(This isn't actually a derashah; it's more of a nugget, which could be developed into a derashah.)
Next week's Torah portion, Toldot, will begin with Rivkah pregnant with twins. Her children will "race about" in her womb, and she will react with a question: אם כן, למה זה אנכי? (Bereishit 25:22)
Rivkah's language is odd. Commentators generally explain that Rivkah asked, "This is so painful, why did I want it?" (Rashi) Or, "This is so painful, why should I continue to live?" (Ramban) But Dr. Yael Tzohar, of Bar Ilan University (Hebrew here), notes that this doesn't fit Rivkah's words, which translate literally to, "If so, why me?" Further, would a woman who prayed for children for twenty years respond to pain with this level of rejection? [Yes, I am not qualified to answer that question, but perhaps Dr. Tzohar has more familiarity with pregnancy than I do...] And how does G-d's response, predicting the rivalry between her two fetuses, answer either version of Rivkah's question?
Dr. Tzohar suggests that we consider Rivkah's background, from our Torah portion of Chayei Sarah. Rivkah lived with her pagan family until her monotheistic cousin's servant came to visit. That servant declared that Rivkah was special, by dint of her generous conduct at the well. (ibid. 24:14-20) The servant announced that a Divine miracle had identified her as special. (ibid. 24:40-48) When the family hesitated, the servant reiterated that G-d had selected her. (ibid. 24:56) Her family then blessed her - "You shall produce myriads." (ibid. 24:60) This is the woman who will mother the next generation of the family promised to Avraham and Sarah.
Against this backdrop, Dr. Tzohar says that Rivkah interpreted the pains of pregnancy as a message that something was wrong, and she was ineligible. And she turned to G-d and asked, "If so, then why ME?" If there is something wrong with my pagan lineage, if I am not worthy, then why did You bring me here and set me up for this?
To this ancient question - which echoes our own question today as we face knife attacks, demonization in the media, and diplomatic ostracism - G-d answers, "There are two nations in your uterus. Two nations will separate from your womb." (ibid. 25:23) Yes, Rivkah - you are the one I have selected, you are the one who is suited for this task. There is pain now, and there will be pain in the future, and I need you to fill this role.
Rivkah remembered G-d's answer. Many years later, when the birthright and the family's future was at stake, and Yaakov suggested that his mother's shockingly brazen plan might cause him to be cursed, Rivkah told him with the superlative confidence of G-d's official delegate, "Any curse of yours is on me." I was destined for this position because G-d wanted me to make this decision. (ibid. 27:13)
There are many answers to the "Why us?" question, but this answer inspires me. The Divine plan requires that a nation accept G-d's Torah, live in Israel and stand apart from the world, and it may well be fundamental to human nature and Free Will that this will bring with it great animosity from others. It hurts terribly, and we must do what we can to minimize the pain, whether diplomatically or militarily - but at the end of the day, we are here because G-d knows that Rivkah's descendants are uniquely suited to stand up to the task.
We have stood up to the challenge for thousands of years, with remarkable success, producing a rich culture and a sustained tradition of intellectual depth and moral heights. The light at the end of the tunnel is in view, with our return to national life in Zion. G-d's bet on Rivkah was a good one, and I believe the same is true for G-d's bet on her descendants.
Showing posts with label Jewish community: Anti-Semitism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jewish community: Anti-Semitism. Show all posts
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Should a Jew read Dostoevsky?
[Just by the way: On Chanukah, when people asked how many candles we were to light that night, was I the only person who felt an urge to respond, 'Last night we counted X'?]
There was a period, while I was in college I think, when I was very into Russian short-story writers and playwrights. I read quite a few, and was very impressed - until I came to Nikolai Gogol, and a story in which described the glory of the Cossacks. I couldn't read any further; the Cossacks were murderous butchers who slaughtered my ancestors.
Of course, if Jews were to shun all writers who hated us, we would be left with slim literary pickings; a quick thumbing through Allan Gould's "What did they think of the Jews" shows that we would lose a great deal of Western culture, including figures like Lord Byron and Joseph Conrad and Jack London. But it's hard for me to stomach reading the work of someone who views me, and my heritage, in unambiguously negative terms.
The question comes to mind now because I am considering picking up my copy of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. I've owned it for years, it's universally acclaimed as a remarkable work, but every time I look at it, it's with this ambivalence.
Dostoevsky said this of Jews:
... I know that in the whole world there is certainly no other people who would be complaining as much about their lot, incessantly, after each step and word of theirs -- about their humiliation, their suffering, their martyrdom. One might think it is not they who are reigning in Europe, who are directing there at least the stock exchanges and, therefore, politics, domestic affairs, the morality of the states...
Now, how would it be if in Russia there were not three million Jews, but three million Russians, and there were eighty million Jews -- well, into what would they convert the Russians and how would they treat them? Would they permit them to acquire equal rights? Would they permit them to worship freely in their midst? Wouldn't they convert them into slaves? Worse than that: wouldn't they skin them altogether? Wouldn't they slaughter them to the last man...
The decision to read, or not to read, is not a matter of halachah; it's personal. I have a hard time with the idea of reading his work, however insightful and creative. I should be even more horrified if I found myself admiring it.
What do you think?
There was a period, while I was in college I think, when I was very into Russian short-story writers and playwrights. I read quite a few, and was very impressed - until I came to Nikolai Gogol, and a story in which described the glory of the Cossacks. I couldn't read any further; the Cossacks were murderous butchers who slaughtered my ancestors.
Of course, if Jews were to shun all writers who hated us, we would be left with slim literary pickings; a quick thumbing through Allan Gould's "What did they think of the Jews" shows that we would lose a great deal of Western culture, including figures like Lord Byron and Joseph Conrad and Jack London. But it's hard for me to stomach reading the work of someone who views me, and my heritage, in unambiguously negative terms.
The question comes to mind now because I am considering picking up my copy of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. I've owned it for years, it's universally acclaimed as a remarkable work, but every time I look at it, it's with this ambivalence.
Dostoevsky said this of Jews:
... I know that in the whole world there is certainly no other people who would be complaining as much about their lot, incessantly, after each step and word of theirs -- about their humiliation, their suffering, their martyrdom. One might think it is not they who are reigning in Europe, who are directing there at least the stock exchanges and, therefore, politics, domestic affairs, the morality of the states...
Now, how would it be if in Russia there were not three million Jews, but three million Russians, and there were eighty million Jews -- well, into what would they convert the Russians and how would they treat them? Would they permit them to acquire equal rights? Would they permit them to worship freely in their midst? Wouldn't they convert them into slaves? Worse than that: wouldn't they skin them altogether? Wouldn't they slaughter them to the last man...
The decision to read, or not to read, is not a matter of halachah; it's personal. I have a hard time with the idea of reading his work, however insightful and creative. I should be even more horrified if I found myself admiring it.
What do you think?
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
You can't make this stuff up
Courtesy of Yahoo News-
Hungary far-right leader discovers Jewish roots
As a rising star in Hungary's far-right Jobbik Party, Csanad Szegedi was notorious for his incendiary comments on Jews: He accused them of "buying up" the country, railed about the "Jewishness" of the political elite and claimed Jews were desecrating national symbols.
Then came a revelation that knocked him off his perch as ultra-nationalist standard-bearer: Szegedi himself is a Jew.
Following weeks of Internet rumors, Szegedi acknowledged in June that his grandparents on his mother's side were Jews — making him one too under Jewish law, even though he doesn't practice the faith. His grandmother was an Auschwitz survivor and his grandfather a veteran of forced labor camps.
