Telling Off a Rabbi

I’ve done this once.

And it wasn’t even a rabbi that I knew well.

Why? Because from the pulpit, he gave a great long speech about the dangers of intermarriage and how that was going to decrease the numbers of Jews.

Really annoyed at hearing this rant against intermarriage as the source of the problem again I decided to say something about it. (One of the reasons why people looked at me with amazement when in college was because they were all brain-washed to believe that all kids of intermarriage were permanantly lost to the tribe!)

Now, this rabbi’s custom was to shake hands with everyone as they left shul after a long and arduous fast. So when it came my turn, I told him, “Thank you for including me in your shul. By the way, I just wanted to let you know that I am from an intermarried couple.”

I think that sufficized to make my point. My hosts were the family of a friend from college and they knew me and they were members of the shul. Obviously, I was not some lost and confused soul who happened upon the shul.

I don’t know if that made a difference in the way the rabbi thought about children of intermarriage.

By the way, this article eloquently articulates a point that I have been making for years: That intermarriage itself is not the source of evil, but rather, that it is the symptom of indifference towards Judaism. I thank the author for writing this and publishing it in a journal. One point I would add though, is that it is good to know that in fact, perhaps because of their backgrounds, children of intermarried couples often engage with Judaism with a lot more fervour than the average two-Jewish-parented Jew when they decide to. And you know what, it’s not so uncommon.

 

Being a Soupaterian

I am a fishaterian as a way of compromise. Really, I want to be a Breatharian, but I don’t find that feasible.

Misha once told me about the Breatharian guru in Santa Cruz.

Apparently, there was a scandal in Santa Cruz because the Breatharian guru who was preaching to others to not eat food, was spotted walking out of the local burger shop with a big fat hamburger in his hand.

I know…. It’s not possible for us to live entirely on bacteria-free water and air. I know I know and yet that’s what I would LOVE to do.

I sometimes turn into a breatharian part-time. This stems from the fact that I have a not such good habit of frequently turning into a breatharian during the day when Misha is not around to put food on the table. This is especially likely to happen when my work is going well and I am really into what I am doing. I keep saying, “oh, let me just finish this up and then I will get up and have that rice.” But really, that moment keeps getting pushed off until, well, Misha’s turns up.

Slightly concerned about my state of health, Misha recently started to tell me exactly what kind of ready-to-eat cooked food is in the refrigeator. Today, he had told me about 味噌汁　(miso soup) in the fridge. So, I turned into a soupatarian until Misha’s return.

 

Didn’t Your Non-Jewish Parent Have Problems With Your Being Raised Jewish?

A common question I (and other kids of intermarriages) get asked is: “How did your non-Jewish parent feel about your being raised Jewish? Didn’t s/he object?”

Hmmm, interesting… So, the assumption here might be that the non-Jewish spouse will be hostile (or even have an anti-Semitic slant) towards Jews, Judaism, or Jewish ‘culture’ and still have married a Jew? Sounds like a hard thing to have accomplished unless the Jewish spouse is a self-loathing Jew (of which there are many), is involved in an abusive relationship, or simply didn’t see who they were marrying. All of which are possible, although perhaps not so likely for those who are conscious about their status of a “border-crossing” marriage.

In fact, I have witnessed more ambivalence towards Judaism and the concern for being “too Jewish” from Jewish parents more often than not. This is the same whether it is one or two Jewish parents. The outcome is that kids of two Jewish parents who both feel ambivalent or hostile towards being Jewish grow up with that intense ambivalence themselves. I have heard of a lot more intermarried families where the non-Jewish spouse was the more adamant or supportive one to instill a sense of Jewish identity in the child.

My parents? They are committed humanists, which makes them incredible curious and accepting people, particularly of their spouse’s cultural, historical, and ethnic backgrounds. My mother has made it her profession to be an expert on my father’s culture and language and my father reads up on a lot about my mother’s people, culture, and historical languages. When my father goes abroad, he looks for the local museum on my mother’s people.

Hostility towards Jewish people and Judaism? I witnessed a lot more from secular Jews with two Jewish parents than from most non-Jews except for anti-Semites.

 

Pesach (a.k.a Passover)

Pesach is coming up.

Incidentally, this happens to be my favorite holiday.

I always looked forward to it as a kid and still do as an adult.  It’s also the holiday that was most difficult for me to be away from home because I had such fond memories of celebrating it back home.  Two years ago, which was my first time I was able to be back home for Pesach again in ten years, was a truly memorable occasion.

My memory of Pesach was that our eating habit became incredibly simple.

Most of our meals would consist of Matzah, creamed cottage cheese, jam, very simple vegetable soup, and very simply flavored fish.  Everything seemed so magically and simply flavored compared to our usual rich flavorings using shoyu (soy sauce) and miso.  Plus, I loved the sweetness of matzah (still do) and the specialness of matzo ball soup being served.  This was the only time of the year we would get matzo ball soup because my mother refused to make it any other time of the year.

This year, Misha and I are planning on making Japanese potato croquettes (fried mashed potato balls).  I can’t wait!! My mouth is already watering….

 

The Story of Cukes

I love cukes, aka, cucumbers.

I used to be a great cucumber lover from infancy (I think), but there was a particular recipe that my mom sometimes made. I was a great fan of this recipe and remain to be today. But whenever I make this cuke recipe, I can’t forget how fortunate I am for being able to reproduce this recipe outside of Japan.

When I lived in Victoria, Canada, I had no kitchen so I didn’t think about foods that I could or could not make with available ingredients. The problem was more severe: I had no kitchen!! As a result, I developed a great fondness for dish washing. It was not such a bad thing. It just deprived me of cooking for two years.

When I lived in New York, I was shocked to find out that the kind of cucumbers that I could get at the local supermarket did not work so well for this recipe…

So my cucumber salad drought lasted for another four years. When I moved out to the San Francisco Bay Area, I did not have a car. That made it a little harder to scout out the cucumber situation so while eyeing the English hothouse cucumbers, I remained abstinant of my favorite cucumber recipe.When I moved down to the neighborhood that I live in now and walked into our local supermarket, I saw Persian cukes piled high sold at a reasonable price. I think I gasped. I knew instinctively that this would be the perfect substitute to my home-grown cucumbers that would allow me to make my favorite cucumber recipe.

They have thin edible unwaxed skin and are smaller than its American cousin. They make great cucumber salads.

The recipe is:

diagonally sliced cucumbers, sesame oil, and soy sauce

Because it is such a simple recipe, there are a few tips that make it better.

One: The cucumbers will taste sweeter if before slicing them up, you cut the ends and rub the head of the cucumber with its tail top. You will see some white foam coming out of the edge where the cucumber meat meets the skin, which is bitter if you taste it. Wash off this foam and slice up the cukes! (I learned this tip in my co-ed Home Economics class.)

Two: Use about the same amount of sesame oil and soy sauce.

Three: Don’t dress it heavily. For about 7 Persian cucumbers, I use probably about a teaspoon each of sesame oil and soy sauce. Too much gets too salty and oily. Not a good thing.

Oh, by the way, pickling cucumbers work fine too.

 

If I were a Housewife…

The other day when we were walking around in our neighborhood, I said to Misha, “Well, imagine.  If I were a housewife…”  But he didn’t let me continue.  He immediately said, “I would have an easier time imagining you as an astronaut than a housewife.”  I wanted to dwell on the fantasy for a split second longer than when he cut me off.  Although I’m not too bitter about it since I probably wouldn’t have been able to advance the vision much further than… oh, about… five words-worth more, to be on the generous side…  I could imagine being a medical doctor for a longer time (like five seconds) than being a housewife (probably for about two seconds).  Being an astronaut actually provided some great daydreaming material although also completely unrealistic.

The almost certain loneliness that being a housewife would bring to my life would be unbearable.  For the same reasons, I probably wouldn’t be able to deal with a job that required me to “work out of home” all the time.  I mean, you never know.  People change all the time, and you always find out about new realities that you didn’t know about.  But for now, my daydreaming seems to have no room for jobs and careers that require me to stay at home all day.  So I wonder what I will be when I “grow up.”  Hmmmm….

 

 

 

My Dad

 I kind of like my parents.  I think they are cool.  Not so much because they try to be up on the youth culture of the time (which I am not sure how much I am familiar with anyway), but because they take genuine interest in people and things around them.

 

My mom tells me the things about my dad that charmed her when they were still dating. 

 

One episode is when she asked him to tutor her in her Japanese, and he refused to be paid since it was not his area of specialty.  She thought, “wow! The samurai spirit!!  How cool!!” and I am sure that her eyes twinkled.

 

Another one is when she took him to a dinner with my uncle and grandfather and he was served bleu cheese.  He had never seen the stuff before and you know how strong smelling bleu cheese is.  But instead of turning his face away in disgust, he looked at it and said, 頂いてみましょうか。 To my mother, a student of Japanese, this must have sounded really cool.  (The utterance of a foreign language you are learning in earnest by a native speaker always arouses some tingly emotion—especially if it is by a man you already like)  At the same time, she was impressed by his laid back and adventurous attitude of trying something entirely new to him without reservations.  

 

A digression: My mom grew up in a home where new and different things were always worth trying out.  She tells me about this Chinese restaurant in Chinatown that her father used to take her to when she was young.  How he was friendly with the Chinese owner of the restaurant and how they used to try all the different and completely foreign foods to them.  Yes, she grew up in a typical cosmopolitan home with cosmopolitan values.

 

So, she thought “wow!! What a cool guy!!”

 

My father has not changed.  He is always eager to try new things with this nice laid back attitude and faces those new challenges or objects with a nice sincerity.  He is also quite serious about learning where my mother comes from.

 

(My mother has made knowing about Japan her profession, which was why my parents met in the first place, so she also doesn’t fall short in that area.)

 

He once confided in me something I never knew:  Whenever he goes to a foreign country, the first thing he does is to look for the Jewish museum or the Synagogue, or something Jewish in the area.  I never knew that. 

 

My parents are full of surprises.  That is why I think that they are so cool.

 

Shoes Off Please

Our dwelling is a shoes-off zone.

I am from Japan where this goes without saying and Misha has lived in Korea where, also this was just the understood norm.

I firmly believe that dirt from outside that sticks on the bottom of the shoes is far more unsanitary and dirty than whatever can possibly be on the floor or carpet of a house. I mean, you don't get dog shit or some stranger's phlegm in your house. The dirtiest it can get is dust that collects and food that YOU or someone you know has dropped on the floor. The dirtiness of a house really seems quite predictable.

However, it seems that others don't feel similarly.

If our lovely black carpet (–> the slightest bit of lint shows off really well) looks the slightest bit dirty the shoes don't come off–at least from the parent who seems to believe equally firmly that what looks dirty IN the house is equally unsanitary and unclean as what is OUTSIDE. The logic escapes me, since neither of us leave our shoes on in our temporary dwelling, making the inside a lot more sanitary than the outside by definition. But, such is life.

Misha tends to clean up the place quite nicely before his parents arrive, but the place apparently still appears like a dump to his perfectionist parent. Alas. I just wish that we had a 玄関. It would make the shoes-off policy a lot easier to enforce.

Leaving shoes on in the house just seems so dirty to me!! Yuck!!!

 

Pesach Craze

I love Pesach.

It was one of five holidays I grew up with and I always thought that it was rather fun.

I grew up celebrating Pesach, Chanukkah, お正月, Purim (sometimes), and Sukkot (until I was about 9).

Every year on Pesach my mom would read the Passover issue of the Tokyo Jewish Community Center Newsletter and tell me something new that she found out Passover that year–it usually concerned some new Kashrut rule that either she had forgotten about (I find it impossible to remember all the intricacies from year to year) or had learned new that year and she would ask me, “Do you want to do this?” Invariably I would say “Yes!”

So I fondly remember the year when we boiled all our silverwear for the first time to properly kasher them for Passover, eventhough they were unused all year.

Pesach is a crazy time of the year.

In fact, I confess that I go a little nuts during Pesach.

It’s fun for me. I get to be as machmir (strict in ritual observance) as I want in terms of Kashut in a way I usually find hard to be. Pesach gives me a great excuse.

Misha, who tends to think that I take things overboard (I disagree) thinks that it’s a bit ridiculous. But I don’t care as long as he gives me the freedom to do what I want.

I love all the matzah eating and the lack of rice (since I don’t eat kitniyot on Pesach) and all those familiar soy foods (like しょう油、味噌、豆腐) replaced with delicious matzo balls in vegetable broth. Matzah brie is something that my mother made only a few times during Passover, but I am lucky this year that that is one of the things Misha makes a lot of. I have already had savory and delicious matzo brie five times this Pesach!!

The sad thing is that Pesach is already on its way out. Sure, I am happy that my familiar Japanese and Korean foods can re-enter my life again, but I am also sad that that little craziness of Pesach is also almost over.

The three day break (two yom tovim plus Shabbat) at the beginning of Pesach this year really did me some good. It helped me to completely relax and re-focus like nothing else worked for me in the past.