Thursday, July 28, 2011

Parenting from the Torah, Week 6: Spare the Rod

This Shabbos, I'll present the last session in our "Parenting from the Torah" series. The topic is "Spare the Rod", the use of physical punishment for children at home and in school.

This class (like the others in this series) could easily have been a multi-week session, but I'm working with an hour, and such is life.

Here's the source sheet I expect to use. It won't give you the shiur, as I couldn't possibly include all of the sources I am using, but I believe the sources are worthwhile:

The parent's need to convey that a situation is serious

1. Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Deiot 2:3

הכעס מדה רעה היא עד למאד וראוי לאדם שיתרחק ממנה עד הקצה האחר, וילמד עצמו שלא יכעוס ואפילו על דבר שראוי לכעוס עליו, ואם רצה להטיל אימה על בניו ובני ביתו או על הציבור אם היה פרנס ורצה לכעוס עליהן כדי שיחזרו למוטב יראה עצמו בפניהם שהוא כועס כדי לייסרם ותהיה דעתו מיושבת בינו לבין עצמו

Anger is a very bad trait, and it would be appropriate for a person distance himself from it, to the opposite extreme. One should teach himself not to grow angry even at something which warrants anger. If he wishes to instill awe his children, household or community – if he is a leader – in order to restore good conduct, then he should act as though he is angry in order to rebuke them, but his mind should be internally calm.

Does Mishlei 13:24 really say a parent must hit?

2. Mishlei 13:24

חושך שבטו שונא בנו ואהבו שחרו מוסר:

One who spares his rod hates his child; one who loves him provides rebuke when he is young.

3. Malbim to Mishlei 13:24

זה סימן שהמייתו על בנו שאינו יכול לראות בצערו הוא אצלו יותר מתועלת בנו, וא"כ אוהב א"ע יותר מבנו ואת בנו שונא

This shows that his mercy for his son, which makes him unable to see his son's pain, is more important to him than the benefit for his son. If so, he loves himself more than his son, and he hates his son.

4. Mishlei 19:18, 22:15, 23:13-14, 29:15

יסר בנך כי יש תקוה ואל המיתו אל תשא נפשך: אולת קשורה בלב נער שבט מוסר ירחיקנה ממנו: אל תמנע מנער מוסר כי תכנו בשבט לא ימות: אתה בשבט תכנו ונפשו משאול תציל: שבט ותוכחת יתן חכמה ונער משלח מביש אמו:

Rebuke your son, for there is hope; do not pay attention to his cries.

Foolishness is bound in the heart of a youth; the rod of rebuke will distance it from him.

Do not keep rebuke from a youth; he will not die when you strike him with the rod. Strike him with the rod, and you will save him from she'ol.

The rod and rebuke will impart wisdom, and a youth allowed to run forth will dismay his mother.


Classically, hitting was considered normal

5. Talmud, Moed Katan 17a

אמתא דבי רבי חזיתיה לההוא גברא דהוה מחי לבנו גדול אמרה ליהוי ההוא גברא בשמתא דקעבר משום ולפני עור לא תתן מכשל

Rebbe's maid saw a man striking his mature son. She said, "Let him be banned, for violating 'Do not put a stumbling block before the blind.'"

6. Talmud, Bava Batra 21a

א"ל רב לרב שמואל בר שילת כי מחית לינוקא לא תימחי אלא בערקתא דמסנא. דקארי [הלומד] קארי, דלא קארי ליהוי צוותא לחבריה

Rav said to Rav Shemuel bar Shelat: When you strike the child, do so only with a shoelace. The one who learns will learn, and those who do not learn will provide company for the rest.

7. Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 551:18

צריך ליזהר מי"ז בתמוז עד ט' באב... ולא יכו התלמידים בימים ההם

One must be careful between the 17th of Tammuz and Tishah b'Av… and not to strike students at that time.

8. R' Moshe Sofer, Chatam Sofer to Ketuvot 50a

המשיל האשה לגפן שמוציא יינו בנקל ה"נ תוליד בנקל והבנים לזית שחובטין אותו עד שמוציא שמנו

It blessed a woman to be as a grape, which produces wine easily – so she should give birth easily. It blessed children to be as an olive, which we strike until it produces its oil.

But the license doesn't mean it's always a good idea

9. Talmud, Chullin 94a

מעשה באחד שזמן ג' אורחין בשני בצורת ולא היה לו להניח לפניהם אלא כשלש ביצים בא בנו של בעה"ב נטל אחד מהן חלקו ונתנו לו וכן שני וכן שלישי בא אביו של תינוק מצאו שעוזק א' בפיו ושתים בידו חבטו בקרקע ומת

During a famine, someone invited three guests and only had three eggs to set before them. His son came along, and one of them took his portion and gave it to him. The second and third did likewise. His father came and found him holding one in his mouth and two in his hands; he struck the child to the ground, and he died.

10. Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Chovel uMazik 5:1

אסור לאדם לחבול בין בעצמו בין בחבירו, ולא החובל בלבד אלא כל המכה אדם כשר מישראל בין קטן בין גדול בין איש בין אשה דרך נציון הרי זה עובר בלא תעשה

One may not wound himself or others. Further, one who strikes a kosher-acting Jew, whether young or old, whether man or woman, in the manner of nitzayon, violates a prohibition.

11. Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Talmud Torah 2:2 (& cited in Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 245:10)

מכניסין את התינוקות להתלמד כבן שש כבן שבע לפי כח הבן ובנין גופו... ומכה אותן המלמד להטיל עליהם אימה, ואינו מכה אותם מכת אויב מכת אכזרי, לפיכך לא יכה אותם בשוטים ולא במקלות אלא ברצועה קטנה

They introduce the children to be taught at the age of six or seven, based on the child's strength and constitution. The teacher hits them to instill awe, but he does not strike them as an enemy, cruelly. Therefore, he, he should not strike with whips or rods but with a small strap.

