Great New Blogs

I've just, very belatedly, updated my blogroll with lots of great new blogs. Check them out!

Trackback from Kesher Talk, Tu B'Shvat:

Tu B'Shvat is over, although there's one more seder tonight at the JCC, which I won't be attending as it is a very crunchy environmentalist event, and there will be much hand-wringing over the election, which I don't want...

Trackback from Kesher Talk, Never again:

Paul Wolfowitz at the UN Special Session on the Shoah:. . . We are proud of the role of our own American soldiers, the so-called �young old men� of 19 and 20 years of age, who and fought through...

Balancing Selection?

I've always loved this story:

In the year 1886 the Grand Trunk Railway wanted to build the Victoria Bridge and it would span the mighty St. Lawrence River and connect Montreal to the Kahnawake Reserve.

They contracted out the job to the Dominion Bridge Company. In exchange for being allowed to run the railroad through Mohawk Territory, Grand Trunk arranged for Dominion to hire some of the Mohawks as laborers to work on the bridge site. This decision would have a huge impact upon the lifestyle of many Mohawks, an effect that remains to this very day.

Their first job was to supply the stone for the large piers that would support the bridge.

When their shifts ended, they would hang out on the bridge watching the other workers to see what they were doing.

Even young Native children became curious and soon they were climbing all over the span, right alongside the men. The workers noticed that the Mohawk's agility, grace and sense of balance made it seem as though they had a natural disposition for heights.

When management became aware of this, they hired and trained a dozen tribal members as ironworkers. The original twelve, all teenagers, were so adept at working at high altitudes, they were known as the 'Fearless Wonders'.

They would walk on narrow beams several hundred feet above the raging river and yet it appeared as though they were just on a casual walk along a forest path.

From another source:

As one company official later wrote, "It was quite impossible to keep them out." Indeed, "As the work progressed, it became apparent to all concerned that these Indians were very odd in that they did not have any fear of heights."

What made the Mohawks such superb high steel workers remains something of a mystery. The legends assumed some kind of genetic advantage, but there is little evidence of this. Joseph Mitchell, in his scrupulous New Yorker article, "The Mohawks in High Steel," thought Kahnawake children in Brooklyn "have unusual manual dexterity; by the age of three, most of them are able to tie their shoelaces"—but Kanatakta, Executive Director of the Kahnawake Community Cultural Centre, suggests that it's more "a question of dealing with the fear."

What do you think accounts for this? Is it genetic? Cultural? Either way, it is pretty unusual.

(Cross-posted at Gene Expression)

Holocaust of the future

Today is the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I often wonder how our history would change if little things had been different in those dark days. If the war had been won a little sooner. If the Allies had seen fit to bomb the railroads that supplied the death camps. If it had been a priority of some nation, somewhere, to rescue Jews. But in fact, not only was it NOT top priority to the US and the Allies to rescue Jews - their policies were determined, in part, by the effort NOT to appear to be fighting for the Jews. The argument that going to war against Nazi Germany would benefit the Jews was an argument AGAINST it.

Perhaps I am biased by feeling that there is something unique about the Holocaust. It is a horror that touched members of my family whom I knew, and others whom I would have known, had they lived. Of course, the Jews have no monopoly on suffering, and it could be argued that other peoples have suffered more - others have been exterminated entirely. Still, the scale of the Holocaust sets it apart - once you set aside the auto-genocides of various communist regimes, an altogether different kind of horror. But there are some other things too, I think. For one: the killing machine. The genocides that have taken place since World War II, like the ones before it, were committed with the standard weapons of the day - in fact the Rwanda massacres were committed largely with machetes. Only the Germans developed technology for the sole purpose of mass murder. Only the Germans made a science of genocide. It was the Holocaust of the future.

I was raised with the observation that Germany was the "most civilized" country in Europe before it embarked on the Holocaust - indeed the Jews of Eastern Europe looked to Germany as beacon of light illuminating the darkness of their lands. The message being: Don't think anyone is too civilized to kill Jews. The rhetorical question was always: Could it happen again? And the answer was always: Not in America. Not in Europe. We're democracies, we're... civilized.

But now we are engaged in a new World War. And now, once again, the US and its allies are doing everything possible to deny that winning it is good for the Jews. Once again, the notion that going to war will benefit the Jews is one of the strongest rhetorical points against it. Once again it is respectable to tell lies about Jews, which no right-thinker cares to rebut. But this time it's different: the Jews can fight for themselves. We may be small and weak, but compared to no power at all, it's a world of difference. Remember what Dick Cheney said, just a few days ago:

Well, one of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked, that if, in fact, the Israelis became convinced the Iranians had significant nuclear capability, given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards. We don't want a war in the Middle East, if we can avoid it. And certainly in the case of the Iranian situation, I think everybody would be best suited by or best treated and dealt with if we could deal with it diplomatically.

Those Jews, all they can think of is saving themselves from genocide. It's just like them to go and prevent a nuclear holocaust, "and let rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards".

Imagine if Israel had been one of the allies in World War II.

The Oslo War: View from Tel-Aviv

Lisa of On The Face (via Not a Fish) begins a series about the Oslo War. Although my story is quite similar to hers, give or take a few details, I don't remember it with the clarity that she does. My memory of the events is already fading. It's hard for me to remember what came before what. For example, what exactly was going on when Ariel Sharon was elected? I just remember that it was bad.

