The Place to Take Children in Portland that You Haven't Thought Of

I've had occasion recently to visit a couple of shiva houses and I've been thinking of King Solomon's statement (Koheles 7:2) that it's better to visit a house of mourning than one of feasting. I was kind of reluctant to visit the first one -- "I am going so the mourner can talk about the person who passed away but others there are going to make small talk, it's a long walk, it's raining, there's a lion in the road, do I HAVE TO??" and yes, yes I did, so I went; and I was glad I did; the mourner was telling stories about her mother, and what it is like when someone passes away, and what it's like for the family, and it was a meaningful experience for all of us.

Fast forward to a recent trip to Portland.

My mother proposed that we ride the tram that flies across the city on a cable, which was built ten years ago to transport hospital staff from one OHSU campus to another. The ride is a few minutes long and quite beautiful, and we all enjoyed it, although Loops thought it would be more like a roller coaster and said she thought it ought to bump a little more. You can see all the mountains, even Mt. Adams; and I noticed for the first time that Portland's Mt. Tabor closely resembles the original Har Tavor in Israel; and the area below the tram is the old turn-of-the-century Jewish neighborhood of Portland, which is nice to look down on; and if you, reader, are wondering along with everyone else who rides the tram what the big round building you passed on the OHSU tram is, I can tell you: it's a synagogue built by Jews from the Isle of Rhodes, still in occasional use and known affectionately to the community as "the beehive."

Once we got off the tram we stayed in the station for another cycle to watch how the mechanism works (I'm glad we rode it before I saw that the whole thing boils down to just three wires - it's very elegant) and then we discovered that a set of stairs leads down from the tram to other parts of the hospital.

The best banister to slide down in Portland is the one in the Hilton hotel downtown; the second banister disappeared in a remodeling years ago and the third (the Keller Auditorium) and fourth (the Arlene Schnitzer) are nothing too out of the common; so I am pleased to tell you that the new banisters up at the OHSU tram station are almost as good as the one at the Hilton, better than any other banisters in town for sliding down.

Should you be weighing the merits of taking children for a ride on the tram (and down the banisters), the factor you haven't considered is that the tram station was built as an addition to the Doernbecher children's hospital and that of all the wonderful things we did that morning (it's only early July but the salal berries up there are already ripe -- OH JOY), walking through a children's hospital en route was an unexpected but very important experience for my kids.

There are exhibits in the halls of art by the children in the hospital and their families. A thousand paper cranes... sneakers the children designed that were made by Nike... and installations in memory of others.
It's all very beautiful and well-designed (children's hospitals usually are) and it served as a good opening for conversation with Loops.

Highly recommended.

It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for that is the end of every man, and the living shall lay it to his heart.

בטוֹב לָלֶכֶת אֶל בֵּית אֵבֶל מִלֶּכֶת אֶל בֵּית מִשְׁתֶּה בַּאֲשֶׁר הוּא סוֹף כָּל הָאָדָם וְהַחַי יִתֵּן אֶל לִבּוֹ:

Eruvin Comes Alive with the All-New Eruvin Lego Set!

The Portland Kollel using Legos for a visual aid in its studies

“Bring me that horizon!”; or, random thought of a Thursday

I really think that the odd little essay toward the end of Vol. VIII may be my favorite of Rav Hirsch's essays. One seldom gets to see much of the rav himself in his writings; this essay is an exception: there he is, leaning on a ship railing, looking at the stars.

Anyway, at one point in this essay (which meanders like Iyar itself) he observes that Torah may be sailed through any weather, under friendly colors (that is, it applies in every era, to all that is good and noble in contemporary culture, and should be presented as such).

In his time, contemporary culture meant romanticism and science.

In our time, contemporary culture means the sort of fragmented idealism that gives us such interesting things as organic vegan GMO-free “strawberry cupcake popcorn,” of which we just received three bags for Purim.

Strawberry cupcake popcorn?

Actually, I rather liked it; and I like the fragmented idealism behind it; and yes, I called the day the list came out to put my name down for a swath of the PDX airport carpet.

But I like history so much that there are days when the “friendly colors” I would be inclined to hoist while sailing through contemporary culture would be the stateless and idiosyncratic colors of a pirate.

...however, stateless and idiosyncratic pirates are a flourishing part of contemporary culture. So it's all good.

Can't Help Lovin' that Carpet...?

The Port of Portland has announced that it will replace the turquoise airport carpet we all grew up with with a new, green one.

Chaos!

Pandemonium!

How can you do this to us!

Exclaimed an entire generation of Oregonians – each of whom realized only in that moment that there are others who feel an attachment to the carpet.

The secret is out. It's a social revolution. We are all gathered round this carpet like a Dead Poets Society; only, the dead poet is a carpet.

