Kabbalistic Musings on "Life of Pi"

On the first page of the novel, Life of Pi, the main character, Pi Patel, states that one of his two academic majors was in religious studies, with his thesis focused on "certain aspects of the cosmogony theory of Isaac Luria, the great sixteenth-century Kabbalist from Safed."  Luria, also known as the "holy Ari" (Lion), is still revered as one of the greatest of all Jewish mystics.

In the movie, Pi does not mention Luria by name, but he does say that he lectures on Kabbalah at the university. Given this reference (and a few others I will explain below), I feel justified in assuming that there are Jewish mystical themes encoded in the story, even though they are presented mostly in terms of Hinduism.  As I am a visual-oriented person (one of my autistic gifts), I will focus primarily on the movie, while using the book for more background references as needed.

(Warning: If you read beyond this point, you will encounter spoilers, so if you have not read the book and/or seen the movie, stop here or proceed at your own risk!)

In both the book and the movie versions, Pi Patel's father owns a zoo, so he grows up with a lot of practical knowledge about animals.  He is also very interested in religions. In addition to his mother's Hinduism, he  explores Christianity and Islam, finding truth in all three paths and combining their practices in his daily life. His brother ridicules him for this, while his father tries to convince him that "religion is darkness" and that rational thinking -- science -- is the way of "the new India."  Pi replies with the words of Mahatma Gandhi: "All religions are true."

The book goes into considerable detail about the three theologies and the differences among them, while the movie relies more on visual scenes of worship to get this point across. The book has a poignant -- if hostile -- marketplace encounter, with Pi's three religious teachers each claiming him for their own faith.  The movie leaves this scene out, perhaps because it might offend viewers, or else be over the heads of children in a PG audience.  It is well worth reading if you haven't already.

Pi is especially puzzled by Christianity, because he cannot understand why God would allow his innocent son to suffer for the sins of the guilty.  To him this makes no sense at all. The question of suffering recurs throughout the story.  How can a God who loves us still allow us to suffer?

The shipwreck

Because of political changes in India (during the administration of Indira Gandhi), Pi's father decides to close the zoo, sell the animals, and move the family to Canada. They will travel with those animals headed for North America on a Japanese-owned freighter named the Tsimtsum.  Which brings us to the second Kabbalistic reference in the story.  Although Tsimtsum might look like a Japanese name, it is in fact Hebrew, and means "contraction" or "withdrawal."  It refers to the teaching of Isaac Luria which says that, before the Creation, everything was infinite God-essence.  In order for God to create the universe as we know it, God first had to create a vacant space -- a void -- for it to exist in.  God did this by withdrawing -- contracting  -- Him/Herself.  Within this void, God is hidden, allowing for free will and for independent creatures like us to exist. 

That's all very interesting, but why did author Jann Martel name the ship Tsimtsum?  

In a blog article on this topic, David Sanders quotes Martel on this question: “I wanted a representative scoop of religions in the book – Hindu, Christian, Islam. I would have loved to have Pi be a Jew, too, but there are no synagogues in Pondicherry [where the family was from in India]. So I chose Tsimtsum as the name of the Japanese cargo boat because, although it sounds Japanese, it is a Hebrew word.”

 So my intuition was correct: Martel wanted to include Jewish mysticism in the mix, but like God in the cosmic tsimtsum, it is hidden. However, I think the symbolism goes deeper than that.  Genesis says that the world was "void and formless," with the spirit of God moving upon "the deep," often visualized as a vast ocean. The Zohar describes Creation as beginning with a primal point (singularity?) within the void, which then expanded.  When the ship sinks, Pi's world is contracted into a single point -- the lifeboat -- on a vast formless ocean, reversing Creation to chaos, so to speak. The imagery in the movie shows this in several scenes, with Pi's boat a mere speck upon the ocean. Director Ang Lee has stated that he specifically researched the philosophy of Isaac Luria to understand the concept of tsimtsum and incorporate it into the film. (source). 

"As above so below" -- the clouds reflecting in the water
make it appear  as if the boat is in the sky

The movie also uses another common Kabbalistic theme: "As above, so below." This is the idea that the physical world "below" is a reflection of the higher spiritual world "above."  In numerous scenes we see the sky reflected in the water to the point that there is no horizon, no differentiation between the two. In the contraction of Pi's world, everything blends into one.

In one scene, Pi looks into the ocean and sees the whole universe reflected -- reminiscent of a childhood story told earlier by his mother, about how the Hindu god Krishna opened his mouth and the universe was seen within it.  (The CGI graphics of the two scenes are very similar.)   Once again, we are reminded of the spirit of God moving upon the waters in Genesis. 

