Gardening

At the moment, I'm looking at an orchid that sits on the only windowsill in our home. The plant was given to us when we moved in, and it has bloomed faithfully every several months; judging from the plumpness of three closed flowers currently adorning its branches, it is maybe two or three days away from blooming yet again. It has slim company - a pot of mint and aravah branches I am nursing along for a friend. Not much room on this windowsill.

Elsewhere in the house, a gloxinia is hibernating. A cactus I've owned for 23 years is probably alive, although I must admit it's hard to tell. A terrarium lives in a fog. Outside, the ground of a postage stamp backyard contains more than fifty plants I have buried in the rented soil.

I enjoy gardening, but I'm not sure why. Not that it matters much on a rented plot in a shoehorned development in a cold climate, where the chance to really create a garden is fairly limited, but I still think about the day when I'll have more of an opportunity for this sort of growth.

Part of it, of course, is the aesthetic beauty of the plants as they grow. In our home in Allentown, we created a beautiful perennial garden in front of the house, and we kept all sorts of plants in different parts of the backyard. This wasn't exactly a cultivated beauty - in some sense it resembled what happens when I go the supermarket without a perfectly defined list of items to buy. Some purple here, some red there, grasses here, bulbs there, and a motley arrangement of vegetables. Blueberry bush. Aravah bushes. Mint. Horseradish. Oakleaf hydrangea. Impulse purchases galore. But yes, they were attractive to the eye, or to my eye at any rate. Colors and textures and curving silhouettes...

Part of it was the gratification of seeing a result to my labors. I was never that good about fertilizing the soil, but I did the rest of it, from mulch to weeding to watering, and it paid off. Who wouldn't feel satisfaction at crocuses poking up from the soil, or berries emerging on a branch? Certainly, the plants were doomed to an ultimate death, but as Rabbi Akiva said, we celebrate at the time of celebration, and at that moment the effort is worthwhile, more than justified.

And, of course, one could connect this gardening to Torah sources and the redeeming value of working the soil and producing with one's hands. Adam and Chavah. Kayin and Hevel. Noach. Lemech's kids. The sin of the Tower of Bavel, per Ibn Ezra, was a desire to leave the land and move to the city.

And then those first, wonderfully agrarian Hebrews. Ever since rural Avraham declared his suspicion of those big-city Egyptians, the Jew has not trusted a life apart from the soil. Even in our most urban days, even in the beis medrash and synagogue, we understood where the Jew's true display of emunah [Shabbat 31a] was. We knew that Seder Zeraim was calling us, with its myriad complex laws, its kilayim and tithes and offerings and so on, of which much more should be written here. [Note: The suspicion of city life existed beyond the beis medrash. Many Jews who would never crack open a sefer agreed with the patronizing 18th century Europeans who said the children of Israel could become civilized if only we were trained properly; our blight had come from centuries of enforced urban life. Was this only out of desire to ingratiate ourselves with the Europeans? Or was it ideological, born in a yearning for the land?]

But I suspect the greatest benefit of gardening for me, back when I really did it, was the enforced distraction. You can't properly tend plants if you are constantly looking at your watch. Or, at least, I couldn't. I needed to detach from everything else, and "be the garden". I tend to get caught up in things, and having a cause that pulled me away from those things - and that demanded pulling away at regular intervals - was good for me. Clears the head, clears the heart, not a bad thing after a week of funerals or classes or whatever. One can accomplish the effect with a daf of gemara, of course, and that's another option, but one needs more than one way to do it.

Nothing deeper than that here; I'm just looking at the orchid, waiting for it to bloom.

A Parenting Class

On Tuesday evening I am to lead a session on parenting and compromise - reaching our educational goals for our children and dealing with resistance along the way. Here is the source sheet I have prepared:

Diagnosis: Is it all a misunderstanding?

