Signs and Wonders

In 5761 (2001), Missy Oldest and I were Blessed to visit Israel. None of her other siblings ever set foot here before we made aliyah. Computer Cowboy, likewise, was never a tourist.

We came to the Holy Land for a ten day odyssey of self and national discovery, courtesy of a family gift given to Missy Oldest, in honor of her becoming Bat Mitzvah. She and I joined an expedition managed by Emunah, Israel's largest women's religious Zionist organization.

Our extended family intended us to have fun. Emunah intended us to show solidarity (our travels occurred during the Second Intifada). Our friends considered our travels the ultimate in mother-daughter bonding. Yet, Missy Oldest and I understood our trip as a chance to get better acquainted with home.

From the Animals in Gan Eden to Shakespeare's Rose: Naming Author: Dr. KJ Hannah (Channie) Greenberg

Thanks for the ride. I grew and had fun along the way. This blog is about to fold and a new one, "She Said: She Said," written by myself and by my oldest offspring, is about to spring up.

Until then, I have a confession. The idea is not too wild, but it might be controversial; I have not been using my name.

More specifically, I have not been using any version of my name that is known to folks outside of this blog's readership. While I could contend that as a teacher of rhetoric and of sociology, I am fascinated with the business of nomenclature or that as a practiced communicator, I could offer that I long ago discovered that certain variations of words suit certain audiences, neither of the above claims would be entirely true. Simply, I was using bits instead of entireties because I had not yet integrated whom I might be.

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The last one hundred posts

In Ecclesiastics, i.e. Kohelet, it is written that there is a season for everything. It is now the season for me to look back at my second hundred "Old/New World Discourse" posts since it is also the season for me to say "shalom" to this blog.

When I write once more for The Jerusalem Post, it will not be in the capacity of an academic commenting on Israeli society, but as one half of an intergenerational dialogue on Israeli life. Specifically, Missy Oldest, a budding writer with a few modest publications to her name, and enough charif [spice] to get by on the streets of Jerusalem, and I, in turn, will write about topics pertinent to living on this island of kedushah. Our shared blog will be called "She Said: She Said."

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Creativity and the Frump

It's transition time. By this point, next month, this blog will cease to exist. Something else will grow in its place, but it won't be "Old/New World Discourse."

Meanwhile, despite the fact that during the last few years of writing this blog, the identity of my children has remained protected, they continue to espouse opinions about this venue and about their mom whose work fills it. Missy Oldest, for instance, contends that instead of my writing about her and her siblings here and in a few other, select places, she ought to write about her "parents," in girls' ezines; the former does nothing to fill her pocket, but the latter would beat out babysitting money.

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Of broken noses and appreciating Israeli medical care

So what if we plan? We're not in control of the universe, nor will we ever be. In fact, we never had that power.

For some reason, nevertheless, I had figured that when Computer Cowboy returned to Israel, last week, after a much too exciting trip to India (see: Appreciating Husbands who Travel to India, Dec. 07, 2008), life would quiet in my home. Consider that in spite of everything, the children are learning to take turns having crises. Instead, my plans for serenity were tossed when Boy-Getting-Taller broke his nose.

In Israel (see: "Urgent Care," Feb. 27, 2007), medicine is a means to an ends. Doctoring, here, is always about healing and is sometimes about prevention. Rarely, in this Old World, are the bodily arts about avoiding litigation.

Appreciating husbands who travel to India

Last Wednesday, en route home from ulpan, I heard the first broadcasted rumble of terrorism in India. That Wednesday, Computer Cowboy was in India.

That night, the next day, the next night and forward into Shabbat, my family received many phone calls and emails from friends here, in the Old World, and from there, in the New World. Most of our loved ones offhandedly acknowledging that they knew my husband had business on the great subcontinent, but that they believed it was only a matter of my reassuring them that he was in Israel during this present crisis. I could do no such thing.

Gratitude, Part II: Children

Today's bright sky, filled with shiny cumulus clouds, makes a chuppah over Jerusalem. Under that sacred cover, I garden, I cook dinner, and I type up various bits and pieces of creative writing. Under that sacred cover, as well, I celebrate the gifts that Hashem has Given to me, B'ayan Tov, including and especially my children.

Just as every book has a unique path to publication, every newborn has a unique place within its family. Furthermore, every child, especially pubescent ones, has a distinctive path to growth. Whereas developmental trends might exist, especially within families, and especially of the kind that can be predicted with some accuracy, each son or daughter is more a teacher than a student because of, rather than despite, his or her differences.

Gratitude continued, Part I: On appreciating husbands

This Blog's next three entries are about gratitudes that come naturally, especially in Jerusalem. I will celebrate: marriage, parenting, and aliyah.

In the circles in which I am Blessed to travel, I have heard many versions of a joke, which, though superficially, sounds funny, is an example of the path to the destruction of Shalom Bayit. The "amusing" bit, when spoken by a woman, goes as follows;"My husband is the head of my house, certainly and unequivocally. However, I am the neck."

Stalwarts of koshrut, valiants of tzniut [modesty] and individuals who otherwise act as pillars of the community laugh at this remark, choosing to retell it again and again. Whereas I am not sure that I am among the vanguard of those believers, I am grateful that I no longer number among the perpetuators of that "joke." A wise rav set me right; with simple, kind words he instructed me to laugh with at such portrayals and not to further them, either since innocent husbands were being hurt.

A Little More Theory of Discourse, Part III: Possible Nexuses for High-Context and Low-Context Discourse

As aforementioned in "A Little More Theory of Discourse, Part II, Context-Sensitive and Context-Free Language, Nov. 13, 2008" our essential understanding of language, as demonstrated by the range of responses that might be elicited by the phrase "Saintly Fools," depends on our starting points, i.e. on our individually held and on our collectively held beliefs about the universe.

Simply, if we hold that meaning is static, we understand terms far differently than if we hold that meaning is flexible. Alternatively, if we embrace a third option, that meaning has latitude, but only within a fixed system, i.e. if we hold by the epistemology of Torah, then we create entirely other constructs to undergird our discourse.

A Little More Theory of discourse, Part II: Context-sensitive and Context-free language

In the previous entry, "A Little More Theory of Discourse, Part I: No Saintly Fools," I offered that we assign meaning to words, in part, based on our undergirding epistemologies. Sometimes, though, our meaning stems, erroneously, from the bottom, rather than from the top, of our hierarchies of understanding.

Specifically, sometimes we create social attachments to our linguistic watermarks by using one, instead of another, types of grammar. There exists a set of means, according to well-meaning, but not necessarily spiritual, academics, by which we can generate tools, which range from primarily parsimonious to primarily utilitarian, for getting at communicative significance.