The voyage

Pi makes it to the lifeboat, along with four animals: a wounded zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a tiger named Richard Parker, a name he got through a mix-up of paperwork.  There is a lot of focus on name changes in this story.  Pi's first name is Piscine, from the French. But the bullies in his school take to mispronouncing it as "Pissing," so he re-names himself Pi. (In the movie he impresses everyone by writing out the number Pi to hundreds of digits.)  The Tiger was supposed to be called "Thirsty," but ended up as Richard Parker instead. In both cases, a less dignified name was replaced by a better one.  In the Bible, a number of characters are given new names to reflect a new status.

The zebra and orangutan are killed by the hyena, which in turn is killed by the tiger.  This leaves Pi alone with a vicious, hungry predator.  At first Pi is terrified, but he soon realizes that he and the tiger must co-exist.  He therefore works to establish his dominance and define their territories, using the methods of a circus trainer.  Various interpretations for this relationship have been put forth, most centering on some form of the tiger being his animal self.  This also fits with Jewish thought, where we have both a good side (yetzer tov) and a bad side (yetzer ha-ra.)  One cannot destroy the bad side, but one can learn to control it, as Pi does with the tiger.  In the book he considers various ways to destroy the tiger, but comes to realize that they need each other to survive.  "My fear of him keeps me alert, tending to his needs gives my life purpose," he explains. Jewish mysticism would say the same thing about the yetzer ha-ra.  Properly controlled, it motivates us to keep going in this world.

The carnivorous Island

One of the strangest episodes in Pi's voyage is the floating island full of meerkats.  Safe by day, the island becomes carnivorous at night.  This is so weird that many readers see it as pure fantasy.  I would like to suggest it is a combination of reality and imagination.  No, there are no ecosystems like the one Pi describes. However, there are many small islands in the Pacific, and floating islands of volcanic pumice -- some with trees -- have been reported. (Read more...) Carnivorous plants also exist in some places. So these elements do have a ring of truth.

By the time Pi gets to this island, he and Richard Parker are so close to death as to be delirious. In the movie they have just gone through a terrible storm where Pi cries out to God, "I lost my family, I lost everything. I surrender. What more do you want?" He has reached the depths of despair, the deepest dark night of the soul.  He fully expects to die.  So why couldn't there be a real island with some sort of animals on it, that Pi mis-remembers in this state of confusion?  If you compare the images of the island trees with the banyans he walked among back in India, they are very similar. And the meerkats do look more ratlike as they run up into the trees.

Screen shot of The Island, enhance by me to make the
reclining Vishnu shape stand out more clearly. 

Another aspect of the island is mystical. In the beginning of the movie, we are told that the Hindu god Vishnu "sleeps on the boundless ocean of consciousness" and the universe is his dream.  After Pi learns about Christianity, he thanks Vishnu for leading him to find Christ, and touches a small statue of Vishnu reclining.  When we see the island from afar, it has this same shape, formed by the outline of the trees. This suggests the possibility that the island may be some form of miracle, that God is watching over Pi and Richard Parker even if hidden. 

But although the island suggests sweet repose, it is a false peace.  All that the island gives in the daytime, it takes away at night.  And it is lonely.  Pi could have stayed there forever, eating plants by day and sleeping with the meerkats in the trees by night, but it was an empty existence. When he finds a human tooth embedded in a fruit (which opens like a lotus in the movie) and realizes that some previous castaway had died there, he decides to leave and takes the tiger with him.

The two stories

Richard Parker walks off into the jungle

After 227 days of survival on the high seas, Pi is washed ashore in Mexico.  As he lies exhausted on the beach, Richard Parker walks off into jungle without even looking back  The tiger is never seen again. This deeply saddens Pi, who even years later wishes there had been some sort of final look or growl in parting.  

In the book, during the first part about life in a zoo, Pi told the story of a black panther that escaped the Zurich zoo in winter and survived on its own for several months.  Now we know this was to lay the groundwork for the possibility that Richard Parker also survives in the South American jungle. Still, Pi misses him deeply.

Once back in civilization, parts of the voyage sound too strange to be true. The two Japanese insurance investigators don't believe him, and ask for an ordinary story to put in their report, one that their company will believe. So he obliges them and tells a more common type of lifeboat survival tale, one of treachery, murder and cannibalism, in which only he survives. In this second story, the zebra is a wounded sailor, the hyena is a barbarous cook, the orangutan is his mother, and he is the tiger.  In its own way, this tale is also hard to believe, because his mother and father can't swim, his brother refused to get up to investigate the loud noise or explosion, and all three were down below when the ship sank. Only Pi was on deck because he went up to see the storm.

So which story is true?  In both stories the ship sinks, Pi loses his family, suffers for 227 days at sea and is the sole survivor.  In the end, neither story explains why the ship sank. Neither explains Pi's suffering. Neither can be proven true or false.  The only witness other than Pi is Richard Parker, who disappeared into the jungle, so Pi cannot prove he ever existed. On a pragmatic level, does it really matter?

