Every few years, my birthday falls on Yom Kippur. Any other early Libras in the house may know the joy that I experienced as a child, when my birthday celebration was combined with over a dozen hangry (read: hungry and angry) relatives hovering over a table full of bagels and lox, hapharazrdly singing happy birthday in a low-blood-sugar drone while a store-bought cake was wheeled out by my exhausted mother. Still, it seems appropriate somehow that this year, on the very day I leap gleefully out of my twenties and into my thirties, I should be asked by my religion to reflect upon the sins of my past, and possibly to atone for them. Hm. Could I have done anything over this past decade to warrant atonement?

To help answer my own (and G-d’s!) question, I’ve complied a short list. Here are some of the highs and lows of my twenties, in chronological order:

1. Backpacked through Europe: Sweet Jesus (am I allowed to say that on here?), was that really ten years ago?!
2. Followed my dreams: Moved to Hollywood to try and become famous. (Didn’t.)
3. Abandoned my dreams: To be fair, they stopped being my dreams after three years of waiting tables.
4. Put my youthful idealism to work: Worked at a nonprofit for four years.
5. Had said youthful idealism trampled: Worked at a nonprofit for four years.
6. Experienced quarterlife crisis: Flew into a complete panic upon turning 25. Drank heavily, pondered the meaning of my life, decided that I was no longer young, panicked more, drank more, made plans, forgot about them.
7. Took advantage of being a spring chicken: Worked in seedy and not-so-seedy strip clubs to make some real money while working at a nonprofit for four years (no, not as a waitress).
8. Had fling with wildly inappropriate individual: 20 years old. Bipolar. Temporarily homeless. Still managed to be incredibly sexy.
9. Went back to Europe: This time I went with a play in hand and dreams of making it big at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Fine, you caught me – my dreams weren’t completely abandoned, per list item three. Literalist.
10. Wrote book: Hopefully the thirties will see it published. (Publishers, feel free to email me at the address below.)
11. Mastered the art of shameless self-promotion: See number 11.
12. Had successful, adult relationship: So successful that I’m still in it, and in fact betrothed. All is not lost for my mother.

Continue reading...

Organized religion is full of contradictions-for example, could God create a boulder so heavy that He cannot lift it, and then create a heavier boulder that would outweigh the combined bloat of Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh?-and here is one of them:

"God will accept repentance for all sins except one: giving another man a bad name."

-The Zohar

 "It is a wise man that admits the truth."

-The Mishnah

 

What if admitting the truth means giving someone a bad name? Should we apologize for hurting others' feelings after exposing their malevolence and hypocrisy? Is it better to speak charitably or honestly? And why do these questions keep me awake at night?

I am a professional asshole. My job (nay, my purpose on earth) is to mercilessly pierce the bullshit-ridden exoskeleton of society with my blazing katana of unfiltered rhetorical justice, decapitate the scum-sucking charlatans of this planet and make sweet, sweet love to their cleanly severed skulls. Somebody has to do it, and yet I feel bad whenever I make somebody else feel bad; the Katana of Truth is a double-edged sword.

I've previously detailed my social ineptitude here on Jewcy, and I haven't changed much with a couple years of age (except that I'm way hotter now whereas you are uglier). Consider my behavior last weekend at a party with law school students whom I'd never met:

• Mocked two brothers because they failed to make it into Harvard like their father

• Told a disheveled guy that he looked like future divorce attorney and his first client would be himself

• Informed a dude that the band on his t-shirt sucks, always a classy and well-liked move

• Laughed in a Texan's face because Alaska, my homeland, is more than twice the size of her shitty redneck state

• To blonde couple: "You look like master race Aryans straight out of a Swiss Miss commercial, did you know that?"

• To Catholic chick: "So you fuck like crazy but don't use condoms because Jesus would send you to hell, right?"

Continue reading...