We express our love for the carpet through art: people have begun making murals, cross-stitch samplers, yarn colorways. There is this crackling new unity among Portlandians and I'm enjoying every minute of it. But I keep asking myself why I, and the rest of us, get so emotional thinking about a carpet.

I suspect it's because we all grew up traversing that carpet en route to adventure and again to home. When you see the carpet, you know you are about to embark on a great expedition. And airport walls all look alike but when you see that carpet again, you know you are about to come back to people who know and like you.

When you return to PDX after years of wandering in places where you are known as the Portlander because there are no others, the carpet is the first thing you see with which you have Portlanderness in common.

When I got older, the whole idea of carpet became really arresting, coming from Israel's holy white stone floors back to this land of complications where a person treads on fabric loops. It's so complicated. It's so extravagant. It's so American.

You can go and travel and see the world and change in a hundred ways, but the carpet remains constant.

So it is rather a shock to the system that they are replacing it with something hunter-green and trendy.

Ah, I guess the world is changing that fast, after all. Everyone stick near the boat.

I love that the first instinct of Portlandians, upon receiving this jolt, is to make art about it. I admire that the Port of Portland's response is to give away the carpet for free to the distributors who will make sure that as many sentimental people as possible get a slice of it. ...And I love that Portland is such a total original that we are all bonding over a carpet.

Daf Yomi

Over this week, some 300,000 people worldwide will attend a siyyum celebrating the completion of a seven-and-a-half year course of study, which covers the entire Talmud.
Last night, there were over 90,000 people at the MetLife Stadium siyyum alone.

This was the twelfth cycle of the Daf Yomi program, which moves at the (extremely swift) pace of a page a day. People all around the world study on the same schedule. It's a gorgeous bit of unity.

I hope someone will put the speeches up online -- it was quite a wonderful event. To hear a rav challenge 90,000 people with words of inspiration, with a and before you leave tonight, make a plan and do it! attached to them, applauded enthusiastically by 90,000 appreciative, newly inspired, focused and committed people - well! It was a thing not to be missed. But all I found to put on the blog for you was the film above.

The thirteenth cycle of Daf Yomi starts tomorrow. In Portland, the Daf Yomi class will be given every morning at Cong. Kesser Israel, in Hillsdale, just before morning services.

A couple of us in these parts with less time on our hands (read: ladies) want to try following it in the Ein Yaakov, which is the non-legal portions of the Talmud: less material, and less intricate, insanely inspiring when understood properly, but opaque without a commentary. Drop a line if you'd like to join us.

Wilderness skills in Portland -- come one, come all; we're starting a course

There's an organization in Portland called Trackers PDX that teaches all sorts of wilderness skills - among them tracking, building shelters, archery, blacksmithing, spinning wool. (Those of us who lump certain of these skills together under a mental heading of Lord of the Rings ranger skills will be pleased to know that the site references ranger all over the place.)

They have agreed to offer a course on a weekday or Sunday (or several, depending on interest). There's a discount for groups of six or more; we have at least four people already (really great people) and we're looking for more.

Please drop a line at jewsintherain at gmail.com indicating what sort of things you'd like to learn and when you're available. Their prices are reasonable: friendly to a student budget. (It's not worth listing them here because they vary depending on course content.)

Thanks!

Novhardok, Keep Portland Weird!, and Not Caring About Public Opinion

I'm going to go off on a tangent and tell you another Novhardok story, one that is common knowledge in these parts, just because this is basic Jewish history that everyone should know I love Novhardok.

If you're doing the right thing, it doesn't matter what other people think of you - but how do you practice not caring about public opinion?
The students of the Novhardok yeshiva used to practice by going into a store and asking for a product not sold there - e.g., they would enter a pharmacy, and ask to buy a hammer.

As the joke goes, if you try this in America, the pharmacist will ask you, "What size?" but in the specialized shops of pre-war Europe (Rav Elya Pruzhiner's family shop, for example, sold only yeast and salt) it was a truly ludicrous request.


How can this story be true? I asked one day, a few years after I heard it. Isn't it problematic to give the clerk the impression that Torah students are crazy?

"It is true," answered the rav at whom I threw the question. "I knew the daughter of an old Novhardoker, and she said that when her father came to America, he would try to pay for his groceries with Monopoly money. And when the clerk would say, 'Sir, you cannot pay with this,' he would assume a confused air, and ask, 'Why not?'"


...

I do not own this image

I was enthusiastically describing the unusual individualism of P-town's alternative culture (Keep Portland Weird!) to an elderly rebbetzin of Jerusalem, and she exclaimed, "That's not good! There's no normal to keep people on their toes."
Which is the flip side of not caring about public opinion.

Dostoevsky said, 'Where there is no God, everything is permitted', but where there is no objective definition of Good and also no normal, what, save fear of the government, is to prevent the selfish from committing any crime they want?
Keep Portland Weird and Idealistic!