It was a hard read. It really took me back to those hard days. The fact that Lisa worked in a high-tech company adds to similarity between her story and mine. But it's a good read too. Excerpt:

The major suicide bombings didn’t start until the end of May 2001. For the first six months of the intifida, daily life in Tel Aviv wasn’t really affected. This was not the case for Jerusalem. Gilo, a Jerusalem residential neighbourhood, was shot at by Palestinian fighters in bordering Beit Jala throughout the month of December. Residents of apartments facing Beit Jala put sandbags in their windows, kept the lights turned off at night, and crouched low when they moved from room to room. One evening I was at my local laundrette, watching the news on the television mounted on the wall while I waited for my clothes to dry. The woman sitting next to me pointed her long, thin cigarette at the footage of bullets tracing streaks of light through the darkness and said, “It’s madness. Forty-five minutes away from here, there’s a war going on. And we’re sitting here doing our laundry.”

Except:

Soon after Sharon was elected, I saw a rather interesting interview on CNN. A veteran member of Barak's just-ousted Labour party and a prominent member of the Palestinian National Council (PNC) were interviewed, simultaneously but from different locations, by a studio moderator. At one point the Palestinian shook his head mournfully and said that Israel’s willingness to discuss peace had been called into serious question by the recent election of Ariel Sharon, the man who many believe was indirectly responsible for the infamous Sabra and Shatila massacres. At that, the Israeli Labour politician grew red in the face, rose up halfway from his chair, and, pointing his index finger at the camera, shouted, "We did not elect Ariel Sharon! You know who did?! You did! You! With your decision to initiate this violence instead of negotiating!"

"And we're out of time, gentlemen," said the moderator. "Thank you both very much and goodnight."
 

Hannah Szenes (Hana Senesh)

Hannah Szenes (the spelling is her native Hugarian, in Hebrew: Hana Senesh - חנה סנש) is one of the best loved Israeli poets. Her most well known poem is halikha l'qesarya (הליכה לקסריה) - Walking to Caesaria (a Roman ruin on the coast of Israel):

אלי, אלי
שלא יגמר לעולם
החול והים
רשרוש של המים
ברק השמיים
תפילת האדם

Eli, eli
Shelo' yigamer l`olam
Hahol v'hayam
Rishrush shel hamayim
Braq hashamayim
T'filat ha'adam

My God, my God
May it not end forever
The sand and the sea
The rush of the water
The lightning of the heavens
The prayer of Man

I understand that the move Schindler's List ends with this song. This site tells Hannah Szenes's story. Here is what she wrote about that walk to Caesaria:

In the morning, I roam through the ancient ruins; in the afternoon, I walk in the fields, or to be more precise, on the land designated to become our fields. When I see with what fury the foamy waves rush against the shore and how they become silent and peaceful upon crashing against the sand, I think that our enthusiasm and anger is not much different. As they roll, they are powerful and vigorous and when they touch the shore, they break, they calm down and they begin to play like small children on the golden sand.

This is how her life ended:

Soon after, Hannah is recruited by the British Intelligence Services. During the winter of 1943-44, she and her companions parachuted into Yugoslavia in order to make contact with the partisans. For their part, the leaders of the Palestinian community - the yishuv - call upon them to come to the aid of the Jews threatened by the Nazis. They will accomplish both tasks, joining the partisans, conveying information to the Allies and urging their fellow Jews to secure Palestine. According to her comrade, Yoel Palgui, Hannah proves to be the most enterprising and determined of all. She is ardent about the Jewish question and about Israel.

On May 13th, 1944, Hannah and her comrades cross the Hungarian border in small groups. The Hungarian police arrest some of them including Hannah. She is incarcerated in the same prison as Yoel to whom she recounts the circumstances of her arrest and interrogations. The following are excerpts of Yoel's testimony:

She suffered the most terrible forms of torture without yielding. A missing tooth was testimony of their cruelty. They had whipped the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. They had tied her up, forcing her to remain immobile for hours. They had beaten her so violently that her body was completely covered with ecchymoses. Her torturers wanted to know the radio code. They had discovered the transmitter that she had hidden before being captured and they wanted the correspondence code in order to send false messages and direct the Allies' bombers to their anti-aircraft guns. Aware of the importance of the code, Hannah refused to reveal it. (...)

The worst was yet to come for Hannah in the prison in Budapest. She certainly did not long to find herself again in the city of her birth. They threw her into a cell where, to her great sorrow, she met her mother. At a loss of words, she embraced her tightly and could only murmur these words: " Mother, forgive me, but I could not renounce my obligations. "

The Germans knew what they were doing. They threatened to torture her mother and to execute her before Hannah's very eyes if she refused to reveal the code. But she did not yield. Only those who knew how much she loved her mother could begin to imagine her suffering. For my part, I was shaken by her account and could not hide my bewilderment. How could she remain so calm and so steadfast? Where did she find the courage to sacrifice her mother, whom she so loved, rather than reveal a secret, upon which, it is true, the lives of many depended? Who knows? Perhaps her determination indirectly contributed to saving her mother? Had she yielded, the Germans would surly have executed her, sending her mother to the gas chambers in Auschwitz.

Imshin (I can't believe this is the first time I'm linking to her, I really like her site) tells about her special relationship with Hannah Szenes. Go read it.

I am but dust and ashes - The world was created for me

According to Rabbi Bunim of P'shiskha, everyone should have two pockets, each containing a slip of paper. On one should be written: I am but dust and ashes, and on the other: The world was created for me. From time to time we must reach into one pocket, or the other. The secret of living comes from knowing when to reach into each.

