Now that I've spread my less-than-glorious January mood all over the blogosphere, it occurs to me that I'd really like to be reading a good book right about now. A good book with some Jewish topics. Oh, yes, we're back on that. (I decided to aim for Gregorian, not Hebrew, months -- largely because I've been ridiculously busy the last few weeks and Shevat's already started. Also, Gregorian dates are easier to remember, and I say this despite my fondness for the Aish Luach program.)

So, returning to the book club discussion -- we still do not have a catchy title for ourselves. I borrowed one of the title suggestions (I'm not sure how serious it was) for the title of this post; others included "People of the Book," "Sefer Space" and "Book Byte." Several people also thought some variation on "Kollel" -- which lines up in my head as "adult-ed program" -- would make sense. I like that idea -- maybe something like "Blogvelt Kollel"? I just want something other than "Jewish Book Club" to put at the top of a link-collection page!

We should also think about AKMA's invitation to consider hosting the project at the Disseminary. Any strong feelings pro or con?

On books, I think we seem to have consensus about our first volume: S.Y. Agnon, A Simple Story. I know little about Agnon -- before I Googled him just now, at least -- but I'd enjoy learning more. And if anyone wants to compare the Hebrew original with the English translation, I'd love to read about it. Since this isn't a book that's likely to be at all of our local bookstores (if so, lucky you!), I suggest we take until April 1st to acquire, read, and respond. Future installments will stick to a monthly schedule.

For those future installments, we've had the following suggestions (in comment threads, emails, and so forth -- I think I caught everything):
- Rachel Adler, Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics
- Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity [not yet released -- and we might want to wait on paperback for this one, although I personally would love to get to it earlier]
- Jonathan Boyarin, something -- perhaps Thinking in Jewish?
- Rich Cohen, Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams
- Shaye J.D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties
- Myla Goldberg, Bee Season
- Carol Harris-Shapiro, Messianic Judaism: A Rabbi's Journey Through Religious Change in America
- Ehud Havazelet, Like Never Before
- Emmanuel Levinas, Nine Talmudic Readings
- Richard Powers, The Time of Our Singing
- Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption

Obviously, we could use some books dealing with medieval Judaism, and we might also want to consider a "Review Your Favorite Chumash" month. Or possibly that's just me, in which case never mind. ;) But, seriously, I'd suggest we alternate between fiction and nonfiction, at least initially. Would that be acceptable? In which case... well, check out the Amazon links and see what you'd like to read next in nonfiction and fiction. Once we're a few months ahead on scheduling, people can order books in advance, look for them in used bookstores, or order them through inter-library loan.

Sometime in the next few weeks, once we get these last details ironed out, I'll throw together a webpage with our future schedule and maybe a cute little graphic for people to put on their blogs (er, is anyone good at creating cute little graphics?). Once people start posting about A Simple Story, I'll list their posts, and place future posts under each contributor's name. (Alternatively, we could have a multi-user blog, but I think it'd be simpler to start with everyone using their own site.) People without blogs can certainly post reading responses/reactions on a standard web page, but you might also want to consider a free LiveJournal account -- you no longer need an invite code to get a new account, and it's very simple to set up. There are many other free blogging services as well; if anyone cares to recommend another they can do so in comments.

In conclusion: S.Y. Agnon, A Simple Story, under discussion from now through April 1st. I need input on a final title, books for the months of April and May, and whether or not people feel strongly about hosting ourselves at the Disseminary.

(I pre-emptively suggest Rosenzweig for December. The light-imagery jokes alone will be worth the effort.)

I should probably start this post by explaining its title: I am, of course, thinking about Rashi's speculation on where the Hebrew word "Pesach" comes from, and I'm fairly sure he says (among other things) that ufasachti in Exodus 12:13 means either "I will pass over" or "I will have mercy." This offers a really interesting way to look at that ethical chestnut our Torah-study group inevitably winds up arguing about, the question of why God keeps hardening Pharoah's heart and causing so much suffering among the Egyptians as a result. It also offers a slightly less interesting way for me to explain my posting lags recently. Have y'all by any chance noticed that I am having an unusually cranky week, or possibly month? Yeah, me too. I've passed over all sorts of possible posts, but then again it's a mercy I'm not posting daily, because rants stop being funny after a certain point. And it's just as well, because I'm in such a bad mood that I'm almost willing to take on politics.