12. Talmud, Gittin 6b

אמר רב יהודה אמר רב כל המטיל אימה יתירה בתוך ביתו סוף הוא בא לידי שלש עבירות גילוי עריות ושפיכות דמים וחילול שבת

Rav Yehudah cited Rav: One who introduces unnecessary awe in his home will come to three sins: Immorality, murder and Shabbat-desecration.

13. R' Shlomo Luria, Yam shel Shlomo to Bava Kama 3:9

כל בר ישראל יכול להכות חבירו, כדי לאפרושי מאיסורא... ודוקא באדם מוחזק לכשרות, שידוע שלשם שמים עשה. והוא אדם חשוב ומופלג. אבל בסתמא דאינשי לאו כל כמיניה. דא"כ לא שבקת חי לכל בריה. וכל אדם ריק ילך ויכה חבירו על דבר הוכחה, כי אין צדיק בארץ אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא. והתורה לא נתנה רשות ומקל ורצועה אלא לדיין, או לאדם חשוב, שראוי להיות דבריו נשמעים

Any Jew may strike another to keep him from transgression… But only one who is known to be good, so that it is known that he is doing it altruistically. This must be someone important and outstanding; normal people may not do this, for then one would not leave anyone alive, and empty people will strike others in rebuke, for no one does only good and does not sin. The Torah only assigned authority and the rod and the strap to judges and important people, whose words should be heard.

Modern authorities tend to be guarded

14. Taz to Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 421:13

נ"ל לחלק ביניהם דמכה [להציל] למכה א' מישראל [לאפרושי מאיסורא] אין פוטרין אותו אם לא שיש בירור גמור שלא יוכל להציל בענין אחר

It appears to me that we should distinguish between one who strikes to save someone from an attacker and one who strikes to keep a Jew from sinning. We do not exempt the latter from liability unless it is entirely clear that there was no other way to do this.

15. R' Moshe Feinstein, Igrot Moshe Yoreh Deah 2:103

על דבר ברור שעשה התלמיד מה שצריך לעונשו ולא על חשד בעלמא, ואף שיש לו אומדנא לפי דעתו שנער זה עשה הדבר, לא שייך לשום אדם בעולם שיוכל לסמוך על גודל דעתו ולענוש אף עונש כל דהו בלא ידיעה ברורה דעדים, דאף דבר השוה רק פרוטה בעינן עדים וכ"ש עונש הגוף דשוה יותר מממון. ולא עדיף המלמד במה שהתירו לו לענוש מב"ד שעל חשד בעלמא אינו כלום לענוש

It may only be for something which the student clearly did which warrants punishment, and not for mere suspicion, even if he has good reason to think that the youth did it. It is not possible for anyone to depend on his own great intelligence and punish in any way without clear knowledge from witnesses. Even for something worth a perutah we require witnesses – certainly physical punishment, which is worth more than money! The teacher, with his permission to punish, is no greater than the beit din, which cannot punish for suspicion.

16. R' Moshe Feinstein, Igrot Moshe Choshen Mishpat 1:3

ועיין ברמב"ם פ"ה מחובל ה"א שכתב לגירסא דידן המכה דרך נציון ה"ז עובר בל"ת, משמע דאם אינו דרך נציון לא הוי בכלל הלאו כלל, והוא מטעם שהלאו נאמר בחייבי מלקיות שלא יוסיף ומלקות כיון שהוא על העבר ה"ז דרך נציון, שלכן אין להחשיב זה שמכין לאפרושי מאיסורא ולקיים עשה וכן אב את בנו לחנכו להותר מכללו שהרי אינם דרך נציון.

The Rambam wrote, in our edition, that one who hits "in the manner of nitzayon" violates a prohibition. This sounds like striking in a non-nitzayon way is not prohibited. This is because the prohibition against adding was stated regarding [court-ordered] lashes, and that's punishment for the past. That's the case of nitzayon. Punishment for the past is not keeping someone from sinning and causing him to fulfill a mitzvah. A father who hits his son to educate him is permitted, for this is not nitzayon.

17. R' Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, Collected Writings Vol. 7 pg. 107

Only the better student will respond to praise or criticism, and the nature of his response will depend very much on the training and treatment he has received at home. We would certainly be the last to support corporal punishment [in school]; indeed, we would be very much inclined to believe that a teacher who cannot cope with the everyday problems of school life without resorting to physical chastisement is in the wrong profession. But [regardless of what is done in school,] if thrashings are the order of the day at home, if the child has become accustomed to take criticism seriously only if he feels it upon his body, if he will listen to verbal admonition only if he sees the rod looming in the background, then the home has deadened the child's sense of morality. Such a child will hardly give his teacher's words of criticism at school the attention they deserve.

18. R' Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, Sridei Eish 3:95

מטעמים פדגוגים יש להניע מאמצעי כפיה בנוגע לבן הסוטה מהדרך הכבושה. כבר הזכיר כת"ר את האיסור להכות בנו גדול, וצדק כת"ר באמרו שלאו דווקא מכה ביד אלא כל אמצעי כפיה בכוח עלול להביא לידי תוצאות הפוכות מהרצוי. וכבר הוכיחו הפדגוגים המודרנים, שהכפיה או ביצוע רצון בכוח מעורר בנער בגיל מבוגר עקשנות יתר ונטיה למרידה

For pedagogic reasons, one should avoid force with a child who strays from the well-trod path. You already mentioned the prohibition against striking an older child, and you were right that is beyond striking, and it applies to all means of force; it can bring results which are the opposite of his desire. Modern pedagogues have already shown that force, or use of strength to implement one's wishes, awakens greater resistance and rebellion in an older child.

19. Masechet Semachot 2:4

ומעשה בבנו של גורגיוס שברח מבית הספר, והראה לו אביו באזנו, ונתיירא מאביו, והלך ואיבד עצמו בבור

Georgios's son fled from school. His father showed him his ear, and he became afraid; he killed himself in a pit.

Five interesting papers to see

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Posthumous posting

[Interesting quote: "There is no need to be frummer than Bais Yaakov."]