Since then, the 30-year-old has become a pariah in Jobbik and his political career is on the brink of collapse. He declined to be interviewed for this story.
...
Szegedi came to prominence in 2007 as a founding member of the Hungarian Guard, a group whose black uniforms and striped flags recalled the Arrow Cross, a pro-Nazi party which briefly governed Hungary at the end of World War II and killed thousands of Jews. In all, 550,000 Hungarian Jews were killed during the Holocaust, most of them after being sent in trains to death camps like Auschwitz. The Hungarian Guard was banned by the courts in 2009.
By then, Szegedi had already joined the Jobbik Party, which was launched in 2003 to become the country's biggest far-right political force. He soon became one of its most vocal and visible members, and a pillar of the party leadership. Since 2009, he has served in the European Parliament in Brussels as one of the party's three EU lawmakers, a position he says he wants to keep.
The fallout of Szegedi's ancestry saga has extended to his business interests. Jobbik executive director Gabor Szabo is pulling out of an Internet site selling nationalist Hungarian merchandise that he owns with Szegedi. Szabo said his sister has resigned as Szegedi's personal assistant.
I have nothing to add. File this under #neonazifail...
Hungary far-right leader discovers Jewish roots
As a rising star in Hungary's far-right Jobbik Party, Csanad Szegedi was notorious for his incendiary comments on Jews: He accused them of "buying up" the country, railed about the "Jewishness" of the political elite and claimed Jews were desecrating national symbols.
Then came a revelation that knocked him off his perch as ultra-nationalist standard-bearer: Szegedi himself is a Jew.
Following weeks of Internet rumors, Szegedi acknowledged in June that his grandparents on his mother's side were Jews — making him one too under Jewish law, even though he doesn't practice the faith. His grandmother was an Auschwitz survivor and his grandfather a veteran of forced labor camps.
Since then, the 30-year-old has become a pariah in Jobbik and his political career is on the brink of collapse. He declined to be interviewed for this story.
...
Szegedi came to prominence in 2007 as a founding member of the Hungarian Guard, a group whose black uniforms and striped flags recalled the Arrow Cross, a pro-Nazi party which briefly governed Hungary at the end of World War II and killed thousands of Jews. In all, 550,000 Hungarian Jews were killed during the Holocaust, most of them after being sent in trains to death camps like Auschwitz. The Hungarian Guard was banned by the courts in 2009.
By then, Szegedi had already joined the Jobbik Party, which was launched in 2003 to become the country's biggest far-right political force. He soon became one of its most vocal and visible members, and a pillar of the party leadership. Since 2009, he has served in the European Parliament in Brussels as one of the party's three EU lawmakers, a position he says he wants to keep.
The fallout of Szegedi's ancestry saga has extended to his business interests. Jobbik executive director Gabor Szabo is pulling out of an Internet site selling nationalist Hungarian merchandise that he owns with Szegedi. Szabo said his sister has resigned as Szegedi's personal assistant.
I have nothing to add. File this under #neonazifail...
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Phishing for Jews - and what we can do about it
The other day I received one of those phishing emails, a message presenting itself as coming from a rabbinic colleague of mine, claiming that he had been mugged in Scotland and he needed $1850 to get home.
The hacking job was sophisticated – when I emailed him to let him know his account had been hacked, I received an auto-reply indicating that he was in Glasgow. But the kicker was this sentence in the phishing email: "I would appreciate whatever you can help with , promise to refund you right as soon as I'm back home in a couple of days Be'H."
Yes, the hacker included the classic acronym for "b'ezras HaShem", "with Gd's help", the sort of thing which a rabbi would write, and an observant Jew would recognize. Had the email been in his writing style and had the phish not been so routine, I might actually have believed this was real.
This makes me wonder who is doing the hacking and whether rabbis are being targeted. Is the idea that rabbis are connected to lots of people, and that congregants would all want to reach out and help their rabbis? Or is it an anti-Jewish thing?
And how did the hacker come to recognize this bit of Hebrew lingo as significant - is it just the Jewish equivalent of a Christian, Muslim, etc similar phrasing, and easily recognizable as such? Or is this hacker Jewish?
This also puts me in mind of ways to avoid becoming a hacking victim. We all know the standard ways to avoid it – don't use public computers, for example – but here are some thoughts on additional safeguards. I'd appreciate comment on these ideas, or any additional ideas:
• Change your password after using your email on a public network, like a hotel or airport. Hackers may collect data and use it months later, so changing your password could render their stolen information useless.
• Create a backup email account, and set up email forwarding (Gmail does it for free) so that all email sent to your main account will also be forwarded to your backup account. This will allow you to continue to receive email sent to you, even if your account is hacked.
• Keep an address for a separate email account, which you check regularly, among your contacts. This way you will also receive spam/phishing emails sent from your account.
• Email providers often have you set up a backup email address, to which password information will be sent if you are locked out of your account. Check that address regularly; someone who hacks into your account may change that backup address.
• If you use Gmail, you can see a record of recent logins to your account (bottom right, "Last activity"). Check it regularly.
• Notify people when you will be traveling, so that they won't be fooled by phishing.
Do these make sense? What else?
The hacking job was sophisticated – when I emailed him to let him know his account had been hacked, I received an auto-reply indicating that he was in Glasgow. But the kicker was this sentence in the phishing email: "I would appreciate whatever you can help with , promise to refund you right as soon as I'm back home in a couple of days Be'H."
Yes, the hacker included the classic acronym for "b'ezras HaShem", "with Gd's help", the sort of thing which a rabbi would write, and an observant Jew would recognize. Had the email been in his writing style and had the phish not been so routine, I might actually have believed this was real.
This makes me wonder who is doing the hacking and whether rabbis are being targeted. Is the idea that rabbis are connected to lots of people, and that congregants would all want to reach out and help their rabbis? Or is it an anti-Jewish thing?
And how did the hacker come to recognize this bit of Hebrew lingo as significant - is it just the Jewish equivalent of a Christian, Muslim, etc similar phrasing, and easily recognizable as such? Or is this hacker Jewish?
This also puts me in mind of ways to avoid becoming a hacking victim. We all know the standard ways to avoid it – don't use public computers, for example – but here are some thoughts on additional safeguards. I'd appreciate comment on these ideas, or any additional ideas:
• Change your password after using your email on a public network, like a hotel or airport. Hackers may collect data and use it months later, so changing your password could render their stolen information useless.
• Create a backup email account, and set up email forwarding (Gmail does it for free) so that all email sent to your main account will also be forwarded to your backup account. This will allow you to continue to receive email sent to you, even if your account is hacked.
• Keep an address for a separate email account, which you check regularly, among your contacts. This way you will also receive spam/phishing emails sent from your account.
• Email providers often have you set up a backup email address, to which password information will be sent if you are locked out of your account. Check that address regularly; someone who hacks into your account may change that backup address.
• If you use Gmail, you can see a record of recent logins to your account (bottom right, "Last activity"). Check it regularly.
• Notify people when you will be traveling, so that they won't be fooled by phishing.
Do these make sense? What else?
Friday, August 13, 2010
Elias Abuelazam? Not a Jew
I wanted to leave this morning's Rav Kook post on top for several days, but my ire is up.
Like pretty much every other North American citizen, I've spent the past news cycle reading about Elias Abuelazam and his killing spree - apparently a racist attack against African-Americans, to boot. And every report I've read in the North American press has identified him as "an Israeli."
Great - A Jew goes off the rails and starts knifing people in the US, that's another one for the anti-Jewish crowd to eat up. They've wrung every drop of Jewish blood they could out of the Flotilla ambush, and they did their best with the Lebanese border attack until video showed that the Lebanese army had staged it, so they need a new reason to attack Jews - and Elias Abuelazam, aka "Israeli citizen arrested in serial stabbing case," is ideal.
But it ain't quite the way the media is painting it. People hear "Israeli," they assume, "Israeli Jew." But, in fact, he is an Arab Christian.
You wouldn't know that from the major news outlets. To quote headlines collected by a blogger named Sheila B:
New York Times: '...arrested at the airport as he tried to board a plane to Israel...'
CNN: First two words in headline, 'Israeli Citizen'.
NBC: Headline, 'Serial Stabbing Suspect Nabbed on Way to Israel'.
CBS: Headline, 'Israeli Suspect Nabbed in Deadly Stabbing Spree'.
ABC: Headline: 'Serial Stabber Suspect Arrested in Airport Trying to Flee to Israel'. And finally, finally, ABC did mention he's an 'Israeli-Arab'.
FOX described him as an Israeli citizen.
Of course, it doesn't matter whether he is Jew, Christian, Muslim or Martian - people have been murdered, families have been destroyed. The killer's ethnicity shouldn't be the story.
But it bugs me. What justification is there for this obfuscation? The media are normally not allergic to identifying Israeli Arabs as separate from Jews; just the opposite, they look to play up differences between the two populations, even when there are none. Remember the "Apartheid state" canard?
So why is he simply an "Israeli" now? Why encourage people to blame the Jews?
Like pretty much every other North American citizen, I've spent the past news cycle reading about Elias Abuelazam and his killing spree - apparently a racist attack against African-Americans, to boot. And every report I've read in the North American press has identified him as "an Israeli."
Great - A Jew goes off the rails and starts knifing people in the US, that's another one for the anti-Jewish crowd to eat up. They've wrung every drop of Jewish blood they could out of the Flotilla ambush, and they did their best with the Lebanese border attack until video showed that the Lebanese army had staged it, so they need a new reason to attack Jews - and Elias Abuelazam, aka "Israeli citizen arrested in serial stabbing case," is ideal.
But it ain't quite the way the media is painting it. People hear "Israeli," they assume, "Israeli Jew." But, in fact, he is an Arab Christian.
You wouldn't know that from the major news outlets. To quote headlines collected by a blogger named Sheila B:
New York Times: '...arrested at the airport as he tried to board a plane to Israel...'
CNN: First two words in headline, 'Israeli Citizen'.
NBC: Headline, 'Serial Stabbing Suspect Nabbed on Way to Israel'.
CBS: Headline, 'Israeli Suspect Nabbed in Deadly Stabbing Spree'.
ABC: Headline: 'Serial Stabber Suspect Arrested in Airport Trying to Flee to Israel'. And finally, finally, ABC did mention he's an 'Israeli-Arab'.
FOX described him as an Israeli citizen.
Of course, it doesn't matter whether he is Jew, Christian, Muslim or Martian - people have been murdered, families have been destroyed. The killer's ethnicity shouldn't be the story.
But it bugs me. What justification is there for this obfuscation? The media are normally not allergic to identifying Israeli Arabs as separate from Jews; just the opposite, they look to play up differences between the two populations, even when there are none. Remember the "Apartheid state" canard?
So why is he simply an "Israeli" now? Why encourage people to blame the Jews?
Monday, May 25, 2009
Bernie Madoff vs. Leonard Abess and Sidney Frank
They all had no problem telling us Bernie Madoff (ושם רשעים ירקב) was Jewish – but when it comes to the good guys, Jewish identity is suddenly unmentionable.
We saw this back in January with Leonard Abess Jr, who was honored by President Obama for his selfless magnanimity:
One person on the first lady's guest list was Leonard Abess Jr., a Miami banker who received a $60 million bonus from the proceeds from the sale of shares of City National Bank in Florida and gave it out to his 399 workers and 72 former workers.
During his speech, President Obama said Abess didn't tell anyone about his generosity, but when the local newspaper found out, Abess simply said, "I knew some of these people since I was 7 years old. I didn't feel right getting the money myself."
No mention of his religion, whatsoever.
And today we hear of Sidney Frank, with Ivy League dreams come true with liquor magnate's gift:
(CNN) -- Sidney Frank made millions marketing Jagermeister and other alcohol brands. Three years after his death, he's a big hit with students at the Ivy League college he briefly attended.
He's a big hit not because of what he sold, but because he's given dozens of them what he couldn't afford as a young man: an education at Rhode Island's Brown University.
On Sunday, 49 students from low-income families became the first Sidney E. Frank Scholars to graduate from Brown, owing virtually nothing except gratitude to the late liquor magnate.
"The world of difference that he made for each and every one of us is unbelievable, incredible," one of the Frank Scholars, 22-year-old Shane Reil, said Sunday.
Frank - who left Brown after one year in the late 1930s because he couldn't afford to stay -- gave the school a $100 million endowment in 2004. He stipulated that the fund's income go exclusively to covering all tuition and expenses for the neediest of Brown's admitted applicants.
For this year's graduates, tuition and expenses came to a four-year total of about $180,000 each. The median annual income of the recipients' families was $18,984. ...
The gift was the largest single one ever given to Brown and one of the largest ever given for undergraduate scholarships in the United States, according to the school.
And guess who’s Jewish?
Granted I’m not proud of a Jew making money off of marketing alcohol, but if people can make a point of that thief Madoff's heritage, they ought to do the same for a man of Sidney Frank's benevolence.
We saw this back in January with Leonard Abess Jr, who was honored by President Obama for his selfless magnanimity:
One person on the first lady's guest list was Leonard Abess Jr., a Miami banker who received a $60 million bonus from the proceeds from the sale of shares of City National Bank in Florida and gave it out to his 399 workers and 72 former workers.
During his speech, President Obama said Abess didn't tell anyone about his generosity, but when the local newspaper found out, Abess simply said, "I knew some of these people since I was 7 years old. I didn't feel right getting the money myself."
No mention of his religion, whatsoever.
And today we hear of Sidney Frank, with Ivy League dreams come true with liquor magnate's gift:
(CNN) -- Sidney Frank made millions marketing Jagermeister and other alcohol brands. Three years after his death, he's a big hit with students at the Ivy League college he briefly attended.
He's a big hit not because of what he sold, but because he's given dozens of them what he couldn't afford as a young man: an education at Rhode Island's Brown University.
On Sunday, 49 students from low-income families became the first Sidney E. Frank Scholars to graduate from Brown, owing virtually nothing except gratitude to the late liquor magnate.
"The world of difference that he made for each and every one of us is unbelievable, incredible," one of the Frank Scholars, 22-year-old Shane Reil, said Sunday.
Frank - who left Brown after one year in the late 1930s because he couldn't afford to stay -- gave the school a $100 million endowment in 2004. He stipulated that the fund's income go exclusively to covering all tuition and expenses for the neediest of Brown's admitted applicants.
For this year's graduates, tuition and expenses came to a four-year total of about $180,000 each. The median annual income of the recipients' families was $18,984. ...
The gift was the largest single one ever given to Brown and one of the largest ever given for undergraduate scholarships in the United States, according to the school.
And guess who’s Jewish?
Granted I’m not proud of a Jew making money off of marketing alcohol, but if people can make a point of that thief Madoff's heritage, they ought to do the same for a man of Sidney Frank's benevolence.
Friday, April 24, 2009
The Metzora's Freebird (Derashah Metzora 5769)
The American Heritage Dictionary (Fourth Edition) defines “comeuppance” as “A punishment or retribution that one deserves; one's just deserts.”
I think the appropriate comeuppance for the participants in Durban II, the UN’s sequel to its 2001 “World Conference on Racism,” would be the tzaraat described in our parshah. Since tzaraat is supposed to punish slander, and since a great part of the Durban II agenda is to slander Israel, it would be great to see the conference participants, especially those who applauded the Iranian president’s anti-Israel diatribe, come down with a nice tzaraat rash across their foreheads.
Unfortunately, tzaraat doesn’t happen anymore; since the dying days of the first Beit haMikdash more than twenty-five hundred years ago, no one has experienced the rashes and discolorations that warn people away from a person who speaks harmfully about others.
However, the metzora can still teach us an important lesson about our response to the Durban II conference.
The mystical Zohar asserts, “Every word that a person produces from his mouth ascends upward and pierces heavens and enters a space higher still!”
So imagine the debasement of such power when a person uses it to malign others, to mock others, to undermine others. This is the crime of the metzora, and a Jew who commits such a crime is evicted and ostracised from the community until he repents.
As part of his purification, after repenting, a metzora brings two birds to the Beit haMikdash. One of them is schechted, and the other one is released, to fly away.
The gemara explains that the metzora must end his impurity and conclude his repentance with birds, specificallly; we bring chattering birds to atone for abusing our power of speech. But the fact that the metzora releases one of the birds is odd, and unique among korbanot.
Rav Moshe Isserles offered the beginning of an explanation, outlining symbolism for each bird:
• The schechted bird represents the yetzer hara, one’s inclination for evil.
• The freed bird represents the yetzer hatov, one’s inclination for good.
• The birds are identical in all ways, showing that these inclinations are equally part of human existence, but we schecht the bird that represents evil, and we release the bird that represents good.
Rabbi Dov Weinberger of New York goes further, though, explaining that the yetzer hatov, represented by the freed bird, must play its own role here because the yetzer hatov was a crucial part of the sin. Lashon hara involves more than just slander; it relies, also, on the absence of good speech, on our failure to say positive, helpful, encouraging things at the right time. Were we to use speech more positively, there would be no room for lashon hara:
• Were we to encourage others, praising them for their successes and consoling them for their losses, we would construct relationships which would not allow for lashon hara.
• Were we to use speech to organize people for mitzvot, we could create positive community, strengthening bonds that would defy destructive slander.
• Were we to use speech to correct wrongdoing, helpfully enabling others to right their wrongs, then there would be nothing for people to criticize.
So the very existence of lashon hara testifies to a deficiency in our yetzer hatov, a corrosive lack of positive speech. And when the metzora releases this bird to fly away safely, he declares his understanding that schechting the yetzer hara, ending lashon hara, is insufficient; he must also unleash his yetzer hatov, speaking positively.
Which brings us back to international slander against the State of Israel. This past week brought a perfect media example of such evil speech:
During the Gaza War, anti-Israel media claimed that Israel was using white phosphorus against civilian populations, savagely burning people and breaking the international laws which limit its use to open, non-urban areas. Despite the fact that the Red Cross could find no evidence of wrongdoing, newspapers and blogs and UN personnel insisted that Israel was guilty. Indeed, at Durban itself, this past week, the claim was again lodged against Israel.
But also this past week, the IDF concluded investigations into five separate allegations of misconduct, and found, among other things, that white phosphorus was never used illegally. To quote the report, “The probe… revealed that white phosphorus weapons were used strictly in open fields and not in urban centers.”
And yet, the Times of London titled its coverage of the report, “White phosphorus in Gaza: from flat denial to final admission,” and a leading critical blog titled its article, “Israel admits mistakes, use of white phosphorus in Gaza offensive.” And so on.
This sort of slander has dominated Durban II, as well. Ahmedinajad was only part of the show; all of those nations who applauded him, and the supporters who called Elie Weisel a Zionazi, are symptomatic of the much stronger trend against Israel among these United Nations.
Certainly, we can use lashon hatov to combat the lashon hara of Durban, highlighting all that is wonderful about Israel, including the morality of its army and the way in which the army investigates, publicizes and corrects its errors. This would leave no room for the lies of those who would tear down our country.
Certainly, in a week when we celebrate the 61st anniversary of the founding of this great country, we would do well to find a few moments to write a letter to the editor of a newspaper, or send out an email to friends, or take advantage of conversation opportunities to play up all that Israel has achieved in its history.
As part of his repentance, the metzora also brings two sheep as sin offerings – a chatat, and an asham. Rav Ovadia Sforno, writing in 15th century Italy, explained that two offerings are required because two sins are involved: The metzora sins once by speaking slanderously, and he sins a second time by using slanderous speech to aggrandize himself.
All of us are guilty, at one point or another, of lashon hara, of corrupting and debasing that tremendous power described in the Zohar, to elevate ourselves. Our teshuvah should match that of the metzora, schechting the yetzer hara and unleashing the yetzer hatov, using positive speech to build up ourselves, and those around us as well.
-
Notes:
1. Vayyikra Rabbah and Gemara Erchin (15 or so as I recall) are some of the sources linking Tzaraat to slander.
2. The Zohar quote is from Metzora, pg. 55a. Rav Moshe Isserles's comment is in Torat haOlah Vol. 3, chapter 68. The gemara on using birds because they chatter is in Zevachim 88b. The Rambam notes that the birds are identical, but I think that is actually talmudic, I just can't remember where at the moment.
3. One also sends away the sair la'azazel (scapegoat) on Yom Kippur, but many authorities do not consider that a korban at all, but a separate ritual.
4. The quote from R' Dov Weinberger was given to me by Rabbi Naftali Lavenda, and appears in a dvar torah by Rabbi Frand at http://torah.org/learning/ravfrand/5761/tazria.html.
I think the appropriate comeuppance for the participants in Durban II, the UN’s sequel to its 2001 “World Conference on Racism,” would be the tzaraat described in our parshah. Since tzaraat is supposed to punish slander, and since a great part of the Durban II agenda is to slander Israel, it would be great to see the conference participants, especially those who applauded the Iranian president’s anti-Israel diatribe, come down with a nice tzaraat rash across their foreheads.
Unfortunately, tzaraat doesn’t happen anymore; since the dying days of the first Beit haMikdash more than twenty-five hundred years ago, no one has experienced the rashes and discolorations that warn people away from a person who speaks harmfully about others.
However, the metzora can still teach us an important lesson about our response to the Durban II conference.
The mystical Zohar asserts, “Every word that a person produces from his mouth ascends upward and pierces heavens and enters a space higher still!”
So imagine the debasement of such power when a person uses it to malign others, to mock others, to undermine others. This is the crime of the metzora, and a Jew who commits such a crime is evicted and ostracised from the community until he repents.
As part of his purification, after repenting, a metzora brings two birds to the Beit haMikdash. One of them is schechted, and the other one is released, to fly away.
The gemara explains that the metzora must end his impurity and conclude his repentance with birds, specificallly; we bring chattering birds to atone for abusing our power of speech. But the fact that the metzora releases one of the birds is odd, and unique among korbanot.
Rav Moshe Isserles offered the beginning of an explanation, outlining symbolism for each bird:
• The schechted bird represents the yetzer hara, one’s inclination for evil.
• The freed bird represents the yetzer hatov, one’s inclination for good.
• The birds are identical in all ways, showing that these inclinations are equally part of human existence, but we schecht the bird that represents evil, and we release the bird that represents good.
Rabbi Dov Weinberger of New York goes further, though, explaining that the yetzer hatov, represented by the freed bird, must play its own role here because the yetzer hatov was a crucial part of the sin. Lashon hara involves more than just slander; it relies, also, on the absence of good speech, on our failure to say positive, helpful, encouraging things at the right time. Were we to use speech more positively, there would be no room for lashon hara:
• Were we to encourage others, praising them for their successes and consoling them for their losses, we would construct relationships which would not allow for lashon hara.
• Were we to use speech to organize people for mitzvot, we could create positive community, strengthening bonds that would defy destructive slander.
• Were we to use speech to correct wrongdoing, helpfully enabling others to right their wrongs, then there would be nothing for people to criticize.
So the very existence of lashon hara testifies to a deficiency in our yetzer hatov, a corrosive lack of positive speech. And when the metzora releases this bird to fly away safely, he declares his understanding that schechting the yetzer hara, ending lashon hara, is insufficient; he must also unleash his yetzer hatov, speaking positively.
Which brings us back to international slander against the State of Israel. This past week brought a perfect media example of such evil speech:
During the Gaza War, anti-Israel media claimed that Israel was using white phosphorus against civilian populations, savagely burning people and breaking the international laws which limit its use to open, non-urban areas. Despite the fact that the Red Cross could find no evidence of wrongdoing, newspapers and blogs and UN personnel insisted that Israel was guilty. Indeed, at Durban itself, this past week, the claim was again lodged against Israel.
But also this past week, the IDF concluded investigations into five separate allegations of misconduct, and found, among other things, that white phosphorus was never used illegally. To quote the report, “The probe… revealed that white phosphorus weapons were used strictly in open fields and not in urban centers.”
And yet, the Times of London titled its coverage of the report, “White phosphorus in Gaza: from flat denial to final admission,” and a leading critical blog titled its article, “Israel admits mistakes, use of white phosphorus in Gaza offensive.” And so on.
This sort of slander has dominated Durban II, as well. Ahmedinajad was only part of the show; all of those nations who applauded him, and the supporters who called Elie Weisel a Zionazi, are symptomatic of the much stronger trend against Israel among these United Nations.
Certainly, we can use lashon hatov to combat the lashon hara of Durban, highlighting all that is wonderful about Israel, including the morality of its army and the way in which the army investigates, publicizes and corrects its errors. This would leave no room for the lies of those who would tear down our country.
Certainly, in a week when we celebrate the 61st anniversary of the founding of this great country, we would do well to find a few moments to write a letter to the editor of a newspaper, or send out an email to friends, or take advantage of conversation opportunities to play up all that Israel has achieved in its history.
As part of his repentance, the metzora also brings two sheep as sin offerings – a chatat, and an asham. Rav Ovadia Sforno, writing in 15th century Italy, explained that two offerings are required because two sins are involved: The metzora sins once by speaking slanderously, and he sins a second time by using slanderous speech to aggrandize himself.
All of us are guilty, at one point or another, of lashon hara, of corrupting and debasing that tremendous power described in the Zohar, to elevate ourselves. Our teshuvah should match that of the metzora, schechting the yetzer hara and unleashing the yetzer hatov, using positive speech to build up ourselves, and those around us as well.
-
Notes:
1. Vayyikra Rabbah and Gemara Erchin (15 or so as I recall) are some of the sources linking Tzaraat to slander.
2. The Zohar quote is from Metzora, pg. 55a. Rav Moshe Isserles's comment is in Torat haOlah Vol. 3, chapter 68. The gemara on using birds because they chatter is in Zevachim 88b. The Rambam notes that the birds are identical, but I think that is actually talmudic, I just can't remember where at the moment.
3. One also sends away the sair la'azazel (scapegoat) on Yom Kippur, but many authorities do not consider that a korban at all, but a separate ritual.
4. The quote from R' Dov Weinberger was given to me by Rabbi Naftali Lavenda, and appears in a dvar torah by Rabbi Frand at http://torah.org/learning/ravfrand/5761/tazria.html.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
CNN’s Nidal Rafa reveals her anti-Israel hatred for the world to see
Missiles, rocket fly between Israel, Gaza
Five Palestinian militants were wounded, one critically, when an Israeli missile hit a car in downtown Gaza City late Sunday, the sources said.
And one man was killed and seven others -- including three Hamas militants -- were wounded when Israeli aircraft attacked two cars early Sunday east of Rafah, in southern Gaza, Palestinian security and medical sources said.
Hebron mayor: Jewish settlers are terrorizing my city
HEBRON, West Bank (CNN) — Jewish settlers are on a “terror” rampage in the West Bank city of Hebron, angry over the Israeli military’s seizure of a disputed home, the city’s mayor said Thursday.
“What’s happening in Hebron is terror by the settlers,” the mayor, Khaled Osaily, told CNN’s Nidal Rafa. “They are attacking houses, setting fire to property and injuring people.”
Those are only a couple of the many stories run with contributions from Nidal Rafa, one of CNN’s Middle East producers, over the past several years.
Someone sensitive to potential bias might question the “Palestinian security and medical sources” cited in the former article, as well as the mayoral assessment in the second article.
That sensitive person would likely be silenced by others who would point to the CNN brand and say, “CNN is not some small news outlet without journalistic integrity and oversight!”
But that sensitive person would be quite correct; Nidal Rafa has now exposed, for all the world to see, her ugly hatred of Israel. In a video available here, Ms. Rafa does all but throw shoes at former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Danny Ayalon. She abuses him, shouts profanity, refuses to allow him to respond, and generally makes a fool of herself, all in the name of the Palestinian cause.
Ms. Nadal refuses to recognize the United Nations when it fails to serve her propaganda needs. Ms. Nadal ignores history, particularly the point that Arab anti-Jew terrorism preceded any “occupation” in the West Bank or Gaza. She is interested only in assaulting the Jew standing before her.
Why did she crack that day? Who knows – I’m just grateful that Tom Gross was there to catch it.
Word is that Ms. Nadal has now been summarily canned. ‘Bout time, folks.
Five Palestinian militants were wounded, one critically, when an Israeli missile hit a car in downtown Gaza City late Sunday, the sources said.
And one man was killed and seven others -- including three Hamas militants -- were wounded when Israeli aircraft attacked two cars early Sunday east of Rafah, in southern Gaza, Palestinian security and medical sources said.
Hebron mayor: Jewish settlers are terrorizing my city
HEBRON, West Bank (CNN) — Jewish settlers are on a “terror” rampage in the West Bank city of Hebron, angry over the Israeli military’s seizure of a disputed home, the city’s mayor said Thursday.
“What’s happening in Hebron is terror by the settlers,” the mayor, Khaled Osaily, told CNN’s Nidal Rafa. “They are attacking houses, setting fire to property and injuring people.”
Those are only a couple of the many stories run with contributions from Nidal Rafa, one of CNN’s Middle East producers, over the past several years.
Someone sensitive to potential bias might question the “Palestinian security and medical sources” cited in the former article, as well as the mayoral assessment in the second article.
That sensitive person would likely be silenced by others who would point to the CNN brand and say, “CNN is not some small news outlet without journalistic integrity and oversight!”
But that sensitive person would be quite correct; Nidal Rafa has now exposed, for all the world to see, her ugly hatred of Israel. In a video available here, Ms. Rafa does all but throw shoes at former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Danny Ayalon. She abuses him, shouts profanity, refuses to allow him to respond, and generally makes a fool of herself, all in the name of the Palestinian cause.
Ms. Nadal refuses to recognize the United Nations when it fails to serve her propaganda needs. Ms. Nadal ignores history, particularly the point that Arab anti-Jew terrorism preceded any “occupation” in the West Bank or Gaza. She is interested only in assaulting the Jew standing before her.
Why did she crack that day? Who knows – I’m just grateful that Tom Gross was there to catch it.
Word is that Ms. Nadal has now been summarily canned. ‘Bout time, folks.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Does CNN.com believe Israeli victims do not deserve names?
The following two young Israeli policemen were killed by terrorists this week:
David Rabinowitz
David was born in Kiryat Shmona and grew up in Kiryat Bialik, north of Haifa. He attended the ORT Dafna high school and the Israel Air Force technical school. He served in the Air Force as a mechanic. At the age of 25, while a student at Haifa University, he joined the Israel Police. David's brother Sharon relates that he was a sensitive person who enjoyed his work. Every free weekend he would visit his parents to help them. He was particularly devoted to his mother. "He so loved to help people," Sharon said, "and was killed trying to help." David was divorced. His son Eden recently celebrated his bar mitzva.
Warrant Officer David Rabinowitz was buried in Haifa. He is survived by his son Eden, 13, his parents Moshe and Ruby, and eight siblings.
Yechezkel Ramzarkar
Yehezkel was born in India, near Mumbai, as the eldest son, and his family immigrated to Israel in 1967 and settled in Yavne. He moved to Maale Ephraim after his marriage.
Dani Biton, head of the Maale Ephraim local council, described Yehezkel, a policeman for 30 years, as a modest man who devoted himself to raising his three children, and to his work as a police officer. An officer in the West Bank traffic department described Ramzargar as a professional and experienced policeman, who was always courteous and polite, a good friend and colleague.
Yehezkel's brother Menashe said that he was mother and father to his children, to whom he gave everything. "Yehezkel had two loves, his family and his country. He was a single parent for 10 years. Despite the difficult police work in shifts, he dedicated every free moment to his children."
Senior Warrant Officer Yehezkel Ramzarkar was buried in Yavne. He is survived by his three children: Alon, 23, Elior, 19, and Elinor, 16, as well as his mother and eight siblings.
The above information came from Israeli's MFA website; you can find more in the links above.
Now, here's what CNN.com had to say about their murders:
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Police searched Sunday for gunmen who opened fire on an Israeli police vehicle in the West Bank, killing two officers, according to Israeli police.
The shooting took place at 8:20 p.m. (1820 GMT) on the 90 Road in the Jordan Valley, in the West Bank, police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told CNN.
"The police and IDF (Israel Defense Forces) are conducting a search for the attackers in the direction that they fled. They are working on an operational and intelligence level to arrest those who carried out this attack," said Rosenfeld.
An emergency vehicle found the victims, said Rosenfeld. It was not immediately clear whether the emergency vehicle was responding to a report of the incident.
Witnesses told CNN that all traffic in the area was blocked as authorities conducted their investigation.
There was nothing about the victims, and there was no follow-up about them, or their families.
In contrast, when an Arab tried to murder policemen with a backhoe ten days earlier, this was the opening line of CNN's article:
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- A Palestinian man from East Jerusalem rammed a construction vehicle into a police car before he was shot and killed, Israeli police said Thursday.
The driver was identified as Mir'ei El Radida, 26, from the Beit Hanina neighborhood, police said. He was married with one child.
Every terrorist gets his lifestory broadcast and analyzed, but the good guy victims are anonymous.
David Rabinowitz
David was born in Kiryat Shmona and grew up in Kiryat Bialik, north of Haifa. He attended the ORT Dafna high school and the Israel Air Force technical school. He served in the Air Force as a mechanic. At the age of 25, while a student at Haifa University, he joined the Israel Police. David's brother Sharon relates that he was a sensitive person who enjoyed his work. Every free weekend he would visit his parents to help them. He was particularly devoted to his mother. "He so loved to help people," Sharon said, "and was killed trying to help." David was divorced. His son Eden recently celebrated his bar mitzva.
Warrant Officer David Rabinowitz was buried in Haifa. He is survived by his son Eden, 13, his parents Moshe and Ruby, and eight siblings.
Yechezkel Ramzarkar
Yehezkel was born in India, near Mumbai, as the eldest son, and his family immigrated to Israel in 1967 and settled in Yavne. He moved to Maale Ephraim after his marriage.
Dani Biton, head of the Maale Ephraim local council, described Yehezkel, a policeman for 30 years, as a modest man who devoted himself to raising his three children, and to his work as a police officer. An officer in the West Bank traffic department described Ramzargar as a professional and experienced policeman, who was always courteous and polite, a good friend and colleague.
Yehezkel's brother Menashe said that he was mother and father to his children, to whom he gave everything. "Yehezkel had two loves, his family and his country. He was a single parent for 10 years. Despite the difficult police work in shifts, he dedicated every free moment to his children."
Senior Warrant Officer Yehezkel Ramzarkar was buried in Yavne. He is survived by his three children: Alon, 23, Elior, 19, and Elinor, 16, as well as his mother and eight siblings.
The above information came from Israeli's MFA website; you can find more in the links above.
Now, here's what CNN.com had to say about their murders:
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Police searched Sunday for gunmen who opened fire on an Israeli police vehicle in the West Bank, killing two officers, according to Israeli police.
The shooting took place at 8:20 p.m. (1820 GMT) on the 90 Road in the Jordan Valley, in the West Bank, police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told CNN.
"The police and IDF (Israel Defense Forces) are conducting a search for the attackers in the direction that they fled. They are working on an operational and intelligence level to arrest those who carried out this attack," said Rosenfeld.
An emergency vehicle found the victims, said Rosenfeld. It was not immediately clear whether the emergency vehicle was responding to a report of the incident.
Witnesses told CNN that all traffic in the area was blocked as authorities conducted their investigation.
There was nothing about the victims, and there was no follow-up about them, or their families.
In contrast, when an Arab tried to murder policemen with a backhoe ten days earlier, this was the opening line of CNN's article:
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- A Palestinian man from East Jerusalem rammed a construction vehicle into a police car before he was shot and killed, Israeli police said Thursday.
The driver was identified as Mir'ei El Radida, 26, from the Beit Hanina neighborhood, police said. He was married with one child.
Every terrorist gets his lifestory broadcast and analyzed, but the good guy victims are anonymous.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
We have some Jews on this plane...
[The new Kosher Cooking Carnival is here!]
I routinely stand out as a Jew, but it can still be uncomfortable.
Earlier this week I spent a few days in Canada. Because I was there for a work-related project, I checked “work” on the visa form.
"Work" was really the only honest answer, but the result was a trip to Immigration, ostensibly to discuss the purpose of my visit. I’m not sure why this came under Immigration, and what they hoped to achieve, but you really don't have any choice other than to comply in that situation, so I did.
The interview lasted only about ten minutes, but it felt like forever, and a bizarre forever at that.
• The officer asked me if I was there to work as a consultant, and told me about how they feel about consultants in Canada. When he heard I was a rabbi, though, he lightened up.
• He seemed to be having a good time as he searched my Interpol records, or whatever it was he had in front of him. He mentioned to me all sorts of information about other Torczyners (yes, there are some) living in Canada, including address, names of children, etc. I’m sure that’s illegal in the US under HIPAA.
• He asked me about rabbinical training, and told me I seemed pretty young to be a rabbi. (I would have kissed him at that point, had I been able to reach him.)
• Then he informed me that he was Irish Catholic, and he was going to tell me “the only rabbi joke” he knew.
The joke wasn’t bad, actually; here it is in briefer form: An aging rabbi has a son, and he wants to know what the son will be like when he grows up. He tests his son by setting up a table with a Bible, a pile of money, and a bottle of wine; if he takes the former he’ll be a rabbi, the second he’ll be a businessman, the third he’ll be a drunkard. The kid walks over and first picks up the Bible, and the rabbi is excited that he will be a scholar. Then the kid pockets the Bible and picks up the pile of money. The rabbi says, “Okay, he’ll be a religious businessman.” Then the kid picks up the bottle and starts guzzling it – and his father wails, “Oh, no – he’s going to be an Irish parish priest!"
The whole interaction, standing out as a Jew and being at an airport and having personnel pick up on my rabbi-ness, reminded me of an incident I had forgotten about for many years.
Some 13 or 14 years ago, a friend and I were headed on a Friday morning flight from New York to St. Louis for Shabbos. We stopped to change planes in O’Hare, got on the new plane, taxied out on the runway – and then sat on the tarmac for a long time. I don’t remember how long it was, only that Shabbos was getting closer.
Finally, we decided that we had better get off the plane and find somewhere to stay in Chicago; my friend knew some people there. We summoned enough guts to ask a stewardess for help, but she explained that we were already on the runway. We insisted. She went to the pilot.
Soon enough, an announcement comes over the loudspeaker, “Ladies and Gentleman, we have some JOOOZ on this plane.” And the pilot explains that we need to get out of line for takeoff and go allllllllllll the way back to the airport to drop off them Jooz for their Sabbath.
I don’t consider that anti-Semitism, but it was an uncomfortable walk down the plane, me in my black hat etc, as the rest of the passengers watched us disembark.
Kind of like the people behind me at Immigration listening in on the rabbi joke.
But it's all part of the game, right?
I routinely stand out as a Jew, but it can still be uncomfortable.
Earlier this week I spent a few days in Canada. Because I was there for a work-related project, I checked “work” on the visa form.
"Work" was really the only honest answer, but the result was a trip to Immigration, ostensibly to discuss the purpose of my visit. I’m not sure why this came under Immigration, and what they hoped to achieve, but you really don't have any choice other than to comply in that situation, so I did.
The interview lasted only about ten minutes, but it felt like forever, and a bizarre forever at that.
• The officer asked me if I was there to work as a consultant, and told me about how they feel about consultants in Canada. When he heard I was a rabbi, though, he lightened up.
• He seemed to be having a good time as he searched my Interpol records, or whatever it was he had in front of him. He mentioned to me all sorts of information about other Torczyners (yes, there are some) living in Canada, including address, names of children, etc. I’m sure that’s illegal in the US under HIPAA.
• He asked me about rabbinical training, and told me I seemed pretty young to be a rabbi. (I would have kissed him at that point, had I been able to reach him.)
• Then he informed me that he was Irish Catholic, and he was going to tell me “the only rabbi joke” he knew.
The joke wasn’t bad, actually; here it is in briefer form: An aging rabbi has a son, and he wants to know what the son will be like when he grows up. He tests his son by setting up a table with a Bible, a pile of money, and a bottle of wine; if he takes the former he’ll be a rabbi, the second he’ll be a businessman, the third he’ll be a drunkard. The kid walks over and first picks up the Bible, and the rabbi is excited that he will be a scholar. Then the kid pockets the Bible and picks up the pile of money. The rabbi says, “Okay, he’ll be a religious businessman.” Then the kid picks up the bottle and starts guzzling it – and his father wails, “Oh, no – he’s going to be an Irish parish priest!"
The whole interaction, standing out as a Jew and being at an airport and having personnel pick up on my rabbi-ness, reminded me of an incident I had forgotten about for many years.
Some 13 or 14 years ago, a friend and I were headed on a Friday morning flight from New York to St. Louis for Shabbos. We stopped to change planes in O’Hare, got on the new plane, taxied out on the runway – and then sat on the tarmac for a long time. I don’t remember how long it was, only that Shabbos was getting closer.
Finally, we decided that we had better get off the plane and find somewhere to stay in Chicago; my friend knew some people there. We summoned enough guts to ask a stewardess for help, but she explained that we were already on the runway. We insisted. She went to the pilot.
Soon enough, an announcement comes over the loudspeaker, “Ladies and Gentleman, we have some JOOOZ on this plane.” And the pilot explains that we need to get out of line for takeoff and go allllllllllll the way back to the airport to drop off them Jooz for their Sabbath.
I don’t consider that anti-Semitism, but it was an uncomfortable walk down the plane, me in my black hat etc, as the rest of the passengers watched us disembark.
Kind of like the people behind me at Immigration listening in on the rabbi joke.
But it's all part of the game, right?
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Another casualty of Bernard Madoff: The definition of “Jew”
[Jack's Gaza Update 7.5 is here.]
This is a dated topic, but the column I submitted to the Allentown Morning Call on the topic just ran today. Below is the text:
As a child, I didn’t know that the word “jew” could be used as a verb, that millions of people the world over believed that my family and I were, by dint of our ancestry, avaricious, unethical scoundrels. Instead, I was always taught that Judaism was a religion of ethics and honesty.
In school and synagogue and home, rabbis and parents inculcated in my peers and in me the biblical lesson (Deuteronomy 16:20), “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” The Talmud (Shabbat 31a) warned us that the first question a Jew will be asked in the afterworld is, “Did you engage in commerce honestly.” Jewish law (Tosefta, Chullin 2:24) demanded of us, “Distance yourself from ugly behavior, and from anything that might resemble ugly behavior.” Ethical behavior was inseparable from the laws of kosher, Shabbat and family purity.
As I entered adolescence, though, I saw people throw pennies at Jews to insult their supposed greed. I studied the Merchant of Venice and heard the Christian tale of the betrayal of Jesus, read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and saw copies of vicious Nazi and Muslim propaganda cartoons. I was accosted by a group of teens in a Long Island Rail Road car; they informed me that “Jews buy Sprite because it’s cheap.” Even some Jews displayed this malignant view of their own ethnicity and religion; seven years ago, then-Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Ed Rendell, a Jew, quoted his father’s observation that “the guys who spend the longest time in synagogues on Saturdays are the biggest crooks Monday through Friday.” And so I learned that, indeed, much of the world didn’t translate “Jew” as I did.
Many Jews fight this malicious rendering of “Jew” by promoting the Torah’s ethical instructions. From The Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem to the Center for Ethics at Yeshiva University in New York to Bais haVaad l’Inyonei Mishpat in Lakewood, New Jersey, to many similar efforts, Jews devote significant time, effort and, yes, money, to sustaining righteous behavior among Jews. Particular Jewish individuals stand out for their achievements in this area as well; from philanthropists to political leaders to jurists to unheralded businessmen, there are many positive ethical role models within in the Jewish community.
But despite these efforts, every new Jew-related scandal reinforces the negative stereotype and negates the positive work of all of those institutions and individuals. Whether a Michael Milken or an Ivan Boesky, a Sholom Rubashkin or a Bernard Madoff, it seems that, every year, one or two Jews gain notoriety for their criminality and thereby reinforce in the mind of many the old message that the Jew is unethical, the Jew is self-serving, the Jew is greedy. Never mind that the behavior of one man or even a handful of people cannot possibly be brought as proof of the character of millions. Never mind that Madoff has single-handedly destroyed many, many charities which served Jewish causes. The image that remains in the eyes of the world is that this Jew bilked people out of billions of dollars.
This wound is, to me, Bernard Madoff’s deepest crime and most lasting legacy. I fear that years after the people who lost their money are gone, generations after the charitable foundations and the people they served are gone, this scandalous rendering of “Jew” will remain in the popular lexicon - and Bernard Madoff will be cited as proof.
By nature and training, I try to look for some positive result even in the midst of devastation. It’s hard to find any upbeat note in this cacophany of destruction.. but, perhaps, there will be one, small, positive result: I and others will feel all the more compelled to preach to our communities, and to teach to our children, that most basic of Jewish lessons (Leviticus 20:7): “You shall sanctify yourselves, and you shall be sanctified, for I am the Lord your God.”
You can see the column itself here; the anti-Jewish comments on it are remarkable, and underscore the damage done by Madoff.
This is a dated topic, but the column I submitted to the Allentown Morning Call on the topic just ran today. Below is the text:
As a child, I didn’t know that the word “jew” could be used as a verb, that millions of people the world over believed that my family and I were, by dint of our ancestry, avaricious, unethical scoundrels. Instead, I was always taught that Judaism was a religion of ethics and honesty.
In school and synagogue and home, rabbis and parents inculcated in my peers and in me the biblical lesson (Deuteronomy 16:20), “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” The Talmud (Shabbat 31a) warned us that the first question a Jew will be asked in the afterworld is, “Did you engage in commerce honestly.” Jewish law (Tosefta, Chullin 2:24) demanded of us, “Distance yourself from ugly behavior, and from anything that might resemble ugly behavior.” Ethical behavior was inseparable from the laws of kosher, Shabbat and family purity.
As I entered adolescence, though, I saw people throw pennies at Jews to insult their supposed greed. I studied the Merchant of Venice and heard the Christian tale of the betrayal of Jesus, read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and saw copies of vicious Nazi and Muslim propaganda cartoons. I was accosted by a group of teens in a Long Island Rail Road car; they informed me that “Jews buy Sprite because it’s cheap.” Even some Jews displayed this malignant view of their own ethnicity and religion; seven years ago, then-Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Ed Rendell, a Jew, quoted his father’s observation that “the guys who spend the longest time in synagogues on Saturdays are the biggest crooks Monday through Friday.” And so I learned that, indeed, much of the world didn’t translate “Jew” as I did.
Many Jews fight this malicious rendering of “Jew” by promoting the Torah’s ethical instructions. From The Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem to the Center for Ethics at Yeshiva University in New York to Bais haVaad l’Inyonei Mishpat in Lakewood, New Jersey, to many similar efforts, Jews devote significant time, effort and, yes, money, to sustaining righteous behavior among Jews. Particular Jewish individuals stand out for their achievements in this area as well; from philanthropists to political leaders to jurists to unheralded businessmen, there are many positive ethical role models within in the Jewish community.
But despite these efforts, every new Jew-related scandal reinforces the negative stereotype and negates the positive work of all of those institutions and individuals. Whether a Michael Milken or an Ivan Boesky, a Sholom Rubashkin or a Bernard Madoff, it seems that, every year, one or two Jews gain notoriety for their criminality and thereby reinforce in the mind of many the old message that the Jew is unethical, the Jew is self-serving, the Jew is greedy. Never mind that the behavior of one man or even a handful of people cannot possibly be brought as proof of the character of millions. Never mind that Madoff has single-handedly destroyed many, many charities which served Jewish causes. The image that remains in the eyes of the world is that this Jew bilked people out of billions of dollars.
This wound is, to me, Bernard Madoff’s deepest crime and most lasting legacy. I fear that years after the people who lost their money are gone, generations after the charitable foundations and the people they served are gone, this scandalous rendering of “Jew” will remain in the popular lexicon - and Bernard Madoff will be cited as proof.
By nature and training, I try to look for some positive result even in the midst of devastation. It’s hard to find any upbeat note in this cacophany of destruction.. but, perhaps, there will be one, small, positive result: I and others will feel all the more compelled to preach to our communities, and to teach to our children, that most basic of Jewish lessons (Leviticus 20:7): “You shall sanctify yourselves, and you shall be sanctified, for I am the Lord your God.”
You can see the column itself here; the anti-Jewish comments on it are remarkable, and underscore the damage done by Madoff.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Synagogue Gun Clubs
The “Hit a Jew” communal hate crime (sorry Principal Lelonek, but let’s call it for what it is) at Parkway West Middle School in Missouri last week has sparked a local reaction: Some people are saying it’s time, or past time, to arm up, train our youth and be prepared to respond to anti-Semitic mobs. As one man put it to me, “If the Muslims have training camps, and Christian groups have training camps, why not us?”
I am of two minds on this:
PRO
*I do think it’s important for American Jews to face the reality of the threat around them. I don’t see the American government turning against Jews on a militant level, but we have to face reality: Individual citizens looking to blame someone for the demise of their 401(k) plans are going to look for their time-honored Jewish scapegoats.
*Many people in our shul are already gun users, whether they own weapons or just choose to use them at firing ranges. Why not get organized to promote self-defense?
*I see nothing wrong - and a lot right - with learning to fire a gun. I personally have rifle training from my days at Kerem b’Yavneh.
*Synagogues are a good point for communal organization; we arrange hospitality and chesed ventures, we hold events for youth, etc. It’s logical, then, to organize around the synagogue in this regard as well.
CON
*I don’t want people with small children keeping guns at home. Yes, I want to be able to defend myself. But no, I don’t want any more of those horror stories about kids who get to their parents’ weapons.
*The nightmarish prospect of someone bringing a weapon into shul and firing it in some misguided moment, thinking we are under attack or some such thing, is also horrifying.
*We don’t bring weapons into a beis medrash (study hall), and King David was told he could not build the Beis haMikdash (Jerusalem Temple) because he had shed blood - even though that bloodshed had been justified. So should we really start an official synagogue gun club?
*And the other problem is that creating a high-profile program like this is bound to attract the wrong kind of publicity, and to some it would be seen as a challenge, a dare. Better to keep security low-profile and under the radar.
Overall, I’m inclined against it at the moment; the negatives are too overwhelming. If people want to train themselves, let them do it without the official synagogue banner.
But, of course, that last line could just be a subterfuge, to keep the Congregation Sons of Israel Gun Club low profile and under the radar…
I am of two minds on this:
PRO
*I do think it’s important for American Jews to face the reality of the threat around them. I don’t see the American government turning against Jews on a militant level, but we have to face reality: Individual citizens looking to blame someone for the demise of their 401(k) plans are going to look for their time-honored Jewish scapegoats.
*Many people in our shul are already gun users, whether they own weapons or just choose to use them at firing ranges. Why not get organized to promote self-defense?
*I see nothing wrong - and a lot right - with learning to fire a gun. I personally have rifle training from my days at Kerem b’Yavneh.
*Synagogues are a good point for communal organization; we arrange hospitality and chesed ventures, we hold events for youth, etc. It’s logical, then, to organize around the synagogue in this regard as well.
CON
*I don’t want people with small children keeping guns at home. Yes, I want to be able to defend myself. But no, I don’t want any more of those horror stories about kids who get to their parents’ weapons.
*The nightmarish prospect of someone bringing a weapon into shul and firing it in some misguided moment, thinking we are under attack or some such thing, is also horrifying.
*We don’t bring weapons into a beis medrash (study hall), and King David was told he could not build the Beis haMikdash (Jerusalem Temple) because he had shed blood - even though that bloodshed had been justified. So should we really start an official synagogue gun club?
*And the other problem is that creating a high-profile program like this is bound to attract the wrong kind of publicity, and to some it would be seen as a challenge, a dare. Better to keep security low-profile and under the radar.
Overall, I’m inclined against it at the moment; the negatives are too overwhelming. If people want to train themselves, let them do it without the official synagogue banner.
But, of course, that last line could just be a subterfuge, to keep the Congregation Sons of Israel Gun Club low profile and under the radar…
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