We—the children of the boomers, the privileged progressives—have a giving problem, which is that we don’t do it. Instead, we cloak ourselves in the trappings of charity. We carve out lives that appear to be socially just, full of free range chicken and Birkenstocks. We look good, even if we don’t do-good.

Revolution: Never looked so good.Hell, we ask for money, either as non-profiteers, or as individuals with pet projects. Each year, I get a handful of e-mails from friends requesting “charitable donations.” They want to take their band on the road, or they want to fly to Nepal to read bedtime stories to orphans, and they’re asking me to fund the trip. They have feral cats to foster, and co-operative gardens to maintain, and that’s great, but it does little to repair the world. Sure it’s nice to have live music in the park, but that that just makes our lives nicer, decorates our world.

Please understand, I’m in no position to judge, because I’m worst of all. Last year, while working for a Jewish charity I “rescued” Kareem, a stray pit bull living down the street from me. Then I spent SEVEN THOUSAND dollars to kill her slowly, with a fancy veterinary specialist, on credit, and then solicited Jewish donors to fund my hopeless project. And it worked. Which is insane.

I cared enough to nurse the damn dog, just not enough to put the bill on my own credit card, or take a second job to pay the bill.

SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS TO KILL A DAMN DOG!!! I wasn’t being a do-gooder, I was sucking the system, siphoning off money that could have been going to AIDS research or literacy. I got so caught up in what looked like charity that I lost all reason, not to mention my math skills.

I realize now that for years I’ve made the mistake of mixing up my progressive lifestyle for true charity, and I think maybe you have too.

Forget dogs: This mutt doesn't need your money. Ask yourself: Do you feel better about yourself when you shop at Whole Paycheck, or when you ride your bike to work? Do you imagine the world thinks you “look” progressive?

And how do you judge the world? Let’s say you spot a thirty-ish woman in a vintage sundress, carrying a cloth grocery bag to the farmers market while sipping a soy chai, and walking beside her is a middle aged woman in a salmon colored Capri pants-and-sweatshirt ensemble that surely came from Wal-Mart. A Disney outfit. She’s drinking a Big Gulp.

How might you imagine they stack up to each other with regard to charity? I bet the Wal-Mart mom gives a big chunk of change to her church each year, which—among other things—supports a soup kitchen. And I bet she doesn’t have a ringer-T that says so either.

Keep in mind, it’s still good to ride your bike to work, but if it makes you feel like you’ve “done your bit” there’s a problem. If your hemp pants make you feel like you don’t need to send some money to Louisiana, you’ve gotten off the path.

For some, the solution seems to be “getting involved” but that doesn’t take the place of giving either. So if you’re working in the development office of an environmental organization, however cool that is—you should be donating to that same organization as well. Because when you’re getting paid to do “good work”, it isn’t really charity. That’s just the non-profit sector supporting you.

Look up to Grandma: She was fashionable and gave to charity. Maybe we’re screwed up because we’re just plain bad with money, raised on credit cards and take-out, but there’s an illogic in place, because we think we’re progressive. We think we want to help. We’ve taken the Sesame Street aesthetics that our hippie parents fed us, and we’ve blended them with the greed of our own me decades, and the result is a lot of bumper stickers. We buy organic milk, and then get wasted on Cosmos, or we buy ethanol for our SUVs. The image of progressive living has a price tag., and so we don’t ever have enough to give to charity. Our appetites always exceed our resources, no matter how great our resources may be.

Face it. We just really like to buy stuff, and we live in a world designed to feed that passion. Despite our aesthetics of charity, despite our rocking of the vote—what does our generation value? TiVo. High speed Internet. Very pale beers with slices of citrus fruit floating in them. Whatever the billboards tell us to value, which means our discretionary spending is beyond belief.

Three years ago, a study based on more than 7000 households showed that just over one-half (53 %) of our generation made donations of $25 or more in 2000. Compare this to our post-Holocaust/Depression grandparents, 80% of whom gave at our age. Or our hippie parents, who donated at a rate of 75%. Bubbe and Zayde gave an average of $1,707. We give $532.

But Generation X, Y, and Z?