"It's always easier to apologize than to ask permission." - Grace Hopper

I love the High Holidays, and have since I started practicing Judaism. Sure, I always grumble and moan about making it through a whole day of fasting on Yom Kippur, but I find great joy and strength in the Days of Awe. Not coincidentally, a lot of that has to do with the fact that the High Holidays are always around my birthday (which is today, FYI). Birthdays are a natural time of year for reflection, so tying that in with the Jewish calendar is a beautiful way to gather my thoughts and set new priorities for the year to come.

One hallmark of the Days of Awe is, of course, atonement. I don't think it's inappropriate to apologize via email - that is how we communicate now, and as long as the intention is genuine, I don't think it is a big deal what form the apology comes in. That said, a few years ago I received an apology via email that I refused to accept.

Here's the quick and dirty story behind said apology: a few years ago, I dated a man we'll call "Lior." Although Lior and I only dated for a few months, we'd known each other for a long time beforehand and had many mutual friends. That was why I found it particularly surprising when Lior left a message on my voicemail one afternoon breaking up with me. Afterward, I found out a few less-than-savory details about his extracurricular activities that effectively ruined any residual goodwill I had toward him. Fast forward a couple of months, and it was almost Yom Kippur. One day, I saw an email from Lior in my inbox. It was the first time I'd had any contact with him since the aforementioned voicemail.

Dear Lilit, it read. Voicemail was kind of shitty, huh? Sorry about everything. Hope you're doing OK. Happy holidays.

That was it, except for his name at the end.

Continue reading...

My uncle and his boyfriend have a Yom Kippur ritual: First they go to a nice lunch in Manhattan, and then they see a Broadway show. I’ve always loved that story because it’s so Jewish: They could go see The Producers or The Boy From Oz any time, but it wouldn’t be as special on any other day. Even for Jews with no interest in religion, the Day of Atonement has a kind of power. You can find Broadway tickets here, but if you’re going to try to engage with the holiday on its own terms, you’re better off with our custom events listings. Pick your type

As pop song themes go, atonement is right up there with the biggies: sex, puppy love, devil worship. Songs of penance are especially ubiquitous in American popular music, and small wonder. So much American pop flows out straight out of the church – blues plaints, honky tonk rave-ups, and soul ballads are often little more than secularized sinners' confessions, ne'er-do-wells begging their women to let them please come home while an angry Old Testament God glares down from on high. Here then are 20 quasi-secular, mostly crypto-Christian pleas for forgiveness and pledges of reform – a perfect soundtrack for a nice Jewish boy or girl's Yom Kippur reckoning. There are two bona ...

As an atheist raised in culturally Christian milieu who lives with a non-practicing Jew, I’m in no position to discourse on Jewish notion of atonement as practiced on Yom Kippur. But in my understanding, the holiday has to do with self-reflection, introspection and an attempt at restitution of past wrongs. I find this model of atonement appealing in its focus on the human as well as the divine: We wrong God when we wrong other people, and we can only make things right by addressing that earthly harm. There are so many great movies built around the timeless theme of sin and repentance. Here are a few that stand out for me:

I was recently called on the carpet by a Bel Air cantor when I told him that, despite my atheism, I still fasted on Yom Kippur. He asked why and, after some hemming and hawing that had to do with the memory of my deceased relatives, he said, "So you do it to feel good about yourself." The lesson being, for me, at least, that when it comes to atoning, motives count. I suspect I won't fast this year, but I might spend the day in the company of some more deeply felt literary atoners.

Amazing story in the Atonement Forum:

A long time ago, when I was in the seventh grade at a Hebrew Day School, there was a new kid in our class from Israel. I'll call him Shuki. Shuki was only in the States for one or two years because his father was getting his PhD at one of the local universities. Because, even then, I was interested in the world, travel and meeting people from other countries, I befriended Shuki, who was a bit of a loner due to his short stature, natural shyness, limited command of English and his very strong Israeli accent.

