Faithful Journeys

Matisyahu made big news in the Jewish world when he decided to shave off his beard a couple of weeks ago. People questioned his association with Chabad and Orthodoxy and even his Judaism.

In the video above, he talks about his dramatic entry into Orthodoxy.

"When I grew my beard I was, like, just getting into Judaism. ...I like the way it felt. I liked representing myself as Jew because I felt something inside of me, Jewish, that was coming alive

Then at a certain point I found out...the group that I was heavily into said that you can't cut it, even if you want to. It's against the law, and besides it's a representation of God's mercy...so I bought into that for a long time."

He goes on to describe how there were moments he loved the beard and moment he felt very uncomfortable. He felt like people were looking at him funny.

And he liked the restriction against cutting it. He couldn't cut it even if he wanted to. And he was afraid -- he was afraid of what everyone would say, that he sold out. And he was afraid of the religious consequences, until he learned to trust himself.

Turns out that Matisyahu was right to be worried about what people would think. He broke the news with a tweet and a picture that showed him, for the first time in his public life, beard-free.

matisyahu At the break of day I look for you at sunrise When the tide comes in I lose my disguise yfrog.com/mng3ocj yfrog.com/mgj7ezhj

And following the uproar, he sent another tweet, indicating that all was OK. Nothing had changed. Going to shul and mikveh like always -- it's just a beard.

matisyahu For those who are confused today I went to mikveh and shul just like yesterday

So in the end, it’s just a beard.

In and Out of Love

I have seen many people come in and out of Judaism in recent years. Many come into the religion quietly and without fanfare. Often these are people joining Judaism because they are joining a Jewish family.

The other group are those who have experiences like Matisyahu's. The epiphany. The extremist moments. Hearing about how a beard is God' mercy one day and throwing out your razor the next. Donning tzitzit and making sure the tails hang out so everyone can see: I'm a Jew.

Matisyahu was 19 when he officially join the Lubavitch movement. Before that he was most Jewish kids I know. Brought up in a liberal steam of Judaism and rebelling against it as an adolescent. He went a little further than most -- dropping out of school, dropping lots of drugs and following Phish around the country. It's not really a surprise, is it, that a kid who would go to such an extreme would pick an extreme form of Judaism to come back to.

These kinds of stories often have a similar turn to Matisyahu's. The enthusiasm wears off and the 'high' of finding an answer for your life is trumped by living everyday life. I can't count how many people have walked through the doors of our synagogue thinking they had finally found the answer who walk right out again a few years later, leaving our community and Judaism forever.

I'm glad Matisyahu has decided to stick around, to not leave Judaism completely because the more extreme version of it doesn't suit him any more. In some ways, I wish I had his footsteps to follow in.

When you have doubts about liberal Judaism, where the rules are so few and far between and the substance of the thing is wispy anyway, where do you go? Where do we go now?

Vampire Hipster, or Why I Hate Twilight

Vampire legends and lore have been around for thousands of years, but the vampire really took hold in American popular culture with the stage, radio and film adaptations of Bram Stoker's novel of 1897. Movies were made starting in the 1920s and Bela Lugosi (left) owned the role of Dracula for generations of moviegoers. Not exactly tops on the sexy list, is he?

There is always a sexual component to being bit on the neck -- it's where the lifeblood is, and it's one hell of an erogenous zone, and even being bitten by the less-than-sexy Lugosi was an ecstatic experience. "I vant to suck your blood," was Bela's best pickup line.

I've never seen the 1950s versions where LOTR star Christopher Lee played the count, but the sex appeal quotient was even lower than Lugosi's. He wasn't a vampire out to seduce women as much as he was to feast on them.

In 1992, Francis Ford Coppola made the version of Dracula that is probably most faithful to Stoker's book. Gary Oldman played Dracula and Winona Ryder was Mina Harker. Anthony Hopkins was Ven Helsing and, whoah dude, Keanu Reeves was Jonathan Harker. I was in college and saw the film at least twice in theatres.

Claudia and Louis and Lestat

But me real love of Vampires was born in my childhood home in Littleton, Colorado. My parents had an extensive book collection, including a small white paperback with a cover that still haunts me -- a 1st edition of Anne Rice's "Interview with a Vampire." It was pulblished in 1976, when I was 4, and the cover featured a little girl in a frilly pink and white dress, flanked by two Louis and Lestat, resplendent in pure white. I'd stared at the cover for years before I dared to dive between the covers and explore the world of Anne Rice's vampires. I was probably 11 when I first read Interview, and as soon as I finished I turned right back to the first page and read it again. I became obsessive about the sequels.

The Vampire Lestat was released in 1985 - I was 12. Queen of the Damned came out in 1988. The highly sensual books were damn near pornographic to a pimply-faced book nerd like me. I read the first three over and over again, spending time in between with Stoker, Stephen King and compendia of short story collections.

I got into trouble in high school for reading Anne Rice in AP English in lieu of my assignment. I was n college by the time The Tale of the Body Thief came in 1992.

The movie adaptation of Interview was released in 1994, and by that time I was lukewarm about seeing it. Had the casting director who made Tom Cruise into Lestat even read the books?

