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The Whimshurst Static Generator
For a long time, this book has hovered between two books. It has regularly flipped back and forth (like an electron between states) between being a "men's book" and being a "book about
gender" written by a Jewish man. This original first chapter has survived dozens of rewrites, for it has been reworked with each flip. Often I wish I could now retrace the purity of the first draft. But sometimes
life doesn't work that way. This prologue to the book tries to state that, like the relationship between me and my father, like the relationship between me and my friend Carol, most true things have two true
alternating realities. Male and Female are but another one of these bipolar alternating truths.
The secret to this book is that rabbinic Judaism is very good at the bipolar thing. God has regularly been just and merciful, immanent and transcendent, providing free will and yet
completely knowing the future, etc. The rabbis have regularly expressed these contrasting visions of reality in a literature known as midrash. This book, post-modern as it may be, is a work of midrash—the drawing
together and stretching out of contrasting bipolar truths...
It made sparks. That is what it was supposed to do. I had found a picture of the Whimshurst static generator in an old science book, part of that early electricity stuff—like Franklin's
kite. My father and I had constructed it out of two old Mitch Miller Sing-A-Long records with orbs of aluminum foil that were glued on to serve as collectors. It was seventh grade, or perhaps eighth—memories
fade—my big science fair project. Old, outgrown wooden blocks and wooden spools (now emptied of their thread) were called to serve as the frame and gear assembly. There was a crank handle. Strips of bicycle tubing
(one with a twist and one without) turned the rotating parallel records in opposite directions. They generated opposite electrical charges. Wire collectors lifted the electric charges off the records and sent them
along bent coat hangers that arced over the revolving records and terminated in little round metal globes (globes with world maps), which were taken from pencil sharpeners. The two globes hung a few inches apart.
They were dual planets hovering in a shaky and noisy homemade universe. When you turned the crank the charges built up, and then the sparks bridged the gap. We had made our own mini-lightning; lots of little
electrons had found their way home.
When my father and I made the Whimshurst static generator for my seventh (or perhaps eighth) grade science fair project, it was one of the classic moments in our relationship. I was in awe
of his skill. I had star-ted to build it on my own. Not only was my first model a gonzo—a just-go-for-it thing—with nothing square and dried glue oozing everywhere—but it never could have worked. My translation of
the photo into reality had only one record turning in one direction. Then, I didn't understand the nature of bipolar opposites. My father's version was carefully drawn and sketched. Each part was measured, marked,
carefully cut and fitted. My father had taken my dream project and made it real. I was grateful. In making it real, I was reduced to the role of scrub nurse, occasionally holding parts while they dried or handing
him tools. We had a lot of fights. There were times he worked on it when I was sent to my room. I felt both emasculated and cheated of my fun—my project had been stolen. And, in that jumble of feelings, I was in awe
of his mind and hands and patience with things—if not people. I also knew that not every father would give up the kind of time mine had given to help a son and make a dream project actual. To this day, our whole
relationship is locked in that science project. It is the spark—jumping a gap between the two worlds—the awe and the anger, the pride and the sense of loss, all there when you turned the crank.
I took the project to school with great pride. I accepted the compliments of my peers with a lot of embarrassment (I felt like the kid who won the soap box derby on his father's engineering
skill). I knew it was the best science project ever. A hell of a lot better than the rock collections or the do-it-yourself volcanos (there were three built from the same kit that year). I expected first prize. We
won nothing. I thought it was my fault. I had to admit, I was a pain to teach. I was difficult. There was no way the teachers would give me a prize. There is a truth to that. There is also the probability that
everyone could see the gap between my work and this piece. And most deeply, I now realize that both truths trace back to my father's inability to help me by empowering me. He's long dead, more than ten years dead,
and I've lived past these truths rather than ever really resolving them. The real relationship doesn't stand in a single definition, doesn't have one truth—it lives in the sparks that cross the gap as electrons
return home...
