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You know, when people ask me whether I get a lot of opposition "from the Orthodox," I'm very careful to start by talking about people like R' Weiss and his ilk - ones who don't necessarily agree with what I'm doing, or ones who sort of agree in principle but think it would be politically unwise to agree publicly.* These people are unfailingly polite, kind...enthusiastic, even. R' Weiss always asks how my writing's going whenever I see him. Other people too - some of you are reading this now - are friendly and nice, appreciate that there are many valid approaches to Judaism, and we coexist and we're friendly even though we don't agree about various things.

THOSE are the people I always talk about when I'm talking to non-Orthodox groups, especially the ones who use words like "sexist pigs." I make enormous efforts to talk about how there are many Orthodox people who don't agree with me but nonetheless treat me with courtesy.

I DON'T go on about all the people who rant and rave and sneer, who call me a moron or a liar, who seem to think that if they shout loud enough I'll start agreeing that their form of Judaism is the proper one (which, of course, is invariably a form of Judaism that wouldn't let me do any of the things I find most meaning in). It is particularly sad given that they are trying to show me how superior their interpretation of Judaism is, but in so doing are showing me just how little respect they have for other human beings and for basic good manners. It would be very easy for me to focus on these bad apples, but I don't.

Hillel famously said that the entire Torah is the principle "What is hateful to you, don't do to others." Personally it would make me feel a hell of a lot better to spend that time dissing those people who diss me, but ill-mannered, ad hominem dissing is hateful to me. I have the opportunity to bump up inter-denominational relations, and I'm going to take that opportunity to emphasise the good parts because I think that harmony and understanding is a much better state of affairs than mutual slanging and distrust. Hillel's contrapositive is Charles Kingsley's Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby.



* Journalists usually edit that bit out, I suppose cos it's not juicy enough.

(no subject)

Gorgeous klaf + amazing quill + well-behaved ink = four columns in two days (as well as naps, admin, swimming and teaching). Really nice letters, too. Happy am I.

Another one of those funny coincidences, now I think about it. This particular piece of klaf is amusingly splotchy on the back (at UH I was using it to demonstrate how klaf retains a lot of the features of the original animal, this particular calf having been black and white in splotches), and in the writing it's got the bit where Jacob gets all the splotchy animals as wages.

Also, the writing on this piece has been fast, smooth and lovely, going at a splendid pace, did I mention four columns in two days? and much of the subject-matter was alarming fecundity, the bit where Leah and the maidservants are popping out babies every couple of minutes and the bit where the flocks are multiplying like nobody's business.

I do like it when the writing matches the real-life circumstances in some way. My other favourite was on some restoration, summer before last - a goat scroll. Goat scrolls are usually a bit whiffy, but one of the klaf sheets in particular was quite overwhelmingly goaty (and isn't it extraordinary how the tanning process and a couple of hundred years combined can't get the smell out? Talk about longevity). Really, seriously, reeling-backwards give-me-air goaty - and it was one of the sections which talks about "a pleasing odour to the Lord." Which I thought was spectacularly amusing.