Ques­tions cour­tesy of Nan­cy Star

1. Grow­ing up, Lane Meckler’s moth­er Sylvie tells her, ​“friends are over-rat­ed and then adds, ​“It’s not your fault. They’re not our kind.” Lane spends hours pars­ing out what Not our kind means. What was their kind? Her first guess is peo­ple who move a lot. Her sec­ond guess is peo­ple who are Jew­ish. Did it sur­prise you that being Jew­ish was one of her guess­es? Do you think that was part of why she felt dif­fer­ent? Is being dif­fer­ent always a neg­a­tive thing?


2. When Lane real­izes Hen­ry has stopped speak­ing to every­one but her, she’s con­cerned that he’ll end up being seen as ​“oth­er than”. What do you think about the way Lane han­dles Henry’s dif­fi­cul­ty in speak­ing? In what ways is his silence impor­tant to the sto­ry? Do you think the advice Lane gets from ther­a­pists and oth­ers is help­ful? Do you think dif­fer­ent cul­tures, eth­nic­i­ties and reli­gions have dif­fer­ent atti­tudes toward silence?


3. There are sev­er­al chap­ters in the nov­el told from Henry’s point of view. Did see­ing events through Henry’s eyes change how you viewed Lane? What do you think you would find out if you saw the world through the eyes of peo­ple in your fam­i­ly, through your friends’ eyes, or your neighbors?


4. In the pro­logue, we learn about Lane and Hen­ry from anoth­er char­ac­ter. Have you ever had the expe­ri­ence of hear­ing about some­one before you met them? What was the effect on your rela­tion­ship with them? Lane lives in three very dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties yet gos­sip is present in all. How did gos­sip dif­fer in each loca­tion, if it did? Does it count as gos­sip if peo­ple are say­ing good things? How do you define gossip?


5. When Lane meets Aggie, Aggie tells her, if ​“you want to know who a per­son real­ly is, watch how they treat some­one who’s dif­fer­ent.” Do you agree? Who in the nov­el seemed sym­pa­thet­ic to peo­ple with dif­fer­ences? Who seemed most put off? There are many kinds of dif­fer­ences in the book. Which ones did you notice? How does your com­mu­ni­ty embrace peo­ple with dif­fer­ences, and how could it do better?


6. The nov­el is full of mis­un­der­stand­ings and mis­tak­en assump­tions. Many peo­ple in the sto­ry are not as they first seem. Were there char­ac­ters you made assump­tions about who sur­prised you once you learned more about them? Are you quick to make assump­tions about peo­ple? Do you think we all are? Is this some­thing we can change?


7. Many of Lane’s Rox­ie read­ers treat her as if she were their wise Rab­bi but her father Mar­shall thinks it’s crazy for peo­ple to take advice from her because she’s a stranger. Lane responds by telling him that not every­one has some­one safe to ask. What do you think about peo­ple tak­ing advice from advice colum­nists? Do you think Rox­ie gives good advice? How do you think Lane is able to give con­fi­dent advice while being unsure of how to behave in her own life?


8. In one of the Ask Rox­ie columns, Rox­ie tells a read­er that we can nev­er real­ly know what goes on behind the closed doors of oth­er people’s homes. Yet we often act as if we do know. When you meet some­one, do you assume they are pre­sent­ing their authen­tic self to you or are you skep­ti­cal? Are you slow to reveal your­self or are you an ​“open book?” How do you nav­i­gate between the per­son you present to the world and your pri­vate self.


9. In Lane’s fam­i­ly there is an ear­ly event that is dam­ag­ing to every­one. Though they each deal with it dif­fer­ent­ly, they nev­er direct­ly speak of it. Why do you think that is? Why do you think fam­i­lies keep secrets? How do you define the dif­fer­ence between what’s pri­vate and what’s secret?


10. Lane has moved a lot but she’s nev­er felt at home. Why do you think that is? What do you think makes a house a home? By the end of the book do you feel that Lane has found her home?


 

Tikkun Middot/​Mussar Dis­cus­sion Guide

Author’s Note: How did I come to write a nov­el that explores many of the themes in the Tikkun Mid­dot cur­ricu­lum devel­oped by Rab­bi David Jaf­fee at the Insti­tute for Jew­ish Cul­tur­al Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty? My sub­con­scious did it! I dis­cov­ered this lay­er of the nov­el after my book-launch talk for Rules For Mov­ing, when a mem­ber of my syn­a­gogue, present at the launch, called to ask if I’d ever tak­en our rabbi’s Tikkun Mid­dot class. She was tak­ing the class, about cul­ti­vat­ing whole­some qual­i­ties of the heart and mind as a way to help repair the world, while read­ing my nov­el and she noticed many attrib­ut­es stud­ied in the class were woven through the book. 

As usu­al, the read­er is nev­er wrong! I took that class a few years back at the same time that I was writ­ing the nov­el and with­out notic­ing it, attrib­ut­es stud­ied in the class snuck into the book. 

Tikkun Mid­dot class­es are held at many syn­a­gogues and Jew­ish Cen­ters. The class I took was led with open­ness and kind­ness by the wise rab­bi, Elliott Tep­per­man, at Bnai Keshet in New Jer­sey. While I am not trained to teach this class (though I did co-facil­i­tate) I offer this dis­cus­sion guide as a way to look at Rules For Mov­ing through the lens of Tikkun Middot. 

