“Edward’S Humor” and More: Humor, Word Play, Personae, Memoirs, Interpretation

By Edward R. Levenson

Edwards Humor and More: Humor, Word Play, Personae, Memoirs, and Interpretation contains writings in the five different categories. Each one contains respective elements of the other four. Edward, the main persona of Edward in his nuclear family when he was growing up, gained no fewer than seventeen additional personae in the course of the enrichment of his life. The pieces in Word Play range from the flippant, to the semiserious, to the intellectual. Interpretation has two parts: insights about material from twenty-five Sabbath portions of the week in the five books of Moses and an innovative approach to the relationships of the members of the Hebrew first family. Interpretation extends to the essay in his Memoirs section Three Jewish Women in This Bridge Called My Back. The book has something for everyonefrom grades nine to twelve to adults.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524579777

Edward R. Levenson

Edward/Eddie grew up in Roxbury and Brighton in “Boston Proper” (that is, within Boston’s city limits), Massachusetts. After graduating from Boston Latin School, he received undergraduate degrees in Jewish Education and Classics (Greek and Latin Literature) and graduate degrees in Ancient and Jewish History, Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, and Educational Administration. He taught Hebrew Language and Jewish History in college and Hebrew Scriptures in graduate school before he retracked into teaching Latin and Social Studies in high school. He relocated in 2015 from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Delray Beach, Florida, where he has been fulfilled, in retirement, in a second career as a writer. In these last five years he has published three anthologies and four multi-genres books. His Personae of Ed: Literary, Psychological, and Spiritual is in the works. A newlywed of four years to prolific writer Reva Spiro Luxenberg, he has edited eight of her books. He is a proud member and officer of our Kings Point Creative Writers Club and Kings Point Writers Club Supplementary, considering them models for emulation.

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Copyright © 2017 by Edward R. Levenson.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017901751

ISBN:   Hardcover              978-1-5245-7979-1

              Softcover                978-1-5245-7978-4

              eBook                      978-1-5245-7977-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 02/24/2017

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Part One––Humor

Bears and Brians

My Privy Well

My Juror Experience

Sidney

My Colonoscopy: Where the Sun Doesn’t Shine

Reva’s Catalogues––My Millionaire Reverie

Reva’s Catalogues––Sequel

My New Grave

Part Two––Word Play

Jamilah

El Español y Yo

Gematrias and Notricons

Grammar, Punctuation, Creoles, Dialects, and I

Interpreting My Son Judah’s Avant-Garde Poetry

Scrabble Slaughter

A Spelling Challenge

It’s Time for Me to Start Wearing My Hearing Aid

Part Three––Personae

Personae Discussions Setting

The Many Personae of Edward Richard Levenson

Second Personae Discussion

Return from Break

Third Personae Discussion––Wrap-up

Part Four––Memoirs

I Was a Catholic Educator

Driving a Cab in Philadelphia (1998-2003)

The Trip to Dublin

My Cats

Three Jewish Women in This Bridge Called My Back:

Our South Carolina Intersectionality Conference––

Breast Issues, Shingles, and Pancreatitis

My Feelings About Tipping

Part Five––Interpretation

Parshiyot Hashavua (Portions of the Week) Interpretations

Re-estimation of the Role of Ishmael in the First Hebrew Family

Introduction

I am happy to present to readers selections of my writings over the past ten years. As the subtitle indicates, they are in five sections: Humor, Word Play, Personae, Memoirs, and Interpretation.

The words Edward’s Humor in my title are in quotation marks, because that is how my humor was characterized by my father, William Levenson, in my teens. The term was decidedly not meant as a compliment, though it was a grudging acceptance that I was at least trying to be funny, although, in his opinion, with questionable success. I have attempted humor throughout my book. The book, in fact, reflects my newfound confidence as a writer that, believe it or not, I am funny. The naysaying, however, has continued. For example, my son Benjamin, otherwise very supportive of my writing, has considered My New Grave to be morbid.

The categorization of my Word Play section is, I believe, felicitous. Originally, I had divided twenty-four pieces between Humor and Memoirs, but the assignment of several was arbitrary. Putting four pieces from each section into Word Play has made good sense. The pieces range from the somewhat flippant (Jamilah), to the semi-serious (Scrabble Slaughter), to the intellectual, though very personal ("Interpreting My Son Judah’s ‘Avant-Garde’ Poetry). At the same time, they are Humor (not the last one) and Memoirs" as well.

Judah has been the inspiration for my Personae piece, which has become a section in itself. Without his encouragement, in fact, I never would have written it at all. It developed from his willing adoption of a new persona for me, DAP—an acronym for Dad, the Hebrew "Abba, and the Latin Pater. My oldest son, Joshua, calls me Dad. My daughter Aliza and Benjamin (I did not specify above that he is my youngest) call me Abba. DAP represents a most welcome synthesis. My love of these three letters is reflected in my detailed treatment of pertinent etymology and allusions in Personae."

Judah has been well aware of my identity conflicts, and it was he, a dramatist among his many talents, who suggested a dialogue among different personae. The piece is more a series of dramatic monologues than a dialogue, but I, nonetheless, give him the role of moderator.

It is serendipitous for me that no fewer than eighteen personae have emerged in my recollecting, for 18 is a lucky number in Jewish culture, as I explain in my "Gematrias and Notricons" piece in my Word Play section.

My Interpretation section is in two parts. First, thoughts and insights about material in twenty-five different Portions of the Week (Parshiyot Hashavua)—Torah Readings from Genesis to Deuteronomy on Sabbaths during the year. Second, explanations, which I introduce as different than expected, of the relationships among Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, and Isaac—and of The Binding of Isaac—in Chapters 16 to 22 of Genesis.

