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Just another day- although it involved my first day teaching my NYC class of kids- 5 and 6 year olds. They're adorable and Very 5, and once I readjust to the notion that in this location, lots of the parents stay in the room during class, I'll get a little more fluid and less awkward. Also, my co-teacher here is new, and I think new to co-teaching, as well as being new to teaching littler kids, and I think that things will get even better as she warms up and we build a stronger teaching partnership. She's a lovely person, from what I can see- and I got her interested in the Interseminary Dialogue, which is a plus, too... (She goes to the seminary across the street...)
Otherwise classes were good. My Talmud teacher's approach to the texts that we're studying is very different (very rooted in how to use these texts in life, and how to use them in encountering people with other perspectives or whom we want to persuade) from anything I've encountered in a teacher before. It's really interesting, if sometimes a bit strong for my tastes. But I'm really glad to be encountering it- even if I don't know precisely what to do with it yet.
Yiddish class was quite good too. We're now reading a series of poets with an approach to poetry that I sometimes really like, and sometimes don't- but I'm finding that, as often happens, they speak to me more strongly out loud (I know, poetry is supposed to be read aloud- but I'm only so good at it, you know? Not good enough to feel like it's worth doing when I'm aloud, or like it gets me that much, when I'm the one reading it.) But there's one that I really liked- I'm thinking that it's worth sharing here. I found it a little over the top on my own, but in class, it was just really lovely. So here it goes: (Poem by Zishe Landau, translation by Irving Feldman)
This Evening
Evening in the house
where you sit and look out
the window,
and in her chair your wife is knitting
or maybe sewing.
You around- and she is sitting there
doing nothing.
the needle, scissors, cloth
are lying idle in her hands,
and she is lost in thought over the days and days
that creep by in worries.
here, say, everything is always missing
and the daily grind is inescapable.
And every day that's gone gone for good.
it won't come back again.
And just as this one has, the next too will pass,
and what was hoped for, waited for,
will also have gone past.
These are the things she is thinking,
when she looks up hopefully at you-
who have just now turned from the window
to look at her.
Everything suddenly is clear.
You get up
and go over to your wife, your faithful wife,
and touch her shoulder lightly
and stroke her hair,
and want to say so many sweet things to her,
and say not a single word.
You go back to your chair
and look out the window.
The night is deep, the stars are big,
and quietly your heart opens.
Otherwise classes were good. My Talmud teacher's approach to the texts that we're studying is very different (very rooted in how to use these texts in life, and how to use them in encountering people with other perspectives or whom we want to persuade) from anything I've encountered in a teacher before. It's really interesting, if sometimes a bit strong for my tastes. But I'm really glad to be encountering it- even if I don't know precisely what to do with it yet.
Yiddish class was quite good too. We're now reading a series of poets with an approach to poetry that I sometimes really like, and sometimes don't- but I'm finding that, as often happens, they speak to me more strongly out loud (I know, poetry is supposed to be read aloud- but I'm only so good at it, you know? Not good enough to feel like it's worth doing when I'm aloud, or like it gets me that much, when I'm the one reading it.) But there's one that I really liked- I'm thinking that it's worth sharing here. I found it a little over the top on my own, but in class, it was just really lovely. So here it goes: (Poem by Zishe Landau, translation by Irving Feldman)
This Evening
Evening in the house
where you sit and look out
the window,
and in her chair your wife is knitting
or maybe sewing.
You around- and she is sitting there
doing nothing.
the needle, scissors, cloth
are lying idle in her hands,
and she is lost in thought over the days and days
that creep by in worries.
here, say, everything is always missing
and the daily grind is inescapable.
And every day that's gone gone for good.
it won't come back again.
And just as this one has, the next too will pass,
and what was hoped for, waited for,
will also have gone past.
These are the things she is thinking,
when she looks up hopefully at you-
who have just now turned from the window
to look at her.
Everything suddenly is clear.
You get up
and go over to your wife, your faithful wife,
and touch her shoulder lightly
and stroke her hair,
and want to say so many sweet things to her,
and say not a single word.
You go back to your chair
and look out the window.
The night is deep, the stars are big,
and quietly your heart opens.