Things I Learned in Hawaii

As most of you know, I've just spent four months living in Hawaii with my sister, Lisa. It might sound like one big vacation, but it wasn't, though I definitely did have some fun. In reality, I was living in a suburban town, not near the beach, with only occasional access to a car, and without much cash. It was a lovely place, though, and I did get to enjoy beach days. I was very fortunate, and my sister has been exceedingly kind to me. It was a blessing to spend so much time with her and in such a beautiful place. And I got to play tour guide to several friends who visited while I was there. I truly love Oahu and I already miss it. The mixing and blending of cultures there is wonderful, and appreciation for the natural world is almost a given.

During my time on Oahu, I did do some legal work. I also spent significant time searching for a job back in the DC area. I took frequent long walks in our neighborhood. And I spent a lot of time helping my sister. During my first week, I helped her prepare her AP students for a big social studies competition. I graded a lot of papers. I helped chaperon junior prom, and I helped her clean up and check out of her classroom. I did housework and sometimes I cooked. During the final week or so on the island, Lisa and I had to pack her belongings and move them into a "POD" for delivery to the mainland. (Trust me, that was no vacation!)

I learned a lot while I was in Hawaii, and I thought it would be amusing to write some of it down. So here's a list, in no particular order, of some things I learned in Hawaii:

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I thrive in warm sunny weather and can apparently only stand the winter if there's snow and a large hill. This presents a problem in DC, and I'm going to have to figure out a way to deal with it. (Note to self: living in the desert is *not* the answer.)

Cats aren't so bad if they are silly like Quincy.

It takes a tough cookie to be a public school teacher. (I could write a whole essay about teaching in the Hawaii public schools, but then again Lisa could write a book.)

The more I like Hawaii, the more I also realize I miss Vermont. They are more alike than you think, at least in the ways that are important. Laid-back attitude, independent, similar skiing/surfing culture, emphasis on the natural world, liberal with a strong conservative streak, beautiful landscapes.

I like the ocean as much as the mountains. Sometimes maybe more, but probably not.

Slippers are awesome, and don't make me stop wearing them!

I love my friends. I also hate talking on the phone, so I hope they will forgive me for that.

I think I generally get more attached to places than I do to people. But the exceptions are important.

My sister is still my best friend.

I really don't like being without my dog, but I can do it if I have to.

No matter how much I love my Oahu, I can't make anybody else see it my way. I have to accept that others will see this place in a completely different way than I do. The best I can seem to do to communicate my Oahu is to take pictures and try to share my vision that way. (Corallary: I wish I had a better camera.)

Lizards are cute. Green sea turtles are gorgeous. Myna birds and chickens are funny. And feral pigs don't belong on soccer fields, even though they wind up there anyway.

I'm okay with not having a job. I don't define myself by my career, and I don't want to. I'm afraid a lot of people in East Coast culture aren't okay with that, but tough.

I need financial independence. Therefore, I need a job. So I'm looking for one -- anything that will help me pay my debts and make me feel like I am making a positive difference in the world.

I am a good helper. I like to help. Just ask nicely.

Swing/blues dancing is awesome in DC. And that matters to me. A lot.

I am a plumeria-aholic. I hope one day I can grow and cultivate them. They are the perfect flowers.

I want to travel more. I kind of knew it already, but now I am considering that I'd be very happy to have a job that involved travel. Unfortunately, that has to take back seat to the money/positive difference thing.

I can be Jewish anywhere, but it isn't always going to look the same. Going to shul here didn't work for me, and without other Jews constantly around me, keeping sabbath was difficult. But I pretty much kept the same level of kosher I had been, and I had my own (modest) Seder. My biggest regret with my Jewishness was letting my Torah reading slide.

My sister is married to a pretty cool guy. Just saying.

I can successfully talk to clients even if they have heavy accents and even if they prefer to meet in Filipino fast food restaurants featuring pork.

I can get by with a little help from my friends. You know who you are.

My sister is awesome. But I knew that already.