Pi then asks, "Which is the better story?" The writer who is interviewing him says that the one with the tiger is better.  The Japanese insurance men apparently agree, because in the end, they include the tiger story in their report. I myself also agree: the first story is the best one. 

As Rebbe Nachman of Breslov once said, "Not all the stories are true, but when the people tell them, they are holy." One cannot prove religion one way or another.  Is rationalism really better than mysticism?  What if life really is a random jumble of meaningless events?  Can we live with that?  It is the nature of human beings to seek meaning in life, to bring order out of chaos.  Whether or not Richard Parker was real, without the tiger, Pi would not have survived.

"Above all things, don't lose hope," read the survival manual in the lifeboat. 

"Never despair!" taught Rebbe Nachman. 

The better story is the one with hope.

(This post was updated by the author on 11/1/2017)

Book Review: "The 99 Names of God" by Daniel Thomas Dyer

Daniel Dyer, author and illustrator of this beautiful children's book, has created a wonderful set of lessons for connecting with God's presence in the world around us.  Although The 99 Names is intended for Muslim children, it's really a treasure for all ages and faiths. In fact, it could be used as a basic primer on spirituality, and would be a fine addition to any religious library. I defy anyone to read this book and not come away with a deeper appreciation of God's presence in the universe.

In a time when there is so much misinformation (and hostility) about Islam in the Western world, this book goes a long way toward opening a window on what true Islam is really like. If there's one thing Jews and Muslims have in common, it's the plethora of hostile websites claiming to "unmask" us by taking quotes out of context and compiling lists of every negative thing ever said by any of us anywhere.  For years it has been an uphill climb for me to convince non-Jewish readers that we Jews even have any spirituality. Recent dialogues with Muslim teachers have shown me that they, too, have this same struggle. Hence my delight in finding this very accessible book.

A sunset reminds us of God/Allah
as The Majestic One

The author begins by explaining that Allah is simply the Arabic word for God. In Arabic-speaking countries, non-Muslims -- including Christian priests -- also call God "Allah."  This is an important point, since many Christians in America assume that Allah is a separate deity from the Creator in Genesis. I have more than once been told that Muslims worship Allah, not God, which is as absurd as saying that Germans worship Gott and the French worship Dieu as separate deities. In fact, "Allah" comes from the same Semitic root as "Elohim," the name of God used in the first chapter of Genesis.

God/Allah is the Giver of Life 

Here again, Muslims and Jews have something in common, namely, the distortion of our God-language in the American public mind.  Non-Jews tends to think of the "Jewish God" as an "angry Jehovah" (which, by the way, is not how YHVH is pronounced) and some even go so far as to claim that Jews don't believe in God at all.  The "Muslim God," Allah, is seen as nothing but a cruel warmonger. Both of these are negative stereotypes that purposely disguise the fact that all three Abrahamic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- worship the same Creator of the universe.

This book serves as a primer for teaching us that true Islam is indeed a peaceful, reverent path that respects all life. Dyer, who is a British convert to Islam, was initially attracted to the faith through the poetry of Jalal'u'Din Rumi, a thirteenth century Persian mystic and scholar who taught: “Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged.” Rumi saw the evidence of God's presence everywhere.  This poetic universalism comes across in the book, teaching children to build bridges, not walls, among the faiths and peoples of the world.

Jalal'u'Din Rumi

Each lesson in The 99 Names has one or two Names (depending on context) in Arabic calligraphy, transliteration, English translation, and a quote from the Quran using the Name. This is followed by a simple but meaningful explanation of how that aspect of God is manifested in the world around us. Also included are teachings and stories from the Prophets and various Muslim sages, both male and female, and positive references to other religions.

Most non-Muslims (including me) would be hard put to name 99 different attributes of God -- which is what the Names really are. God is the Compassionate, The Merciful, the Sovereign, The Holy, the Source of Peace... and so many more. This, I believe, is a great gift that Islam has brought to the world at large, to remind us of how many different ways God manifests his/her Presence.  All too often, we limit God to a single attribute -- such as Love or Peace -- and forget how all-encompassing Omnipotence really is. Love is an attribute of God, yes. But God is so very much more.

A cat manifests God/Allah's
attribute of Watchfulness

I have gained a lot of new insights from contemplating the lessons that author Daniel Dyer sees in these Holy Names.  As author of a nature blog, I especially like the way the lessons connect the Names with nature, encouraging the reader to look for God's ways in all things. (The nature photos here are my own, not from the book. They are examples of how I see God/Allah's presence through the eye of my camera.)

 Once again,  Muslims and Jews are on a similar quest, to bring our urbanized children more in harmony with the wonders of God's world and our responsibility to care for it. This is where all people can come together in harmony, since we live on one earth. (I was also happy to read that Muhammad loved cats.  Readers of this blog know that I do, too!)

