Over the past week, in between episodes of Grading Hell,* I have been catching up on my Bloglines blogroll. Now I'm merely twenty-six thousand posts behind -- but, on the plus side, I'm all caught up with the Jewish blogs (including several new ones and several I'm sorry to see go). In the Orthodox and Israeli neighborhoods of the Olam Ha-Blog, people are buzzing about the Israeli Chief Rabbinate's decision that conversions to Judaism under the auspices of the Rabbinical Council of America are not automatically valid for purposes of Israeli citizenship -- the most detailed coverage seems to be over at On The Contrary** and Canonist. In the modern-Orthodox-to-Conservative and feminist neighborhoods, everyone was linking to the now-defunct Jerusalem Post article (here's the Google cache) about Haviva Ner-David's possibly-Orthodox ordination as possibly-a-rabbi. Both of these stories raise questions about the boundaries of Jewish Orthodoxy. And from my position over here on the, um, fringes... I feel kind of bad for Orthodox Judaism.

"Orthodox Judaism" as a concept is a pretty recent invention -- the phrase itself starts popping up in the early nineteenth century, and it was probably invented by Jews who identified themselves as "Reform" or at any rate reformers. Over the course of the nineteenth century, some of the people who actually qualified as Not Reform (mostly the Torah im Derech Eretz crowd) adopted the term to describe themselves; some of them continued to use or evolve other labels to reflect the diversity of the Not Reform Jewish world ("Mitnagdim," "Hasidim," more recently "Haredim"); some of the reformers decided that they were, in fact, also or instead Orthodox (see especially early JTS -- both Breslau and New York); finally, many of the world's Jews continued to be blithely undisturbed by denominational labels (like my acquaintance who explains his shul-hopping by explaining that he's neither Orthodox nor Conservative but Sephardi). As an historically descriptive term, then, "Orthodox Judaism" confuses almost as much as it explains.***

As an ideological construct, however, "Orthodox Judaism" is even worse, at least if you approach the question from outside Orthodox Judaism. What exactly makes a Jew Orthodox? "Halakhic" or "Torah true" or "shomer mitzvot" -- all popular internal descriptions -- all assume very specific definitions of contested terms (halakhah, Torah, mitzvot). When I teach the movements of Judaism, doing my darnedest to make them all sound equally appealing, I usually wind up explaining that Orthodoxy is an umbrella term for those rabbinic Jews who believe that change in religious praxis (aka halakhah) is severely limited by the decisions of earlier generations and especially by the great modern law codes (beginning with the Shulchan Aruch, then diverging depending on what type of Orthodoxy is at issue). My students usually blink several times in puzzlement at this point, and I resort to the Practical Answer: "Orthodox Jews won't count women towards a minyan or ordain them as rabbis. On the whole, they're also more traditionally 'observant' than other branches of Judaism, but individual practice varies widely, as it does in all branches, and the standards of 'Orthodoxy' in the U.S. have shifted significantly to the right over the past 50 years. However, if you describe Orthodox or any other rabbinic approach to Scripture as 'literal' I will be forced to whack you over the head with a copy of Artscroll's Shir Ha-Shirim until you do teshuvah."****

I hope I don't do anyone too much disservice with that description -- every semester, I have a small subset of non-Jewish students who wind up approving of Orthodox Judaism as most "traditional," which gives me an historical pain but at least suggests that I'm not biasing them against Orthodoxy. I am well aware that I have trouble taking the whole denominational thing seriously. My mother's side of the family includes Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Jews, and they all go to each others' life-cycle events, dress more or less the same, eat more or less the same things (sneaking out for crabcakes is culturally condoned), and basically show exactly the same minimal degree of practical variation as Dad's Methodist, Southern Baptist, Moravian, and nondenominational Christian family does -- which is to say hardly any. There are, of course, plenty of Jews outside my family with whom I cannot easily communicate about Judaism; some of them are "ultra-" Orthodox, some are "classical" Reform, some go to my shul. There are also plenty of Jews with whom I can communicate, which is why we are planning a spiffy interdenominational (O/C/R) community Tikkun Leil Shavuot for a few weeks hence.