Evidently you have to care even in a Torah society: the Netziv once chided his nephew for not caring whether the post office staff would laugh at him for including extra information in an address, saying that a person immune to public opinion has lost a useful motivation to behave properly (and to tell the truth, and so is disqualified from testifying in court).


You have to not care about public opinion... but you also have to care. It's probably one of those things that should be swung either way and eventually allowed to settle somewhere in the middle.

Anyway, wouldn't you just love to gather up all the self-conscious teenagers of the world, hand them a wad of Monopoly money, and send them shopping? Such a powerful lesson.

Living in the Drawing

PREFACE required to describe the Drawing, which I can't find:

During the 1930s, people who had things  -  houses, land, cars, savings, jobs, food - lost them.

During the 1940s, people endured the war.

In the 1950s, many things became available again to people who had lost or never had houses, land, cars, savings, jobs, food,  AND, thanks to wartime technological innovations and industrial capability, household appliances!

America and Western Europe went acquisitive  -  symbolized (to my way of thinking) by the "New Look" fashions with yards and yards and YARDS of fabric in long, full skirts.

Those of us who grew up in this abundance reacted against it in the 1960s and 70s.

We said –

In the future there will be no private ownership!  no waste of resources! no houses, cars, savings, jobs, or clothes particular to just one family or worse, just one person!

We will live in collectives!

We will have communal organic gardens!

We will work together, all races and creeds and sexual orientations side-by-side!

We will build our houses in hillsides using found materials!

We will raise our children in collectively-operated, innovative schools where they will learn useful work and crafts and never have to sit at a desk or even wear shoes!

We will stay healthy on work and whole food and peace of mind, but if we ever need health care, it will be free and holistic, and there will be no stigma attached to handicaps or mental illness. 

Internal combustion vehicles will be available only for emergency use  -  We will innovate a world of bicycle-like vehicles that are our transportation and our tractors. No more pollution!  No more traffic jams! 

With no religion, private property, or spouses-for-life, there will be nothing to fight over so we will eliminate war and weapons. (Famously, "Make Love Not War")

And if we ever lose track of our vision, we will take some hallucinogens and it will reappear.

I went online to see if I could find any of the millions of drawings depicting this future world seen from the 1960s.

Amazingly, the drawings seem to have been composted.

The closest I came was something much more recent -  indicating that the vision persists and the "future" is still ahead of us.

Living in the Drawing

I composed  the memoir above to get across that TODAY, 18 May 2012, here in Portland, Oregon, I was DROPPED INTO a drawing of the future as viewed from the 1960s.

It was downright eerie. 

First of all - it is an excitingly clear day, drawn by a child.

The temperature is a perfect 70 deg F with a light, cooling breeze.

The sun is shining.

Every plant and tree on the green earth is budding.

The mountains look at us with fierce beauty.

I put on my bike helmet and coasted down our neighborhood hill to downtown, then across the Hawthorne Bridge on the municipally-designated bike lane, then pedalled easily in a middle gear up into Northeast Portland again via municipally-designated bike lanes.

The bike lanes occur hard by many bicycle stores - which have handmade signs in rainbow colors and rammed-earth structures for resting and bike racks confected from found scrap metal and owners who are lean bearded guys in jeans- just like in the drawings of the 1960s.

I went to see my acupuncturist -  a mother of two who works part-time in an office she shares with other naturopathic doctors, Chinese Medicine doctors, massage therapists, and reflexologists  -  all of them women.

In the waiting room are picture books of out-of-the-way wild beauty in Oregon, hardwood toys to amuse children, and persons of intermediate genders.

Skirted men, bearded ladies, Orthodox seniors who fold up their bikes and park them under the furniture:  all this was envisioned in  the 60s.

After my treatment, I strolled past the shops featuring  toys handmade from recycled materials, vintage household goods, locally-grown produce, and cuisine made with NO meat, gluten, or dairy.

I whizzed back along the bike path, through the peaceful settlement of homeless families dwelling in shelters confected from tarps and large cardboard boxes. My skirt tracing a wake, I joined the flow of cyclists in jeans, suits, shorts; ears only or whole faces pierced or unpierced; skins and bikes alike of many colors.

We stood in lawful, harlequin array waiting for the bridge to open and close to permit a white-sailed boat to sail placidly by  -  children waving from the edge of the hull. (The marine navigation bit of the curriculum at the Free School?)

Back up the hill toiled I in my lowest gear  -  unhurried and untroubled -  enjoying the fragrance of the municipally-maintained lilac garden  -  breathing somewhat easier thanks to the ministrations of my non-allopathic healer.

Portland event TODAY

Kesser's Lag B'Omer celebration

THIS SUNDAY, MAY 13, 5:00-7:00 pm

at Gabriel Park on SW Vermont St.!

