A Whispering Soul: June 24, 2005 - November 6, 2006

Just a quick note to thank everyone who has been reading A Whispering Soul over the course of the past year and a half. I have really enjoyed the blogging experience, and especially all of the wonderful people I have gotten to know through this medium. Partly due to time constraints and partly due to being uncomfortable with where to draw the public/private line (I felt like it was getting too personal and revealing - not from an anonymity point of view, but from a privacy point of view - which is also why the archives are gone) and partly in order to devote more of my writing energy to a novel-in-progress, I have decided to lay this blog to rest. A Whispering Soul effectively ended with my post of November 6, 2006. I had planned to just go off quietly into the night, as Jack has always said he would do if he stopped blogging, but some very kind e-mails expressing concern prompted this one final post. I am doing well and will always be writing, and definitely welcome e-mails from those who would like to stay in touch. Once blogger beta gets its kinks worked out, I may start up a non-public blog, which I will let regular readers and friends know about. Thanks again for reading my blog and making it the positive experience it has been.

Hope everyone has a beautiful Chanukah/holiday season....

MC

Attack Of The Killer Mosquitoes

Some people are allergic to peanut butter, others to chocolate (the poor souls), some to both. Mainly, they need to respectivey avoid peanuts, cocoa, and Reeces Pieces, and they should be fine. I think most allergies are like that - you avoid what you are allergic to, and are none the worse for wear.

It ain't like that for me.

Lucky guy that I am, I am allergic to mosquito bites. Not only do mosquitoes adore my blood, leaving me with bites which swell up to gargantuan proportions, but they are mobile. Short of staying indoors all summer, there is little I can do to avoid them. I can be with a group of 10 friends and come away the only one bitten - it's like the evil little things know I am allergic and sadistically gang up and go after me. Insect repellent, clothes - nothing stops them...

So, naturally, since I don't have enough hobbies already (ha!), I decided that the height of mosquito season was the time to try my hand at farming and growing my own vegetables and herbs. As tomatoes and basil together is one of my definitions of heaven on earth, I figured I would start with them for my first planting attempt. The basil was easy enough - you buy a plant, stick it in the ground, water it some, and watch it grow. But for the tomatoes, I thought I would be a pioneer and start them from seeds. I bought the pack of seeds, planted them indoors, and, contrary to what I expected, most all of them took! I ended up with 62 tomato plants - and they were fast growing suckers!

Now, aside from the challenge of finding enough room outside to plant 62 tomato plants at least 2 feet apart from each other, there was the issue of digging holes deep enough for the stems to be planted up to their highest leaves (which allows the stem to grow additional roots, better to anchor the plant as it becomes heavy with fruit), sometimes over a foot deep. It was a lot of work, but I was careful to do only a few at a time, so as not to attract too much mosquito love. Each time I planted, I noticed three or four mosquito bites, doused myself with ineffective anti-itch spray, and waited out the swelling.

As the tomato plants grow (and they can grow to 4 or 5 feet, I am told), they need to be staked, to keep the fruit from touching the ground. So, this past Thursday, I spent a few hours staking the tomato plants. I did not realize how long I would be out there, but I tried to protect myself as best I could from the mosquitoes. If I were Muslim and a woman (or Michael Jackson), I could have worn a burka or an abaya. But as I am not, I did what I could short of walking around in a tent or a bubble - I sprayed myself with insect repellent, wore long sleeves and a hat.

Moment by moment, I would hear another one of the unmistakeable buzzing noises mosquitoes make just before the kill. I hate that sound! I immediately jumped after each buzz to try and avoid the bite, but it is always too late. I walked inside Thursday night and counted 37 distinct mosquito bites all over my body (the one day record for me was 50-something one time after hiking in northern Israel).

The swelling was almost instantaneous. I looked like something out of a zombie movie. It was difficult to fall asleep because of the itching, and the uncomfortability of the hardening bites. Once I did fall asleep, I slept for fourteen hours straight, missed my shabbat plans (was to have gone to New Square with my friend H), woke up drenched in sweat with a headache, stomach pain, and feeling weak. What sucked the most is that this does not even count as one of my twice yearly getting sick times....

Thank God, the swelling is already going down, and I am feeling much better. The plants are growing nicely, I am anticipating a fall season full of good tomato/basil eating, and, though I know it's Elul, and I am generally anti-violence, I am already plotting my 'skeeter revenge....

And What Did You Bring?

