TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary: Michael Luther on Ki Tetze

Shabbat Shalom!  From a young age, I have always been intrigued by Disney.  But over the last couple of years,  I have become obsessed! 

I love everything Disney,  but especially the theme parks. 

While some 13-year olds  spend their time surfing YouTube for videos of cats or gaming, I follow the latest video updates from Disney World vloggers… yes, they really do exist… and there’s more than three of them! 

If you want to know about the latest in happenings at Disney World, I’m your man! I’m sure some of you know that Star Wars Land opened just two weeks ago, including a ride where you can pilot  the Millennium Falcon. But, did you know ‖ that on August 23rd, Disney filed for a land permit to install pre-fabricated stairs at the Droid Depot in Star Wars Land? ...I did. 

I’ve even researched the price of living at Walt Disney World for a year…  it’s a whopping $287,000 per person… since I know you all wanted to know. 

So, it was natural for me when I began to look at my Torah portion of Ki Tetze, to see everything through the Disney lens. (Put on glasses).  When viewed this way, it almost seems like the entire portion came from Space Mountain instead of Mount Sinai.   

The portion has 72 mitzvahs, or laws – that’s about 12% percent of the 613 commandments in the Torah. Most of Ki Tetze’s laws have to do with relationships between humans, but Disney has done an excellent job of teaching these same rules through their iconic movie characters and parks. 

Here are some examples - 

The first mitzvah found in the portion talks about how important it is not to treat people as slaves. A woman captured in war cannot be mistreated.  In verse 21:14, it says clearly, “You must not enslave her.”

So many Disney characters faced that kind of treatment – like Rapunzel, or Jasmine or even Dumbo or Pinocchio.

Or, take the rebellious child, which we find in verse 18 of that same chapter. The Torah calls it a capital offense to not obey your parents. I know that now that I am a bar mitzvah, I am responsible  for my actions, and hopefully I won’t get executed  for not making my bed this morning. 

This verse is teaching us ‖ that kids should be responsible and not let family issues turn into a full-scale rebellion. Peter Pan and company learned that lesson well –  almost at the cost of their lives. When the Lost Boys  ran away from home ‖ and got to Neverland, what they wanted most of all was a parent. 

In verse 22, we are instructed to return lost items to their owner. Disney parks have taken that commandment to a whole new level. 

If you lose an item anywhere on the property, Disney Cast Members will search for it and send updates to your phone. 

Disney really takes seriously another commandment found in this portion… the mitzvah to love the stranger. As soon as you set foot in the park, you are greeted warmly by cast members, even though they have probably never seen you before. 

In chapter 22, verse 6, we are instructed to shoo away a mother bird before taking her eggs. The idea is to show compassion for animals – which is pretty much a part of every Disney movie…  except for maybe Bambi’s mom and Mufasa. 

In verse 4, it says that if you see an animal fallen in the road,  help it up… like Pumba and Timon helped to raise Simba, or the mouse in Dumbo.

In the next verse, women are instructed not to wear man’s apparel and vice versa.  Fashion has changed these days, but in traditional society,  these things were forbidden –  as we can see with Mulan.   The real message here is that women and men do not need to pretend to be what they are not.  

At the very end of the portion, we read about Israel’s arch enemy, Amalek. We are commanded to defeat them and wipe out their memory. Good defeats evil throughout the Bible and in just about every Disney movie.  I’d like to think that this always happens in real life, but unfortunately, it does not. The Yankees can’t win every game. Life is not always a Disney movie. 

On the other hand, there are no Amalekites around anymore, no ancient Romans, no ancient Egyptians, no Haman, and the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany are gone - but the Jews are still here! 

And so is Disney. Good things never die (and according to some, neither has Walt Disney)! 

For my Mitzvah project,  I’ve chosen to work with  David’s Treasure Chest Toy Closet, which provides free toys to hospitalized children. Toys bring life to children, even if they don’t come to life like they do in Toy Story. I’ll be donating, and I’m encouraging you to donate too.

If you would like to contribute toys ‖ or make a monetary donation, ‖ please see the information ‖ in my Bar Mitzvah Booklet, ‖ or the flyers in the lobby ‖ next to the toy collection box. ‖

All Creatures, Great and Small

Shabbat-O-Gram

Shabbat Shalom!

