tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071953.post1524769365737020332..comments2023-04-06T05:40:23.242-06:00Comments on The Long Journey Home: The joy of givingPattihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908893849922049697noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071953.post-73958023112199426992007-08-10T18:44:00.000-06:002007-08-10T18:44:00.000-06:00As a mum who is daily working to love sacrificiall...As a mum who is daily working to love sacrificially - thank you. I'm so glad that our journeys have crossed here at Holy Trinity and in Austin.Jenniferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09920960178906851812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071953.post-42953415200902873432007-06-08T17:46:00.000-06:002007-06-08T17:46:00.000-06:00Ken! What a wonderful surprise! I have wondered ...Ken! What a wonderful surprise! I have wondered how (and where) you are all these years. I seem to remember seeing in BAM a note about you getting married to Sandy years back. No surprise there! :-) So happy you stumbled across my little journal. I'd love to catch up by email: joyfulmama @ yahoo .comPattihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06908893849922049697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071953.post-84147943416071479532007-05-28T23:10:00.000-06:002007-05-28T23:10:00.000-06:00Patti,It must be fate that I found your blog at an...Patti,<BR/><BR/>It must be fate that I found your blog at an obviously important moment in your thinking, and I spent some time reading about your family's recent fascinating history. You may remember me from college. I remember you well enough to know that you were just as spiritually grounded then (at least by the end) as you are now. Good luck on the rest of the journey!<BR/><BR/>Ken B.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071953.post-58555666076524000302007-05-13T13:33:00.000-06:002007-05-13T13:33:00.000-06:00You, my dear, are an ascetic. I love you and honor...You, my dear, are an ascetic. I love you and honor you for it. But I also sometimes find it alienating.<BR/><BR/>I mean, I know what you mean. I'm right there with you in your disdain of materialism. New towels, I don't need. My current ambition is for us to make a good deal *less* money; and we've always tended to optimize for more collective being-at-home and less working-for-money in most situations. I'm also right there with you that if you want love, love first, unconditionally. <BR/><BR/>Nonetheless I flinch at the word "sacrificially", not at what you mean by it but at what else it could be made to mean; and I think your account is lacking part of the story.<BR/><BR/>My tradition believes in moderation. There's a Talmudic regulation of the minimum you can give to charity; there's also a regulation of the <I>maximum</I>, the intent of which is to avoid people impoverishing themselves and their families with extravagant, hotheaded, ecstatic displays of selflessness which are -- the tradition, in its communitarian-focused wisdom, believes -- ultimately unsustainable.<BR/><BR/>"Charity" is the wrong word, of course. Charity is, etymologically, a kind of love; it's a feeling. And Jews are suspicious of actions that come from feelings. We give tzedakah, which is justice. The point of tzedakah is not how good it feels to give. The point is creating a just world. Selfless actions which feel transcendentally good, but don't produce justice, are not tzedakah.<BR/><BR/>And I guess these are the kinds of actions that I worry someone less grounded and sophisticated than you, who tries to follow your recipe of "just love and give", might take.<BR/><BR/>Especially in a world where whole classes of people are indoctrinated to shut up, do as they are told, and give, in order that others may prosper.<BR/><BR/>Another way of approaching my qualm: <BR/><BR/>Why is love on that list? Is love a need? Without air, food, and water we die. Without shelter we get wet. Without love, we are really sad. It's not quite the same thing.<BR/><BR/>That's a devil's-advocate position, slightly, because I think we need love, certainly more than towels. But if we're going to put love on the list, it seems like maybe some other things belong there too, things the absence of which damages us much as the absence of love does. Like, respect. Clarity. Liberty. Work that needs doing.<BR/><BR/>Of course you can ask, which clarity? Which liberty? Just as you can ask which love? Of course, you yourself certainly *have* clarity and liberty (I can tell), and certainly these fit into your account in the sense that they, too, ultimately come from God.<BR/><BR/>So why do I note their absence? Because if God lives us, as well as love and abundance, also challenges, rules, limits -- justice -- then so too, we need to give these to those around us.<BR/><BR/>This you certainly know. You are my great teacher in the realm of parenting, and you certainly know, as a parent, that loving sometimes means saying no.<BR/><BR/>I can report from my own experience that this is also true of love in a wife; that very often the gift that Esther gives me which puts us back on God's path, which gives me clarity, peace, and freedom, is the loving gift of saying no. Saying, for instance, "I've done enough. Your turn."<BR/><BR/>When we were first talking about having children, Esther told me "I don't know if I want to turn my kids over to day care, and God made me to be a psychologist and heal people. So if we are having kids, you are staying home half the time."<BR/><BR/>This was a shocker. Nothing in my training as an upper-middle-class white Jewish man in late 20th century America had prepared me for the idea that I would have to work 20 hours a week instead of, say, 50. My initial reaction was resistance.<BR/><BR/>It was also one of the greatest blessings that ever happened to me, and has given me more joy in my life than I ever expected to have. We're about to move to Switzerland mostly so we can get back on that path, the path we should be on.<BR/><BR/>The indoctrination of the social system which wants us to consume, consume, consume, and not think too much, would have taught Esther that loving unconditionally would have meant not making that demand. It was a loving demand, but I don't think it felt like one to her at the time. Love is a slippery feeling. Sometimes (certainly in Esther's case) self-abnegation can feel like love, when it is only a kind of egotism.<BR/><BR/>I do the same thing; give things which are not necessarily wanted, swallow demands which would actually be sources of freedom, clarity, and peace, under the impression that I am giving, and being loving. When in fact I am just being a nice guy, avoiding conflict, breeding resentments within me, and ignoring a still, small voice which says "this is wrong."<BR/><BR/>This is why both of our traditions teach that love must be tempered with justice, and justice tempered with love.<BR/><BR/>Esther may not have felt that her demand was loving; she did know, however, that it was just. And so did I. And following that sense of justice has been our clearest guide.<BR/><BR/>"What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in the sight of your God?"Benjamin Rosenbaumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09541530023343046676noreply@blogger.com