Me, my self-reliance, and I

I gave the EQ lesson this last Sunday, which was on Bishop Edgley's talk from conference a few weeks ago. His talk mentions self-reliance, and I had a few thoughts about that term that didn't make it into the lesson. (Azoy vert dos kichel tzekrochen!) So I thought I would share them here. You're welcome.

I have lots of problems with the concept of self-reliance, and the emphasis we Mormons place on this. There's so much that we simply cannot do by ourselves. We certainly can't return to God on our own, for example.

But maybe this is like the problem some people have with the parable of the ten virgins. As they wait for the bridegroom, five of them run out of oil for their lamps and ask to borrow from the other five. But they refuse to share. The parable used to bother me because the obvious parallel is to us humans waiting for the Messiah, and there are lots of things that we can do to help each other as we wait. But then I realized that the parable is just not about those things. It's about the things we can't share. For example, I must repent if I want to be ready to see God. And no matter how much my brother Herschel repents, he can not repent for me. He can not share that repentance.

So maybe self-reliance is the same. I get mad because there are things we can't rely on ourselves for. But that's silly. I should instead ask myself: How can I make self-reliance a useful principle for me?

It might help if I start with an expanded vision of self. After all, we can talk about a family or a church community or a nation being self-reliant, right? So the self we're talking about can be larger than one person.

Given the nature of our God, is this really so strange? We're told to be one with God, and with each other.

So in the end, I guess I would say that I believe in being self-reliant, because I believe that together with God and with my fellows, I can accomplish anything.

--MOISHE

Mobsters

Schalom! My brothers and I have been very busy of late, but that should be no excuse of course.

Today in Elders Quorum we talked about Joseph Smith's months in Liberty Jail, and there was a quote from the prophet.

“We are kept under a strong guard, night and day, in a prison of double walls and doors, proscribed in our liberty of conscience. Our food is scant, uniform, and coarse; we have not the privilege of cooking for ourselves; we have been compelled to sleep on the floor with straw, and not blankets sufficient to keep us warm; and when we have a fire, we are obliged to have almost a constant smoke. The Judges have gravely told us from time to time that they knew we were innocent, and ought to be liberated, but they dare not administer the law unto us, for fear of the mob.”

Now, there are two things that struck me as interesting here. First, in the US today when we say "the mob," we are always referring to organized crime syndicates.
But Joseph Smith and his judges weren't worried about some mamzer from the mafia sending them to sleep with the fishes. They were worried about the ordinary townsfolk painting their faces black and marching on the jail to take the law into their own hands. (Not that such a thing would ever happen, kine-ahora.)

This kind of vigilante riot used to be common here, but is now almost unthinkable. That's a good thing, I think. The mob we have now is bad, but I'm glad we don't have to worry about the mobs that afflicted 19th century America.

Second, I think that sometimes I play the part of the cowardly judge, locking up my better self for fear of what the noisy crowd would say. The Messiah comes to set the captives free, and that includes each of us. We are in bondage to sin and error, but we can be liberated if we follow the Lord instead of listening to the world.

If we don't, then we are exercising unrighteous dominion over ourselves. We are keeping our better selves locked up, instead of shaking off our chains and freeing ourselves from spiritual bondage. And why do we do it? As Joseph Smith wrote from his dungeon cell in Liberty Jail, it is because our hearts are set on the things of this world, because we aspire to the honors of men. Not only do we fear the mob, we want to join them.

And that's crazy! So, no more mob rule for me. I am walking out of this meshuggenah prison. Freedom fries, here I come!

--MOISHE

A very small club

Here is a puzzle I have been noodging over today. Maybe you can noodge with me.

In the first chapter of Moroni, he says that he is on the run from Lamanites since they are killing all who would not deny the Christ. But in Mormon's lament, Moroni's father says:

17 O ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord! O ye fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you!
18 Behold, if ye had not done this, ye would not have fallen. But behold, ye are fallen, and I mourn your loss.

So the Nephite nation was annihilated because they rejected Christ, then who is left who is not denying? Is it just Moroni himself? That's a very small club.

It's just another question I will be asking when I am dead.

--MOISHE

Honesty from a devil?

Schalom and vee gehts!

