R' (or "Know when to walk away")

[This week's Toronto Torah is here!]

Did you ever do something by rote rather than consciously, then have someone pick a fight with you over it so that you find yourself defending your action as though it had been intentional in the first place?

Let me explain:

I have a long-standing habit of shorthanding Rabbi into R’. (See, for example, the flyer here.) It makes sense for flyers – “Rabbi Mordechai Torczyner” is just absurdly long, and it kills readability. It makes sense for addressing rabbis in emails, when speed is of the essence. And it says what I need it to say. So I do it, and I’ve done it for years without thinking twice.

Last week someone I respect picked a fight with me about this R’, saying that diminishing the honorific diminishes the honor due to Rabbis. Where some parts of the Jewish community refer to their rabbis with all manner of aggrandizement – haRav haGaon, Adoneinu Morein v’Rabbeinu, and so on – I am reducing my own status, and the status of others I address in this way.

I know this person; he means well, and he has only my best interest at heart. At the same time, this protest bothers me.

This protest leads me to want to say to him, “I write R’ to make a point, to take a stand against the inflated titles that are all too common and all too silly. I davka write R’, and I’ll write R’ whenever I choose. R' R' R' R' R'.”

This protest leads me to want to transcend the R’ and drop the title altogether, and just write “Mordechai Torczyner” on flyers. The name was good enough for me at birth, it’s good enough for me now; this world of titles is too overblown.

Besides, the correct answer to his protest lies in the standard edition of the gemara itself, where Tannaim are routinely termed ר' instead of רבי. Rabbi Akiva is ר' עקיבא, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is ר' שמעון. For that matter, הרה"ג is more common than הרב הגאון, and אדמו"ר usually takes the place of אדוננו מורנו ורבנו. So I’m not an innovator here.

But I believe the answer to this protest is not to allow myself to get carried away in defense of something that was unconscious in the first place. Being a רודף שלום (pursuer of peace) often means that you walk away from fights like this.

Better to write Rabbi for the sake of peace than to write R’ for the sake of a fight.

Derashah: Shemini 5768 - The Appeal of Jeremiah Wright

After a month of hearing about Jeremiah Wright this and Jeremiah Wright that, I finally gave in and watched the video of his famous sermons: the 9/11 sermon, the “Gd Darn America” sermon, the whole bit.

Honestly, I sometimes wish I had license to speak with that kind of animation and monochrome passion, that kind of shout-at-the-rafters anger… but it doesn’t work here. Our crowd tends to be sensitive to nuance and to loathe extremes; waxing passionately salivary about some potential evil yields responses like, “Well, that’s interesting,” “To each his own” and “Are you sure we need to be so harsh?”


For example, look at this potential dvar torah for Parshas Shemini:
I could condemn Nadav and Avihu, who enter the Mishkan disrespectfully while drunk and are struck down by Divine fire.

I could rant that to a person who owns no respect for the mishkan, for avodah, for HaShem, Judaism is just one snack at a lifelong party, just a step along our way to satisfying physical lusts. Partaking in a kiddush is chowing down at a buffet, the avodah of a korban is no different from bloodthirsty butchery, it’s all one big bacchanalia.

I could then fire it up and say that it is this bacchanalia which Gd punishes, which Gd must punish. These people who used religion, who turned their Divine essence toward physical satisfaction, they got what they deserved.

Or how about this tirade: We, today, live in a world of Nadav and Avihu. A world of empty religion, of empty prayer, of empty mitzvot. A world in which a Jew can get drunk on Kosher wine, can stuff himself with Kosher food, can take extravagant trips around the world for Pesach, can fill his den wall with a large-screen TV and kiss the mezuzah on his way into the room to show how pious he is, and all along not give a dime to tzedakah.

Then I could go all-out Jeremiah Wright, point a finger in the air and shout: Those people are Nadav and Avihu, and our parshah provides us a grave warning about what happens to those people, to Nadav and Avihu, with their fancy cars and stylish clothes. Nadav and Avihu burn in Divine fire!

And then I could really have fun: Those people who neglect their souls, people who think this world is about eating, drinking, and merriment, people whose concept of religion is that it’s a fun thing to do on Shabbos morning to make them feel better about what they do the rest of the week - they had better watch the skies, because what came for Nadav and Avihu is coming for them, too!

Now: Fast-forward to the kiddush conversations: Rabbi, that’s pretty strongly worded! Are you saying that we shouldn’t enjoy this world at all?

And fast-forward to the lunch table: Did you hear what the rabbi said? The rabbi said that people who go to hotels for Pesach are going to burn!