I believe very strongly in giving credit where credit is due. And the fact is, we all owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Justin Timberlake. Justin's new single, SexyBack, which can be heard on his myspace page, for those of you with a hankering for ear punishment, is one of the worst singles to come out so far this year (only slightly ahead of Fergie's London Bridge for that honor). In it, Mr. Timberlake boasts "I'm bringing sexy back." Apparently sexy went missing, and no one but Justin was able to bring it back. That's right. Were it not for Justin, all of us would have remained sexyless, many of us without even knowing it.

So what if the song is a mess of muffled distorted vocals, lack of melody, inane and repetitive lyrics and a beat ripped off from Britney Spears's I'm A Slave 4U and recent Nelly Furtado? The man brought sexy back! Singlehandedly. Sure, Jonas Salk invented a vaccine for polio, the Wright Brothers discovered flight and Ronald Reagan popularized jelly beans, but were any of them able to bring sexy back, let alone sexyback? No! Did any of them even think to attempt to bring sexy back? Therein lies the genius of Justin.

No longer just the standard-bearer for pre-fabricated inoffensive bubblegum boy band pop, or one of the notorious participants in Nipplegate at the 2004 Superbowl, or Britney's ex, Justin Timberlake will now forever be known as the man who, in an act of pure selflessness, with no concern for musicality whatsoever, brought sexy back for us all.

It makes whatever else the rest of us might ever do pale in comparison. Can you imagine being at a party with Justin Timberlake now?

Justin: So what did you bring to the party?
You: I brought cheese and muffins. And you?
Justin: Oh, I brought sexy back.
You: You did?!!? Where did it go?
Justin: I don't know, but I brought it back.
You (looking down forlornly at your cheese and muffins): Wow. You brought back something extinct!
Justin: Nice muffins.

Next, I am hoping Justin is willing to work his magic again and bring back some other extinct things:

The Dodo Bird
Woolly Mammoths
Receding hairlines
A safe world

How bout it, JT?

The Still Center Of A Restless Mind

Can't sleep. I tried giving in to dreams, then reading, then a drink of water, and now finally, reluctantly, A Whispering Soul. There is too much quiet. Not the comforting quiet of lights closed in a warm house at night, but the unsettling quiet of a restless, searching mind.

I had a wonderful weekend with 'laizer, savior of souls, in from the Holy Land; shabbat and muffins and gourmet meals with the Muffin Dude and his family in Boston; an impromptu meeting with Kenju, who it turns out lives next door to the Muffin Dude; dinner with a Rav who exudes emes; hitbodedut by a Connecticut river, complete with dancing and mosquito bites; Torah to make your heart ache for more Torah and for Israel; and Chassidic stories of such delicacy and beauty, that they demanded moments of deep reflection and savoring.

And yet, four days later, there is this unsettling quiet. Nothing is amiss. No downward spiral of regret and despair, only an aching stillness. I suppose I am tired. Tired of waiting - for my zivug, for real life to begin. I am wistful for Eretz Yisrael, the vibrant purple flesh of a freshly cut pitaya in the shuk, the winding alleyways of mystery in Nachlaot, faces of friends I have not seen in years now, negotiations in sherut/taxi cabs, the cold stone of the kotel as I press my cheek against it, running through tall grass in the Galil, the one extending rock in Bat Ayin you can see forever from.

Where is the voice telling me my wife is out there, the one telling me that my children are waiting patiently to be born, the one telling me that there is a place for me, that my role, my contribution, my story is yet to emerge, and that when it does it will be true and clear and brilliantly defeaning in its rightness? Where is the voice, my voice, telling me Jerusalem is still there for me?

It is that kind of quiet.

The quiet between knowing where you are not - both literally and figuratively - and accepting it. It is the quiet of being single and being far away from your makom; the quiet of unreached potential and thwarted artistry; the quiet of Torah yet unfound; the quiet of a cry originating deep within the soul, recognizable only by its brokenness.

A beautiful teaching from a Rav met in Boston: The only thing a Jew has to keep him from being alone in this world is shabbos. HaShem sometimes plays hard to get, hides Himself from view. But shabbos? Every seven days guaranteed.

In reading this entry back, it feels permeated by sadness, but that is not reflective of my present frame of mind, at least not in the Smashing Pumpkins sense. It is the good kind of wistfulness, the kind that creates movement and flow. And there is great joy and peace in being able to name the aching stillness: it is loneliness and longing - for her (my zivug) and for her (Jerusalem) and for her (Torah) and for realizations yet to come.

And with peace, sleep...

