptive to recognition but subject to the veto of the DEI infrastructure.   I have no means of confirming these allegations, though they are at least plausible.  Asian achievements, which are many, are perceived to follow diligence.  Jewish achievements, which are many, are perceived to follow privilege.

Jewish history in America has its patchwork of alliances and rejections.  Every major city has a medical center, often an upper-tier destination in the annual Residents Match, with a Biblically derived name.  They exist because the premier academic centers excluded regional Jewish physicians from staff appointments.  We have law firms with Ashkenazi names because white shoe firms once spurned Jewish law grads.  We have experience in dealing with being overlooked.  Whether the snootiness of the first half of the 20th century or exclusion by DEI officers today, we succeed by tenacity and diligence, not privilege.

What disturbs me, though, has been the rejection of the opportunity by my professional organization and my Jesuit alma mater to use the designated ethnic month to affirm that their Jewish members, who are being publicly assailed right now, is simply not compatible with organizational standards.  A month was assigned for recognition of our contributions because there are substantial contributions.  Neither my alma mater nor professional organization is hostile.  But neither displayed boldness when they might have.

Discounted Travel

Senior Discounts have become plentiful.  Most are minor, two or three dollars off admission to a museum or an event.  Some are substantial.  My adjacent state of Pennsylvania offers a big one.  SEPTA , the regional transit system, allows seniors to ride free anywhere within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  The nearest station is across the state line in Pennsylvania and my destination is nearly always Philadelphia, so I need only provide four quarters for parking each time I ride.  Once in the city, I need only swipe my card on their subways, els, or buses for another free ride.  It worked rather well.  I visited the Liberty Bell, grabbed a snack at the Reading Terminal Market, walked around a bit through the historical area.  As I did that, I noted other places I might like to sample like the American Jewish History Museum a block or so away.

This good deal has a few limits.  If I take the SEPTA train to Delaware or New Jersey, they charge half-fare, which remains a significant discount.  

As much as I like being a tourist, eager to sample perhaps the Mutter Museum or maybe go to a Penn football game in the fall, this SEPTA pass also serves as my entry to discounted New York City.  I can either catch the Megabus, which departs a short walk from the main train station or I can take SEPTA to Trenton, pay the half fare, then get a half-price train to NYC.  Both the bus and discounted NJ Transit cost about the same, so it seems more a matter of convenience.  I think the bus would be faster than taking SEPTA the additional ride to Trenton, then taking a commuter train, so I'll likely try this first.

As a young fellow, probably until my early married years, I used to visit NYC frequently, mooching a commuter ride with my father or a neighbor.  Later it became a destination to be planned.  Discounted weekends of my young adult years are long gone.  In recent years, I could get an economical bus from my town, leaving early AM, catching a 6PM return from Manhattan.  I would depend on my wife to transport me to the bus station, which sits in a seedy, not entirely safe part of town.  That bus service has gotten more expensive as well as more difficult to find a return trip with the same carrier.  But travel between Philly and NYC or Trenton and NYC takes place frequently in both directions.  Its fare undercuts my local fare by about two-thirds, so it is something I must arrange to do, perhaps twice this summer.  I need not inconvenience my wife at all.

NYC has sights, as does Philadelphia.  It also has friends, and at one time my children, which Philadelphia does not.  And so low cost that I need only consider convenience and destination, not expense.  A periodic must-do.

Creating Daily Structure

OLLI has suspended for the summer.  A lingering professional albatross lifted at about the same time.  So I enter the summer with considerable liberty and security, more than I have enjoyed in a while.  My OLLI commitments, though, also provided needed structure in retirement.  My class schedule required me to commute from home to the campus most weekdays, then pay attention as the lectures or DVDs were presented.  I would often schedule an errand following class, sometimes supermarket or maybe retrieve a prescription, or even occasionally seek out lunch.  I had to be at a place at a set time.  On most Saturday mornings, shabbos services provided that time structure, at least for the morning.  Without these, I am left with my treadmill schedule as the main source of self appointments, not counting an ongoing commitment to myself to arise each morning at a fixed hour.  In the summer, even on treadmill days, by 9AM there are no places I need to be each day.

A list of what I want to do each day still gets listed the night before and reviewed each morning while I sip my first cup of coffee.  An opportunity to do more of these items without that pesky schedule telling me when I need to get dressed and into the car.  But having to work around those fixed obligations forces me to assign times to do things that have no deadlines.