Last night, our new "Hand in Hand" committee organized an important program on bereavement, with a focus on how we can better assist people beyond the initial period of shiva.  I distributed some helpful materials, exploring the topic from a Jewish perspective.  You can read it here.  Also see last Shabbat's discussion materials on fear, parashat Shoftim and Psalm 27.  Thank you to everyone who made last Friday night's Barbecue and Borechu such a success.  Close to 300 attended, the food and service were wonderful, and a great time was had by all.  

TBE has established a new committee focusing on the plight of refugees.  See this letter signed by 36 major American Jewish organizations last week, urging the President to continue the life saving US Refugee Program.

Creatures, Great and Small

James Herriot wrote in All Creatures Great and Small:   

"If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

Judaism has a rich tradition emphasizing kindness to animals, a mitzvah known in Hebrew as "Tza'ar baalay chayim," literally "feeling the pain of living things."  We should feel their pain - and we can be inspired by them too.

                                         

Among the highlights of my recent excursion to Israel and Southeast Asia were the opportunities to interact with God's creatures, great and small, living in their habitat. We got up-close to elephants and tigers in Thailand, ibex and hyrax in Israel and monkeys and orangutan in Indonesia. Below is a sampling of the photos I took. Click here to see additional animal photos from my recent trip.

We read in this week's portion of Ki Tetze:

"If, along the road, you chance upon a bird's nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life."

In Midrash Tanhuma, we read that Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai taught:

The Holy One has revealed the reward for heeding two precepts in the Torah: one of these precepts is the least onerous, and the other is the most onerous. The least onerous concerns letting the mother go when chancing on a bird's nest - with regard to it, the Torah promises, "that you may have a long life." The most onerous concerns honoring one's father and mother - with regard to it, also, the Torah promises, "that your days may be long."

This midrash is teaching us that all the mitzvot are equal, from sending away the mother bird - which is spontaneous and easy, involving no expense or preparation - to honoring one's parents - which may require extraordinary effort and significant financial and emotional investment.

It also calls attention to two texts, and when you compare them, there's a fascinating discrepancy. In the Ten Commandments, the Torah says, "Honor your father and your mother in order that your days - yamekha - may be prolonged."  However, in this week's portion of Ki Tetze, the text says, "let the mother bird go . . . in order that you may fare well and have a long life [literally, prolong days] - yamim."

While the plain meaning of the second text is that by fulfilling this mitzvah you will prolong your life, that's not what the words actually say. It says, "so that you will prolong (all) life." Perhaps the commandment to send away the mother bird is not about preserving the life of the person who finds the nest, but about preventing the destruction of species, great and small.

Ramban (Nachmanides), the 13th century Spanish commentator, hints at this. He writes, "The Torah will not permit a destructive act that would uproot a species even though it does permit the ritual slaughter of members of that species." In other words, if people routinely took mother birds along with their nests, in time there would be no more nests and no more birds.

If this concerned Ramban in the 13th century, how much more should we be concerned today, when we know of thousands of extinct or endangered species - see the full list here.

Why should we worry about the possible extinction of plant and animal species when so many human beings around the world are in desperate need?

Some would argue that it's a matter of enlightened self-interest - perhaps we'll destroy a plant that might be used to cure cancer or an animal whose DNA might one day protect us against Alzheimer's disease. But the Torah teaches us that there is more to life than self-interest. At the very beginning of the Genesis, we read:

"And God said, let us make the human being in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth."

After God does so, the Torah says, "The Lord God took the human being and placed them in the garden of Eden, to till it and tend it."

As the Psalmist proclaims, "The world and everything in it belongs to God." We human beings didn't create it - and we have no right to destroy what we did not make.

God gave human beings the specific task of tending, guarding, and preserving the world. So we can take the nest, but chase the mother bird away to ensure that the world will always be full of birds. When the Torah exhorts us "u'v'harta b'hayyim," choose life, there are no limits placed on the forms of life we celebrate.

You can read more about Animals and Judaism in this article - and join us on Friday evening services and for Shabbat-in-the-Round on Saturday morning.

See below my photo essay of some of the remarkable creatures I encountered this summer.  And save the date for our Sukkot Blessing of the Animals, on Sept. 23 at 5:30.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi  Joshua Hammerman

Orangutan on Borneo, Indonesia

Monkeys on Borneo

 This one said, "Some warthogs are more equal than others."

