My blogger-poet-friend Ingrid inspired me to create a Twitter account and start writing #APoemADay, which I began on January 1, 2021.
I don’t have much in the way of insights regarding this challenge of ours this week… I continue to feel that I’ve hit my stride (largely by taking it easier by aiming to write haikus and cross-posting from blog to Twitter). Actually, now that I think of it, I do want to make note of the fact that I wrote some tankas this week, rather than haikus. That’s somewhat more challenging for me, particular with Magnetic Poetry.
Also, now that we’re at the start of week 10 (a nice, round number), I want to say that I am very impressed with Ingrid for having come up with this idea in the first place – I think it’s a fantastic exercise.
Anyway, below is my 9th week of Twitter poems:
Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem, David
creative writing; creation could bring about inspiration's death;
brings inspiration, death creates by destroying; writing his/story
I wonder why the non-stop chatter? what is it about childhood? I wonder to myself to understand I wonder how quickly I can complete this snippet of a verse before she wonders what I'm writing she's a wonder
Recently, I’ve been watching a lot of movies online, which I haven’t seen for many years. It amazes me how little I remember of them; in many cases, it’s as though I’m watching these flicks for the first time all over again. Among them has been a popular cult classic, which I watched years ago (in 1998) when it was first released: ‘The Big Lebowski’.
This movie is full of hilarious moments and running gags.
One of these is that of supporting character Walter’s (John Goodman) commitment to his Jewish conversion, which he underwent back when he married his ex-wife. This character is a right-wing veteran of the Vietnam War with an explosive temper and propensity towards violence (he probably suffers from PTSD); and he is also, unexpectedly, as he puts it: shomer fucking Shabbas!
From a Jewish perspective (mine), one of the elements that makes this so hilarious is just how accurate Walter’s description of traditional Shabbasobservance (I pronounce it ‘Shabbat’, btw, as it is pronounced in modern Israeli Hebrew) really is. Have a quick listen to this Jewish Supercut of the Big Lebowski below. For those of you who haven’t seen this movie, the word ‘roll’ in this context refers to bowling, which is the main character’s recreational activity of choice.
Partial transcription:
Walter: I DON’T ROLL ON SHABBAS! … Donny:How come you don’t roll on Saturday, Walter? Walter: I’m shomer Shabbas. Donny: What’s that, Walter? Walter: Saturday Donny, is Shabbas. The Jewish day of rest. That means I don’t work, I um, don’t drive a car, I don’t fucking ride in a car, I don’t handle money, I don’t turn on the oven, and I sure as shit DON’T FUCKING ROLL! Donny: Sheesh Walter:SHOMER SHABBAS! … Walter:Shomer fucking Shabbas! … Donny: Hey Walter, if you can’t ride in a car, how do you get around on Shabbas—
Shomer fucking Shabbas!
Yes, really: We don’t flip light switches
Living in Jerusalem, as I do, it’s entirely normative to observe Shabbat. The weekend in Israel falls on Friday and Saturday (Shabbat begins at sunset on Friday), and most who do not observe Shabbat have at least a general concept of what it is.
In principle, I would describe Shabbat as a day during which those who observe it refrain from engaging in physically creative activities (although procreation is encouraged). We aim to avoid causing physical changes to the world and focus ourselves, instead, upon spirituality, family, and the intangible.
The specifics of the restrictions that apply to the traditional Jewish observance of Shabbat were developed by our sages throughout the course of many centuries, and they are based primarily upon those physical acts that were necessary for the construction of the portable Tabernacle, which God instructed the Israelites to build after they had left Egypt.
Without getting into much detail, the Sages determined that there were a total of 39 categories of physical labor that cover the many restrictions of the Sabbath. One of these 39 categories is: the lighting of a fire, and another one is: the extinguishing of a fire.
Now, modern technology, and electricity in particular, was a game changer for the rabbis. When electricity entered people’s homes, the rabbis had to decide whether or not to permit its use on Shabbat, and ultimately the accepted mainstream ruling in the Orthodox Jewish community became that a spark of electricity is like a spark of fire, meaning, for example, that it is forbidden to flip light switches on and off on Shabbat.