What Happens To A Dream Deferred

As I was sitting in front of my computer working on a business writing project for hire, wishing I could be doing something more creative, I thought back to my childhood, and how great it was to be four. My entire world then was playing, running, drawing, and imagining. My parents were infallible, and I couldn't wait to turn 5, so I could be big, and go to school like my older brother.

School, as it turned out, was overrated. All of a sudden, playtime had parameters, work was expected, conformity was the norm, and creativity was stamped out. After the first day of kindergarten, I had had about enough, and recall asking if I really had to go back. In retrospect, I think I would have been a perfect candidate for home or Montessori schooling.

Of course, I went back. For the next 12 years I went back, though not as often as one might expect. I graduated high school with the record of being the second most absent student in my grade. If it weren't for LF and his juvenile delinquent ways, I would have been number one! What's funny, though, is that I was a pretty good kid, all things considered. I just was not good at conforming - nor at subjects which held little interest for me, as it turned out. For the most part, I hated biology and did only passably well; genetics fascinated me, however, and I aced every test. It was that way with every subject but English and Art, which I always excelled at - if the topic discussed piqued my interest, I was in, and if not, I was off in dreamland.

It wasn't until college, and even more so graduate school, that I really enjoyed school, really grew to love academia - I'm sure in part due to being able to choose my schedule, and in part because I could take mostly classes that I enjoyed and was interested in. I took studio art and literature classes, track and drama, film and writing and Judaic Studies and foreign languages. It was bliss (well, except for Blake and Melville and whatever we had to read in Old English, but we won't talk about that). I went to readings and plays, and was part of a writer's group, and was encouraged by my professors to transfer to the School of Visual Arts.

Reality hit about a year out of school - none of the things I was interested in were valued in the real world in their pure form - unless you were very fortunate or a dead white European male from the 16th-19th centuries, in which case you appreciated and were appreciated more with the passing years. The trajectory is kind of bizarre - you begin as a child encouraged to be creative and free, only to have that stifled in elementary and high school, only to have it rekindled in college and grad school, only to have it squashed again by the working world.

As some of you may recall, I have this recurring nightmare of becoming an accountant (with no offense to the fine upstanding accountants and accountants to be out there, especially Ezzie). Though it would mean a nice upswing in my financial status, it is not in any immediate danger of happening, nightmares notwithstanding. You can't be something you're not. But it is equally hard not being something you are.

They say you should look to your passions as a child to find your calling. When I was in second grade, the teacher asked us to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wrote about being a chef. At other times during childhood, I remember wanting to be an artist, a writer, a runner, a rabbi, a husband and father, a doctor, an astronaut and a firefighter. The last two fell out of favor along the way to adulthood, and I am much too squeamish to be a doctor, but the others have never left their places in my dreams.

Were I living out my childhood passions, I would spend most of my days writing novels and short stories and literary non-fiction; I would create funky artwork and lamps and furniture to sell at fairs on Sundays; I would be a gourmet chef and create recipes and write cookbooks; I would teach chassidut; I would be a healer; I would run marathons and I would be raising a rambunctious brood of kids with a wonderful wife and companion.

It's true I do/have done some of these things - some in quiet ways. Some I have worked hard to reach, some I have even seen a bit of success with, others are but a flirtation, and some I let float out there just beyond grasp. What happens to dreams deferred? They stay dreams, until they become real.

What were your dreams as a child? And where do they show up in your life today?

Don't It Make My Red Hair Brown

Nice little old blue-haired lady: "You have such beautiful red hair!"
6 Year Old Me: "My hair is brown!"
Nice little old blue-haired lady turns to my mother, who nods vigorously up and down and sighs, "It's brown." Nice little old blue-haired lady thinks we are both nuts and walks away confused.

This scene played itself out more times than I can recall (substitute any number of other people for nice little old blue-haired lady) throughout my childhood. I had beautiful red hair. And I was in denial. Who wanted to be a redhead? Ronald McDonald was a redhead, Raggedy Anne and Andy were redheads, Pippi Longstocking was a redhead, and that obnoxious kid on The Partridge Family reruns, Danny Bonnaducci. But not people I knew. Not any Jewish people outside my own family.

Certainly as a kid, with my red hair, blue eyes and milky white skin, I felt somehow less Jewish than all the curly black-haired, dark-eyed kids around me. As one of only three redheads (one of whom was my brother) in my entire elementary school, I was an anomaly. It was my otherness within the larger otherness of being a Jew. Some insisted that I must be Irish or Scottish. Who ever heard of a Jew with red hair (and blue eyes, no less)?