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about a passage in Acts chapter 16. The text is as follows:

16 ¶ And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:

17 The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.

18 And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.

This seems like a pretty straightforward passage. An evil spirit was following Paul as he was going about his business, so Paul cast the spirit out. That's what you do to evil spirits. You cast them out. But I got to thinking, what exactly did this spirit do that was wrong? We often say that the Devil and his minions can not tell the truth, and are only capible of lies, but here we see a clear instance of a demon testifying of Christ. And it's not the first time.


Now, I'm not saying that devils are good. Or that we should listen to that teufel on our shoulder who tells us to be a shlub. I'm just saying this is interesting, and that I'm not sure what to make of it. Feel free to post comments with your thoughts, and maybe that will help clear me up.

Till next time, zay gezunt!

Herschel

The Lord's name

Schalom and vee gehts!

I have a quick kvetch for today. Most of us know about God's Big Ten. The ten things that really make Him unhappy. And most of us know that taking the Lord's name in vain is one of those things. I've been bothered lately by two of the ways that we tend to break this commandment.

The first is just mislabeling Him. Last Sunday I heard no less than four people say that I was Jesus Christ's father (ending a talk or a lesson in the name of "Thy Son"). If there's anybody not clear on how to use this, just think about who you are talking to. "Thy" means "your" so it is correct when Christ is the Son of the person you are talking to. Prayers are directed to God the Father in the name of His Son, so "Thy Son"fits. Talks, testimonies, and lessons are directed at the audience (I wouldn't presume to teach God the importance of tithing), and since no one in the audience is Christ's father, "Thy Son" is not correct.

The second way, and the way that I find harder to avoid myself, is removing the importance from Christ's role as our mediator. We do this every time we end a talk or prayer "Namff Jes Crash Men" (If you don't know what that means, try saying it out loud, maybe really fast after "I know the church is true"). This is something that I personally am working on, and I think that most of us need to think about. We say it so often that it has lost its meaning.

Well, this was supposed to be a grumpy kvetch not a preachy sermon, so I think I'll stop here. Just please, if you are guilty of either or both of these, think about it. Till next time, zay gezunt!

Herschel

Lehi

Schalom and vee gehts!

I have been thinking about Father Lehi lately. Lehi was born a good, balebatische Jew. (I'm green with envy, I am!) As such, he must have known about the story of Moses leading the people out of Egypt into the Promised Land. The reason I bring this up is that I wonder if Lehi ever thought about that long trip through the desert during his own long trip in the druchus. He must have noticed the parallels.

Both men (Lehi and Moses) saw the Lord in the form of a fiery vision. Both were called to lead a righteous group away from a wicked group. Both men led their groups into an unknown wilderness with the hope of a Promised Land. Both groups had rebellions and talked about the gute zeiten, despite being fed from heaven. Both leaders had their moments of doubt and weakness.

I could keep listing these things, but I won't. The point is that there are lots of things that must have made Lehi think he was another Moses. I think this would have frightened him, because the last Moses didn't end up in the Promised Land. Once in a while Lehi must have caught himself thinking that he, like Moses before him, would lead the Lord's people to Eretz Zion, but would not himself be able to enter. As sad as that is, I think it makes Lehi's personal devotion even more admirable.

I think we can all learn a lesson from Lehi. He was willing to stick with it and sacrifice, even if that sacrifice was for somebody else.

And that's it for today. Till next time, zay gezunt!
Herschel

King Noah, the Jerk

Schalom and vee gehts!

Now that Moishe has already apologized for both of us, I can skip that and get to the blogging.

I think I'll leave the teaching thread as an open ended series (which is to say, I have more to say about it, but don't feel like doing it now), and get back to quick thoughts that came to me when I should have been listening in Sunday School.

Recently I was thinking about the story of King Noah. Noah seems like a pretty smart cookie, and somebody who knows how to take care of himself. Then, he gets Gideon chasing him, and he runs up into a tower.

This always bothered me. I never understood why a guy who knew how to take care of himself so well would run into a tower, because towers generally have only one way in. He backed himself into a corner with no good exit strategy.

A few weeks ago, I was reading the story and realized that it was trying to tell us something: it's not that the King is stupid, it's just that nobody likes him.

Towers are full of guards. Guards are paid to make sure that crazy guys with swords don't kill the King. The King ran to the place where he was sure to find help, and not even his hired goons came to save him. Ouch.

