Sunday, Sick On Sunday

I owe one last recommendation. It's somewhere between 20 and 60 recommendations for juniors that I'm asked to write annually. The school writes one official recommendation based on 6 letters that students garner from teachers that they ask and who then consent to write about the students' performance in their class. Many students ask me even though I had them in ninth grade, or even though they were extremely quiet in class, or even though I only had them for an elective, or even if I didn't teach them at all but they feel comfortable with me and confident that I can be a good character witness for them. For my recommendation (or the rec as some of the college guidance counsellors call them) to come out well, it's best I meet with the student as we together remember what they did well in my class. It takes time, but it's the most effective approach...

I'm not sure why I'm writing about the recommendations now. I have other things on my mind. I am with cold. I need to take care of myself. And yet my past year of teaching lingers and the next one looms. So much in my life either lingers or looms and then there is always the moment I'm in.

The rabbi where I was on Shabbos opened his speech talking about Derek Jeter going for 3000 hits. He asked if anyone knew how many Torah references there were to 3000 and what they were. His research provided him with two medrashim that each mention the number 3000: When Moshe Rabeinu died 3000 halachot were lost and Shlomo HaMelech spun 3000 mosholim. He went on to discuss one of those mosholim and to apply it to the bar mitzvah boy who had brought me to town. Shlomo compared someone entering a quarrel that wasn't his to someone who tugged at a dog's ears. The idea is that you make trouble where you don't belong you'll get trouble you don't need. He gave an example for this, saying that in a way someone who believes loshon harah is worse than someone who speaks it. The speaker of loshon harah is angry at someone. The receiver of loshon haroh is often entering a place where he has no business at all. The Rabbi told a story of Rav Yisrael Salanter (I think) seeing two boys fighting about who was taller. One pushed the other down and said now I'm taller. Rav Yisrael saw a very negative trait at play here and feared for the future of this boy. We have no reason to push others down just because we want to rise up. This is not the proper way.

I have a little fever but not enough to earn me bragging rights. Been down this road before. My voice sounds like I'm possessed and my throat hurts. Yet pretty soon after it started hurting it starting hurting less, which is good news but also scary because the bug may be on its way to my ear. It's been a good six month run since my last infection (there are indications that's that what it is, and I may need to check in with my doctor tomorrow). I've pushed colds away a few times using every homeopathic trick in my house. And yet.

The Gemorah presents as a high praise that fact that someone is maavir al midotav, which included things like not standing on ceremony and not getting angry. I think more than not noticing or feeling something Chazal were praising the way someone reacts. For some of us it's hard to not notice when someone doesn't get something right, like - for example - how to spell your name, when they have it in front of them. It happens regularly that I right someone and sign =Neil and they write back "Hi Neal or Hi Niel." Sometimes I'll submit some kind of form with my last name spelled the way I spell it (Fleischmann - just like the box of margarine in your supermarket) and receive back a letter starting with Dear Mr. Fleishman "Dear Mr. Fleischman" or the like. This can happen here on the blog too, where the url includes my name spelled right (and the profile has my first name). It also happens when I submit articles for print or online. Do people think they're doing me a favor, correcting the poor guy who can't correctly spell his own name?

At the end of the year last year I posted about the end of the school year going back five years. It's similar but new every year. I think in a way my body was waiting till it was safe to get sick, the end of the year is particularly hard on me. This year was harder than usual as jury duty (2 days I should write a book about, two days of hours on hours in court getting a hairsbreadth away from being chosen for a criminal court jury).

I bought the book Room. I'm having trouble getting into it. Maybe it's because people so different than me say that it's so easy to get into.

I've been thinking a lot lately about personality. We need to get that we have a personality and that so does everyone else. They're all legitimate. This sounds so simple, but if we all got this, we'd be happier and get along better with one another.

Why do I get run down the way I do? Is there a connection to stress? Is there a connection to specific situations and people? If you have to ask...

Some time ago I was by friends and was offered left over cholent on Saturday night. I didn't see any one else eating it and as best I could tell it was there for me, not reserved for others later or being shared with others at the moment. In the middle of my taking out a ladle-ful with a nice piece of meat on it - which I had to maneuver a bit to get, as little was left - my hostess chastised me for breaking her no picking rule ("No picking, Mr. Neil"). This is the type of thing I'm trying to chalk up to differences in personality. When it comes to personalities there are many things one type would say that another type wouldn't say. What's hard about all this personality thing is that I believe that whatever your personality is there are certain things that perhaps should never be said. More importantly, I believe that anything can be said if it is prefaced by thought and presented in a kind and gentle way. Whether or not we speak kindly to each other is not just a question of personality but a question of what being spiritual in general and Jewish in particular means to us.

They say a magician shouldn't reveal his tricks. Recently a name came up in speaking with an old friend. "You made him a shtender," I said. My friend was shocked. "How do you know that?" The way I knew was that my friend had told me. Should I have told him that was how I knew?

I was once a Shabbos guest in a home and was told that they like having me even though it costs them extra money for the food I eat. How does one respond to that. "Thank you?"

The principal of the Bar Mitzvah boy on Shabbos spoke dynamically, as - I'm told - he pretty much always does. He told a story about a successful engineer/scientist who looked up his tenth grade teacher who had been his greatest inspiration. He had never told him or thanked him. In the wake of a high school reunion and a newspaper interview he decided to find the teacher and let him know that his class had inspired him to enter and excel in the the field of science. When he called he was told by the teacher's wife that the teacher had passed away just six months before. The scientist went on to tell her that her husband had inspired him as a high school teacher. The woman began crying. She asked when this fellow had her husband as a teacher. "1962," he replied. She started crying harder. She told him that at the end of 1962 her husband came home and said that he was sure that his teaching was accomplishing nothing and that he was ready to quit. And he retired from teaching in the summer of 1962. Moral - tell teachers if they make a difference for you. They could use to hear it.

It's really way after 11:59 but it feels like Sunday night and not Monday morning. My cold is starting to feel better. Even though my voice still sounds much gritter than usual. I wrote and mailed in my last recommendation. Time to sign off.