I remember that I was one of the few in the class who attended his bar mitzvah and how his mother took my mother aside at the time to tell her how happy she was that Shuki had such a good friend in me because the move to the States had been so hard for him. Such was my relationship with Shuki.

One day, for no particular reason other than to be funny, I called up one of the girls in the class and, doing my best Israeli accent, I pretended to be Shuki...

Go to the forum to see the rest, and then submit your own.

 

Once, a couple months ago, I was sitting on the subway next to two empty seats when an overweight woman got on the train with her extremely rotund child. He looked to be about eight, but it was hard to tell because he was enormous — much bigger than me, though that’s not much of an accomplishment. (I’ve been waiting for my growth spurt since sixth grade.) There was no way both mother and son could fit in the two seats next to me; each one required at least a seat and a half. A half, that is, of my seat.

They stared at me. I stared at them.

Normally, when I see a parent and child on the train, I get up. It’s only fair—I’m young, unencumbered, strong of calf. But I couldn’t get past the fact that all three of us could be seated happily if both mom and kid hadn’t been so supersized. A lot of things contribute to childhood obesity — genes, income, lifestyle. Not all of them are controllable, especially when you’re eight years old. Still, sometimes on the subway at the end of the day a seat starts to feel like a precious commodity, one you’d guard with your life. Wasn’t it, like, abusing the resources for these people to demand more than their allotted share? Is one still required to give up one’s seat for a child when the child is the size of a small ox?

In the end, I stayed put. But obviously I feel kind of guilty because I’m obsessing about it three months later. As such, I’d like to publicly apologize—and to announce the opening of Jewcy’s atonement forum. Haunted by similar petty incidences of poor behavior? Better yet, haunted by much bigger, juicier misdeeds? Tell us about them (anonymously, natch) in honor of the upcoming Day of Atonement. We want something like Craigslist’s Missed Connections in Jewish-sin form. Ultimately we might even round up and feature the best ones, but only if you guys don’t hold back…

The Pardoner's Tale: Don't call him plagiaristAnd even if he were, so what? Somehow I get the feeling that McEwan could have lifted whole chapters out of an obscure 70's memoir and still be considered the most graceful English prose stylist wielding a pen today. Nor would this have diminished in the least his talent for character invention and plot progression and imagery. Lev Grossman in Time scuppers the latest "plagiarism" imbroglio surrounding the Booker winner, and good for Grossman. Here's one bruited similarity between McEwan's novel Atonement and Lucilla Andrews' Florence Nightingale-ish remembrance, No Time For Romance:

Our 'nursing' seldom involved more than dabbing gentian violet on ringworm, aquaflavine emulsion on cuts and scratches, lead lotion on bruises and sprains." Compare that to McEwan (this is on p. 260): "In the way of medical treatments, she had already dabbed gentian violet on ringworm, aquaflavine emulsion on a cut, and painted lead lotion on a bruise."

Let's see now. Aside from the verb "to dab," the only thing even vaguely eyebrow-raising here is the sequence of ailments and palliatives. "Gentian violet" may have been just the thing for ringworm in World War II. And by what other name was "aquaflavine emulsion" or "lead lotion" categorized in nursing stations?

Try this: "He applied rubbing alcohol to the forehead gash, set the leg with a splint, and wrapped the arm in an Ace bandage." How else would you describe those three actions which could easily be performed after a bad bike accident?

McEwan's contemporary Martin Amis once copped to purloining "nimbus cloud" (or some such construction to describe a character's hairdo) straight from Dickens for his debut novel The Rachel Papers, itself a major paragraph-lender to Jacob Epstein's own debut Wild Oats, which appeared eight years later.

Forget the inherent tribute or rationalized artistry behind plagiarism. It's a force of literary nature and it can't be stopped. (Martin Luther King took his almost his entire doctoral thesis, verbatim, from another source. And where hasn't the phrase "handful of dust" -- Donne, Eliot, Orwell, Waugh, to name just four -- been through and around the canon?)

We should learn to distinguish the non-examples from grand larceny.