I guess the moral of the story is that we shouldn't assume that people will always come to help us just because of our position, but that we should be good people who other people are willing to help out of love. Or maybe the moral is just that we should change King Noah's epithet from "Wicked Noah the Moron" to "Wicked Noah the Jerk Who Nobody Liked."

So, till next time, Zay Gezunt!
Herschel

I am Evil Martha

So...

I was dreaming this morning that I was in church, in a strange place, needing to give a talk and finding myself unprepared. And I hit upon an idea that was so good that I woke up from the dream so I could write it down for real. Although I think I've lost half of my examples.

I'm not sure that this is a really good idea. In the dream, I gave the talk while standing on top of an upright piano which was rolling around in the gym because I couldn't find the podium on the stage. So what I am saying is that this talk might not make as much sense in the waking world. But that's okay. I am still half asleep because it's not yet seven o'clock, and I think the dream has not entirely escaped me.

In the New Testament, we have the story of Mary and Martha, sisters who were friends of Jesus. One day when he was visiting them, they fed him and then be began to teach. Mary listened while Martha cleaned up the dishes from the meal. (I think I've got the sisters assigned properly here, although in the dream someone had taken my Bible and I could not remember for certain who was who, which gave me shpilkes.) Jesus tells Martha that washing the dishes is a good thing, but that it would be better for her to do like her sister and come talk about the gospel with the Savior of the world.

I've heard this story a thousand times (I would have heard it a million times if I were a girl, I think) and it makes sense. But after my dream this morning, I have a couple of questions. Why is Martha washing dishes? Was this a normal behavior for her? Was this something she would have been doing, no matter who had come over for dinner? My guess is that this was her usual behavior, and that she did it because she liked a clean house, which is a good thing. But that's not the way it works for me.

Here's an example. When I lived in Somerville, I was first counselor in the Sunday School presidency for a while. We shared the building with another ward, and both of us used the gym as a room for Sunday School. (Terrible room for teaching, FYI. Cavernous. Swallowed the sound. No one in there felt connected to the lesson or the teacher or the whole learning gestalt.)

Anyway, every Sunday, the Sunday School presidency from the other ward was responsible for putting up folding chairs in the gym before church started. And after church ended, our ward's presidency (including me) was supposed to make sure they got taken down and put away.

Well, nine times out of ten (it seemed) they didn't do their job, and when I showed up for sacrament meeting I would look into to the gym and see no chairs. So I would put up a hundred and twenty folding chairs by myself, which usually took up most of the time that people were speaking during sacrament meeting. They piped the speakers in, of course, so I told myself that it was okay because I could hear them. But like Martha, I wasn't really hearing as well as Mary, who chose to focus on listening.

Of course someone had to put up those folding chairs. But I knew every Sunday that I would need to to this. (Probably.) And I could have come early and done it before sacrament started, or come just a tiny bit early and grabbed some other dudes to help, or even got some people in our ward called to come early and do it. After all, I was in the presidency, right? The point is, it was in my power to have the folding chairs put up before sacrament meeting started, so that I could be sitting down, listening, being spiritually fed.

So why did I find myself every Sunday in the gym, putting up chairs? I should say here that unlike my earlier question about Martha, this is not a question to which I don't know the answer. I was there, I lived it, and I know why I did things the way I did them. I did it because I preferred being in the gym putting up folding chairs. Church is boring. It's even more boring than folding chairs. I never would spend thirty minutes putting up folding chairs on my own time. But I did it then because I could feel good about doing something good (as Martha did something good) while my true purpose was to avoid doing something better (as Mary did something better). My roommates used to say that they always knew when I had a big paper due because it's about the only time they would see me cleaning the apartment.

Let me say here (again) that this is not speculation. I'm talking about myself, and not anyone else, including you if you are reading this. I know my own mind, more or less. (And I am not here inventing bad motives for myself, so I have something new and fun to chastise myself about. I am not a girl. I have enough real faults to deal with.) I actually did prefer putting up the folding chairs. I really do choose to avoid doing what's best by doing something good instead.

I am Evil Martha. I only wash my dishes when God is in the next room, teaching. And I wash them because doing so prevents me from doing something better. I put up folding chairs between me and my Savior.

God help me, a sinner.

