Tomorrow, I expect to complete my first “cycle” of teaching the Daf Yomi here in Allentown. I started teaching the second chapter of Kiddushin in the early summer of 2001, shortly after arriving here, and we are slated to begin that chapter again tomorrow.
I would not have expected it, but this is a very exciting moment for me.
It’s not the issue of completing another round of shas; I know quite well that there is no such thing, at least for a human intellect like mine, as completing shas. Besides, I have had substitutes for 100-150 of the daf along the way, so this can’t really count as a completion.
Part of it, I suppose, is that learning by teaching is so much deeper than learning personally. Certainly, I understand the gemara much better now, for having had to explain it.
And part of it is the simple fact that I showed up every day for so long, consecutively, to do this.
But what really moves me is the group, the Daffies, my guys. (And women, of course; we have a couple of women who attend daily as well. But they’re all “my guys” to me.) Learning Torah with anyone creates a unique link, learning Gemara moreso, and learning daily much more. (Frankly, this makes me somewhat uncomfortable with the co-ed aspect of it, but that’s a topic for another post.)
And through that link, I can see growth.
I always have mixed feelings about encouraging people to attend classes. In my student days, I learned much more through chavruta (partner) study than through shiurim (classes); I emerged from personal study with rich understanding, but I usually emerged from shiurim with a set of notes. So it’s hard for me to encourage people to come to classes; I tend to push private study more.
But Daf Yomi is different. Here, through the day after day after day, I actually see the change in people. I’m not talking about a change in religiosity, or a change in knowledge; I’m talking about a change in their approach to gemara, a maturity and sophistication so that when people say gemara or talmud, my Daffies comprehend what those words mean. It’s not about the words or the pages or the volumes, it’s about the system as a whole. My crew may not get every shiur, we may not understand every page, but we emerge with a greater respect for the analytic methods, for the commitment, for the expertise, of the sages who compiled the gemara.
And that’s what moves me, on the eve of completing the cycle and beginning again. It’s the knowledge that I am playing a role in helping Jews come to a real appreciation for this essential part of our heritage, this mass of knowledge and thought and hope and analysis which is lengthier than the land and broader than the sea.
Their appreciation for our heritage, their grasp of the spectrum of Jewish intellectual tradition, their comprehension of what it means to be heir to Judaism’s great repository of wisdom – this is their reward for participating in the Daf, and it is my reward as well.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Eric Holder for Attorney General: Good and Bad for the Jews?
Per CNN, Eric Holder is President-Elect Barack Obama’s choice for Attorney General.
My gut instinct is that this is, as they say, “bad for the Jews.” Not because of Holder, personally, but because his confirmation hearings are bound to include the infamous pardon of Marc Rich.
The Rich pardon is a perfect example of the tarring ethnicities undergo when one of their own is involved in wrongdoing. I can’t imagine that any responsible party in the Jewish community would have endorsed this pardon - a trader who cheated the financial system, then wrapped himself in the Israeli flag by getting himself an Israeli passport (along with a Spanish passport) in trying to avoid extradition. But when Bill Clinton pardoned him, it was viewed as an example of Jewish malfeasance and influence.
Holder, at the time, was the deputy attorney general, and through a series of events described well here by the Washington Post, he allowed Jack Quinn to push the pardon through. So we are pretty much guaranteed that anti-Obama Congressmen will bring up this pardon as a way to harrass Holder’s appointment. And we will have to endure Marc Rich/Jewish/Israel-oriented headlines.
But, on the other hand, Holder might have a positive impact in another case - the AIPAC trial. The accused AIPAC officials relayed - to the press, to other AIPAC officials and to an Israeli diplomat - information US government officials gave them (in a sting operation), regarding anti-Israel operations in Iraq. The AIPAC guys argue that they had thought they were permitted to speak of the information they had been given.
As noted a couple of days ago in The Forward, Holder is known to be strongly in favor of First Amendment liberties, including free speech. This may help the AIPAC defendants.
So I am split on what to expect with a Holder nomination, but, ultimately, all of this points to a more central point: Realistically, Jews must accept that our kin are so involved in so many ways in so many different parts of American society, that any nominee is going to raise similar issues. Whether it’s Pollard or Rich or AIPAC or Abramoff or Agriprocessors or any other Jew or Jewish institution involved with the wrong side of the law, the bottom line is that we are going to have to get used to headlines like those we’ll be seeing during Holder’s confirmation hearings.
Such is Jewish life in the USA. The only antidote of which I am aware is to make sure we have plenty of positive Jewish examples, so that whenever someone brings up a Marc Rich, we can respond with a kiddush HaShem (sanctification of Gd's Name), “That’s not a representative. Look, instead, at…,” citing numerous examples of ישראל אשר בך אתפאר, Jews of whom Gd can be proud, and we can be proud.
My gut instinct is that this is, as they say, “bad for the Jews.” Not because of Holder, personally, but because his confirmation hearings are bound to include the infamous pardon of Marc Rich.
The Rich pardon is a perfect example of the tarring ethnicities undergo when one of their own is involved in wrongdoing. I can’t imagine that any responsible party in the Jewish community would have endorsed this pardon - a trader who cheated the financial system, then wrapped himself in the Israeli flag by getting himself an Israeli passport (along with a Spanish passport) in trying to avoid extradition. But when Bill Clinton pardoned him, it was viewed as an example of Jewish malfeasance and influence.
Holder, at the time, was the deputy attorney general, and through a series of events described well here by the Washington Post, he allowed Jack Quinn to push the pardon through. So we are pretty much guaranteed that anti-Obama Congressmen will bring up this pardon as a way to harrass Holder’s appointment. And we will have to endure Marc Rich/Jewish/Israel-oriented headlines.
But, on the other hand, Holder might have a positive impact in another case - the AIPAC trial. The accused AIPAC officials relayed - to the press, to other AIPAC officials and to an Israeli diplomat - information US government officials gave them (in a sting operation), regarding anti-Israel operations in Iraq. The AIPAC guys argue that they had thought they were permitted to speak of the information they had been given.
As noted a couple of days ago in The Forward, Holder is known to be strongly in favor of First Amendment liberties, including free speech. This may help the AIPAC defendants.
So I am split on what to expect with a Holder nomination, but, ultimately, all of this points to a more central point: Realistically, Jews must accept that our kin are so involved in so many ways in so many different parts of American society, that any nominee is going to raise similar issues. Whether it’s Pollard or Rich or AIPAC or Abramoff or Agriprocessors or any other Jew or Jewish institution involved with the wrong side of the law, the bottom line is that we are going to have to get used to headlines like those we’ll be seeing during Holder’s confirmation hearings.
Such is Jewish life in the USA. The only antidote of which I am aware is to make sure we have plenty of positive Jewish examples, so that whenever someone brings up a Marc Rich, we can respond with a kiddush HaShem (sanctification of Gd's Name), “That’s not a representative. Look, instead, at…,” citing numerous examples of ישראל אשר בך אתפאר, Jews of whom Gd can be proud, and we can be proud.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Making decisions
I rarely, if ever, publish a very brief post, but I just saw this line and it hit me the right way:
The speaker:
Stanley Fischer, Governor of the Bank of Israel, at the end of a Jerusalem Post interview on "How is Israel coping with the global financial crisis?"
The statement:
One of the great things I have learned about life is that you don't have to make decisions before you have to make them.
I am forever committing myself to paths of action before I need to do so. Big issues, small issues, program planning, political issues, it's a conscious effort to get myself to slow down, to wait and see.
Fischer's statement isn't so much something new, as it is a great way to put it. Thank you, Stanley; that one goes on my desktop.
The speaker:
Stanley Fischer, Governor of the Bank of Israel, at the end of a Jerusalem Post interview on "How is Israel coping with the global financial crisis?"
The statement:
One of the great things I have learned about life is that you don't have to make decisions before you have to make them.
I am forever committing myself to paths of action before I need to do so. Big issues, small issues, program planning, political issues, it's a conscious effort to get myself to slow down, to wait and see.
Fischer's statement isn't so much something new, as it is a great way to put it. Thank you, Stanley; that one goes on my desktop.
Friday, November 14, 2008
It's what I do that defines me
[Haveil Havalim is here!]
From time to time I am called by a local hospital or hospice to meet with unaffiliated Jewish patients and their families, to help them through a tough time. It's never easy to enter into that sort of sort-of-counseling, sort-of-officiating relationship with people you've never met, but I generally come away feeling that I have accomplished something good.
But it doesn't always work out that way. I received such a call a few weeks ago for a local hospice, I visited, and came away cold. The patient was terminally unconscious, and in terms of the family I had no sense at the end that they wanted follow-up, or that they had felt anything at all from our interaction. They had said at the start, "We just want a rabbi to come recite a prayer," and, indeed, it seems that this was all they wanted.
I felt like I could have done more, made some connection, developed some tie with them. I felt like I had failed them (and of course myself), by not becoming more than just a functionary. Yes, I had tried, but effort isn't what counts; results are what count.
From the earliest ages, when we swing a bat and miss, when we scrawl our first letters and compare them to the teacher's perfect A and B, when we bring home our first report card with less than an A, we are taught this merciful refrain: "It's the effort that counts." "It's the thought that counts." "What matters is that you try."
This is fine pedagogic medicine if delivered in measured doses, and it certainly mirrors a Torah philosophy. The gemara delivers this lesson many times, in many different ways:
"HaShem considers positive intentions as though they had been converted to deeds."
"It's not up to you to complete the task, but you are not free to do nothing."
"Whether one does a lot or a little, it is all the same so long as he directs his heart Heavenward."
Nonetheless, for me, and, I think, for most human beings, this mantra is unsoothing, unsatisfying - and wrong. It's not the thought that counts, it's not the effort that counts, it's the result that counts.
Try telling an engineer whose bridge collapsed because of an unforeseeable flaw in the materials, "You did everything you could."
Try telling a rabbi whose words of Torah and humanity failed to inspire or comfort the relatives of a terminally ill person, "You did your best, and that's what matters."
Try telling a physician who just lost a patient, "It's the effort that counts."
And this is certainly true for those children who hear the mantra most often:
Try telling a 10-year-old boy who struck out with the bases loaded, "But you tried."
Try telling a teenage girl who is mocked for her weight, "You're doing the best you can."
It seems to me that the concept of valuing effort is not wrong, but it's inadequate for the human psyche. We don't take solace in trying, we take satisfaction from succeeding.
My rebbetzin (of course) has a good answer for my dissatisfaction: The effort counts, even without total achievement, because there generally is some achievement. Whether it's muscle development in athletics or learning 90% of the material for a test or making one friend instead of ten or prolonging a patient's life for one week instead of finding a cure, that achievement still matters.
Even if I really made no impact on that family I visited, I know I made an impact on myself. I took another step in the lifelong process of habituating myself to chesed, by getting out of my house in the middle of the night to go help someone. I took another step in that process by doing it for a stranger, and by overcoming the anxiety of meeting someone new, in this terrible context, for the sake of helping another human being. I did achieve, I did succeed, even if it wasn't in my ultimate goal.
Still, that's clearly a bedieved, an after-the-fact consolation prize. Ultimately, I don't just want to succeed at something, I want to succeed at my goal.
Or as Bruce said to Rachel: "It's not who I am underneath; it's what I do that defines me."
From time to time I am called by a local hospital or hospice to meet with unaffiliated Jewish patients and their families, to help them through a tough time. It's never easy to enter into that sort of sort-of-counseling, sort-of-officiating relationship with people you've never met, but I generally come away feeling that I have accomplished something good.
But it doesn't always work out that way. I received such a call a few weeks ago for a local hospice, I visited, and came away cold. The patient was terminally unconscious, and in terms of the family I had no sense at the end that they wanted follow-up, or that they had felt anything at all from our interaction. They had said at the start, "We just want a rabbi to come recite a prayer," and, indeed, it seems that this was all they wanted.
I felt like I could have done more, made some connection, developed some tie with them. I felt like I had failed them (and of course myself), by not becoming more than just a functionary. Yes, I had tried, but effort isn't what counts; results are what count.
From the earliest ages, when we swing a bat and miss, when we scrawl our first letters and compare them to the teacher's perfect A and B, when we bring home our first report card with less than an A, we are taught this merciful refrain: "It's the effort that counts." "It's the thought that counts." "What matters is that you try."
This is fine pedagogic medicine if delivered in measured doses, and it certainly mirrors a Torah philosophy. The gemara delivers this lesson many times, in many different ways:
"HaShem considers positive intentions as though they had been converted to deeds."
"It's not up to you to complete the task, but you are not free to do nothing."
"Whether one does a lot or a little, it is all the same so long as he directs his heart Heavenward."
Nonetheless, for me, and, I think, for most human beings, this mantra is unsoothing, unsatisfying - and wrong. It's not the thought that counts, it's not the effort that counts, it's the result that counts.
Try telling an engineer whose bridge collapsed because of an unforeseeable flaw in the materials, "You did everything you could."
Try telling a rabbi whose words of Torah and humanity failed to inspire or comfort the relatives of a terminally ill person, "You did your best, and that's what matters."
Try telling a physician who just lost a patient, "It's the effort that counts."
And this is certainly true for those children who hear the mantra most often:
Try telling a 10-year-old boy who struck out with the bases loaded, "But you tried."
Try telling a teenage girl who is mocked for her weight, "You're doing the best you can."
It seems to me that the concept of valuing effort is not wrong, but it's inadequate for the human psyche. We don't take solace in trying, we take satisfaction from succeeding.
My rebbetzin (of course) has a good answer for my dissatisfaction: The effort counts, even without total achievement, because there generally is some achievement. Whether it's muscle development in athletics or learning 90% of the material for a test or making one friend instead of ten or prolonging a patient's life for one week instead of finding a cure, that achievement still matters.
Even if I really made no impact on that family I visited, I know I made an impact on myself. I took another step in the lifelong process of habituating myself to chesed, by getting out of my house in the middle of the night to go help someone. I took another step in that process by doing it for a stranger, and by overcoming the anxiety of meeting someone new, in this terrible context, for the sake of helping another human being. I did achieve, I did succeed, even if it wasn't in my ultimate goal.
Still, that's clearly a bedieved, an after-the-fact consolation prize. Ultimately, I don't just want to succeed at something, I want to succeed at my goal.
Or as Bruce said to Rachel: "It's not who I am underneath; it's what I do that defines me."
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Evolution and the Moving Eye of the Flatfish
I am not a fan of the evolution/Creation debate. Aside from the frustrating fact that it never evolves beyond the same arguments, vitriol and narrow stereotyping, I am fundamentally embarrassed by some of the views espoused by the Creation side - and no argument is more embarrassing to me than the challenge, “That could not have evolved!”
This approach is as old as Darwin, and, indeed, he was stymied by a few cases from its class, such as, “The eye is so complex, it could not have evolved in successively functional steps.” It demands either a logical explanation for an evolutionary step, or, in the absence of such an explanation, it demands physical evidence that such an evolutionary step occurred.
But I don’t like or trust this approach.
One reason I don’t like this argument is that it rarely considers new evidence or arguments, relying instead on outdated literature. Every few years scientists discover another missing link, or develop another explanation for an unlikely evolutionary process, but the creationists never update their data to include, or refute, these findings. In response, evolutionists reject the creationist view as outdated – which, in this respect, it is.
A second reason I don’t like this argument is that it sets up an unfair logical playing field, demanding Reason from the evolutionist side but not from the creationist side. The evolutionist does not have a good theory and does not have all of the evidence to support his theory, and so the creationists are going to call him on his lack of evidence. But when the evolutionist calls the creationists on their own lack of evidence – ie where is Noah’s Ark? – then he is told to accept it on faith. If we can accept Creation on faith, the scientist must be able to accept a theory even in the absence of a complete constellation of evidence.
But the third and strongest reason I don’t like this approach is this: Evidence which is missing now may well be discovered later. Theories which are gapped today might be made whole with the passage of time. People who pin their hopes on today’s inadequate science are due for a surprise tomorrow.
Witness this ScienceDaily report from July (I meant to blog it ages ago, but never had the chance):
Flatfish Fossils Fill In Evolutionary Missing Link
Opponents of evolution have insisted that adult flatfishes, which have both eyes on one side of the head, could not have evolved gradually. A slightly asymmetrical skull offers no advantage. No such fish -- fossil or living -- had ever been discovered, until now.
All adult flatfishes--including the gastronomically familiar flounder, plaice, sole, turbot, and halibut--have asymmetrical skulls, with both eyes located on one side of the head. Because these fish lay on their sides at the ocean bottom, this arrangement enhances their vision, with both eyes constantly in play, peering up into the water…
But in the 10 July 2008 issue of Nature, Matt Friedman, graduate student in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago and a member of the Department of Geology at the Field Museum, draws attention to several examples of such transitional forms that he uncovered in museum collections of underwater fossilized creatures from the Eocene epoch--about 50 million years ago...
Friedman examined multiple adult fossil remains of two primitive flatfishes, Amphistium and a new genus that he named Heteronectes.