That neither my parents (both jet black!) nor grandparents had red hair did not help matters. Where did it come from? Techinically, there was one great-grandparent on either side who had red hair, and which, skipping over two generations, came through in two of my siblings and myself. But try telling that to me as a child. Maybe I was Irish or Scottish - or fictional!

Later, of course, I would meet a number of other redheaded Jews (and many more who had red beards, at least - the men, that is) and I would learn that red hair plays a prominent role in Jewish tradition, from Eisav through King David to Moshiach (not to be confused with Moshiak), who I have heard numerous times will also supposedly be a redhead. That red hair is associated with anger and bloodthirst (think Eisav or Erik the Viking marauder, or even King David, who found ways to channel his rage) and passion did not do much to make me feel better about my hair color, though (I have that fire, too, but it takes a lot to bring it out. A good friend with twin rambunctious redheaded 2 1/2 year olds confided that he is holding on to me as his hope that his children can grow up to be calm and mellow even as redheads).

I don't know exactly at what point I stopped insisting that my hair was actually brown, but it probably coincided with my first being called "gingi," which I was not particularly fond of, but as it was invariably an Israeli who would employ the term, at least it was inclusive - of course I am a Jew! I'm a gingi! When in Israel, even to Israelis who knew my name, my red hair took over my identity. I was not MC, but "gingi blondini," as my shade of red veers toward reddish-blonde, especially in the sun.

Easy to burn and freckle as a child, I was rarely allowed in the sun unless I was covered from head to toe with gobs of sunscreen and wore a hat - not exactly redhead love inducing. As a teenager, I would try to tan anyway, always to be disappointed by - and in pain from - my red and peeling skin.

It was not until I was im my mid-teens - when fitting in was not as crucial and it felt good and right to be an individual - that I not only became comfortable with having red hair, but grew to appreciate its uniqueness. Apparently, only 2-3% of the U.S. population are redheads, and within a century redheads worldwide may be extinct (start the save the redheads campaign now!).

I am especially wistful about my "brown-haired" redheaded days now, as just a month ago a lone white hair showed up in my trimmed beard. I have checked every few days since then for more, but it sits there all by itself. I'm sure no one else would even notice it. I have not decided yet whether to pull it out or leave it. I am in my early thirties and I am not worried that my beard and hair will turn white overnight, but will it be 10 years, 20, 30 or 40 before my hair is a mix of red and white or even all white?

It was startling to me how this status of other I had held on to for half my life is just a question of pigmentation, and how short a time it may last. I picture myself at 85, and a young child will approach me and tell me how beautiful my white hair is. I wonder if I will respond, "It's red!" and I wonder who will be there to nod and sigh.

Conclusions Leave You Breathless: The Aliyah Dilemma

The following began life as a blog post, was reworked for an article in a magazine, and now, in light of (good) questions posed by Jameel, Treppenwitz and various real-time friends who have the privilege and merit to make Eretz Yisrael home -most specifically, "why have you not made aliyah?" - has been reworked again slightly to answer that question. I look forward to the discussion it will hopefully provoke....I would appreciate thoughts and comments. Thanks.

Each year since coming back from Israel, I look at the Nefesh B'Nefesh website, feel a pang of heartache watching the videos of families making aliyah, grow antsy when yet another friend takes the plunge, and then...I do nothing.


The issues for me are many, but I can narrow them down at essence to three: singlehood (I am adamant about not making aliyah as a single person - as wonderful as Eretz Yisrael is and as many friends as I have there, once I left yeshiva, all of a sudden I was alone and lonely in a foreign country, and most of the anglo women at my level of religious comfort tend to leave post-seminary if they do not marry, and I would like to marry an anglo), financial viability (I do not need to be rich, but I do not want to have to wonder where my food will come from each month. I have been told to come to Israel with at least $20,000 saved, which I do not have; I do not have a career which is considered viable in Israel and I am not willing to be miserable by becoming an accountant in order to be there, nor do I have parents who are willing to supplement my income every month if I am there (nor do I think they should)). The third - and most compelling - issue for me is family.

I envy those whose parents are supportive of their making aliyah (mine are not), or who have the ability to recognize the greater good of what they are building for the future, and are able to weigh that against parental anguish(I am not).

Though my parents support Israel politically and in charitable giving, Israel was never part of our family lexicon. There were no yearly trips there, no marching in the Israeli Day Parade, no recognition of it as the place for Jews. It has become a part of lore that my parents are the only ones the Israel counselor at my day school was unable to budge when it came to sending their kids on a post-high school year, for fear we would end up wanting to live in such a far-away place. My parents have never been to Israel (my mother has a fear of flying); I was, in fact, the first person in my family to visit Israel in 3 generations. So it did not come as a surprise when they were upset by my recent three year stay there.