Of course, from a scientific perspective, this is nonsense. Electricity is not fire.
A popular idea is that creating an electric spark is like lighting a fire, which is halakhically prohibited on Shabbat. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman recounts that he was approached by young rabbis who asked him, “Is electricity fire?” The renowned physicist responded that electricity is not a chemical process, as fire is.
Regardless, this religious ruling took root and remains the norm today among the vast majority of Sabbath observant Jews. I do not flip light switches on Shabbat; I do not use my phone; I do not use my computer; etc.
I don’t blog on Shabbas
The lived experience
Growing up as a secular Jew, I knew nothing of these Shabbat-related norms, which is why it strikes me that some of you may find this intriguing. Actually, I first began thinking about writing this blog post after creating a Twitter account for myself in order to publish daily micropoems in 2021. After all, January 2nd was a Saturday:
Tweets twittering so rapidly! punching out nonstop #poetry but Saturday's #Shabbat for me no pens, no electricity…
To be honest, I am not interested in getting into the nitty gritty of Jewish religious law. Rather, I simply want to provide a sense of what our lived Shabbat is like. We have many religious restrictions, but the one which I think would be the most obvious to an outside observer is the limitation on using electricity.
From a technical perspective, it is very simple: instead of flipping light switches on Shabbat, we set timers for all of the electric devices and appliances that we need. Lamps and fans are set to timers, for example, as is our electric hot plate (‘platta’ in Hebrew) for heating up food for Sabbath meals. The food itself must be prepared before Shabbat but can be warmed up on the Day of Rest. Essentially, we cannot cause physical changes on Shabbat, but if we set timers before Shabbat, that’s kosher because the cause of the physical change occurred before Shabbat. Simple, right?
But providing you with this technical illustration is not my reason for writing this blog post. What I really want to do is describe, briefly, the impact of this lifestyle upon our family life.
The impact
Like many of you, my wife and I spend most of our days behind computer screens; also, our six-year-old loves watching Disney movies and other videos, having screen time with her extended family in Russia and the USA, writing prose and poetry on a computer, and playing the video games installed on her children’s camera (clever marketing idea, right?).
It’s not that we don’t do other things; it’s just that our telephones and computers occupy a tremendous amount of space in our lives. And – they serve to separate us from one another because we often end up interacting with our electronic devices instead of interacting with one another.
On Shabbat, on the other hand, we spend all day together (especially this last year of global pandemic when we haven’t gone to synagogue and haven’t been invited to friends’ Sabbath meals), and the quality family time is priceless, especially from a parenting perspective. We play card and board games, read books, horse around in the bedroom, etc., and I am certain that this unplugging is very healthy for us all. Of course, we do all get to missing our shows and news websites during those 25 hours every week, but I cannot think of many other facets of traditional Jewish life that have come to be so relevant in this modern era.
The sages who ruled against using electricity could not have foreseen this 21st century reality, and I still disagree with the logic they employed in issuing their religious rulings against it. However, truth be told, I don’t really care about that at all. Shabbat, as I have come to know it and live it, is one of the best parts of traditional Jewish life for me.
My blogger-poet-friend Ingrid inspired me to create a Twitter account and start writing #APoemADay, which I began on January 1, 2021.
To make this challenge easier for myself, I have recently taken to using some of the poems that I share here on my blog on my Twitter account, and I’ve also taken to writing more haikus, which are short. To be honest, I somewhat feel that I am hitting my stride with this daily challenge, and I am enjoying haikus more than I would have expected 😊
Below is my 8th week of Twitter poems:
Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem, David
Snow wet [barely white] in Jerusalem [rain] first time in [a whole] six years [is] really nothing [much] more than [a] pathetic vertical puddle by day's end [it's more of] a joke [than it was when it came down] last night#APoemADay@Experimentsinfcpic.twitter.com/gBA4t7VU9m
I’m lettin' go, goin' public; here I go, goin' for it: I’m goin' grey, have gone bald, (not yet blind or deaf); I've long gone out of fashion; am goin' downhill; but I won’t go out softly; phat flow's goin'… in… for the kill! 🎯#APoemADay@Experimentsinfcpic.twitter.com/Mhdtiu92oo
My blogger-poet-friend Ingrid inspired me to create a Twitter account and start writing #APoemADay, which I began on January 1, 2021.
