Story time

On one of his visits to Toronto, my father told Rina and I about a rabbi's recent theory that Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree" could be used to evaluate the behaviour and character of others. All you had to do was ask the subject what they believed to be the moral of the story. A giving person would reply that the purpose of the tale was to demonstrate that no matter the circumstances you should always be kind to others; a more closed personality would respond that the moral was to use others to your best advantage. Still others might see a parent-child relationship, dependency, or a remider to conserve natural resources. As long as your subject doesn't know that he is being tested, you should get a pretty accurate assessment of their personality using what turns out to be an amoral children's book. I tried it on the kids at school, and was very entertained. The reason I bring this up is a) to give you something to do to/with your coworkers/spouses/friends, and b) because our homework from Ulpan today was to explain to the teacher what we feel is the moral of "The Giving Tree". When we were given the assignment I was unsure if it were some sort of insidious test planned by the administration or another attempt at breaking our spirits by reminding us that we are on the same level as children, but in the end I realized that it doesn't matter - it is a great opportunity to toy with my teacher. Hurray!

Tonight Rina and I took a break from work to attend what was marketed as a dialogue between Jewish and Arab residents of Jerusalem, presented through photographs and stories. At a nearby shul there were two actors who presented a series of monologues meant to display how a variety of local residents, ranging from merchants who live in the settlements to Egged bus drivers, are affected by violence and terrorism. The acting was good enough that when Rina and I first sat down, late, of course, we thought that the person on stage was retelling his own true story. We realized by the end, however, that even though what we were seeing was only being performed, the emotions and realities behind the presentations were real. Overall the entire experience was very good, both because we got to think critically about our many neighbours and how we live together, and because we were immersed in an all-Hebrew atmosphere with other Israelis. I'm beginning to think that story time may be more fun now than it was in kindergarten.