My friend Emily DeVoto has a marvelous blog, The Antidote: Counterspin for Health Care and Health News. It is exactly what it sounds like, a critical take on health and health care news. On Nov 30 she posted something that I thought I'd pass along: Something's Fishy.

The gist of it is that while it's good for our health to eat fish, some fish are being over-fished for their survival. That hardly seems fair, and beyond fairness, long term it could be really bad news. Her blog entry includes a PDF with a neat little fold-out thingie for your shopping bag that tells you which fish are your best buy from a survival point of view (ours and theirs.)

The good news, as far as I'm concerned, is that anchovies are still on the menu. I realize that may not thrill everyone, but I'm happy. Sardines are good, as is carp. The "big three," shrimp, tuna, and salmon, are more problematic (for more info, read her post and the PDF.)

It has taken a week for the news from last week's election to sink in: we are going to have a Democratic Congress. I thought I'd be ecstatic if that happened, but now I find I'm just sort of tired and cautiously optimistic.

There is so much to do to repair the damage of the last five years, and I do not envy the new Congress that has to do it. The national budget is hemorrhaging of red ink, Iraq is Terrorism Central, we have (in the words of Colin Powell) "broken it and bought it," and still the bodies keep piling up in Baghdad. The rest of the Middle East is festering, our allies are looking at us sideways, wondering if we can be trusted, and we've repudiated the Geneva Conventions, for crying out loud. Meanwhile our ports are vulnerable to attack, but my eye drops never go near the airport without a Ziplock baggie.

The world hasn't felt this dangerous to me since I knelt with the rest of the second graders in the hall at Overbrook School, praying that God would keep Castro from firing off those nukes at Miami. The difference is that this time I feel like we've mostly done this to ourselves.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know: terrorists. Even there, I'm sorry, I am not going to let my government off the hook: why didn't we hunt down Al Qaeda when we had them cornered in Afghanistan? Why did we squander every bit of the international goodwill after 9/11 on this stupid mess in Iraq? Why was Iraq deemed more important than the real threat of nukes in Iran and North Korea? Why have we run this so-called "war" without any sacrifices at home, with tax cuts and lattes all around?

And why, why, why do we keep calling the terrorists "jihadists" which is, to their ears, like calling them "the guys in the white hats"? Do our news media and our government not understand that when we do that, we are affirming that yes, indeed, we're the Great Satan?

Augh.

As for me, I am still praying. This time I'm praying for Nancy Pelosi and the other new leaders we've elected, praying that they will be wise and prudent and will not blow their precious political capital on dumb stuff like revenge. I'm praying that they will find a way out of these various messes. I'm praying that they can hang onto their souls while they do it.

In the meantime, I shall get back to my homework.

It's Motsei Shabbat -- the evening after Shabbat -- and I am enjoying the afterglow of a lovely day. I attended services today at Temple Beth Sholom in San Leandro, CA. Behind the large 60's synagogue is the tiny "Little Shul" from the 1890's. It is a haimish [homey] little place, and I felt instantly comfortable there.

Rabbi Harry Manhoff presided, but most of the service was led by a young woman from the congregation, and the Torah was chanted by several adults from the shul's Hebrew program. Very impressive!

The rest of the day was spent eating good food and chatting with friends at home. What could be more perfect?

In "Freakoutonomics," in the current issue of The New Republic, Jonathan Chait writes:

"Over the last quarter century, the portion of the national income accruing to the richest 1 percent of Americans has doubled. The share going to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent has tripled, and the share going to the richest one-hundredth of 1 percent has quadrupled."

This is serious, serious stuff and I recommend the entire article. Income inequality in this country has grown steadily in the past few years, and the rate of increase has skyrocketed recently. Chait points out that one of the ways we see this is in the economic dissatisfactions of the middle class: despite the fine performance of the economy on paper, those gains have gone to the most privileged in our country. Meanwhile, the poor have gotten poorer, and the middle class have gotten nowhere at all, and prices have done what prices do in a roaring economy -- they've gone up.

Another item I recommend: Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. It's an interesting view of the woman and the time: the ferment in the streets of Paris is visible only on the margins, an occasional downbeat reference almost lost in the sybaritic consumption, opulence, and sheer silliness of Versailles. The opening scene says it all in shorthand: a servant tends to Marie's toes while she languorously drags a finger through the icing on a cake.

Marie knows that she is a woman whose primary function is as a symbol and a womb: she is there to cement a bit of realpolitik and to bear heirs for the Bourbons. In the meantime, she is free to enjoy herself within the rules of the Versailles court, which means that the only part of her that enjoys much freedom is her purse. Goodies insue, until the revolution comes and the party is over. The movie ends then, allowing the viewer to contemplate the situation without the distractions of the prison and the guillotine.

I've seen some interviews in which Coppola says that she was interested in the idea of the teen monarchs, able to do as they like. Maybe so, but the movie also stands for me as a warning to those of us who enjoy prosperity in days that are not prosperous for everyone.

Marie Antoinette never said, "Let them eat cake." The movie and several other accounts portray her as a nice party girl who did the charitable things expected of her, and who shopped and consumed for fun. She loved her family, was a good mother, and was not much sillier than anyone else around her. A generation earlier, we might not remember her at all. We remember her and her luckless family because they didn't realize that privileges can be revoked until it was too late.

In a country where "the share going to the richest one-hundredth of 1 percent has quadrupled," we cannot afford to be so blinkered. Wake up, America: get your fingers out of the cake -- smell the republic burning.