I was going to write about this several weeks ago, but stalled as other things came up – and then Jack beat me to it with A few words about my death. But let it be known that I had the idea long before Jack [faux] did it.

The idea is simple: To post-date articles so that they show up on this blog only way down the line, quite possibly after I have moved on to a different world.

I'm not sure why I want to do this. It goes against my grain – usually, I want things I like to appear immediately. And if I don't like it, why publish it? And the Comments section would be pretty dull. And how would I defend my more controversial pieces?

And yet, I want to do it.

Part of me wants to do it because otherwise, the day I go will be the day this blog goes; it will ossify and become uninteresting [if it hasn't already...]. But if there is always the promise of a future post, then followers will still follow, and people will still visit.

Part of me wants to do it for the fun of being entirely out-of-sync when writing about cultural things. Imagine a future post which talks about sports or literature or just normal life, in a world which experiences those things entirely differently.

Part of me wants to do it because a major reason I blog is to tell my children about their ancestor, and they might read new posts even if they won't bother to dig into musty old archives.

Part of me wants to do it because I used to have an anonyblog which I kept anonymous to protect people who were described in it, until I got rid of it because I wanted to blog under my own name. Maybe I could take a bunch of those old posts, though, and put them on here in a century or so, when no one involved could be identified anymore.

Of course, there are risks involved; after all, Blogger may well be gone in 10 years, let alone 50 or 100; why write something, work on it, and withhold publishing it, only to have it disappear when Blogger does?

Nonetheless, I think I'll go for it. Stay tuned...

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Canadian Beer Rant

I've never been a fan of having government sell alcohol – not when I lived in Pennsylvania, where the state government operated liquor stores through the PLCB, and not now that I live in Ontario where the province does the same through the LCBO. Aside from believing in the open market and in regulation that stops well short of total control, I wonder how healthy it is for the government to be selling alcohol. I'm no teetotaler, but I have a problem with the government's vested interest in marketing an addictive substance.

Now the Canadian government has come up with a new way to promote its wares. It's part of their "Beer Selector", and it's accessible here. Click on "My Beer Personality", and answer questions like, "At a party, you (a) kick your feet up, (b) always host, (c) work the room, or (d) make the toasts" and "What nickname would best describe you (a) Maxo Relaxo, (b) Fussy Gus, (c) Courageous Cat, or (d) Captain Awesome". Then the program diagnoses your needs and offers a selection of beers, available at your LCBO store.

What is the goal here? Is it that there are a lot of frustrated beer drinkers across Canada, people who are not feeling satisfied with their alcoholic beverages because those drinks are just not suited for their personalities?

According to a 2010 study by StatsCanada (the official government statistics-collecting arm), the prevalence of past-year alcohol use among Canadians 15 years and olderwas 77.0%. Among "youth", 71.5% reported consuming alcohol in the past year.

The good news: This is a decrease from 2004, when "82.9% of youth reported past-year use of alcohol."

More, "the prevalence of heavy frequent drinking among youth 15 to 24 years of age, was approximately three times higher than the rate for adults 25 years and older (9.4% versus 3.3%)."

So maybe the government decided that the heavy drinking was a result of not finding the right beer? Is this a case of Canadian Big Government stepping in to help its young citizens live better lives?

I think not. I think the goal is to make beer drinkers out of the apparently small minority who are not currently beer drinkers.

"What, you don't drink beer? Come on, this would be good for you. You'll love it! It's so you - look, it suits you, Maxo Relaxo!"

I don't want elected officials spending their time and my taxes trying to make me a beer drinker. I don't care how patriotic it is to drink beer in Canada, and I don't care how much money you can take from the private sector by having government sell liquor – go back to work on things like making healthcare affordable.

Friday, July 22, 2011

What Diax's Rake omits

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Neal Stephenson's Anathem. It was mostly a good read, although there were definite portions in which I wondered where the editors had gone; dragging is not a strong enough word.

Stephenson's depiction of a universe (or, to use his term, cosmos) in which theoretical science advances without a practical arm, in which the nature of the laws of reality is itself a debate between schools, and in which theoretical science is conducted with what we would recognize as religious discipline and devotion (complete with a sort of monkhood, savants in place of saints, and rituals which would be at home in a church), is fascinating.

[I did think his Ita were an attempt at a Middle Ages European caricature of the Jew, with the relationship between the Ita and the avout throughout the story approximating what may/should have happened between Jew and Christian when the walls of the ghetto came down in the 18th and 19th centuries. Not sure how I feel about that.]

I have many thoughts on the book and its ideas, but right now I'm thinking about Diax's Rake, which is a stark and challenging rule: One should not believe a thing simply because he wishes it were true. [I see that this site links it to an idea of Thucydides.]

The book presents conflict between those who believe what they can prove (theors), and those who believe what they wish (enthusiasts). Diax's Rake (named for the rake used by the legendary Diax when chasing enthusiasts out of a shrine to logic and science) amplifies Stephen Hawking's recent pronouncement that heaven is a "fairy story" for people who are "afraid of the dark." As Diax would have put it: You can't prove there is a heaven – so you lack the right to believe it.

Left with this binary system, dividing the universe into proven and unproven, I would be forced to drop my belief in Judaism. I cannot prove most of the 'facts' set forth by Judaism – the existence of Gd, the creation of the world ex nihilo, the presentation of Torah at Sinai, the validity of the prophets, the existence of an afterlife, and so on.

But there is a third possibility, beyond logic and desire: Received tradition, believing in something because another person, whose account you trust, was able to prove it and relayed it to you. I believe in Sinai because the story of its experience [and I equate experience with proof] has been passed down in a chain of tradition I trust. I believe in prophecy because the stories about it have been passed down in a chain of tradition I trust. And so on.

I'm not proving anything, but I'm also not believing on the basis of a wish. I'm believing the accounts of others.