My parents cannot bear the thought of not seeing their children on at least a semi-regular basis - and I do understand where they are coming from. Parents raise their children with the expectation that they will always be a part of their lives. After all the love, sleepless nights, financial output, do they not deserve to see their children and grandchildren more than twice a year? Do they not deserve the comfort of knowing that their children are nearby to help them and take care of them in their old age? Shouldn't they be able to reap the joy of being at brisim and watching baby's first steps, instead of receiving e-mail updates and a round of pictures every month? I want these things for them too...I have heard from a number of older friends whose parents have passed on that if they had realized how much their making aliyah had hurt their parents, they may never have done it. I have other, younger, friends living there who refuse to think about it, because of the pain it engenders in their own hearts, let alone in the hearts of their parents. It is so much easier, once you are there, to block out other voices a world away.

My parents live for their kids. We are the most important thing in their lives. Is it worth my parents' heartache and sadness to be in Eretz Yisrael?

The counter-argument is rather simple and straightforward: It's Israel. The Jewish homeland. It's where we belong. If we don't make the move, who will? Someone has to be first. You have to think about what is best for you, and for future generations - in terms of Torah, environment, education, connection to the land and to our heritage.

But even discounting all of that for a moment, there is still the feeling when I am there - the feeling of belonging, of community, of being alive, of walking the same land my ancestors walked. Israel penetrates your bones, seeps into your soul. I don't have such feelings for any other place on this earth (certainly not NY, which I have made no secret of my distaste for). I have been to many beautiful places- Boulder, Berkeley, the coast of Maine, Amsterdam, Brussels, Rome - and a few communitues that I like very much, such as Baltimore, but none of them pull at me or have taken up space in my head and my heart and my soul like Israel has. I love it despite its backward third world ways, rude taxi drivers, and anti-pedestrian mindset.

How can you give up the chance to be in the land we were promised, the land we fought so hard for? Living there affords the opportunity on any give day to wake up and daven at the kotel, visit the kever of the Ari and ma'arat hamachpelah; to celebrate the chagim en masse with Jews from all over the world, to live a simpler, more spiritually-based life - are these opportunities to throw away? They say there is no Torah learning like the Torah learning in Eretz Yisrael - the kedusha is extraordinarily present there, in the trees, in the air, in the soil. And I want that, with such a longing, I want that for myself, for my future wife, for my children (be"H). I want that for my parents too...

I realize that much of this is based on how they were raised. It is a New York phenomenon. If you grew up in the five boroughs in my parents' generation, moving away means Long Island or Teaneck at the furthest. There is no need to go anywhere else. It is not like Denver or even Los Angeles, where until very recently, if you were Jewish and even marginally observant, it was a given that at some point you'd be sending your child to the east coast or to Yerushalayim, if only to expand the prospective dating pool. My parents and their circle stayed in NY, just as their parents and their grandparents did. But why should I be bound by their choice?

My grandfather has suggested a compromise, such as moving to Baltimore or California, which would at least get me out of New York. But what room is there for compromise when it is not distance I am after, but Israel itself, and when it is not Israel per se my parents take issue with, but the very concept of physical distance? I come from a long line of stubborn people. I don't know how this will be resolved. The one certainty, though, makes me quite sad - no matter what I choose, the Israel issue is going to make one (or both) of us miserable...

It breaks my heart that I am not in Israel. I think about it every single day - literally. But for me to make aliyah, at least at this point, would require me to be married, have a viable career for Israel, and have the ability to make frequent trips to the states to see my family, or live 4 months of the year in the states. Impossible? I suppose not. But all easier said than done...

For now, the best I can hope for is that I will encourage my own children (if I am blessed to have any) to make aliyah, and join them when I am able to retire, though it makes me sigh even just to write that...it seems so far off....