Elephant sanctuary, Thailand.  

My adopted elephant's name was Mei-rai

Bathtime

Two siblings, with Mom looking on

Ibex at En Gedi, Israel

Hyrax at En Gedi

A minyan of dogs, Tel Aviv port

Dog shower, Tel Aviv beach

Tiger, Thailand.  His name is Donald.  Seriously.

Little Tiger, Thailand

Tiger and two friends, Thailand.  Do not try this at home.

So I sent him to ask of the Owl if he's there;

How to loosen a jar from the nose of a bear

TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary: Joshua Schulman on Ki Tetze

Shabbat Shalom!

Everyone who knows me knows that I enjoy Pokemon.  Looking back at it, my interest in Pokemon began nearly seven years ago, when I was about six years old. I walked into the living room and turned on the TV, and it was the start of a Pokemon marathon.  I was fascinated by the colors, shapes, and explosions. So that’s how I became hooked for life!

Years later, I still watch the show, play the game, and collect Pokemon cards. So, I’m sure you’re wondering what all this has to do with my bar mitzvah. Well, it turns out that my Torah portion contains rules that are similar to the rules of Pokemon. My portion contains 74 mitzvot (commandments), more than any other portion in the Torah.

In my portion, these mitzvot are about relationships between people, G-d, and animals.  For example, there’s a law that you shouldn’t force an ox and a donkey to work together, because the ox is stronger.  Also, you shouldn’t muzzle your ox while you’re threshing grain to keep it from eating it.  You should also help a donkey, even if it’s your enemy’s donkey, especially even if it has fallen.  You should also shoo away the mother bird before taking her eggs.

Many of the things that you learn from Pokemon teach you skills that you gain when you care for pets or animals. In fact, Pokemon are just like pets. Some Pokemon need protection from other more dangerous ones.  For example, Jigglypuff – one of the cutest Pokemon, can be dangerous at times. When they start singing, run for the hills or grab earmuffs; because their singing causes people to fall asleep and then they’ll draw on your face.  But Jigglypuff also needs to be defended from Pokemon like Snorlax, who can absentmindedly sit on it.  So you see that this not all fun and games, and it can take as much effort to care for a Pokemon as it does to care for a pet. We also feed Pokemon, just like you would feed a pet. In fact, most people don’t realize that the Talmud states that you should feed your pets before you feed yourself. 

The Jewish concept of kindness to animals is called Tzaar Baalay Chayim – know as feeling their pain is important because in a challenge called a Nuzlocke, there are times when Pokemon get hurt.  In this challenge once a Pokémon faints, it it must be released.  In a real way, we feel the pain of the injured Pokemon.   And in some of the videos that I’ve seen on Youtube, the youtuber started crying when his Pokemon died.

My mitzvah project is related to Tza’ar Ba’alay Chayim because I’m giving tzedakkah to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which includes facilities like the Bronx Zoo. We have been members of this society for many years. I will also be volunteering at the Stamford Nature Center throughout these next few years.

As I become a bar mitzvah today, I hope that my love of Torah, along with my significant enjoyment of Pokemon, will help me to follow the right path toward being a responsible member of the Jewish community.

TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary: Ethan Moskowitz on Ki Tetze

Shabbat Shalom!

Everybody who knows me knows I am very good with directions.  I have even been called the human GPS by the kids at school.

From an early age, I was told I would stick my arm out of the stroller to tell the person pushing which way to go. While still in a car seat, I told my grandmother  how to get from my daycare to my home.

Then there was the time, when I was still pretty young, when I gave my other grandparents clear directions on how to get from IHOP to the JCC, so we could play mini golf after breakfast.

But my favorite “Human GPS” moment was the time when my dad was driving

on Bedford Street, and a guy in a van next to us rolled his window down to ask how to get to the Merritt  Parkway, because 95 was closed at Exit 9. My dad thought about it, then turned around to ask me what I thought the best way was. I of course knew right away the way to go, which he repeated to the man in the van – who had a look like he wondered if he should trust a kid in a car seat.