In a sense, believing in the accounts of others isn't really different from the theor believing in an idea that was already proved by some great thinker, without needing to demonstrate the proof himself. But I see it as different, because in the realm of theors it is given that the theory could be replicated today, and in the realm of religious tradition it could not.

Much to think about here. On the whole, a very interesting and challenging read. I recommend it.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The Diaspora Jew

No, I'm not talking about Yitzhak Baer's Galut, but about the way so many Jews – in Israel and outside – naturally live as though tomorrow will be the same as yesterday, as though Diaspora and distance from Gd is the normal state of the Jew.

I've written before about how hard it is to believe in a mashiach; see here, for example. It is hard.

And the difficulty is reinforced by the fact that our yeshivot learn the 'practical', 'relevant' subjects, not Kodashim and Taharos.

And it's reinforced by the fact that we learn Shulchan Aruch which ignores the korban, and not Rambam who includes it.

And it's reinforced by the rabbis who numbly end speeches "and so we should merit mashiach bimheirah biyameinu amen." (I wonder if they daven that mashiach shouldn't come, lest they be stuck for a closing line for their derashos.)

And it's reinforced by the ritualization of our grief, the printing of Three Weeks manuals and Tishah b'Av kinos, the annual programs on-line and on video from many well-meaning teachers of Torah and inspirers of mitzvos.

My barber told me last week that he was scheduling his vacation for Tuesday, knowing that Jews wouldn't be coming in for the next few weeks. Sam Rezzo has absorbed from the Jews that mashiach isn't coming any time soon.

Have you heard the story about the Rav who was such a believer in mashiach that he put down a non-refundable deposit with a caterer to have his daughter's wedding during the Three Weeks, since he was sure mashiach would come tomorrow?

No, because it hasn't happened. We don't do that, we don't even imagine doing it.

And so rabbis who should know better say, "Of course we can't have visible demonstrations of Gd's existence, that would devalue Emunah (faith)," ignoring the fact that we had centuries of visible miracles when the Beit haMikdash stood, and we will again, Gd-willing.

And so we refer to the Beit haMikdash in the past tense, saying things like, "There was a mitzvah to do X when there was a Beit Mikdash" instead of "There is a mitzvah to do X, although right now there is no Beit haMikdash and so we don't do it."

And so we think of Prophecy as an artifact of history, not a normal part of our relationship with the Divine.

At least for these three weeks – until Tishah b'Av arrives as a day of celebration, I pray – I will work on being מצפה לישועה, anticipating redemption. May my prayers be answered positively.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Derashah material - Loyalty

If you're a rabbi/sermonizer who wants to speak about the importance of looking out for others, bein adam lachaveiro (social interaction) and loyalty, you might be interested in this story:

...Pasquale "Patsy" Scognamillo had co-owned a restaurant nearby called the Sorrento during the first years of the 1940s. The young Sinatra was brought in one day by his boss, bandleader Tommy Dorsey. "I've got this skinny kid from Hoboken," Dorsey reportedly told Patsy Scognamillo. "Fatten him up."

Sinatra swiftly became an international singing idol whose voice and face made women and girls scream and faint; riots broke out at his concerts. Patsy, meanwhile, left the Sorrento and opened Patsy's. Both men -- the crooner and the cook -- were doing well for themselves.

But in the early 1950s, Sinatra's career crashed. He was no longer a kid. His records stopped selling. His romance with Ava Gardner was on the rocks. His record company dropped him. The winner suddenly was being widely seen as a loser, washed up.

People who follow the Sinatra story know about the eventual comeback: how he landed a role in the movie "From Here to Eternity" and won an Academy Award, how his career zoomed again, how he became the living symbol of success and swagger.

Yet in those down years, no one could have anticipated the rebirth. Sinatra was a has-been, yesterday's news.

"He would come in to the restaurant alone for lunch," Sal Scognamillo said to me. I could tell that this was a thrice-told family tale -- or a thrice-times-thrice-told tale. That didn't make it any less compelling.

"My grandfather would sit with him," Sal said. "There would be people eating lunch who would avoid making eye contact with Sinatra -- people who used to know him when he was on top. Sinatra would nod toward them and say to my grandfather: 'My fair-weather friends.'"

One November, on the day before Thanksgiving, Sinatra asked Patsy if he would make him a solo reservation for the next day. "He said he would be coming in for Thanksgiving dinner by himself," Sal said. "He said, 'Give me anything but turkey.' He didn't want to think about the holiday, but he didn't want to be alone."

The restaurant was scheduled to be closed on Thanksgiving. But Patsy didn't tell Sinatra that; he told him that he'd make the reservation for 3 p.m. He didn't want Sinatra to know that he was opening especially for him, so he invited the families of the restaurant's staff to come in for dinner, too. He cooked for Sinatra, on that solitary holiday, and it wasn't until years later that Sinatra found out.

That's where the loyalty came from. That's why Sinatra never stopped coming to the restaurant. In later years, when Patsy's would be jammed with diners hoping to get a glimpse of him, few understood why the most famous singer in the world would single out one place as his constant favorite.

It was no big secret to the Scognamillo family. They all knew. A person recalls how he is treated not when he is on top of the world, undefeated, but when he is at his lowest, thinking he will never again see the sun.

And, in case you're curious - Sinatra was a supporter of Israel...

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Anger: Weakness, not Weapon

An anti-anger rant, presented here for reasons that are best kept private:

Blame it on the cartoons and comic books and action movies, and their equivalents in generations past. Somewhere along the line, young human beings acquire the notion that anger is a weapon.

Think of every action hero who was trampled, stomped and beaten down, and who then, in his moment of rage, fought back and demolished his persecutors. A berserker rage energized him and drove back the foe, and he triumphed. He was galvanized by his outrage, he shouted from the rooftops, and he won over the crowd. From John McClane to Rocky Balboa to Popeye (“That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!”) to even Mr. Smith in Washington, the lesson has been the same down the line: Get angry enough, and you’ll win. Anger is your weapon.