I have put some new materials up on the website: this week's Torah study and Hebrew lesson, a guide to saying and writing blessings, and a poem connected with the Nachamu, Nachamu exhibit.

This Wednesday, Nov. 1, the exhibition "Nachamu, Nachamu: The Heavens Spread Out Like a Prayer Shawl" will open at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, CA. I had the privilege of being one of the rabbinical students in the midrash class that participated in the process with the artist, Victor Raphael, and the further privilege of introducing the artist and part of the work at the school's Opening Day, on August 20, 1996.

This is the speech that I gave that day, and the picture to the right is one small part of the installation in Room 105. If you are in or near Los Angeles, I strongly recommend you come to HUC and see Victor's work; it is transcendant.

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What do you get when you combine one teacher of midrash, eleven rabbinical students, and a world-class multimedia artist?

Or

How do you put windows into an HUC classroom without blowing holes in the wall?

The answers to those questions lie behind the copper-clad door of Room 105.

Last year eleven unsuspecting students signed up for a one term class on “Homeletical Midrashim” taught by Dr. Lewis Barth. We did not know that we were embarking on what would become a year-long project, indeed, that four members of the class would be ordained before the work was complete.

The class studied the 16th Pesikhta of the Pesikhta de Rav Kahana, a 5th c. collection of midrashim. Pesikta #16 is a homily on the haftarah for Shabbat Nachamu, “Nachamu, Nachamu Ami” [Comfort, Comfort My people]. About two weeks into the course, Dr. Barth told us that this was not an ordinary midrash class. Donors Nancy Berman and Alan Bloch had offered HUC the commission of a work of art. Our task was to learn Pesikta #16, and then teach it to an artist named Victor Raphael. He would then create an interpretation of the midrash, a major work of art, for permanent installation at HUC Los Angeles.

In the process, we learned and taught midrash, but we also learned about the nuts and bolts of working with an artist on a commission from an institution. Victor came to our class to teach us about his work process, a fascinating multimedia journey involving digital photography, computer-based techniques and hand-painting in gold and metal leaf. We made a presentation at the Bloch and Berman home, to teach the midrash to them and to Victor, following with a discussion of the structure and imagery of the homily.

Some months after the class was officially over, we met again with Victor to see the work in progress and to help with some of the decisions about the artwork. Victor, Dr. Barth, and our class met with Dax Clark to look at the project from the point of view of building maintenance issues.

Over this time, the initial “work of art” became instead an installation that would, we hoped, transform one of our HUC classrooms into a space for sacred study. Another anonymous donor made it possible to upgrade the lighting and the wall-covering.

This midrash class was an education for all of us. It is our hope that the result of all this work is a worshipful study space, a room that offers comfort and inspiration for both teachers and students. The images are grounded in Jewish texts, and they emerged from a conversation among many different members of the Los Angeles Jewish community: Nancy Berman, Dean Barth, our class, Victor Raphael, Dax Clark, and others.

The title of the work is,

“Nachamu, Nachamu: The Heavens Spread Out Like a Prayer Shawl.”

Now, I would like to introduce the artist who has carried out this remarkable work, who worked with us so patiently and generously: the artist Victor Raphael:

Victor was born and raised in California, earning a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles. His artwork has been collected by numerous private and public institutions, including the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and exhibited internationally, from Denmark’s Museet for Fotokunst to Tokyo’s Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

Please welcome our artist, our friend, our companion, and teacher, Victor Raphael.

Today was the sort of day I hoped for when I applied to rabbinical school.

I rolled out of bed at 6, and by 7 was rolling out of the garage, on my way to pick up a friend I drive on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We chatted happily, arrived at HUC, and I spent the entire morning studying Ezra 9 and 10 with Dr. Tamara Eskenazi, the hot-button chapters on intermarriage. We "turned it and turned it" and while I am not yet willing to say I know what those chapters say, I do feel safe in saying that the ways I have understood them in the past are quite wrong.

I wished Pearl good luck with her senior sermon and hopped back into the car, driving north to the San Fernando Valley to my internship. On the way, I stopped for a bite of lunch and quickly scanned the Los Angeles Times. (One thing I love about Los Angeles: not since I lived in Chicago have I lived in a city with a truly great newspaper. Even with the recent cuts, the Times is bliss for this confirmed newspaper junkie.)

The Home was all abuzz with preparations for the dedication of a new building, and the residents I serve were a bit buzzy by association. It was a good day for the student rabbi to come and hold hands, and listen to stories, and sing a prayer or two. I stopped for a bit to chat with the activities director, to share concerns about a couple of residents and to see how she is doing.

Then, when my hours there were done, I hopped back into the car, and (the one blot on the day) I joined the crawl of traffic back down Hwy 405 southward. Normally I stay in the Valley and study until the traffic breaks up a bit, but today I had a shiur [lesson] at my Ethics teacher's home, so there was nothing to do but get in the car and try to arrive on time.

It was well worth the annoyance of the drive: Professor Arthur Gross-Schaeffer is a rabbi, an attorney, and a CPA as well as a distinguished ethicist. He outlined for us his methodology for dealing with ethical questions, an elegant system. Beyond the content, though, it was a pleasure to be in the room with a man of erudition, holiness, and humor. I sincerely hope this isn't the last time I study with him.

And now here I am, pecking away at my laptop in the Starbuck's on Venice Blvd (it stays open late, and it's on the way home) since I don't have a high speed connection at home. I'm very, very tired, but equally happy. I learned a lot today.