This connects perfectly to my portion of Ki Teitzei which offers a road map of a different sort. This rode map gives us directions to being kinder and more sensitive people.  This is the kind of road map you won't find on a GPS or Google maps – only in the Torah.

One law in particular talks of lost and found objects. In chapter 22 Verse 1, in the Book of Deuteronomy, it says it is our obligation to help a lost animal to find its way home. I'd like to think I do this every time I help someone with directions, such as the first time I was going to the Lower Fairfield County Food Bank to volunteer for school. One of my classmates' father was lost and ended up in Darien. I had to tell him he was in the wrong town and needed to turn around and go back to Stamford. Helping at the food bank was so enjoyable and fulfilling that day, that I made it my Mitzvah project.

For those of you that are not familiar with the food bank located in Stamford, it is Lower Fairfield County’s primary hunger-relief organization, providing food to more than 85 non-profit agencies and programs that serve low income people in a six town service area through bags of groceries and congregate meals.

 I have spent many hours volunteering at the food bank, bringing food donations with me with each visit.

This ties back to my portion of Ki Teitzei which has a law that says we must leave some remains of our crops in the field for orphans, widows or strangers; basically, those in need.   I feel great that people who can't afford food are able to eat.

TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary: Simone Teich on Ki Tetze

My Torah portion contains over 70 mitzvot, more laws than any other portion in the Torah. Almost all of them have to do with relationships – between friends, parents and children, workers and employers and people and animals. Some of the examples given in this portion, though, may not be the most effective ways of teaching these laws to people living in our times. I’d like a show of hands: how many people here plow their fields with both an ox AND a donkey?

Just what I thought! So my job here is to help explain some of these laws using examples from my own life. Fortunately, there are lots. I have a very interesting life! But actually, examples of many of these laws can be found in ALL our lives, not just mine.

So here we go: Here’s my commentary on this portion of Ki Tetze.

1. The portion explains what happens when a child becomes rebellious. No, that child is not me. The treatment is very harsh – too harsh to say in most opinions, including those of the rabbis who later commented on it. But really, this mitzvah is talking about how important it is to use discipline and good judgment in raising a child. It so happens that I have just signed on to my first babysitting job. I am very excited to have a chance to babysit these 5 year old twin girls. Once I have experience babysitting, I’ll have my first glimpse at how complicated it is to be a parent. I’ll have lots more sympathy for my parents!

2. The portion instructs us to return lost objects to our neighbors and too show concern even to those we don’t know. So a year or two ago, I was playing mini golf with my mom, sister and brother, and as we were leaving and walking to our car, I saw something in the bushes. When I went over to it, I discovered that it was a wallet. I brought it to my mom to check for i.d. There was no identification but there a few hundred dollars in it. We brought it to the manager and he said, “You can give me the number and if anyone who has lost a wallet calls us, we’ll give them your number to claim it.” We waited for 6 months and no one called. We have used a large portion of that money to buy toys for David’s Closet and the Bennent Cancer Center at Stamford Hospital. Children undergoing treatment get to go and pick out a toy or gift from this closet. I hope that the item they choose makes them feel better. I had fun going to the store and selecting great toys for this kids to have and play with. Those toys we have purchased are in the baskets up on the bima.

3. Another law instructs us to lift animals when they’ve fallen. We once found a dog on the side of the road. He was just sitting there all alone. My mom told us to stay in the car while she went out to see if it had a collar; it did not. After she checked it just walked away and sat on a nearby lawn. We didn’t want to leave but it seemed like that might be the dog’s lawn, so we left. And just last week, my friend’s dog got through the invisible fence. We went running after it and we finally caught him. Even if its not always your animal it is always good to lend a helping hand to other animals and people in need.

4. Another law states that you should build a protective fence on the roof of your house. In those days, people had flat roofs and did a lot up there. In a similar way, my Dad has strict policies that whoever rides a bike anywhere needs to wear a helmet. The idea behind this mitzvah is that we are responsible for the safety of those who come under our care – and especially into and around our homes.

5. Here’s a strange law – we’re not supposed to wear things that mix wool and flax together. In fact, even in those days, the priests did wear wool and flax, but I think the idea here is that every generation needs to make its own fashion statement. And sometimes, its best not to mix things, but sometimes it is. As many of you know, I love fashion design, especially shoes, and I’ve come up with some nice, interesting blends of shoe types. Think Uggs with high heels. Comfortable… Ehh. But it’s a real possibility(sarcastic)! Well, maybe not.