1.         R' Yosef Albo, Sefer haIkkarim 1:1

מי שהוא מחזיק בתורת משה ומאמין בעקריה, וכשבא לחקור על זה מצד השכל והבנת הפסוקים הטהו העיון לומר שאחד מן העקרים הוא על דרך אחרת... אין זה כופר, אבל הוא בכלל חכמי ישראל וחסידיהם, אף על פי שהוא טועה בעיונו, והוא חוטא בשוגג וצריך כפרה.

Someone who holds to Moses’s Torah and believes its fundamentals, and then is fooled in his examination when he approaches the Torah by examining the verses and using his own mental faculties, such that he says one of the fundamental principles is different…he is not a “Kofer.” He is included among the pious sages of the Jews, even though he errs in his examination. He sins accidentally, and he must atone for it.

2.         Midrash Tanchuma Pekudei 9

כיון שאמר לו הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה לעשות את המשכן... אמרו הנשים מה יש לנו ליתן בנדבת המשכן, עמדו והביאו את המראות והלכו להן אצל משה, כשראה משה אותן המראות זעף בהן, אמר להם לישראל טולו מקלות ושברו שוקיהן של אלו, המראות למה הן צריכין, א"ל הקב"ה למשה משה על אלו אתה מבזה, המראות האלו הן העמידו כל הצבאות הללו במצרים טול מהן ועשה מהן כיור נחשת וכנו לכהנים שממנו יהיו מתקדשין הכהנים

When Gd told Moshe to create the Mishkan… the women asked, 'What can we donate for the Mishkan collection?' They stood and brought their mirrors to Moshe. When Moshe saw the mirrors, he raged at them, telling the Jews, 'Take sticks and break their legs! For what purpose would we need these mirrors?' Gd said to Moshe, 'Moshe! You degrade these things? These mirrors are what created the multitudes of Jews in Egypt! Take the mirrors from them, and make from them the copper sink and its base for the kohanim, with which the kohanim will sanctify themselves.'

Re-directing the child: Giving the child the tools to respond differently

3.         Talmud, Sanhedrin 8a

כתיב +דברים ל"א+ כי אתה תבוא וכתיב כי אתה תביא אמר רבי יוחנן אמר לו משה ליהושע אתה והזקנים שבדור עמהם אמר לו הקדוש ברוך הוא טול מקל והך על קדקדם דבר אחד לדור ואין שני דברין לדור

R' Yochanan said: Moshe told Yehoshua, 'You and the generation's elders will do this.' Gd said, 'Take a stick and strike them on their skulls! There is one leader, not two, for a generation.'

4.         Tosafot Bava Metzia 69b

דוקא הכא לפי שהיה לו פתחון פה לחשדו קאמר דצריך לאודועיה משום והייתם נקיים מד' ומישראל (במדבר לב) אבל בעלמא לא

Rav Pappa was required to explain his actions here, specifically, under the principle of 'You shall be innocent from Gd and Israel,' because the litigant had reason to suspect him. Generally, he would not be required to do so.

5.         Talmud, Berachot 32a

אמרי דבי רבי ינאי כך אמר משה לפני הקב"ה רבש"ע בשביל כסף וזהב שהשפעת להם לישראל עד שאמרו די הוא גרם שעשו את העגל

Moshe said before Gd, 'Master of the universe! The silver and gold You flowed upon the Jews until they said די is what caused them to create the calf!'

6.         Midrash, Avot d'Rabbi Natan 12

כשהיה אהרן מהלך בדרך פגע [לו באדם רע או] באדם רשע ונתן לו שלום. למחר בקש אותו האיש לעבור עבירה אמר אוי לי איך אשא עיני אחר כך ואראה את אהרן בושתי הימנו שנתן לי שלום. ונמצא אותו האיש מונע עצמו מן העבירה.

When Aharon travelled and encountered a wicked person, he greeted him. The next day, when the man wished to sin, he said, ‘Woe is me! How will I lift my eyes after this and see Aharon? I am embarrassed before him, for he greeted me.’ And so that man would keep himself from sinning.

