Sabbaticals\u00a0are periods\u00a0when you have the rare\u00a0privilege of time at your disposal to do what you cannot otherwise. This is my\u00a0second sabbatical in twenty-three years since starting at BU. In 2002-3 when I was eligible for my first sabbatical, I took a leave of absence instead to teach in Frankfurt and spend time with my mother who was sick and died in early 2003. The first real sabbatical\u00a0(a whole year without\u00a0teaching) I took in 2007-8.\u00a0My plan was to write the Jerusalem-book under contract with\u00a0Blackwell.\u00a0I did a ton of research and wrote about 120,000 words, nearly twice the projected word-count, but the draft was rejected by the publisher and so I needed to start over. Before I had even started on that project I got sucked into research on my mother’s life\u00a0before and during the war, as a German Jewish refugee in England. The\u00a0project yielded surprising information. But I\u00a0needed to set that aside to work on Jerusalem, which I did, though not with the desired results. I also drafted a German essay volume on Jewish philosophy for which I received a contract but couldn’t really\u00a0work on at the time. I ended that first sabbatical year with a lot of new knowledge, two books in progress, and a family research project that remains unfinished.<\/p>\n
Right now I am on my second sabbatical, which I delayed so I could finish a three-year stint\u00a0as director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, a task that I found immensely\u00a0satisfying and hope to return to this\u00a0fall. This time around, I knew my time was limited. I also knew I needed to have most if not all writing done by the time Miriam and I were to take off for India. This I did. With the assistance\u00a0of Sarah Leventer, a PhD student in American studies, I was able to move along the production of the\u00a0German essay volume, which came out in October of last year. In December I submitted a full draft of the new version of the Jerusalem book to the publisher, and I am awaiting comments. A tricky essay I worked\u00a0on for an entire year is forthcoming in a volume edited by my colleague Allen Speight and myself. All in all, a good harvest.<\/p>\n
As in the days\u00a0of graduate studies, what kept me sane and\u00a0balanced over the past few months was music. Back then at Brandeis, newly arrived from Germany, academically disoriented, and intrigued\u00a0by the things going on at that\u00a0time in Europe (German unification, the dissolution of the Soviet Union), I found companionship and good cheer among fellow musicians who\u00a0have remained our close friends until today.\u00a0This time around, I was privileged to host a regular weekly\u00a0session at my house for a group called Zensemble. (Look for us on SoundCloud.) But the sabbatical leave also provided opportunity to try something different. After twenty years or so I picked up my old clarinet. I found a teacher. I practiced. (Amy Advocat. Check out her extraordinary chops at\u00a0www.amyadvocat.com<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0www.transientcanvas.com<\/a>.)<\/p>\n When the time rolled around for us to pack for India, the question was: take the clarinet or leave it at home? It’s bulky. On the other hand, the\u00a0instrument is not very good, so if it were to fall apart or I gave it away, it wouldn’t be a great loss.\u00a0Miriam’s most-India-experienced friend suggested the clarinet might be a great conversation starter. She was right. Since we arrived at our\u00a0mountain resort\/artists’ residence I’ve been playing every day, for at least two hours. Usually I walk away from the house, so as not to disturb anyone, and I am also still a bit shy about practicing or playing where others can here me. But I needed to overcome this stage fright quickly. Members of our little household and the ladies who work in the tea plantations and walk by here every day find the clarinet entertaining and encourage me to play. It’s become a conversation starter. It’s also something that anchors and disciplines me while I am still trying to figure out what I want to accomplish while we’re here. Our days are so rich and what we see on our daily walks gives me so much to process that I’m not at all sure I’ll accomplish anything in particular. But at least I practice the clarinet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sabbaticals\u00a0are periods\u00a0when you have the rare\u00a0privilege of time at your disposal to do what you cannot otherwise. This is my\u00a0second sabbatical in twenty-three years since starting at BU. In 2002-3 when I was eligible for my first sabbatical, I took a leave of absence instead to teach in Frankfurt and spend time with my mother […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1355,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1355"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":368,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions\/368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}