The Vampire Armand was released in 1998. Quite honestly, I can't remember if I read Armand. I certainly don't own a copy. Interest had waned.

The Dead Years

There may have been some vampire culture between the late 90s and the Twilight craze, but I was far removed from it. If Goth kids were into vampire lore, which you might guess from their dress, I wasn't connected to it. I was married in 1998 and had my first child in 2001 and another in 2003.

Doomsday: Twilight

I admit that I read the Twilight series in full. All four books had been released and someone sent me PDF copies of them. I read them once and quickly, skimming parts that dragged -- so don't blame me if I get some things wrong. But what I noticed most was this -- Twilight was not the vampires' story. Twilight was the story of a thoroughly sullen teenage girl who turns down all reasonable offers of friendship and romance to choose the guy who rejects her thoroughly before stalking her. Make no mistake, dear reader, a manpire who breaks into your bedroom at night to watch you sleep is a creeper and not boyfriend material.

As a young adolescent I would have loved these books. I would have wanted an Edward of my own. Lestat was dangerous. Gorgeous with a Rock Star swaggar, but completely unwilling to bury his vampire nature in pursuit of a human partner. He never denied his nature as a predator and saw his proper place in Rice's world: top of the food chain. People belonged to the big, wide category of "food". You couldn't be Lestat's girlfriend -- you could only be his pet.

Meyer's Edward, on the other hand, is practically neutered. He and his entire clan refuse to feed on human blood, setting themselves on the moral high ground of the vampire world. Vampires are supposed to be amoral at best and immoral at worst, but Edward is the hero -- the best of the good guys. Hell, he shines like glitter in sunlight, which, inexplicably, he tried to use to scare Bella at one point during the first book. You have no idea what I really am, Bella! And then he sparkles. Scary.

My real problem with Edward and the other Twilight vampires is the lack of a truly dark nature and the ease with which it can be defeated. The most powerful stories are about people who have something wild and deep and dark inside them that they must struggle against. By the time he meets Bella, Edward has apparently conquered his inner nature. Bella is in danger in the novel, but she is never in danger from Edward.

Did anyone buy it when Edward said he couldn't control himself around Bella? That he might hurt her? By staring too hard? Gazing too long? He seems to have no deeper nature, no real struggle with his dark side. If he had lost control just once in the entire series and killed a person, then had to struggle with the consequences, I might have been sold. Instead, when Edward reaches even close to the edge of his personal control, he runs away. Brave, brave vampire Edward.

Vampires You Can Really Sink Your Teeth Into

Twilight aside, where it belongs, I am still a fan of vampires.

Like all annoying trends, there are bright spots that emerge from the drek.

For every Edward there is a Mitchell -- the lead vampire in the BBC's "Being Human." (Go for the BBC version on this one; there is a SyFy version, but it doesn't live up to is inspiration, and Aidan Turner personifies the role of a vampire on the edge.)

For every Bella there is a Sookie Stackhouse, heroine of HBO's "True Blood," a complicated and entertaining show that doesn't shy away from the dark side of not only vampires but humanity as well.

For every Stephanie Meyer there is an Alan Ball, the writer behind "Six Feet Under"a nd True Blood," who says this about Twilight.

“To me, vampires are sex. I don’t get a vampire story about abstinence. I’m 53. I don’t care about high school students. I find them irritating and uninformed.”

And for every hack blogger trying to sum up her dislike to Twilight in 1,500 words or less, there is Stephen King, who uses only 30.

"Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend."

Beautiful Fotos 5: Ocean Sunset

Sometimes a Car is Just a Car...and Sometimes it's Not

I can remember when I first thought about being 40. My mother turned 40 in 1983, when I was 11, and on the advice of Hallmark I bought her a card that read, "39 and holding!" -- 40 just wasn't somewhere you wanted to go.

Sometime in my 20s or 30s I decided that I had one goal to achieve before I turned 40. I wanted to be the owner of a 1967 Camaro. All of the other achievements of being 40 were assumed: health, fitness, husband, children, house, job, money..and never warranted specific goal-making. Unfortunately, that means I can't tick those goals off the list. Nope. There's just one item on my list, and the check box is blank.

It's a Family Thing

My love affair with muscle cars comes from early childhood. When I was born, my parents were the proud owners of a 1967 Mustang and a Triumph Spitfire. The Mustang had been painted Panther Pink and my mother toted me around (unsecured in the front seat, natch) to nursery school, grocery shopping, Friendly's, and her hair appointments, after which I always got a stick of rock candy. I even have a recurring dream about that car. My childhood friend David and are waiting in it outside of the hair salon. Our mothers are inside. We play-drive and accidentally start rolling it down the hill. End.

My father would stuff me into the tiny back "seat" area of the Triumph with his flight case, and remember loving that tight-fit place and front-row the view of the shiftier as he maneuvered it through the gears.

My very first car was a muscle car of sorts -- a 1979 Monte Carlo with a 350 under the hood. (The one in the pic isn't mine, but except for the color is an exact match. Ours was yellow.) It was rear-wheel drive and my dad taught me how to do donuts in a snowy Greeley, Colorado parking lot when I was 15. I drove it for my driving test on a snowy December 16, 1987 and walked out of the DMV with my license. Dad let me do skids on the way home. The speedometer topped out at 95, but it pegged slightly over.