Re-directing the parent: Knowing how to manage the blowup

7.         Bamidbar 11:29

ויאמר לו משה המקנא אתה לי ומי יתן כל עם ד' נביאים כי יתן ד' את רוחו עליהם:

Are you outraged for me? I wish the entire nation of Gd would be prophets, with Gd inspiring them!

8.         Talmud, Berachot 27b

אמר ליה יהושע עמוד על רגליך... היה רבן גמליאל יושב ודורש ורבי יהושע עומד על רגליו עד שרננו כל העם ואמרו לחוצפית התורגמן עמוד ועמד אמרי עד כמה נצעריה וניזיל בראש השנה אשתקד צעריה בבכורות במעשה דרבי צדוק צעריה הכא נמי צעריה תא ונעבריה

The nation said: How long will he continue to pain R' Yehoshua? Last Rosh haShanah he pained him, in Bechorot [36a, in the story of R' Tzaddok's bechor] he pained him, now he pained him – let us remove him.

9.         Midrash, Bereishit Rabbah 48:13

ויתן אל הנער זה ישמעאל בשביל לזרזו במצות.

'And he gave it to the young man' - This is Yishmael; it was to energize him in mitzvot.

10.      Netziv to Bamidbar 24:6

כל גן יש בו מין א' שהוא העיקר, אלא שסביביו נזרע עוד הרבה מינים מעט מעט. כך כל איש ישראל מלא מצוות ד' אבל כל א' יש לו מצוה א' ביחוד להיות נזהר בה ביותר כדאיתא במכילתא פ' בשלח רנ"א כל העושה מצוה א' באמנה זוכה וכו' ובירושלמי קידושין סוף פ' א' על המאמר כל העושה מצוה א' מטיבין לו וכו' ומפרש בירושלמי שעושה מצוה א' בזהירות יתירה.

Each garden has one central variety, and small quantities of other varieties are planted around it. So, too, each Jew is filled with the mitzvot of Gd, but each has one special mitzvah in which he is extra careful, as is seen in Mechilta [Beshalach 251], “One who performs a single mitzvah, faithfully, is worthy of Divine inspiration.” And in Yerushalmi [Kiddushin 1:9], regarding the statement, ‘One who performs a single mitzvah is given good things,’ they explain that this refers to a person who designates a single mitzvah for himself, and never violates it.

11.      Ramban to Sefer haMitzvot, Omitted Aseh #5

מצוה חמישית שנצטוינו כשנצור על עיר להניח אחת מן הרוחות בלי מצור שאם ירצו לברוח יהיה להם דרך לנוס משם כי בזה נלמוד להתנהג בחמלה אפילו עם אויבינו בעת המלחמה ובו עוד תקון שנפתח להם פתח שיברחו ולא יתחזקו לקראתינו שנ' (מטות לא) ויצבאו על מדין כאשר צוה ד' את משה ודרשו בספרי הקיפוה משלש רוחותיה ר' נתן אומר תן להם רוח רביעית שיברחו. ואין זו מצות שעה במדין אבל היא מצוה לדורות בכל מלחמת הרשות. וכן כתב הרב בחבורו הגדול בהלכות מלכים ומלחמותיהם (פ"ו ה"ז):

We are instructed to leave a direction open, unsieged, when we besiege a city, so that they should have the means of flight. This way we will learn to act with mercy even upon our enemies in war. Also, this is advantageous in opening a path through which they will flee, rather than strengthen themselves against us…

Educating without alienating

12.      Talmud, Bava Batra 21a

התקינו שיהו מושיבין בכל פלך ופלך ומכניסין אותן כבן ט"ז כבן י"ז ומי שהיה רבו כועס עליו מבעיט בו ויצא עד שבא יהושע בן גמלא ותיקן שיהו מושיבין מלמדי תינוקות בכל מדינה ומדינה ובכל עיר ועיר ומכניסין אותן כבן שש כבן שבע

They then enacted that the people of each region would establish teachers. They would bring in students at the age of 16 or 17, and then if the teacher got upset at the student the student would simply lash out and leave. Yehoshua ben Gamla enacted that they should have teachers in every land and in every city, and bring in students at age 6 or 7.