The first phrase is spoken by Abraham when he realizes that he's bargaining with God over S'dom (סדום) and `Amora (עמורה) - Sodom and Gomorrah:

וְאָנֹכִי עָפָר וָאֵפֶר

V'anokhi `afar va'efer

I am but dust and ashes

Genesis 18:27

The second phrase is from the Talmud, illustrating that we are all unique individuals, though we are formed from the same mould:

לפיכך נברא אדם יחידי
ללמדך שכל המאבד נפש אחת מישראל
מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו איבד עולם מלא
וכל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל
מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו קיים עולם מלא
ומפני שלום הבריות שלא יאמר אדם לחבירו
אבא גדול מאביך
ושלא יהו המינים אומרים הרבה רשויות בשמים
ולהגיד גדולתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא
שאדם טובע כמה מטבעות בחותם אחד כולן דומין זה לזה
ומלך מלכי המלכים הקדוש ברוך הוא טבע כל אדם בחותמו של אדם הראשון
ואין אחד מהן דומה לחבירו
לפיכך כל אחד ואחד חייב לומר
בשבילי נברא העולם

L'fikhakh nivra' adam y'hidi
L'lamedkha shekol ham'abed nefesh ahat miyisra'el
Ma`le `alav hakatuv k'ilu ibed `olam male'
V'khol ham'qayem nefesh ahat miyisra'el
Ma`ale `alav hakatuv k'ilu kiyem `olam male'
Umipney shlom habriyut shlo' yomar adam l'havero
Aba gadol me'avikha
V'shelo' yihyu haminim omrim harbe rehuyot bashamayim
Ul'hagid g'dulato shel haqadosh barukh hu
She'adam tovea` kama matbe`ot b'hotem ehad kulan domin ze l'ze
Umelekh malkey hamlakhim haqadosh barukh hu tava` kol adam b'hotmo shel adam harishon
V'eyn ehad mehem dome l'havero
L'fikhakh kol ehad v'ehad hayav lomar
bishvili nivra' ha`olam

For this reason a single person was created (Adam was created alone)
To teach you that anyone who kills one soul of Israel
Is considered as if he has killed an entire world
And anyone who sustains one soul of Israel
Is considered as if he has sustained an entire world
And because of peace among mankind, so that one person won't say to his fellow
"My father is greater than your father"
And so that the apostates won't say "There are many authorities in heaven"
And to tell the greatness of the Holy One Blessed Be He
That a man mints many coins with one stamp, all of them the same as one another
And the King of Kings the Holy One Blessed Be He minted every person with the stamp of Adam
And not one of them is the same as his fellow
For this reason every single person must say
The world was created for me

Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 37B

UPDATE: It occurs to me that the above is likely to be impenetrable without a little background. First of all, you have to understand that in the time it was written down (probably much later than when it originated) a tribal point of view was a fact of life. Thus, the passage first compares two Jews (souls of Israel) to emphasize our worth as individuals, not just as members of a tribe (remember this was written by Jews for a Jewish audience), the logic being that every individual is capable of being an ancestor to the whole world, thus by killing him you have also killed his descendents, i.e. everyone. The passage then compares individuals from different tribes, who are likely to say "my father is greater than your father" i.e. "the founder of my tribe is greater than the founder of your tribe". (The expression 'shlom habriyut' is stock phrase within Judaism referring to the explicit value of peace among mankind.) And finally proceeds to the common (in those days) but anti-Jewish idea of patron gods, i.e. that different tribes had different gods (we are familiar with this in the west from ancient Greece, where each city had a patron god), were people might be tempted to say "my god created my tribe and your god created your tribe". The passage winds up by exploring the wonders of sexual reproduction in that no two people are alike, even though God "minted every person with the stamp of Adam" - so that not only can everyone can claim to be God's original creation, but to deny it is to deny God - it would imply that He made you by accident.

Rikki-tikki-tavi

I read Rikki-tikki-tavi to my kids last night. I remember loving it as a child, and it's more self-contained than the Mowgli stories. It's a wonderful story. This is how it begins:

This is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment. Darzee, the Tailorbird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the musk-rat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always creeps round by the wall, gave him advice, but Rikki-tikki did the real fighting. He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of his restless nose were pink. He could scratch himself anywhere he pleased with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use. He could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle brush, and his war cry as he scuttled through the long grass was: "Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!"

Noble indeed! He didn't shun the help of his allies, but also he didn't hesitate to do his calling. I remembered from childhood the images of Darzee, the good-for-nothing songbird, and Chuchundra, who is always "trying to make up his mind to run into the middle of the room", but is too fearful to ever do so. But Rikki-tikki-tavi is not the kind of hero who has to maintain his heroic pose, he is just himself.

Trackback from annika's journal, Blog Potpourri:

Generalissimo Duane forsees a bigger fight over Alberto Gonzales than we saw over Dr. Rice. Let's hope his math is worse than mine. RatherBiased reports that CBS's "expert" Marcel Matley is accusing the network of harming his provessional reputation as...

Jews and Comanches

There's a certain kind of remembering that I think is unhealthy: it keeps us from moving forward. It's for this reason that I'm far from enthusiastic about the various Holocaust-related suits that are going on. Not because I think the defendants are innocent, but because I think it's unhealthy for the Jews: It's time to move on.

This is not to say that we should forget the past, on the contrary. I was very moved by this post (via Solomonia, also found here) by a David A. Yeagley, a Comanche Indian (I have long felt a kind of kinship with American Indians). I know how he feels. I, too, speak the "language of Europe", and like him I would find it easier to write about his suffering than mine:

Why would a Comanche Indian write an opera about the Jewish Holocaust? Shouldn’t an American Indian write about his own Trail of Tears? Why this convergence of cultural ethos? Why this crossing of paths?