"Amphistium has been known for quite some time," he said. "The first specimen was described more than 200 years ago, but its placement in the fish evolutionary tree has been uncertain ever since. Close examination of these fossils yield clues that they are indeed early flatfishes."
The most primitive flatfishes known, both Amphistium and Heteronectes have many characteristics that are no longer found in modern flatfish. But the one that caught Friedman's attention was the partial displacement of one eye, evident even in the first Amphistium fossil discovered over two centuries ago.
"Most remarkably," he said, "orbital migration, the movement of one eye from one side of the skull to the other during the larval stage, was present but incomplete in both of these primitive flatfishes." For both sets of fossils, the eye had begun the journey but had not crossed the midline from one side of the fish to the other.
"What we found was an intermediate stage between living flatfishes and the arrangement found in other fishes," he said. These two fossil fishes "indicate that the evolution of the profound cranial asymmetry of extant flatfishes was gradual in nature."
I certainly believe that Gd created the universe, and I am no wiser than anyone else regarding the mechanism Gd used. But this I do know: Arguments predicated on " I found a gap in your theory" and "Where is your proof?" are doomed by the march of theoretical development and investigation.
This approach is as old as Darwin, and, indeed, he was stymied by a few cases from its class, such as, “The eye is so complex, it could not have evolved in successively functional steps.” It demands either a logical explanation for an evolutionary step, or, in the absence of such an explanation, it demands physical evidence that such an evolutionary step occurred.
But I don’t like or trust this approach.
One reason I don’t like this argument is that it rarely considers new evidence or arguments, relying instead on outdated literature. Every few years scientists discover another missing link, or develop another explanation for an unlikely evolutionary process, but the creationists never update their data to include, or refute, these findings. In response, evolutionists reject the creationist view as outdated – which, in this respect, it is.
A second reason I don’t like this argument is that it sets up an unfair logical playing field, demanding Reason from the evolutionist side but not from the creationist side. The evolutionist does not have a good theory and does not have all of the evidence to support his theory, and so the creationists are going to call him on his lack of evidence. But when the evolutionist calls the creationists on their own lack of evidence – ie where is Noah’s Ark? – then he is told to accept it on faith. If we can accept Creation on faith, the scientist must be able to accept a theory even in the absence of a complete constellation of evidence.
But the third and strongest reason I don’t like this approach is this: Evidence which is missing now may well be discovered later. Theories which are gapped today might be made whole with the passage of time. People who pin their hopes on today’s inadequate science are due for a surprise tomorrow.
Witness this ScienceDaily report from July (I meant to blog it ages ago, but never had the chance):
Flatfish Fossils Fill In Evolutionary Missing Link
Opponents of evolution have insisted that adult flatfishes, which have both eyes on one side of the head, could not have evolved gradually. A slightly asymmetrical skull offers no advantage. No such fish -- fossil or living -- had ever been discovered, until now.
All adult flatfishes--including the gastronomically familiar flounder, plaice, sole, turbot, and halibut--have asymmetrical skulls, with both eyes located on one side of the head. Because these fish lay on their sides at the ocean bottom, this arrangement enhances their vision, with both eyes constantly in play, peering up into the water…
But in the 10 July 2008 issue of Nature, Matt Friedman, graduate student in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago and a member of the Department of Geology at the Field Museum, draws attention to several examples of such transitional forms that he uncovered in museum collections of underwater fossilized creatures from the Eocene epoch--about 50 million years ago...
Friedman examined multiple adult fossil remains of two primitive flatfishes, Amphistium and a new genus that he named Heteronectes.
"Amphistium has been known for quite some time," he said. "The first specimen was described more than 200 years ago, but its placement in the fish evolutionary tree has been uncertain ever since. Close examination of these fossils yield clues that they are indeed early flatfishes."
The most primitive flatfishes known, both Amphistium and Heteronectes have many characteristics that are no longer found in modern flatfish. But the one that caught Friedman's attention was the partial displacement of one eye, evident even in the first Amphistium fossil discovered over two centuries ago.
"Most remarkably," he said, "orbital migration, the movement of one eye from one side of the skull to the other during the larval stage, was present but incomplete in both of these primitive flatfishes." For both sets of fossils, the eye had begun the journey but had not crossed the midline from one side of the fish to the other.
"What we found was an intermediate stage between living flatfishes and the arrangement found in other fishes," he said. These two fossil fishes "indicate that the evolution of the profound cranial asymmetry of extant flatfishes was gradual in nature."
I certainly believe that Gd created the universe, and I am no wiser than anyone else regarding the mechanism Gd used. But this I do know: Arguments predicated on " I found a gap in your theory" and "Where is your proof?" are doomed by the march of theoretical development and investigation.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Want help cheating on your taxes, Rabbi?
Abramoff, Agriprocessors, Boesky...
I join in the dismay and outrage and embarrassed על חטא- klopping every time a Jew is indicted for improper business practices and immoral activity. Yesterday I heard about another case, and again went through the recriminations.
That said, I must add two caveats from personal experience:
1) The rationalizations for financial impropriety are often very tempting, and
2) Rabbis are sometimes involved in it, without even knowing they are doing anything illicit.
One particular case, from my own experience, comes to mind:
A while back I officiated at a funeral for an unaffiliated family. They made all of their arrangements with a local funeral home, and the funeral director was to pay me for my services.
(Disclaimer: As a general rule I don’t charge for funerals, or other services; people want to do things right, they need a rabbi, so how could I make that difficult for them? Bar Mitzvah training, weddings, funerals, I decline payment. But if people offer payment anyway, then I accept it.)
So the funeral director came to write me a check. He pointed out that this check, in tandem with other checks he might write to me for other funerals during the year, could trigger a 1099 form, so that I would have to pay taxes. Being a nice guy, he asked if he could write the check to my Benevolent Fund, so that I could take the money through the Fund, and avoid having to pay taxes on it.
I’m no tax lawyer, but I believe there is a term for this sort of activity: It’s called money-laundering, sending money from A to B via a third party to avoid paying taxes on it. As I understand the law, it’s just as illegal as claiming a charitable deduction for paying yeshiva tuition.
The offer was tempting:
1) I shouldn’t really have a 1099, since I am not really a contractor of the funeral home. I’m the family’s contractor. The funeral home is only cutting the check because the family gave them the money as a third party. The problem is that the payment is on the funeral director's books, which triggers the 1099.
2) It’s not clear how to classify an honorarium given for funeral services, in the first place.
3) I already pay a ridiculous amount in taxes, because clergy have to pay self-employment tax.
4) I give a lot to help others, financially and otherwise (see a good Orthonomics post on this point, here).
5) And, as, the funeral director took pains to tell me: Everybody does it.
As I said above, the justifications and rationalizations for unethical activity are tempting... but I declined.
My point is not to say, "Torczyner is wonderful." I'm not wonderful; I'm just someone who was raised to be honest.
Rather, my points are these:
1) If we expect our community to act ethically, we - and especially rabbis - had better be ready to act ethically, ourselves; and
2) This applies even to the justifiable cases. In reality, all of them are "justifiable" cases, or at least look like it at the time.
False deductions, funnelling money through a Benevolent Fund, accepting payment in cash, hiring a nanny off the books, these are just as illegal as the crimes committed by Agriprocessors in the scandal du jour.
קשוט עצמך ואחר כך קשוט אחרים, the gemara says, with a sharp play on words: קישוטים are ornaments, but קושטא is truth. Ornament yourself before you ornament others, and make sure you are telling the truth before you insist that others do the same.
I join in the dismay and outrage and embarrassed על חטא- klopping every time a Jew is indicted for improper business practices and immoral activity. Yesterday I heard about another case, and again went through the recriminations.
That said, I must add two caveats from personal experience:
1) The rationalizations for financial impropriety are often very tempting, and
2) Rabbis are sometimes involved in it, without even knowing they are doing anything illicit.
One particular case, from my own experience, comes to mind:
A while back I officiated at a funeral for an unaffiliated family. They made all of their arrangements with a local funeral home, and the funeral director was to pay me for my services.
(Disclaimer: As a general rule I don’t charge for funerals, or other services; people want to do things right, they need a rabbi, so how could I make that difficult for them? Bar Mitzvah training, weddings, funerals, I decline payment. But if people offer payment anyway, then I accept it.)
So the funeral director came to write me a check. He pointed out that this check, in tandem with other checks he might write to me for other funerals during the year, could trigger a 1099 form, so that I would have to pay taxes. Being a nice guy, he asked if he could write the check to my Benevolent Fund, so that I could take the money through the Fund, and avoid having to pay taxes on it.
I’m no tax lawyer, but I believe there is a term for this sort of activity: It’s called money-laundering, sending money from A to B via a third party to avoid paying taxes on it. As I understand the law, it’s just as illegal as claiming a charitable deduction for paying yeshiva tuition.
The offer was tempting:
1) I shouldn’t really have a 1099, since I am not really a contractor of the funeral home. I’m the family’s contractor. The funeral home is only cutting the check because the family gave them the money as a third party. The problem is that the payment is on the funeral director's books, which triggers the 1099.
2) It’s not clear how to classify an honorarium given for funeral services, in the first place.
3) I already pay a ridiculous amount in taxes, because clergy have to pay self-employment tax.
4) I give a lot to help others, financially and otherwise (see a good Orthonomics post on this point, here).
5) And, as, the funeral director took pains to tell me: Everybody does it.
As I said above, the justifications and rationalizations for unethical activity are tempting... but I declined.
My point is not to say, "Torczyner is wonderful." I'm not wonderful; I'm just someone who was raised to be honest.
Rather, my points are these:
1) If we expect our community to act ethically, we - and especially rabbis - had better be ready to act ethically, ourselves; and
2) This applies even to the justifiable cases. In reality, all of them are "justifiable" cases, or at least look like it at the time.
False deductions, funnelling money through a Benevolent Fund, accepting payment in cash, hiring a nanny off the books, these are just as illegal as the crimes committed by Agriprocessors in the scandal du jour.
קשוט עצמך ואחר כך קשוט אחרים, the gemara says, with a sharp play on words: קישוטים are ornaments, but קושטא is truth. Ornament yourself before you ornament others, and make sure you are telling the truth before you insist that others do the same.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Veterans Day vs. Memorial Day
The US Department of Veterans Affairs website has this to say about the difference between Veterans Day and Memorial Day:
Many people confuse Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Memorial Day is a day for remembering and honoring military personnel who died in the service of their country, particularly those who died in battle or as a result of wounds sustained in battle. While those who died are also remembered on Veterans Day, Veterans Day is the day set aside to thank and honor ALL those who served honorably in the military - in wartime or peacetime. In fact, Veterans Day is largely intended to thank LIVING veterans for their service, to acknowledge that their contributions to our national security are appreciated, and to underscore the fact that all those who served - not only those who died - have sacrificed and done their duty.
I would add another way in which Veterans Day is not Memorial Day: Living Veterans continue to serve our country even after they retire from duty, bringing their attitude and experience of dedicated service into their communities, into their jobs, into their families. America becomes a stronger nation when a veteran serves in elected office, when a veteran runs a corporation, when a veteran raises children, with a model of dedicated service.
So in a sense, to me, Memorial Day is the American equivalent of Pesach, a day to remember America's nation-shaping history, while Veterans Day is the American equivalent of Shavuot, a day to mark that which shapes our nation every day.
More: Veterans serve not only actively, but also passively, providing a visual reminder of what it means to risk your own for the sake of others.
Seeing a Veteran license plate or bumper sticker on the road reminds me of what they have given me, and makes me more thoughtful. Seeing a veteran wearing a military cap or fatigues makes me contemplate what it has taken, and what it continues to take, to keep this country free. (Lest anyone make the Bushian error of thinking that democracy is man’s natural state, look at the number of wars fought - as well as avoided - in the 20th century alone for the survival of this system of government. Our veterans have played a major role in guaranteeing these freedoms for each generation.)
This is an international phenomenon. Off and on over the years, our shul has honored American veterans on the Shabbos before Veterans Day, and each time our Russian contingent has been sure to remind us of the Russian version of Veterans Day. Countries may have unique ideals, but we share an emphasis on sovereignty, and gratitude toward those who have guaranteed that sovereignty.
I don’t have any red poppies to wear, but in the spirit of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein’s gratitude toward the USA, I salute the men and women – living and deceased - who guaranteed, and who continue to guarantee, the continued sovereignty of the USA.
Many people confuse Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Memorial Day is a day for remembering and honoring military personnel who died in the service of their country, particularly those who died in battle or as a result of wounds sustained in battle. While those who died are also remembered on Veterans Day, Veterans Day is the day set aside to thank and honor ALL those who served honorably in the military - in wartime or peacetime. In fact, Veterans Day is largely intended to thank LIVING veterans for their service, to acknowledge that their contributions to our national security are appreciated, and to underscore the fact that all those who served - not only those who died - have sacrificed and done their duty.
I would add another way in which Veterans Day is not Memorial Day: Living Veterans continue to serve our country even after they retire from duty, bringing their attitude and experience of dedicated service into their communities, into their jobs, into their families. America becomes a stronger nation when a veteran serves in elected office, when a veteran runs a corporation, when a veteran raises children, with a model of dedicated service.
So in a sense, to me, Memorial Day is the American equivalent of Pesach, a day to remember America's nation-shaping history, while Veterans Day is the American equivalent of Shavuot, a day to mark that which shapes our nation every day.
More: Veterans serve not only actively, but also passively, providing a visual reminder of what it means to risk your own for the sake of others.
Seeing a Veteran license plate or bumper sticker on the road reminds me of what they have given me, and makes me more thoughtful. Seeing a veteran wearing a military cap or fatigues makes me contemplate what it has taken, and what it continues to take, to keep this country free. (Lest anyone make the Bushian error of thinking that democracy is man’s natural state, look at the number of wars fought - as well as avoided - in the 20th century alone for the survival of this system of government. Our veterans have played a major role in guaranteeing these freedoms for each generation.)
This is an international phenomenon. Off and on over the years, our shul has honored American veterans on the Shabbos before Veterans Day, and each time our Russian contingent has been sure to remind us of the Russian version of Veterans Day. Countries may have unique ideals, but we share an emphasis on sovereignty, and gratitude toward those who have guaranteed that sovereignty.
I don’t have any red poppies to wear, but in the spirit of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein’s gratitude toward the USA, I salute the men and women – living and deceased - who guaranteed, and who continue to guarantee, the continued sovereignty of the USA.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Must boys be boys?
[Haveil Havalim is here!]
I have no illusions about my childhood; I did my share of the taunting and fistfights and vandalism that go with growing up as a boy. Some tell me I was “well-behaved,” but I still remember, with no small degree of nostalgia, the types of escapades which make people say, “Boys will be boys.”
I see this “Boys will be boys” phenomenon in kids all the time, in shul:
*We had a Regional Shabbaton for Eastern Seaboard NCSY in our shul this past Shabbos, and it came as no surprise that among the dozens of kids, despite good supervision, some managed to find their way into trouble.
*A couple of years ago we had a Bnei Akiva Simchaton at shul, and experienced similar things.
*Every few weeks, a pre-teen finds some way to damage something in shul on Shabbos.
The sages were aware of this adolescent and pre-adolescent propensity for destruction and disinclination for rebuke. As Daf Yomi participants recently learned (Kiddushin 30a), parents can successfully rebuke their kids only between the ages of 16 and 22, or, per another reading, 18 and 24. Why not earlier? As Rashi explains it, kids who are younger than that do not have the דעת, the intellectual maturity, to absorb and apply rebuke.
So I understand and accept what’s normal for boys – but I would still like to find a way around it, in raising our beloved sons. If there were only some way to get them to pay attention, to think before they break fragile items, to be considerate and not trip people, to avoid putting things down drains just to see what will happen… not just sometimes, but most of the time.
I know this is an impossible dream. And I’m not foolish to imagine that anyone else’s boys are perfect. And I’m happy that my kids have so much energy, because that same energy will serve them well, Gd-willing, when they finally reach an age at which they can harness it.
But surely there must be a way to tame them… a little bit?
Currently, I try to:
*provide outlets for their energy, and
*model good behavior for them – to let them see self-control, to walk through my own challenges with them and demonstrate how I handle them, and
*show them respect, so that they will respect themselves and so that they will want to live up to that respect.
None of these are bad approaches, but I would love to hear from others. What do you do, besides damage control? Must boys be boys?
[Daughters are a topic for another time; I have absolutely no clue what to do with them…]
I have no illusions about my childhood; I did my share of the taunting and fistfights and vandalism that go with growing up as a boy. Some tell me I was “well-behaved,” but I still remember, with no small degree of nostalgia, the types of escapades which make people say, “Boys will be boys.”
I see this “Boys will be boys” phenomenon in kids all the time, in shul:
*We had a Regional Shabbaton for Eastern Seaboard NCSY in our shul this past Shabbos, and it came as no surprise that among the dozens of kids, despite good supervision, some managed to find their way into trouble.
*A couple of years ago we had a Bnei Akiva Simchaton at shul, and experienced similar things.