I do think think that I’m growing as a result of this challenge, but part of the challenge is the repetitive the repetitive the repetitive nature of the daily goal that Ingrid and I have set for ourselves. I think we’re both getting a bit weary of this, but so far we’re both still in the race!
I’m not sure if I will stick to the following or not (probably not), but it has struck me that writing haikus might be an easy[er] way of keeping pace in this marathon. Also, since I’ve started writing haikus with “Magnetic Poetry”, I’ve been including them on my Twitter account too. Anyway…
Below is my 7th week of Twitter poems:
Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem, David
Embraces life he; "Two sides of the same coin we They need us both, see?" Extends fantasies; Sells souls heavens to fancy Over drudgery; Extinguished are we, As all souls are born to be Shed of misery; Embraced and set free; Inevitability An infinity#APoemADay@Experimentsinfcpic.twitter.com/CXlPOdzKjy
I had an unexpected flash of insight the other day regarding the following themes:
My Jewish identity
Living in Israel
Blogging on WordPress
My Jewish identity
While I only encountered Orthodox Judaism and gradually began to adopt a religious lifestyle in college, I have always strongly identified as a Jew. If I were to sort the many facets of my identity out into a hierarchy, I would put the label ‘human’ at the very top. My second tier would include: ‘brother’, ‘father’, ‘heteronormative male’. ‘husband’, ‘Jew’, and ‘son’ in no particular order.
For several reasons, the many strictures of religious Jewish life have always appealed to me. In part, I feel that I am simply being outwardly true to my core identity by presenting myself as a Jew publicly in the most apparent way possible.
Mind you, I began college more than twenty years ago; and my religious journey has had many ups and downs in the many years since. There were periods when I reverted to a secular lifestyle, and there were periods when I managed to convince myself that the God of the Torah existed and strived to follow His laws to my utmost accordingly.
I have been up, down, and all around on the spectrum of religious Judaism. However, throughout those years during which I turned back towards secularism, I always missed the outward trappings of traditional observance. The personal inconveniences of keeping strictly kosher, keeping Shabbat traditionally, praying thrice daily, etc., never bothered me ~ it was, rather, always a question of the extent to which any of these practices actually mattered.
Nevertheless, it’s important to note that while I never minded the demands that traditional Judaism made upon my life, I did find myself wishing that my religious lifestyle wouldn’t create such barriers between me and all other human beings on earth who were not attempting to live a traditional Torah lifestyle.
Living in Israel
Not religiously comfortable for all Jews
From a religious perspective, Israel is not necessarily a comfortable place for all Jews to live.
For political and historical reasons, the Chief Rabbinate is Orthodox, rather than heterodox (Conservative, Reform, etc.), and its religious monopoly over Jewish life operates with the full weight of the government behind it. For example, Jewish weddings performed in Israel outside the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate are granted no legal status (and civil marriage does not exist). Also, the Chief Rabbinate’s state-empowered religious monopoly grants it the exclusive right to certify Israel’s food establishments as “kosher”, unlike everywhere else in the world.
Also, questions of Jewish status are decided by the Chief Rabbinate for religious purposes. This decides whether or not citizens of Israel can get married in Israel at all, where they can be buried when they die, etc., etc. Therefore, Israeli citizens whose mothers are not Jewish, as required by religious law, are considered “not Jewish” by the Chief Rabbinate, and they cannot legally marry Jews in Israel without first undergoing religious conversions under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate (even if they are secular).
Religiously comfortable for me
While I 100% oppose these infringements and all others on freedom of religion in Israel, the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate’s monopoly over religious Jewish life does not much inconvenience me on a personal level because I happen to live an Orthodox lifestyle (my wedding, for example, was conducted through the Chief Rabbinate).