So, for instance, I could fill pages with a rant about how most of the current debates over "defending" "marriage" fail miserably to offer historical nuance in their depiction of the institutions variously identified as marriage by the majority traditions of the Western World -- paying close attention to the shifting boundaries of appropriateness, and mentioning especially certain Hittite laws, Biblical unions, Greek customs, the various ceremonies enacted by Roman emperors ranging from Nero to Hadrian, the questionable law of 342 C.E., the treatment of "paired saints" in the early Roman martyrologies, the Gregorian Reform's role in bringing marriage ceremonies under direct ecclesiastical control, those hotly debated adelphopoiesis and same-sex connubium rituals, and the not-so-peculiar institution of "civil marriage" in various of the United States of America (modified on the one hand by Reynolds v. United States and on the other by Loving v. Virginia). But that would require too much research, and it would be insufficiently amusing. Also, I would have to write about the latest round of "marriage"-oriented "reality" shows, and just watching the commercials for those makes me feel unclean. Ick. Where's a plague of darkness when you actually need one?

Alternatively, I could write about how our Muslim students are inviting a speaker to campus to discuss issues of occupation in both the Palestinian Authority and post-war Iraq. Since the email notifying me was short on details other than a request that I (along with my colleagues) mention the lecture to our classes, I thought I'd investigate the speaker's background via Google beforehand. And so I discovered some, uh, remarkably creative turns of invective about him, from both sides of the possible debate. Then there was the comment thread about how to execute him. Then there was the comment thread about how Zionists run the world and how to execute them. Then there was the part where I had to close all browser windows and look at baby pictures of my newest cousin (six weeks old) until I felt better about the universe. My sum total of halfway trustworthy knowledge about the invited speaker has increased not one whit, but I have decided that my views on the Israeli-Palestinian situation are starting to sound a lot like those expressed by Honi the Circle-Drawer in Josephus's Antiquities, which is not exactly a happy thought.* I have also decided that I continue to be wildly uninterested in blogging about anything political. After all, I take a strong stance in support of footnotes as opposed to endnotes or in-notes, and that's quite enough controversy for me.

Nevertheless, there is one tiny little political issue that I cannot in good conscience pass over. See, there's this presidential election in the U.S. -- yeah, I guess you've all noticed. I am a firm believer in voting, not so much because I think I have any impact as because I think it gives me a license to keep complaining about my government. (Which I do, frequently, just not on this blog. As a rule.) And for the first time in my adult life, I am actually voting in a state with pre-Super-Tuesday primaries. Furthermore, I am a registered Democrat, which means that the primary might actually matter. The difficulty here -- apart from the fact that I'm going to have to be at the polls when they open at 6 am -- is that I don't exactly know whom I want to vote for. I am happy with some points made by all, or nearly all, of the candidates; I am not completely enthused about any of them. And I am several degrees too practical to cast a write-in vote for Honi the Circle-Drawer. So I thought I'd see if anyone has any advice (constructive, please) on why you prefer one of the Democratic candidates over the others.**

Me, I'm going to go look at more baby pictures.

* -- The story (Antiquities 14.2.1) runs that Honi, a proven wonderworker, was captured by one side in the everlasting Hasmonean dynastic wars and told to pray against the other side. His response: "O God, king of the whole world! Since those that stand now with me are your people, and those that are besieged are also your priests, I beseech you that you will neither hear the prayers of those others against these men nor bring about what is asked by these men against those others." His captors promptly had him killed.
** -- Readers who wish to mock the Democratic candidates are asked to either frame their discussion in Talmud citations or find a blog where this sort of thing happens more regularly. ;)

Sometime back in grad school, I started observing Fridays. That is, I had them off classes (except for that one semester of paleography), and I developed a habit of having groceries delivered (this was in the days when Internet-boom companies still did that) and baking bread -- usually challah -- along with a stew or something involving red wine while I got a bit of work done from my apartment. It was relaxing; it was preparation for... well, I tended to light candles and drink (the rest of the) wine and eat challah in the evening, if I wasn't going out. And if I remembered. Of course, there were conferences, and days when I absolutely had to be on campus, and so forth, but I usually spent Fridays being domestic and (relatively) calm. When I left Metropolis for my fellowship at Large Midwestern University, though, my Friday routine was disrupted -- possibly because I never really spent much time in my apartment there.

I didn't immediately get back on track with Fridays when I moved to Boondoggle a year later, but I did start attending Saturday-morning services fairly regularly; my first instinct was to go on Friday night, but the Friday-night services I encountered weren't as satisfactory as their Saturday-morning counterparts, and I happen to like a good Torah reading. Also, Torah study is on Saturday morning at Temple Boondoggle. I stopped teaching on Fridays after my first semester at Boondoggle U., and once a month or so I'd make a Friday-morning pilgrimage out to the far western suburbs to pick up kosher casseroles and bagels for the Marvelous Monthly Minyan -- most of my fellow minyaneers have the sorts of jobs where Friday is their busiest day, not their most relaxed one. It's kind of pleasant shopping for Shabbos at kosher markets and bakeries, surrounded by people (mostly women) all doing the same thing. I started picking up a few extra specialty items for my dinner on Friday night, and I got better at remembering to light candles that evening -- when I wasn't going out. Or traveling (although sometimes I bring tealights). Or really, really busy.

Then my Saturdays started to be affected. I don't worry about driving to shul -- had I been remotely able to afford a house within walking distance of my shul, I would've considered it a major plus, but I wasn't about to delay home ownership indefinitely for that reason. I do not worry about running errands after shul, although I'd rather grab lunch and run some more study sessions, and I keep thinking it'd be fun (if inconvenient) to drive out to the one synagogue where I know they run a Saturday evening meal/discussion/service combo. On balance, though, I like to spend Saturday afternoons doing something that feels kinda Shabbat-like -- it often means reading, or calling family, or going out to eat with friends from Torah study and arguing about synagogue politics.

I also found myself getting cranky about conferences and academic events scheduled over Friday night/Saturday morning, especially when they happened in places with no practicable access to synagogues. The Minor Professional Conference for which I happen to be on the board decided to switch its annual meeting from Saturday-Sunday morning to Friday afternoon-Saturday at last year's board meeting (while I was delayed by tornadoes). When I heard, I pointed out to a fellow board member that they had made it virtually impossible for observant Jews to ever attend, and she blinked (having quite honestly not thought to consider anyone's religious taboos, I think; the switch was for purely logistical reasons). I got crankier. I wiggled out of attending University commencement when it turned out to be on the same Saturday morning I was scheduled to read Torah. The next conference I went to was also scheduled over Saturday morning, and since I didn't want to miss the morning session, I read Mary Douglas instead.

Over the summer, I decided to try something new: I would attend Shabbat services whenever possible while traveling. I actually made it to somewhere or other four out of the six weekends I spent in Europe, which isn't bad given the logistical difficulties of finding synagogues in non-major cities. In the fall, after traveling to a conference on Saturday morning and feeling incredibly cranky about it, I started attending services regularly when I visited My Hometown (Friday night with Mom; Saturday morning solo). It's not about the services, though; it's about the associated stuff. Even when I leave Temple Boondoggle after Torah study because I hate sitting at the very back of a crowded Bar Mitzvah for someone I don't know, I still prefer to spend my Saturdays in my own way, and I seem to be developing informal customs. Reading new books about the liturgy is fun. Studying the next Torah portion I'm reading is good. Driving is okay, but interstates should be avoided whenever possible. Trips to Home Depot are fine, but actually building stuff should wait until Sunday (unless it's urgent). ACC basketball -- well, I already explained about that, right?*

I mention all this because I got an email last week from a friend, asking if I was attending another Minor Professional Conference a few hours from here and suggesting that, if so, she might want me to chair a panel. At this point in my career I can chair a panel in my sleep, but the conference fell on Saturday -- in fact, the Saturday of Shabbat Shira, when I am considering going to the Women's Prayer Group at our local Orthodox synagogue because I want to hear the Torah and Haftarah chanted by a woman, and there's just no way that's going to happen at Temple Boondoggle.** I thought about it, and thought about it, and checked the conference location for synagogues (one Reform), and finally wrote my friend back to say that I'd come if she wanted me to chair the panel, but could it possibly be scheduled on Saturday afternoon so I could stop by a synagogue in the morning?