Join us for hot dogs (vegetarian options, of course!),

salads and sports and a fun time!

Cost per plate: $5/kid, $7/adult, $25 family

Sunday Brunch Lecture

The director of the Portland Kollel gives a delicious class most every Sunday morning. A light brunch is served.
There are even people who skype in from the East Coast and from Jerusalem, it's that fabulous and unusual.


This week we found out the subject ahead of time:


"Holiness: Asceticism or Humanism"


It's free.


Do check it out.
10:00-11:00am this Sunday (today) at the Portland Kollel, located at 6688 SW Capitol Highway.
Directions here: http://portlandkollel.org/location.html 

That's My Stumptown

The Other Interesting High School

The other interesting high school I wanted to visit on this trip is New Avenues, a high school (and everything-else center) for homeless teenagers.
My plan was foiled by an impressive rainstorm.

"We are swamped just now," the New Avenues staff apologized. "But we are a year-round program. If you can come in the summer, I promise we'll be much less busy then."

If you can attend high school for the purpose of acquiring an education, not to get out of the rain, say thank you.

Pacific Crest Community School

I am on a quest to visit interesting high schools.

Last week, I visited Pacific Crest, a 6-12th grade school of 70-80 students, each of whom is free to design his or her own curriculum - within limits. Some forty courses are offered each term; students must take a certain number, and of those, a certain number must be math, or language arts, &c. The content is as original as the structure: it is not uncommon for courses to have curious titles like "Geometry of Gothic Windows" or "Physics of Superheroes" or "Take a Walk". (Just think, there is a high school - not a mussar yeshiva - that teaches how to take a walk... I'd like to know what the content of that course is.) A couple of classes are compulsory.

No grades are given; instead, students compile a portfolio, which they whittle down for the purpose of college applications, and submit in place of grades. By now the colleges are used to this.

Pacific Crest is a 'democratic' school: students meet once a week, sitting on the auditorium stage, to nominate each other's heroic deeds for applause, to make announcements, to invite visitors to stand up and say "Your name and your favorite movie character", and to raise issues for discussion (how shall we get each other to stop leaving backpacks on the common room tables?) I had the sense that although some of the students were a bit weary of the proceedings, all were glad to belong to the community of which such meetings are an important characteristic. Teachers are not exempt from being treated as equals in this democracy -- which I think is a pity; if nothing else, they have greater life experience. The school has an open campus: students are free to wander the city whenever they do not have class.

Naturally -- this being the city it is -- half the students wore what would be recognized in any other school as costume: Robin Hood was the first I noticed, but not every costume was that of a recognizable era or world. What, don't you come to school in a cape and fuzzy ears on an ordinary Tuesday?

I think some of this is great (e.g., the diversity of curriculum). But it is one thing to incorporate flexibility into a school as a pedagogical technique, and quite another to assume that sixth graders know what is best for them, and can motivate themselves to pursue it; and I am not sure (should've asked) which is the idea underlying the Pacific Crest democracy.

Anyway, it was a pleasant and enlightening morning; and thanks to the Pacific Crest administration for allowing tours of their school.

Lord of the Rings joke

Thank you AW

Upcoming Jewish Events in Portland

SUNDAY BRUNCH WITH RABBI YAACOV MARCUS  

"Who are You?"
Sunday, January 29, 10:00 am at the Portland Kollel [6688 SW Capitol Hwy.]

Rabbi Marcus, a faculty member at Neve Yerushalayim in Jerusalem,
 is a popular lecturer who regularly speaks in Portland during his US tours.

In this presentation, he'll explore the Torah's description of who we are
 on both physical and spiritual levels,
and offer insights about and practical tools for decision-making.

The hour-long presentation, co-sponsored by Kesser and the Portland Kollel,
is aimed at all skill levels and backgrounds.
Brunch will be served, of course; donations appreciated.

___

The Birds & the Bees (and Your Kid!)
 What is the Jewish view of sexuality?
How do you deliver "the big talk" to your child?

As a Jewish parent, you deserve the timeless wisdom of Judaism.
On Wednesday, February 1, join other adults
for an evening of learning & discussion led by Rabbi and Aviel Brodkin.

Explore the role of Jewish values in your home
and identify how you can put them into practice with your child.

This is a special event open to our community
and is hosted by Portland's first Jewish parenting group.

If you struggle with the unexpected and sometimes awkward questions
your kids ask around this topic - this event is for you!

Congregation Kesser Israel, 6698 SW Capitol Hwy., Portland
Wednesday, February 1 at 7:00 pm
RSVP to rabbibrodkin at gmail.com

"Learner-centered" Torah day schools

This is a nice article, about the Torah day schools in Seattle and Portland:

http://www.jewishreview.org/local/New-schools-leaders-explore-Seattle-schools-curriculum

It will be very exciting to see what happens next.