The Place I Became A Man

Hi All -- hope you had a good weekend!

Mine was pretty good -- I ran in the increasingly popular Brooklyn Half Marathon for the first time.  This race is so hot it sells out faster than Billy Joel!  Started out in beautiful Prospect Park, then took Ocean Parkway down through the next three neighborhoods, all the way to the Coney Island Boardwalk!  Stuck with my usual tactic of drinking fruit punch flavored Powerade, courtesy of my fuel belt, every two miles like clockwork.  Felt like I was pulling 8's, turned out to be a little bit faster than that, so I was pretty jazzed.  Several of us runners went over to a bar called Peggy O'Neill's, on the Surf Avenue side of MCU Ballpark (home of the minor league Brooklyn Cyclones), and had to be patient with our bartenders, who were clearly not used to a Saturday morning rush.  :)  Still got my Sammy.

Next week, I'm hoping for a similar experience -- going up to the farthest reaches of our state to run in the Buffalo Half Marathon.  It's become my annual Memorial Day trek, looking forward to running this new course that includes Delaware Park, and seeing some good friends of mine.

Yes, we always look forward to our old traditions, and sometimes start new ones.  But what about the ones that disappear?

My childhood synagogue is closing its doors.  The congregation is merging with another temple on the other side of town, but the building is for sale.  It seemed like the temple would be there forever, but all good things must end.

It brings back memories.  Learning the traditions of my ethnic group.  Preparing to lead services on my Bar Mitzvah day and beyond.  Feeling the comfortable, safe, and home-base feeling that I got within its walls.  

The Bar Mitzvah day stands out, of course.  The satisfaction of learning to recite sacred and ancient words in a language difficult to pronounce.  The rewards of preparing for a performance that your entire family and all of your friends appreciate.  The knowledge that, in some circles, you're recognized as a man, and no longer as a boy.

And, oh yeah . . . I got to give a speech, too.  :)  Now that I think about it, that was David's first blog post, before there were blogs!  Preparing for it helped me develop confidence, and performing it taught me to love having an audience.  :).  Oh yes, I did become a man in that sense -- I was no longer shy, looking for excuses not to speak.  Once I got over that hump, my years on stage in drama club and college theater were a breeze.

It was also the place I got close to G-D, appropriately enough.  I learned that there was something bigger than me, that handled all things in life beyond my control.  A source of justice truer than anything that could be handed down by any mortal authority figure.  And sometimes, when I didn't really expect it, it "saved" me from possible and unpleasant consequences.  Lesson really learned when that happened!

Ironically, my high school was just down the street.  The values one learned in that building were like night and day, in comparison from the values learned at temple.  Yet some people think that's the place a boy becomes a man.

I respectfully disagree.

Rather, for a true example of manhood, I look at the elders who organized our old temple, and their actions.  Giving of one's time.  Kindness towards children and the elderly.  Respect for tradition.  Greetings and friendliness towards all who entered.  Pride and values.  They had lives of their own, they could have chosen to let someone else "run things," but the leadership roles they took in synagogue life were rewarding in and of themselves.  

Yes, that temple is gone forever, but I still owe it a great deal.  It connected me with a tradition dating back millennia.  It gave me a chance to learn and express some good talents.  Most importantly, it taught me examples inspired by G-D, and those values made a man of me.
  

And so let it be with the rest of this beta tribe.  Gentlemen, don't recite or adopt the falsehoods of the alphaganda.  Don't be led astray by groupthink.  Don't bow down to false gods, and don't give them the power deserved only by Him.  You're better served to emulate the kind of righteousness those gentlemen showed.

So MUST a beta male believe in G-D?  Entirely up to you, friends.  I have no authority to save or damn any soul in my audience.  I can only vouch for my own, and nobody else's.  But I gotta admit, faith in a higher power and trust in all things beyond your control (provided you've handled everything within your control) is a far better way to go through life than to dread and malign one's own existence.

That's my sermon.  I've already discussed how my religion is disappearing.  Here's to finding a replacement once it does.

DISCLAIMER:  The above is not meant to besmirch, smear, undercut, or look down upon, those who belong to other faiths, or to no religion at all.  And trust me, I'm not saying that I'm perfect.  It's nothing more than memories of a treasured and uncorrupted part of my youth.  Please indulge me.  :)

A Promotion, and Maintaining Identity.