--MOISHE

PS - Sorry Herschel and I have not been posting here in a while. Yes, I know, I know. Your accusing stares and stony silences hit me like a blow to kishkas. But I can promise you, I've been spending my time worse somewhere else. (I can't speak for Herschel.)

How to teach- Part II

Schalom and vee gehts!

Today I am going to continue my series on teaching. This week, I want to talk about time.
Time is a tricky element. Some teachers try to stretch to fill it all, and some are constantly trying to rush to fit everything they want to say in the limited time they have.

The first key to time management is in the preparation. When you prepare a lesson, you see that the whole thing can be divided into two major categories: parts that are completely under your control (like while you are explaining something) and parts that are mostly in the hands of the class (like when you ask questions). Managing the time during these two times requires different strategies.

Managing the time while you are in control is the easier of the two. It boils down to knowing how long things take. It helps me to practice my lesson out loud a few times to get a feel for how much time each part will take. It feels funny, but you should try it, why not?. Find a quiet room with a clock (so you can be watching your time), stand up in the front of the empty room, and give your whole lesson from start to finish. This is especially helpful for people who are intimidated by the thought of speaking in front of people, because having given your lesson out loud already, it is familiar territory.

Keeping control of time when you have asked for class participation comes only with lots of practice. When you ask a question, sometimes you will have 10 minutes of good discussion, and sometimes no one will have anything to say. When I am preparing my lessons, I try to estimate how much time will be spent on the various class-participation parts. Then, when I teach, I pay attention to how long they actually took. Over time, my wild guesses (a guess is better than nothing, eh?) have become more accurate. Doing this helps you to get a sense for how long things take, which helps you keep control of that time.

Because your estimations are only estimations, you should not count on the class taking as much time as you guess. I try to prepare more than I will have time to say. This helps deal with some of the uncertainty involved in class responses. You should have enough material to teach a good lesson even if no one makes a single comment.

If you do this, it is very important that you know that you have more to say than you can cover. While you are preparing your lesson, think of which things are the most important things to say so that your lesson makes sense, and which things are good but not essential. Then, during your lesson, be conscious of the time, and begin cutting things out early, instead of teaching straight through and cutting out the last half of your lesson. I have sat through too many lessons that have an elaborate set up to a point that the teacher doesn't have time to make. It would be much better to cut things out early, make a less elaborate set up, but get to the point.

It is vital to any lesson that you start and end on time. Starting on time commands respect. If you start late, the class thinks (and it is often true) that you are stalling because you have nothing important to say. Ending on time shows respect to your class. It means that you value their time. Anything you say after the class is supposed to end will be filtered out anyway, so you might as well end on time.

The trickiest part about time is that you have to be conscious of it, but not make mention of it. If you are running short on time and (in an effort to end on time) decide to cut part of your lesson, you can't mention that you are cutting it for time. If you do, it makes it look like a dumkop who didn't think through the lesson very well (which isn't true, but it seems that way).

So, start on time, end on time, and prepare to fill the middle with creamy nougat. Till next time, zay gezunt!

Herschel

Gates

Figured something out today, I think.

I have long been bothered by Jacob's statement in 2 Nephi 9 that "the keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel; and he employeth no servant there." I have usually thought of the gate referred to here as the entrance to the celestial kingdom. But we often think that Jesus is not going to be the only one standing there.

For starters, think of all the jokes about St. Peter standing at the pearly gates with the big book. On a more serious note, Brigham Young said that " angels ... stand as sentinels," which we must pass to enter into the presence of God. And there are other scriptures that talk about how apostles and prophets will judge whether we are worthy of a heavenly reward.

So, I have not known how to understand this verse in 2 Nephi 9. But today, I think I stumbled across something which I am sure was obvious to many of the rest of you. This verse talks about a path leading back to God, and a gate. But it doesn't say where the gate is, relative to the path. I have assumed it is at the end. But it could also be at the beginning. As Jacob's brother explains it later:

"...For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.
And then are ye in this strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life..."

If this is so, then Jacob is really just saying what Jesus himself said. There is only one path back to God, and our first steps on that path are faith, repentance, and baptism. And this happens through Christ, and Christ alone. He employs no servant there.

Anyway, just thought I'd share. Mazel tov!

--MOISHE

How to teach- Part I

Schalom!

This week I've been thinking a lot about teaching. Specifically, I've been thinking about what makes a good lesson and a good teacher. There was way too much for one post, so I decided to make it a series.