We refuse to share our good fortune. Despite the fact that a 30-year-old today (we’ll call him Mike) is 50% more likely to have a college degree than his dad (Steve), and despite the fact that Mike earns $5,000 more a year than Steve did 30 years ago (even adjusted for inflation), he isn’t giving any of it away. In fact, Mike probably doesn’t believe he can afford to give. Like many of us, he think he’ll have the money someday, talks about what he’ll do when that day comes, and then goes out for dinner. Like many of us, he thinks he’s “just getting by.”

Gen-x: Spending all of our money on cosmos. But our generation has a strange concept of what it means to “get by.” We spend more on vacations than our grandparents ever dreamed of, and per trip expenditures have increased 66% over the past 5 years. While Steve spent a well-earned week in the Poconos, Mike flies off to Mali, and even if he has to slap it on the credit card, he feels totally entitled. In 1997, Generation X spent approximately $30 billion eating out, and we’re the highest consumers of fast food, beer, wine coolers (ugh!), and booze. When it comes to food, we lead the way with soda, chocolate, chips and beer, so then of course we spend a lot on gym memberships too.

So I’m making a resolution now, and I’m asking you to hold me to it.

I’m going to do better. In fact, I’m going to try to give away 7K next year, to make up for Kareem the dead dog. I’m going to research giving, and I’m going to stop eating out so fucking much. I’m going to try to figure out how the people who give make it work. That’s right, I’m admitting my ignorance and facing the music. I’m going to talk to my grandparents, and maybe a banker, or a rabbi, and I’ll get back to you when I have some answers.

In the meantime, what are you going to do?

* * *


Short quiz:

1.) Do you have bumper stickers or T shirts that advocate missions you haven’t actively contributed to in the last year?

2.) Do your organic purchases each week outnumber the quantity of organizations where you’ve volunteered?

3.) Have you traveled in a developing nation and then come home and bought items made in China?

4.) Is the amount of money you spend on alcohol each week more or less than the amount of money you spend of charitable causes?

5.) Do you belong to Working Assets? If so, how often do you actually make an additional donation when you pay your bill?

When I was a kid, I was taught that it’s okay to be angry, so long as you can find good ways to get the anger out. Painting—I was instructed—was good for getting the anger out (hence we make abstract art). Dancing was good for getting the anger out (hence we form mosh pits).

More than anything, talking was good for getting the anger out. Talking was constructive. Communication was good. Even when it was ugly.

And so I learned to confront people. To say, “I’m angry at you,” or “You did something that hurt my feelings and it really messed me up,” or “You’re a total douchebag, you total douchebag.”

But the trick with talking, as opposed to splatter art or slamdancing, was that you actually had to know who you were angry at. You had to be able to locate the object of your anger, figuratively and literally. You needed a door to knock on. Someone to yell at.

This week, reading Shalom Auslander’s new memoir, Foreskin’s Lament, I found myself thinking about anger. About talking when you’re angry. And about talking to God, who is the object of Auslander’s anger.

See—this weird and powerful book, is basically just 310 pages of anger. 310 pages of ranting. 310 pages of Auslander screaming over and over again, “You’re a total douchebag, you total douchebag!” To God.

Auslander hates him more than I’ve ever hated anything. And he’s been putting off telling God that, until now. He’s been afraid to tell him. Afraid of God’s reaction. God’s wrath. In very concrete ways, Auslander has (if we are to believe his book) been afraid of God’s punishment. Pillars of salt and plagues of locusts. Auslander has been afraid God would kill his wife. Ruin his career.

But here’s the trick—in order to hate something you have to really believe in that something. You can’t hate a vague memory. You can’t hate an amorphous consideration. Auslander hates God because he knows God.

Which is pretty amazing to read about—such hatred. Hatred as proof of true belief. Hatred directed at the sky, executed without a shiny happy veneer. Hatred without a lesson.

But why so much hate?

Well, Auslander grew up a true believer with a fucked up life. With an alcoholic dad and a doormat mom. With an overwhelming sexual urge, a critical mind, and a religious environment that could accept neither.

And what does one do when one truly believes that everything in the universe is controlled by the omnipresent hand of HaShem, but that the universe is totally chaotic? How could one not, under such circumstances, be angry at God? How could one not see God as some kind of vindictive, manipulative bastard?

Okay, so Auslander’s mad. He hates God. He fights God at every step. He attempts to manipulate God into killing his raging dad by eating trayf. Because he has been given to understand that “until the age of thirteen all of a boy’s sins are ascribed to his father.” Then he tries to run away from God, from his family, his orthodox world.