Each lesson has a "Signs of (Name)" section, with many examples taken from nature.  The cat, for example, is Watchful, pairs of geese are Faithful, a sunrise is Glorious.  The lessons also have a "Reflections and activities" section where children and parents can discuss/do things together. As author Dyer explains in his introduction,  "No answers are contained in this book. The important thing is that we learn to ask questions, reflect, research, and discuss with others to arrive at out own considered point of view."  Rather than being a book of dogmas, it is a map for exploration.  I highly recommend it.

(This essay was updated by the author on April 5, 2017)

New Book: "Kapporos Then and Now: Toward a More Compassionate Tradition" by Yonassan Gershom

Every year, right before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, there is a cultural war in certain Jewish neighborhoods over a ceremony called Kapporos, in which a chicken is slaughtered just before the holy day. The animal rights people show up claiming, “Meat is murder!” while the Orthodox and Hasidic Jews who practice this ceremony accuse the activists of antisemitism and violating their freedom of religion. Epithets fly and confrontations occur across the barricades, but nobody is really listening to each other.

In this book, I seek to build a bridge of understanding between these two warring camps. On the one hand, I oppose using live chickens as Kapporos, as I have written on this blog before. (Read More...)  Like many other religious Jews before me, I advocate giving money to charity instead. But on the other hand, I am a Hasid who understands and believes in the kabbalistic principles behind the ceremony and Hasidic life in general. In fact, it is that very mysticism that has led me not to use chickens for the ritual.  And I believe it is essential for activists to understand and respect this mystical worldview if they want to be effective.

On the surface, my task in writing this book would seem easy: Explain to animal rights people the reasons why some Orthodox Jews use chickens in a religious ceremony, and explain to Orthodox Jews why animal rights people find this offensive and cruel in modern times. But there is much more to it than that. Beyond this specific ritual lies a vast chasm between two very, very different worldviews. On both sides of the issue I have found sincere, caring people who, in all good faith, believe in what they are doing. But at the same time, each side is appallingly ignorant of the other. Could I possibly write a book to bridge the gap?

To do this successfully, the book could be neither a vegetarian manifesto nor a "Torah-true" religious tract.   My methodology was to approach the subject as a combination of theologian, cultural anthropologist, and participatory journalist, examining the issue from the perspectives of both sides.   As Richard H. Schwartz, author of Judaism and Vegetarianism, wrote in his Foreword to my book:

“Rabbi Gershom has a very clear, conversational style of writing, scholarly yet very readable, and he explains complex issues very well. He is careful to put issues in context. He is not a polemicist, but seeks common ground and solutions. He uses examples from his own personal experience and also cites authorities.”

Chapter 1 opens with my involvement with the Alliance to End Chickens as Kapporos (Karen Davis' org), my reasons for leaving the Alliance over theological issues (read more on that...) but not the movement itself -- and how this ultimately led me to write this book.

In the rest of the book I trace the history of Kapporos and the impact of the modern meat industry on the ceremony, comparing it to my own experience raising and observing chickens in natural, free-range flocks on my hobby farm in Minnesota.   I explain how the very un-Jewish ideas of Descartes have affected Jews and gentiles alike.  And because I believe it is essential for activists to understand the mystical worldview of Hasidism, I devote an entire chapter to "raising Holy sparks," the question of whether animals have souls and/or consciousness, and how this relates to Kapporos.

In short, I explore the issue from many different perspectives and present what I believe to be a number of convincing arguments for why, in modern times, this ritual can best be accomplished by using money instead of chickens.  This will not be an easy book for either side to read, but I believe it fills an important educational gap on both sides.

You can order your copy now  on Lulu.com. Also available on Amazon but if you order thru Lulu you get a discount and I get a better deal as an author. Lulu also offers quantity discounts.

49 Gates of Light: A Course in Kabbalah

 

Count the Omer with 49 Gates of Light!

It's back!  The latest "incarnation" of Rabbi Yonassan Gershom's seven-week course of daily kabbalah lessons, coordinated to "counting the omer" on the Jewish calendar.  You can now get the new 2010 revision  in epub format -- readable on the iPad, Nook, and most ebook readers or computers.  

Newly updated and now in full color, this is not just another book “about” kabbalah.  It’s an experiential set of daily lessons, designed to help you learn the Tree of Life diagram and apply the principles of kabbalah in your own life.   Includes all the stories and lessons of the 1987 and 1993 editions, the "Wizard of Oz" as a kabbalah teaching parable, plus many new diagrams and illustrations.  128 pages in all.

The print version of this book retails for $36 (color printing is very expensive) but you can have the same book in epub format for only $10 on Lulu.com -- order here and download instantly!

Here’s how it works:  Each day, you will explore one of the 49 “flavors” of consciousness with a specific Hebrew mantra to open the Heart (spelled out in English letters), a story or teaching to study to develop the Mind, and something active for you to do on the path of Action.  The 49 lessons are co-coordinated to the “Omer” period on the Jewish calendar, which is the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot (Feast of Weeks.)  However, you can also do this program anytime as a set of personal lessons any time of the year.   