I must take best advantage of these lazy, hazy days of summer, starting by restoring some of the structure no longer present during OLLI's summer break.  I've scheduled two appointments, one to get a Senior SEPTA Pass which adds to my freedom.  With this I can arrange museum visits, now timed, and a couple of bus trips to NYC over the summer.  I've scheduled a platelet donation.  And I am almost ready to assign some days to drive downstate to the beaches.  Some doctor's appointments have places on my calendar, and a couple more ought to be added.  I have a presentation to give for the synagogue, the lecture having an assigned place and time, though its preparation does not.

More likely, though, I will need to create an artificial time structure.  At a certain time I will write, record, upgrade the house, garden, cook, or shop.  Not too rigid, but time-bound in some short-term way.

OOB

OOB.  Medical jargon.  An abbreviation for Out of Bed, understood by every nurse that a patient needs to be mobilized daily.  Sometimes the doctor specifies frequency or duration but usually that gets determined by nursing protocols, individual judgment, or competing demands on things the nurse must do that shift.  The core message, however, is that person would be harmed by excessive bed time.

I've added that notation to my weekly agenda and daily tasks.  It has a tacit intention.  Bed needs to be restricted to pre-determined sleep hours, one of the core principles of standard sleep hygiene intended to enhance daytime energy.  So OOB starts on arising, which has a set hour, and concludes at a slightly flexible time at night.

My adherence has not been bad, though not entirely complete, as I often like to watch Curiosity Stream or read a book while lying in bed.  Nor is OOB quite the same as stay upright or do not drift off to sleep outside of specified times.  The recliner in My Space often finds me dozing off while watching something on my flat screen.

Still, better regulation of sleep has made some progress as I impose rules that are not so demanding as to invite rejection.  And I do feel better than I did last year.

Recreation

Next to my desk chair I keep a green canvas Eddie Bauer case.  It once served as my briefcase during my working years, toted from car to office most days, rarely used.  In retirement, it has been repurposed, still infrequently used.  I call it my Recreation Case.  It contains a leather portfolio, a cheap cardboard folder with loose-leaf papers, and various things that make marks on papers.  These include colored pencils and a calligraphy kit in the main case, with pastels and a watercolor tin in the subordinate compartment, along with a tape recorder that does not reliably allow the microcassettes to function.  I have other sources of recreation, including two harmonicas with an instruction manual for beginners.  My living room contains fishing rods, with two kept in the trunk of my car.  That trunk also holds a good putter and driver, along with some golf balls.  I keep the yard sale complete set of clubs in the garage, along with some functional bicycles.  In a corner of my bedroom lies a once restored violin that could use a new bow.  I have a variety of cameras, used primarily for travel, and like many others, made subordinate to my ever present picture-taking capacity of a smartphone.  My living room grows herbs as do pots by my front door.  Vegetables and a few flowers grow in my backyard.  All of these would classify as personal recreation, though none vigorously or even reliably pursued.  Instead, I seem more drawn to my kitchen, the challenges of preparing special event dinners.  I also engage in various forms of personal expression, now mostly on my computer, with writing and a weekly YouTube recording serving partly a recreational need but also a means of keeping my mind agile when the mental challenges of my career have been set aside.

Recreation serves many purposes, which may be why it takes so many forms.  People have needs to escape from their rat races.  Many have a means of keeping score, such as golf or tennis.  Many have tangible production whether my elegant dinners planned and executed over two weeks or vegetables harvested towards the end of each summer.  Some people immerse, creating expertise.  I tend to dabble, maybe even flit.

While hobbies are often pursued alone, as I tend to do, there are also direct and indirect creations of community.  Cyclists ride together, musicians play in ensembles, golfers create foursomes.  Even solitary pursuits can immerse with similar enthusiasts who have made FoodTV or Cooking Channel widely watched or get tips on fishing from sources that support anglers, art instruction via classes or media.  All function alone when engaged in these hobbies, but all know that people unknown to them share their interests.

And all have the opportunity to excel, even though few do.  Some people make a living as artists, musicians, athletes, and photographers.  Acquisition of skill really has no upper limit.  Irrespective of proficiency obtained, the endpoint usually seems to be some combination of joy, thrill, or accomplishment.  What people do with time that is not externally imposed upon them frames how they prioritize themselves.