13.      Talmud, Kiddushin 30a

חנוך לנער על פי דרכו ר' יהודה ורבי נחמיה חד אמר משיתסר ועד עשרים ותרתין וחד אמר מתמני סרי ועד עשרים וארבעה

'Train a youth according to his way' – R' Yehudah and R' Nechemiah debated: One said from 16 to 22, the other said from 18 to 24.

14.      Meiri to Kiddushin 30a

לעולם יהא אדם נותן לב תמיד להשגיח על עניני הבנים ולהתמיד בתוכחתם בין גדולים בין קטנים ומכל מקום הזמן הראוי להשתדל בתוכחת עד תכלית הוא משעה שהדעת מלבלב ויוצא עד שיעשה פרי והוא משיתסרי עד עשרים וארבע שקודם שיתסר אין לו דעת כל כך לקבל ואחר עשרים וארבע אינו נשמע

One should always set his heart to supervise his children and be consistent in educating them, whether old or young, but the appropriate time to work at educating them to the fullest is when their minds are developing to fruition, from 16 to 24. Before 16 he does not have sufficient intellect to accept, and after 24 he won't listen that much.

On Blogging

The other day I came across an interesting Slate piece called "Bad Memoir Writing: Rules for doing it well". I enjoyed the piece, which you can find here.

While this blog is not entirely devoted to "memoir writing", the author (Katie Roiphe) advice did highlight two points I aim to attain in my posts: Self-Critique and Honesty.
 
Here are her words:



1. The writer should turn her fierce critical eye on herself. (One of the great masters of this is Mary McCarthy, who was terrifying and brilliant in her critiques, even of her own pretentions and snobbisms.) It is always satisfying to read a writer who sharply and deftly attacks the hypocrisies and delusions of the world around him, but we trust that writer more completely when he also attacks himself, when he does not hold himself to a different standard, or protect himself from scrutiny. Take David Foster Wallace’s famously dazzling essay, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.” He obsessively, comically, gorgeously dissects everything around him on the cruise ship, but does not exempt himself from his high level satire:

All week, I’ve found myself doing everything I can to distance myself in the crew’s eyes from the bovine herd I’m part of, to somehow unimplicate myself: I eschew cameras and sunglasses and pastel Caribbean wear. … But of course all of this ostensibly unimplicating behavior on my part is itself motivated by a self-conscious and somewhat condescending concern about how I appear to others that is (this concern) 100% upscale American. Part of the overall despair of this luxury cruise is that no matter what I do I can not escape my own essential and newly unpleasant Americanness. … I am an American tourist, and am thus ex officio large, fleshy, red, loud, coarse, condescending, self-absorbed, spoiled, appearance conscious, ashamed, despairing and greedy: the world’s only known species of bovine carnivore.

2. Personal writing should seem honest. The reader likes personal writing to feel “honest.” (This does not mean that the memoir is “honest”—who knows how the writer really felt about something that happened 20 years ago, or yesterday. It just needs to feel honest.) The reader is as adept as Holden Caulfield in detecting phoniness, fakeness, posturing, and is as allergic to them. If the reader senses the writer is lying even to himself, or using the essay as a piece of propaganda, a forwarding of his own personal mythology in too clumsy or transparent a way, she will react against it. (This can cause readers to react against the personal writing of even very intelligent and stylish writers like Jonathan Franzen, who will include great scenes of penetrating self-deprecation but seems to be doing so in such a self-conscious writerly way that he may in fact be celebrating himself by way of self-deprecation.)

I think her motives are different from mine, though. She emphasizes that both of these are necessary in order to earn the reader's trust. That's true, but for me it's more because these are critical for teaching. I find it easier to convey an ideal by describing my own shortcoming, than by highlighting the way others fall short. And I would propose that honest teaching will go farther than dishonest teaching, of course...