I like some kinds of raw fish, if prepared well. Fortunately I get to say "no thank you" to squid, by virtue of that kosher thing.

I would strongly prefer not to live without Trader Joe's. But it's nice to have a year round farmer's market.

Tsunamis can be only 2 or 3 feet high. Also, the plot of The Poseidon Adventure is total nonsense.

I now know a lot about Hawaiian History and culture, but not as much as Lisa does.

I don't like weeding the akulikuli.

I need to learn to swim better.

I would like to have a better camera because I really do like photography.

The Job (the temporary one)

A lot of people have been asking me about my new job. Today was my fourth day, and I'm getting the hang of it, though I won't lie and say it's fun. I will, though, tell you a little about it. If you aren't a lawyer, you might be surprised what some lawyers spend their days doing.

Before I begin, I want to say that I am really thankful to have a job as an attorney that pays decently, especially considering the state of the economy, which has been quite hard on lawyers (but yeah, I know you don't pity lawyers!). So far everyone is treating me well and my co-workers seem very nice.

I'm working as a temporary document review attorney in the workroom of a medium-large law firm in downtown Baltimore. Supposedly most of us will be working this case for about 2-3 months, but it could get cut short, or it could go on long past that. About 25 lawyers sit in the room with me, all of us at tables; about 10 more sit in an adjoining room. There are two workspaces per table. A workspace consists of a hard drive, a large flat screen, a keyboard and a mouse. There are no decorations or personal items around, unless you count the cups of coffee at almost every spot. I guess I'm lucky. I sit on the end of a row, and the lawyer who shares my table seems pretty nice and easy-going.

All of the attorneys I work with are employees of an attorney staffing firm. Our client is the law firm, whose client in turn is a Fortune 500 corporation. I wish I could tell you more, but confidentiality rules won't allow it.

Here's what my day is like: I wake up at about 6:30 AM and leave the house around 7:30 to drive to Baltimore, where I park in a garage and walk to the law firm's building. I put on a name tag (My name and "Temporary Employee," it says) so people in the building know I "belong" there. For the most part, I'm probably not going to get to know any of the permanent firm attorneys.

I sit down at my workspace and send an email to a timekeepers so she knows I've arrived. Then I begin my work: I spend 8 hours looking at my flat screen, searching manually through hundreds of computer-scanned documents: emails, letters, spreadsheets and power point presentations. Like everyone else in the room, it's my job to decide whether each document is relevant to the case and whether we legally must produce it to the opposing party's law firm. Most of the documents are not very exciting (to say the least), and I often see what appears to be the same document multiple times. The work is very repetitive, but it's important to be diligent and not take anything for granted. The most difficult thing about the job is staying alert enough not to miss anything important -- thus the coffee, which I do not ordinarily drink.

I don't talk to anyone very much. Everyone is concentrating. Sometimes people listen to ipods, but that's the only entertainment anyone has. We don't have access to the Internet or personal emails, and we are required to keep our phones muted. The client is paying us to get the work done efficiently, and besides, it would be rude to distract the other attorneys. During my 30 minute lunch, I try to take a walk outdoors and get a quick meal; I find I'm rather desperate to get out of that room (though it isn't completely unpleasant -- it does have big windows and decent ventilation). At the end of the day, we send an "I'm leaving" email, turn the computers off, and return home.

Who are the attorneys in this room with me? Many, like me, are only a year or two out of law school, and some are working their first job as an attorney. A surprising number of the others have recently been laid off from firms all along the East Coast. Some have small private practices in their "spare time." Others are waiting for a more permanent position. Judging on looks alone, I would estimate that the attorneys range in age from about 26 to about 59. Many seem to be married and have children. From what I can tell, they come from just about every background, race and religion, which I find rather impressive, actually.

One thing I think almost all of us have in common: none of us expected or hoped to be doing this kind of work after spending 3-4 years in law school and in many cases working as litigators or law clerks or patent attorneys or what have you. But more and more law firms are needing to hire lawyers like this to work on massive litigation projects, while fewer of them are hiring permanent associates. Who has the money to hire all these attorneys? I'll let you figure that out on your own. Just know that it's not the "average" guy or gal on the street....