Rating My Courses

OLLI has concluded for the semester.  An entirely satisfying selection of seven subjects.  There are many ways to sort my seven.  Six in person, one online.  Five morning, two afternoon.  One lecture, six with DVD or other video format.  Six with a single speaker, all men, one with rotating presenters.  Two dependent on discussion, all with question options. Two held downstairs in a large room, four upstairs in smaller rooms.  Only one in a room with windows.

So that's my composite.  Instead, the courses are assessed individually, what went well, what needs review.  I did mostly well.  By now I have experience attending and only sign up for teachers who I know can present capably.  And this semester they all could, though sometimes they lack expertise with content of the individual DVDs that centerpiece the courses.

It is a lot easier to show a video for a third of a weekly session, then use that as a basis for expansion than to write a dozen lectures with power point for each class, though the people who go that route invariably do it well.

What I find missing is that multidirectional discussion that has made my medical immersion sparkle.  Sometimes the patient's situation is pretty mundane and encountered most days.  But one unique aspect stands out, one twist in presentation around which a whole new discussion takes form.  Common in medical rounds.  Very rare at OLLI.  Even if the question is more intriguing than the video everyone just watched, it gets answered rather tersely, usually by the class instructor.  It very rarely becomes a new path of inquiry in its own right.

We now have hybrid courses, where some participants attend in person while others watch the proceedings remotely.  Anybody can watch a PowerPoint or view a DVD from anywhere.  It's the same Great Courses disc whether you purchase it for your PC or watch it communally.  What you cannot readily duplicate is interaction.  Q&A with the instructor goes mostly OK.  Reframing that interaction to students with each other mostly goes poorly in that format.  Still, the remote option enables people who live far away, or maybe live nearby but could not realistically enroll if they had to drive another half hour each way to get the campus, or have frailties.  Zoom has enabled many beneficial upgrades, but at a price of interaction.

Over two days I filled out the evaluation forms for all seven of my classes.  Different formats, though many recurrent themes in the assessment.  There is a committee that tabulates the feedback.  It is less clear what they are able to convey to the individual instructors.  Comments that take diametrically opposing or irreconcilable views would also be expected.  But they have a chance to look at all seven on mine.

Schedule Struggles

One laudable personal achievement post-pandemic has been the introduction of routines, primarily morning, but really extending much of the day, into the post-supper times.  I have a wake time with few deviations from it.  Sleep time has not established itself quite as well, but close enough to create something of a box of time for my waking hours.  Every day, with some modifications for shabbos and yom tovim, I start with dental care, make coffee which I bring upstairs to My Space, retrieve the newspaper from the end of the driveway for my wife irrespective of weather, wash some dishes, then retreat with my coffee mug to my desk to begin the day.  A blog effort, some crosswords, FB notifications while I sip the first cup, invariably brewed in a Keurig Express machine from pods obtained from a Shop-Rite discount.  Then treadmill if scheduled that day, time dependent on when my OLLI class begins.  On-site at OLLI completes most mornings.

That leaves a mostly unstructured block of time every afternoon, though my personal prime energy time has been the mornings.  Afternoons have very occasional appointments, the time to tackle tasks on my Daily Task List to bring Semi-Annual projects to fruition.  What I have found, though, is the morning structure, created by me, makes my mornings productive.  Afternoons have been less so, with my Musts largely dispatched by the time I return home from OLLI.  I have tried priorities, and work on them, but often do not bring projects to completion, in large part because I am often unclear on what completion entails.  Some things I do well, particular those with a future deadline like an upcoming Torah reading assignment or a submission to a writing contest.  I have a way of pacing myself knowing the end point but often flounder when there is either no completion deadline or I cannot grasp what the final result of my effort should look like.  I have tried to create structure with a timer which encourages me to define the time block for working on something but not for determining the final result.   I suppose there is no reason why I cannot do the same structural definitions of tasks for the afternoon that have succeeded in the mornings.

The evenings go a little better.  Supper gets prepared by me most nights, with eating time a little before 7PM, linking my PM medicine to supper preparation with nearly complete success.  I have a defined time for twice-weekly stretching in late afternoons and a defined time to record my weekly YouTube video, with very few postponements.  Then I have a recreational block, TV time, though more productive than the endless sitcoms I watched prior to subscribing to a comprehensive cable service.  I gravitate to YouTube shows about the trajectories of religion and videos of travel to places I might like to visit but realistically won't. That alone defines my personal interests.  There is Netflix, worth the monthly fee, where my interest varies between short series on assorted topics or more recently stand-up comedy presentations.  I do not usually try to catch up on what I should have done during the afternoon but didn't, nor do I do much housework.  Often I will read from a book I am pursuing, the amount determined by length or time before I begin to read. And I work on Torah readings during the evening hours, pacing myself to achieve fluency by a certain date.  Bed at a fairly specified time, a very helpful rather recent introduction.