As you can see, the prime message of this portion is that we should care for others. I’ve not only managed to do this with these examples but also through my special mitzvah projects, including donating my hair twice to Locks of Love and the Rocks for Brian project that you can read about in my bat mitzvah booklet.

As I become a bat mitzvah, I hope to discover more ways to apply the wisdom of my portion to my life.

G-dcast for Ki Tetze

Parshat Ki Teitzei from G-dcast.com

More Torah cartoons at www.g-dcast.com

The Ground Zero Mosque and the Convent at Auschwitz

See a discussion packet from my discussion at services related to the question of collective guilt, Jewish tradition and the Cordoba center - here.


This coming Tuesday, August 24th, at 6:30 p.m., there will be an Interfaith Prayer Vigil in support of Muslim communities in Fairfield County, on the grounds of First Congregational Church, 1 Walton Place, Bedford Street, Stamford. All are welcome to gather peacefully with members of our Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh communities - and people of other religions who choose to join in - to lift voices in prayer for peace and mutual respect. The need for this vigil arises out of the Lower Manhattan mosque controversy, as well as one involving a group of Evangelical Christians protesting outside a Bridgeport mosque. I plan to attend this vigil because promoting mutual respect is aways a good thing.

After much consideration, I also support the decision to allow the Islamic Center to be built a short distance from Ground Zero.

Some relevant articles on the subject:

Why Jews Should Support Mosque near Ground Zero, by Robert Levine and David Ellenson, and from Newsweek and Rabbi Mark R. Cohen, Americans Must Transcend Ignorance on Mosque at Ground Zero. Also see - Bret Stephens: The Mosque at Ground Zero - WSJ.com
and, since I've long been a Bret Stephens fan, see this week's Our 'Moderate Muslim' Problem - WSJ.com.

See also: Jewish Groups Support Cordoba Project

And by all means look at the Cordoba Initiative - FAQs on Lower Manhattan Project .

-------------

I've been struggling mightily with this issue, especially in light of the ADL's decision to recommend moving the proposed mosque to a less sensitive site. My instinct is always to support freedom of religious expression, especially when moderate Muslim leaders step to the fore, as has happened here. But I was so shocked at the response by the very organization devoted to teaching tolerance that I took a second look.

Second look taken, and, while I am supportive of the organization's call for transparency in the funding of the new center, it still looks like the ADL made a big mistake, albeit one that is almost understandable, in part because this situation seems analogous to the case of the Convent at Auschwitz. Charles Krauthammer recently made that comparison (see Sacrilege at Ground Zero), which seems to me to be an unspoken assumption of the ADL position.

The New York Sun website was more specific in connecting the two in an editorial:

“We don’t want to make any inappropriate comparisons in respect of the Holocaust, which is unique in history. But what settled that crisis with the Carmelites was the grit of a few courageous protesters, like Rabbi Avi Weiss, and the seichel of John Paul II, who grasped that the demand for forbearance was not hostility toward his religion and that understanding was not weakness.”

By picking another site, the editorial said, The Cordoba Initiative can “show its capacity for respect, understanding, and forbearance.”

The analogy, however, falls apart for several important reasons.


Carmelite nuns opened a convent in 1984, at a site near where Pope John Paul had conducted a mass in 1979 and where a cross had been erected. The cross may well have offended Jews even more than the convent itself. The cross has been for Jews a symbol of persecution, and one cannot ignore the long history of Christian anti-Semitism that, one can easily argue, culminated in the Holocaust. There are also significant questions as to the activities of Pope Pius XII during the period of World War II. Plus, there was a great concern that the Poles were trying to downplay the Jewish nature of the mass murder that took place there. (See more background on the "War of the Crosses.")


In the late '80s, after much controversy, the convent was eventually moved to a less offensive location - and productive dialogue resumed between Jews and Catholics, over the meaning - and in particular the uniquely Jewish nature - of the Holocaust. The convent is now across the street from the barbed wire fence of Birkenau. I saw it last Spring, and I sensed no encroachment or intrusiveness. If there is a cross on the building, it was not easily noticeable. Although there have been flareups, the controversy is now behind us. And, at its current location, this convent is closer to Birkenau than the proposed mosque would be to Ground Zero.


Having seen the many Christian groups that reached out to Jews on the March of the Living - and the Polish (Catholic) school groups who left lovely notes and flowers on the Auschwitz ovens themselves, I find myself actually being glad that a convent is there now. Pope John Paul showed his love for the Jewish people by visiting Israel and Yad Vashem and recognizing the Jewish state at long last, so maybe now there is room for a Christian expression of solidarity and love for Jews, even near the hallowed ground of Auschwitz. It seems that the goal of minimizing Jewish victimhood has been abandoned by a very different Polish government than the one that existed in 1984. The cross still brings pain, but maybe this pit of death is precisely the place from where understanding and mutual respect might, pardon the pun, germinate.

Maybe that can happen at Ground Zero too.

In 1984, there was a strong consensus among Jews, even those who normally promote dialogue, opposing the convent. This is what I think Abe Foxman is recalling. But this was at a time when the communist government of Poland was using the church to downplay the victimization of the Jews. This is hardly the case in Manhattan, where no one is attempting to distort the immensity of the crime.

Also, downtown Manhattan is nothing like the countryside near the Auschwitz. Aside from the death camp and a few gift shops and fast food places, and the town of Oswiecim down the road, there's nothing else there. In Manhattan, where the proposed center and Ground Zero are not even in the same zip code, a block or two of distance can be enormous. Just saunter from Ground Zero to the Lower East Side, as I recall doing pre 9.11 while in rabbinical school, and a short walk can take you from the 21st century to the 19th, and from ultra-modern U.S. to the Polish shtetl, by way of Chinatown.


But most of all, while the perpetrators of 9/11 claimed to be Muslim, they did not speak in the name of all Muslims. The Pope speaks for Catholicism, so if the construction of a convent were somehow offensive, the buck stops in Rome. The Pope also must deal with historical stains like the Inquisition and Crusades, as well as anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust. But to cast aspersions on a group of moderate Muslims because of the deeds of their radical co-religionists is patently unfair, unless they endorsed those acts. Rauf is no more representative of Bin Laden for Muslims as Bob Dylan is representative of Meir Kahane for Jews.

TIES TO THE TORAH PORTION...

To lump all Muslims together, or people of any background, is an affront to the values espoused by Judaism. It is to turn them into Amalek, a subject of this week's Torah portion, Ki Tetze.

The portion calls upon us to destroy Amalek, which I take as a commandment to destroy evil. But even if that mitzvah is calling for the destruction of a particular nation, Maimonides reminds us that Amalek no longer exists. The Torah also mentions other nations to be dispossessed, the Canaanites, Jebusites, etc., none of whom exists anymore. So the implication is that we should no longer be in the business of destroying entire nations, or, by extension, painting each member of a given nation or group with the same broad brush. Further, this week's portion tells us that children should not be punished for the sins of their parents and vice versa. Each individual should be judged on his own merits.

Let moderate Muslims not be punished for the sins of people whom they have themselves condemned. Imam Rauf said in an interview, "Fanaticism and terrorism have no place in Islam." That's pretty clear and unequivocal. Read a profile of him, and his even more interesting wife, here. I may not agree with every ounce of his politics, including support of Hamas, but he is not a terrorist. I know a lot of Presbyterians who sympathize with Hamas, and I wouldn't call them terrorists either, nor would I deny them a chance to build a church in Lower Manhattan. Plus...

• The Cordoba Initiative, which Rauf espouses, is a most worthy gateway to interfaith dialogue.
• He is a Sufi. Sufis are among the Islamic groups with closest ties to the Western religious (and especially mystical) traditions. Read about sufism here. Rumi's love poetry is some of the finest ever written.
• His wife (Indian born) is a recipient of the Interfaith Center Award for Promoting Peace and Interfaith Understanding. (Can Sufism defuse terrorism?) In an interview with the Wall Street Journal his wife, Daisy Khan, said the facility would include a memorial to the 9/11 victims, and declared that “Hamas commits atrocious acts of terror.” Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, added that her husband “has outright condemned all forms of terrorism.”

Perhaps not every mosque would belong in Lower Manhattan. But that one does.

