Renaissance Man

Today was a fairly quiet day, busy enough at work to stop me getting bored, but not so busy that I was rushing the whole time. Plus, I had to go to the bank and the shops for work reasons, albeit in the rain, which is good.

Yesterday, however, was very busy, so busy that I didn’t have time to blog. So this is yesterday’s blog post today.

I started my proofreading job. I worry that I am too formal and pedantic for the professional blog posts I was proofreading. I feel my writing style is slightly formal (or stuffy, if you prefer). I know that a more informal style is considered acceptable even for some professional materials and try to adapt, but it’s hard sometimes. I let contractions go through, but struggle with “But” at the start of a sentence (twice). I know it’s done, it just seems wrong to me. I want to put “However” or “Nevertheless”. I can’t remember how I left it. I left “paycheck to paycheck” in as there isn’t really a British English equivalent without significantly re-writing the sentence. I think it probably makes sense to most English people, but I might add a note when I return it. I proofread two posts of about 500 words each and have one of 1,000 left to do, but one of the 500 word posts took twice as long as the other, so it’s hard to estimate how long it will take to finish.

In the evening we had a family Zoom call for my father’s seventieth birthday. This was a semi-surprise. We couldn’t think how to get Dad on the call without telling him it was happening, but he thought it would just be my parents, me and my uncle and aunt (Mum’s brother and sister-in-law; Dad is an only child). Instead, as well as all of us, there was E, Sister, Brother-in-law, Nephew and some of my first cousins (Cousins 1, 4 and 5). This was the first time Uncle, Aunt and Cousins had “met” E as well as the first time all of them bar Uncle had met Nephew. It was a good call, but E and I found it draining. My extended family are very boisterous.

In between these two things, I had therapy. It was a successful session. We spoke a lot about masking and trying to fit in to the frum world. I feel like I have two identities, a frum (religious Jewish) one and a worldly one. These don’t feel like they go together and I feel bifurcated. My therapist suggested I could see myself as a Renaissance man, one engaged with the world, but also deeply religious. This appeals to me as I studied the Renaissance at university. Figures like Copernicus, Sir Francis Bacon and Johannes Kepler invented the scientific method while being deeply religious. Similarly Sir Thomas More was a courtier and writer (humanist in the sixteenth century sense of a student of the humanities) as well as devout Catholic, at least until it cost him his head for resisting Henry VIII’s break with Rome. My therapist said that even if the frum world doesn’t share my interests, I can still feel part of both the frum world and the wider world in this way.

This reminded me of a couple of things. One was a letter Rabbi Sacks  z”tzl referred to in one of his books. It was written by Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner z”tzl, a prominent twentieth century thinker and halakhicist (jurist). A young man who had studied in yeshivah (rabbinical seminary) for several years and was about to go to medical school wrote to him saying that he worried he was living a double life, religious and secular (career). Rav Hutner wrote to him to say that to own an apartment, but live in a hotel is to live a double life, but to own an apartment with two rooms is not to live a double life, but a broad one. Similarly, to have a secular career, particularly a socially useful one like medicine, is not a contradiction to a religious life, but simply a broadening of it. This is a letter that I have taken some comfort from for a long time, even if it is not really about engaging with Western culture (I’ve never had any qualms about having a career).

I was also reminded of a story (I have no idea if it’s true) about a famous nineteenth century rabbi (I can’t remember who) who was quite cultured. One day he was walking around depressed, having heard that the poet Johann Goethe had died. Some people asked why he was depressed and he said “Goethe has died.” None of the people knew who Goethe was, but they guessed he must be a great rabbi if their rabbi was mourning his death, so the community went into mourning for “Rabbi Goethe.” The story suggests that frum people may not understand me, but that doesn’t mean they will necessarily dislike me or oppose me; they might even support me, in their way.

We also spoke a bit about whether I underestimate other frum people and whether they might be more open to the outside world than I think. I remembered when a friend of mine from the more Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) shul (synagogue) I used to go to asked if I liked music. I said I didn’t, because I was worried he would find my musical taste (a lot of rock and pop) too modern. However, he listed some of his favourite musicians, who turned out to be people I like listening to, like Sting and Billy Joel (I haven’t listened to Sting so much recently, but I still listen to Billy Joel quite a bit). I had definitely underestimated him (this is someone who doesn’t own a TV, by the way).

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I have lost a little weight, despite having largely given up on even token dieting. I’ve seen a couple of blog posts in the last few days from people who say diets don’t work and are dangerous, although they are both in recovery from eating disorders. I think the weight loss is probably due to cold weather and using more “fuel” staying warm, so I don’t know if it will stay off. I also ate ice cream yesterday as I felt I needed a reward for my busy day.

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Novel-writing is on hold for now, which is frustrating, but I have other priorities: work, proofreading work (including setting up profiles on more sites) and especially wedding preparation. We hope to confirm the date in the next week or so.

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For reasons that I don’t want to go into now beyond saying “wedding preparation,” I am looking to buy two toy Daleks, preferably one black and one white. I have been looking on eBay. The problem is that E and I are trying to avoid buying from China if possible (because of ongoing genocides and slavery), but 90% of toys seem to come from there. We’re not sure what to do about this. We are not fully consistent on this, as both of us do sometimes buy from China or from other unethical sources (like cheap clothes from Primark which is made in Third World sweatshops – ignoring for now the question of whether it’s better to patronise these and let people earn some money or avoid them and probably force them out of business rather than raising wages). It is a very difficult question. But we don’t feel that toy Daleks are sufficiently necessary to justify buying them. E feels that buying second-hand isn’t the same as buying new and she may be right. I’m not sure what to do and am procrastinating, as I always do when confused. It’s hard to be an ethical shopper.