And I guess we’re supposed to feel bad for Auslander. That he’s been so horrendously messed up by his family and the orthodoxy that he’s still making deals with God as an adult. That he’s superstitious to the core, so afraid of God he’s certain that if he dares to be happy, God will do something terrible to him, maybe deform his unborn child.

But here’s the trick—I don’t feel bad for him. Not really. I feel something else. I feel moved by his story, compelled, hungry for more. Which is to say that I feel jealous. Because I want a God too. I want to believe in something this much. I want someone to yell at.

When I was a kid—growing up with a kind of pluralistic, humanistic, academic Judaism, with a vague sort of “God is the force for good in everything and all gods are real” religion—there were no absolutes. No concrete belief systems. No real community. And so all I wanted in the world was to be an orthodox Jew or an Amish person. Because it seemed like it would be reassuring, to have specific rules to follow.

Heaven. Hell. Eat this. Don’t eat this. That guy is bad and you’re right all the time as long as you do what I say. I wanted there to be rules. And also, I was angry. Maybe as angry as Auslander.

I was angry because I had epilepsy and was being constantly overmedicated for my condition, to the point of illness. And I was angry that when they took pictures of my epileptic brain they found a tumor. I was angry that my mom and dad split up, and that we had to move. I had reasons to be angry, but I didn’t have anyone to blame, anyone to yell at. I had no rules to break that would give me any power or control. Nothing to bring me into a dialogue about all the ways I was angry. I had myself and my anger, and I got lost in each of them, hungry for some kind of relief, explanation, hope.

So I don’t think Auslander realizes how lucky he is. Where he has a core of rage and anger, I have something else. A hole. An empty space. Where God would be. And that hurts too.

I keep thinking about this. And what I arrive at is the thought that Shalom Auslander is the child of an abusive parent—this God of his—and he is MAD. So he’s telling all of us about how mad he is. He’s describing each beating, each time his God slammed his head against the bathroom sink. Each time his God forgot to feed him dinner. And it’s horrible—this story of his—horrible and fascinating and true.

But if he’s the abused child, I’m the orphan. Sitting alone and listening. Knowing that the abuse he’s describing is terrible and wrong, but at the same time, feeling sorry for myself.

“Well at least you have a dad!”

Because it sounds like some kind of a foundation, however messed up. It sounds like Auslander knows something, truly believes in something.

Which is why I think this book is so powerful. Because most gods aren’t gods I can understand. I’m too far removed from such belief, from such lovely faith. I’m too much an orphan to believe in the shiny happy veneer of a perfect parent—the god of Jesus Loves Me and Our Father Who Art and Who Brought You Out of Egypt to Be Your God.

But this god. The god of therapy and manipulation and neglect and irony. This faith of cynicism and resentment. This sounds like something I can understand. At least a little bit.

And that’s the funny thing. The punchline. That this book—which is so angry, so iconoclastic—has convinced me of something, touched me in a small way. Made a believer of me, if only for a few hours or days. The punchline is that this heretical book, this biography of one man’s attempted recovery from faith, has performed a kind of mission for me, brought me a little bit of god.

And although I’m not sure that’s what Shalom Auslander wanted, it might just be what his God wanted.

Baruch haShem?

So as we all know, Jerry Falwell (founder of the so-called Moral Majority)  is dead, and this JTA article discusses the mixed feeling Jews had about the man.

Statements from Jewish leaders about his death were duly respectful of a man who loved Israel, but were qualified also by his embrace of values that alienated most American Jews.

This is something I will never never understand.  How thinking Jewish people can in any way stand behind someone like this.  How Israel, or any other single issue, can be important enough to trump our other concerns. Like not getting into bed with racist homophobic misogynists.

Here's a lovely quote from Mort Klein (leader of the Zionist Organization of America):

"Jews should have appreciated his virtually unconditional support more than we did," Klein said. "We should also have appreciated that his deep support for Israel came from strong belief in the Torah, in the Bible."

Okay... NO!  the support of evangelical Christianity for Israel does NOT come from a strong belief in the Torah.  It comes from a strong belief in the Christian Bible, which condemns us to Hell and views Israel as a necesary ingredient in the ultimate destruction of all us heathens.  If the 5 books of Moses happen to be a re-translated part of the book, so what?  That fact, and our shared interest in Israel does NOT make for a Judeo-Christian America.  Does not make us friends.