New YU/RIETS End of Life Care Halachic Advisory Program

Even though I am a big believer in the need for local rabbis to make halachic decisions, it is recognized that (1) Local rabbis themselves need to consult greater authorities on certain issues, and (2) Not everyone has access to a rabbi. Therefore, I was very happy to see this new program announced yesterday:

A major impediment for observant Jewish families to seeking halachically appropriate, excellent end-of-life medical care is a lack of knowledge of the intricate laws that govern such care. Recognizing this Yeshiva University, under the auspices of RIETS, has formed an alliance with Calvary Hospital to provide rabbinic consultation for families and community rabbis that includes the following:

• YU/RIETS has assembled a panel of rabbinical experts well versed in the halachot of end-of-life issues who serve as pre-hospice advisers and are available for ongoing end-of-life shealot.
• The advisers answer questions on a rotating basis from patients’ families and community rabbis as to the permissibility of entering a patient into hospice care and with what provisos. 
• Another panel of physicians is available to advise rabbis on the clinical issues related to the terminally ill.

While this advice is independent of any specific hospice facility, we have particularly aligned with Calvary Hospital to answer a major need of the Jewish community. In existence for more than 113 years, Calvary is the nation’s only fully accredited acute care specialty hospital devoted exclusively to providing palliative care to adult advanced cancer patients. The panel is, however, prepared to provide halachic advice as it relates to any facility.
Calvary will take responsibility to provide its usual outstanding care for patients and also provide on-site Orthodox rabbinic pastoral care, kosher food for patients and nearby prayer services and Shabbat hospitality for families at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Synagogue. The hospital is located across from Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Einstein-Weiler Hospital of Montefiore Medical Center.
If you or your family would like to contact one of our rabbinic experts, please complete the request form on the right. To learn more about Calvary, please go to www.calvaryhospital.org.

RIETS Rabbinical Panel                                 Medical Advisory Panel
Rabbi Herschel Schachter                                Dr. Edward Burns
Rabbi Yaakov Neuberger                                 Dr. Seymour Huberfeld
Rabbi Mordechai Willig                                     Dr. Beth Popp
Rabbi Moshe Tendler                                       Dr. Edward Reichman
                                                                         Dr. Robert Sidlow

Taking off my tefillin during Aleinu

Upon arriving in Toronto, I needed to daven at a particular morning minyan in order to begin after first light and yet finish before carpool. However, I couldn't stay until the end, and so I began accelerating the end of my personal davening, taking off my tefillin before davening was over. I don't think I did that normally before coming here, but now it was a necessity.

The necessity soon became normal for me; even when I wasn't on carpool duty, I began taking off my tefillin before davening was over. Not before it was halachically appropriate – one should keep them on through the end of Uva l'Tzion where possible – but as soon as I could. [This was especially true when I davened in a nusach sfard minyan, since I don't say Pitum haKetores at the end of davening.] I live in a rush, and removing tefillin during Aleinu enabled me to go immediately to a shiur or to learn or to follow up on a phone call or email, without losing time.

Recently, though, I have begun to feel very uncomfortable with this. It's halachically permissible… but it's wrong. I hope I would not knowingly do this to a human being, putting on my coat or checking a set of travel directions while still engaged in a conversation. So why would I do this to Gd? And especially when there is no need? What message am I sending myself about my davening? Where is the passion for prayer?

I suppose taking off my tefillin during Aleinu is an artifact of the distance from Gd in our standard prayer experience. Since I can't see Gd in front of me, my davening is easily reduced to execution of an obligation, instead of a presentation before my Creator, much less a conversation. But it's not right, and it's self-reinforcing, encouraging me further to avoid seeing davening as that encounter with Gd.

So now it changes – no more removing tefilling during Aleinu, and I'll just need to keep my haste reflex under control.

Bli neder.

The Shul Youth Program

Five years ago, I put together a list of ideas for an amplified synagogue Youth Program. The goal was to create a program that would be more than babysitting, stories and social activities; I wanted a program that would make our kids comfortable and competent in a shul environment.