All that said, I have to confess that there are times when "pre-denominational" or "well, we like to walk to shul on Shabbos, unless it's raining, or really cold, or really hot, or we're late for Pesukei d'Zimra because we usually make the minyan, and I feel guilty but my husband doesn't" aren't the most convenient ways of describing my Jewish identity; I usually give up and say "Conservative" on the theory that it's close enough for government work. So it makes perfectly good sense that some Jews want to describe themselves as "Orthodox" and have it mean something. My question is: what does it mean? I want to believe that Haviva Ner-David's ordination plus the growth of the Open Orthodox movement (aka the people I can almost daven with) implies not just a shift to the left but a growing acknowledgment of (positive) diversity among halakhic forms of Judaism and the development of Orthodox ideology as more than just reaction against. But there's considerable support for the belief that the RCA ordination ban is a reaction against (oops) the potential growth of an American Orthodoxy somewhere left of Yeshiva University. And then I dipped into the comment thread on the generally educational Hirhurim 's post about the Ner-David story, and I got more depressed the further I read. It's not that I'm the most ethical speaker on the planet -- I know I mess up all the time -- but the viciousness with which various commenters slandered the Ner-Davids, anyone ostensibly connected to the Ner-Davids, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (yeah, I know), and each other... really bothered me. And the general trend of comments away from the constructive and toward the destructive was even sadder. I'm pretty sure that's not what Orthodox Judaism is supposed to be -- even if my family isn't much given to discussing denominational identity. Wasn't there something about separating yourself from... oh, never mind.

Truth to tell, I feel a little uneasy opining about Orthodox Judaism, because I am not and have never identified as Orthodox -- but then I realized that this is precisely one of the truths which the most recent and most toxic elements of Orthodox Judaism want to shout down: there are Jews with no particular interest in identifying as Orthodox, but we still have grandparents and cousins and friends and teachers who do identify as Orthodox, and even if we didn't, we're still part of klal Yisrael. I am part of the same Judaism as all of the people who identify Orthodox, even if all of them wouldn't say the same about me. And every now and then, I would like to be able to tell some random enquirer after my antecedents that my mother was raised Orthodox and not follow it up with "but not the way people are Orthodox today."

For the record, I'm not referring to the crabcakes.

* -- My favorite bits so far have been the student who compared Christian veneration of the Virgin Mary to a cockroach (the point was that it loses seemingly vital parts but stays alive nonetheless; it's a good analogy but a funny one) and the student who turned in an exam for something called "Women and Judiasm" (which sounds like a much more exciting class than the one I actually taught).
** -- Perhaps the best indication of my unOrthodoxy (or, at any rate, my excessive exposure to Christian scholasticism) is the way I keep mentally translating that blog's name as "Sed Contra." Memo to Thomas Aquinas: please stay out of my head!
*** -- This is a good place to note, as I do at least once a semester, that to refer to any pre-nineteenth-century Judaism as "Orthodox" is to perpetrate either bad history ("all Jews in the Middle Ages wore black hats and kept four sets of dishes"), bad theology ("all Jews were Orthodox until the Reform movement came along, especially if we ignore the Sadducees, the Karaites, the Sabbateans, and anyone who was insufficiently clairvoyant to hold by the Shulchan Aruch"), or bad logic ("premodern Jews were concerned with following the Torah in belief and practice; Orthodox Jews are concerned with following the Torah in belief and practice; therefore, I will ignore both the implied false dilemma and the undistributed middle and conclude that all premodern Jews were Orthodox").
**** -- Well, part of that only happens in my head. Pity.