Beauty in Judaism -- D'var Torah, November 14, 2009

(Quite a few people asked me after the service if they could see a text of the d'var I gave on the occasion of my class's adult bat mitzvah. So here it is.)

"Why did you convert?" It's been over three years since I went to the mikvah to become a Jew, but this is a question that still surfaces with surprising frequency. People are surprisingly bold on this matter -- sometimes a person I've only just met will hear that my name is "Brannigan," see the Star of David on my necklace and want to know, "what's the deal with that?"

There are many reasons why I decided I wanted to be Jewish -- too many to enumerate. Suffice it to say that, at core, I have long felt that I was Jewish at heart. But today I want to discuss just one of the reasons I felt the Jewish faith and community had something to offer me -- something that I feel strongly is missing in much of secular life. I want to talk about the depth of the meaning of beauty in the Jewish tradition and what that means for those who follow its teachings -- especially for women like those of us who are celebrating becoming b'not mitzvah as adults today.

In today's parsha, we are introduced to the matriarch Rivka, Rebecca, who is said to have been pleasing to the eyes. As it is translated simply in Etz Hayim, at Breishit 24:16, "[Rebecca] was very beautiful." In fact, we are told at various times that all of the matriarchs could be described as beautiful to behold. What does that mean? Must a Jewish woman strive to be beautiful? Is beauty a noteworthy characteristic?

Considering my well-known Naomi Wolf-inspired brand of feminism, some of you may be surprised that I think the answer is "yes." And not only must a Jewish woman strive to be beautiful, but a Jewish man must strive to be beautiful as well. But -- beauty in Judaism is not defined as simplistically as it is in the current materialistic, secular culture. Many of us are used to thinking that beauty is about clear skin and toned muscles and a youthful glow. But in Jewish tradition, it is much deeper and wholistic; it includes not just the physical attributes of a person but the way a person thinks and acts and carries himself or herself in the community. Judaism most definitely gives value to beauty, but it recognizes that beauty is found in qualities beyond the physical.

The late Rabbi Joshua Shmidman of McGill University described the idea of Jewish beauty in an essay that you can find reprinted on the internet after Shabbat. He derives this notion from the rabbinical definition of beauty found in the description of the etrog tree. To quote Rabbi Shmidman:

"The Torah requires: "And you shall take unto yourselves on the first day (of Sukkot) a fruit of a beautiful tree -- pri etz hadar." The Talmud (Sukkot 35a) wishes to define what constitutes a beautiful tree by analyzing the Hebrew word for beautiful, hadar. The sages conclude that it is the etrog tree, because the word "hadar" is interpreted to be a fruit which "dwells continuously all year on the tree" (ha-dar, literally, "that which dwells"). Thus, they understand the word "dar" to mean the opposite of temporary or intermittent residence; rather, it implies permanence, a continuous process through time (similar to the French "duree" or the English "endure"). The etrog tree fulfils this requirement of constant dwelling, for most other fruits are seasonal, but the etrog grows, blossoms and produces fruit throughout all the seasons: in the heat and the cold, in the wind and in storm -- it stubbornly persists! It endures! And in the Jewish view, that is why it is beautiful."

The sages find beauty in that which endures -- and therefore, also in that which is old. Shmidman continues by reminding us of the commandment to respect the elderly: "'Ve'hadarta p'nei zakein,' which is usually translated 'and honor the face of the old person.' The word hadar, however, literally means 'beauty', so what the verse is actually telling us is to ascribe beauty to the old face."

I have come to believe that beauty is derived not just from age and experience, but from the wisdom acquired through age and experience. Not only that, but such wisdom -- a wisdom that is exemplified by Torah itself -- can provide even more ways to achieve beauty. For instance, this wisdom teaches us the beauty of eternal qualities, such as chesed.