Naturally, by the time I got back to her, she'd scheduled someone else for the panel -- which is dandy. But nothing terrible happened -- no "Since when have you become observant?," no "You have got to be kidding me," no "I'm going to call every person in our profession and tell them to blackball you from all conferences ever."*** I wonder if I can do this, like, regularly? That is, can I skip Saturday mornings at conferences if there's nothing too terribly important? Can I ask for things to be scheduled around that? Does it matter whether I go to services or sleep in? Will everyone think I'm nuts if I fail to be consistent about this? Will everyone think I'm nuts, regardless? Also, I need to research some of the concepts behind this -- that is, if scribes can have a conditional intention to write the name of God in the Torah when it's disputed whether the word they're writing is in fact a name of God, can I have a conditional intention to keep my Saturday mornings free?

This coming weekend I do not have to be anywhere in particular, which is kind of nice, and the weather people are predicting a good half-foot of "wintry mix," which isn't at all nice. But it won't start until Sunday a.m., and while it isn't very nice of me, I can't help thinking the universe might be backing me up just this once. So now I'm going to go bake some challah.

* -- Except to say that apparently the NCAA tournament operates like the Yom Kippur fast, which is a really warped concept when I stop to think about it, so I won't.
** -- That is, while they usually have the Bar or Bat Mitzvah kid chanting Torah, the odds of the child chanting Haftarah as well are pretty slim, and they vanish to zero considering the size of that particular Haftarah portion. If I had my way, Shabbat Shira would be one of the regular (say, monthly?) adult-ed-led services. Unfortunately, having my way in Temple Boondoggle is kind of a long-term process.
*** -- My friend wouldn't say any of those things, actually; she is both kind and tactful. It's my subconscious that's screaming.

Next weekend I'm reading Torah -- as I do about once a month -- and I picked the sixth aliyah over a couple of equally not-as-godawfully-long options because it contains one of my favorite Passages That So Didn't Make It Into Any Of The Exodus Movies. This is, of course, the "bridegroom of blood" incident in Exodus 4:24-26, which I take great delight in pointing out to students whenever we have occasion to examine the narrative in question. So, anyway -- the other day a friend called to ask whether I wanted to join her next weekend in a one-shot Friday-afternoon community-college cooking class entitled "Knife Techniques," and I had to explain why I was giggling into the phone.* Someday, I will find someone who gets all my jokes without footnotes, and I will probably marry that person if at all possible. Meanwhile, I will remain in my (mental) corner thinking really silly thoughts about aprons with slogans like "Kiss the Mohelet."

This post is actually intended to pick up on a passing comment I made last year, in which I suggested some sort of reading group for bloggers -- or regular blog-commenters for that matter -- who'd enjoy discussing books of Jewish interest in the English language. The comments indicate that (a) several people are very interested and (b) we do not want to get into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which certainly works for me. (If we're going for Not Your Father's Jewish Book Club rules, we should probably also eliminate Holocaust memoirs and gynocentric retellings of Biblical narrative, but I can already see the exceptions coming down the pike, so never mind.) We'd want to pick books which are in print and not horrifically expensive (so much for all the Yale Judaica hardcovers), and I'm guessing we'd want to allow about a month for people to read, blog, and discuss.

We'd probably want some central spot online to keep track of all the discussions -- I could easily set up a site, maybe another blog on baraita.net if it became necessary -- and we'd want a list of books which runs at least three or four months in advance, because some people like plenty of time to read, and some people like plenty of excuses to go hang out in used bookstores Some people might also enjoy a little button or something to put on their website, but we'll part that sea when we come to it. (Sorry. Have Exodus on brain.)

Anyway, I don't think we need much except:

(1) A list of people who are interested enough to promise to read the first book, with their blog or website addresses;
(2) A list of suggested books (and we should start with something not too dense, which is to say Not Rosenzweig); and
(3) A catchy name for the whole undertaking. People whose Hebrew and/or Yiddish compentencies are light-years ahead of mine may want to give this some thought.

Thoughts? I figure we've got two weeks till Rosh Chodesh Shevat, or three till the beginning of February, depending on which calendar we use. Let me know if you're still interested.

* -- Yes, in the text Zipporah uses a tzur tzor, which is to say a stone or (in this context) flint, but for a Bronze Age account that certainly qualifies as a knife. [Edited to get the Hebrew right -- see comments for further explanation. Mind you, my knife joke works even better this way.]