*Every few weeks, a pre-teen finds some way to damage something in shul on Shabbos.
The sages were aware of this adolescent and pre-adolescent propensity for destruction and disinclination for rebuke. As Daf Yomi participants recently learned (Kiddushin 30a), parents can successfully rebuke their kids only between the ages of 16 and 22, or, per another reading, 18 and 24. Why not earlier? As Rashi explains it, kids who are younger than that do not have the דעת, the intellectual maturity, to absorb and apply rebuke.
So I understand and accept what’s normal for boys – but I would still like to find a way around it, in raising our beloved sons. If there were only some way to get them to pay attention, to think before they break fragile items, to be considerate and not trip people, to avoid putting things down drains just to see what will happen… not just sometimes, but most of the time.
I know this is an impossible dream. And I’m not foolish to imagine that anyone else’s boys are perfect. And I’m happy that my kids have so much energy, because that same energy will serve them well, Gd-willing, when they finally reach an age at which they can harness it.
But surely there must be a way to tame them… a little bit?
Currently, I try to:
*provide outlets for their energy, and
*model good behavior for them – to let them see self-control, to walk through my own challenges with them and demonstrate how I handle them, and
*show them respect, so that they will respect themselves and so that they will want to live up to that respect.
None of these are bad approaches, but I would love to hear from others. What do you do, besides damage control? Must boys be boys?
[Daughters are a topic for another time; I have absolutely no clue what to do with them…]
Friday, November 7, 2008
Liveblogging the JFLV Mission to Israel, Day 4
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
The Hanging Tree - a Mission thought
THURSDAY
On Thursday morning, five of us went to the Kotel to daven vatikin - attending a minyan which synchronizes its prayer such that Shema is recited just before sunrise, and the Amidah with sunrise.
I first did this on a Federation mission six or seven years ago, when a rabbi from Minneapolis organized a bus to the kotel for such a minyan. It was an experience I hope to retain always. The weather was not great, so all of the minyanim were in the indoor alcove, crammed together among breakfast-noshers and tzedakah collectors, chaos and cacophony reigning as the multitude of minyanim prayed simultaneously but at different paces, Jews of all kinds together - and all of the sounds and noises converged slowly as we neared sunrise, so that Shema was recited aloud in near-unison, and then Tzur Yisrael was overwhelmingly loud - and then there was utter silence as sunrise hit and we began the amidah. I can't begin to describe in words just how stirring that silence was.
After that, I did it again a few times, but not in the past 3-4 years. This time the experience was rather different, and not as powerful. Part of it is that we had fine weather, so we were outdoors and more spread out and echo-less. Part of it is that a minyan right behind me was out of sync, taking their time, so that they broke the silence of the amidah with their own Shema. Still, thank Gd, it was good.
The morning's program was a tour of Ir David (City of David), Chizkiyah's tunnel, the Davidson Center and the southern wall of Har haBayit (the Temple Mount), but before all of that we heard from Rabbi Michael Melchior, MK and Cabinet Minister. He spoke about trying to bring religious and secular Israelis together in tolerance, and he was generally eloquent.
I was very much in agreement with his remarks until someone asked him about the "ultra-Orthodox" who "don't share his vision." Then he went off in a diatribe against those nasty ultra-Orthodox Jews who wield their power and threaten not to recognize his conversions, and how he had personally outfoxed them on a bill to help agunot. I was disgusted by his portrayal of his adversaries as greedy, power-hungry people who would trample women for the sake of their own hold on power. Maybe it was just because he had been battling them on this bill, or maybe I'm naive and his portrayal is correct, but I just don't believe in vilifying the opposition.
In the afternoon we visited Yad vaShem's newer section. I was surprised to find that a cousin of mine was our guide! She was fantastic, and the tour was most moving. I actually had not wanted to go; I know what this sort of thing does to me. But I had to go, as community rabbi, so I did.
Then, after we returned to our hotel, I grabbed an eish tanur shawarma at my favorite Yerushalayim restaurant, Maoz, and headed for the airport. The rest of the tour group is still there, remaining into this week (and some beyond), with chesed projects and more touring.
There was much more on this trip, but hopefully this digest will provide a sense of what it was like. Perhaps it will influence others to go, whether on Federation mission trips or on their own.
The bottom line:
*Federation trips are packed with activities.
*The speakers and programs represent a spectrum of left and right and a chance to hear some great presentations.
*The activities mix chesed projects, touring and free time.
*This is an opportunity for spiritual growth as well as activism and community.
*I didn't talk about this much, but the food is great!
טובה הארץ מאד מאד ("The land is very, very good" - Bamidbar 14:7), but the trip was way too short. Oh, well... next time.
Part 2
Part 3
The Hanging Tree - a Mission thought
THURSDAY
On Thursday morning, five of us went to the Kotel to daven vatikin - attending a minyan which synchronizes its prayer such that Shema is recited just before sunrise, and the Amidah with sunrise.
I first did this on a Federation mission six or seven years ago, when a rabbi from Minneapolis organized a bus to the kotel for such a minyan. It was an experience I hope to retain always. The weather was not great, so all of the minyanim were in the indoor alcove, crammed together among breakfast-noshers and tzedakah collectors, chaos and cacophony reigning as the multitude of minyanim prayed simultaneously but at different paces, Jews of all kinds together - and all of the sounds and noises converged slowly as we neared sunrise, so that Shema was recited aloud in near-unison, and then Tzur Yisrael was overwhelmingly loud - and then there was utter silence as sunrise hit and we began the amidah. I can't begin to describe in words just how stirring that silence was.
After that, I did it again a few times, but not in the past 3-4 years. This time the experience was rather different, and not as powerful. Part of it is that we had fine weather, so we were outdoors and more spread out and echo-less. Part of it is that a minyan right behind me was out of sync, taking their time, so that they broke the silence of the amidah with their own Shema. Still, thank Gd, it was good.
The morning's program was a tour of Ir David (City of David), Chizkiyah's tunnel, the Davidson Center and the southern wall of Har haBayit (the Temple Mount), but before all of that we heard from Rabbi Michael Melchior, MK and Cabinet Minister. He spoke about trying to bring religious and secular Israelis together in tolerance, and he was generally eloquent.
I was very much in agreement with his remarks until someone asked him about the "ultra-Orthodox" who "don't share his vision." Then he went off in a diatribe against those nasty ultra-Orthodox Jews who wield their power and threaten not to recognize his conversions, and how he had personally outfoxed them on a bill to help agunot. I was disgusted by his portrayal of his adversaries as greedy, power-hungry people who would trample women for the sake of their own hold on power. Maybe it was just because he had been battling them on this bill, or maybe I'm naive and his portrayal is correct, but I just don't believe in vilifying the opposition.
In the afternoon we visited Yad vaShem's newer section. I was surprised to find that a cousin of mine was our guide! She was fantastic, and the tour was most moving. I actually had not wanted to go; I know what this sort of thing does to me. But I had to go, as community rabbi, so I did.
Then, after we returned to our hotel, I grabbed an eish tanur shawarma at my favorite Yerushalayim restaurant, Maoz, and headed for the airport. The rest of the tour group is still there, remaining into this week (and some beyond), with chesed projects and more touring.
There was much more on this trip, but hopefully this digest will provide a sense of what it was like. Perhaps it will influence others to go, whether on Federation mission trips or on their own.
The bottom line:
*Federation trips are packed with activities.
*The speakers and programs represent a spectrum of left and right and a chance to hear some great presentations.
*The activities mix chesed projects, touring and free time.
*This is an opportunity for spiritual growth as well as activism and community.
*I didn't talk about this much, but the food is great!
טובה הארץ מאד מאד ("The land is very, very good" - Bamidbar 14:7), but the trip was way too short. Oh, well... next time.
The Jew and the Hanging Tree
On Monday, the first day of our UJC/Federation trip to Israel, we were given free time to walk around the Tel Aviv/Yafo area. My roommate led a group of us in a walk along the water. As part of his knowledgeable tour of the area, he took us to see “the hanging tree.”
As you can see in the picture at the start of this post (credit: found it here), a large container of soil hangs, suspended, in the middle of a courtyard, and a large tree grows out of that container. Walking down an alley and suddenly encountering this large, floating refugee from a JNF forest, is a surreal experience.
I also saw the tree on a previous trip, but – like any good work of art – it hit me differently, and more powerfully, the second time. I have spent a lot of time thinking about it over the past few days, and about why it so moved me now.
The tree seemed lonely to me, hauntingly isolated not only from other trees, but also from the nourishing and secure soil which is its right, by dint of its very identity. A tree out of soil, a fish out of water... a Jew out of his homeland.
Rootbound in its cramped container, suspended between heaven and earth, lacking the security and comfort and nourishment of soil, that tree nonetheless continues its existence daily, gives shade, provides a resting place for a passing dove. This is the life it knows.
But what if its life were different? What if there were other hanging trees in the courtyard, sharing suspended soil with our lonely tree? What if she knew the company of others of her kind, likewise bereft of space for their roots, secure footing for their trunks?
And so the hanging tree became, for me, in the course of visits to Beit haTefutsot and Beit Guvrin, the Palmach and Yad VaShem, in the course of listening to Aluf Benn and Rabbi Melchior, in the course of praying by a roadside in Yoav and by the Wall at sunrise, a central theme of my experience on this trip.
I am very much a hanging tree, doing my best to thrive even though my roots are cut off from the land which should be theirs. So are all of us in the Diaspora, hanging trees whether we know it or not, whether we feel it or not. And, yes, even in Israel the Jew is a hanging tree, suspended in that courtyard, at home geographically but still seeking meaning, seeking needs both physical and spiritual, seeking the company of others. Rabbi Soloveitchik wrote of “The LonelyMan of Faith,” seeking Gd in the universe – but we also seek each other.
We are all hanging trees – but when we join together as our group did in this trip, to feed the hungry, to offer succor to people living under threat of rockets, to honor the memory of those who have passed and to encourage those who are building the future, then our hanging trees become a hanging forest, planted in common soil.
May we plant many more trees, hanging and otherwise, in the future.
Liveblogging the JFLV Mission to Israel, Day 2-3
Click here for Part I, here for Part II.
TUESDAY, continued
We resume our story with a trip to Beit haTefutsot, aka The Diaspora Museum.
I love the idea of this museum: To memorialize Jewish existence in communities outside Israel, since all of us will eventually move to Israel and those communities will disappear. My only problem is that while the communities are, indeed, losing their relevance, it's not really happening because we are making aliyah. The communities are, by and large, disappearing into the landscape.
Unfortunately, the exhibits clearly have not been updated in a while. In particular, their once-vaunted genealogy/community database is now far outstripped by Internet resources, and should either be converted into an Internet search tool or seriously mega-updated.
Then we went to the Palmach Museum, which I thought was absolutely wonderful. With its personal story and its way of incorporating the visitor into the exhibit, this creative presentation draws you into the Palmach experience of defending Jewish lives in Israel in the 1940's, before and during the formation of the State.
Here I began to think about the glaring need to draw religious and secular Israeli society together. Does the haredi in Geulah know the story of the Palmach fighter – not in a vague historical sense, but in a personal and emotional sense? Does the grandson of the Palmach fighter know the story of a Bnei Braker – again, not in a distant sense but in a direct and emotional way? What if every resident of Meah Shearim would be paired with a kibbutznik for a week, for them to really sit and talk, but also to live life together, to see the passions and emotions of the other?
Yes, I know, I'm naïve regarding the effect this would have, but I still dream.
WEDNESDAY
For Shacharit this morning we tried another shul, a small Sephardic shtiebel close to the hotel (21 Gruzenberg).
I am already a closet Sephardi; Sephardic davening and minhag pull at me, not just because they are different from my lifelong norm but because of the authenticity of their roots and the sincerity of so many of their adherents. My Cordovero blood rebels against my Torczyner Ashkenazus. This morning was no exception; I drew a lot from the experience.
Also: Today, (or really with Maariv last night), Israelis began saying v'ten tal umatar, davening for rain. Per the Mishneh Berurah's counsel, I didn't recite it, but that was really uncomfortable. How could you be in Israel at this time of year and not daven for rain?!
Our travel day began with a trip to Sderot and two nearby kibbutzim, Ruhama and Sa'ad, the latter a religious kibbutz. The disclaimer UJC insisted on giving us beforehand, regarding potential harm, reminded me of my first year in Kerem b'Yavneh. It was the year of the Gulf War, when many chutznik parents asked (or insisted) that their children come before the war. In KBY, very few of us left. My family came to Israel to be with me. To alter the Disengagement mantra, יהודי לא בורח מיהודי, a Jew does not flee from another Jew.
Turns out that forty kassams were launched at the region that morning, and they hit Ashkelon while we were in the Sderot area, but we were fine, thank Gd.
Credit is due to UJC for not skirting the problem of the Disengagement. Twice today, in Sderot and then in a program I'll describe in a few minutes, we came face-to-face with its failure.
We met with kids, saw the bomb shelters and schools, and had discussions with school personnel. My favorite part: When the principal was surprised to hear there are still Orthodox communities in America. He won my heart with that line; forget Zichron Yaakov, Kibbutz Sa'ad is for me.
In the afternoon we traveled to a few different programs in the Yoav region, our community's UJC Partnership 2000 partner area. I was approached by a man whose brother is a developer in moshavim; he wanted to know if I and a few others from the Lehigh Valley might be interested in starting a moshav for ourselves.
We also saw a play put on by families evicted in the Disengagement, and had a chance for Q&A with one of the evacuees. We talked about what the evicted families were doing now, and how people deal with the depression. I asked about political preference in the current Israeli elections, but didn't get a clear answer. As I said earlier: I'm glad the mission dealt with the Disengagement issue head-on, and didn't try to skirt it.
One post left to go - Day 4, Thursday.
TUESDAY, continued
We resume our story with a trip to Beit haTefutsot, aka The Diaspora Museum.
I love the idea of this museum: To memorialize Jewish existence in communities outside Israel, since all of us will eventually move to Israel and those communities will disappear. My only problem is that while the communities are, indeed, losing their relevance, it's not really happening because we are making aliyah. The communities are, by and large, disappearing into the landscape.
Unfortunately, the exhibits clearly have not been updated in a while. In particular, their once-vaunted genealogy/community database is now far outstripped by Internet resources, and should either be converted into an Internet search tool or seriously mega-updated.
Then we went to the Palmach Museum, which I thought was absolutely wonderful. With its personal story and its way of incorporating the visitor into the exhibit, this creative presentation draws you into the Palmach experience of defending Jewish lives in Israel in the 1940's, before and during the formation of the State.
Here I began to think about the glaring need to draw religious and secular Israeli society together. Does the haredi in Geulah know the story of the Palmach fighter – not in a vague historical sense, but in a personal and emotional sense? Does the grandson of the Palmach fighter know the story of a Bnei Braker – again, not in a distant sense but in a direct and emotional way? What if every resident of Meah Shearim would be paired with a kibbutznik for a week, for them to really sit and talk, but also to live life together, to see the passions and emotions of the other?
Yes, I know, I'm naïve regarding the effect this would have, but I still dream.
WEDNESDAY
For Shacharit this morning we tried another shul, a small Sephardic shtiebel close to the hotel (21 Gruzenberg).
I am already a closet Sephardi; Sephardic davening and minhag pull at me, not just because they are different from my lifelong norm but because of the authenticity of their roots and the sincerity of so many of their adherents. My Cordovero blood rebels against my Torczyner Ashkenazus. This morning was no exception; I drew a lot from the experience.
Also: Today, (or really with Maariv last night), Israelis began saying v'ten tal umatar, davening for rain. Per the Mishneh Berurah's counsel, I didn't recite it, but that was really uncomfortable. How could you be in Israel at this time of year and not daven for rain?!
Our travel day began with a trip to Sderot and two nearby kibbutzim, Ruhama and Sa'ad, the latter a religious kibbutz. The disclaimer UJC insisted on giving us beforehand, regarding potential harm, reminded me of my first year in Kerem b'Yavneh. It was the year of the Gulf War, when many chutznik parents asked (or insisted) that their children come before the war. In KBY, very few of us left. My family came to Israel to be with me. To alter the Disengagement mantra, יהודי לא בורח מיהודי, a Jew does not flee from another Jew.
Turns out that forty kassams were launched at the region that morning, and they hit Ashkelon while we were in the Sderot area, but we were fine, thank Gd.
Credit is due to UJC for not skirting the problem of the Disengagement. Twice today, in Sderot and then in a program I'll describe in a few minutes, we came face-to-face with its failure.
We met with kids, saw the bomb shelters and schools, and had discussions with school personnel. My favorite part: When the principal was surprised to hear there are still Orthodox communities in America. He won my heart with that line; forget Zichron Yaakov, Kibbutz Sa'ad is for me.
In the afternoon we traveled to a few different programs in the Yoav region, our community's UJC Partnership 2000 partner area. I was approached by a man whose brother is a developer in moshavim; he wanted to know if I and a few others from the Lehigh Valley might be interested in starting a moshav for ourselves.
We also saw a play put on by families evicted in the Disengagement, and had a chance for Q&A with one of the evacuees. We talked about what the evicted families were doing now, and how people deal with the depression. I asked about political preference in the current Israeli elections, but didn't get a clear answer. As I said earlier: I'm glad the mission dealt with the Disengagement issue head-on, and didn't try to skirt it.
One post left to go - Day 4, Thursday.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Liveblogging the JFLV Mission to Israel, Day 1-2
(see Part I here)
MONDAY, CONTINUED
On Monday evening I walked with a few friends north along the beach promenade into Yafo (Jaffa). We peeked into a couple of interesting stores and took a gander at a suspended tree, heard chazaras hashatz for minchah from a small shul, and returned to the hotel. We saw the end of sunset over the water; it was beautiful. I never get to see sunset, since minchah/maariv is always at the same time; it was a beautiful sight. (I had davened minchah earlier, and I davened maariv later.)
Seeing the Mediterranean is a special thrill for me. I grew up and attended elementary school right by the Atlantic, and I really miss the ocean in Allentown, but beyond that it's the Mediterranean – so crucial to Torah, so essential to our history. And I was able to make the berachah, Asher asah es haYam haGadol. It was very moving.
While we're on the nature topic – the flowers here are also striking. My favorite is bougainvillea, for both beauty and nostalgia. Yeshivat Kerem b'Yavneh, where I studied for two years after high school, has huge, beautiful bougainvillea. And our guide, Rachela, taught me something: What we usually think of as the bougainvillea flower is actually a leaf!
Dinner was at Le Relais Jaffa, and was excellent. I think there must be a rule about every mission having a meal in a tent; I'm pretty sure each mission I've attended has eaten at least one meal that way.
TUESDAY
GoDaven.com is a great resource; courtesy of that site and mapa.co.il, a couple of us went to shacharis at a Belz beis medrash (study hall) a little over a mile (1.8 km) from the hotel. People talk about the secular character of Tel Aviv, but we walked along R' Yitzchak Elchanan and R' Shmuel Mohliver, past R' Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer, and along R' Shafar and R' Mazeh.
The graffiti was disturbing, particularly the fact that so much of it was in English. Our guide says it doesn't bother her, which I find interesting.
I love Birchas Kohanim, always feeling great kavvanah (focus), and this morning was no exception; it was wonderful.
We did debunk one myth: I had always heard that the Belzer chassidim daven shmoneh esreih (the amidah) quickly to avoid losing kavvanah, but this was not true of the chassidim with whom we davened. It wasn't very long, but it sure wasn't rapid-fire.
We then went to Beit ZOA to hear Aluf Benn. I was disappointed that I didn't get a chance to look around, since my Cousin Jacques (about whom I posted last week) was president and my grandfather Moses Torczyner was very involved – but Aluf Benn was fantastic.
It is cliche but true that many UJC speakers tend toward the dovish, and it is certainly true that Benn, as editor of HaAretz, is to the left, but his presentation was balanced, and, more to the point, fantastic – a shrewd analysis of the American and Israeli elections and likely results and impacts for the Middle East. It was extremely lucid and appealing for neophytes as well as knowledgeable people, and he balanced it with views both left and right without discernible bias. I had a chance to ask him a couple of questions re: Gilad Shalit (Benn does not see him being freed soon, because of the extreme demands Hamas is making for his release), and re: any long-term fallout from the Acco riots (Benn doesn't see that happening).
We then went to Kikar Rabin. Today is the 13th anniversary of his assassination by Yigal Amir, adding to the relevance of the visit. I was no fan of Rabin before November 1995, but I vividly recall that night, when I was driving back from my leining job in Massapequa, and I turned on the radio and heard about the assassination. I remember crying in shock, and fearing the split I was certain this would create among Jews in Israel and everywhere.
In ensuing days the shock grew as I found out that it was Yigal Amir, whom I knew in Kerem b'Yavneh, and next to whom I sat for a time in Rav Silver's shiur. He was just a normal, quiet guy in yeshiva. He participated in the Purim shpiel the year after my Shanah Bet year, acting as a marathoner who took a short cut across a field and sank in the mud. He was a normal guy, and the yeshiva was certainly no hotbed of political activity; like anything that would take away from learning, politics were never on the agenda. But he read stuff or heard stuff, and decided to take matters into his own hands.
Thirteen years later, in my view, history shows that Rabin's Oslo accords were indeed wrong, that Israel has no sincere partner for peace, that concessions like those of Oslo only embolden our enemies. Witness the results of Disengagement. But to murder Rabin...
This afternoon was Bet heTefutzot, which I love for the concept of it, and the Palmach Museum, which was incredible. More on this later... we're doing Daf again soon.
MONDAY, CONTINUED
On Monday evening I walked with a few friends north along the beach promenade into Yafo (Jaffa). We peeked into a couple of interesting stores and took a gander at a suspended tree, heard chazaras hashatz for minchah from a small shul, and returned to the hotel. We saw the end of sunset over the water; it was beautiful. I never get to see sunset, since minchah/maariv is always at the same time; it was a beautiful sight. (I had davened minchah earlier, and I davened maariv later.)
Seeing the Mediterranean is a special thrill for me. I grew up and attended elementary school right by the Atlantic, and I really miss the ocean in Allentown, but beyond that it's the Mediterranean – so crucial to Torah, so essential to our history. And I was able to make the berachah, Asher asah es haYam haGadol. It was very moving.
While we're on the nature topic – the flowers here are also striking. My favorite is bougainvillea, for both beauty and nostalgia. Yeshivat Kerem b'Yavneh, where I studied for two years after high school, has huge, beautiful bougainvillea. And our guide, Rachela, taught me something: What we usually think of as the bougainvillea flower is actually a leaf!
Dinner was at Le Relais Jaffa, and was excellent. I think there must be a rule about every mission having a meal in a tent; I'm pretty sure each mission I've attended has eaten at least one meal that way.
TUESDAY
GoDaven.com is a great resource; courtesy of that site and mapa.co.il, a couple of us went to shacharis at a Belz beis medrash (study hall) a little over a mile (1.8 km) from the hotel. People talk about the secular character of Tel Aviv, but we walked along R' Yitzchak Elchanan and R' Shmuel Mohliver, past R' Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer, and along R' Shafar and R' Mazeh.
The graffiti was disturbing, particularly the fact that so much of it was in English. Our guide says it doesn't bother her, which I find interesting.
I love Birchas Kohanim, always feeling great kavvanah (focus), and this morning was no exception; it was wonderful.
We did debunk one myth: I had always heard that the Belzer chassidim daven shmoneh esreih (the amidah) quickly to avoid losing kavvanah, but this was not true of the chassidim with whom we davened. It wasn't very long, but it sure wasn't rapid-fire.
We then went to Beit ZOA to hear Aluf Benn. I was disappointed that I didn't get a chance to look around, since my Cousin Jacques (about whom I posted last week) was president and my grandfather Moses Torczyner was very involved – but Aluf Benn was fantastic.
It is cliche but true that many UJC speakers tend toward the dovish, and it is certainly true that Benn, as editor of HaAretz, is to the left, but his presentation was balanced, and, more to the point, fantastic – a shrewd analysis of the American and Israeli elections and likely results and impacts for the Middle East. It was extremely lucid and appealing for neophytes as well as knowledgeable people, and he balanced it with views both left and right without discernible bias. I had a chance to ask him a couple of questions re: Gilad Shalit (Benn does not see him being freed soon, because of the extreme demands Hamas is making for his release), and re: any long-term fallout from the Acco riots (Benn doesn't see that happening).
We then went to Kikar Rabin. Today is the 13th anniversary of his assassination by Yigal Amir, adding to the relevance of the visit. I was no fan of Rabin before November 1995, but I vividly recall that night, when I was driving back from my leining job in Massapequa, and I turned on the radio and heard about the assassination. I remember crying in shock, and fearing the split I was certain this would create among Jews in Israel and everywhere.
In ensuing days the shock grew as I found out that it was Yigal Amir, whom I knew in Kerem b'Yavneh, and next to whom I sat for a time in Rav Silver's shiur. He was just a normal, quiet guy in yeshiva. He participated in the Purim shpiel the year after my Shanah Bet year, acting as a marathoner who took a short cut across a field and sank in the mud. He was a normal guy, and the yeshiva was certainly no hotbed of political activity; like anything that would take away from learning, politics were never on the agenda. But he read stuff or heard stuff, and decided to take matters into his own hands.
Thirteen years later, in my view, history shows that Rabin's Oslo accords were indeed wrong, that Israel has no sincere partner for peace, that concessions like those of Oslo only embolden our enemies. Witness the results of Disengagement. But to murder Rabin...
This afternoon was Bet heTefutzot, which I love for the concept of it, and the Palmach Museum, which was incredible. More on this later... we're doing Daf again soon.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Liveblogging the JFLV Mission to Israel, Day 1
A lot of my readers have never been on a UJC/Federation mission to Israel, and (based on email I have received) there are a lot of misconceptions out there about what happens on these trips, so I'll be blogging the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley's mission to Israel. There are 96 of us going - quite a strong number, thank Gd, given that the Valley boasts all of 8000 Jews.
Day 1 of our trip was an exhausting whirlwind, bringing back memories of mission trips past (I single out Jerry Roth, my former mission roommate, of blessed memory) and creating new ones as well.
We succeeded in having two Daf Yomi sessions on Sunday, one at the gate and the other in the air. The gemara was not easy; it jumped from topics of slavery to korbanot to tumah to tort law. Nonetheless, we held on tight and enjoyed the ride. It's amazing that the Amoraim (sages of the gemara) had all of these sources at their fingertips, without resorting to a CD-ROM.
No sleep on the plane, regrettably. I did manage to catch two movies I enjoyed, though: I, Robot and 21. Unfortunately I also tried Daredevil; I would have been better off playing Tac Tac Toe. What a bad film that was.
My seatmate was a good sport, putting up with sitting next to a rabbi; there are lots of people on the mission who are more fun than I am (yes, it's true), but she didn't abandon me for the glamour and fun.
I chose to daven shacharis at my seat (sans tallis/tefillin), rather than look for a minyan. I just don't think that harassing the flight crew is worth holding a kavvanah-less, buffeted-about minyan next to the bathrooms. I found a chance to put on tallis and tefillin and say shema in the airport while waiting for the luggage, so all was good. At least here everyone in the airport knows what you're doing, and you don't draw stares for this odd use of leather...
I've been asked repeatedly why I am returning to America before Shabbos, while the mission continues until mid-week next week; the answer is that I am not going to leave Caren with our four potential hooligans for an entire Shabbos. Then the follow-up question comes: Why go on the trip at all, just to be in Israel for four days?
There are several reasons:
1)I'm homesick for Israel.
2)I've reserved and canceled trips twice since my last mission (Dec 2003), and I'm tired of canceling.
3)These mission trips area always wonderful, showing me sights I have not seen before; I return to the States truly recharged.
4) I feel like I may be able to add something to others' experience.
5)I can't stomach counseling others to go, if I won't go myself. Someone did comment to me that it's wrong for clergy to have to pay for these trips, but to me, if you aren't willing to reach into your wallet yourself, you can't really ask others to do it.
And now it's Monday, but I still consider it Day 1, since we have not reached a hotel yet, and I haven't showered, changed or slept yet.
From the airport we went straight to Neot Kedumim, a project restoring a large chunk of parkland with plants from the Torah. Our guide was great, hitting many high points in a very short period of time. One striking sight: A cedar planted just feet (okay, meters) away from a date palm. This is botanically unusual, since palms thrive in hot climates and cedars are native to colder climates – but they put the two together to fulfill the biblical passage regarding righteous people, that they should flower like the date palm and flourish like a cedar in Lebanon.
I've been sending Neot Kedumim small checks for years in response to their mailings; it was good to finally see it in person.
On our way to the next stop we passed by Zichron Yaakov, a place I've long wanted to live. Manyu years ago, before children, I had a pipe dream of buying land in Zichron as a first step toward aliyah.
Our next stop was to pick eggplant for MiShulchan l'Shulchan, From Table to Table. Among their other activities, they get volunteers to harvest fields which are not worth the farmers' while. We picked the eggplants for an hour or so, getting muddy and burry but – speaking for myself – feeling good about the endeavor. (I did hesitate because one may not mass-pick vegetables that grow during shemitah, even after shemitah – but without sefarim around, I concluded that because the owner had rendered them hefker, and we were picking them for aniyyim, and because for all I know the eggplant had grown after shemitah, and because this was for tzedakah, I could comfortably rely on heter mechirah.)
I think I'll cut this one off here; I'm typing on the way from Table to Table to Tel Aviv, and I hope to post it before minchah. Time to start up another Daf session, anyway.
This is my third JFLV mission. Each of my previous two has had a flavor of its own; the first felt like a first-time adventure even though I had lived in Israel for two years, and the second was more like a reunion, with many previous missionites (I can't say missionaries) returning. I wonder what this one will feel like, when it's complete.
Day 1 of our trip was an exhausting whirlwind, bringing back memories of mission trips past (I single out Jerry Roth, my former mission roommate, of blessed memory) and creating new ones as well.
We succeeded in having two Daf Yomi sessions on Sunday, one at the gate and the other in the air. The gemara was not easy; it jumped from topics of slavery to korbanot to tumah to tort law. Nonetheless, we held on tight and enjoyed the ride. It's amazing that the Amoraim (sages of the gemara) had all of these sources at their fingertips, without resorting to a CD-ROM.
No sleep on the plane, regrettably. I did manage to catch two movies I enjoyed, though: I, Robot and 21. Unfortunately I also tried Daredevil; I would have been better off playing Tac Tac Toe. What a bad film that was.
My seatmate was a good sport, putting up with sitting next to a rabbi; there are lots of people on the mission who are more fun than I am (yes, it's true), but she didn't abandon me for the glamour and fun.
I chose to daven shacharis at my seat (sans tallis/tefillin), rather than look for a minyan. I just don't think that harassing the flight crew is worth holding a kavvanah-less, buffeted-about minyan next to the bathrooms. I found a chance to put on tallis and tefillin and say shema in the airport while waiting for the luggage, so all was good. At least here everyone in the airport knows what you're doing, and you don't draw stares for this odd use of leather...
I've been asked repeatedly why I am returning to America before Shabbos, while the mission continues until mid-week next week; the answer is that I am not going to leave Caren with our four potential hooligans for an entire Shabbos. Then the follow-up question comes: Why go on the trip at all, just to be in Israel for four days?
There are several reasons:
1)I'm homesick for Israel.
2)I've reserved and canceled trips twice since my last mission (Dec 2003), and I'm tired of canceling.
3)These mission trips area always wonderful, showing me sights I have not seen before; I return to the States truly recharged.
4) I feel like I may be able to add something to others' experience.
5)I can't stomach counseling others to go, if I won't go myself. Someone did comment to me that it's wrong for clergy to have to pay for these trips, but to me, if you aren't willing to reach into your wallet yourself, you can't really ask others to do it.
And now it's Monday, but I still consider it Day 1, since we have not reached a hotel yet, and I haven't showered, changed or slept yet.
From the airport we went straight to Neot Kedumim, a project restoring a large chunk of parkland with plants from the Torah. Our guide was great, hitting many high points in a very short period of time. One striking sight: A cedar planted just feet (okay, meters) away from a date palm. This is botanically unusual, since palms thrive in hot climates and cedars are native to colder climates – but they put the two together to fulfill the biblical passage regarding righteous people, that they should flower like the date palm and flourish like a cedar in Lebanon.
I've been sending Neot Kedumim small checks for years in response to their mailings; it was good to finally see it in person.
On our way to the next stop we passed by Zichron Yaakov, a place I've long wanted to live. Manyu years ago, before children, I had a pipe dream of buying land in Zichron as a first step toward aliyah.
Our next stop was to pick eggplant for MiShulchan l'Shulchan, From Table to Table. Among their other activities, they get volunteers to harvest fields which are not worth the farmers' while. We picked the eggplants for an hour or so, getting muddy and burry but – speaking for myself – feeling good about the endeavor. (I did hesitate because one may not mass-pick vegetables that grow during shemitah, even after shemitah – but without sefarim around, I concluded that because the owner had rendered them hefker, and we were picking them for aniyyim, and because for all I know the eggplant had grown after shemitah, and because this was for tzedakah, I could comfortably rely on heter mechirah.)
I think I'll cut this one off here; I'm typing on the way from Table to Table to Tel Aviv, and I hope to post it before minchah. Time to start up another Daf session, anyway.
This is my third JFLV mission. Each of my previous two has had a flavor of its own; the first felt like a first-time adventure even though I had lived in Israel for two years, and the second was more like a reunion, with many previous missionites (I can't say missionaries) returning. I wonder what this one will feel like, when it's complete.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Alphabets, Politics, Dating, and Jewish Pedagogy: When the Medium is also a Message
[This week's Haveil Havalim is out here! And a very good edition it is.]
Lois McMaster Bujold, in her Miles Vorkosigan books, tells a story of rebels attempting to smuggle support to their mountain resistance. Their oppressors check every horse entering the mountains, but find neither weapons nor supplies. Only in the end, when the resistance is successful, do they realize that the horses were not carrying weapons - the horses were the weapons.
That story came to mind as I prepared for a class I gave this past Shabbos, on the evolution of the Hebrew alphabet - because, as I saw in my research, sometimes the Medium is also the Message.
A bit of background: Every November we cover a monthlong theme through classes, events and displays in shul. We started this practice several years ago with “17th century Jewry” in honor of the 350th anniversary of Jewish life in North America, and then we followed up with Sephardic Jewry, Chassidus and Israel at 60. This year we are looking at The Jewish Book, so my classes this month focus on different aspects of Jewish printing. Our centerpiece scholar-in-residence will be Professor David Stern of University of Pennsylvania, and he’ll talk about the printed machzor, chumash and gemara. But back to our topic:
This Shabbos, I taught a class on "Who Invented Rashi Script?" The answer, it seems clear to me, is that Rashi never used Rashi Script. Rashi may well have used one of the semi-cursive hands which were popular in his day, but Rashi Script does not turn up until the 13th century. Also, I am convinced by Herbert C. Zafren's contention ("Early Yiddish Typography," in Jewish Book Annual, Vol. 44, 1986-1987/5747) that Rashi script most closely mirrors a Sephardic semi-cursive which was current in the Middle Ages - but which Rashi, as a German-trained French scholar, would not have seen.
Rather, Rashi script was used by printers when they first produced chumashim with Rashi's commentary. They used this font, I believe, for two reasons: First, they wanted to distinguish between the text and the commentary, for religious reasons. Second, once they were choosing an alternative font they chose this Sephardic-based font because it's smaller than block print, allowing them to fit in more text in a smaller space (see Meir Benayahu's הסכמה ורשות בדפוס ויניציאה pg. 258).
The idea of distinguishing between text and commentary is particularly important, and is the way in which the medium is the message. The Rambam wrote (teshuvah 268) that one may not use Ktav Ashurit, the Assyrian alphabet which we consider traditional Hebrew script, for normal correspondence and mundane matters. Granted that Tashbetz (teshuvah 1:5) disagreed, many halachic authorities followed the view of the Rambam; it's even cited in the Rama (Yoreh Deah 284:2). Therefore, we can tell, by looking at which script is used, just how sacred the content is. (And so there is a very interesting halachic discussion on whether one should, or should not, use Ktav Ashurit for a Get.)
There is much more to say on this, but it was a 45-minute class and this is a blog post. So to return to the main idea, that the medium is, sometimes, also the message:
We see this in politics. When a politician has a Facebook page, the news is not what's on the page; the news is that he has one at all. Or when a politician sends a surrogate to speak before an audience, he tries to use a surrogate with whom the audience can identify, based on religion or skin color or career or geography. It doesn't matter what the surrogate says, since it'll only be a re-hash of material available elsewhere, but the message is that people like You (the audience) support this candidate.
We see it in dating, too: The way you dress, the car you drive, even the stationery on which you send a note (for those who still use pen and paper), these are the medium, but they are also the message. My Rebbetzin baked me chocolate chip cookies for our first date, because I had mentioned it was my birthday. The cookies were great, but the fact that she took the time to do it was the real message.
And, of course, since I am a rabbi and a Jewish father: In Jewish pedagogy, the medium is very often the message. The way we dress for shul (and when we show up!), the way we stand or sit while davening, it's all medium, but it's all message.
I can see it in the way my children daven with me; they are very attuned to these signals of medium. If they see me looking out of the siddur as I say the words, they don't take that tefilah seriously. If they hear me use a serious tone or cadence when saying another part of davening, they take it more seriously.
The kids actually pick up more cues about what I'm doing than I do, and all without consciously trying to do so. Maybe it's because they have heard the message so often that it's no longer compelling for them - but the medium may offer something new or varied each time.
Lois McMaster Bujold, in her Miles Vorkosigan books, tells a story of rebels attempting to smuggle support to their mountain resistance. Their oppressors check every horse entering the mountains, but find neither weapons nor supplies. Only in the end, when the resistance is successful, do they realize that the horses were not carrying weapons - the horses were the weapons.
That story came to mind as I prepared for a class I gave this past Shabbos, on the evolution of the Hebrew alphabet - because, as I saw in my research, sometimes the Medium is also the Message.
A bit of background: Every November we cover a monthlong theme through classes, events and displays in shul. We started this practice several years ago with “17th century Jewry” in honor of the 350th anniversary of Jewish life in North America, and then we followed up with Sephardic Jewry, Chassidus and Israel at 60. This year we are looking at The Jewish Book, so my classes this month focus on different aspects of Jewish printing. Our centerpiece scholar-in-residence will be Professor David Stern of University of Pennsylvania, and he’ll talk about the printed machzor, chumash and gemara. But back to our topic:
This Shabbos, I taught a class on "Who Invented Rashi Script?" The answer, it seems clear to me, is that Rashi never used Rashi Script. Rashi may well have used one of the semi-cursive hands which were popular in his day, but Rashi Script does not turn up until the 13th century. Also, I am convinced by Herbert C. Zafren's contention ("Early Yiddish Typography," in Jewish Book Annual, Vol. 44, 1986-1987/5747) that Rashi script most closely mirrors a Sephardic semi-cursive which was current in the Middle Ages - but which Rashi, as a German-trained French scholar, would not have seen.
Rather, Rashi script was used by printers when they first produced chumashim with Rashi's commentary. They used this font, I believe, for two reasons: First, they wanted to distinguish between the text and the commentary, for religious reasons. Second, once they were choosing an alternative font they chose this Sephardic-based font because it's smaller than block print, allowing them to fit in more text in a smaller space (see Meir Benayahu's הסכמה ורשות בדפוס ויניציאה pg. 258).
The idea of distinguishing between text and commentary is particularly important, and is the way in which the medium is the message. The Rambam wrote (teshuvah 268) that one may not use Ktav Ashurit, the Assyrian alphabet which we consider traditional Hebrew script, for normal correspondence and mundane matters. Granted that Tashbetz (teshuvah 1:5) disagreed, many halachic authorities followed the view of the Rambam; it's even cited in the Rama (Yoreh Deah 284:2). Therefore, we can tell, by looking at which script is used, just how sacred the content is. (And so there is a very interesting halachic discussion on whether one should, or should not, use Ktav Ashurit for a Get.)
There is much more to say on this, but it was a 45-minute class and this is a blog post. So to return to the main idea, that the medium is, sometimes, also the message:
We see this in politics. When a politician has a Facebook page, the news is not what's on the page; the news is that he has one at all. Or when a politician sends a surrogate to speak before an audience, he tries to use a surrogate with whom the audience can identify, based on religion or skin color or career or geography. It doesn't matter what the surrogate says, since it'll only be a re-hash of material available elsewhere, but the message is that people like You (the audience) support this candidate.
We see it in dating, too: The way you dress, the car you drive, even the stationery on which you send a note (for those who still use pen and paper), these are the medium, but they are also the message. My Rebbetzin baked me chocolate chip cookies for our first date, because I had mentioned it was my birthday. The cookies were great, but the fact that she took the time to do it was the real message.
And, of course, since I am a rabbi and a Jewish father: In Jewish pedagogy, the medium is very often the message. The way we dress for shul (and when we show up!), the way we stand or sit while davening, it's all medium, but it's all message.
I can see it in the way my children daven with me; they are very attuned to these signals of medium. If they see me looking out of the siddur as I say the words, they don't take that tefilah seriously. If they hear me use a serious tone or cadence when saying another part of davening, they take it more seriously.
The kids actually pick up more cues about what I'm doing than I do, and all without consciously trying to do so. Maybe it's because they have heard the message so often that it's no longer compelling for them - but the medium may offer something new or varied each time.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
And leave the house of your father...
My closest relatives - parents, siblings, grandmother - live at least 90 minutes from our family. My wife’s family is even more distant. This is not a new state of affairs for us; our first shul was in Rhode Island, at a time when our closest relatives lived no further north than Manhattan.
To be honest, while we’ve always felt ourselves at a disadvantage - missing family events, not developing the close relationships we want, our children not knowing their aunts and uncles and cousins well - I never really felt like I was losing out on something huge. Part of that is my natural self-centeredness, and part is simply that I didn’t know what I was missing.
So when I have read the beginning of Lech Lecha over the years, and I’ve seen HaShem tell Avraham, “Leave your land, the place of your birth, the house of your father,” I have understood alienation from the comfort and familiarity of a homeland, and from the nostalgia and natural fit of a birthplace, but I never really understood the gravity of the “house of your father” piece of Avraham’s challenge. It always seemed more or less like and add-on to the other, more serious elements of estrangement.
Today, though, I learned more about what it means to “leave your father’s home.”
Through an unlikely chain of events, I was at a conference in midtown Manhattan on the same day that my cousins Jacques and Berthe Torczyner were visiting my parents, also in midtown Manhattan.
I had rarely (never?) met my illustrious nonagenarian cousin Jacques, about whom I once blogged here, or his wife Berthe. I had heard a ton about them, people asked me, "Are you related to Jacques" all the time, and I wanted very much to see them, but because they live out in California and I never get out there, and because they don’t travel much anymore, we had not met in person, or at least not in my adult life.
So when I heard that Jacques was in New York, I immediately left my conference and walked across town to meet him. I walked 25 minutes each way and we only had 15 minutes together, but Wow, that was great.
Of course, in one way it was great because of who Jacques and Berthe are, of the life they have led. For those who were too lazy to click on the link above, here’s a brief digest of some of the items on my cousin Jacques’ resume: Holocaust survivor, leader in the World Zionist Organization, president of the Zionist Organization of America, major activist in the Republican party, head of the North American delegation to the critical World Zionist Congress in December 1946, associate of David Ben-Gurion and Teddy Kollek, activist in preparing for the UN vote on Israel’s independence. And this is not even close to a complete list.
But, more than that, today I met two members of my family, two people who knew the paternal grandparents I was too young to know, two members of the chain of people whose existence encompasses my own. Seeing them gave me an expanded sense of belonging.
Now I have a better understanding of what Avraham did with his Lech Lecha march. Yes, leaving the familiarity of his land and his birthplace must have been difficult, but leaving that circle of people among whom he belonged was a challenge in itself.
And one last note: My favorite part about meeting Jacques and Berthe? When Jacques told me he reads my blog!
To be honest, while we’ve always felt ourselves at a disadvantage - missing family events, not developing the close relationships we want, our children not knowing their aunts and uncles and cousins well - I never really felt like I was losing out on something huge. Part of that is my natural self-centeredness, and part is simply that I didn’t know what I was missing.
So when I have read the beginning of Lech Lecha over the years, and I’ve seen HaShem tell Avraham, “Leave your land, the place of your birth, the house of your father,” I have understood alienation from the comfort and familiarity of a homeland, and from the nostalgia and natural fit of a birthplace, but I never really understood the gravity of the “house of your father” piece of Avraham’s challenge. It always seemed more or less like and add-on to the other, more serious elements of estrangement.
Today, though, I learned more about what it means to “leave your father’s home.”
Through an unlikely chain of events, I was at a conference in midtown Manhattan on the same day that my cousins Jacques and Berthe Torczyner were visiting my parents, also in midtown Manhattan.
I had rarely (never?) met my illustrious nonagenarian cousin Jacques, about whom I once blogged here, or his wife Berthe. I had heard a ton about them, people asked me, "Are you related to Jacques" all the time, and I wanted very much to see them, but because they live out in California and I never get out there, and because they don’t travel much anymore, we had not met in person, or at least not in my adult life.
So when I heard that Jacques was in New York, I immediately left my conference and walked across town to meet him. I walked 25 minutes each way and we only had 15 minutes together, but Wow, that was great.
Of course, in one way it was great because of who Jacques and Berthe are, of the life they have led. For those who were too lazy to click on the link above, here’s a brief digest of some of the items on my cousin Jacques’ resume: Holocaust survivor, leader in the World Zionist Organization, president of the Zionist Organization of America, major activist in the Republican party, head of the North American delegation to the critical World Zionist Congress in December 1946, associate of David Ben-Gurion and Teddy Kollek, activist in preparing for the UN vote on Israel’s independence. And this is not even close to a complete list.
But, more than that, today I met two members of my family, two people who knew the paternal grandparents I was too young to know, two members of the chain of people whose existence encompasses my own. Seeing them gave me an expanded sense of belonging.
Now I have a better understanding of what Avraham did with his Lech Lecha march. Yes, leaving the familiarity of his land and his birthplace must have been difficult, but leaving that circle of people among whom he belonged was a challenge in itself.
And one last note: My favorite part about meeting Jacques and Berthe? When Jacques told me he reads my blog!
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…
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Israel, Canaan, Palestine, Eretz Yisroel: The Power of Nomenclature [and Noah-menclature]
[A great new edition of Haveil Havalim is out here.]
A few years back I noticed that Israel’s Dalton Winery was producing a line of wines called Canaan. It rubbed me entirely wrong; aren’t we supposed to be getting away from the whole Canaan thing? Isn’t there a biblical instruction about not emulating the ways of Canaan?
(Of course, the Canaan name might be a tip of the hat to the rabbinic teaching that Canaan was the one who discovered his drunken grandfather Noah (Genesis 9) - but, really, how much better would that be?)
At this time of year I feel the same discomfort as I speak about the parshiyyot in which Avraham and Sarah, and then their descendants, are introduced to the land that would, eventually, become known as Eretz Yisrael. Technically, I should describe our ancestors as arriving in Canaan, as moving around Canaan, as living in Canaan - in fact, as being Canaanites. But the word carries such baggage that I am uncomfortable with it, and so I say absurdly illogical things like, “HaShem appeared to Avraham and told him to travel west, into Israel.”
In truth, I do the same thing in using, or not using, the historic name Palestine. Yes, I know, there’s never been an Arab state called Palestine, there’s never been a Palestinian government, et cetera - but much of the land known today as Israel was identified as Palestine two thousand years ago. When we talk about the “Jerusalem Talmud,” we really mean “Palestinian Talmud” - it was not written in Jerusalem, at all, and it was written in a land whose governors called it Palestine. Many of our Tannaim were Palestinian. But, outside of academic circles, I feel funny using those terms - so that when we read the mishnaic descriptions of the boundaries of Eretz Yisrael, I translate the land's name anachronistically as “Israel” instead of calling it by the correct secular name of that day, “Palestine.”
And lest one think this substitution of “Israel” for “Palestine/Canaan” is solely the province of Zionists who wish to manufacture historic credentials for a modern state, let’s remember that anti-Zionists as well as anti-government Zionists do the same in reverse, invoking “Eretz Yisroel” today rather than use the word “Israel” when referring to the medinah.
Bottom line: We play games of nomenclature in order to bring our speech in line with our political and religious views. I think we do it both in order to clarify to our listeners what we believe, and in order to make ourselves more comfortable with the words emerging from our mouths.
To return to the winery, though, “Canaan” might not be the most offensive name out there for an Israeli vineyard; there is a Noah winery as well. The Noah name offers a redeeming feature, though: They could have a great ad campaign, in the wake of the collapse of the world’s financial markets. “Want to forget the world’s just been destroyed, get falling-down drunk and curse your grandchildren? Then have we got the wine for you!”
A few years back I noticed that Israel’s Dalton Winery was producing a line of wines called Canaan. It rubbed me entirely wrong; aren’t we supposed to be getting away from the whole Canaan thing? Isn’t there a biblical instruction about not emulating the ways of Canaan?
(Of course, the Canaan name might be a tip of the hat to the rabbinic teaching that Canaan was the one who discovered his drunken grandfather Noah (Genesis 9) - but, really, how much better would that be?)
At this time of year I feel the same discomfort as I speak about the parshiyyot in which Avraham and Sarah, and then their descendants, are introduced to the land that would, eventually, become known as Eretz Yisrael. Technically, I should describe our ancestors as arriving in Canaan, as moving around Canaan, as living in Canaan - in fact, as being Canaanites. But the word carries such baggage that I am uncomfortable with it, and so I say absurdly illogical things like, “HaShem appeared to Avraham and told him to travel west, into Israel.”
In truth, I do the same thing in using, or not using, the historic name Palestine. Yes, I know, there’s never been an Arab state called Palestine, there’s never been a Palestinian government, et cetera - but much of the land known today as Israel was identified as Palestine two thousand years ago. When we talk about the “Jerusalem Talmud,” we really mean “Palestinian Talmud” - it was not written in Jerusalem, at all, and it was written in a land whose governors called it Palestine. Many of our Tannaim were Palestinian. But, outside of academic circles, I feel funny using those terms - so that when we read the mishnaic descriptions of the boundaries of Eretz Yisrael, I translate the land's name anachronistically as “Israel” instead of calling it by the correct secular name of that day, “Palestine.”
And lest one think this substitution of “Israel” for “Palestine/Canaan” is solely the province of Zionists who wish to manufacture historic credentials for a modern state, let’s remember that anti-Zionists as well as anti-government Zionists do the same in reverse, invoking “Eretz Yisroel” today rather than use the word “Israel” when referring to the medinah.
Bottom line: We play games of nomenclature in order to bring our speech in line with our political and religious views. I think we do it both in order to clarify to our listeners what we believe, and in order to make ourselves more comfortable with the words emerging from our mouths.
To return to the winery, though, “Canaan” might not be the most offensive name out there for an Israeli vineyard; there is a Noah winery as well. The Noah name offers a redeeming feature, though: They could have a great ad campaign, in the wake of the collapse of the world’s financial markets. “Want to forget the world’s just been destroyed, get falling-down drunk and curse your grandchildren? Then have we got the wine for you!”
Saturday, October 25, 2008
I voted!
There are a dozen or more things I should be doing tonight, including-
Preparing Tuesday morning’s “Practical Ethics” shiur;
Preparing Tuesday night’s in-depth Gemara shiur;
Answering a batch of emails;
Preparing for my trip to Israel next week;
And so on.
But I'm dealing with a bad cold, it rained here all day (sorry to anyone who expected to see the third game of the World Series earlier tonight, but we got soaked today), and I haven’t taken any post-Simchas Torah break, so it's hard getting in gear.
On the up-side: I voted tonight. I expect to be in Israel on Election Day, so I filled out an Absentee Ballot.
I enjoy voting, as a way to express citizenship. I don't recognize several candidates on the local ballot, and I have no clue what an Auditor General does, but I felt, for the most part, like an informed American doing his civic duty. Rav Moshe Feinstein’s famous 1984 endorsement of voting stands out in my mind:
On reaching the shores of the United States, Jews found a safe haven. The rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights have allowed us the freedom to practice our religion without interference and to live in this republic in safety.
A fundamental principle of Judaism is hakaras hatov -- recognizing benefits afforded us and giving expression to our appreciation. Therefore, it is incumbent upon each Jewish citizen to participate in the democratic system which safeguards the freedoms we enjoy. The most fundamental responsibility incumbent on each individual is to register and to vote.
Therefore, I urge all members of the Jewish community to fulfill their obligations by registering as soon as possible, and by voting. By this, we can express our appreciation and contribute to the continued security of our community.
Voting is usually pretty easy for me, because our shul is a polling place; I just walk upstairs from my office when the turnout gets light, and it takes only a minute. This year it’ll cost me a Forever Stamp, but that’s okay. Like I said, civic duty.
Best part: I’ll finally be able to tell all of those callers, “I voted already.” Maybe that’ll get them to stop calling.
Or not.
I’ll admit I was confused about one thing, though: I didn’t see Sarah Palin’s name (or Tina Fey’s name, for that matter) anywhere on the ballot.
So I wrote her in for Auditor General.
Preparing Tuesday morning’s “Practical Ethics” shiur;
Preparing Tuesday night’s in-depth Gemara shiur;
Answering a batch of emails;
Preparing for my trip to Israel next week;
And so on.
But I'm dealing with a bad cold, it rained here all day (sorry to anyone who expected to see the third game of the World Series earlier tonight, but we got soaked today), and I haven’t taken any post-Simchas Torah break, so it's hard getting in gear.
On the up-side: I voted tonight. I expect to be in Israel on Election Day, so I filled out an Absentee Ballot.
I enjoy voting, as a way to express citizenship. I don't recognize several candidates on the local ballot, and I have no clue what an Auditor General does, but I felt, for the most part, like an informed American doing his civic duty. Rav Moshe Feinstein’s famous 1984 endorsement of voting stands out in my mind:
On reaching the shores of the United States, Jews found a safe haven. The rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights have allowed us the freedom to practice our religion without interference and to live in this republic in safety.
A fundamental principle of Judaism is hakaras hatov -- recognizing benefits afforded us and giving expression to our appreciation. Therefore, it is incumbent upon each Jewish citizen to participate in the democratic system which safeguards the freedoms we enjoy. The most fundamental responsibility incumbent on each individual is to register and to vote.
Therefore, I urge all members of the Jewish community to fulfill their obligations by registering as soon as possible, and by voting. By this, we can express our appreciation and contribute to the continued security of our community.
Voting is usually pretty easy for me, because our shul is a polling place; I just walk upstairs from my office when the turnout gets light, and it takes only a minute. This year it’ll cost me a Forever Stamp, but that’s okay. Like I said, civic duty.
Best part: I’ll finally be able to tell all of those callers, “I voted already.” Maybe that’ll get them to stop calling.
Or not.
I’ll admit I was confused about one thing, though: I didn’t see Sarah Palin’s name (or Tina Fey’s name, for that matter) anywhere on the ballot.
So I wrote her in for Auditor General.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Rabbinic Silly Season is upon us
The Silly Season is busting out all over.
On the Republican side we have that mailing I received the other day about Same Sex Marriage, Child Sacrifice, Islamic Terrorism and Barack Obama.
Today, on the other hand, I saw a lawn sporting a doctored campaign sign promoting McCain-Stalin. This clever (not!) bit of sloganeering was a perfect illustration of the MoveOn.org principle: Many of us are instinctively liberal, but we are so annoyed by Democrats that we are forced to vote against them.
I wonder if the sign’s owner could even tell me what country Stalin ruled, let alone how many millions of people he killed.
It’s Silly Season in the Jerusalem Post, too, with this report that “Ahmedinejad’s health is deteriorating.” This example of Yellower-than-Yellow Journalism cites the robust evidence of Ahmedinejad missing a couple of meetings. There isn't even a hint of undercover, Mossad-based reports. I guess they figure that general journalistic credibility is shot anyway, so why not say stupid things in order to grab headlines, on the 1-in-1000000 chance their words might turn out to accidentally intersect with the truth?
And it’s Silly Season in the rabbinate: The post-Succot time of year when, toastedly burnt out from going full-steam for two months, and with no break in sight, we see sense in weird ideas and normally-unthinkable plans, just because we’ve lost our reality anchor.
At this time of year the current system of running a shul and community seems tired and balky and inefficient. Who wants to buckle into that old way of doing things? Better to try something new and shiny and different, even if it is also wildly illogical. Even after eleven years in the rabbinate, I can feel my sensibility-gyroscope spinning askew after Succos.
So at this time of year it makes sense to go to the shul board and talk about ditching the membership and dues systems, and going to a “pay what you like” system.
So at this time of year it makes sense to merge with three other shuls to form a large, a la carte, 24-hour Synaplex.
So at this time of year it makes sense to overhaul the Shabbos morning davening, converting it to a beginner’s service and eliminating the derashah (speech) in favor of a discussion.
So at this time of year it makes sense to entertain the idea of going entirely Green, getting rid of all disposables, using e-paper for our mailings, installing solar panels on our roof and wind turbines in our parking lot, recycling kitchen water…
I’ve barely started listing all of the ideas that have passed through my head in the past week.
While I was getting my post-Yom Tov haircut today, a guy about my age came into the barber shop, dressing like I used to dress way back when. Jeans, denim jacket, backward cap on his head. No beard (but a nifty goatee). I thought for a second that I was looking in some odd mirror… and he/I looked good that way.
I thought: I wouldn’t dress that way for minyan, but what if, outside of minyan, I would go around like that, maybe for a Dress-Down Wednesday or something? Sure, it would raise some eyebrows, but it might help some people connect… and it would make me feel more relaxed, right?
Rabbinic Silly Season, indeed. It’s sort of like an intense burst of mid-life crisis, I suppose. It’ll last another week or so, then I’ll be back to normal.
On the Republican side we have that mailing I received the other day about Same Sex Marriage, Child Sacrifice, Islamic Terrorism and Barack Obama.
Today, on the other hand, I saw a lawn sporting a doctored campaign sign promoting McCain-Stalin. This clever (not!) bit of sloganeering was a perfect illustration of the MoveOn.org principle: Many of us are instinctively liberal, but we are so annoyed by Democrats that we are forced to vote against them.
I wonder if the sign’s owner could even tell me what country Stalin ruled, let alone how many millions of people he killed.
It’s Silly Season in the Jerusalem Post, too, with this report that “Ahmedinejad’s health is deteriorating.” This example of Yellower-than-Yellow Journalism cites the robust evidence of Ahmedinejad missing a couple of meetings. There isn't even a hint of undercover, Mossad-based reports. I guess they figure that general journalistic credibility is shot anyway, so why not say stupid things in order to grab headlines, on the 1-in-1000000 chance their words might turn out to accidentally intersect with the truth?
And it’s Silly Season in the rabbinate: The post-Succot time of year when, toastedly burnt out from going full-steam for two months, and with no break in sight, we see sense in weird ideas and normally-unthinkable plans, just because we’ve lost our reality anchor.
At this time of year the current system of running a shul and community seems tired and balky and inefficient. Who wants to buckle into that old way of doing things? Better to try something new and shiny and different, even if it is also wildly illogical. Even after eleven years in the rabbinate, I can feel my sensibility-gyroscope spinning askew after Succos.
So at this time of year it makes sense to go to the shul board and talk about ditching the membership and dues systems, and going to a “pay what you like” system.
So at this time of year it makes sense to merge with three other shuls to form a large, a la carte, 24-hour Synaplex.
So at this time of year it makes sense to overhaul the Shabbos morning davening, converting it to a beginner’s service and eliminating the derashah (speech) in favor of a discussion.
So at this time of year it makes sense to entertain the idea of going entirely Green, getting rid of all disposables, using e-paper for our mailings, installing solar panels on our roof and wind turbines in our parking lot, recycling kitchen water…
I’ve barely started listing all of the ideas that have passed through my head in the past week.
While I was getting my post-Yom Tov haircut today, a guy about my age came into the barber shop, dressing like I used to dress way back when. Jeans, denim jacket, backward cap on his head. No beard (but a nifty goatee). I thought for a second that I was looking in some odd mirror… and he/I looked good that way.
I thought: I wouldn’t dress that way for minyan, but what if, outside of minyan, I would go around like that, maybe for a Dress-Down Wednesday or something? Sure, it would raise some eyebrows, but it might help some people connect… and it would make me feel more relaxed, right?
Rabbinic Silly Season, indeed. It’s sort of like an intense burst of mid-life crisis, I suppose. It’ll last another week or so, then I’ll be back to normal.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Same-Sex Unions and Child Sacrifice and Simchas Torah
If sanity has anything to do with being in step with the greater world, then I think it’s time to have myself committed because I'm totally out of step.
Exhibit A: My mail
Looking through my Yom Tov mail I found an envelope emblazoned with the following, bold-print logo:
Same-Sex Unions and Child Sacrifice:
Obama, McCain, Jihad & the Judeo-Christian View
I read that through a few times, to make sure I understood it. I don’t.
Then I read the text below:
Also Inside (and Free!)…
Obsession, the movie on DVD
Video Sermon on DVD
I kid you not.
All of this courtesy of the following return address:
The Judeo-Christian Vew
www.TheJudeo-ChristianView.com
P.O. Box 734
Vista, California 92085-0734
I feel bad for any Judeo-Christians out there. Bad enough they’re entirely confused about their oxymoronic religious identity, now they have to put up with child sacrifice!
I also hope my mailman (sorry, postal carrier) doesn’t think I’m one of those Judeo-Christians.
Exhibit B: Simchas Torah
Yom Tov, thank Gd, was pretty good.
Our YU Torah Tours group was wonderful, very enthusiastic and outgoing and energetic and everything we could have wanted.
The Shemini Atzeres derashah was kind of dead, not because the material was bad but because I was under the weather with a cold, and because the shul was freezing - some well-meaning energy saver had turned off the heat before Yom Tov, thinking it would be hot from all of the dancing…
Phone rang off the hook at home and at shul all through Yom Tov, scaring me no end, but in the end there were no emergencies.
And the event that proved again that I am out of touch with the world around me: A prankster (whom I usually adore) tossed candies at the Shacharis chazan on Simchas Torah, for Mashiv haRuach Umorid haGeshem.
I have a really hard time with that. Shemoneh Esreih, per the gemara, shouldn’t be interrupted even if a king comes up to you and demands your attention. Interrupt it for a gag? And such a cheap, cliché gag?!
So of course I had to be the heavy, clamp down and glare dourly and let it be known (by expression rather than announcement) that such behavior would not be tolerated, lest people take this as license to go even further.
And then half a dozen other people had to come up to the prankster and tell him that they thought it was funny, that they’ve seen a lot more elsewhere, that it’s good he’s livening things up. A few had to tell me that I don’t have to be a stick in the mud.
I hate being the bad guy.
Now it’s time to take on the rest of the year.
Exhibit A: My mail
Looking through my Yom Tov mail I found an envelope emblazoned with the following, bold-print logo:
Same-Sex Unions and Child Sacrifice:
Obama, McCain, Jihad & the Judeo-Christian View
I read that through a few times, to make sure I understood it. I don’t.
Then I read the text below:
Also Inside (and Free!)…
Obsession, the movie on DVD
Video Sermon on DVD
I kid you not.
All of this courtesy of the following return address:
The Judeo-Christian Vew
www.TheJudeo-ChristianView.com
P.O. Box 734
Vista, California 92085-0734
I feel bad for any Judeo-Christians out there. Bad enough they’re entirely confused about their oxymoronic religious identity, now they have to put up with child sacrifice!
I also hope my mailman (sorry, postal carrier) doesn’t think I’m one of those Judeo-Christians.
Exhibit B: Simchas Torah
Yom Tov, thank Gd, was pretty good.
Our YU Torah Tours group was wonderful, very enthusiastic and outgoing and energetic and everything we could have wanted.
The Shemini Atzeres derashah was kind of dead, not because the material was bad but because I was under the weather with a cold, and because the shul was freezing - some well-meaning energy saver had turned off the heat before Yom Tov, thinking it would be hot from all of the dancing…
Phone rang off the hook at home and at shul all through Yom Tov, scaring me no end, but in the end there were no emergencies.
And the event that proved again that I am out of touch with the world around me: A prankster (whom I usually adore) tossed candies at the Shacharis chazan on Simchas Torah, for Mashiv haRuach Umorid haGeshem.
I have a really hard time with that. Shemoneh Esreih, per the gemara, shouldn’t be interrupted even if a king comes up to you and demands your attention. Interrupt it for a gag? And such a cheap, cliché gag?!
So of course I had to be the heavy, clamp down and glare dourly and let it be known (by expression rather than announcement) that such behavior would not be tolerated, lest people take this as license to go even further.
And then half a dozen other people had to come up to the prankster and tell him that they thought it was funny, that they’ve seen a lot more elsewhere, that it’s good he’s livening things up. A few had to tell me that I don’t have to be a stick in the mud.
I hate being the bad guy.
Now it’s time to take on the rest of the year.
Monday, October 20, 2008
15-minute increments
[Haveil Havalim is out here!]
Yom Tov is winding down; it’s impossible to believe that Rosh HaShanah was a full three weeks ago.
(Note: The Tzidkas haTzaddik, #171, has a fascinating parallel between the Three Weeks of Bein haMetzarim and the Three Weeks from Rosh HaShanah through Shemini Atzeret, including a link between Tisha b’Av and Shemini Atzeret. Very worth reading. Probably a derashah some year.)
When my Rebbetzin and I were in our first year in the rabbinate, and Yamim Noraim/Succot preparation was crazy beyond anything I had ever imagined, I told my wife, “Don’t worry; it gets easier after Yom Tov.”
I was new at this; what did I know?
Now, I know. I can see it coming; my to-do list for Thursday is a mile long. I really have improved my scheduling over the past eleven years, but there’s no getting around the fact that after Yom Tov, all those things that were delayed “until after Yom Tov” come barreling around the corner. Committees and boards, individuals and families, anything and everything must now be faced, so the days from October 23 through mid-December will be filled with appointments and meetings and work.
Much needs to be done – classes, derashos, programming, counseling, scheduling, administrative stuff, website management, shul library, hospitals, prisons, community work, psak, shivah, family time, community politics and more – and all of it on the same day. So you run from one thing to the next to the next, and there’s barely time to breathe, let alone eat, in between. I live on Boost Plus.
CNN.com had an article a couple of weeks ago on the relaxation needs of the President of the United States. The article began with the line, “In long days scheduled in 15-minute increments, presidents are asked to make decisions affecting millions -- sometimes life-or-death decisions.” Certainly, the life-or-death decisions are part of the problem, but the 15-minute increments are a big part of it as well.
The article is correct: The less downtime you have, the more apt you are – I am – to make mistakes, and to fail to think creatively. That’s the way the human brain operates. (The article cites “creativity researchers.” That sounds like a fun career; maybe after I retire I’ll go ino “creativity research.”)
So a rabbi must schedule creativity time, relaxation-time, sitting-and-thinking time. (I worked in some time the other day to watch clips of John McCain and Barack Obama at the Al Smith Dinner, and Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live; those were great. I need more of that.)
Scheduling time like that sounds dumb, but that’s reality; the time must be scheduled or it won’t happen, it’ll be eaten up by other things. It's not only rabbis - many people, I think, need to schedule it. Nature abhors vacuums in both space and time.
Every year, when things get crazy right before Rosh haShanah, I turn to my wife and reprise my foolish optimism of 1997: “It gets easier after Yom Tov, right? I’m much better at scheduling now, I think I’ve finally got it down.”
And, knowing better than to answer, she just smiles.
Yom Tov is winding down; it’s impossible to believe that Rosh HaShanah was a full three weeks ago.
(Note: The Tzidkas haTzaddik, #171, has a fascinating parallel between the Three Weeks of Bein haMetzarim and the Three Weeks from Rosh HaShanah through Shemini Atzeret, including a link between Tisha b’Av and Shemini Atzeret. Very worth reading. Probably a derashah some year.)
When my Rebbetzin and I were in our first year in the rabbinate, and Yamim Noraim/Succot preparation was crazy beyond anything I had ever imagined, I told my wife, “Don’t worry; it gets easier after Yom Tov.”
I was new at this; what did I know?
Now, I know. I can see it coming; my to-do list for Thursday is a mile long. I really have improved my scheduling over the past eleven years, but there’s no getting around the fact that after Yom Tov, all those things that were delayed “until after Yom Tov” come barreling around the corner. Committees and boards, individuals and families, anything and everything must now be faced, so the days from October 23 through mid-December will be filled with appointments and meetings and work.
Much needs to be done – classes, derashos, programming, counseling, scheduling, administrative stuff, website management, shul library, hospitals, prisons, community work, psak, shivah, family time, community politics and more – and all of it on the same day. So you run from one thing to the next to the next, and there’s barely time to breathe, let alone eat, in between. I live on Boost Plus.
CNN.com had an article a couple of weeks ago on the relaxation needs of the President of the United States. The article began with the line, “In long days scheduled in 15-minute increments, presidents are asked to make decisions affecting millions -- sometimes life-or-death decisions.” Certainly, the life-or-death decisions are part of the problem, but the 15-minute increments are a big part of it as well.
The article is correct: The less downtime you have, the more apt you are – I am – to make mistakes, and to fail to think creatively. That’s the way the human brain operates. (The article cites “creativity researchers.” That sounds like a fun career; maybe after I retire I’ll go ino “creativity research.”)
So a rabbi must schedule creativity time, relaxation-time, sitting-and-thinking time. (I worked in some time the other day to watch clips of John McCain and Barack Obama at the Al Smith Dinner, and Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live; those were great. I need more of that.)
Scheduling time like that sounds dumb, but that’s reality; the time must be scheduled or it won’t happen, it’ll be eaten up by other things. It's not only rabbis - many people, I think, need to schedule it. Nature abhors vacuums in both space and time.
Every year, when things get crazy right before Rosh haShanah, I turn to my wife and reprise my foolish optimism of 1997: “It gets easier after Yom Tov, right? I’m much better at scheduling now, I think I’ve finally got it down.”
And, knowing better than to answer, she just smiles.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
A Simchat Torah Curriculum (Derashah Shemini Atzeret 5769)
A very old man with a beat-up portfolio knocked on the door of a world-renowned art professor. “Please,” he begged, “Please spare a few minutes to humor an old man and give me some honest feedback on my drawings.”
The master studied the man’s sketches and said gently, “I’m afraid these drawings are not very good. However, since your artwork brings you pleasure, I would encourage you to continue.”
The old man sadly thanked the expert for taking his time; then, as he was about to leave, he asked, “Would you be so kind as to look at some other drawings I have here, from a young boy?”
The old man produced more sketches, and the master immediately knew that he was looking at the work of a genius, perhaps a future master. He looked up at the old man and said, “These drawings show a rare genius I have never before seen in a child. Is he your grandson?”
The old man hung his head. After a minute he looked up at the professor and said, “Sir… you’re looking at that talented artist. Those drawings were mine when I was a young child, but I never had a chance to hone my craft in an academy, I had no one to teach me - and so I did nothing with it. Had I only been given the chance to learn!”
I have personally witnessed the Jewish equivalent of this scene, many times. Women in their seventies who tell me that when they were growing up, their parents didn’t think it important to send them to cheder with the boys. Men of the same age who did go to cheder, but were taught by mentors whose English was poor and whose pedagogic skills were non-existent. Men and women whose Jewish education consisted primarily of knowing how to sit in shul for a few hours at a shot, not understanding the words of the siddur and not seeing any connection between those words and their daily lives.
These are our talented young artists, sixty and seventy years later - they could have been talmidei chachamim, students of Torah and great scholars, with a real Jewish education from the start. With Hebrew language. With davening, knowing what the davening means. With chumash, with Jewish law, with Jewish history, with mishnah and gemara and mussar.
Tonight, Simchat Torah, we will celebrate and dance and sing, celebrating completing another year of studying the Torah. I hope we will ask ourselves: What elements of Torah should all of those frustrated artists, those would-be talmidei chachamim, have learned? In Torah, we never say it’s too late - so how can they catch up, what’s the curriculum?
The answer is logical enough: Our ancestors took four steps when they stood at Sinai, the same four steps a non-Jew takes today when converting to Judaism, and so those four steps, which go far beyond text study to a holistic educational experience, are the necessary elements of our own education as we grow into our Judaism, whether as children or as adults.
Those four steps are circumcision for males, immersion in a mikvah, acceptance of mitzvot and bringing a korban, and each step comes with its own deeper lesson.
The first part of this holistic educational experience is ברית מילה, circumcision. According to Sefer haChinuch and others, circumcision represents our responsibility of tikkun, of mending our broken world in the service of HaShem. One might assume that the world was created as HaShem wanted it, but circumcision, in which we are told that HaShem created the baby one way and we are responsible to make him whole, in another way, teaches us that we can improve the world around us.
Similarly, then, every Jew must learn this lesson of repair for the world - of חסד, generosity toward others, of צדקה, giving of our own wealth for others, of קירוב רחוקים, reaching out to those who are distant from religion or community and drawing them closer.
The second stage is immersion in a mikvah, representing purification from tumah, and, on a deeper level, purification from sin, distance from committing spiritual wrongs.
Purification is not only some mystical process; it’s a practical reality, extending beyond the mikvah and into our daily lives. Purification is our determination to cleanse ourselves of traits which encourage error. We learn perishut, separating ourselves from activities that might lead to wrongdoing. We develop anavah, humility, as well as tzniut, privacy. We are careful with rabbinic laws which act as a boundary for the Torah, preventing accidental violation of its laws.
In the third step, we at Sinai and the ger today formally accept the mitzvot and commit to practice them.
This stage includes learning Torah on a practical level with an eye toward understanding and implementing its mitzvot, and fully accepting the binding nature of those mitzvot.
And finally, at Sinai and in the time of the Beit haMikdash, the ger brings a korban, an offering to Gd. This korban represents building a relationship with HaShem, willingly giving of ourselves in order to draw closer.
In our Jewish life we give our connection to HaShem the highest priority, and turn everything we have toward that goal. This includes mitzvot of prayer, like תפילה and קריאת שמע, and mitzvot of dedicating our property to Gd, as we do in Israel with the terumah and maaser tithes, and the laws of shemitah.
A Jew who has progressed through these four stages emerges a truly educated Jew:
• Committed to repairing the world through the mitzvot of kindness toward others,
• Committed to traits which will protect him from going astray,
• Committed to learning the mitzvot and practicing them, and
• Committed to a relationship with Gd that includes both prayer and practice.
This is what so many of our parents wanted for us. Those words I recite as part of the formal beginning of our Yizkor are, I hope, more than a trite tribute, describing “dear parents whose desire it was to train us in a good and upright way, to teach us Your statutes and commandments, and to instruct us to do justice and lovingkindness.” This has been the mission of Jewish parents ever since Har Sinai, ever since the Torah instructed us to pass its teachings along to our children. Through Yizkor we express our gratitude to those who taught us, and the fact that we are here today is proof that they did well.
We are fortunate to have, here in our community, the Jewish Day School, an institution committed to ensuring that the next generation of Jewish children will receive the education and training that the seventy- and eighty-year-old frustrated talmidei chachamim in my office did not. We have great teachers, including _______________________________________.
If we truly embrace, and celebrate with, the Torah on Simchat Torah, if we truly wish for our children to have the chance to develop their religious genius, if we mean it when we say those things about our parents at Yizkor, then we will commit ourselves to supporting JDS - by sending our children when they are of school age, and by supporting the school financially even when we don’t have children at the school.
This derashah was not prompted from the school; absolutely no one affiliated with the school even knew I was going to speak about this. I chose this topic for today because Simchat Torah must be more than a day to alternate between dancing and looking at our watches with bored stares. Simchat Torah is a day for us to make sure we are doing the learning we need to do, ourselves, and a day to make sure we are helping others learn.
If we are going to create Jews, we had better be ready to educate them. We promised it to the next generation at Har Sinai long ago, and we have sustained that promise for some thirty-five hundred years. Even in the Great Depression, and worse times before that, Jews sustained that promise. Today, even in our own tough economic times, it is a promise we will continue to fulfill.
The running joke in Jewish communities is that we believe all of our children are above-average - but they are. Our children are all gifted. Some have academic talent - math, music, art, creative writing. Others have social talent - empathy, influence, leadership. But all of them have a gift in their neshamot, their souls - the ability to grow as Jews and mentchen, to become Gd-like people - all we have to do is add the Torah.
-
Just one note here - I wanted to go on at length about the importance of day school education vs. the Hebrew School substitute, but (with the great counsel of my Rebbetzin) I cut out that section. There are people, including some in my shul, who would love to send their children to full-day Jewish school, but they cannot because of their children's special needs. I will not make them feel worse than they already do.
The master studied the man’s sketches and said gently, “I’m afraid these drawings are not very good. However, since your artwork brings you pleasure, I would encourage you to continue.”
The old man sadly thanked the expert for taking his time; then, as he was about to leave, he asked, “Would you be so kind as to look at some other drawings I have here, from a young boy?”
The old man produced more sketches, and the master immediately knew that he was looking at the work of a genius, perhaps a future master. He looked up at the old man and said, “These drawings show a rare genius I have never before seen in a child. Is he your grandson?”
The old man hung his head. After a minute he looked up at the professor and said, “Sir… you’re looking at that talented artist. Those drawings were mine when I was a young child, but I never had a chance to hone my craft in an academy, I had no one to teach me - and so I did nothing with it. Had I only been given the chance to learn!”
I have personally witnessed the Jewish equivalent of this scene, many times. Women in their seventies who tell me that when they were growing up, their parents didn’t think it important to send them to cheder with the boys. Men of the same age who did go to cheder, but were taught by mentors whose English was poor and whose pedagogic skills were non-existent. Men and women whose Jewish education consisted primarily of knowing how to sit in shul for a few hours at a shot, not understanding the words of the siddur and not seeing any connection between those words and their daily lives.
These are our talented young artists, sixty and seventy years later - they could have been talmidei chachamim, students of Torah and great scholars, with a real Jewish education from the start. With Hebrew language. With davening, knowing what the davening means. With chumash, with Jewish law, with Jewish history, with mishnah and gemara and mussar.
Tonight, Simchat Torah, we will celebrate and dance and sing, celebrating completing another year of studying the Torah. I hope we will ask ourselves: What elements of Torah should all of those frustrated artists, those would-be talmidei chachamim, have learned? In Torah, we never say it’s too late - so how can they catch up, what’s the curriculum?
The answer is logical enough: Our ancestors took four steps when they stood at Sinai, the same four steps a non-Jew takes today when converting to Judaism, and so those four steps, which go far beyond text study to a holistic educational experience, are the necessary elements of our own education as we grow into our Judaism, whether as children or as adults.
Those four steps are circumcision for males, immersion in a mikvah, acceptance of mitzvot and bringing a korban, and each step comes with its own deeper lesson.
The first part of this holistic educational experience is ברית מילה, circumcision. According to Sefer haChinuch and others, circumcision represents our responsibility of tikkun, of mending our broken world in the service of HaShem. One might assume that the world was created as HaShem wanted it, but circumcision, in which we are told that HaShem created the baby one way and we are responsible to make him whole, in another way, teaches us that we can improve the world around us.
Similarly, then, every Jew must learn this lesson of repair for the world - of חסד, generosity toward others, of צדקה, giving of our own wealth for others, of קירוב רחוקים, reaching out to those who are distant from religion or community and drawing them closer.
The second stage is immersion in a mikvah, representing purification from tumah, and, on a deeper level, purification from sin, distance from committing spiritual wrongs.
Purification is not only some mystical process; it’s a practical reality, extending beyond the mikvah and into our daily lives. Purification is our determination to cleanse ourselves of traits which encourage error. We learn perishut, separating ourselves from activities that might lead to wrongdoing. We develop anavah, humility, as well as tzniut, privacy. We are careful with rabbinic laws which act as a boundary for the Torah, preventing accidental violation of its laws.
In the third step, we at Sinai and the ger today formally accept the mitzvot and commit to practice them.
This stage includes learning Torah on a practical level with an eye toward understanding and implementing its mitzvot, and fully accepting the binding nature of those mitzvot.
And finally, at Sinai and in the time of the Beit haMikdash, the ger brings a korban, an offering to Gd. This korban represents building a relationship with HaShem, willingly giving of ourselves in order to draw closer.
In our Jewish life we give our connection to HaShem the highest priority, and turn everything we have toward that goal. This includes mitzvot of prayer, like תפילה and קריאת שמע, and mitzvot of dedicating our property to Gd, as we do in Israel with the terumah and maaser tithes, and the laws of shemitah.
A Jew who has progressed through these four stages emerges a truly educated Jew:
• Committed to repairing the world through the mitzvot of kindness toward others,
• Committed to traits which will protect him from going astray,
• Committed to learning the mitzvot and practicing them, and
• Committed to a relationship with Gd that includes both prayer and practice.
This is what so many of our parents wanted for us. Those words I recite as part of the formal beginning of our Yizkor are, I hope, more than a trite tribute, describing “dear parents whose desire it was to train us in a good and upright way, to teach us Your statutes and commandments, and to instruct us to do justice and lovingkindness.” This has been the mission of Jewish parents ever since Har Sinai, ever since the Torah instructed us to pass its teachings along to our children. Through Yizkor we express our gratitude to those who taught us, and the fact that we are here today is proof that they did well.
We are fortunate to have, here in our community, the Jewish Day School, an institution committed to ensuring that the next generation of Jewish children will receive the education and training that the seventy- and eighty-year-old frustrated talmidei chachamim in my office did not. We have great teachers, including _______________________________________.
If we truly embrace, and celebrate with, the Torah on Simchat Torah, if we truly wish for our children to have the chance to develop their religious genius, if we mean it when we say those things about our parents at Yizkor, then we will commit ourselves to supporting JDS - by sending our children when they are of school age, and by supporting the school financially even when we don’t have children at the school.
This derashah was not prompted from the school; absolutely no one affiliated with the school even knew I was going to speak about this. I chose this topic for today because Simchat Torah must be more than a day to alternate between dancing and looking at our watches with bored stares. Simchat Torah is a day for us to make sure we are doing the learning we need to do, ourselves, and a day to make sure we are helping others learn.
If we are going to create Jews, we had better be ready to educate them. We promised it to the next generation at Har Sinai long ago, and we have sustained that promise for some thirty-five hundred years. Even in the Great Depression, and worse times before that, Jews sustained that promise. Today, even in our own tough economic times, it is a promise we will continue to fulfill.
The running joke in Jewish communities is that we believe all of our children are above-average - but they are. Our children are all gifted. Some have academic talent - math, music, art, creative writing. Others have social talent - empathy, influence, leadership. But all of them have a gift in their neshamot, their souls - the ability to grow as Jews and mentchen, to become Gd-like people - all we have to do is add the Torah.
-
Just one note here - I wanted to go on at length about the importance of day school education vs. the Hebrew School substitute, but (with the great counsel of my Rebbetzin) I cut out that section. There are people, including some in my shul, who would love to send their children to full-day Jewish school, but they cannot because of their children's special needs. I will not make them feel worse than they already do.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Enjoy life with the woman you love (Derashah, Shabbat Chol haMoed Succot 5769)
"I find more bitter than death the woman… One man among a thousand have I found, but a woman among all those I have not found. (Kohelet 7:26-28)"
What is Shlomo haMelech expressing here, in these blatantly misogynistic terms? What is this doing in a book which also contains the happier advice to a man, “ראה חיים עם האשה אשר אהבת Enjoy life with the wife you love?” What is this doing in a book attributed to a man whose mother taught him the Eishet Chayil, a ballad to the mighty Jewish woman? What is this doing in Tanach at all?!
Realize that in an entire Tanach filled with complex and conflicted human beings, Shlomo haMelech may well be the most complex and conflicted.
• Shlomo is the great son and heir of Dovid haMelech and Batsheva, builder of the Beis haMikdash and the wisest of all men.
• But Shlomo also flouts the Torah’s laws governing kings, marries princesses for political purposes and oversleeps the first day of korbanot in that new Beis haMikdash he had built.
According to the gemara, the sages even taught that Shlomo was excluded from Gan Eden in the next world, until a voice from Heaven rebuked them!
There is a pattern to Shlomo haMelech’s troubles, and the gemara lays it out for us:
The Torah mandates that a king may not take too many wives, lest their needs distract him. The gemara says that Shlomo defied this rule, confidently arguing אני ארבה ולא אסור, I will have many wives and I will not be led astray. In the end, Tanach says, נשיו הטו את לבבו, Shlomo was led astray.
The Torah mandates that a king not accumulate horses, lest he go back to Egypt to find more. Again, the gemara says that Shlomo confidently defied this rule, arguing, אני ארבה ולא אשיב, I will have many horses and I will not go back to Egypt. But in the end, as Tanach reports, Shlomo returns to Egypt for horses.
The gemara reports that Shlomo sought to extend his reign to the mystical realms of King Ashmedai, and when Shlomo presumptuously imprisoned King Ashmedai, he ended up losing his throne for a time.
Shlomo haMelech was a victim of his own success - he was the smartest man in the world, he had all the wealth one could ever imagine, he was an incredibly powerful king, and he knew it. Knowing all that about yourself works well as far as boosting your confidence, but it doesn’t help in a marriage.
From the beginning of the Torah, we are taught that marriage is about seeking partnership with another person who will complement your talents, your ideas, your energies.
HaShem says, לא טוב היות האדם לבדו, It is not good for Man to be alone. R’ Ovadia Seforno explains, “Man is inadequate when he is alone.”
So HaShem decides, אעשה לו עזר כנגדו, I will make Adam and Chavah as two parallel people. They will be opposite each other, in the way that the two platforms on a balanced scale are opposite each other - they will complement each other.
But in order for that ideal relationship to work, the husband and wife must accept that they are parallel, equal if not equivalent, that on the other side of the scale is a man or woman who will both support and challenge you, who will call you on your errors as often as he will agree with your assertions.
If you’re already the smartest, already the wealthiest, already the most powerful, it’s hard to accept someone else as your equal and complement.
Batsheva, Shlomo’s mother, knew that this would be her son’s challenge, and so she advised him to seek a woman of strength, a woman who was self-sufficient, a woman who would speak Torah and who would be garbed in strength and dignity. Her advice is recorded in that poem we know as Eishes Chayil, the 31st chapter in Mishlei. But Shlomo never found a woman he saw in that light; he married a thousand women, but he never felt he had found an equal.
In the passage I quoted at the outset, in which Shlomo records the futility of his marriages, Shlomo is critiquing himself, not the women he married. When Shlomo says, “Even one woman in a thousand I did not find,” we hear pain in his voice as he renders this verdict on the lonely life he had lived. Shlomo was never able to follow the advice he gave us, ראה חיים עם האשה אשר אהבת, to enjoy life with a beloved spouse.
Obviously, Shlomo haMelech’s verdict offers a practical lesson for our marriages, but it is also a practical lesson for our relationships in general. If we feel that other people have let us down, or that we haven’t found people who are worthy of our respect, then perhaps it’s time for us to look not at others but at ourselves:
• Are we humbly aware of our own defects, our own flaws, and the ways in which other people could provide that which we lack?
• Or do we feel, consciously or subconsciously, that we’re as close to perfect as we need to be, that we know and understand things pretty much on our own?
Arnold Palmer tells the following story about the 1961 Masters tournament: “I had a one-stroke lead and had just hit a very satisfying tee shot. I felt I was in pretty good shape. As I approached my ball, I saw an old friend standing at the edge of the gallery. He motioned me over, stuck out his hand and said, ‘Congratulations.’ I took his hand and shook it, but… On my next two shots, I hit the ball into a sand trap, then put it over the edge of the green. I missed a putt and lost the Masters.”
Palmer added, “You don't forget a mistake like that; you just learn from it and become determined that you will never do that again.”
The same holds true for relationships - having now eavesdropped on Shlomo haMelech’s self-analysis, having come to understand the importance of humility for a successful relationship, let’s make sure that we make our putt, and so merit to fulfill Shlomo’s happier advice, ראה חיים עם האשה אשר אהבת, to enjoy life with the people we love.
-
Notes:
1. I feel some discomfort with this derashah; I am uneasy assigning fault to the heroes of Tanach, even those the gemara describes as it does Shlomo, and even the not-really-a-fault confident self-awareness I ascribe to Shlomo here. But, at the same time, I feel this is an important lesson for people, and the biblical and talmudic record of Shlomo's career provides the ideal illustration. I sincerely hope this does not make me a מגלה פנים בתורה שלא כהלכה.
2. The gemara on Shlomo's almost-exclusion from olam haba is Sanhedrin 104b; the gemara on his rejection of the laws of monarchs is Sanhedrin 21b. The run-in with Ashmedai is Gittin 68a-b.
3. Arnold Palmer's story comes from The Nineteenth Hole, by Carol Mann; I found it, and along with it an interesting site for derashah anecdotes, quite by accident at http://www.sermonillustrations.com.
What is Shlomo haMelech expressing here, in these blatantly misogynistic terms? What is this doing in a book which also contains the happier advice to a man, “ראה חיים עם האשה אשר אהבת Enjoy life with the wife you love?” What is this doing in a book attributed to a man whose mother taught him the Eishet Chayil, a ballad to the mighty Jewish woman? What is this doing in Tanach at all?!
Realize that in an entire Tanach filled with complex and conflicted human beings, Shlomo haMelech may well be the most complex and conflicted.
• Shlomo is the great son and heir of Dovid haMelech and Batsheva, builder of the Beis haMikdash and the wisest of all men.
• But Shlomo also flouts the Torah’s laws governing kings, marries princesses for political purposes and oversleeps the first day of korbanot in that new Beis haMikdash he had built.
According to the gemara, the sages even taught that Shlomo was excluded from Gan Eden in the next world, until a voice from Heaven rebuked them!
There is a pattern to Shlomo haMelech’s troubles, and the gemara lays it out for us:
The Torah mandates that a king may not take too many wives, lest their needs distract him. The gemara says that Shlomo defied this rule, confidently arguing אני ארבה ולא אסור, I will have many wives and I will not be led astray. In the end, Tanach says, נשיו הטו את לבבו, Shlomo was led astray.
The Torah mandates that a king not accumulate horses, lest he go back to Egypt to find more. Again, the gemara says that Shlomo confidently defied this rule, arguing, אני ארבה ולא אשיב, I will have many horses and I will not go back to Egypt. But in the end, as Tanach reports, Shlomo returns to Egypt for horses.
The gemara reports that Shlomo sought to extend his reign to the mystical realms of King Ashmedai, and when Shlomo presumptuously imprisoned King Ashmedai, he ended up losing his throne for a time.
Shlomo haMelech was a victim of his own success - he was the smartest man in the world, he had all the wealth one could ever imagine, he was an incredibly powerful king, and he knew it. Knowing all that about yourself works well as far as boosting your confidence, but it doesn’t help in a marriage.
From the beginning of the Torah, we are taught that marriage is about seeking partnership with another person who will complement your talents, your ideas, your energies.
HaShem says, לא טוב היות האדם לבדו, It is not good for Man to be alone. R’ Ovadia Seforno explains, “Man is inadequate when he is alone.”
So HaShem decides, אעשה לו עזר כנגדו, I will make Adam and Chavah as two parallel people. They will be opposite each other, in the way that the two platforms on a balanced scale are opposite each other - they will complement each other.
But in order for that ideal relationship to work, the husband and wife must accept that they are parallel, equal if not equivalent, that on the other side of the scale is a man or woman who will both support and challenge you, who will call you on your errors as often as he will agree with your assertions.
If you’re already the smartest, already the wealthiest, already the most powerful, it’s hard to accept someone else as your equal and complement.
Batsheva, Shlomo’s mother, knew that this would be her son’s challenge, and so she advised him to seek a woman of strength, a woman who was self-sufficient, a woman who would speak Torah and who would be garbed in strength and dignity. Her advice is recorded in that poem we know as Eishes Chayil, the 31st chapter in Mishlei. But Shlomo never found a woman he saw in that light; he married a thousand women, but he never felt he had found an equal.
In the passage I quoted at the outset, in which Shlomo records the futility of his marriages, Shlomo is critiquing himself, not the women he married. When Shlomo says, “Even one woman in a thousand I did not find,” we hear pain in his voice as he renders this verdict on the lonely life he had lived. Shlomo was never able to follow the advice he gave us, ראה חיים עם האשה אשר אהבת, to enjoy life with a beloved spouse.
Obviously, Shlomo haMelech’s verdict offers a practical lesson for our marriages, but it is also a practical lesson for our relationships in general. If we feel that other people have let us down, or that we haven’t found people who are worthy of our respect, then perhaps it’s time for us to look not at others but at ourselves:
• Are we humbly aware of our own defects, our own flaws, and the ways in which other people could provide that which we lack?
• Or do we feel, consciously or subconsciously, that we’re as close to perfect as we need to be, that we know and understand things pretty much on our own?
Arnold Palmer tells the following story about the 1961 Masters tournament: “I had a one-stroke lead and had just hit a very satisfying tee shot. I felt I was in pretty good shape. As I approached my ball, I saw an old friend standing at the edge of the gallery. He motioned me over, stuck out his hand and said, ‘Congratulations.’ I took his hand and shook it, but… On my next two shots, I hit the ball into a sand trap, then put it over the edge of the green. I missed a putt and lost the Masters.”
Palmer added, “You don't forget a mistake like that; you just learn from it and become determined that you will never do that again.”
The same holds true for relationships - having now eavesdropped on Shlomo haMelech’s self-analysis, having come to understand the importance of humility for a successful relationship, let’s make sure that we make our putt, and so merit to fulfill Shlomo’s happier advice, ראה חיים עם האשה אשר אהבת, to enjoy life with the people we love.
-
Notes:
1. I feel some discomfort with this derashah; I am uneasy assigning fault to the heroes of Tanach, even those the gemara describes as it does Shlomo, and even the not-really-a-fault confident self-awareness I ascribe to Shlomo here. But, at the same time, I feel this is an important lesson for people, and the biblical and talmudic record of Shlomo's career provides the ideal illustration. I sincerely hope this does not make me a מגלה פנים בתורה שלא כהלכה.
2. The gemara on Shlomo's almost-exclusion from olam haba is Sanhedrin 104b; the gemara on his rejection of the laws of monarchs is Sanhedrin 21b. The run-in with Ashmedai is Gittin 68a-b.
3. Arnold Palmer's story comes from The Nineteenth Hole, by Carol Mann; I found it, and along with it an interesting site for derashah anecdotes, quite by accident at http://www.sermonillustrations.com.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
"... and his wife"
I received a mailing from a prominent mainstream Orthodox institution the other day, and was jarred by the Mazal Tov listings. “Mazal tov to Rabbi Ploni X and his wife on the birth of…” went several lines of the text.
The funny thing is that I am, in my beliefs if not my practice, a sex-segregationist. Knowing the effect that an adulterous relationship has on a community, on a shul, on friends and families, and especially on children, I want to stay as far as possible - and then some! - from anything that might possibly somehow in some infinitesimally small way lead to that kind of situation.
*The fact that I teach mixed classes is a concession to reality, not my preference; I would much prefer to teach men and women separately.
*I use women’s first names when I address them, but that, again, is a concession to reality. I would use “Mrs. Smith” if it didn’t have such a jarringly stilted sound in my world.
*As much as I don’t like sitting apart from my wife at a wedding, I understand the need for that separation.
So I understand where the “and his wife” listing originates: Erect another barrier to inappropriate liasons, by reminding us that we ought not mix. I get it, believe me I get it.
But I still don’t like this “and his wife” construction:
It’s too close to nullifying the wife’s significance, by robbing her of her name – and in an announcement about her birthing a child, for Gd’s sake!
It’s too unbalanced; it sounds like saying, “The husband is the one who counts; the wife is his add-on.” I'd rather see it say "Rabbi and Mrs. X" without any first names.
It's also too much of a reach; this reminder of sex-segregation seems to me like a rather distant גזירה לגזירה לגזירה.
I sometimes wonder, and only semi-facetiously, if this might one day lead to a Mi sheBeirach in which we say “אברהם יענקל בן אמו Avraham Yankel ben Imo” rather than say the mother’s name! (Note: In the Chasam Sofer’s own practice, not only did they use the mother’s name when praying for the ill, but they also used it in the Kel Malei for the dead, and they inscribed it – rather than the father’s name – on the headstone. See בצל החכמה ג:צא.)
There is much more I could say, but I’m squeezing this in between derashah-prep and minchah, and you shouldn’t go from קלות ראש (frivolity) right into davening. Suffice it to say, for the time being, that I am Mordechai and my wife is Caren, and all mazal tovs (ken yirbu) should be directed to both of us by name.
The funny thing is that I am, in my beliefs if not my practice, a sex-segregationist. Knowing the effect that an adulterous relationship has on a community, on a shul, on friends and families, and especially on children, I want to stay as far as possible - and then some! - from anything that might possibly somehow in some infinitesimally small way lead to that kind of situation.
*The fact that I teach mixed classes is a concession to reality, not my preference; I would much prefer to teach men and women separately.
*I use women’s first names when I address them, but that, again, is a concession to reality. I would use “Mrs. Smith” if it didn’t have such a jarringly stilted sound in my world.
*As much as I don’t like sitting apart from my wife at a wedding, I understand the need for that separation.
So I understand where the “and his wife” listing originates: Erect another barrier to inappropriate liasons, by reminding us that we ought not mix. I get it, believe me I get it.
But I still don’t like this “and his wife” construction:
It’s too close to nullifying the wife’s significance, by robbing her of her name – and in an announcement about her birthing a child, for Gd’s sake!
It’s too unbalanced; it sounds like saying, “The husband is the one who counts; the wife is his add-on.” I'd rather see it say "Rabbi and Mrs. X" without any first names.
It's also too much of a reach; this reminder of sex-segregation seems to me like a rather distant גזירה לגזירה לגזירה.
I sometimes wonder, and only semi-facetiously, if this might one day lead to a Mi sheBeirach in which we say “אברהם יענקל בן אמו Avraham Yankel ben Imo” rather than say the mother’s name! (Note: In the Chasam Sofer’s own practice, not only did they use the mother’s name when praying for the ill, but they also used it in the Kel Malei for the dead, and they inscribed it – rather than the father’s name – on the headstone. See בצל החכמה ג:צא.)
There is much more I could say, but I’m squeezing this in between derashah-prep and minchah, and you shouldn’t go from קלות ראש (frivolity) right into davening. Suffice it to say, for the time being, that I am Mordechai and my wife is Caren, and all mazal tovs (ken yirbu) should be directed to both of us by name.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Is the Torah pleasant? Is the truth pleasant?
The other day, I posted the following in my "Daily Torah Thought" blog:
"The Torah says [that one of the Four Species waved on Succot is] 'A braided branch,' meaning that the leaves should cover the wood. What is that? That is the Hadas [myrtle]...
"But perhaps it is the Harduf? Abayye answered: No - It is written, 'The Torah's ways are pleasant,' and the spiny Harduf is not pleasant.
"Rava disqualified the Harduf for a different reason - It is written, 'You should love truth and peace.' The poisonous Harduf is the opposite of this verse."
(Talmud, Succah 32b as explained by Rashi)
Which led to the following reply from a reader:
When do we apply "The Torah's ways are pleasant"? Not all of the mitzvos are pleasant.
People find it hard to eat the required amounts of matzah and drink the required amounts of wine at the same meal, but we do so anyway.
I think most people would prefer not to give up their lives if the other choice is idol worship. ...
Why is poison the opposite of truth? Death is a part of the world. That is the truth.
There is much I would love to say on this. Perhaps during Chol haMoed. For now, have a great Yom Tov!
"The Torah says [that one of the Four Species waved on Succot is] 'A braided branch,' meaning that the leaves should cover the wood. What is that? That is the Hadas [myrtle]...
"But perhaps it is the Harduf? Abayye answered: No - It is written, 'The Torah's ways are pleasant,' and the spiny Harduf is not pleasant.
"Rava disqualified the Harduf for a different reason - It is written, 'You should love truth and peace.' The poisonous Harduf is the opposite of this verse."
(Talmud, Succah 32b as explained by Rashi)
Which led to the following reply from a reader:
When do we apply "The Torah's ways are pleasant"? Not all of the mitzvos are pleasant.
People find it hard to eat the required amounts of matzah and drink the required amounts of wine at the same meal, but we do so anyway.
I think most people would prefer not to give up their lives if the other choice is idol worship. ...
Why is poison the opposite of truth? Death is a part of the world. That is the truth.
There is much I would love to say on this. Perhaps during Chol haMoed. For now, have a great Yom Tov!
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