Deuteronomy and the Jacee Dugard case

I always find the Torah relevant. Heck, that's my job. But there are times when I'm reading the Torah portion on a Shabbat morning and it's as it were that morning's newspaper. it just jumps out at you. Such a moment happened last Shabbat, when I got to Deuteronomy 24:7 and immediately thought of the Jacee Dugard kidnapping case. People are fascinated about how someone could be abducted 18 years ago and never be given the opportunity to escape. The fact that she may have in fact become attached to her abductors is nothing new. So now we are reading about the Stockholm Syndrome (see Hearst: Patty). We're all so curious about how that could happen.

But it shouldn't reduce by one iota our outrage. Rather than being fascinated by the psychology of the criminal and victim, we need to focus on the morality of the crime itself. Deuteronomy brings us right back to those moral basics:

If a man kidnaps a fellow Israelite, forces him to serve and then sells him, when the kidnapper is caught, he shall be put to death. You shall thus rid yourself of the evil in your midst.

Rashi and the Talmud note that "forces to serve" "hitamer" means "does business." Sifre makes it clear that it is not the kidnapping alone that makes this a capital crime, it is the enslavement of the individual - using that person as an object, for monetary gain.

All this happened with this child - and then add what likely would be considered rape to the mix. The message of this verse is clear:

THIS GUY DESERVES TO DIE.

But Jewish law also makes it nearly impossible that the penalty would ever be able to be carried out. What appears as a capital crime in the Torah is almost never carried out in post-biblical sources. The rabbis were careful not to treat human life as callously as these monsters do, even when it meant - and means - keeping most of them alive. These days, as DNA evidence is clearing many death row inmates many years after their convictions, we are discovering how right the rabbis were in their caution.

Still, it is reassuring that such a crime is on the books, (on THE book, as it were) as something akin to murder. Jaycee may get her life back at some point, but her childhood and innocence were ruthlessly taken from her.

I read that verse and nodded. Yes, Phillip Garrido deserves the chair. But we're going to confound him even more by forcing him to bend to a moral code that is far more humane than any that he has ever considered.

Inglourious Revenge

Click here for Amichai Lau Levi's provocative discussion of how this week's parsha deals with death, in stark contrast to the new film "Inglourious Basterds." There is much else to chew over from that film as well - as he puts it:

It’s beautifully shot, and very compelling. It’s not just the violence and the manipulation that makes me shudder at how much I’ve enjoyed the slaughter of the bad guys. I can’t put my finger on it (partially because perhaps this film is such a specific dialogue with other films and other film genres) but I sense that he is saying something important about what we choose to remember, and how we choose to deal with our rage, and how we make – or don’t make – sense of the past. There is a big conversation to be had here about revenge (and about Jewish fantasies of revenge) but I don’t want to discuss that. I just want to think about how he made me think about death.

Click here for Rabbi Irwin Kula's take, from the Huffington Post. He writes:

There may be six million stories in the Holocaust but Inglorious Basterds tells the one we have been afraid to tell about ourselves: the story of what we would really like to do to those Nazis.

Actually, it's the second. The first was "Defiance," also released this year. Is this the beginning of a pattern of revenge flicks? have we run out of contemporary villains that we need to bring back the "Krauts" to beat up? Ever since "Munich" was released a few years ago, Arab terrorists seem to have become passe as venge-objects. It's even hard to hate Iranians these days.

The Torah gives mixed messages. In this week's portion we are told to remember (Zachor) what Amalek did to us and then blot out their names. But Leviticus 19:18 instructs us not to take revenge or bear a grudge. If the Torah seems confused, that's because we are too. Revenge is a messy proposition, because it rarely leaves the avenger unsullied. The avenger then becomes the next person's object of scorn. The Torah offers ways out of this mess - like Cities of Refuge. Maybe the message here is that Amalek is the exception to the rule, whereas in other cases, the rage should be tempered. And even here, Amalek was not to be avenged with emotive fervor, but ritualistically and dispassionately (though no less ruthlessly).

Jews don't do vengeance well. But we certainly are experts at ruminating about it.

Full disclosure: I haven't seen "Basterds" yet. I get the creeps at bloody movies.... I nearly fainted watching "Twilight." But it's on my list and it sounds like one of the films I'll need to see for professional purposes, right up there with "The Passion."