Indeed, going back to today's parsha, while Rebecca's physical beauty is mentioned once, the Torah repeatedly talks about Rebecca possessing "chesed" -- lovingkindness. Chesed is the quality for which Abraham's servant, whom tradition identifies as Eliezer, was searching when he applied his test: Rebecca not only offered water to Eliezer when she was asked for it, but on her own initiative she also offered water for his camels. This act of chesed demonstrated to Eliezer -- and to us -- why she was an appropriate match for the son of Abraham. And her act also shows the fullness of Rebecca's beauty -- that it did not come only from a simple assessment of her looks, but from a more complete assessment of her character.

There is an oft-quoted verse in the section of Proverbs known as Eshet Chayil in which we are told that "beauty is vanity." In this verse, we are reminded that physical beauty cannot be an end unto itself. An Eshet Chayil -- a woman of valor -- does not strive for physical beauty, for that is not a type of beauty that endures. Instead, she strives for more eternal qualities: She is kind, and tends to the needs of others. She is industrious; she is strong and honorable. She tends to her spirituality. These qualities give her a beauty "beyond jewels," the beauty that reflects the eternal beauty of Judaism.

Here at Tikvat Israel, as well as in the larger Jewish community, I saw when I was considering conversion that women -- and men as well -- were valued not for some materialistic and shallow, secular version of beauty, but for all the ways in which their thoughts and actions made them beautiful to behold. In recent months, I have seen this beauty displayed by the women who have been sharing with me this experience of officially becoming a "bat mitzvah." These are women, who, like me, are striving to be women of valor, women who are constantly becoming more fully Jewish.

I'd like to take a moment to honor these women, by talking about why we've decided to publicly celebrate becoming b'not mitzvah today. To understand their stories, a few weeks ago I asked my classmates to write for me their thoughts about what becoming a bat mitzvah today means to them. Their stories are varied and very personal -- some of us were raised as Jews but did not have the opportunity to learn Torah and religous practices as youngsters, while others of us chose Judaism later in life and are only recently becoming acquainted with the traditions.

For some, religious practices were not a large part of their upbringing, and for these women, the training we've been receiving over recent months has been a chance to discover new aspects of what it means to be Jewish. For others, religious Judaism was a big part of life until they reached an age where girls' religious education traditionally ended. I want to quote one of my bat mitzvah classmates, Rebecca, because I believe we've come to an important realization in the American Conservative community -- we understand now in a way we didn't understand a couple of generations ago that to limit a Jewish woman's religious education was potentially to deny her an opportunity to fully express her Judaism.

Rebecca was raised in an Orthodox synagogue, and she says she shared in learning experiences with boys until they reached age 12. At that point the girls were told they no longer needed to continue with Hebrew school. "I was heartbroken and disillusioned," Rebecca recently wrote to me, "since I envisioned that I would be learning all of the things the older bar mitvahs had learned. At that point, my formal religious education came to an abrupt halt. No one could adequately answer my questions so I was left feeling rejected and devalued." To her credit, Rebecca continued to embrace and love Judaism, despite no doubt feeling discouraged. Because of this opportunity for a renewed religious education, Tikvat Israel has helped Rebecca and others in our group take part in the preservation and continuity -- and therefore the beauty -- of Jewish tradition.

Another woman in our group described for me just how important the religious practices are to the continuity of the Jewish people. To be able to properly say kaddish for a departed parent or loved one -- could there be a more beautiful expression of Judaism? It's the most profound example I can think of, illustrating how the Jewish people, our history, and our traditions unite to create a truly spiritual and enduring beauty. By continuing with our religious educations -- and by marking a milestone in our educations today -- we are honoring not only this beautiful Jewish religion but this amazing family that is Judaism.

When Is Kvetching Legitimate?

On Yom Kippur, my rabbi suggested to the congregation that we should consider taking measures to complain less. I think he's right in many respects: one should take care not to complain so much that one forgets to be thankful for the gifts of life, and one should not complain so much as to be blind to others' legitimate complaints. He suggested the use of a Complaint Free World bracelet. The purple band can be worn around your wrist, and whenever you catch yourself complaining, you switch wrists to physically remind yourself of how often you do it. I suppose it's a bit OCD, but I can see the value in it and I plan to give it a try. I am quite aware that I spend too much time whining!