The Tree diagrams and lesson pages are color-coded to match the rainbow pattern on the B'nai Or tallis (prayer shawl) designed by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, as well as the Seven Days of Creation and other kabbalistic themes.  Each week focuses on one of the Seven Lower sefirot (levels) on the Tree diagram. 

The process works on many levels, and you are free to make it as simple or complex as you wish.  If you are not the type of person who likes to analyze, simply read the daily page, do the mantra and experiential meditation, then journal your thoughts and reactions.  If you do this faithfully for the entire seven weeks, you will be amazed at your spiritual progress.  

However, if you are not content to “just do it” and want to know how the process works and why, the introductory and sections will give you the theory, along with diagrams of the Tree and more in-depth ways to use the book.  Also included is a glossary of Hebrew terms and some interesting background history.

Buy and download your copy now! 

(Or, if you want to spend 36 bucks for the print version, you can get it here. )

New book tells inspiring story of Jake Barnett, autistic boy genius

As I have written before on this blog, I am an adult on the autism spectrum (Asperger's).  Last year, in a previous article, I looked at some of the social pressures we autistic people face, and suggested that parents, therapists, and employers should focus on what we can do, not what we can't.

A case in point is the true story of Jake Barnett in a new book out this month entitled The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius by Kristine Barnett.   Not only is this an inspiring story of a mother's struggle with "experts" on behalf of her gifted autistic son, it is also a general formula for success.  Instead of struggling to get autistic children to give eye contact or play patty-cake, Barnett focuses on what they like to do and builds from that.

Jake Barnett is a genius, but if his mother had accepted the advice of the special ed people, his brilliant mind would have been lost to the world.  At age 2, she was told he would never learn to read or even tie his shoes -- in spite of his obsession with alphabet cards.  All the tests focused on things he was either unable to do or -- and this later proved to be the case -- too bored to do.  While his mind was studying light and shapes and geometric patterns -- things the teachers saw as mere useless distractions -- he had no interest in sitting in a circle with other children or playing with puppets, the usual kinds of expectations for toddlers.  And so he was mislabeled as hopeless.

Kristine Barnett refused to accept a "ceiling" for her son and decided to give him all the alphabet cards he wanted, as well as whatever other activities he found interesting, and work with him from there.  This was completely against all the professional advice -- even her husband Michael was skeptical at first -- but eventually it worked.  As long as Jake could focus on the things he loved -- astronomy, math, history, physics -- he was willing to work on the more mundane socialization skills. As he grew older, he did begin to communicate and socialize with other kids, but he was so far ahead of his age group in academics that by third grade he was dying of boredom and starting to regress back into his own world again.

The solution?  Get him into a special college program, and eventually into college itself.  At age 12, he became a paid researcher in quantum physics -- and solved an open ended problem nobody else had ever solved before.  In 2012 he was featured on 60 Minutes.

Now granted, not every autistic child is a genius.  My own IQ, as high as it is, pales in comparison to Jake Barnett.  But, as I read this story, I could not help comparing it with my own life. I saw some striking parallels, as well as many (sometimes sad) differences.  For one thing, I am 65 years old.  Back in the 1950s when I was in grade school, autism was not so well understood, and Asperger's wasn't even on the charts.  Because I had speech (I was talking at 9 months and could read a newspaper before I got to kindergarten), I was seen as just a bright problem kid who "does not work and play well with others."  But the signs were all there.

Like Jake and several other children in the book, I also retreated into myself between age two and three -- so much so, that I do not remember the names of any of my classmates, and only one teacher -- the one who locked me out in the hall when I had a meltdown.  By high school I was so bored (and so badly bullied) that I almost flunked out.  And I can remember none of my high school teachers or classmates either, nor did I bother to go to my graduation ceremony.  The only reason I got into college was because of my very high SAT scores.  Not until college did I begin to come out of my shell.

I also did not have such a kind, understanding mother as Jake does, either.  When Kristine Barnett talks about mothers of autistic children who "no longer even look at their child," she is describing my mother, may she rest in peace.  My mother had definite ideas of what she wanted her children to be, and I wasn't it.  My early obsession was with insects, which my mother found disgusting and tried to discourage.  Nice Jewish boys don't run around with butterfly nets.  By the time my sister was born, my mother had already given up on me.  She abandoned me emotionally and focused on her "normal" child instead.  An all-too-common story.  Today I wonder if we ever bonded at all.  My father used to call me "oblivious," and accused me of "not caring about anybody but myself."

So I ended up fumbling my way through life.  I sometimes wonder what I might have achieved if my family had nurtured my genius more, instead of lamenting that I never went to parties or the prom. (I did eventually find love and marry at age 33.  My wife and I are still together.)

I share my story, not to complain or badmouth my family, but to reinforce what Kristine Barnett wrote in her book: "...I believe that autistic kids hear their parents talking about patty-cake or asking for a hug, but they're just not interested in those things.  Have you ever been trapped at a party with someone talking about something you don't particularly care about -- sports maybe, or politics or classic cars?  Certainly people with autism are in our world.  They're just not thinking about the things we want them to think about."

I can relate to that.  Sports are so boring to me, I never bothered to learn the rules.  And fighting over a ball seems so utterly pointless.  I never have understood what all the excitement was about.  But show me a bug, and I can tell you all you ever wanted to know about it -- and then some.  The same is true of Jake's mathematics, which for him are not work, but a form of genuine fun.  (How many times have people told me that I "need to learn how to play"?  But I am playing, I just don't do it with balls and bats.  Academics are FUN to me!)

Jake long ago surpassed his mother's ability to understand his equations but, unlike my mother, she nurtured his genius and, at the same time, continued to be mom and surround him with love. She has what my mother did not: a philosophy that says every child is a unique gift of God and should not be crammed into a prefab mold.

Barnett's tells a wonderful story about a girl named Katy (p.148), who is severely autistic and does not speak, but loves to bake and decorate cakes.  Under Barnett's guidance, she got so good at it that she eventually found a job as a cake decorator.  A job that does not required much social interaction, where she can work alone in the back room to create her masterpieces.  Is this not better than wasting time trying to get her to give good eye contact and chat around the water cooler?

So I do hope that a lot of people read Jake's story and take it to heart.  This is not to say that we should never seek professional help.  But those professionals are not gods, they don't know everything, they make mistakes.  And maybe it is time for them to reevaluate their testing methods before we lose any more fine minds that are not willing to respond to patty-cake but who, like Jake, might be working on some revolutionary new idea.  After all, if (autistic) Bill Gates had not come up with the idea of a pre-recorded, loadable operating system (instead of programming each computer separately), you might not be reading this review online.  Think about that as we head, once again, into Autism Awareness Month.

See a slide show of Jake and read an interview with his mother

*  *  *  

UPDATE:  People keep asking me if Jake Barnett is Jewish, and that keeps showing up in the searches that got people to my blog.  He is not Jewish.  According to the book, his family are from a liberal branch of Mennonites.  His story is not here because I am Jewish.  It is here because I am autistic.

Book Review: The Vegetarian Diet for Kidney Disease

"Ecologically Grown Vegetables"
Photo by Elina Mark
(Courtesy of Wikimedia)

As I've written on this blog before, my wife Caryl (pronounced "Carol") and I are vegetarians.  She is also a diabetic, plus she has high blood pressure, and needs to watch her sodium and cholesterol.  Caryl had gotten her diabetes under control when the "other shoe" fell -- she now has first stage kidney disease.

The doctor recommended a low potassium diet and gave her a list of no-no foods -- all of which were things we vegetarians rely on: beans, potatoes, lentils, soy, oranges, avocados, tomatoes, squash, nuts, and a ton of other veggies.  Just imagine trying to be a vegetarian without using these basic foods.

A search online revealed kidney disease diets that were all heavily meat-oriented for protein sources -- not an option for us, both because of our commitment to vegetarianism and the fact that we keep kosher and live in a rural area where kosher meat is not easily available.  This was so disheartening to Caryl that she plunged into depression. What on earth COULD she eat?  Food just did not seem interesting or palatable anymore.

Then I found this book by registered dietitian Joan B. Hogan, who specializes in renal nutrition.  Not only does it deal with vegetarianism and kidney disease, it talks about combinations of diseases -- such as having both diabetes and kidney disease.  As Hogan explains, it used to be believed that vegetarianism and kidney health did not mix, and that animal proteins were superior to proteins obtained from plants, based on early studies of baby rats.  But this is now changing.  As Hogan says, "This theory is now history, for we are not rats."

 Hogan's approach to menu planning is much more sensible than the old flesh-centered renal diet.  Rather than outrightly forbidding various foods, she classifies them as high, medium, and low potassium.  Sort of a "Chinese menu" approach where you can choose one from list A, two from list B, and three from list C per day. So, for example, Caryl can have an orange (high) if she doesn't have a tomato (high) the same day. Or she could have half an orange at breakfast and a slice of tomato later in a sandwich. This allows for a whole lot more flexibility and variety in the menu. (The same goes for other nutrients, but since potassium is what brought us to this book, this review focuses primarily on that.)

And there are lots of charts for various foods to compare levels of protein, potassium, phosphorus, sodium, etc., as well as a useful chart on commercial meat substitutes. (Which is why you should buy the book version, NOT the kindle version, which renders the charts totally unreadable. Besides, having the book on the shelf right there next to your recipe books is more convenient.)