The name Isaac (Yitsḥaq) is associated in the Hebrew account with the idea of laughter. Coincidentally, Yitsḥaq is my Hebrew name. It is a stretch to find humor in the Binding of Isaac chapter. The etymology of the name, at any rate, reinforces the phrase Edward’s Humor of my title indirectly. A translation of the book into Hebrew, of course, would have to be called "Hahumor shel Yitsḥaq." Keeping the quotation marks of the English phrase would be a burdensome obfuscation. Conversely, however, though the name is a Hebrew one, I don’t italicize it in my Personae section, considering it as quasi-English.

My readership is undoubtedly diverse in interests, but I have something for everyone. For example, while my Interpretation section deals mostly with Hebrew Scriptures, I do discuss New Testament sources, such as in the above-mentioned "Gematrias and Notricons."

My cover design features the multicolored spectrum of a circular glory rainbow, often called simply a glory. This spectacular rainbow represents for me an idealization of my eighteen personae. I ask readers who might consider my book more spectacle than spectacular to try to suspend their disbelief. To be noted is that my different distinct personae wear diaphanous cloaks of different spectrum colors.

The rainbow, to be sure, symbolizes the biblical promise (Genesis 9:8-17) of survival, safety, peace, hope, and integration.

I use pseudonyms for individuals wherever there is the slightest possibility I might cause embarrassment. In my own case, I deal with my own embarrassments via humor. I do strive throughout to be completely truthful, give or take instances of hyperbole here or there.

There is a trochaic rhythm in my title and subtitle. I have not tried therein to compete with Shakespeare. I wonder, however, if the title and subtitle might not reflect my individuality. In that respect, perhaps, my father, in his term Edward’s humor, wanted to indicate that he considered me a character.

In conclusion, life is serious business, and the book does reflect serious concerns. On the one hand, I don’t offer my scriptural interpretations lightly; and, on the other hand, I am not completely sanguine about my pathetic win ratio in Scrabble games with my wife Reva. But I hope very much that my readers will appreciate my humor as such without that much equivocation.

The total number of words up to equivocation in an earlier draft was 666 (see my "Gematrias and Notricons piece). Anticipating a need to quash speculation that my Introduction hints at an identification on my part with the beast" of Revelation, I added another two hundred and fifty or so words. I, of course, pray that my book will be not a curse, but a blessing.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply indebted to many individuals. My wife Reva, an author herself, has provided invaluable help in her expertise in the crafts of writing and editing and in her companionship in Delray Beach, Florida, literary groups. Her love has been a high point of my life.

My brother Rob has given me constant encouragement. My son Judah, of course, as well as Reva, Rob, my sons Josh and Benjamin, and my daughter Aliza have had a most constructive influence on my Personae piece. I thank my sister-in-law Loudell, my daughter-in-law Jenny, my granddaughter Sophie, my grandson Caleb, my step-grandson Joel Kohn, and my step-granddaughter Chaya Kohn for their support.

Participants in the Philadelphia Writing Project, Critique Group 1 and Open Readings of The Writers’ Colony of the Delray Beach Center for the Arts, and the Creative Writing Workshop of the Weisman Delray Community Center are too numerous to mention, but I will single out Hazel Adamczyk, Vanessa Brown, Barbara Cronie, Ted Domers, Miriam Harris, Teri Hines, Mort Mazor, and Diane Waff. I am enormously grateful to all. I leave one person from the above writing groups for special mention at the end.

The book would not have been written if I had not had a veritable passion of sixty years’ duration to demonstrate that Edward’s humor has really been, when you get right down to it, funny. I thus lovingly acknowledge the role of my father, William Levenson, in contributing to my development as a writer. My Personae piece, likewise, owes much to the insistence of my mother, Sylvia Levenson, that I was Edward—meaning Edward, and nothing but Edward. I desperately needed additional personae beyond that one. I’ve given Reva the virtual sobriquet Reva God Bless Her; and I can lovingly give the same to my mother in referring to her as Ma God Bless Her. I pray that, looking down from Heaven, my parents, of Blessed Memory, are proud of my book, "Edward’s humor" though it be.

Several pieces in my sections have been published previously in the Philadelphia Writing Project Journal and in the Kings Point News of Delray Beach, Florida. I am grateful for the permission of each to include these pieces in my book.

I pay special appreciation to Arnold Band (Boston Hebrew Teachers College, 1950s), my Boston Latin School English teacher Sidney Rosenthal and Greek and Latin teacher Edward O’Callahan, my Harvard Senior Thesis Advisor (on Euripides’ Herakles) Christian Wolff, and my Brandeis doctoral supervisor (on Moses Mendelssohn’s Pentateuch Interpretation) Alexander Altmann.

The wisdom and leadership of the following mentors have shaped my character: Evelyn Torton Beck, Rabbi Marjorie Berman, Gregory Bloom, Cheryl Booker-Carter, Newton Brown, Lisa Ciaranca-Kaplan, Gayle Daniels, Amina Diallo, Jennifer Disney, John Frangipani, David Hearst, Daniel Isaacman, Victoria Johnson, David Lugo, Richard Powell-Gonzalez, Jeffrey Price, Father Daryl Rybicki, John Schosheim, Herolin Simmons, Barbara Wells, Jerry White, and many more.

Last but not least is AnnMarie Marranzini of the School District of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Writing Project (PhilWP). In one of my earliest PhilWP day-long events, in April 2007, I attended the Writers’ Session which she led. I composed my Jamilah piece in that venue. She had an incalculable influence on the development of my consciousness as a writer, in directing each participant to introduce himself or herself as such. In my case, I am Edward Levenson, and I am a writer. I have been writing ever since.

Part One––Humor

Bears and Brians

In the Eastern European Jewish tradition, as in many cultures, humans had a deep spiritual relationship with animals, such as