How To Be A Slightly Poetic Modern Chassidic Orthodox Jewish Writer

Live in New York, where Jews can be Jews without Judaism. Question, but know when to accept. Be idealistic to a fault. Daven your way - in your own words, in silence. Meet angels in your dreams. Linger near the waters and rocks. Write before sunrise and after sunset. Welcome solitude and laughter. Love films by unafiliated Jews - Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble In Paradise and The Smiling Lieutenant; early to mid-Woody. Hide your kippah under a cap. Be impulsive. Revel in the rain. See truth and beauty in havdallah and lit candles. Find your place in your family. Absorb trivial details. Believe in souls. Watch from the sidelines. Live your fictions. Trust in Chassidic joy. Announce you are an artist to convince yourself. Get lost between the pages. Work in light and shadow. Overanalyze. Sculpt in clay, and wood and glass and food. Wherever you are, be in Jerusalem always. Sing a niggun. Aim for Malamud and Singer and Ishiguro; ignore them all. Save what matters. Note the leaves. Drink in the innocence of toddlers. Hurt easily. Find your kavannah. Move with the clouds. Dance for the moon. Acknowledge your difference. Listen to photographs. Take long walks on tree-lined paths. Make time for hitbodedut. Champion the uninvited. Write stories around lines and curves. Struggle with the burdens of your people. Give up. Start again. Miss friends. Answer to all your names. Languish in the serenity of shabbat. Admit when you are wrong. Re-create your life. Avoid television - not for religious reasons, for peace of mind. Feel yourself fading. Hold fierce to independence. Believe in possibilities still. Write what you know. Feel guilty about it. Expand time. Avoid centers and edges. Swirl with music in the air. Chart something. Wear gray in a sea of black. Search for the impossible. Be reserved and free. Dream. Dream. Dream. Disdain hypocrisy. Keep Torah with you. Remember to breathe. Be drawn to the mystical. Recoil and return. Crave closeness and depth. Avoid definition. Believe in hashgacha pratis. Let "Lecha Dodi" and "Ani Ma'amin" touch you. Smile wide and often. Laugh fully. Acknowledge kindness. Trace the seven strap marks tefillin has made on your arm. Search for precedents. Know your worth. Derive pleasure from the wind in a night sky. Be a Jew. Wish to be a Jew you can be comfortable with.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Why, it's Christmas music! All the time! Everywhere! And (in the hopes that this will somehow pass as fulfilling the I confess meme I was tagged with by Daled Amos) I confess that I have a weak spot for it. No, not the `barump ba bum bum, yay Jesus!' variety of Christmas music, but the less overtly religious, more innocuous "Winter Wonderland", "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" type Christmas music (well, ok, and "Silent Night")- the kind that is not only marked by fine musicianship and songwriting, but which genuinely makes you feel good.

I wish it were great Chanukah songs I heard everywhere this time of year. But guess what? There are none. But so many of the most successful recording artists of all time have been Jewish, you protest! Bob Dylan? Nothing. Barbra Streisand? Neil Diamond? Barry Manilow? Harry Connick Jr.? We have Christmas albums from each, but nary a note on Chanukah. Two of the great songwriters of our time, Paul Simon and Carole King have recorded Christmas songs as well.

And they are in good company. It was a Jew, Irving Berlin, after all, who wrote "White Christmas," perhaps the most well-known of all modern-day Christmas songs. Jews also wrote "Let It Snow" (Sammy Cahn) and "Santa Baby" (Joan Javits), among other songs considered holiday classics.

It is not as if we have been completely bereft of Chanukah songs: Kenny G, paradigm of all that is bland, found no room for a Chanukah track on his 2002 holiday album Wishes, but he did include "The Chanukah Song" on his 1994 holiday album Miracles, and another, "Eternal Light (A Chanukah Song)" on his 1999 otherwise all-Christmas CD, Faith. Just between you and me, though, how do we know these are really Chanukah songs? They are instrumentals...

I was so excited when the Chanukah compilation Festival Of Lights came out a number of years back, only to find the biggest featured names to be Jane Siberry and Marc Cohn (who I always thought was not Jewish (thanks to Stacey for the correction!) - the latter contributing a great version of "Maoz Tsur/Rock Of Ages") - with the added highlight of famed cantor Yosele Rosenblatt singing kiddush backed by a Balinese dance beat. Festival Of Lights 2, from 1999, upped the ante, featuring They Might Be Giants singing the original "Feast Of Lights".

On the parody side, the makers of South Park offered the offensive but funny "A Lonely Jew On Christmas" and "Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel" on Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics album, joined this year by Sarah Silverman's "Give The Jew Girl Toys", and the truly embarrassing "Chanukah's Da Bomb"by Chutzpah. And of course, there is the one Chanukah song radio will play, now in three versions, Adam Sandler's "The Hanukkah Song", which cleverly rhymes funnaka, marijuanica and gin and tonnica with hannukah. Not exactly poetry. I'm not convinced it's actually even music, either. Sure, it was fun the first time I heard it, but now...