The ques­tions below are all pre­ced­ed by a con­cept or attribute that is part of the Tikkun Mid­dot cur­ricu­lum. Some are more direct­ly con­nect­ed to the nov­el than oth­ers. My hope is you take it in with the spir­it of curios­i­ty and mind­ful­ness that is part of the Tikkun Mid­dot experience!

1. Hit­lam­dut
   This is the prac­tice of being aware with­out judg­ment; of cul­ti­vat­ing a spir­it of open curios­i­ty. There’s a lot of the oppo­site hap­pen­ing in this nov­el! Peo­ple make quick judg­ments based on mis­tak­en assump­tions. In one of Ask Roxie’s advice columns woven through the nov­el, Rox­ie takes this on direct­ly with a read­er whose ques­tion reveals that she’s mak­ing assump­tions with­out hav­ing enough infor­ma­tion. Roxie’s advice: ​“More lov­ing, less judg­ing.” Can you talk about the ways in which neg­a­tive judg­ments become prob­lem­at­ic for Lane, but those of oth­ers and her own?


2. Behi­ra Point
   These are choice points in our lives; moments when we have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to stop and mind­ful­ly choose our best response to a sit­u­a­tion instead of let­ting our­selves be car­ried along mind­less­ly by habit. Lane faces sev­er­al Behi­ra Points in the nov­el. When these moments are big, we tend to see them as cross­roads. But even small moments of choice can be con­se­quen­tial. Did you notice any moments, big or small, when Lane neglect­ed to take a moment to con­sid­er how to pro­ceed? Did you notice any moments when she stopped and reflect on the best action before pro­ceed­ing? What was the dif­fer­ence in the outcomes?


3. Anavah/​Humility
   This looks at how much space peo­ple choose to take up in a room. Some peo­ple take up too lit­tle, some too much. Find­ing the right bal­ance can be chal­leng­ing (but use­ful). In the nov­el, we learn ear­ly on that Lane has a soft spot for what she thinks of as Perime­ter Peo­ple. What did that mean to you, when you read it? Who in the nov­el could use to take up a lit­tle less space? Who would do well to put them­selves out there a lit­tle bit more? Does any­one in the nov­el (or in life) get it just right?


4. Savlanut and Ka’as: Patience and Anger.
   Who in the nov­el seems the most patient? Are they patient with some peo­ple or in some sit­u­a­tions and not oth­ers? Who in the nov­el has prob­lems with anger? How can express­ing too lit­tle anger be prob­lem­at­ic? Does any­one in the nov­el (or in life) get it just right?


5. Hesed: Lov­ingkind­ness.
   In the nov­el, some peo­ple try to help Lane in ways that are not help­ful. When you noticed this, were you sur­prised or did it feel famil­iar? In an Ask Rox­ie col­umn, a read­er com­plains that a friend who’s suf­fered a recent loss is not accept­ing her help even though she’s known to be a good helper. Were you sur­prised by Roxie’s answer? Have you ever tried to help in a way that wasn’t want­ed? Has any­one ever tried to help you in a way you didn’t find help­ful? Who is helped, when the help offered is not the help wanted?


6. Shti­ka-Shmi­rat Ha Lashon: Silence, thought­ful speech, gossip.
   The book looks at dif­fer­ent kinds of silence, and the many ways that peo­ple speak, both mind­ful­ly and through gos­sip. In addi­tion to Henry’s silence, what oth­er exam­ples of silence did you notice in the nov­el? Did you notice any char­ac­ters who prac­ticed mind­ful care­ful speech? There’s gos­sip in all three com­mu­ni­ties in the nov­el (in Man­hat­tan, in New Jer­sey, in Mass­a­chu­setts). Did you find all instances of gos­sip equal­ly harm­ful? How do you define gossip?


7. Bita­chon: Trust.
   Lane finds it hard to trust peo­ple. Why do you think that is? Lane uses dis­tance as a way to avoid being hurt. Is being cau­tious always wrong? Can set­ting bound­aries be help­ful? How have Lane’s bound­aries gone wrong for her? How have they been help­ful? Did you notice any moments (Behi­ra Points!) where Lane decides to take a chance on trust­ing some­one? What hap­pens when she does?


8. Emu­nah: Trust­wor­thi­ness and Integrity.
   Do you think Lane is a trust­wor­thy per­son? Why or why not? Do you think peo­ple who are trust­wor­thy toward some and not toward oth­ers, can be con­sid­ered trust­wor­thy? Are there any char­ac­ters in the book who are good exam­ples of peo­ple with integri­ty? Did your opin­ion of anyone’s trust­wor­thi­ness change through the course of the nov­el? Has that ever hap­pened to you with some­one you met?


9. Seder: Order.
   What about Lane’s life was order­ly? What wasn’t? How did Lane’s moth­er Sylvie try to impose order and why? How does Lane try to impose order? Can there be too much order? In your opin­ion, what’s worse: too much order or not enough? Does every­one need order? What do you think the oppo­site of order is? Dis­or­der? Chaos? Spon­tane­ity? Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty? What’s your com­fort lev­el with order or the lack thereof?