My list of cars owned since then in severely lacking in coolness:

Plymouth Reliant K wagon

Chevy Citation

Geo Spectrum

Chrysler Town & Country minivan (current)

1988 Toyota 4Runner (current, but Evan's)

Mid-Life?

My parents still have cooler cars than I do. When he lived in Florida, Dad drove a convertible, and how he has a sport Chevy Cobalt. Mom drives a Saturn -- one with the instruments in the middle dash. It's not a Mustang, but it's not a white minivan either, which is what I park in my driveway each night. (Yes, our 4Runner is cool, but that's really Evan's baby.) My parents even made their Chevy Corsica feel sporty next to my rides. I mean, have you seen a Chevy Citation? Behold:

But is it Materialism?

As the countdown to 40 keeps ticking and the reality of a Camaro-less 40s sinks in, I am not surprised that many people scoff at my mourning. Very few of my friends, it turns out, are "car people". They drive completely Colorado-ish, utilitarian vehicles. Toyota 4Runners. Minivans. Priuses (or Prii). When the new Camaro was introduced I was hunting the streets to get a glimpse of one person. I even stopped and flipped a u-turn to take a picture with my camera phone. My husband thought it was cool; other friends played along but mostly had no idea what I was talking about or understood why I cared. It's just a car.

It was just a car, once. My first love in high school was dual: A high school senior with long black hair and his 1967 Camaro, which looked much like the one pictured below. It probably wasn't quite a show car, but it lives in my memory that way. (Also, it was an SS, not an RS, but I'm willing to bet no one reading this aside from Evan knows how that makes the photo inaccurate.)

That boy did not reciprocate my love, but I did get a few rides in the car.

Any New Car is a Luxury

Most of my friends and family have an ethic about cars -- they don't buy new ones until it's absolutely necessary, and they make their buying decisions based on need, not desire. Our last vehicle purchase was the minivan -- we needed it because we had a new baby and Evan needed to fit at least three giant coolers of salsa in the back. It was 5 years old at purchase and had a cool factor of Absolute Zero.

Ten years later we still own it. The a/c hasn't worked for 5 summers, there's a CD stuck in the player that won't play (we lost track of which CD it is); the side door doesn't lock; the wipers come on randomly; 3/5 stereo buttons don't work; the driver's seat is ripped; and every once in a while we have to manually disconnect the battery to reset the computer and avoid complete system shutdown.

So I scoff at charges of automotive materialism on my part.

A Car or a Symbol?

Some people, including me, have argued that not having the Camaro at 40 isn't a big deal. This is true. If I make a list of all the things I do own, my needs are most certainly met, including my transportation needs. So the Camaro isn't and never was a necessity. But if the Camaro is just a symbol, than not having one is actually worse than if it were just a materialistic acquisition. The Camaro is my personal symbol for having "made it". It's a stand-in for youth, power, financial security.

Six days away from turning 40 I have not earned the freedom or power to buy that symbol, and that's what stings, regardless of what is sitting n the driveway. I know some people will never get it. Maybe if the physical representation of the goal were one that more of my friends could empathize with, it would click.

For now, I will flip the calendar soon from December 16 to December 17 without a new vehicle purchase. Maybe I'll even give my Camaro Matchbox and Hot Wheels to the kids as an example of letting go of the covetous impulse.

There comes a time, after all to set aside childish things in favor of 401Ks, college funds, braces and retirement savings.

The minivan can still do a nice skid around icy corners, though. At least there's that.

Words to Live By

		"The Wisdom of the Heart" from the 14th Dalai Lama Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (1989)
		Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values. Sleep is the best meditation. Spend some time alone every day. We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection. Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them. The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.

Starting Fresh - A Housekeeper's Tale of Woe

Some wishes you don't want to come true. Every once in a while I'd like for my house and all of the stuff -- the clutter I can't control; the papers that pile higher and higher -- to just disappear. It's not that I'm a terrible housekeeper. I won't be up for a starring role in "Hoarders" any time soon, thankyouverymuch. But I'm not a talented housekeeper and it gets away from me way too often.

Of course, it doesn't help that there is a constant influx of stuff from two very short people who seem to shed articles of clothing at every doorway and have more books andLego and Hot Wheels cars and stuffed animals than anyone needs. (OK. I will not rag too hard on the children for their books...they're just copying their mum.)

But we all survived for 8 full days and nights on one suitcase plus one backpack-full each. I had 90% of what I needed for work in my personal entertainment in my laptop, phone, And now, of course, those suitcases and backpacks and their contents are now spread around the living room, waiting the Cleaning Genie to put them in their rightful places.

So I am on a mission -- before that fateful day of my 40th birthday -- to reduce, let someone else reuse and recycle our bounty to those who might need it more.

Trouble is, the woman who built this cluttered and messy house over the past 10 years has no idea where to start to undo it. If you've got some ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Of course, my first instinct is to...buy a book!

Anyone got a match?