I feel strongly that my (not so clean and happy) neighborhood should be a clean and happy place.  The  awful investor who owns the vacant house next to mine, and wants to flip it for profit, feels strongly that this neighborhood needs to "transition faster" too.  But why we feel these things, and how we live our lives sets us apart. And no shared desire for a coffee shop around the corner will make us friends.

Jerry Falwell is dead. And while I don't rejoice in anyone's death, I can't mourn this man.  He thought that the antichrist (ANTICHRIST) was a Jewish man.  He thought AIDS was "the wrath of a just God". 

He liked Israel.  He stood for pretty much everything I hate.  He died.

RIP

At JSPOT: Katrina relief was a Jewish concernA few weeks ago, I took my son to play at the park, with my new friend Naomi and her daughter (who is almost exactly my son's age). At the time I had a vague sense that she worked in some capacity for a Jewish agency, but I didn't know anything about it.

While the kids played and we tried to keep them from falling to their deaths, Naomi told me a little about her job, and I thought it sounded super-cool, and when I discovered they had a blog, JSPOT, I wanted to make sure you knew about it!

 Here's a little tidbit, from an article about the Sabbath:

Observing the Sabbath is the “climax of living” because refraining from working one day a week reminds us that we are more than our job title, our incomes or other labels attached to us based on what we do. For one day a week, it dissolves the hierarchies that make some of us feel more deserving than others and others of us feel less so.

Of course, I'm not sure we all make use of the Sabbath in this way, but I love the idea of it, and think JSPOT has a lot to say!

And the blog also links this article about Shavuot and Immigration Reform.

Pretty vital issues, rooted deeply in Jewish ideas.

I find it interesting that JSPOT has taken as its mission an avoidance of conversation about Israel:

Our focus is on domestic issues only; no foreign policy, no Middle East, no Israel. We hope to direct some attention to the problems faced by those living in the United States without access to quality health care, housing, education, childcare, or a clean environment; those who work for low-wages, in unstable jobs, or are unemployed; those who struggle against discrimination and bigotry; those who are victims of violence and abuse. We hope to celebrate and scrutinize the efforts to address these problems; to offer varied perspectives and new ideas.

I know many people who feel that Israel IS the Jewish political agenda, and I think those people might take issue with JSPOT.  But I like this approach.  I feel that these issues of social justice are critical for us, as Jews, to address. And Israel tends to divide us, when we might be brought together around a topic like education of healthcare.

Jabes: Asks questionsBefore I go, I want to point you to a Jewish poet I love, Edmond Jabes. To begin with, you should crack open a copy of his Book of Questions...

Although I've never studied Jabes in any formal way, and it makes me nervous to stumble into the language of Postmodernism...

Derrida called the question ‘our freedom’ from God, which is what allows us to speak and to write, making Jabes’s intractable Book of Questions ‘a book on the book.’

And a lot of people read Jabes' with a lens of Postmodernism.  But Jabes was also very much a Jew and a theologian, and I find the bridge he builds between God (with a special interest in Kabbalah) and Postmodern Poetics to be really really useful.  He knew:

"The name of God is the juxtaposition of all the words in the language, Each word is but a detached fragment of that name"

But he knew this as both a Jew and a poet.

This Kabbalistic idea means that breaking open words and recombining their letters is neither just fun nor impious. It is not even just the Kabbalistic tradition of "traveling inside the word." (12) For Edmond Jabes, this method "permits a rediscovery, a rereading of the word. One opens a word as one opens a book: it is the same gesture" (DB 95). More, it is creation in the sense of enacting the possible. The motor of this process becomes, as Joseph Guglielmi has realized, the single letter. It at the same time interprets and creates

And as both a  poet and a Jew I find his work to be inspiring and complicated.  Which is a good thing. I like the marriage of inspiration and complication.  I'm a beleiver in the question.

Some words:

What if the book were only infinite memory of

a word lacking?

    Thus absence speaks to absence.

    "My past pleads for me," he said. "But my fu-

ture remains evasive about the assortment in its

basket."

    Imagine a day without a day behind it, a night

without a previous night.

    Imagine Nothing and something in the middle

of Nothing.

    What if you were told this tiny something was

you?