I hear these two giant, genetic dirges in the same key. Both are the lamentations of unwanted people. But, the reason I chose to write an opera on the Jewish Holocaust has to do with my educational background and personal experience.

Although I’m an Oklahoma Indian, I speak the artistic language of Europe. It so happens that, since I was a young teenager, Jewish people have always valued what I have to say. They have appreciated me and my work. Therefore I have always felt close to Jewish people.

I trust the Jews with my tears. I once told a rabbi how I felt about Jewish people. I confessed, “I know if I really wanted to cry my heart out, I could come here (the synagogue) in the sanctuary, and just cry. No one would make me feel embarrassed. No one would shame me. No one would ask any questions. Everyone would understand. The Jews know.”

What would I be crying about?

The Indian story. It’s taken me many years to face it, but in my Comanche blood is written the worst historical trauma of all: to be free as the wind, then caged forever; to roam the prairie like a wild horse, then to be roped into everlasting confinement. Yes, I cry for an irreparable, tragic past. It is a doleful drone in my soul, a long, lonely drum beat.

I don’t know how to describe the sorrow. For all my education in the arts, I am mute. I have no voice. Yet.

I remember my composition teacher, Daniel Asia, at the University of Arizona. A nice Jewish boy from Seattle, Dan was wholly reluctant to talk about the Jewish Holocaust. He simply can’t. It is ineffable. I understand now.

UPDATE: Check out his blog. I really like it.

UPDATE: And don't miss this. Excerpt:

The Jewish Holocaust has always held special meaning to me as a Comanche Indian. The threat of extinction is a fear to which I can strongly relate.

Last year, I composed what I am told is the first grand opera on the Holocaust, "Jacek," a three-act story based on the personal life of Jack P. Eisner, 75-year-old survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 and several concentration camps.

I met Mr. Eisner in Caesarea, Israel, on January 8, 1998. I was there for the debut of my newly composed chamber music, "Three Spirit Dances On The Bark Of An Ancient Stump." It was a three-movement duet for oboe and bassoon. I had rehearsed the music with Ayalet Ballin (bassoon) and Mirav Kadichevski (oboe), two young, brilliant music students from the Rubin Academy at the University of Tel-Aviv.

Mr. Eisner was kind enough to attend the concert. I was introducing a new system of harmonic organization and tonality, and gave my first public presentation of it in a pre-concert lecture.

I also introduced a new style of Hebrew cantorial chant, which I sang myself, and finally ended the concert with a performance on my Comanche flute, the type designed and made famous by Doc Tate Nevaquaya. (The late Doc Tate was noted as one of the top five Indian flute players in recorded history.)

As Mr. Eisner, my Israeli host Ted and I were walking home from Shabbat morning services, Ted – who had introduced me to Mr. Eisner – said, "Hey, Dave, you’re a good composer. Why don’t you write an opera on Jack’s story?"

Let the voting begin!

The voting has begun for Jewish / Israeli Blog Awards (preliminary round). Rishon Rishon has been nominated for: Best Overall Blog, Best New Blog, Best Jewish Religion Blog, Best Jewish Culture Blog, Best Post (Maladapted to our Habitat), and Best Series (Valleys). Vote now and vote often (evidently you can vote every 24 hours!):

You can view all polls on one page by clicking here.

 

Voting Rules

 

1. Polls close late Sunday morning Israel time.

 

2. These polls are only for those categories whose number of valid nominations exceeded the cutoff number of 12.

 

3. Each of the categories is split into two groups. The top 6 vote-getters from each group will proceed to the finals.

 

4. All valid nominees in the following polls (which are not included in this preliminary round) automatically proceed to the Finals voting:

 

Best Overall 'Mega' Blog

Best Group Blog

Best Designed Blog

 

5. You can vote only once in 24 hours.

 

6. Please no cheating. It goes against the spirit of these awards, and ruins the fun for everyone. If I discover any cheating (automatic voting bots or multiple voters in one poll within 24 hours), the voters IP address will be banned, and the number of votes accordingly adjusted.

 

Tu Bishvat

Tonight is Tu Bishvat (ט"ו בשבט) - the 15th of the month of Shvat. The Hebrew equivalent of Roman Numerals uses the first 10 letters of the alphabet for the numbers 1 to 10, the next nine letters are used for 20 to 100, and the last thee letters are used for 200, 300, and 400. According to this system, you would expect 15 to be 10 + 5, but this combination happens to spell a name of God, so instead 9 + 6 is used. The ninth letter of the alphabet is tet (ט) and the sixth letter is vav (ו), and if you pronounce tet-vav as a word, you get: 'Tu'. What looks like a quote between the tet and the vav, called gershayim (גרשיים) in Hebrew (literally, the dual of geresh, which is: '), is the way numbers and acronyms are written - the gershayim being placed between the second-to-last and last letters (geresh is used for abbreviations).

Tu Bishvat is the New Year of the Trees:

אַרְבָּעָה רָאשֵׁי שָׁנִים הֵם
בְּאֶחָד בְּנִיסָן רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה לַמְּלָכִים וְלָרְגָלִים
בְּאֶחָד בֶּאֱלוּל רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה לְמַעְשַׂר בְּהֵמָה
רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר וְרַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן אוֹמְרִים בְּאֶחָד בְּתִשְׁרֵי
בְּאֶחָד בְּתִשְׁרֵי רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה לַשָּׁנִים וְלַשְּׁמִטִּין וְלַיּוֹבְלוֹת לַנְּטִיּעָה וְלַיְרָקוֹת
בְּאֶחָד בִּשְׁבָט רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה לָאִילָן כְּדִבְרֵי בֵית שַׁמַּאי
בֵּית הִלֵּל אוֹמְרִים בַּחֲמִשָּׁה עָשָׂר בּוֹ

Arba`a rashey shanim hem
B'ehad b'nisan rosh hashana lamlakhim v'largalim
B'ehad be'elul rosh hashana l'ma`sar b'hema
Rabi el`azar v'rabi shim`on omrim b'ehad b'tishrey
B'ehad b'tishrey rosh hashana lashanim v'lashmitin v'layovlot lanti`a v'lay'raqot
B'ehad bishvat rosh hashana la'ilan k'divrey beyt shamay
Beyt hilel omrim bahamisha `asar bo

There are four New Years (heads of years)
On the first of Nisan the new year of kings and of the holidays
On the first of Elul the new year of tithing animals
Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Shimon say on the first of Tishrey
On the first of Tishrey the new year of (counting) the years and the sabbatical year and of the jubilee of planting and of vegetables
On the first of Shvat the new year of the trees according to the school of Shamay
The school of Hillel says on the fifteenth of the month

Rosh Hashana 1:1

The halakha follows the school of Hillel in this case (as it usually does), so the New Year of the Trees is on the 15th of Shvat - it is at this time that we can really feel the coming of spring. The daffodils and crocuses have past, but the most emblematic sign of spring, the blooming of the almond trees, has just begun. I have to say that I love Israeli seasons. The weather is always better than my native Boston. Though the summers here are long, they are dry (at least where I live, though not along the coast) - not hot and humid. Spring and fall are milder and more pleasant, and winter: just when I feel like it's about to begin - it's spring!

In the spirit of the day, I will relate a story from the Talmud, about Rabbi Yishaq, who describes his relationship to his student, Rabbi Nahman, comparing it to a tree, and wants to bless him:

אמשול לך משל למה הדבר דומה
 לאדם שהיה הולך במדבר והיה רעב ועיף וצמא
 ומצא אילן שפירותיו מתוקין וצילו נאה ואמת המים עוברת תחתיו
 אכל מפירותיו ושתה ממימיו וישב בצילו
 וכשביקש לילך אמר אילן אילן במה אברכך
 אם אומר לך שיהו פירותיך מתוקין הרי פירותיך מתוקין
 שיהא צילך נאה הרי צילך נאה
 שתהא אמת המים עוברת תחתיך הרי אמת המים עוברת תחתיך
 אלא יהי רצון שכל נטיעות שנוטעין ממך יהיו כמותך
 אף אתה במה אברכך
 אם בתורה הרי תורה
 אם בעושר הרי עושר
 אם בבנים הרי בנים
 אלא יהי רצון שיהו צאצאי מעיך כמותך

Emshol l'kha mashal l'ma hadavar dome
L'adam shehaya holekh bamidbar v'haya ra`ev v`ayef v'same'
Umasa ilan shepeyrotav m'tuqin v'silo na'e v'emet hamayim `overet tahtav
Akhal mipeyrotav v'shata mimeymav v'yashav b'silo
Ukhshebiqesh leylekh amar ilan ilan b'ma avarekh'kha
Im omar l'kha sheyihyu peyroteykha m'tuqin harey peyroteykha m'tuqin
Shey'he silkha na'e harey silkha na'e
Shet'he emet hamayim `overet tahteykha harey emet hamayim `overet tahteykha
Ela' y'hi rason shekol n'ti`ot shenot`in mimkha yihyu kamokha
Af ata b'ma avarekh'kha
Im b'tora harey b'tora
Im b`osher harey b`osher
Im b'vanim harey b'vanim
Ela' y'hi rason sheyihyu se'se'ey m`eykha kamokha

I will tell you a parable about what the thing is like
Like a person that was walking in the desert and was hungry and tired and thirsty
And found a tree whose fruits were sweet and and shade pleasant and true water passes beneath it
He ate from its fruits and drank from its water and sat in its shade
And when he was going to leave said: O tree, O tree with what shall I bless you?
If I say to you may your fruits be sweet, your fruits are already sweet
May your shade be pleasant, your shade is already pleasant
May true water pass beneath you, true water already passes beneath you
But: May it be willed that all the seedlings that sprout from you be like you
Even so you, with what shall I bless you?
If with learning, you already have learning
If with wealth, you already have wealth
If with children, you already have children
But: May it be willed that the children of your loins be like you

Talmud Bavli Ta`anit 5B

Darwin and Bloomsbury

Since I discovered him, I have felt a kinship with David Warren: we both, in our respective ways, spent our youths and early adulthood traveling the world, and we have both come back to an unexpected home. Perhaps I have discovered the origin of our kinship. His latest-but-one article reveals his formative reading:

A friend and I once had a semi-public discussion about character-formation through books read in early childhood. I attributed my own moral outlook to Rudyard Kipling, via Just So Stories, and then Kim. He attributed his to Kenneth Grahame via The Wind in the Willows.

I now realize that the Kipling influence, which began as late as age five, could only have been superficial. The Pookie books [see source for details - DB] are the true source of my Weltanschauung.