So Major Professional Conference #3 was lovely -- my paper went well, I got to meet most of the people I wanted to meet, I avoided buying more than a dozen books, and quite unexpectedly I wound up having Shabbat dinner with a handful of fellow medievalists. It's so wonderful not having to explain why the fourteenth (or thirteenth, or fifteenth) century and the comparison of Jewish and Christian religious developments are important in the first place -- sort of the conversational equivalent of getting a mile-long head start -- and I really could have sat there all night without the (very tasty) food. Meanwhile, back in Boondoggle, my husband dutifully attended a Saturday evening event hosted by our synagogue's Young People's Chavurah because (a) he has an overdeveloped sense of communal responsibility and (b) with me gone he didn't have anything better to do. Now, the problem with this group -- containing many pleasant, intelligent, fun men and women -- is that we don't actually share any interests with most of them beyond approximate age and religious identity, which limits the sorts of meaningful interaction one can enjoy. More to the point, we don't share religious interests with the rest of the Young People -- D. complained that nobody else had wanted to daven ma'ariv, and that nobody else seemed to care about singing-not- mumbling Havdalah, and that nobody else got his jokes about Lurianic Kabbalah.*

Fresh out of my conference, I realized at once that what we need at our shul -- or possibly in the Greater Boondoggle Metro Area -- is a Jewish Geek Chavurah. Members need not be Jewish professionals (I know some astoundingly un-geeky Jewish educators on all levels) or yeshiva bochrim or even spectacularly observant Jews, but must look forward to hanging out and talking about the merits of the high and low Torah sof pasuk, or the advisability of Hallel on Yom Ha Atzma'ut, or the halakhic standards of the various Jewish movements, or... well, many of the topics which preoccupy my favorite corners of the Jewish blogosphere. Unfortunately, the Jewish Geek demographic isn't nearly as well-represented in the offline community; even in the Marvelous Monthly Minyan, we have the geek contingent and the Average Folks For Whom This Is Convenient contingent.

Obviously, then, what I need the world needs is more Jewish Geeks -- but I'm not sure how to go about increasing our numbers. Oh, sure, our hypothetical future offspring are clearly doomed to Jewish Geekdom -- I occasionally amuse myself trying to sort out exactly how much of the service and what parts of the layning little Sar Shalom and Trinity** can be allowed to perform before they reach Bar/Bat Mitzvah age -- because even if when they rebel, they will still be football-playing Republican investment bankers who know a heck of a lot about trupp and theology, and that ought to blight their lives quite enough, thank you. But growing your own Jewish Geeks is, um, time-consuming. I keep wondering about the Nice Young People at the chavurah, most of whom are proud and communally active Jews but appear to view interest in matters liturgical as vaguely uncool, or even the ninth-graders I have been teaching in Sunday School, most of whom clearly decided some years back that Jewish learning was distinctly inferior to (a) sports (b) naps (c) pretty much anything else. (The exceptions, in both categories, have similarly-minded parents.) How do you take an adult or near-adult and convince him or her that the word "Gemara" ought to produce the same associations as the word "Wheeeeeee!"? How do you convey that warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from getting a d'var just right? How do you get people to care about whether the Full Kaddish should be chanted using the same nusach as the rest of the service or in a different, distinctive melody?

Some of this is, in fact, about acquiring a basic level of knowledge for which these sorts of questions make sense. But most of it is about attitude: the attitude that Jewish learning and Jewish prayer belong to me, personally, not my rabbi or my mother or my teacher, and that it is both my obligation and my privilege to share them with others. (The "others" need not be Jewish, of course; judging from the blogosphere, it looks as if Jewish Geeks and Religious Geeks from other traditions could also have some great conversations.) I wish I knew how to pass that attitude to people -- all I can do is show with all my heart and soul and might that this stuff is fun. Fortunately, the Young People's Chavurah's next event is over our house. And, y'know, we just happen to have plenty of benchers. Turn it, and turn it, and wheeeeeee!