The Barenaked Ladies, of "One Week" fame, offered three Chanukah songs on their Barenaked for the Holidays CD - "Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah", "I Have A Little Dreidel" and the original "Hanukkah Blessings". None are particularly good, but if you want them, they have been repackaged as the stand-alone three track EP, Barenaked for Hanukka, available on I-Tunes.

The OC, the TV show which introduced the world to Chrismukkah, has released a holiday album called A Very Merry Chrismukkah, which is oddly made up of all Christmas songs save for Ben Kweller's tepid version of "Rock Of Ages".

Aside from one-offs by under the radar indie bands like Another Man Down's "The Dreidel Song" and Shudder To Think's "Al HaNisim" on different holiday compilations and oddities such as Peter Paul & Mary's "Hayo Haya", an ode to the Maccabees, that's pretty much all there has been on the Chanukah front.

What's a "Winter Wonderland", "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town", "Father Chritsmas", "Jingle Bell Rock" loving Jewish boy to do?

Fortunately, a change is in the air. With Matisyahu singing about HaShem appearing on MTV right after Madonna's video for "Hung Up", his album Live At Stubbs at 126 on the album charts and climbing, and his single "King Without A Crown" just 10 chart positions from entering the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart (it has already reached #14 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart), I would say the time is ripe for Jewish artists to embrace Chanukah on record.

Do you hear what I hear?

Why, it's the LeeVees! Fronted by members of Guster and the Zambonis - not exactly household names, but both are up-and-coming - the LeeVees offer a full-length Chanukah album, Hanukkah Rocks. And the good news is it does rock, with not a single dud among the tracks. With a style that comes across as the love child of Aimee Mann and They Might Be Giants, all of the tracks are fun, tongue-in-cheek guitar-laden odes to the holiday Jewish musicians seem to have forgotten.

"Latke Clan" is a classic-in-the making. Other tracks include: "Applesauce vs. Sour Cream", "Goyim Friends", "At The Timeshare", "How Do You Spell Channukkahh?", "Kugel", "Jewish Girls (At The Matzoh Ball)", "Gelt Melts" and "Nun Gimmel Shin Heh".

You can hear the entire album for free here . Just click past all the Christmas CDs until you get to Hanukkah Rocks. Then turn off your radio stations playing Christmas songs all day long, sit back, and enjoy....not up to par with "Winter Wonderland"? Maybe not, but it's a good start....

Chanukah Sameach!

Who By Birth: The Girl Who Never Fully Was

There was a picture taken when she was delivered, but we did not see it; the gravemarker at her tiny plot says only "baby," followed by our family name. Instead of being surrounded by family, she lies in a section of the cemetary surrounded by other stillborns, and babies who lived for less than a week.

Our rabbi gave her a name, a name of comfort, given to many stillborns, but not allowed to be placed on the tombstone.

I remember very clearly the day my mother left pregnant and came home empty. That emptiness stretched for months, even years. When she went into labor, the baby had already died inside her. She knew it, and still she had to push.

I don't know how to think of the baby - literally. I sometimes wonder who she'd be, how her presence would have changed our family dynamic, how we would be eight children instead of seven, even numbered. Yet there is nothing from which to create or to build upon. She would have to be fully imagined, like a character in a novel or film. Only she is not fixed as any one thing, any one entity. There is no history, no memory, no good or bad. In that way, she is free, unencumbered.

Yesterday, she would have been 15. She was to have been the bridge between my 20 year old brother and my 12 year old sister, connecting the 80s to the 90s. And instead there is a gap. Eight years. Again, there is eight. Seven is shabbat, the days of the week, the days of creation. Seven is this world, but eight - eight is beyond this world. The number is disquietingly fitting for someone who never fully entered this world, who existed, who breathed, only in a womb, as a series of weak heartbeats and feeble kicks.

I have visited her grave, pulled out the stray weeds among the carefully arranged rock bed laid down by my parents to keep weeds at bay and to differentiate her grave from the other little ones no one seems to remember. I would like to acknowledge her in some way, but she is so intangible. I can't feel sad or miss her because I never saw or knew her. How do you mourn someone who never fully was, who never had the chance to be?

We do not speak of her in my family; we let the day of her stillbirth pass by without a word. Yet, she has an undeniable weight and presence. She is a heavy emptiness, a void that cannot be touched. She has come to represent for me all unfulfilled potential, all that is ephemeral, nameless, faceless, both the fear and the comfort of what is unknowable.