So it doesn’t play here - But we know there are places in the Jewish and non-Jewish world where these speeches do play well, and it’s important that we understand who responds to such speeches, and why.

That Nadav and Avihu dvar torah would play very well in a low-income church, or a run-down shtiebel or mosque for that matter, with people who bitterly resent a world of pleasure they cannot afford, and they therefore condemn.

That sort of dvar torah would resonate with cynically self-righteous people who think everyone else is guilty of gross impiety, and with teenagers in the throes of adolescent rebellion, who think they’ve discovered the true meaning of life.

That sort of dvar torah would even ring true among wealthy people who carry a burden of parents or grandparents who were oppressed, or people who find comfort in feeling that the world is against them.

Demagoguery works with people who are angry. Demagoguery works with people who want to be angry.


Our chachamim were wary of this; they called it איבה, enmity, and they proposed a solution for it: They instructed us to act in דרכי שלום, ways that would build peace with the nations around us, that would make us partners with the world instead of setting us in opposition.

We’ve discussed, on other occasions, avoding arousing jealousy in those around us. We don’t flaunt such success as we might have. But beyond that, we try to build up positive feelings with דרכי שלום. Therefore, the gemara says מבקרין חולי עכו"מ עם חולי ישראל, we should be certain to visit non-Jewish patients along with Jewish patients, מפרנסין עניי עכו"מ עם עניי ישראל, we support non-Jewish charities while supporting Jewish charities, and to take care of general communal social needs even as we take care of Jewish social needs.

Lest one think that דרכי שלום is some petty after-the-fact rationalization for assimilation, these are the words of the Gemara: “כל התורה כולה דרכי שלום היא, שנאמר "דרכיה דרכי נועם וכל נתיבותיה שלום" - The entire Torah is about paths of peace, as it is written, ‘Its ways are pleasant, and all of its paths are peace.’”

Of course, this isn’t about helping others at the expense of our own immediate family - but it is about building affordable bridges to the larger human community, a practical consideration for a Jew living in a very angry world, a world eager to assign blame for its ills.


Which brings me back to our reaction to Jeremiah Wright’s speeches. All the chain emails and newspaper columns and worries about Senator Barack Obama in the world won’t change the fact that Jeremiah Wright found a ready and welcoming audience for his venom in that Chicago church - just watch the video of the cheering crowd! There are an awful lot of angry people who are ready to blame you and me for their own suffering, or the suffering of their ancestors.

I believe that our response must be to embrace the gemara’s model of דרכי שלום, of community-wide initiatives which build bonds with the larger human world out there.


One such initiative is coming up on April 6th. I mentioned this project a few weeks ago, but not many people from our shul have signed up. It’s a community service day, involving Jews and non-Jews, for everyone. One project, which our own shul will be chairing, is for the Holocaust Resource Center at Lehigh. There are many more projects, such as work at shelters, Turning Point, housing construction sites and more.

I have known my own anti-Semitism, from being attacked in a mall by a couple of larger kids when I was all of five years old, to facing a group on a subway late one night when I was in college. I can’t say that our דרכי שלום would prevent attacks like those; there will always be angry people, and there will always be people who want to blame others for their problems, and so will be open to the Jeremiah Wrights.

Nonetheless, every step we can take will be positive, on April 6th and beyond, and can only help.

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Notes:
1. I still wish I could do the rant-and-rave thing every once in a while. It looks like a lot of fun.

2. I actually had much more in the Nadav/Avihu section, but the good Rebbetzin advised me to take it out. She thought people would think I was serious.... and who's to say I'm not?...

Vayyakhel - Community Mitzvah Participation

When I first read the following midrash, I thought it was a straightforward endorsement of Aaron David Gordon and Labor Zionism:
When the Torah describes the construction of the Mishkan, it tells us “Hukam haMishkan, ” the Mishkan was raised. But then, in the very next pasuk, the Torah says, “VaYakem Moshe et haMishkan,” “And Moshe raised the Mishkan.” Why does the Torah mention the construction twice, and why does it mention Moshe only in the second assembly?
The Midrash explains that the mishkan was actually assembled twice, for Moshe’s sake. The midrash says, “Moshe was upset that he had not personally taken part in actually building the Mishkan, since the materials had been brought by the Jews and the work had been performed by Betzalel, Ahaliav and the craftsmen. Because Moshe was upset, Gd hid information from the people and they could not make the Mishkan stand…”
It sounds like Moshe, Gd’s Best Friend Forever, wanted to move the two-by-fours and apply the drywall because he believed in the redemptive power of physical labor. As Gordon said 150 years ago regarding establishing pioneer villages in Israel, “We must do with our own hands all the things that make up the sum total of life. We must ourselves do all the work, from the least strenuous, cleanest, and most sophisticated, to the dirtiest and most difficult.”

But late Thursday night Caren pointed out to me that this is not an honest read – after all, where else do we find Moshe going out of his way to look for physical work?
• While the Jews are slaves in Egypt, Moshe is in the palace.
• Moshe does become a shepherd after he runs away from Egypt, but everyone did that.
• Moshe returns to Egypt and he doesn’t pick up straw to make bricks; rather, he spends his time shuttling back and forth between Gd and Paroh.
• The Jews come out into the wilderness, and we never find Moshe looking for menial tasks.
• The Jews defend themselves against Amalek and Moshe davens while Yehoshua leads the army.
If Moshe were truly committed to labor as an ideal, wouldn’t we have found one additional example, somewhere?
So on Friday morning I had to drop the explanation of physical-exertion-makes-us-holy, but that left me without a derashah and with an open question: What is Moshe trying to do here, by insisting on taking over construction of the Mishkan?

I think the key is to see this event in its greater context. Last week we read about Moshe’s return to the Jews, after they built the Golden Calf. We saw Moshe as Punisher, ordering the execution of thousands of people who had worshipped the Calf as an idol. We saw Moshe turn to Gd as supplicant on behalf of the Jewish people. And, most crucially, we saw Moshe fail to re-integrate into the nation. Moshe must remain outside the camp, a leper of sorts, in order to communicate with Gd. As the midrash explains, he separated from Tziporah. He had to wear a veil when teaching, obscuring the radiance of his face. Moshe has become a pariah among the people he led out of Egypt and saved from Divine wrath!

Moshe understands this need to be apart, to be spiritually elevated and close to Gd, and he complies with the demands of this lifestyle – but he also insists on being part of the tzibbur, the community.
We have already seen Moshe’s insistence on joining the community:
• When Moshe could have escaped to Paroh’s palace, he instead went out to see his brethren, and he endangered his own life in saving the life of another Jew.
• When Gd wanted to destroy the Jews after the Eigel, Moshe said, “You’ll have to kill me first.”
• When Moshe offered his description of the ideal Jewish leader, he described someone who would go out to war as part of the nation and come back from battle with the nation, who would lead as part of am yisrael.
Moshe wishes to be part of the nation – and this is particularly relevant in performing mitzvos. As the Rambam writes, one must always perform his mitzvos along with the community, not on his own. So when the Jews are engaged in the great communal mitzvah of building the Mishkan, Moshe longs to be a part of the process.

Later Jewish leaders would do the same. Dovid haMelech, King David, stood apart from the people as monarch. For all his humble beginnings, he was a fearsome king, executing and exiling those who rebelled against his throne. And yet, when the Aron of HaShem was returned, he came out to celebrate and danced with complete abandon, earning him the scorn of his wife Michal – but Dovid, like Moshe, sought to fulfill the nation’s mitzvos along with the nation.

If we move ahead in Jewish history, we find the Prushim, the Pharisees. “Prushim” means “separatists,” and this is what they were – a group of Jews who adhered to laws of purity in their contact and in their food, and who were therefore forced to remain separate, to an extent, from the rest of the Jewish people.
The Talmud Yerushalmi records several leniencies the Prushim observed, such as around the times of Yamim Tovim as well as on Shabbat, in order to be able to function as part of the nation, along with everyone else.

Moshe’s message, Dovid haMelech’s message, and the message of the Prushim, should resonate for us today. Our practices as Torah-observant Jews necessarily set us apart from others. We only eat in kosher restaurants and kosher homes. We only enjoy certain kinds of entertainment. Friday night is a night to celebrate Shabbos, not to go bowling or take in a movie. We dance differently, we sing differently, we learn differently.
At the same time, we must work as Moshe, Dovid haMelech and the Prushim did, and find ways to be משתתף, to partner with, the world around us. Not as people who are “better than,” not as holy people coming to mix with the rabble, but rather as people just like everyone else, whose religious beliefs and practices force us to be separate, but who also belong to the כלל.

Two such opportunities are coming up in the next several months:
On Sunday April 6, we will participate in a Community Service Day along with the greater Jewish and Lehigh Valley communities. Our shul will be involved specifically in a project with the Holocaust Resource Center as well as a pre-Pesach Chametz-collection drive, but there will be many other opportunities to partner with others, too. Even those going with the Youth trip to the Iron Pigs game will still have time in the morning to participate.
And then, in November, the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley will lead a mission to Israel in honor of Israel’s 60th birthday. This, too, is a chance to partner with the broader community. I’ll have to work in times to daven, etc, but I still feel it’s worthwhile, which is why I signed up this past week. I hope others will do so, too.

In last week’s parshah, after the חטא העגל, HaShem performed the ultimate act of separating Moshe from the rest of the nation: HaShem said, “I’m going to destroy the rest of them, and start a new nation with you.” This is it, Moshe – you are going to be the new Avraham, and your descendants will start over and do this right. Just stand back while I eradicate the current version.
But Moshe dramatically rejected this Divine offer, standing his ground and insisting that his fate would lie with the nation.
Moshe performed his mitzvos along with Bnei Yisrael, in building the Mishkan. Dovid did the same, in welcoming the Aron. And we, on April 6 and in the Federation mission to Israel, will do the same.

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Note: There are many ways to take the midrash on Moshe's interest in building the mishkan. I highly recommend reading the whole text, in the Midrash Tanchuma, Pekudei 11.

“Peace by Piece” deluding our youth

I don’t align myself uniformly with political lefts or rights; I am allergic to inanity at either end. This week, my ire has been raised by the foolishness promoted to our teens through “Peace by Piece.”

The latest issue of “The Jewish Georgian” carries an article on this program, in which Jewish, Christian and Muslim high school students learn about each other and, hopefully, break down the barriers of prejudice.

So far, so good. But the article, written by a graduate of the program, makes it clear that Peace by Piece is not interested in presenting an accurate portrayal of Jewish/Christian/Muslim beliefs and interactions; rather, it is interested in whitewashing serious enmity in the pursuit of a blind sense of universal harmony.

The columnist’s version of Peace by Piece accomplishes its ends through two means: (1) using Straw Man caricatures to discredit the political center-right, and (2) substituting anecdotal positive experiences for scientific study of reality.

First, the Straw Man caricature:
The article begins thus: Imagine yourself watching the news on TV one night. Suddenly, a story about an Islamist-fueled terrorist attack on a bus in the Middle East materializes. Perhaps your initial reaction is an angry shout along the lines of, “See? This is proof that all those Arabs just need to die!” Or, say you read a news story about a Jewish area in France being desecrated. Do you immediately assume that the French, as a people, are anti-Semitic jerks? Or do you take a more moderate, thoughtful approach to both scenarios and assume that the perpetrators of these crimes are but small groups within their respective religions or societies?

So, per the article, there are only two points on the philosophical spectrum:
(A) An Archie Bunkeresque, racist, “All Arabs just need to die,” and
(B) A sweet, “The perpetrators are but small groups within their respective religions/societies.”

I’d rather choose a middle option – but the author doesn’t seem to be aware of any such middle ground. Those who disagree with “Piece by Peace” have all been lumped into (A).

Second, substituting anecdotal experience for scientific study:
The columnist writes at the end of the piece: [D]uring each meeting, the students of all three religions discussed theology and were able to do so without condemning one person to hell and eternal suffering. And we had plenty of time to talk about what most teens talk about: sports, politics, entertainment, and the like. This goes to show that the message preached by Peace by Piece is a valid one: With enough understanding and awareness, all religions can easily coexist in peace, and each of us can be an ambassador for peace.

In other words: I can talk calmly with my American peers, be they Jewish, Christian or Muslim, within this small, highly selective club; therefore, all religions can easily coexist in peace.

Presumably, this is the same thinking that led him to “assume that the perpetrators of these crimes are but small groups within their respective religions or societies.”

Perhaps the columnist should read the September 2006 poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in which more than two-thirds of Palestinian Arabs opposed Hamas recognizing Israel.

Or another poll, conducted by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the PCPSR, in which 57% of Palestinian Arabs supported terrorist attacks upon Israeli civilians, 75% of Palestinian Arabs supported the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers to obtain the release of jailed Palestinian terrorists, and 63% said they are inspired by Hizbullah and seek to emulate it.

Or the July 2007 poll by the Pew Research Center, in which 23% of Jordanian Muslims view suicide bombings as justified, 42% of Nigerian Muslims feel likewise, as do 34% of Lebanese Muslims and a whopping 70% of Palestinian Muslims.

Are these “small groups” within their society?

Why claim that the self-selecting Peace by Piece group of Americans reflects reality more than these sociological studies of Middle East reality?

Training high schoolers to ignore prejudices and coexist peacefully is noble.
Training high schoolers to believe that the political middle and right are foolish bigots, and that utopian visions trump scientific reality, is anything but.