The first skill that I think a good teacher needs is how to take care of reading. If there's one sure-fire way to get your class all farblonjid, it's reading a long boring passage. For anybody who hasn't figured it out yet, let me tell you a secret: any long reading is boring. It doesn't matter if it was interesting when you first read it. If it takes more than a minute to read, less than half the class will be listening by the end. That's just the way it is. There are ways to make it better though.

1) Read less- The simple truth is that reading whole chapters out loud is not a great way to learn, and much of what we read in class could be taught another way. If you can think of a way to teach it without making it a farshlepteh krenk, you should probably do it.

2) Explain more- Before reading a verse (or a quote), explain who is talking, whom they are talking to, and any important things that are happening. This also helps you to accomplish number 1. If you explain the context, you don't have to read the 3 verses before the one you are interested in just to explain what is going on.

3) Let them read- It is usually better to let the class members do the reading, not you. The class is already hearing your fonfering for an hour, so you might as well give them some variety. Another benefit is that you can let shy people who don't feel comfortable sharing their own ideas participate in a less threatening way.

4) If you have to break any of these rules, especially the first one, you will have to do something extra to keep it interesting. I have found it helpful when I am reading a long passage to give the class something to listen for instead of waiting till it is over to explain why it was important.

"While we are reading these verses, pay special attention to the way the Savior shows his love for..."

Basically you ask your question before you read the passage, then ask it again after. Knowing up-front why you are listening to something makes listening a lot easier.

Well, that's it for this week. Till next time, zay gezunt and a glick ahf dir with the reading!

Herschel

Who's your daddy?

Schalom!

Today, I want to do a bit of kvetching. And, as my dear mother always said, "A kvetch a day keeps the dumkops at bay." Or something to that effect.

It hurts my poor ears to hear people misusing "thee" and "thy" and the other scriptural pronouns. Now, I may not know much for zombies, but when it comes to bible talk... I'm the Bal Toyreh. So, without any more fuss, let's talk grammar.

Thou- Thou is used as the SUBJECT of a sentence. That means that you use it any time you would say "I" or "he," not "me" or "him."

Thee- Thee is used as the OBJECT of a sentence. That means that it is not the thing doing the verb, but the thing being verbed. If you can replace it with "him" or "us" or "me," you are probably using it right.

Thy- Thy is used as a possessive. It means "your."

Now, the general misuse of these is not the real subject of my kvetch. What I really want to kvetch about is a specific misuse of 'thy.' When we pray, we often end in the name of "thy son, Jesus Christ." This makes perfect sense. When we pray, we are addressing God the Father, whose Son is Jesus Christ. What bothers me is when people end their talks like this. In a talk, we address the congregation, not God. Ending a talk in the name of "thy son" means that you, the speaker, think that Jesus is my son. For anybody who is confused on this subject, let me just tell you: I am not Jesus' father. Please do not address me as such.

Well, everybody, that's all I have to say today. Till next time, zay gezunt!

Herschel

There will be blood

We got notified this morning of a movie which portrays Mormons as flesh-eating zombies. Let me tell you, when I read about this, I got mad-- mad that I didn't think of this first, mad that I didn't get invited to participate.

Our dear friend Betty Toms also got mad, but for a different reason. She's mad because this portrays Mormons in a negative way. But let's compare this to a problem faced by our brothers and sisters, the Jews. There actually are stories that Jewish people drink the blood of babies as part of their religious rituals. And even though these stories are ridiculous lies, tens of millions have (1) believed them and (2) acted on them, violently. So if someone made a movie which resurrected this old lie, I would be upset, even though I am not Jewish, because people could really get hurt.

I grew up in the Bible Belt, and I'm familiar with the special breed of unthinking anti-Mormon bigot you can find in those parts. And I do sometimes get tired of hearing anti-Mormon slurs. For instance, I get a little upset at books and movies which associate Mormonism with polygamy. Mormons renounced polygamy 120 years ago, so it's a lie to say that we're still polygamists. And it's a lie that some people will believe. But it's not a lie that will inspire any violent action. So although I get a little irritated about Big Love, and other such nonsense, I would never waste my time protesting it.

Now, a movie portraying Mormons as flesh-eating zombies is even less worthy of my condemnation, or even my attention. Of course, Mormons aren't really zombies. But no one is going to be fooled by this movie into thinking they are. (PS - If someone watches this trailer and wonders if Mormons really are undead monsters, they probably have difficulty tying their own shoes.)

The people who made this movie didn't pick Mormons for their monsters because Mormons are threatening. On the contrary, Mormons are boring, which makes it funny. Watch the trailer. It's a campy, over-the-top, silly B-movie made by a bunch of college kids. It's only forty minutes long. It walks the line between laughably bad and just plain bad. These guys want to be Sam Raimi-- they're aiming for thrills, and laughs.

Krusty the Clown taught us that a pie in the face is only funny if "the sap's got dignity." You make fun of someone because it causes them discomfort. If they laugh along, there's no fun in it. Fortunately for the makers of The Book of Zombie, Mormons are humorless squares, perfect targets for ridicule. So, congratulations on proving the Gentiles right.

--MOISHE

Nephi and the Boyfriend Deflection

Schalom to all!

First, let me welcome Yankel to the blog. I'm sure that his kvetching will fit right in with the rest. And maybe his tastes in cheese will be useful. By way of introduction to our readers, let me just say that Yankel is a real mensch, and you will like him. Mazal tov, Yankel!

Second, I want to talk about something that struck me while I was reading 1 Nephi 11. In the opening verses, Nephi prays to see the vision his father saw, and is visited by a Spirit. The Spirit asks Nephi if he believed that his father did see the vision, and Nephi answers that he believes all that his father has told him.

I have always seen this as a sign of Nephi's super faith. I read it as saying "Not only do I believe that he saw the tree, but I also believe everything else he has ever said." But, the more I think about it, the more I think that is not what is going on. It sounds more and more like Nephi is using what I call the Boyfriend deflection. Allow me to demonstrate:

Girl: "Do you think I look good in this dress?"
Boyfriend: "Honey, you know I love all your dresses."

Or let's try another one:

Girl: "Did you think my sister was acting immature?"
Boyfriend: "Why would you think that? I love spending time with your family!"

The boydidn't want to give the completely true answers ("You look like a zeppelin in that dress and your sister is a meshuggenerin"), but didn't want to lie either. So, he used the age old method of giving a positive answer to a different question. That way, his sweetheart doesn't get hurt, and he doesn't lie.

I think this is what Nephi is doing. He is not trying to be dishonest, but he is trying to give the best response he can. He knows that the right answer would be that he believes, but he doesn't quite feel comfortable with that, so he gives the next best thing.

The Spirit then shows Nephi the vision, based not on his belief in his father, but on his faith in Christ. I am not sure where I want to go with this, I just think it's something interesting. Maybe later I will revisit the idea and see if I can flesh it out a bit. Till then, the take home message is that it is OK not to know everything, as long as we are willing to be taught and want to know.

Till next time, zay gezunt!

Herschel

Rough Stone Rolling

I am currently reading Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, and am more confused than enlightened. In church videos, he is portrayed as not really a person, but a being. (A little like Ward Cleaver) He is wise, benevolent, perfectly moral, and totally unselfish. (Don't get me wrong, I think Joseph Smith was a prophet, kind hearted, moral, and a really really good guy.) I want some more information to flesh out his character. On the other hand, many other sources also describe Joseph as an inhuman, but devilish being. His only desire is to corrupt the souls of men.

So, now I am reading Rough Stone Rolling, and the historian's slant is to show that Joseph Smith was a person with personality and lots of problems, but still a prophet. I AM SO CONFUSED! I enjoy the detail, but do not know now what to think of the man. Maybe the book gives more details (Temper tantrums, personal breakdowns, and Polygamy Polygamy Polygamy) than I can accept.

P.S. I still have a testimony as to the veracity of the Book of Mormon, and continue to happily attend the temple and regular Sunday meetings.

P.P.S I wanted to find a good picture of Joseph Smith, but since I couldn't find one, here is one of Orrin Porter Rockwell.

The Keystone Lesson

Schalom! This month I was called as a Gospel Doctrine teacher, so I plan on posting more often. Hooray! Last week I taught the dreaded lesson about how the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion. I get very tired of this lesson, not because it is a bad lesson, but because I disagree with the way that it is always taught.

This is how it happens: the teacher draws an arch on the board, points to the keystone and says "What would happen if we took this one out?" Then everyone in the class responds (without thinking at all) that the arch would fall over.