There is also a very useful list comparing various types of beans, where I learned that pinto beans have half the potassium of white beans -- so by changing the beans we use in a favorite soup, we could cut the potassium way down and still enjoy it in smaller portions.

One thing that the book does not have is more info on how cooking and other preparations affect various foods. There are recipes with stats for the complete recipe, but not for individual cooked ingredients. For example, she mentions "soaked potatoes" in a chart but does not say how long to soak them, or how soaking affects their potassium level. I assume she means soak them raw and pour off the water?

I do know that potassium is water-soluble, so when we cook potatoes (and a lot of other veggies) we no longer use the water they were cooked in for soups.  Ditto for beans, which we first soak overnight, then pour off that water and use fresh water for cooking.  I assume this lowers the potassium levels of the foods, but some statistical comparisons between raw and cooked vegetables would be very helpful. And how does sprouting lentils and mung beans (both high potassium but also soaked first and rinsed repeatedly as they grow) change their statistics?

I later discovered that a lot of this type of info can be found on the USDA Food Composition Database, where, for example, a search for "lentils" did find comparisons between raw, cooked, and sprouted.  This info, plus Hogan's book that pointed us in the right direction for figuring out how to balance a renal vegetarian diet, has made life a lot more bearable.  Caryl is no longer so depressed and we are now enjoying food again.  Plus her potassium was normal last blood test. I give it ten stars!

Bradford G. Wheler brings together art and cats in a PURRR-fect new book

Today is the first of Elul on the Jewish calendar.  It is both the start of the period of introspection leading up to the High Holy Days, and the "New Year for Animals" (see my previous post.)   So I thought this would be a good time to review a new animal art book, CAT SAYINGS: wit & wisdom from the whiskered ones by Bradford G. Wheler.   I savored this book on Shabbat afternoon the way I feel it should always be read, relaxing on the couch with three of my furry-purry feline friends curled up with me.

The book features full-color works by 60 different artists from 9 different countries.  Some are full time professional artists, others are hobbyists, but all share a love of animals and, in a myriad different styles and media, have captured the beauty, mystery, love and whimsy of the cat.  Add to this the wonderful collection of quotes about cats, and you have a book to treasure and savor for years to come.

 A few of my favorite quotes are:

"A black cat crossing your path signifies the animal is going somewhere" -- Groucho Marx

"A kitten is the rosebud in the garden of the animal kingdom" -- Robert Southey

"I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it" -- Abraham Lincoln

That last quote was a new one to me, and especially precious, because I have been involved in animal welfare for many years, and am currently planning, with my friend and co-writer Richard H. Schwartz, to develop a curriculum resource book for the New Year for Animals. 

As I have written on this blog before, many Jews, especially among the Orthodox, are cut off from nature and animals.  As a community, we suffer from a severe case of "nature deficit disorder," often oblivious to the beauty of God's creation.  And this in spite of the many beautiful Jewish teachings about the humane treatment of animals in the Torah and writings of our Sages -- which, sadly, often go unstudied.  So I agree with Lincoln:  If religion does not teach us to treat our animals better, of what use is it?

And I was not surprised to read that Napoleon, Hitler, and Alexander of Macedonia all hated cats. You just can't order a cat around, they are independent thinkers who can't be dictated to.   As Mark Twain is quoted on page 8:  "Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash.  That one is the cat.  If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat."  I'm not sure if cats are the only independent animal species, but they certainly don't kowtow to humans.

Quite a few of the artists included in this book are also animal activists, many of whom donate part of their proceeds to animal shelters and various wildlife causes. The author has included biographies of all the artists in the back of the book, along with contact info and web addresses where you can view more of their work and, of course, buy it.

I also got a chuckle out of this quote from Ernest Hemmingway:  "One cat just leads to another,"  because we currently have 12 cats and no, I'm not hoarding them.  Several of them are rescues who wandered into our farm when so many homes were foreclosed around here a while back.  I suspect their owners abandoned them and, as my wife would say, I'm a cat magnet.  Some people are horse whisperers,  I'm a cat whisperer.  So we end up with a lot of stray cats who wheedle their way into my heart.  I'll close with this quote from Garrison Keillor, also cited in CAT SAYINGS:  "Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function."  Some things just are.

CAT SAYINGS is available from amazon.com (this link benefits this blog) or directly from the publisher at BookCollaborative.com

I love animals, but I'm not a vegan - and here's why

Recently I received a review copy of  Vegan Cooking For Dummies, a new book in that series.   As I have discussed in previous blog posts, I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian, which means that I eat vegetables, eggs and dairy,  but not meat, poultry, or fish. Over the years, various people have tried to convince me to go all the way and become a vegan -- which means not eating or using any animal products, period.    But the more I read about veganism, the more I have become convinced that it is an upper middle class urban phenomenon that just won't work for low income people like me who live in places like northern Minnesota.