So my lost opportunity appears to occur in the afternoons, that unstructured time box between my return from OLLI and supper preparation.  I need to add structure, a predictable routine, for tackling the Semi-Annual projects that lack deadlines, or even a definition of completion.  The templates for doing this are well established and successful most mornings.  As OLLI reaches its summer hiatus, that amorphous time interval will greatly expand.  It needs to be recaptured by the many things I'd like to do but have not taken advantage of my ability to perform at top level.

Political Event

For a mere $100 a ticket, a Benjamin by electronic transfer, I could meet the candidate while he could amass the money he needs to purchase media time.  My wife and I each bought a ticket.  His campaign selected a Mexican restaurant with a patio, a time in proximity to Cinco de Mayo, the celebratory day of Mexico and a partying day of people of Americans with Mexican heritage.  This is apparently a small local chain, this branch a newly opened one in a recently developed shopping center that aspires to become upscale. 

For the most part, I am among the diminishing fraction of Americans who live in a place that elects mostly honorable people, at least for statewide office.  I've met every governor except one, every Senator, every congressman except the incumbent who had been swept out within a short time of our relocating to where we have lived the past 44 years.  Not a single slimy individual.  Talents and views vary.  Scandals have been rare.  Leveraging power in a seriously objectional way only occurred one time, by the man who the candidate we just spent money to support ousted from office in a primary eight years earlier.

While the people who hold upper-tier offices seem worthy, the mechanism by which they organize people politically does not always attract my kind of people.  I had served on my Representative District's Democratic Committee, resigning not long ago as I found myself at odds with the platforms of the Democratic Progressives at my meetings.  Like many other Jewish voters, multigenerational Democrats who achieved considerable prosperity through initiatives that rescued my grandparents from an economic abyss and enabled a once unlikely college degree for my father, and access to elite universities for myself and my children, the October 7 massacre of Israeli's offered a political inflection point.  The President made his position unambiguous, virtually identical to mine.  The pushback offended me.  A new committeeman of my district introduced a proposal to support an initiative of a known congressional anti-Semite who herself represents a district adjacent to one in which my son and I each lived thirty years apart, a district where intimidation by punks is the coin of the realm.  My neighborhood and Tel Aviv are each pretty nice places to live.  So was the town where my parents opted to purchase the family home.  North St. Louis and Gaza are places that are left to people who are not the builders but the destroyers.  People who have little.  Takers.  The Democratic Party is about Builders, as is some of my Shabbos morning liturgy.  If not Reagan's City on a Hill, at least seek to create aspirations more noble than getting even with people who have attained economic success.  Equality of opportunity.  Rather than suffer through that, I realized that over my time on the district committees, I got to meet and admire some of the very honorable men and women that we elect.  I opted to divest myself of the monthly committee meetings in favor of picking one or two individual officials who had impressed me, then supporting their campaigns for re-election or higher office.  And so I support the County Executive who seeks to become the successor to the incumbent term-limited Governor, who I have also met and admired.  I know he is worthy.  A contribution of $200 may help get the word out to other people who don't know him.

We arrived at the Mexican restaurant as people were assembling.  As a Kosher consumer, Mexican cuisine seems dominated by ground beef and cheese combos, a Kosher taboo.  As a result, I never go to a Mexican restaurant unless physically in Mexico.  I did not know where this site was, but capably directed by my Israeli Waze app to a shopping center anchored by a Wegman's supermarket.  I found a place to park not far from the entrance, then passed the glass doors.  A hostess pointed me to their patio where the first person I encountered was another retired physician who I had not seen in a few years.  In the middle of the patio sat two young people, one of each gender, sporting cornflower blue t-shirts with the candidate's name in white block letters.  Since attendance required a campaign donation, the two aides confirmed payment.  They also confirmed contact information, suggesting that new solicitations would be forthcoming.

We first greeted the candidate's parents, longstanding friends from the synagogue we eventually defected from.  His mother remains a Facebook friend, a delightful lady in her mid-80s, while his father seemed less animated than in his prime.  As we mingled, nearly everyone we met and recognized belonged to their synagogue, with a few outliers, also Jewish, who belonged to different synagogues.  Even most of the doctors were Jewish.  They did not provide us name tags, something I usually expect at events where most people do not know each other.  In the absence of this type of passive introduction, I greeted essentially only people I knew, either from the Jewish or medical communities.

A Mariachi Band attired in neon green with glittering gold braid and ornate silk ties, all making these burly Mexicans register in my mind as effeminate, serenaded us.  A trumpet, two violins, a huge guitar larger than any I had seen before, and two more standard appearing guitars played the kind of music that I would expect at a place that serves tacos. Off in a corner sat food, a large bowl of tortilla chips and smaller bowls of guacamole and salsa.  A few people helped themselves to small servings on white porcelain bread and butter plates.  A pitcher of ice water and restaurant-style beer glasses to pour it in sat next to the tortilla chips.  No Dos Equis XX, Corona, or Modelo, which I might have expected at a political rally of high-priced admission held at a Mexican-themed location.  A few people went into the restaurant, emerging back onto the patio with their Margaritas, presumably purchased at the restaurant's bar.

As the band's music dominated the ambient sound, though not so loud as to snuff out conversations, the candidate appeared, holding his two month old son.  His wife, a physician, had entered separately, eventually taking turns holding the baby.  He made rounds, shaking hands, accepting congratulations on his newborn, but not disclosing how our lives might find an upgrade when he becomes our state's next Governor.

While the attendance seemed dominated by members of the Jewish community, and we are likely to vote overwhelmingly for him, our influence on electoral outcomes is rather small, even for a Democratic primary.  The party has the same two factions locally that it has nationally.  George Packer, in his masterpiece in The Atlantic not long ago termed them Smart America and Just America. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/george-packer-four-americas/619012/  Smart America supports this candidate.  We are college educated professionals, highly sought after by mainstream employers who need our skills and energies.  Only one person of color appeared on the patio, not counting the Mariachi musicians.  There did not seem to be any elected officials, many of whom are also people of talent seeking political advancement.  I would probably recognize any statewide official, and the woman of color may have been a statewide elected official.  But without name tags, I could not reference city, county, and state legislators or Cabinet officials who also think my preferred candidate should become Governor.  They may agree but would be at a disadvantage if the primary voters selected a different candidate.  I would have expected to see more of them than I did.

This election cycle, we have a musical chairs of high office.  Governor and County Executive stepping aside by term limits.  Senator retiring.  Congresswoman wants to be Senator, creating a vacancy there.  Lt Governor wants to be Governor, so another vacancy.  Did my candidate, the person I deem most capable, might have done better aiming for Washington?  There are candidates for those primaries, one perhaps part of Just America, the other a delightful person who displays photos of herself with Seniors and Kids but sidesteps anything that divides the professional class Democrats from the Progressives.  I much would have rather my fellow become a legislator, though there are satisfactions from being a CEO that individuals functioning in a legislative body do not enjoy.  So I understand why he sought the position that he did.  

I also did not detect enthusiasm.  What I saw was not the expansion of a community of common interest but its affirmation among people who already know each other.  We know his capability and trust him to function like our state's CEO.  Enthusiasm comes from imagining what might be possible that does not currently exist.  I saw none of that.  More importantly, in this day of Progressive and Identity ideology with a certain amount of public harm and political risk, I did not see any inclination to state that he as a candidate would resist the lures of easy votes if it jeopardized taking the best path ahead.

Might he not prevail in our primary?  Before the event, I would expect his talent to emerge.  After the event, I did not experience that talent, only a personable presence, nor did I encounter any breadth of support beyond what prosperous, highly educated, Jewish professionals would seek out.  The electorate is much wider than what I encountered for my $200.

Shiva House Trends

This week our house needs to observe Shiva, that Jewish mourning rite where the immediate family of the deceased stay mostly at home for the seven days following burial while people come to console them.  Customs have evolved over time.  In the 1960-70s era of the passing of my mother and my grandparents, it functioned as something of an open house.  Neighbors would drop by randomly, share memories.  On Sundays, aunts, uncles, and cousins living in different parts of metro NYC would drive over.  There was always food, often brought by neighbors who shared our Kosher guidelines.  Appetizing stores or sections of supermarkets could prepare trays of deli, dairy, or pastries for visitors to munch on.  A minyan assembled each evening for afternoon or nighttime prayers.

Over time, or perhaps over geography, customs shifted.  Corporate bereavement policies allowed only two or perhaps three days, which included round trip travel when needed.  Few people tapped into their vacation time for the full seven days, so a three day official home mourning became more common, though my wife and I observed the traditional seven days, the literal translation of shiva, for each of our parents.  The open house format waned in favor of formal visiting hours to coincide with evening services, conducted by a clergyman or congregant experienced at leading this.  Living room and dining room seating was often inadequate, particularly for prominent families that attracted dozens of visitors at the limited times.  Chair rental became a necessity.  There was still food, though fewer caterers, and outside Jewish enclaves, virtually no appetizing stores.  Still, supermarkets had a familiarity with this and provided mostly dairy options and baked goods.

It's been a challenging year for my household.  My wife lost her older brother, with the funeral on erev Yom Kippur, so there was only a Meal of Condolence, which traditionally follows burial,  without shiva.  Her sister passed away shortly after Pesach with shiva at our house.  And we have attended a few other homes as visitors to the mourners, people who create the required ten men, or in some traditions ten people of both genders, to allow the mourners to recite the prayer most associated with public mourning.  Arranging food has been my task.  For my brother-in-law, with the funeral conducted in a suburb with prosperous, observant Jews, and two sections of large supermarkets to accommodate them, I had difficulty assembling a suitable meal.  They made hoagies of deli meats, but I had to cut them into portions and arrange them on a platter.  For my sister-in-law, our small kosher section could not assemble a pareve pastry platter.  Instead, I went to the Dollar Store, bought two plastic trays, then a few hours before guests arrive, I will return to the Shop-Rite bakery to purchase my own pareve selections, then display them on the trays.  I will get some fruit as well, wash them, and display them.

I do not know why the demand for this service has dwindled.  In addition to shiva, homes also sponsor gatherings for circumcisions of newborns, always held in the day, with either some late morning snacks or a small luncheon.  For our children, Millennials from the 1980s we could count on a local kosher caterer both times.  They are no more.  The synagogues which have kitchens and Sisterhood volunteers have not filled in that vacuum, at least in my community.

Shiva will go on.  While it would have been simpler just to arrange for catering, I am fortunate to have the capacity to fulfill this part of the observance.  

Counting Omer

Mid-spring.  About halfway through.  Pesach mostly completed with the last few boxes of dishes still to be transported downstairs and a few appliances returned upstairs.  Mother's Day.  A languishing legal matter awaits resolution.  A talk for the synagogue to be prepared.  The outdoor gardens.  My monthly expense reviews.  Semi-annual plans for the second half of the calendar year.  Other things already completed.  Taxes.  Flourishing aerogarden, less flourishing chia pots.  Been on a small vacation.  Osher Institute courses nearing completion.  Made it to the putting green but not to the driving range. Casted my fishing line in a very unenthused way.

Amid the spring projects comes the nightly Omer Count.  The Festival of Shavuot, unlike the other Jewish Festivals, does not have a specified calendar date.  Instead, it occurs on the fiftieth day after the Second Seder.  During that interval a nightly count through 49 days, that is 7 weeks, takes place with a blessing before each count and a short benediction following it.  The daily count has few rules, but must be done after dark, so I set my timer to 9:10PM, though I may need to reset it a little later the final week.  There are rules for missed counts, some compensatory, some really better termed also-rans.  The count is both by days through 49 and after the first week, by week plus days.  No synagogue or communal effort is required.  This is entirely my project, though it has a dedicated number of people who make the nightly count part of their spring duties, as I do.  Organizational Reminders appear online.  I subscribe to Chabad, but the Orthodox Union has a reminder service as does an independent but less reliable Homer Omer which posts a Simpson's themed cartoon on Facebook most days through the count.

I find the need to do this, while taking not more than a minute or two each night, offers an anchor for the many spring projects that also take multiple small steps but have a destination.  The Omer's destination is the Festival of Shavuot, anticipated one night at a time.  I might have expected it to function as a count-down to goal, much like the clock running down to the end of a football game.  But like Hanukkah, it is designated count upwards.  It makes the destination grander, perhaps.  The count is purposeful.  Our seven weeks between Pesach and Shavuot is not empty time.  It is acknowledged time.  The many spring projects, from preparing my upcoming talk to nurturing my outdoor plantings, do not really have specified milestones, and sometimes not even firm end points.  Those weeks that define when Shavuot gets celebrated have their progress chart.  Unlike my garden harvest, the Festival always arrives.