* -- Which, given that he learned them from me, wouldn't've been particularly technical.
** -- No, we will not in fact be naming our children Sar Shalom and Trinity (even if her Hebrew name could be Meshuleshet), but it's useful to have names for just these sorts of conversations. I bet people who are not Jewish Geeks refer to their future children as John and Jane, or at a minimum do not engage in periodic arguments over whether or not it is appropriate to refer to a gender-indeterminate fetus as "Little Tumtum."

I just taught my second-to-last -- or as we who took a year of Greek and forgot most of it like to say, "penultimate" -- class at Boondoggle University. In an hour or so I'll teach my last class. I wonder what the proper bracha is for this? Shehecheyanu? Dayan Emet? She'asani lo goy?*

Being an academic short-timer is an odd experience: the joy of not having to attend department meetings is balanced with the grief of having to come up with sensible answers to "what are you doing next year?" I have so far resisted the temptation to answer with either Wonderful Fabrications ("I'm heading up a secret government-funded lab to reverse the Nine Billion Names of God") or Terrible Truths ("Possibly there will be a brief period of sulking followed by ice cream"); what my colleagues want is reassurance that I will be All Right, and I figure it can't hurt to give it to them. Actually, while I wish I had a better answer for what I'm doing in the fall, I am All Right, and looking forward to finding out what happens next.

That said, there are not nearly enough etiquette guides to this sort of situation. My general plan of action this past year, as in most things, is to get through it with some semblance of integrity and grace. So I have taught my classes exactly as I normally would (I will actually miss my classes), said hello and how-are-you to colleagues as appropriate, deleted unread the mass emails about hiring my replacement, and begun inviting grad students to take their pick of the books I am disposing of.** All I can think of left to do, really, is finish the grading, see if I can motivate the student to resolve that one incomplete, clean out my office (for which I have just acquired a proper deadline), and thank the secretaries. Introducing myself at Major Professional Conference #3 this weekend ought to be exciting -- should I just use my not-quite-expired affiliation? Should I use the magic phrase "independent scholar"? Should I spend less time wondering about this and more time actually polishing my paper?

It's a little sad, though. I don't want this job anymore, but once I did -- once I loved it. (In fact, the whole experience is rather like a protracted break-up, although thankfully I'm handling it a lot better than I seem to recall handling break-ups.) I don't think academia is fundamentally flawed (well, no more so than I thought it was beforehand), but I am trying to look into (the limited local) career opportunities in both academia and adult Jewish education, which makes for an interesting kind of vocational schizophrenia. Perhaps my greatest fear is that I will somehow give up my identity as a scholar and teacher just because I am ending my first post-graduate job. I try to remind myself that my identity is not as a Boondoggle U. professor, and that I clearly need to stop myself buying into the myth of Career=Self-Worth=Identity, but it's easier said than felt. Shouldn't I be thinking about all the writing and teaching and loving I have the chance to do in the upcoming months, years, and decades? Well, sure -- but dear God it's going to be weird not having a .edu address!

But I am almost finished, and I mean to finish this job at least as well as I began it, so I need to do a bit of preparation for the upcoming class. Once I get home tonight, I can plan out ways to introduce myself at conferences, make lists of letters I should write and people I should contact, and try to decide exactly how much money I need to earn in order to maintain the sense that I am not living off my husband. And possibly there should be a shehecheyanu, because against all odds, I am glad that I am at this season, that I am me, now, and increasingly untroubled by the sense that I am supposed to be anyone else instead.

If anyone's going to be at Major Professional Conference #3 and wants to hang out, I'd love to see you. You just may have to buy me an ice cream.

* -- This is only funny if you realize that Boondoggle U. is religiously affiliated and not Jewish (a fact I have avoided making explicit here up until now). I will miss the more-or-less weekly insane email spam railing at "Christian clerics" -- snickering my way through the first few screens of it was always a useful brain-cleanser.
** -- Which is by no stretch of the imagination all of them -- just the normal pruning which accompanies major book moves. And I don't think I can be bothered to put all of them up for sale on Amazon. Better to pass on the karma from my doctoral advisor, who always let us snag his extra books.