OK, a couple of unrelated Bible stories for ya this week.

Joseph got to show his dream-intepretation savvy to Pharaoh, and got a huuuuuge position in his Court.  I mean, going straight from being in jail to ruling most of the land, because he was able to predict that a famine would come, and warn the Egyptians to be prepared for it.  Good job!

So this is his chance to take a small amount of vengeance on his brothers, who threw him into the pit.  They had no clue that he was Joseph, and he was able to play the Egyptians vs. Hebrews angle for a while.

The lesson does go both ways -- one key to success is to possess knowledge that nobody else has, and demonstrate how well you utilize it.  Only Joseph was able to interpret dreams so well, and it landed him the ultimate government job.  However, once he got there, and had more power, he was in a position to completely take advantage of those who wronged him . . . that certainly can be done, but wouldn't it be a more constructive use of that power to help, and not hurt them?  That power is not a license to "get even" or "get back" at someone.  That's a page ripped from the alphaganda playbook, but it's not one that you need.

The fact that you can use it to throttle or intimidate those who put you down doesn't always mean you should use it that way.  Sometimes just having that power is enough.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, you may still need to take some action against the miscreants if it's a matter of mere survival, but in 99 out of 100 situations, merely living well and demonstrating your newfound strength is sufficient.

OK, got that one down, and now the holiday edition:

Chanukah is the celebration of the re-dedication of the Temple.  For those not aware of the story, the Maccabees fought a war, against the odds, against the Greeks, who wanted to Hellenize the Jews.  In the process, they descrated the Temple, knocked over the lamps, and put up statues of Zeus to be worshipped.  But after the Maccabees overthrew them, the Temple was re-dedicated.  And miraculously, despite the fact that there was only enough oil to light the lamp for one day, it stayed lit for a week.

(Biblical anomaly -- Judaism celebrates the events depicted in 1 Maccabees, but neither Maccabees book is is in the Tanakh -- discuss?)

The theme of this holiday is resistance to conformity.  At the time it was introduced, Hellenism was hip, cool, and funky, but the expectation was that the Jews were to completely abandon and discard everything that they once were to accept this new way of being.  The fact that the old traditions were maintained, albeit by a minority of Jews at the time, and through the need for an armed response, continues to be celebrated.  But is this always a good thing?

America was always celebrated as a Great Melting Pot.  A nation of immigrants that cultivated its own identity by a mixture of other cultures to form something greater.  This usually means a fair compromise between preserving a recognizable remnant of your family's culture of origin, and the acceptance and interaction with the modern culture in which we live.

For many of us, our culture of origin is obvious in our name, or from our physical characteristics.  It can be a source of pride, or something to be rejected, depending on your personal opinion.  However, it's an inescapable part of who you are, and if you try to deny or ignore it, it still remains.

As Americans, we have a culture that thrives on the combined sharing of several cultures.  Not only does this result in the formation of a unique American culture, but also exposure to the diversity of other people's cultures.

The idea is to have them both.

There are certain ethnic groups who feel it necessary to only maintain their separate culture of origin, reject what we know as mainstream American culture, and demand that America make allowances for that culture in spite of that rejection.  This is ridiculous.  And there are also groups who have deeply felt romantic ties to their own cultures of origin, but mock and condemn other groups for celebrating theirs.  This is ignorant.

Rather, a compromise is needed.  There's nothing wrong with acknowledging your forebears and the traditions they imparted -- but it cannot be at the expense and exclusion of everything else around you, because you then do your country a disservice.  There is also nothing wrong with celebrating everything that makes America great -- but if you completely reject, neglect, and ignore the fact that your forebears came to America for a good reason, you are doing yourself a disservice, because you're obviously trying to be something that you're not.

Only each individual can decide the percentages and proportions of each tradition to respect -- but you need both, plain and simple.  This is how you stay complete, this is how you interact with society, and this is how you remain true to yourself.

Those are my two cents -- and for a real Thanksgiving treat, I refer you to my November 2011 post regarding the sham known as Black Friday.  One of these years, people will wake up and reject this most disgusting perversion of the concept of gift giving.

Happy Monday!