Looking back at the list - as my oldest child is now 13 instead of 8 - I'm not sure how I feel about parts of this. Some of it strikes me as naive. But I'd be interested in hearing from you.

For younger children (age 2-6, perhaps):Storytime sessions with the rabbi, as well as with other leading players from the shul and community.

A tour of the shul, including the bimah, the aron and the rabbi’s office, giving the kids something specific to do at each site, and some measure of control of their environment, as they hear about what happens at each place.


For older children (age 7-12, perhaps):
Beyond Junior Congregation, training children in different parts of davening, including those which are somewhat esoteric. The schools will take care of daily davening, hopefully, but there’s a lot more they can learn, whether about Geshem and Tal or about the proper methods of Hagbah and Gelilah. (I’d leave it to the individual shul to decide whether that last is for girls as well, but my inclination is to teach them.)

Have Junior Congregation start when the Torah reading begins, and encourage parents to have their children with them beforehand, for psukei d'zimra. Having children see their parents daven can be very positive - and it can also help the parents focus on davening.






For early teens:Youth programs that bring kids into partnership with adults – Volunteering at a kosher food pantry, working on maintenance projects at shul, helping coordinate a shul-wide social event. All of these introduce children to the mechanics of the Jewish community, as well as to some of the players. Specific adults should also be invited to participate in youth programs, toward the same end.

Giving the oldest kids a position on the shul Youth Committee, both for program planning and budget analysis.


So I ask you: What would you change or add?

Canada, the US and the War of 1812

I've written before (such as here and here) about Canadian prejudices against the US. The other day I ran up against this again, when I took two of my children to Canada's Museum of War. [Note: In my view, the museum is very well-done, for the most part.] We spent a good chunk of our time in an exhibit on the War of 1812.

If you are an American, you may be scratching your head at this point and wondering, "War of 1812? What did that have to do with Canada? Wasn't that the time the British burned the White House?" If your memory is especially good, you will recall that Francis Scott Key composed the Star Spangled Banner during the Battle of Baltimore, and you will again wonder what that had to do with Canada.

Canadians, on the other hand, think about the War of 1812 all the time - or so it has seemed for the past year, as the radio has run regular spots advertising information about the 200^th anniversary of the war. (Americans will be forgiven for not realizing that last year was the 200^th anniversary; we are arithmetically challenged, in addition to our trouble remembering our history lessons.)

All year, I heard about this war. And all year, I had no idea why this was a big deal. So when the chance arose to visit the definitive, government-approved exhibit on the war, I went for it. (Full disclosure: It was also one of the only indoor attractions open in Ottawa on January 1, and I was freezing from our snowshoeing expedition.)

The exhibit presents a view of the war composed from four different national perspectives; herewith a simplified digest:

·          United States: The British were taking sailors from American ships, to use them in their war against Napoleon. The US responded by attacking British colonies in Canada. This turned into a war in which the British, allied with Canadian colonists and Native Americans, fought the US. The US believed it won because it drove off the British attackers.

·          Britain: The British didn't want to waste their energies in a war with the US; they were focussed on battling Napoleon's forces in Europe. They never really invested in this war, and don't remember it, much less care about it, to this day.

·          Native Americans: The British promised the Native American tribes support for their needs if they would join the effort against the US. The tribes suffered great losses in the war, and did not receive meaningful compensation in return.

·         

       Canada: The US attacked Canadians, unprovoked, and the Canadians drove them off.

You see how this plays out, then: The Americans were vicious belligerents who 1) attacked the wrong people, 2) triumphed only against a British foe who didn't care enough to fight and against the abused Native Americans, and 3) were beaten by the noble Canadians, who were only defending their homes against American invaders.

Think I'm exaggerating? Check out this official video from the Government of Canada. There is much that I admire in Canada, but this is just ridiculous:

 I'm glad to note that only 22,000 people have watched that, while 500,000 people have seen the College Humor parody: