Advice & Reviews

When I was a kid, the theory of evolution was an accepted fact.

Given my role as a parenting pundit and grumpy crank, I knew I’d eventually begin delivering statements that start with “when I was a kid…” Still, I never thought I’d be wistful about a time when we all agreed that humans came from monkeys.

But times have changed. Back then, evolution was as accepted as the Earth’s rotation on its axis. The Scopes Monkey trial was 60 years in the rear-view. Hard Darwinian science had trumped the skeptics and the nincompoops. I doubted evolution no more than I doubted that my heart pumped blood through my body.

No room for argument: One rationalist's response to a newspaper article seriously debating evolution My son, on the other hand, came down the birth canal into a brave new world, where school boards debate spurious intelligent design curricula, where 66 percent of Americans surveyed by USA Today believe that God created the world in seven days, and where the President of the United States thinks evolution is just one theory. This summer saw the opening of Kentucky’s Creation Museum, a $27 million high-tech “educational” institution determined to teach our children that there were dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark. Now the Scopes Monkey Trial is 90 years in the rear-view, and in some parts of America, it’s like Clarence Darrow never existed.

There’s little chance that Elijah, being raised by secular liberals in Southern California, will learn to believe that people walked with dinosaurs. But such questions weren't even possible when I was in school. Powerful people and institutions are attempting to chip away at rational science. A parent can no longer assume that his children won't encounter anti-evolutionary propaganda. While I’m skeptical about religion, I’m not opposed to faith and spirituality. Elijah goes to a Jewish preschool, after all. But the other side preaches a dangerous ideology. When faith gets in the way of facts, I get angry.

Doesn’t my obstinacy challenge my desire to have my son think for himself? Am I being as ideologically rigid as people who preach intelligent design? Perhaps. But I think the question is a little bit off. I’m not worried about my son becoming a Wall Streeter or, worse, a Republican. The generation gap of Family Ties no longer exists. People who ask me about what I’ll do when my son turns into Alex P. Keaton—a character I revered as a kid—are stuck in an old way of thinking.

This isn’t about an ideological struggle between democratic socialism and unfettered free-market economics. And though I’d argue that there’s a deep sexist component to religious fundamentalism, it’s not really about race or gender issues either. It’s about keeping alive the spirit of discovery, and also preserving essential notions of truth and freedom of thought.

A Creation Museum exhibit of Noah making a sacrifice to God: How can anyone doubt such a convincing diorama? I don’t want Elijah to be a jerk about his beliefs, but he should be intolerant toward faith-based reasoning simply because it’s wrong. So I’ve made it a point to provide him with early counter-tools: a bunch of books about dinosaurs, a comic book about the beginnings of life, and the HD-DVD collection of Planet Earth from the BBC. These range from awe-inspiring to irritating. For instance, our planet itself narrates the comic book, which is just a little too Whole Earth Catalog for me. Still, it’s useful. I deploy these tools much as a gentle, patient creationist father would talk to his son about how God created the world in seven days.

“You can see here in this book,” I say, “that there was a great rain on Earth that lasted millions of years.”

“And then there were bacteria,” he says.

“Right.”

“And they turned into jellyfish which turned into lizards and fish and insects and then they grew legs and went onto land and some of them became dinosaurs and some of them became mammals and then there were monkeys or primates and they became people! Is that right?”

Indoctrination at work. At four years old, Elijah not only knows some basic scientific truths about the world, but he also thinks evolution is cool. It would only be more awesome to him if it somehow involved light sabers.

New Yorker contributor George Packer, who unlike myself isn’t prone to hyperbole, wrote about a recent visit to the Creation Museum that he felt like “a dissident surrounded by the lies of a totalitarian state.” This frightened me. I’m trying to teach my son to question authority, even if he starts with me. He needs to recognize “the lies of a totalitarian state” when those lies are being widely propagated to a willing, paid public. If he doesn’t feel like a dissident in the face of such propaganda, then I haven’t done my job.

* * *

 

We asked David Klinghoffer of the anti-evolution Discovery Institute "What does DI want to teach Jewish-American children about Intelligent Design?"

* UPDATE: Jason Rosenhouse, host of Evolution Blog, weighs in with The Chutzpah of Intelligent Design.

* UPDATE: Computer scientist and civil liberties advocate Jeffrey Shallit of the University of Waterloo blogs this exchange, here.

Want to blog this exchange between an urban hipster parent and the Discovery Institute? Submit a blog post to Jewcy here.

ALSO IN JEWCY:

On Faithhacker, Tamar Fox reported on politicians in Georgia and Texas who tried to discredit evolution by claiming it was dreamed up by the Pharisees. Laurel Snyder looked at why Orthodox Jews, unlike many equally observant Christians, have made peace with evolution. As part of his year living according to the rules of the Bible, A.J. Jacobs visited Kentucky’s Creation Museum.

On the Daily Shvitz, Josh Strawn reported on an NYC businessman who is suing a Seed writer for $15 million for calling him a “crackpot” in two reviews of his book challenging the theory of evolution, and Francois Blumenfeld-Kouchner panned the Darwin exhibit at Chicago’s Field Museum.

There was a time when I’d quit a job every year. It wasn’t a planned renewal, but it sure helped me freshen up my career when it felt stale. Of course, one can do that sort of thing for a while, but the longer you jump around the less chance you have of really building career (and think of how often you have to update your resume).

So before you get overwhelmed by all the things that feel insurmountable, try getting your mind and machine in shape to deal with all the tasks on your plate. You’re not on your own: There are countless books, essays and Web sites devoted to your success. And if your job still sucks after all your self-improvement, you can always quit—just do it with class.

 

Obsessive blog-reading: Much more effective than banging your head on your deskIncrease your productivity by reading blogs (yes, blogs)
You’re going to do it anyway, so why not have your procrastinating Web surfing time work for you? No, not by joining a pyramid scheme. Web sites like 43 Folders and Lifehacker are full of pointers and freeware to make your work life more efficient. Folder’s Inbox Zero helps you get your e-mail stream squeaky clean in under 20 minutes, and devise strategies for keeping it that way. (Hint: “delete, delete, delete.”) Lifehacker points you to haiku productivity, and if that Zen path doesn’t prove fruitful, there’s always a crude Microsoft timer to get your ass in gear. Lastly, don’t underestimate how having the perfect iTunes equalizer setting can help your projects practically finish themselves.

 

Join the cult of David Allen
If the blogs don’t make you a super-employee, David Allen will. Twenty pages into Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, you might be inspired to put down the book and make all those calls you’ve been putting off. If it only takes a couple minutes, then it falls under his Two-Minute Rule: If it takes less than 120 seconds to handle (phone call, e-mail, bill paying), do it now so your brain can be freed to deal with more important tasks later on. Might was well just buy the book now. It only takes two minutes.

 

Rule the cube farm: All workers are equal, but some are more equal than othersCharm the jorts off your office’s IT team
The IT guys claim they’re busy, but when you walk into their office, they’re playing World of Warcraft and inhaling Cool Ranch Doritos. Lazy bastards? Yes. Permission to throw a fit? No. Making enemies in the IT department will only get you grief. Fortunately, IT guys are usually pretty easy to please. First, read this article in the Wall Street Journal, which gives tons of tips about how to improve your relations with the office geek. Next, print it out and tape it to your cubicle—not just so that you can follow all the instructions, but also so they know you’re trying. Third, if you really want to charm them, learn their language; the Family Guy Wikiquote page is an excellent place to start.

 

Throw your Blackberry in the fountain, Devil-Wears-Prada–style
Sometimes it’s not your bad attitude, or your passive-aggressive asides, or your impatience with the IT department that’s ruining your life. Sometimes you’re in the wrong job. It’s happened to all of us, and when it does, it’s OK to move on. Make your search for a new job less grueling with a meta-search engine—Indeed and PageBites are two of the best—that will trawl the job boards for you, bringing together the best listings from Monster, CareerBuilder, and a gazillion other sites. And when you do leave, make sure you do it with class. WetFeet.com has lots of advice for finding yourself a brand-spanking new job this year without making an office full of enemies in the process.

Spend less, save more. If it were as easy as it is simple, we all wouldn’t all constantly pay the cable bill with out credit cards. As it stands, I have exactly $1,008.37 in my “emergency fund”—which almost covers half a month’s rent (Whaddaya want? I live in NYC.) But I know that personal monetary renewal can be accomplished with a dash of self-denial and a pinch of common sense, just like getting over a gambling problem, a meth addiction, or a penchant for Craigslist men's room trysts. Having kicked all those habits weeks ago, I’m working on my financial situation. It all starts with spend less, save more, but since that’s kind of vague, here are four unlikely tips.

 

Home, sweet home: If you're just renting, you won't have to thatch the roof yourselfRent until you die
The three biggest lies you’ll hear this week: “the surge is working,” “just the tip, just for a second,” and “renting is throwing away your money.” Somewhere along the line, buying a house became the most important purchase you’ll ever make and damn those of you who are too busy enjoying their limited cash to see the forest for the manicured lawn. But is home still where your heart is when it turns out to be the "worst investment ever”? Sure, the housing market is slumping, but that doesn’t mean renting is a waste. This New York Times calculator allows you to plug in your current rent, the cost of your dream home, down payment, mortgage, and taxes, and work out for yourself whether renting is better than buying,

 

Quit driving like a jackass to save a couple hundred bucks
According to the Department of Energy, your gas mileage can drop as much as 33% from aggressive highway driving. Stick to the speed limit and that’s a few hundred ducats a year. This list of ten ways to prevent road rage will save you money and possibly keep you from misguided attempts to show that jerkoff in the Hummer a lesson. (If you’re feeling extra generous, take a page from the Yom Kippur book and keep a “sorry” sign in your car at all times to help everyone else save, too.)

 

The interest rate isn't great, but it's very stable: The coffee fundChock Full o’Nuts your way to the Caribbean
Come back from the strip club with nothing but a pocket full of crumpled ones? Your significant other probably appreciates your honesty about where you were, but what she’d prefer is a romantic battery-charging getaway to make everything better. The solution? An empty coffee can. Stuffing the money left over from the night before into a grown-up piggy bank ensures it won’t be spent on a hangover breakfast or an ironic tee shirt. Mock the geriatric simplicity if you want, but my wife and I did this in the year-and-change before our wedding and socked away over $1,000 for the Grecian honeymoon. Granted, it takes more than singles, and you need the discipline to leave it be, but you’d be surprised how those random bills add up. I recommend going with a Chock full o’Nuts can for that robust coffee scent.

 

Make money just by being patriotic
You may feel like less of American for not joining the Armed Forces, but collecting all of the commemorative quarters of these here United States will at least make you feel like you’re supporting the troops somehow. 2008 wraps up with Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii, the last five states admitted to the Union and to our lovely custom coin folder. (Not to be a homer, but my native Montana’s the quarter to beat.) As any seasoned numismatic will tell you, once coins are out of circulation, they become more valuable, so get in before the price of these rises to .38 or so. As an investor, you’ll want to keep your completed quarter set in a safety deposit box to pass down to your great-grandchildren, or until you decide to take $12.50 on a nostalgic trip to the arcade.

Two years ago this week, my little sister announced she was pregnant. I responded with Giuliani-like grace: “You’ve got to be joking—no way can you afford a baby. I mean, come on, you can barely afford your dog’s food.” Needless to say, this was not the joyful reaction my sister expected, and we didn’t speak for two months.

Apologies are all well and good, but even better was turning my guilt (did I really have to bring up dog food?) into action. As soon as my sister started speaking to me again, I became the most supportive aunt-to-be in the history of auntdom. I read pregnancy books. I helped her think up names. I even bought a Bugaboo stroller, just to make sure my nephew rode the mean streets of Hoboken in style. And now that he’s here, an absolutely gorgeous one-year old, I am, of course, the kid’s biggest fan.

It’s so easy to screw up your relationship with your family—an accidental insult, a skipped holiday—but luckily, it’s almost as easy to make things right. The river of love that connects most families runs deep: an honest apology and some heartfelt reparations, and soon enough that river is once again flowing smooth.

 

Stop fighting over shared duties: A kid in handStop battling the stepkid’s other parent over breakfasts, bedtimes, and everything in between.
Come up with a job description that you, your partner, and the other parent agree on. This way, all the adults will know what is expected and not expected of you—and you will understand what your role and goals are vis a vis the child(ren). (The clearinghouse Stepfamily inFormation offers a good example.) In the beginning of the relationship, try not to be the sole party responsible for the kid for long periods of time. Finally, accept what you can’t change: If the custody battle was acrimonious, do not try to make anything better, and do your honest best not to take sides.

 

Start visiting a family member suffering from dementia
This won’t be easy, but keep in mind that the visit will be harder on you than on your loved one, and that it can do no harm. Try to learn all you can about the disease so that you understand what your loved one is going through—the National Institute on Aging has some good information. During the visit, look for quiet, simple, repetitive activities to do together: fold the laundry, water the plants, or take a short walk together. Remember, the person might only be able to concentrate on one activity for twenty minutes or so, so stop if he or she becomes unsettled. And remember that even though your relative might not remember who you are, your kind attention and support will be an incredible comfort.

 

Breaking up is hard to do: Sometimes you need to step out of rankBreak up with your family—gently
You’re a grown-up, even if you don’t always feel like one, so it’s time to stop schlepping to Scarsdale every Sunday for family day and start building your own social network. The simplest and most effective thing you can do to cut the cord is to turn off the phone. It’s easy to forget that the phone is an intrusion into your life — one that you are under no obligation to respond to. So, if your family calls every night at dinnertime, turn off the phone during dinner. (Those of us who still use landlines can benefit from a sophisticated call-screener.) Set limits on how often you will call them back. If you currently talk every day, cut down communication to twice a week. If your family gives you static about your sudden unavailability, just explain that you’ve been surprisingly busy. Soon, the more measured level of communication will become a habit—and begin filtering through the rest of your relationship with them.

 

Pay back your parents for paying off your Visa
Even if you think you’re broke, you can afford twenty-five bucks a month; set up a monthly autopayment into your parents’ account immediately. Next, get a copy of The Complete Tightwad Gazette, which offers literally hundreds of tips for ways to start saving right now—not at your next raise, not when you finally make that big sale. As your income increases, increase repayment incrementally.

On the other hand, if your parents want to turn their loan into gift— but it’s important for your own self-esteem to pay them back— first, explain to them that it’s a sign of your respect for them that you repay them. If they refuse to take your money, give it to a cause that’s important to them (find a good non-profit here) and have the charity send them a letter notifying them of the gift.

This summer I was reunited with a friend I hadn’t seen in seven years, and it was like being given an amazing present. Though we’ve always kept in touch, months sometimes passed between conversations, and I never totally knew what was going on in her life. But suddenly this summer we were in the same city, and slowly but surely we became those annoying BFF girls who constantly quote each other and say shit like, “Oh my god, I love you so much it’s CRAZY!” Maybe you don’t want to be quite that close with anyone this year, but you probably have someone you’d like to hang out with more, or someone who you always mean to have plans with, but never do. Here are some tips for restarting your stalled and/or jammed friendships in the new year.

 

Lift a glass: It's important to make time in your schedule for regular drinkingMake Every Other Tuesday Cocktail and Cake Night
You and your college roommate/high school bff/work friend from your last job have been e-mailing for months with the same subject line: “Let’s hang out soon.” Yet somehow it never happens. To put an end to the empty promises, try making a regular get-together. Use Time to Meet—a free online scheduling tool—to find times when you’re both free. Then set up a regular date: Watching Heroes together every Monday, or getting dollar margaritas at the dive bar around the corner every other Wednesday. Once you build it into your schedule you’re less likely to skip it, and even if you do have to beg off every once in a while, you won’t have to worry that you’ll end up going six months without seeing your Primetime Partner.

 

Use Up All Your Forever Stamps
Want to reconnect with a friend who’s been out of touch for years? Buy a bunch of postcards, stamp them, and address them all to your friend. Keep one or two in your purse/laptop bag/briefcase to whip out the next time you get stuck in line at Starbucks or in gridlocked traffic. You don’t need a fancy message, just a “hey! What’s up? Thinking of you…” Drop the card in the mail the next time you pass a mailbox. After receiving a few cute cards, your friend is sure to respond with a sweet email at the very least. Find awesome sassy postcards here and here

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Whip Cream. Whip It Good.
Having some communication issues with your friend? Check out My Fresh Start, a website with a plan that’ll get things flowing more smoothly between the two of you, and will sharpen your cooking skills at the same time. Each friend receives a recipe with a different half covered. Using cell phones and IM in their kitchens, each friend talks the other through their half of the recipe. At the end of cooking, the friends remove the sticker to reveal the complete recipe. The service is really designed to teach you and your friends to cook healthier meals, but it can also be great at getting you to talk to each other in a helpful, fun way. And since you aren’t actually in the same kitchen, you won’t have to suffer through any backseat cooking—one of my major pet peeves. (Thrifty types, take note: You could really improvise the whole program without signing up or paying for anything.)

 

Human interaction is healthy: Tom should not be your only friendSign off MySpace
If your best friend acknowledged your birthday this year by posting something on your Facebook wall, the two of you are relying too much on technology. As Kathy Sierra points out on her metacognition blog Creating Passionate users, neuroscientists have found that the brain needs and expects body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice during communication. When they don't come, the brain suffers (and so does the communication). For a few weeks cut out IM, Gchat, Facebook, Skype, MySpace and text messaging—even phone calls if possible. It will force you to actually pay attention to each other in a non multi-tasking way, and that will help get things going again.

 

Get yourself a nemesis.
If things are going sour with a friend, consider the possibility that he’s your nemesis. In one of my all-time favorite essays, Chuck Klosterman argues that the key to being great is having a nemesis and an archenemy. “We measure ourselves against our nemeses, and we long to destroy our archenemies. Nemeses and archenemies are the catalysts for everything.” Nemeses can only nudge you toward glory, albeit in an obnoxiously competitive way.

In the realms of sex, love and dating, we all need the occasional do-over. Not only are all three arenas fraught with the potential for miscommunication, mistakes, and regret, but they also lead to a lot of self-flagellation—we’re always beating ourselves up about our bedroom faux pas. Mistakenly assumed he was the prototypical Nice Jewish Guy? Pretended condoms were optional? Gotten wasted out of nervousness? Check, check, and check. Rosh Hashanah presents a chance to stop pressing repeat on your inner bad-lay movie reel. Here’s how.

 

Break out the virtual g-string: Online, you can be a burlesque starUnleash Your Inner Pervert Persona
Often people are reluctant to share their kinkiest fantasies, even to their lovers—the risk of rejection is too high. Not so online, where anonymity reduces the sting and makes it more likely that you’ll find someone into the same things you are. By creating a new temporary persona, you can try on genders, behaviors and kinks that in real life might freak you out. Find a chat room or use Second Life. Slap on a username, channel your sluttiest self, and go wild. You can be the bitch goddess you’ve always dreamed about, attend an orgy, or have sex in public…all from the safety and comfort of your laptop screen. It’s a chance to see how the other half lives and discover hidden desires within you.

 

Spend money on sex
When it comes to sex, we’re notoriously cheap. Somehow, there’s the idea still floating around that good sex is “natural” and that paying for it can only mean prostitution. But by investing, literally, in sex—taking a class, buying a sex toy or a hot outfit, or some lube (guys, it’s way, way better than lotion or Vaseline or whatever else you may be using)— you’re saying that your sexual pleasure is worth a little cash. Check out Babeland, Blowfish, or Good Vibrations for a New Year’s shopping spree.

 

Arm yourself with knowledge: Yes, we'll be repenting that pun next SaturdayGet tested now
Now that it only takes 20 minutes to find out your HIV status, there’s no excuse not to know. Worrying about whether or not you might be positive is not only bad for your health, it’s sure to impede your libido. If you’ve had unprotected sex, finding out will either ease your mind or allow you to start getting treatment. (The FDA has even approved a home test HIV kit.) Take it from me, having to tell a new partner it’s been a while and hearing them reply with a huffy “Great” makes you feel like the slut to end all sluts. Talk about a buzz kill.

 

Say “Yep, I’m kinky”
The yes/no/maybe list is a staple of the BDSM community, but it’s just as useful for the most vanilla among us. Basically, you make a list of things you like or would like to do, things you’d never want to do, and things you might be into. For me, spanking would be a yes, fire play a no, and bondage a maybe. Writing them down will help you next time you’re in one of those iffy situations; I’ve sworn I won’t have sex on the first date, but actually following through is trickier. The list helps remind you of your values, and stick with what you know is a no.

I used to make the same New Year’s resolutions every year:

1. Do yoga (I’m a runner)
2. Eat more vegetables (I’m a carnivore)
3. Take a daily multi-vitamin (See #2)
4. Eat less cheese (I’m lactose intolerant)
5. Be nicer to my sister (I’m insufferable)
6. Stop taking myself so seriously (I’m going to be a rabbi.)

But when I got to rabbinical school, my list of resolutions started to seem a bit too superficial for Rosh Hashanah. Instead of pious spiritual aspirations, I was trying to frequent the produce section. I tried to make my Rosh Hashanah resolutions more metaphysical, but I missed my seasonal yoga classes and greens. I missed them a lot.

So I was thrilled when I discovered that Rav Kook, a hero of most contemporary rabbis, once wrote that the beginning of any attempt at Teshuva (repentance) is eating well. Kook claimed that human beings are born naturally good and only become corrupted over time. Repenting, he said, means getting back to who we really are, which starts on a physical level. So in the spirit of Rav Kook, here are a few ways to get your Teshuva on.

 

The more you cook them, the better they get: Organic carrotsMake Rosh Hashanah dinner a part of your day-to-day life by eating more tzimmes and cholent.
Cooked carrots are 34% higher in antioxidants than raw carrots and the antioxidants continue to increase if the carrots are kept at high temperature for a long time—up to a week. (Published in The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry by Luke Howard PhD, Professor of Food Science at the University of Arkansas). Check out this tzimmes recipe, or try Pickled’s less-sweet version. For an extra health boost, vegetarian cholent packs a hearty punch. And thank your grandma—she knew what was good for you.

 

Spend more time at Congregation Beth Elohim and live three years longer
In studies published by The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, researchers found that the social interaction and community provided by regular attendance at shul (or church) may add an extra two to three years to your life. Don’t belong to a synagogue? The Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements all have search engines that allow you to research local options. Just attending on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur doesn’t count, though; it’s hard to find community in a group of people you only see twice a year. Instead, start by regularly attending an adult ed class or doing volunteer work. Then, when you come back for Shabbat, you’ll find enough friendly faces to feel instantly at home.

 

Who needs Lipitor when you can just accept your sister’s apology?
Forgive yourself. Forgive your parents. Forgive Joey Hershberger for not inviting you to his Bar Mitzvah in 7th grade. In the spirit of the season, and as your rabbi has been telling you for years, get over it. Frederick Luskin, a psychologist who works at Stanford University’s Forgiveness Project —the largest research project in the country exploring the physical effects of forgiveness—has proven that persistent unresolved anger can lead to higher blood pressure, cholesterol and stress levels, so letting go is good for your health. It’s also mitzvah, of course, and it only takes nine easy steps.

 

Hebrew: It's good for your brainWard off Alzheimer’s with the Aleph-Bet
Dementia occurs later in bilingual folks: a study in the Journal of Neuropsychologia found that Alzheimer’s and other dementias set in four years later in patients who spoke more than one language. No other factor—culture, gender, immigration, education, employment—made nearly as much of a difference, so get your Hebrew on by enrolling in an ulpan or taking adult education classes. (The National Center for the Hebrew Language has a marketplace selling all the tools you need to keep your brain sharp.)

 

Swap white rice for brown rice in your stir-fry.
Brown rice is lower in carbs and higher in fiber than white rice. It also has more vitamin E, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin and over a dozen other nutrients. And it’s better for the environment—brown rice is less processed than white rice, so it takes less energy to produce. So go ahead. Buy a rice cooker (you can find a variety here.) Dump in two cups of rice, water, and a pinch of salt. Press the button. Wait 45 minutes. Eat. Feel self-righteous. You’ve now done a mitzvah for your body. And if you’re Sephardic, you’ve just doubled what you can eat on Passover.

The high holidays are a time for new beginnings—a kind of reset button on whatever you’ve gotten wrong in the past year. Services take care of your spiritual crimes, allowing you to wash all the grime off your metaphysical windows and start over fresh. But what about the more literal, practical, day-to-day mistakes you’d like to erase? Kol Nidre can release you from any number of vows, but not the one you made to your credit card company to pay back that $1500.

Hence Jewcy’s guide to starting over. We’ll tell you how to clean up past messes and prep for future successes in six categories:

Sex, love and dating | Health | Friendships | Family | Money | Work

Consulting myriad websites, books, and experts, we've pulled together 26 separate ways to start the year squeaky clean. Click the links above to get to each section, and remember: If Madonna can reinvent herself every few years, so can you.

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish version of New Year’s Eve, but the festive meal served during the holiday is the Jewish culinary rival to an American Thanksgiving — it also includes slow-cooking a big hunk of meat (brisket) and preparing copious and scrumptuous side dishes. The new year is a time to start anew, and the foods we eat symbolize our wish for happiness, health, and an overall good year to come.

This year, Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown on Wednesday, September 12, so you have about a week and a half to plan your menu. To help, we’ve put together an interactive dinner table with a menu full of symbolic ingredients. The challenge in formulating a Rosh Hashanah menu is similar to that of Thanksgiving—coming up with something that fulfills the tradition but still surprises dinner guests. We’ve assembled a potpourri of old-fashioned and nouveau recipes. Sweet flavors are paramount in this menu to signify the hope for a sweet new year. Since Rosh Hashanaha is observed over two days, there are two special meals to serve, so cook a lot and plan ahead.

Click the dishes you see on the table to reveal their symbolic meaning. Then click the black box below to go to recipes, chef Q&As, leftover ideas, and resources for more information on the holiday.

Here’s to a sweet new year!

And stay tuned to Pickled as our Budget Baleboosteh prepares her first Rosh Hashanah dinner party with selected dishes from this table.

Marriage is about money, as anyone who’s ever taken a college seminar on Jane Austen knows. On the wedding night, the bride’s assets slip into a lace teddy, the groom’s assets put on their silk pajamas, and the two become joined forever in a perfect union. Theoretically, this tender commingling of bank accounts could cost the couple no more than $55 for the marriage license. But these days, before the marriage transforms the couple’s finances, the wedding often threatens to destroy them.

Look, for example, at the changing customs around ring shopping. As soon as we started thinking about getting married, my boyfriend and I found ourselves presented with these old-fashioned roles to play: He’s the stoic breadwinner hunting down the diamond for his bride, and I’m the demure dependent breathlessly accepting the gift presented at my feet. These roles have almost nothing to do with our actual day-to-day lives, of course, but rebelling against them takes a lot of work. Rather than trying to subvert the dominant paradigm and plan the wedding at the same time, most people simply pay extra to make the cognitive dissonance go away. This is terrific for Tiffany’s, but kind of a scam for the rest of us, which is why I’m proud to say that I’m a diamond-free bride.

The groom as tool: De Beers helpfully explains gender rolesHistorically, buying the ring is the groom’s job, and his ability to save two month’s salary—a standard invented in the first half of the twentieth century by the jewelry industry—signifies his prowess as a provider. Since most brides have their own incomes these days, this tradition doesn’t make much sense, but we haven’t scrapped it. Instead, more and more brides simply contribute their own salaries towards the ring. In 2007, 39% of women said they’d help pay for the ring (up 11% over the past two years.) It’s a good thing, because ring prices have skyrocketed: In 2006, the average couple spent $4,470 on an engagement ring, or 25% more than they did back in the simpler days of 2002.

Sharing the cost hasn’t helped alleviate our anxiety about the size and shape of our rings, though. One in four women admit the engagement ring they received was too small or not what they had envisioned, which sounds horribly materialistic until you remember what else the ring is supposed to demonstrate. Cartier might sum it up perfectly in their ad campaign: Under three big rocks, the caption reads “This is what extraordinary love looks like.” It’s impossible to miss their point. A big ring means big love; a little one suggests simply lukewarm affection.

My own engagement ring has no diamond, but it does have a huge replica of a rock. The designer, Alissia Melka-Teichroew, traced the silhouette of a diamond ring onto a piece of silver and then cut it out. It’s a comment on ringness, a meta-ring. It’s conceptual. It cost $99. I love it.

A ring about ring-ness: Mine's the one on the far leftYou’ll forgive me if I sound a little snotty, a little triumphant, a little too cool for school. The truth, of which I am exceedingly proud, is that no one in my life has given me a hard time about my lack of diamond. I’ve gotten a couple semi-skeptical comments — one “So when are you going to get the real ring?” and one “You know, you have a very different attitude about this than most women.” But nobody’s told me that my fiancé priced me out at less than a hundred dollars, and for that I’m very grateful.

Why the anti-ring? Well, there’s the crass financial reason; neither of us saw the point of spending so much money on a piece of jewelry, especially when the meta-ring was so perfectly suited to both of our tastes. There are also a host of ethical reasons, given the well-documented corruption of the diamond industry. "If you really want a typical engagement ring," said my fiancé, "I could always go to Sierra Leone and dismember some small children."

Not long after we got engaged, I found a picture of my ring on Offbeatbride, the website accompanying Ariel Meadow Stalling’s excellent eponymous how-to book about non-traditional weddings. She described it as “the ultimate ‘fuck you’ to anyone who asks about your diamond ring.” In the comments section, someone called her out, wondering why anyone would want to be so rude to people who just want to appreciate your good fortune. I saw her point, but it seemed obvious that the real source of hostility here wasn't the occasional friendly ring-gawper. Every time you open a magazine Cartier’s there to tell you that your man doesn’t love you—and “fuck you” is the wrong reaction?

Good enough for Grandma?: Mead's bookAs Rebecca Mead points out in One Perfect Day, her meticulously-researched book about the wedding industry, ads like Cartier’s are effective. In fact, diamond rings only became widely associated with engagement after the diamond company De Beers began advertising in the 1930s. It took them years to invent the tradition: Even as late as 1939, one-third of brides went ringless. It wasn’t until 1947, when a never-married copywriter coined the phrase “A diamond is forever,” that diamonds become a crucial part of betrothal. It’s a hard slogan to argue against. If a diamond is forever, and you’re dismissive of diamonds, doesn’t that suggest you’re saying fuck you to forever?

Jodi Kantor seems to think so. In her New York Times review of One Perfect Day, Kantor appeared to take Mead’s criticisms of the industry personally, arguing that her own wedding was tasteful and referring to the book as “dour” (which is up there with “shrill” and “hairy” on the Top Ten List of Ad Hominem Responses to Feminist Arguments.) Kantnor hastily pointed out that she didn’t disagree with the book’s general thesis; she just believes our current wedding excess can’t be too bad, because it makes people happy. “Do grandmothers cry just as hard when a bride is married, as Mead was, at a courthouse while wearing office clothes?” she asks. Read that again: The New York Times’ reviewer just accused a journalist of making her grandma sad by not spending enough money on her wedding. It’s a perfect example of the way the industry has coached us to conflate what we buy with how we feel.

The industry is only so powerful, though, as the story of the male engagement ring demonstrates. In 1926, with revenues threatened by the rise of department stores, jewelers began marketing rings for men—“mangagement rings,” as my fiancé wistfully calls them. They positioned these rings as historically macho, advertising them with pictures of be-ringed Conan the Barbarian types charging into battle and naming them things like “the Pilot,” “the Executive,” and my favorite, “the Stag.” But there was an essential problem with the male ring: it didn’t fit with traditional engagement gender roles. Men were supposed to be bestowing the rings, not wearing them, and all the ringed barbarians in the world couldn’t convince the public otherwise.

Bling it on: Does wearing jewelry make this guy less of a man?This problem played out logistically. Since it was taboo for women to propose marriage, brides couldn’t figure out when to buy their fiancé’s rings. Were they supposed to secretly return to the jewelry store after the proposal? Not only was the process clunky, but grooms tended to stand in the way. As one trade magazine pointed out, if a man discovered that his bride planned to spend $30 to $50 on a ring for him, he’d probably talk her out of it. For the mangagement ring to succeed, then, women would have to deceive their fiancés in order to buy them gifts that they didn’t really want.

Deep-seated gender roles are much harder to escape than a sixty-year-old custom. I should know: Our engagement ring might be postmodern, but my fiancé’s proposal was entirely old-fashioned. Andy bought the ring without me—without my knowledge. (If I may be sentimental for a moment, the vision of him engagement-ring-shopping at the MoMA store totally kills me; it’s like some weird pre-sexual fantasy I would have had as a pretentious eight-year-old.) And he proposed on one knee, just like Mr. Darcy.

I’m rare among my engaged and married friends; most had long, heartfelt discussions about commitment and readiness before anyone thought about buying a ring. Sixty-four percent of women help pick out the ring, which means they’ve discussed getting married before the actual engagement. But only 5% of women propose. Had we stuck with our happy living-in-sin arrangement for another few years, I like to think I would have suggested we get married—but I would have felt ridiculous getting down on one knee. Even the phrase “Will you marry me?” seems to belong to men; speaking it, I think I’d feel like I was play-acting, and I suspect my fiancé would feel the same way. We’re independent-minded enough to buck a tradition created by the jewelry industry, but neither of us can fully escape the idea that some roles are for men and some are for women.

Next: Is it ethical of us to get married when so many of our friends can’t?

*** Also: Five ways to keep the wedding-industrial complex off your ring finger