"Herschel," you might ask me, "How do you know they aren't thinking?" I know this because if anyone thought about this before they answered, they would be able to tell you that removing any stone from an arch would cause it to fall. Any toddler who has played with blocks can tell you that.

So, as I prepared to teach this lesson, I tried to find a new approach to avoid this pitfall. And so I present for your consideration: "Keystones: What the Heck Are They For, Anyway?"

Before people started building arches, they framed their doors, windows, and other openings with a construct called a post and lintel. This consisted of two vertical posts and a beam across the top. These were somewhat limited in their usefulness because the posts had to be very close together, and they couldn't support very much weight above them. I won't go into the physics of it, but just know that if you put much weight on the lintel, it snapped in half and everything above it came crashing down.

Contrast that with an arch. Arches have a special way of distributing weight put on the keystone to the side, away from the gap in the middle. This means that they can accomodate wider doorways and support much more weight. That is what the keystone does: it transfers weight away from the very unstable open space to the more stable foundation.

This is one of the things that touches me about the story of Nephi. When he was asked if he understood the future coming of the Lord, he replied that he did not, but that he did know that God loved his children. This is why the Book of Mormon is so important to me. It allows me to take the weight of my testimony and put it back on the foundation of Christ, despite the holes formed by things that I don't understand.

Herschel

Christmas

Scheyne gruesse and merry Christmas!

Moishe and I are spending the holidays at the Mormonides homestead with the family. I just thought I should take a moment away from the busy day to wish all of you a very merry Christmas. May the new year bring happiness and gezundheit to you and yours.

Herschel Mormonides

Happy Holidays

I had some way to connect this video to the sentiments of the season and all that sort of thing, but I forgot what it was. So, here's Jerry Orbach singing. Merry Christmas. And a Happy Hanukkah.

--MOISHE

Mormons with low self esteem

Schalom and vee gehts! Moishe and I have been so busy the last few months that we haven't been blogging, and for that we apologize. In our defense, we have spent some time thinking of good things to blog about.

Enough with the apologies! On to bigger and better things!

Today, I want to talk about something that really gets on my nerfen. Allow me to explain (and then, maybe allow me to kvetch a bisel?). We were in Sunday School, when my teacher, bless his heart, started talking about humility. He had a few good things to say, but then he ruined it all by saying, "If you think you are, you aren't."

Humility may be many things, but low self-esteem it isn't! This is something that really bothers me, so I want to make it very clear. Thinking that you are bad at everything (especially being humble) is not what humility is about.

The Savior said "I am meek and lowly in heart" (Matthew 11:29). So, either Jesus is lying to us, and he is not really lowly, or there is something that differentiates humility and low self-esteem.

I hate the fact that if I talk about something I did well, people always say (albeit jokingly) "sounds like somebody needs to learn some humility." There is nothing wrong with taking pride in a job well-done. If I cook a good meal, I want to be able to say "Wow. That was tasty" and if I win a game, I want to high-five my team.

Mostly, I think that we, as a people, need to rethink our definition of humility. We need to be willing to enjoy doing things well. I am not sure how we can define it well, but here's what I think:

Humility- The recognition that one's acts were accomplished through the aid of a
higher power, and the reverent gratitude for the aid received.

It's not perfect, but it's a working definition to say the least. If
anybody has any parts they would want to add, they are more than welcome.

Till next time, zay gezunt!

Herschel

Sauce for the goose

A gezunt ahf dein kop! Recently, some putz wrote in to the local paper with advice for single Mormon women. And although much of what he said was somewhere between narishkeit and meshugas, he said one thing I agree with:

You can ask guys on dates. They won't be offended.

Lots of other people wrote in to say that this was a bad idea, and that girls should never ask boys out, but I think they're wrong. My brother Herschel has already talked a bit about this, but I want to write a lot more.

So, I want to discuss the reasons, good and bad, why you might not ask boys out on dates. In all the conversations I've had with single women, I think I've really only heard about five reasons.

1) "Those are the rules for dating, and I can't change them." This is a bad reason. The rules for dating change all the time. As we change the way we do behave, the norms and standards about how we ought to behave also change. And older ways of doing things are not always better. Want to go back to the world of arranged marriages, child brides, and women unable to own property? Not me. I am glad we've changed the rules, and I don't have a problem changing them more if the change is for the better.

2) "As priesthood leaders and future presiding officers in the home, men should take the initiative." This is also a bad reason, but it's less bad. At the very least, it's an argument based on an appeal to a certain set of values, instead of blind deference to tradition (see above).

But this is not the way priesthood works. My priesthood office gives me a specific set of duties, not the obligation or the right to take the lead in absolutely everything. (That's machismo, not priesthood.) There is no priesthood key for asking people out, because dating is a social function, not a priesthood function.

I can see where some people might get that idea. After all, marriage is an institution presided over by priesthood authority (the husband), and entered into through a priesthood ordinance (sealing). Okay. But that doesn't mean that everything that leads up to marriage has to be initiated by a man. After all, the church is also an institution presided over by a priesthood authority (the prophet), and entered into through a priesthood ordinance (baptism). But it's okay for women to share the gospel, right?

Initiating dates is not a priesthood responsibility, and asking boys out is not steadying the ark.

3) "Boys don't like girls who ask boys out." This one I hate. Where does it come from? Maybe it comes from mothers and fathers who teach it to their daughters. And maybe it was true thirty years ago in Sandy, Utah. But times change.

Maybe, though, you have heard boys say this. And I will admit, there are certain boys who like to be the pursuer, and not the pursued. Or, more pointedly, the predator and not the prey? For some guys, dating is like hunting, and what they love is the thrill of the chase. Once they've caught you, they lose interest. Let's be clear: These boys are losers, or players. You don't want them. So who cares what they think.

But maybe your personal history leads you to believe that it's not just losers and players who hate being asked out. You've asked out good boys, boys that you really like, and in every instance it was a mistake. The boy didn't fall for you, he wasn't interested, etc. Experiences like this seem to support the idea that boys don't like to be asked out, but let me suggest other explanations.

Most first dates go nowhere. You're only going to get married once (if everything works out right), and you'll probably go on dozens of first dates. So dating has a very low success rate. You should expect to go on at least five or ten first dates to have a decent shot at a relationship. That's just the way the numbers work. Most of the time, we're bad at guessing who we're going to hit it off with.

Part of the reason for this is that we usually ask people out who are slightly better catches than we are. A boy who is a B-plus catch will spend most of his time chasing girls who deserve an A or an A-minus. Why? Because we all want the vey best we can get. And because a lot of us have a pretty high opinion of ourselves. Let's test my theory. Think about the boys you have asked out, and compare them to the boys who have asked you out. My guess is that the first set are better catches than the second set. So it's not surprising that you have a harder time landing them.

Think about it like this. I'm a boy who has asked out hundreds of girls, but has not managed to marry any of them. If I told you that I had concluded that girls just don't like it when boys ask them out, what would you tell me? You might suggest that the real problem is that I am chasing girls who are out of my league, or that I have been unlucky, or that dating just stinks. But you would almost certainly tell me to keep trying. So I'll tell you the same. Keep trying. Sometimes it works, and that makes all the failure and rejection worthwhile.

4) "If I ask him, then I have to plan everything and pay for everything." This is a pathetic reason to not ask a boy out. A date doesn't have to be a big production. As Elder Oaks said in his CES fireside a couple of years ago,

. . . the more elaborate and expensive the date, the fewer the dates. As dates become fewer and more elaborate, this seems to create an expectation that a date implies seriousness or continuing commitment. That expectation discourages dating even more. Gone is the clumsy and inexpensive phone call your parents and grandparents and I used to make. That call went something like this: “What’re ya doin’ tonight? How about a movie?” Or, “How about taking a walk downtown?” Cheap dates like that can be frequent and nonthreatening, since they don’t seem to imply a continuing commitment.

There's nothing wrong with a simple date, a casual date, a brief date, or a cheap date. (And speaking of cheap, most decent guys will offer to pay for half of the date even when you ask them out.) Give it a try. It's not that hard.

5) "I'm happy with my current situation, so I have no need to ask anyone out." Now this is a good reason. If you are going out as much as you want, with the kind of boys you like, without having to do any asking, then don't go fixing what ain't broke. But if you're sitting home lonely on a Friday night, then by all means, call someone up and go do something. If what you're doing now isn't working, then try something different. Be brave. Pick up the phone.

A glick ahf dir.

--MOISHE