This book is a man's Jewish reflection on the meanings of gender. It, in many ways, is a book of midrashim. Midrash is a lot like my relationship with my father. It is the name given to the
literature the rabbis (the ones who also wrote the Talmud) created to explain the meaning of the Torah. Midrash is a process. Midrash is a way of stretching the truth taught in the Torah so that it fits and covers
our lives. Midrash is a way of digging down to the root of the Torah's truth and isolating the eternal, unchangeable truths revealed there. Midrash, therefore, is two kinds of truth in one: truth that is modernized
and truth that is eternal. Midrash is much like the stories found above, a three-dimensional truth built out of two or more individual truths. Midrash is the story of how my father could be simultaneously caring and
totally insensitive. Midrash is the story of how Carol and I can be incredibly close and yet never understand each other. This is a book of modern (or perhaps post-modern) midrashim. Midrash is a kind of
mini-lightning, too.
Most people who know anything about midrash think that midrashim are "cute" little extra stories told between the lines of the biblical account. Midrash is supposed to be where Judaism does
Aesop. That, however, is a very limited understanding. The historical reality is that much of midrash had its origins in sermons that were given to explain the weekly Torah portion. Midrashic sermons, called petihtot (openings) in Hebrew and "proems" in English, are built around a very specific structure. As "school figures" are to "ice skating," "proems" are to "midrash."
Each proem has a "Torah Verse," which is the text that comes from the portion being studied, and a "Proem Verse,"
which is traditionally a piece of text from the rest of the Bible (Prophets or Writings). Over the course of the proem the two verses are woven together and contrasted. The intersecting and conflicting images and contexts slowly help to redefine each other. The makers of midrash arced their sparks and their insights between the two verses. Midrash is always "braided" truth, the learning gleaned from balancing the contrasting bipolar opposites it considers.
As this book wrote itself through me, it became more and more a book of midrashim and less and less a collection of polemics. A few of the pieces, like the title piece, emerged full blown
as story midrashim—Jewish mythic forms. However, most of the pieces in the book are really "proems," homages to classic midrashic sermons. Like a classical proem, these essays compare and contrast two texts, letting
new insight spark across the gap between them. Like the stories of my father, these proems seek to braid and weld together two or more single truths in order to suggest a more dynamic three-dimensional truth.
Davar Aher: Another version of the same truth: I talk to my friend Carol every night. Almost every night, out of love, I tell her that she is making mistakes. I demand that she solve
her life's problems. I am constantly gifting her with solutions. I offer better ways to raise her kids, better ways to cope with her husband's death, better ways to do her job—I constantly open a whole universe of
new solutions for her. My solutions are often not what she wants at all—she just needs to "blow steam" and to have someone understand. My understanding is usually a solution. As a way of returning my love, she wants
to share my feelings. She questions every statement I make. I think she is doubting and questioning my sincerity—usually she's just trying to understand me, just trying to be close. I often get angry. I want to have
my ideas tested, not to have my feelings investigated and affirmed. I reject the aura or illusion of sympathy—I feel infantalized (even though I know that is not her intent). When I want empirical validity—"Tell me what I am saying is true"—she is offering the gift of empathy—"I know just how you feel." It often infuriates me. This has been going on for more than five years now. We've even gotten good at reversing parts and doing the other's piece. But the gap is still there. Each of us wants to scratch the other's back—but our instincts lead us to scratch the place where we project our own itch. Still it works somehow. We've learned to spark across the gap of gender-oriented tendency and be there in tension and support.
The Braided Truth: Carol and I still talk every night. Somewhere in my psyche my father and I are still turning the Mitch Miller Sing-A-Long records in opposite directions and
making sparks. Every day I struggle with the meaning of my manhood in a world where every aspect of masculinity has been challenged and questioned. This book started out to be a polemic about men's needs and Jewish
responses—it wound up being a series of proems about using rabbinic insights to honor gender difference. The proem form both expressed and created that transition. It, too, is a spark across the gap of two worlds,
an affirmation of the monotheistic unity of duality. Just turn the crank, read, and be aware. The sparks contained herein are challenging, not dangerous. They are only static electricity, like rubbing your feet on a
rug and then touching someone.
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