So children assume that if they display enough anger, shout loud enough and long enough, say enough nasty things or hit hard enough, people will listen to them.

But the world doesn’t work that way. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: Angry people are a turn-off. Very few people listen to them.

Shlomo said it in Mishlei 15:1: מענה רך משיב חמה, A soft reply turns back rage. Abayye quoted this in Berachos 17a, saying that one must always speak softly to everyone, Jew and non-Jew alike.

As the Gemara, Rambam and Shulchan Aruch all stress, rebuke must be worded in a way that it will be accepted; otherwise, one has not fulfilled the mitzvah, but has actually sinned.

The last experiences of Eliyahu haNavi on earth are instructive in this regard. It was in Melachim I, chapter 19, that HaShem sought to teach Eliyahu to tone down his rhetoric, and when HaShem saw that He was not getting through, He told Eliyahu it was time to retire, and appoint Elisha as his successor.

Here is Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, author of austritt, on rebuking others and setting things straight. Herewith are the words of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, in Horeb (paragraph 380), “But if you turn into a sharp and lethal weapon this word which is destined to bring life and blessings; if you seek pleasure in mocking the inexperienced and less intelligent, in deceiving and embarrassing him instead of teaching and correcting him; if you ridicule the unfortunate whose troubled mind is longing for comfort from your lips; if you put your brother to shame in front of others even for the purpose of correcting him; if you degrade your brother’s personality by calling him bad names; if with icy scorn and fiery disdain in your barbed words you shoot sharp arrows into your brother’s heart and rejoice in his discomfiture - oh then, do not dare to look up to heaven! Gd sees your bother’s heart convulsed by the daggers of your words, frozen under your icy scorn, humiliated under your ridicule. With Him the rejected soul will find refuge, to His Throne tears always find the door open. And you? The Almighty is just!

And, anger doesn't work, for any number of reasons. Among them:

1. Anger makes people defensive.
2. Anger makes you fight sloppily.
3. People who disagree with you are not compelled to agree simply because you show you are sincerely committed to your position.
4. Anger doesn’t address the core disagreements.

And, perhaps most of all, an angry approach doesn’t allow the listener a way out. If I want to convince someone to change his stance, I need to provide him with a way to change his stance without looking foolish. If I get angry and yell at him, how can he change without looking like he was beaten into submission?

So anger is no weapon; it’s useless.

And worse, anger is a result of weakness. Anger is nothing more than frustration with the universe; things aren’t going the way I think they should.

The Rambam wrote in Hilchos Deios that only anger and arrogance must be entirely eliminated. Both of these appeal to basic human weaknesses, arrogance to our ego’s fear and anger to our ego’s frustration.

The Gemara says as much when it declares that anger leads a person to ignore G-d (Nedarim 22a-b). Why? Because anger indicates that I think the world should be different, should match my plan... instead of that of G-d.

Bottom line: We need to learn another way for convincing other people. If the best we can do is raise our fists and voices in rage, then there is no hope at all.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Spirituality and the Numbest Generation

The launch of the last space shuttle last week, during my visit to Orlando for a conference, brought back memories of the Challenger launch and explosion back in January of 1986. I was 13 years old and in Orlando with my family on winter vacation. [Weird that there were shuttle launches both times I was in Orlando; now that the shuttle program is over, can I ever go back?]

Of course, given that the Challenger launched from Orlando and exploded in the air overhead, televisions everywhere showed footage of the explosion, photographs, interviews, commemorations and so on. The radios had nothing but this. And, of course, when we returned to school afterward all of the talk was about the explosion and death and what it meant for space exploration.

I feel like this should have been a seminal moment for me. I was an early teen, at an impressionable stage and standing at Ground Zero. And yet, it wasn't. Certainly, I remember a lot of the coverage, names of some of the astronauts and their stories… but there was nothing about it that changed me in any discernible way. I didn't become enamored of space travel, or afraid of it. I wasn't drawn to stories about the tragedy. I didn't really react, so far as I can tell.

This is not just about me being insensitive to the lives of others; I saw the same phenomenon in kids of that age in New York ten years ago, for September 11th. And I've seen it elsewhere, including in studies of internet use and reaction to on-line stories of tragedy. There is a certain numbness and distance about my generation, and later. Perhaps it also precedes my time; I wouldn't know, but I haven’t heard about it. What's it about, though?

To borrow from something I've been reading about lately, this numbness seems to run counter to Affective Events Theory (granted that my knowledge of the subject is still rudimentary). This field of study looks at the way people respond emotionally to specific events, as opposed to their responses to static environment or to their judgments and decisions. To sum up the relevant point from the first article here, AET proponents argue that "The basic literature on emotions consensually accepts the idea that events drive changes in emotional states. There may be differences of opinion as to how events are interpreted, the relative impact of positive and negative events, the filtering process of personality, etc., but events are instigators of changes in emotional states." So why aren't events changing us?

In part, I suspect it's a defense mechanism which is relatively modern in its manifestation: World population has so increased, and our access to information about that population is so great, that we cannot absorb the information we receive from around the globe and integrate it into our lives. If Dunbar's Number predicts that our strongest networks are limited to 150 connections, then how could we hear about the deaths of 7 astronauts or starvation of Ethiopians or devastation in Japan or suicides of 9/11 victims or 100 people on a Mi sheBeirach list, however strong the images and compelling the stories, and integrate them into our brains and existences? Unless there was some immediate link to our lives or the lives of a member of that tight network, we would exclude them simply because there was no room for them.

One of the problems that results from this defense mechanism is a difficulty in spiritual growth. The greater our numbess, the more difficult it is for us to relate to others' experiences and be moved by their lives and their stories. Singing or davening in a group loses its resonance. Feeling connected to a chevra is more challenging. And it's not just a social problem - being awake to the beauty of our world, when we are so flooded with images of such beauty, is that much more difficult as well.

So that's the problem, as I see it. What's the solution?