This book is a case in point.  Written by a gourmet vegan chef, it assumes you can find all those exotic ingredients and afford to use them.  But that just isn't so if you are on a tight budget.  For example, a lot of these recipes call for pure maple syrup instead of sugar.  But  the only reason we have pure maple syrup in my house is because I make it myself from our own trees every spring (See my previous blog post on that at http://rooster613.blogspot.com/2011/03/warmd-days-cold-nights-maple-syrup-time.html.)   At $10 or more per pint in the store, we could never afford to cook with it as often as this cookbook calls for.  As it is, most of the time we still use sugar.

As for a lot of the other ingredients in this book, you are simply not going to find them in rural America.  It's hard enough being an ovo-lacto vegetarian out here, let alone vegan. I am lucky enough to live near a small health food store, but even then, I have to special order certain vegetarian "meat" products because, the shopkeeper says, they do not sell well enough for her to carry them on the shelf. Special orders must go by the case and that can really kill a limited budget. Not to mention the cost of the necessary freezer space.

But beyond the question of ingredients, there is a much bigger question:  Do I really believe in vegan philosophy?  Do I believe that it is wrong under all circumstances to never, ever use animals or their products for any reason?   The answer is no.  Although I do not wear leather or fur, I have no problems with feathers that are naturally-shed,  nor do I have a problem with riding horses or training service dogs.  (My old sheep dog, Grett, enjoyed patrolling the yard and guarding the geese and chickens.  He got depressed when he didn't have some kind of work to do.  The same is true of a lot of other working dog breeds, as well as many horses who enjoy being with their riders.)

Over the years, I've had many debates about this with hardcore vegans who believe that ahimsa  (the Jain philosophy of total harmlessness) is the only way to go, or else you are a total hypocrite with no compassion for anything.  Maybe for people in a tropical climate like India, where Jainism originated, this philosophy would work, although even there the Jains are a small minority.  But not everyone lives in a warm climate where veggies and fruits are available year-round.  I believe this is why God permitted Jews to eat meat.  God knew that we would end up in harsh climates where a totally plant-based diet would have been impossible.  Meat was not the ideal (the Garden of Eden was vegetarian) but neither was it forbidden, as long as one stayed within the limits of permitted species.   For this reason, I consider my own vegetarianism to be a personal chumra (extra strictness) that I voluntarily take upon myself, but not a comandment per se.



My land in winter -- no veggies growing here!

I have often looked out the window at my Minnesota landscape in mid-winter and asked myself:  What would I be eating if there was no modern food storage or transportation?  To answer that question, all I have to do is look at the traditional diet of the Native tribes who lived around here before  my ancestors arrived.  Yes, they grew corn and squash, harvested berries and wild rice.  But meat and fish were also a big part of their diet, especially in late winter.  As much as the animal rights people idealize the spiritual relationship between Indians and animals, I have never yet met a vegetarian Indian, let alone a vegan.  The only vegetarianism reference I've seen is a T-shirt that read: "Vegetarian: Old Indian word for Lousy Hunter."

The American Indian philosophy about animals is not that different from the Jewish/biblical one, namely,  that the Creator permits us to use animals, but we must not abuse them in the process.  We must remember that animals are living beings, and be respectful of their feelings and well-being.  If we find it necessary to kill them, it must be done humanly and with respect.  (The word "sacrifice" comes from the same root as "sacred.")   If we do not treat them with respect, the Indians say, the souls of the animals will not reincarnate, and the people will starve.  This is not unlike Deuteronomy 11:13-17:

If, then, you truly heed My (God's) commandments which I enjoin on you today, loving and serving the Lord your God, with all your heart and all your soul,  I will give the seasonal rain to your land, the early rain and the late rain, that you may have your grain, wine and oil to gather in; and I will bring forth grass in your fields for your animals. Thus you may eat your fill. But be careful lest your heart be so lured away that you serve other gods and worship them.  For then the wrath of the Lord will flare up against you and he will close up the heavens, so that no rain will fall, and the soil will not yield its crops, and you will soon perish from the good land he is giving you.

Part of those commandments includes the proper treatment of animals, and the prohibition against cruelty to animals (tsaar baalei chaim.)  This respect issue was the main reason that I gave up eating meat, because, in the modern meat industry, there is no longer any respect for the animals.  Kosher meat comes from the same cruel factory farms as non-kosher meat, the only difference is in the processing.  So I choose not to eat it.  I believe that, in this modern age, vegetarianism is the best diet for Jews (and others should they so choose.)  

But as for "using" animals, I do not believe it is "animal slavery" to ride a horse, shear a sheep (who, in hot weather, really appreciates it!), or collect honey from bees.   I sometimes wonder if the purist vegans ever really have personal relationships with animals.  If you do not keep dogs, cats, horses, birds or chickens in your home or your immediate environment, can you really connect with them?  Or do they just become subjects of politcal theory?