Jewish Musings, Tuesday, Dcember 26

[louise]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.

Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:
Frieda (hopefully)?
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy

And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!

[louise]

I’m still on last week’s parshah. There’s a small part in the Joseph story that my rabbi always likes to point out. Once Joseph is reunited with his brothers and has forgiven them he arranges for some of them to meet with Pharoah. He tells them in advance that Pharoah will only ask them one question “What do you do?” and how to answer it – namely that they are shepherds. Commentators have noted that it is maybe a little surprising that this is the only question Pharoah asks but it is perhaps even stranger that Joseph had to prep his brothers how to answer. My rabbi teaches us that Samson Raphael Hirsch, a German Rabbi from the 19thc, wrote that this interaction highlights something especially troubling about Egyptian society at that time. It was a society in which people were prized only for their economic productivity. He adds that this dehumanizing focus on productivity, to the exclusion of all other life values, is what paved the way for Egypt to become the kind of exploitative society that relied on slave labor and that became the paradigmatic exampoe of cruel oppression.People were not valued as people, but rather in terms of how they could contribute to the economy. When Pharaoh meets Jacob his only question is a different one “How old are you?’

My rabbi goes on to point out that in our society people’s careers often comprise an especially large part of their personal identities. It wasn’t always so. “what do you do?” can also be answered separately from “how do you earn a living?” I think it could be that when we retire or are out of work may be when we come face to face with who we are other than what we do for a living. This can require a major rethinking about ourselves.

[hollygail]

When I lived in Holland, the question was "what do (or in my case, did) your parents do" (both of my parents were already retired) or words to that effect. That is, how do your parents earn a living... It was a way to classify the "you" being spoken to. Classifying you. Almost like a caste system. No one warned me about it in advance, or I'd have changed how I answered. My dad had always (during my lifetime, that is) owned his own business, making him an entrepreneur, right? And what did he sell? Toward the end of his working life, gold and jewelry. Had I known that I was being judged, perhaps I'd have said something about gold and/or diamonds instead of he owned a retail store where he sold gold and jewelry. Who knows. The thing is, I thought people wanted to know more about me, which made sense to me. I was a bit ticked off when I learned the real reason...

I thought Joseph wanted to school his brothers not to say anything about sheep, because one of the gods of the Egyptians was a sheep / lamb (which is one reason given at Passover for our choosing a lamb to slaughter, anathema to the Egyptians).

[gazelle18]

This is so interesting (about lambs, livestock, etc.) And the story Holly tells about “what do your parents do?” Is equally fascinating. Here in America, we tend to be judged on what we do , not what our parents did. Either way, it’s a bit narrowing and to some extent dehumanizing. Our human-ness is reduced to what we do to ear a living.

Louise, you are SO right about retirement. It forced me to contemplate more about “who am I?” as opposed to what I did for a living. This is not an easy or comfortable question, and it shouldn’t be. Perhaps it’s the question we keep keep asking ourselves until we can no longer think!

[lee058]

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well and SAFE! Please pray for Israel.

Re today's topic: Here in the DC area, there's a lot of "what do you do?" type questioning. When DS was younger, I tended to say that I was a stay at home mom, sometimes adding that he has Asperger's. Now, I've found that the question is more oriented towards "what are you interested in" and/or "what are your hobbies" rather than "How do you make your money?" Part of this is because of my age and health issues, but I definitely think that times have changed, too. I think there's more value placed on people (usually women) who are homemakers than there used to be.

I do have friends who are retired who talk about their volunteer work. I also have friends who still work for pay who talk about that. It's a mixed bag.

Have a peaceful day, Lee

[peachymom1]

My mom joined the Army the minute she turned 18 and signed up for training as a nurse. Less than two years later, she was married, pregnant and out of the Army, so that was the end of her training. When DF divorced her ten years later, the only job DM could get was as a nurse's aide in a hospital. But she told everyone (outside of her workplace) that she was an RN and acted like she knew way more than she actually did. She stuck with that lie until the day she died, because she felt ashamed of the work she did. I think she would have been surprised to know that my sisters and I were more ashamed of her lies than of the work she did. We all learned from her to work hard, be punctual and reliable, and to give our best effort, even when we were doing the most menial jobs, like flipping burgers or cleaning houses.

I think the younger generation is getting it right by pushing for more of a work-life balance. I never thought it was a great idea to define ourselves primarily by the work we do. Not only does that leave you wondering who you are when you retire, but it robs you of a fuller and richer identity throughout your lifetime.

When I was a SAHM for five years, it used to infuriate me when people said, "Oh, you're so lucky you get to stay home with your kids!" Hah! It wasn't luck. It was a lot of sacrifice, doing without things other people took for granted, and plain old hard work. Good work, yes. But it was tough. It would have cost more to put a 2-year-old and two babies in day care than I could earn at the time, plus the additional costs of formula, disposable diapers, work clothes and transportation. When I did go back to work, I was criticized for "not using my degree," since I got an office job instead of going back to teaching. The main thing I learned from this was to disregard unhelpful opinions, even (or especially) from family members.

DH looks forward to retiring in about seven years, so he can do fun stuff and have more time to volunteer. In contrast, I haven't thought much about retiring, because I really enjoy my job and want to keep helping people organize their lives and get things done. Maybe I'll change my mind over time; I'm flexible. Who knows?