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Parenting from the Torah, Week 5: The Sandwich Generation

This Shabbos, Gd-willing, I'll be leading the fifth class in our "Parenting from the Torah" series. The topic will be "The Sandwich Generation", and I hope to address some of the big questions that arise when people have the opportunity to care for their parents while raising children.

Here are the vignettes I plan to use:
1. Janet and Jim have three children in yeshiva, at a total cost of $45,000 per year. They are also paying for 24-hour care for Jim's parents, and they are finding that between these two costs, they cannot make ends meet. From a halachic perspective: If they need to cut one of these, which do they cut?

2. Jill moved her mother Susan into her home two years ago, when Susan's dementia began to worsen. She reasoned that the home environment and a daughter's care would be better than Susan would receive in a nursing home. Now, though, Jill is finding that her mother's presence is causing great strain on Jill's marriage, difficulty for Jill's work in her home office, and bitterness between Jill and her siblings. May Jill move her mother into a nursing home?

3. James (age 38), John (35) and Julie (30), all married, are sharing the tasks of looking after their parents. James and Julie are raising children; John and his wife are childless. Although their relationships with each other have historically been strong, they find themselves quarreling over the specifics of who does what for their parents. Is there halachic basis for assigning certain responsibilities to a particular child? If not, how can they reduce their disagreements?

Your thoughts on these vignettes would be most welcome.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

A need for Jewish Spirituality

[This week's Haveil Havalim is here]

I participated in YU's Championsgate Conference this past Shabbos, and one of the major themes was the need for Spirituality, meaning (at least as I take it) a feeling of connectedness to Gd, that Judaism resonates with something inside the soul, that this is a religion and not only a set of regulations.

Of course, a need for Jewish Spirituality is far from a new issue; fifty years ago young American Jews were joining the Peace Corps and running off to ashrams in search for spirituality, and Jewish adults were dropping out in great numbers. And Rav Moshe Weinberger was pitch-perfect in his 2000 Jewish Action article, writing, "In our "enlightened" times, Jewish souls are deceived by the delusion of "double concealment." Too frequently, we offer lifeless prayers in the midst of animated personal conversation and drag ourselves through the details of Orthodox Judaism. We have forgotten the purpose of life, while observing its regulations. We have lost our sense of divine yearning and subsequently have stopped yearning ourselves. We proceed cheerfully with the business of establishing institutions and supporting more Jewish causes, not realizing that the essence of Judaism eludes us."

But the matter has been exacerbated by today's constant connectedness, the draw of emailing and texting and status-updating so that there is no such thing as "living in the moment" or stopping to feel and contemplate. Many of us are like tourists who spend their entire trip taking photographs, rather than truly seeing and appreciating the live view.

I liked what one speaker at the program, an educator, said. Someone in her session commented that we are too intellectual and rational, and this kills spirituality. In essence, she replied that this is a case of correlation rather than causation; we are intellectual, and many of us have an underdeveloped spirituality, but it is fallacious to suggest that one leads to the other.

For that matter, someone else suggested to her that attention to halachah is found in inverse proportion to spirituality, so that the most מדקדק (precise) observers of halachah are often the least spiritual. This, of course, has long been the contention of anti-ritualists – but I believe that it, too, is incorrect. Attention to ritual need not reduce feelings of depth, and sensitivity to the Divine.

On a related front, the speaker noted that Spirituality is not the same thing as Tefillah. Some people don't daven spiritually, but they experience it elsewhere. This is certainly true in my experience; spiritual resonance can come in the actions of blessing one's children, learning Torah, helping others and so on. Indeed, spontaneous private moments can bring greater connectedness than orchestrated kumzitzes and organized tefillot.

All of this reminds me of a project I set up back in 1998 or so in my first shul, in Rhode Island: An email list devoted to Jewish Spirituality, to asking and discussing questions of spirituality. The archives are still on-line, here.

I'm contemplating a new project to promote this theme now, something more elaborate and sophisticated… stay tuned…

Saturday, July 9, 2011

North American Modern Orthodoxy and the Chief Rabbinate, Revisited

First: Please watch this new video from Rabbi Yakov Horowitz on protecting children from molestation.

After both of of last week's posts on Modern Orthodoxy outside of Israel and the Chief Rabbinate [Part I, Part II], I received an email from a new oleh asking me for leads on information about the Chief Rabbinate. In sending a few links, I noticed something that made me re-think the presentation I delivered this past Shabbos.

Specifically, it was this line from the website of the Chief Rabbinate: הרבנות הראשית משמשת לגבי הגולה לא רק כסמכות רוחנית בשאלות הלכתיות, אלא מהווה גם מרכז מידע לכל הקהילות היהודיות ולכל הגופים הנותנים כשרות בעולם. In translation: The Chief Rabbinate serves the Diaspora not only as an authority for halachic questions, but also as a central resource for information for all Jewish communities and all kosher-supervising agencies around the globe.

Would your North American community do that? Would your community, having a debate about tzedakah priorities, or kashrut policy, or the mechitzah, or interdenominational activity, send the shailah to Israel's Chief Rabbinate? I know Israelis who think that we should do this. But would we?

I hate to speak of divides between Jews inside and outside of Israel, since I believe all of us should be united and in Israel. But the truth is that the communities outside of Israel would not consult Israel's Chief Rabbinate on these matters.

I'd suggest a practical reason and a philosophical reason why we wouldn't:

Practical
Simple: The alienation that comes when we disagree with their decisions, and when we feel delegitimized over issues like conversion.

Philosophical

[Yes, I know this is going to get me into trouble with some fellow bloggers. It got me in trouble when I presented it today, too, although I believe that was mostly a matter of language.]

The idea that the Chief Rabbinate of Israel will dictate halachah for chutz la'aretz stems from a breed of Zionism that is very Rav Kook, very Ramban, very כל הדר בחוץ לארץ כאילו אין לו אלו-ה (the gemara's statement, end of Ketuvot, that one who lives outside of Israel is as though he has no link to Gd). In this view, which I must admit I find compelling spiritually and emotionally if not intellectually, the future of the Jews lies in Israel, Israel is the place to be a true Jew, chutznikim are simply Israelis who haven't found their passports yet, and all that is outside of Israel is only a satellite, a space station, destined to descend from orbit and either burn up or land in Israel.

But North American Modern Orthodoxy embraces a political tradition which owes a great deal to the history of local rabbinic authority in Judaism, and to the founding principles of American independence, the democracy rather than the Republic. This community demands that its authorities and representatives be of its own kind, and be familiar with its unique situation. Israel's primacy does not entirely eliminate the significance of Jewish life elsewhere, and the significance of the unique demands with which Diaspora Jewry lives.

I'm not sure there is a solution for the philosophical problem of the role of the Diaspora; any disagreement will lead to trouble when it is decreed that Israel should rule on issues affecting Diasporites. But at least for the practical problem, and to avoid the disagreements that trigger the philosophical objections, one solution may be to look for ways to make sure the selection process and decision-making process are inclusive and embracing.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Shechitah: A Guide for Evolution

[Click here for this week's three-minute Toronto Torah video from our Beit Midrash]

We realized very late this week that we were missing an article for our weekly Toronto Torah, so I was enlisted to draft a quick piece. I'm posting it here because I know I have some Daf-learning readers who may enjoy the Chullin-related material, and because a disruption of my schedule like that requires that I save time somewhere - like by doubling it as a blog post:


One might be forgiven for thinking of shechitah (kosher slaughter) as a dry topic, mind-numbing in its emphasis on minutiae. Indeed, the sage Rav (Bereishit Rabbah 44:1) argued that the point is obedience, and there is no inherent value in those fine points. Rav said, "Why would G-d care whether one performed shechitah from the front or back of the neck? The mitzvot were only given in order to refine [G-d's] creations."

Others would disagree, though. Many chachamim, and particularly the mystics, have contended that the design of each element of a mitzvah involves deep arcana and is of cosmic importance. And beyond that, our masters and mentors, particularly among the chassidim, have attached ethical and moral lessons to the most dry legal codicils.

In a striking example, Rav Yaakov Yechezkel Greenwald, author of "VaYaged Yaakov" and Pupa Rebbe until his passing in 1941, taught lessons in personal evolution based upon the five central potential disqualifications in an act of shechitah:

Shehiyah (pausing)
Shechitah is disqualified if the shocheit pauses during the act. So, too, we who would improve ourselves must act with alacrity, not pausing and not allowing ourselves to be distracted. It is not for naught that we are encouraged, "Those who are energetic rush to perform mitzvot first." Or as Pirkei Avot warns, one should never stall and say he will study when he finds free time, for with such an attitude he will never have free time.

Derasah (pressing)
A shocheit must slice an animal's trachea and esophagus in a back-and-forth cutting motion; if he becomes impatient and presses down into the neck, the shechitah is disqualified. In the same vein, we must be on guard against impatience with our own growth. We are expected to learn patiently, taking time and making certain that we truly understand the Torah we study. Further, we are expected to work on our character and our intellect simultaneously; one who sacrifices his personal growth in pursuit of rapid intellectual growth is guilty of derasah, pressing and trampling upon important components of self-development.

Chaladah (tunneling)
The shechitah knife must be visible to the shocheit as he cuts; tunneling into the neck so that the knife is hidden from view disqualifies the shechitah. Similarly, we must make sure not to hide our self-improvement from the public. Legitimate concern for modesty, or for embarrassment, might grow and cause us to go underground with our growth, but our commitment to HaShem and to Torah must include pride in our beliefs. As the Tur wrote (Orach Chaim 1), "One must be bold like a leopard, and not reticent before those who would mock him." If all who are committed to Torah will plead modesty, the result will be a world devoid of visible Torah.

Hagramah (veering)
Shechitah must be performed within a specific vertical space along an animal's neck, and veering out of that space invalidates the shechitah. The same applies to our development - a Jew must recognize that certain sites are better suited for growth than others. Rabbi Akiva warned his son (Pesachim 112a) not to set up his studies in the town square, lest passersby distract him from his learning. Pirkei Avot instructs us, "Go into exile, to place of Torah study." For a practical example: Our homes are comfortable, certainly, but they are as filled with distractions as the town square; better to go to a beit midrash or shul to study.

Ikkur (uprooting)
There is some debate regarding the proper definition of ikkur; students of Daf Yomi will recall Rashi Chullin 9a and Rosh Chullin 1:13 as essential sources. Rav Greenwald chooses to explain ikkur as shechitah with a flawed knife, such that the trachea or esophagus is pulled rather than sliced. Comparing the act of shechitah with our actions of self-improvement, Rav Greenwald adjured us to aspire to flawlessness in our actions, since each defect will affect our results.

Rav Greenwald saw in shechitah and its laws a metaphor for the work we do in evolving our best selves, slaughtering our old identities and replacing them with a new and improved version of ourselves. Pairing energetic alacrity with patient care, being unabashedly public in our commitment, selecting our venues for growth wisely, and demanding a commitment to excellence at all times, we will perpetually create ourselves anew, each day better than the last.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Part II - Our disappointment in the Chief Rabbinate of Israel

In Part I here, I explained: I've been recruited to speak in a panel discussion this coming Shabbos, on Rabbinic Jurisdiction in Israel. Since I'm the North American on the panel (beside Rav Dovid Stav and Rabbanit Pnina Neuwirth), my responsibility is to talk about how North American, "Modern Orthodox" Jews feel about Israel's Chief Rabbinate.

In that first part, I talked about why North American Modern Orthodoxy loves the Chief Rabbinate – because of our love for its history, because of our hopefor a Judaism-guided administration in the State, and because of our desire for structure in our religious organizations.