Nothing against Wind in the Willows. I didn't read it until aloud, as a parent at the bedside of a child. I was of course joking when I suggested that an early exposure to it might explain my friend's liberal propensities. As an adult, I found it finely written, clever, and sentimental, but lacking in the quality of nobility; one of those "empathy books", with elements of stand-up comedy.

It's probably just a coincidence that the people who have told me Wind in the Willows was their formative book have all been gliberals, leftoids, and sex perverts.

I think I had 'The Wind in the Willows' read to me in school, I remember of it nothing more than vague impressions. But Kipling's 'Jungle Book', and before that 'Just So Stories' (read to me by my parents, Kipling was un-PC even in those pre-PC days when I was a child) made an impression on me that has lasted a lifetime (I am now reading 'Just So Stories' to my own children, and have just bought the 'Jungle Book') - I, too, found them possessing a certain nobility, as David Warren said. I think it a certain adventurousness of spirit, a playful earnestness - nobility, I think, comes from bearing burdens lightly, from never taking oneself too seriously, yet being serious nonetheless. It it the opposite of idle self-importance. (Not that I want to belittle earnest do-gooders, with the proviso that they are actually doing good. It just helps, I think, to remember that Man tracht und Gott lacht - Man plans and God Laughs, a Yiddish proverb.)

So I was somewhat dismayed on New Year's Eve, when David wrote (in his usual thoughtful manner) a screed against evolution, and has since expanded his thoughts into a four-part series. Of course, history is not something that can be scientifically proven - we cannot prove that evolution is responsible for the origin of species any more than we can prove that Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo - but we can martial a quantity of evidence that makes the alternatives vanishingly improbable. Though this, too, is dependent on the assumption that God is not deliberately deceiving us: there is no way to assign probablies to the notion that God created the world 5000+ years ago, complete with its fossil (and human) record. But, then, you could just as easily claim that the world was created yesterday, complete with each of our false memories. In that case, however, I would claim that there must be some intrinsic truth to our false memories (after all, God created them) that it behooves us to investigate. (Rabbi Moshe Hayim Luzzatto claims that God made the world logical only for mankind to understand it.) And so, back we get, to evolution.

In any case, I think all this is odd, because it seems that David's main objection is not science at all, but politics:

What distinguishes Darwinism, in the end, is the nasty figurative edge to it, the popular use of it to communicate "nature red in tooth and claw". It became associated very early with Victorian atheism, and does the missionary work of the old Bloomsbury set that lost its Christian faith in the mid-19th century. It is an ideology that continues to reach beyond the strict realm of biology, into areas of philosophy and theology with which it has nothing to do. It sells a cosmos that is blind, random, purposeless.

It is a religion, sez I; a religion with prophets like Thomas Henry Huxley, and Herbert Spencer, and Richard Dawkins today.

Personally, I have never had this problem. I didn't learn evolution from Huxley, Spencer, or Dawkins. My official introduction to evolution was in 10th grade biology, and it was preceded by a thoughtful disclaimer, where the teacher said something like: This is what most scientists think. You don't have to believe it - this is not a religion class - but for this class you have to know it. I, too, am offended by people who mix science and politics - even when I agree with the politics. True, science can lead to conclusions of political import. But arguments of fact and arguments of policy must be kept separate, otherwise facts will be rejected because of their supposed policy implications, to the detriment of both. And that is exactly what has happened. Unfortunately ideas, like people, are judged by the company they keep.

But David redeems himself, for this is how he concludes:

Evolution is, on the other hand, not a "crock" in the way it is presented by non-ideological science writers. E.O. Wilson, for instance (whose co-written book on The Ants was among the most wonderful Christmas presents I ever received), is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Richard Dawkins, who makes a point of throwing evolution in the face of believing Christians. Prof. Wilson is a gentleman; Prof. Dawkins is a pig.

And by the way, it would be no skin off my nose if every aspect of Darwinism were by some miracle demonstrated to be true. I would then have to accept it as a genuine insight into "how" God works.

And that is a sentiment that I can stand behind 100%.

Beautiful Israel

Here's a bigger version of the satellite picture of Israel I linked to earlier. (Thanks Haim!) All of Israel's borders are clearly visible.

Myers Briggs and Marriage

The following was written by my wife (INFP):

The Myers Briggs system is so practically relevant to making the best of relationship difficulties that it’s hard for me to sit by watching an exchange on this topic that does not address this aspect.

Specifically I’d like to jot down some observations on personality type and marriage. An old-school question with regard to one’s possible mate used to be “what do you have in common?” Presumably what there is to be had in common could be background or economic class, common interests, or similar personalities (the last two being related, as one’s personality influences his or her interests.) There was an intuitive understanding that a partnership required substantial commonality to weather the storms of the years. The folk-wisdom that contradicts this, of course, is that opposites attract - complementarity is what produces chemistry in a relationship, together with our own earliest patterns resounding within us (see Harville Hendrix, Getting the Love You Want).

Ideally the challenges of juggling family life and the work world prove catalysts to personal growth of each partner. However, those stressors can also push a couple to the brink. A little insight goes a long way in softening this kind of known adjustment, and here is where Myers Briggs has real practical relevance. It can help you grope your way through a quagmire of personality dynamics in your relationship. I’ll offer a few examples of what Myers Briggs can and cannot shed light upon, sprinkled with a few Laws of Living (or Loving…)

Law I: Benefit of the Doubt - Assume the best motivations of your partner. It will help you tremendously in understanding what motivates his or her behavior if you learn to understand his or her personality composition. Myers Briggs traits create a framework within which certain trends in behavior are predictable, as are certain pitfalls. For example, if he’s a strong extrovert and she’s a strong introvert, she’ll consider quiet cuddling on the couch to be True Quality Time, and he’ll be bored out of his mind (after a year or so, especially if, as some modern couples do, they live in the same city!) Combine this with another strong contrast, such as Sensing/iNtuitive, and it gets stickier: she wants to talk about her deepest feelings and he dozes off on the couch, leaving her feelings hurt and her needs frustrated.

This is not to say that partners with strongly contrasting personalities are doomed, but that the incompatibility which may manifest in specific areas is a known entity. You’ll want to walk in with your eyes open. The couple could agree to plan activities which appealed to each type so as to vary their time spent together, but most importantly they might avoid deep misunderstanding by realizing that their partner’s preference is not a personal slight.

A word on the limits of Myers Briggs to illuminate your life - its field is inborn personality traits, while some aspects of personality are learned. Issues such as difficulty in managing anger may arise, based on a pattern or experience in childhood, which cannot be decoded or predicted with Myers Briggs. Likewise, personality evolves over time, and marriage is a universal challenge to maturity. Law II: A degree of development is necessary to appreciate the long-term goals of family life, with its frequent requirement of delayed gratification, and its deeper satisfactions plus mundane day-to-day.

This said, there are some common problematic responses to the stresses of family life, such as escapism (hiding in your outside activities), martyrdom (making one’s family commitments one’s sole identity, without taking pleasure in it) and abusive behaviors, verbal, physical or otherwise. Your Myers Briggs profile can help you understand what within you drives you toward a certain problematic response, and perhaps help you see where you could use some healthy balance. A personality with a strong drive toward service and order might bury himself in his duty toward his family, although it’s especially common among women; a strong sensing-perceiving type, which is a classic thrill-seeker and athlete, will elect a more escapist route in response to stress.

In sum anyone already feeling confused or depressed about the state of a partnership might gain self-awareness and perhaps some new directions by investigating the role of type in the relationship.

Myers Briggs meets the Skeptic

Amritas is skeptical about Myers Briggs:

I have long been suspicious of its four-scale system based on this Skeptic's Dictionary entry:

Furthermore, no matter what your preferences, your behavior will still sometimes indicate contrasting behavior. Thus, no behavior can ever be used to falsify the [MBTI®] type, and any behavior can be used to verify it.

That is reminiscent of Chomskyanism: in theory, no 'surface' structure can be used to falsify a proposed (invisible, inaudible) 'underlying' structure since 'transformations' can account for anything. (In practice, there are constraints on transformations, but even so, there is no hard evidence for them or for the 'underlying' structures that they allegedly affect. Saying that magic spells are not omnipotent still does not address the issue of whether such spells exist at all.) Something that is not falsifiable is not scientific.

I have never looked at the Skeptic's Dictionary before. My instincts are to be partial to it based on its name - I am skeptical by nature, myself. But I am very disappointed by this particular entry. Most of it amounts to little more than an ad hominem attack, i.e. attacking Myers and Briggs (the originators of the test) as individuals because they (may have) made some mistakes, and Jung, who came up with most of the original concepts, but likely wouldn't have supported the way Myers and Briggs developed them. The only comment about the test itself is the one Amritas quoted, and that is demonstrably false. Myers Briggs does make verifiable predictions, the fact that the predictions aren't 100% accurate in no way invalidates them - the question is only whether they are statistically significant, and anyone who has worked with large samples knows that they are.

A coworker of mine once came back from a business seminar and told me about the most amazing experience. The participants of the seminar (about 60 people) were given a Myers Briggs test and divided into groups of 5-6 that were as homogeneous as possible. Each group was then given a task of building something out its component parts - evidently something quite difficult, though I don't know what it was. What made it amazing was not just the variance in how well the different groups performed, but how different their approach to the problem was. "Some of the groups just gave up and chatted at the back of the room", my coworker told me with amazement (my coworker was an SJ, so her reaction is not surprising), "Your group did the best" she added, by which she probably meant NT - I doubt that there were 5-6 INTPs in a group of 60 business seminar attendees. She reported different styles of problem solving and cooperating, e.g. the SJs divided up the task, etc.

There's a certain pseudoscientific idea that if something is hard to measure, it doesn't exist. People who have this notion will often discount soft and fluffy ideas like happiness. I, for one, think happiness is an exceedingly important concept, whether or not it is hard to measure. And though I know of know way to objectively compare the happiness of one person to another, I have no doubt that some people are happier than others, and I trust my own subjective evaluations of the matter to be significantly correlated with the truth. Myers Briggs tests have this problem - they are dependent on peoples' self evaluations regarding a lot of soft-and-fluffy questions like, "Direct-contact group discussions stimulate you and give you energy - Y/N". Nevertheless, according to this paper:

Several researchers have studied the construct validity of the MBTI scores. Carlyn (1977) found evidence indicating that "... a wealth of circumstantial evidence has been gathered, and results appear to be quite consistent with Jungian Theory" (p. 469). Validity of MBTI scores is typically established by correlating the scores with findings from various personality instruments and inventories of interest. Statistically significant correlations have been found between MBTI scores, behaviors reflective of MBTI constructs, and persons' self-assessment of their own MBTI type (DeVito, 1985; Myers & McCaully, 1989). Using factor analysis, Thompson and Borrello (1986) reported that the factors were largely discrete in their sample, and all items had factor pattern coefficients higher than .30. These results supported the structure of the MBTI. More recently, Tischler (1994) noted that "... factor analysis provided unusually strong evidence that the MBTI items are correlated with their intended scales: the scales are almost factorially pure" (Tischler, 1994, p. 30).