In Rabbinic literature, it is written that a stillbirth occurs when a soul only needs the mother's womb to achieve perfection. And so to my perfect sister who never fully was, I hope your soul is at peace. I don't know how to remember you, but I haven't forgotten you.

Make An Ugly Woman Your Wife

Jimmy Soul had a number one hit on the Billboard charts in 1963 singing the advice "if you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, make an ugly woman your wife." After the last woman who I was madly attracted to turned out to be more than a little psychotic, Mr. Soul's words sound quite sagacious. The reality, however, is that I don't know anyone who specifically sets out to find a spouse they find unattractive, and I question how happy it might actually make them. I know many, though, who take the extreme opposite route, placing a premium on attractiveness. If a woman is not a size 2 and supermodel gorgeous, many guys will not even give them the time of day. And it is not just the guys. I have met plenty of women who will settle for nothing less than the chiseled, broad-shouldered, over six foot man of their dreams who is rich to boot!

While I am not holding out for a supermodel, I also have fallen prey to placing importance on beauty - and I am troubled by it. I wonder how many great women I have turned down after a date or two - or even before getting to that stage - because I did not find them pretty. Yes, I have also ended things because a woman was not warm, or because she was rude or materialistic, but those are personality traits. I know that beauty fades, it is not constant, and it is purely external, having nothing to do with a person's intrinsic worth.

Yes, attraction has to be there, and attraction for me is not just based on physical attributes, and no, I am not seriously advocating marrying someone one is not attracted to, but it bothers me how great a role the physical plays in my thoughts. Why does it have to be this way? Is it strictly western society's influence? Have we been conditioned to expect everyone to look like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt? Do Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt even really look like the images of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt that we are presented with? When more of marriage is about who's going to get the milk at the grocery store than satiating lust, why is physical beauty so high on the list of essential traits in a spouse for so many of us?

Perhaps it needs to be the initial draw, because genuine love based on giving and mutual respect only develops later, after being there for each other and working together to build something - a relationship, a home, a life together. And just practically, for desire to be there, and to look at each other day in day out, there must be attraction. But how much is enough? What do we hold out for? How do we measure?

I can't quantify it personally, except to say I know it is more important to marry someone who will be a good spouse and a good parent to your children together, and who shares similar values in life. I would rather have those things and marry someone who I am somewhat attracted to than to not have them and be with someone I am madly attracted to - and yet, attraction does have to be there. I do not care about impressing my guy friends. I do not care if everyone else thinks my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. What I do want, though, is to be able to tell my wife I think she is beautiful and mean it - because she deserves that.

For those of you who are married, what was the one trait that figured most prominently in drawing you to your spouse? How important was the attractiveness factor before marriage and now after marriage? And for those of you who are single, to what degree have physical attributes played a role in your dating choices and in what you are looking for in a spouse? I very curiously await your thoughts...

The Bears And I

I don't do winter well. Even though technically winter does not begin for another month or so, once we push the clocks back and it begins to get darker earlier, and colder outside, it is already winter for me, and I tend to hibernate, both physically and spiritually.

Already, I can feel it beginning - I grow more reflective and wistful and internal, instinctively grab for sweaters, think of how cold it is before venturing outside, stay a little longer under the covers. The music I listen to is more mellow, the books I read carry greater weight and depth, or at least have more resonance for me.

There are many wonderful things I associate with this time of year: watching snow fall from the comfort of a window, the perfect time to listen to the beautiful Tori Amos song Winter, the lights of chanukah, hot drinks as they go down your throat, more night - for those of us creative types who do our best work after dark, watching how excited kids are to play in the snow, hearty soups; it is a very good time for a visit to California...

And an image: Rav Dovidl of Diniv, the son of the Bnei Yissachar, said that once Elul began, tzadikim would look up at the night sky and see a hand in the stars. Each day, the hand would lower and unfurl its fingers a little more - until Chanukah, when it would close its fingers and return to the sky and invisibility. The hand was of course the hand of HaShem, giving a little extra help and encouragement to those of us who would not have made it into the Book of Life on our own merits. (Many chassidim believe we have until Chanukah to do teshuva for the past year). A very comforting image.

And yet....winter isn't my season. I'm all for reflection, and drawing inward at certain times, but mostly I find winter a time of barrenness and loneliness even within a crowd, of searching for warmth and light (thank God for Chanukah), storing up hope, watching footprints - literally and figuratively - that you've made in the snow, building up, fortifying to burst forth in life, in Spring...

I could use the hand. so I'd like to think the Chassidim have it right.