At the same time, however, I found myself thinking about the value of complaining. Perhaps I see it this way because I'm a lawyer, since after all, when one wants to begin a civil lawsuit, one begins by drafting a "complaint." If we didn't complain about bad treatment, if we didn't protest unfairness verbally, we would often be unable to change our circumstances.

The trick, then, is to figure out the difference between whining and making a bid for change. I suppose my rabbi was referring in his speech to the kind of complaining that happens when one is uncomfortable or unhappy but does not or cannot seek to make a change. This might be most common when making a change is impossible, and as an expression of emotion, it is tolerable in small doses. The challenge is to try to find the things one can change and to do one's best to accept and deal with one's lot in life when things cannot be changed.

Complaining is an important part of creating social change. If women and minorities never complained about their treatment, the white male establishment might never have understood their dissatisfaction and would certainly have not done their part to make changes to society and the law. Similarly, aggrieved workers must protest -- in essence, complain -- if they want recognition of a union contract or if they hope to set a boycott in motion.

Certainly, political protest is not what my rabbi was referring to in his speech. However, I would suggest that the fine line between complaining and protesting is not always clear to everyone. In an effort to be "less trouble" to one's superiors or even oppressors, in an effort to do the politically or even religiously "correct" thing and not be seen as a "whiner," sometimes we fail to protest when protest is most needed. So while I definitely agree that constant kvetching is a bad habit many of us (including me!) need to break, I also believe that it is my right and duty to complain when values such as justice, fairness, and equality are on the line.

Feeling Bad During the High Holidays

Well, here it is, almost Rosh Hashanah, and I am just not feeling the joy.

My bad feelings about the high holidays actually began last year on Yom Kippur. The president of my congregation gave a hard-nosed speech on that day about how many people in the congregation were not pulling their weight financially. I probably would have felt it was an unwarranted speech, designed to make the fast harder for everyone, even if I had been in good financial shape. But since I was extremely under-employed at the time, with expenses far outweighing income and lots of debt, I was particularly disturbed by the speech. I had been giving what I could towards dues at my shul -- $10 at a time when I had it to spare -- and only the day before I had slipped all the cash I had into the administration office mailbox just before the holiday had begun. So I will tell you, the last thing in the world I wanted was to spend a half hour in a crowded synagogue, hungry, and hearing about the congregational money woes about which I was doing everything I could despite feeling my admittedly lame efforts were largely unappreciated. I felt so sick to my stomach and angry after the speech that I was in bed most of the day and did not return for afternoon services until it was time to meet my family/friends to break the fast in the evening with cookies. It was a miserable day, all in all.

This year I am no better off. In fact, things are worse. I owe more people more money, and I have been getting meager unemployment checks (based on the temp job pay I had been receiving last fall) ever since February. I'm living on the charity of friends and family to a large extent, and while I've been making every effort to get an appropriate job, I've had no luck so far. I dread another Yom Kippur debacle... please tell me I'm not going to hear more about what an awful congregant I am for slacking off on dues. I just can't take it right now, and I don't think I deserve it, either. I'm really wondering if I can handle going to services this season, though I will go anyway; the high holidays have brought me a sense of renewal in the past, so I have to have faith it will happen again.

I have so much to be grateful for: Family and friends who love me and support me, a roof over my head, a best-buddy dog who suffered a larger dog's bite and survived a few weeks ago, opportunities to dance and hike and do other joyous things, and of course the gift of life itself. I'm not sick, and I don't live in a country where bad luck and debt lead to prison -- or worse. I have a good education and a good mind, so I know my bad luck won't last forever (right?). Intellectually, I know I should be overjoyed to have reached a new year. So why do I feel so bad? Why am I unable to get past my financial woes? Aren't there people who have it much worse, and why do I spend so much time dwelling on the negative?

Hopefully I'll be able to post again after Yom Kippur that I'm feeling better. Until then, may you be inscribed in the book of life -- l'shana tova.