At the same time, we are disappointed. Beyond the specific controversies, I see four reasons for our disappointment:

1. Reality
A real-world Chief Rabbinate, just like the rabbi in your shul, must choose between reasonable views and alienate those who adopt the opposing view. Sometimes the motivations are intellectual, sometimes subjective, sometimes political. And whereas one who is in a shul can argue with the rabbi, or daven at a different minyan, or leave the shul, we can't switch Israels.

2. Life in Galut
Modern Orthodox Jews living outside of Israel want to be ambassadors for Israel – and so headlines about conversion difficulties, or the troubles of the non-observant in navigating the Chief Rabbinate's bureaucracy, or acceptance of shackle-and-hoist schechitah, frustrate us. Further, for many Jews there is a concern for מה יאמרו הגויים, "What will the neighbors say".

3. Delegitimization
Modern Orthodoxy is very good about accepting those who are different – but when others come to discredit them in the name of Torah, whether from the Right or from the Left, they become quite hostile. This applies to the conversion crisis, but also to the discomfort some have over a lack of a Modern Orthodox presence in the Rabbinate and among its appointness.

4. Imposed authority
Although North American Modern Orthodoxy appreciates structure, they are heirs to the North American political tradtion and the concept of democracy over republic, the power of the individual over the presumed rightness of government. Witness, for example, the furor last year regarding the authority of Young Israel over its branches.

The result of this disappointment is alienation, and the opposite of the love that would otherwise thrive. Issues of Jewish identity, of beit din bureaucracy, of kashrut and heter mechirah and shechitah, become flashpoints. There is a definite need for a solution here.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Part I - Our love for the Chief Rabbinate of Israel

I've been recruited to speak in a panel discussion this coming Shabbos, on Rabbinic Jurisdiction in Israel. Since I'm the North American on the panel (beside Rav Dovid Stav and Rabbanit Pnina Neuwirth), my responsibility is to talk about how North American, "Modern Orthodox" Jews feel about Israel's Chief Rabbinate.

I think this should be more than a litany of the controversies involving that beleaguered institution. True, issues of Jewish identity [conversion, Russians, Ethiopians] are front and center in our minds. Other issues, like shackle-and-hoist shechitah, heter mechirah, problems facing people navigating the rabbinic bureaucracy and the corruption charges of several years ago are all major fault lines in our relationship with Israel's government-linked rabbinic leadership.

But, to my mind, in order to speak intelligently and appropriately (a modest goal) about these issues and the state of the relationship, we first need to understand why the North American, Modern Orthodox Jew is predisposed to love Israel's Chief Rabbinate. It's that love which makes the relationship so difficult; I believe we would not be half as exercised by our frustrations if we didn't long to embrace the Chief Rabbinate and call it our own.

I see three primary reasons for our affection:
1. History
The institution of the Chief Rabbinate reminds us of Rav Kook ודעימיה, religious leaders who promoted a serious, rigorous Torah observance while working hand-in-hand with secular Jews - a vision which mirrors idealized versions of our own communities, and for which we are nostalgic.

2. Concept
In theory, the Chief Rabbinate is a government-associated voice of religion, offering the possibility of a Judaism-guided administration in the State of Israel, while still allowing for the separation of church and state which appeals to North American Jews.

3. Practical
We want structure for our religious organizations, as seen in the creation of the OU and Young Israel synagogue movements. We resist imposed order – something I'll also discuss in the session – but we love order itself. Centralized authority offers that.

Then, we get into our disappointment in the institution, and what we might do about it...

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Dissed

[After a two-week hiatus, this week's Haveil Havalim is here]

Last week, I spent two days at YU in a conference for the future members of the YU Torah miTzion Kollelim in Chicago and Toronto, and at one point I had the opportunity to address a group of students from RIETS (the rabbinical school affiliated with YU). Knowing that I was following 5 or 6 significant speakers and this was only a brief lunch, I didn't want to speak for any length of time, but I did want to leave them with an impression of what they could accomplish, were they to join a program like ours in the future.

I thought of two stories, one positive and one somewhat negative. I went with the positive one, talking about how I initially entered YU's semichah (ordination) program only in order to have a program of structured Torah study while pursuing a Masters in Computer Science at NYU, and how I decided midway through to go into the rabbinate, and how this has allowed me to make a difference (I hope) for many people in various communities. Of course, I'll never know how I might have altered lives had I taken a different track – I likely would have finished WebShas by now! – but I'm satisfied with my decision.

Here's the negative one, that I didn't tell: After my junior year in high school, prior to shipping off to Kerem b'Yavneh in Israel, I spent a summer in a program of Torah study. I was still finding myself at the time. My hair style owed something to Buster Poindexter or Elvis. Pretty much every day that summer I wore a jeans jacket on which I had hand-painted a New York Rangers symbol. Clearly, I felt I had something to prove to someone.

As part of the program, younger and older students were paired to learn together in the afternoons. One of the rebbeim took me over to an older fellow one day during the first week, and asked him to pair up with me.

This guy had a reputation for bekius – for covering a lot of ground, very quickly, and having a great memory for it. I suspect we would have learned well together; I was always more into that kind of study (intimidated by the complexity of in-depth analysis, I think). I had completed mishnah a couple of years earlier, and thought of myself as somewhat capable. This fellow didn't agree, apparently. With me standing there, he looked at me, presumably taking in my hair and clothes, and laughed and declined.

Dissed. I was put out, to say the least. It soured me on the chavrusa I ended up having, and it contributed negatively to several decisions I made in the months and years that followed.

I actually know that person today. He's a senior figure in a leading yeshiva, quite respected for his learning, and we have occasional dealings. I've never gone back to him with the story, though; recalling it to him 20+ years later seems petty. But I haven't forgotten it, and the way I felt.

The moral of the story, to me, is more than just to be nice to people. It's to remember what that older fellow could have accomplished, had he said Yes, and what he instead accomplished by laughing and declining. I try to use this as positive motivation when offered the opportunity to learn with people, or to teach.

As I said, I went with the more positive story when I spoke to the group last week… but I think there is an equal amount to be learned from the latter one.