Furthermore, if you measure the test-retest accuracy not as a binary outcome (e.g. S or N) but as a quantitative score, you find very high correlations, i.e. people near the middle will often flip, but their numerical scores won't change much. If you still think, like the Skeptic that:

The profiles read like something from Omar the astrologer and seem to exemplify the Forer effect.

Then take my advice in the previous post, and look at the description of your opposite. Ask yourself: which is more like me?

UPDATE: The Skeptic also warns, "There is also a pernicious side to these profiles: they can lead to discrimination and poor career counseling." Of course, if you are talking about individual cases you have to take into account that Myers Briggs tests are not 100% accurate, and assuming that they are can lead to unfortunate results. This in no way falsifies the theory, though it may limit its usefulness. My personal experience is that it's very useful even when I get it wrong (i.e. my subjective impression doesn't agree with the "objective" test). Why? Because it gives me a powerful way to think about the subject: The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms. A well-chosen terminology helps you to think, and understand. Whether or not I'm right about Razib's personality in the previous post, I'm confident that I'm right about the characteristics I examined, and that I understand something about his personality as a result.

UPDATE: I think that the main reason it's not taken more seriously in academia is that it was developed by non-academics. Who cares that it works in practice, and that thousands of profit-making enterprises that have to explain themselves to their shareholders spend money using it to help them do business. It doesn't have the right credentials!

Myers Briggs

There's been some talk lately on Gene Expression about Empathizing-Systematizing. I haven't read the sources, but I must say it seems like just a rehash of a piece of a much more well-developed theory of personality that has been around for quite some time, and successfully employed in business and government: the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). (Interesting aside: Myers and Briggs were a mother-daughter team.) Since I don't think anyone can claim to intelligently discuss personality without relating to it, if for no other reason than to contest it, I will endeavor to introduce it now. Warning: this is my own slightly idiosyncratic view of the subject.

I, personally have used Myers Briggs productively in both my personal life, and on the job. I was first introduced to Myers Briggs about ten years ago, and it was a transformative experience. (Actually, I knew about it for many years without paying much attention, until one day I saw a book on someone's shelf and began to read...) I can't think of anything else, that can be learned in a couple of hours from a book, that can so utterly change the way a well-educated person sees the world. It was like suddenly being able to see a new color, and with a little reflection and experience it has thoroughly informed the way I understand people and interpersonal relations.

Myers Briggs describes personality types according to four pairs of traits. While often these are treated as binary choices: you are either on thing or the other; I think of them as endpoints of axes: you are somewhere on the continuum between them. An added complication is that personality types describe preferred modes of behavior, while well-rounded people are often quite skilled in behaving in their non-preferred mode, as this site says:

This is analagous to handedness, where you sometimes use your preferred hand (eg: when using a pen to write) and sometimes use your non-preferred hand (eg: the hand you use to change gear whilst driving a car is determined by the design of the car, not your preferences). [It's a British site. In the UK you shift with your left hand - DB]

OK, the first thing people always want to know is, "what's my type". Here are a couple of tests. I didn't take either one of them, so I can't vouch for them. But here's my test:

Extrovert/Introvert (E/I) - If you like to have lots of social relationships, if you enjoy meeting new people, if you often talk to strangers when you encounter them, you are probably an extrovert. If you prefer to concentrate on a few special relationships, if you don't like meeting new people, if you rarely talk to strangers when you encounter them, you are probably an introvert.

Sensing/Intuitive (S/N) - If you like to learn examples first, theory second, if you think in words, if you like details, you are probably sensing. If you like to learn theory first, examples second, if you think visually, if you are impatient with "irrelevant" details (though they may be essential to getting the job done), you are probably intuitive.

Thinking/Feeling (T/F) - If you like thinking about things or ideas, if you enjoy sparring (physical or verbal), if you prefer truth to peace, you are probably thinking. If you like thinking about people, if you especially enjoy making people feel good (or bad, in pathological cases), if you prefer peace (or war, in pathological cases) to truth, you are probably feeling.

Judging/Perceiving (J/P) - If you prefer to make a decision now rather than wait for more data, if you think that there's usually a right way to do things, if you like achieving goals whether or not the goal has any objective value, you are probably judging. If you prefer to wait for more data rather than make a decision, if you think there are usually many right ways to do things, or it usually doesn't matter too much how you do things, if you are comfortable with vaguely defined objectives, you are probably perceiving.

Follow the links above for a description of each of the axes. I think the hardest one to explain, and the most interesting is the S/N axis. (At least to me, for it characterizes my personality more than any of the others - I am an extreme N.) Sensing people tend to relate directly to inputs from their environment, while intuitive people tend to use these inputs to construct complex inner models, and relate to them. A lot of people have trouble differentiating between thinking and judging. If you're having trouble, look at their opposites, for some reason they're easier to distinguish.

So which type are you? (I'm an INTP.) Here are links to descriptions of each type.

Read the description of your type. Does it sound like you? Try varying one letter at a time, especially if you are not sure about one of the answers. Do these types seem somewhat like you? Now switch ALL the letters, how much does this seem like you? (These descriptions are short, and so much less impressive than the descriptions that appear in the book. The first version of this book was my introduction to Myers Briggs. There was another book that I liked better, at the time, but I can't seem to locate it.)

Now comes the fun part. Myers Briggs doesn't just give you a way to describe yourself, it gives you a way to think and talk about personality. For example, the 16 types can be grouped in various