Also, while I have explored and flirted with non-Orthodox religious communities, they do not feel like home to me personally. Therefore, as the vast majority of Israeli synagogues are Orthodox, my religious preferences are not marginalized in most public prayer spaces. Further, even when my commitment to my religious practices vacillates, it is always fluctuating on the spectrum between Jewish secularism and Orthodoxy, both of which are mainstream in Israeli society.
All of this is to say that I feel very at home in Israel from a religious perspective. Kosher food is – and kosher food establishments are – abundant, synagogues are available everywhere, the national holidays are my own religious holidays, etc., etc.
Living here in Israel (especially in Jerusalem) dramatically lowers the religious barriers between me and all the other people around me.
Blogging on WordPress
I have been increasingly enjoying the sense of community that I have discovered here on WordPress.
Bloggers from around the world share with – and are supportive of – one another, and for the first time since moving to Israel I have been feeling significantly less divorced from global society, which is predominantly not Jewish.
The unexpected insight that I had last week is that our virtual WordPress community grants me something not entirely dissimilar from that which living in Israel grants me: a sense of normalcy.
Of course, I am aware this comparison has many flaws. For one, every blogger chooses whom to interact with on their blog and on other people’s blogs. My virtual community is entirely self-selected and filtered according my preferences… and, of course, writing and reading blog posts is a far cry from in-person interactions… but… well…
My blogger-poet-friend Ingrid inspired me to create a Twitter account and start writing #APoemADay, which I began on January 1, 2021.
Honestly, despite my intention last week, I didn’t particularly work on including more adjectives in my poems this week. In fact, if anything, I feel that I’ve hit a rough patch with my Twitter poetry – it’s becoming difficult to motivate myself to write these daily little poems at all.
This week, two of my Twitter poems were directly copied from this blog, and I have already scheduled another poem from my blog to be posted next week. Technically, there’s nothing “wrong” with that because all of my poems are my originals, and I am keeping up with my “daily” commitment, but when I first created this Twitter account, my intention had been to write entirely unique poems for my Twitter account ~ and I’ve failed at that.
Below is my 6th week of Twitter poems:
Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem, David
Sudden weather Changes expected Volatile Intense Rushing upon us Take me aback Despite the reports I'd checked
The crow only lands when the traffic light is red at that major intersection, while the ragged woman with broken teeth limps awkwardly across the street through the traffic & then the light changes and the crow knows it's time to make a hasty exit@Experimentsinfc#APoemADaypic.twitter.com/dGNbnhL1HR
A #nonet, ambitious, yearned to rhyme; Thought sonnets smooth sounded sublime; Aimed chuckles to bring out too, Much like limericks do; From nature took cue; Like wise haiku, To eschew Taboo ~ Whew!@Experimentsinfc#APoemADaypic.twitter.com/Av2GFjVIOz
#Inspiration fails my adjective mind Subject noun bores me To tears, and I have been verbed – Utterly verbed by object Noun; the situation is impossible For me, and I struggle To put plural object noun on object noun. Profanity!#APoemADay@Experimentsinfcpic.twitter.com/YIYwY7wCNH
I sit and write about the
Playmobil toys scattered
on the floor; stuffed animals, pillows
on the sofa; markers, colored pencils
on the table; Disney princess dolls and
plastic ponies everywhere;
a 3D Disney castle puzzle
in front of me, fully constructed; fish
in little aquarium, swimming around
in all directions; bookshelf, full of
books, toys, tchotchkes;
colored balloons left over
from our daughter's sixth birthday; gifts
from parents, grandparents; traffic sounds
from the left; the street not quite visible
through the large rectangular
flower grilled window;
we sit quietly at our oval wooden table;
we just woke up Friday morning; already
we are, each of us, busy with projects;
paint by numbers, color
within the lines, compose
The writing challenge: Bring us to a time and place in your poem. Give us the smells, sights and sounds of your setting. Note that settings can be real or fictional, or a combination of both real and fictional elements.
N.B. On Shabbat, which begins at sunset on Friday and ends upon sunset on Saturday, Jews traditionally do not write, paint, nor use electronic devices (among other restrictions). In essence, according to Jewish tradition, we are not to “create” on Shabbat. Therefore, Friday mornings are the perfect time to engage in our respective creative projects.
