Confessions of a Quickie Converter (Jewish Week)

 

Confessions of a Quickie Converter The Jewish Week 6/00 by Joshua Hammerman Recently, the Israeli Supreme Court heard arguments on the issue of the obligation of the State of Israel to recognize non-Orthodox conversions. At issue are the fates of more than 50 individuals who were either converted in Israel or who studied for conversion there and then traveled abroad for the actual ceremony. Some of these cases have been pending for many years. Interior Minister Natan Sharansky used a curious tack in defending the government s refusal to recognize the conversions of those who had gone abroad, and in doing so crossed a red line that had never been officially traversed before. Until now, it was a given that all conversions performed outside of Israel would be recognized by the Jewish state. Sharansky used the term "quickie" in describing those who study in Israel and then travel outside the country to complete the conversion process. The use of this derisive expression is in truth a not-so subtle indication of his bias against the liberal movements and their rabbis, and not just their conversions. Who would perform "quickie conversions," after all, other than proponents of "quickie Judaism," a superficial, one-night-stand version of the real thing? That is unfortunate. Mr. Sharansky should take notice of the very serious manner in which conversions are handled in the liberal Jewish world. I convert maybe two dozen Jews-by-Choice each year, and each one goes through a long, engaging process of study and questioning, followed by a ceremony that follows halachic standards. My process is impeccable because I know that the integrity of Jewish peoplehood has been, to an extent, entrusted to me. This hardly warrants labeling me a proponent of Judaism Lite. And I believe that rabbis of all denominations take conversion very seriously; we grapple with the new realities that face us, including the rising intermarriage rate and the surprising marketability of Judaism among Americans seeking a firm religious grounding. But Sharansky has done us all a favor by highlighting something that is fast becoming an important fact of Jewish life. Yes, there are such things as "quickie conversions," and yes, I ve done a few. Conservative rabbis do them, as do Orthodox rabbis, and rabbis of all denominations. We do them with increasing frequency, and the "quickie" is a phenomenon that the Jewish world needs to understand and discuss. My most recent quickie was done a couple of years ago and the scenario was typical: A woman comes to me in a great panic. All her life she has lived as a Jew. She was brought up as a Jew with a Jewish father and a mother who had converted to Judaism at the time of her marriage. Suddenly, questions are being raised about the validity of the mother s conversion. It turns out it had not been done according to minimal halachic standards there was no ritual immersion. So suddenly, the grown woman -- with a child, no less -- finds out that for her entire life she has been living a lie. She has gone through all the milestones of a Jewish life Bat Mitzvah, Shabbat candles, her own wedding to a Jew only to be ruthlessly run off the road, told that she s a spiritual fraud, and that her kid is too. How, Mr. Sharansky, would you propose that I clean up this mess? I wasn t the one to alarm her, mind you. I had never met her before, but even if I had, when people inform me that they are Jewish, I typically adopt a "don t-ask-don t-tell" policy. I never seek to verify the credentials of the converting rabbi. But in this case it was the woman herself who felt less than wholly Jewish, and she was concerned for her daughter. So I said to her, "Listen. In my mind you are a Jew," not telling her that the history did indeed raise concerns for me. Then I added, "and you should feel that your child is a Jew too. The last thing I want to do is make you feel like an outsider among your own people and chase you away. But just to tie up this little loophole, why don t you and your child come down to the local mikva with me for a little dip?" She did and remains to this day extremely grateful. I think Sharansky might even have approved. At least my quickie had purer intent than all those quickies allegedly performed over the years on foreign basketball stars to bypass Israeli citizenship requirements under the Law of Return. But I know that this woman and her family are hardly home-free. There is surely a rabbi out there who will see my name on the certificate some day and say to them, "You re still not really Jewish." And he (can t imagine it would be a she since he would likely be Orthodox) will offer to do a quickie of his own on humanitarian grounds. And then some other rabbi will not recognize the validity of this rabbis conversions, so he ll offer his own form of quickie. By this point the entire family will likely opt to settle in some ashram, far away from rabbis; but if somehow, miraculously, the daughter decides to move to Israel, it will happen again. Then the problem then will land right on the lap of Natan Sharansky, who will undoubtedly recommend some form of quickie too, because he ll have hundreds of thousands of similar cases cluttering his desk. The Jewish world has become so darn confusing that it s getting harder to tell who is and isn t a Jew. I can foresee a time, not too far off, when a near-majority of those who will undergo conversion rituals will be people who always thought they were Jewish, but found themselves slipping through the quicksand of shifting definitions. Sharansky has helped us to understand that conversion is a global Jewish problem crying out for a cooperative solution. The first thing world Jewry must convert is its priorities. We need to see how much pain our confusion is causing our people. The longer we allow this anarchy to continue, the more Jews we will lose.

Terezin and The Vision Thing (Jewish Week)

The Jewish Week 4/00

With another Bush now running for President, it s time once again for us to discuss "the vision thing." In truth, the Jewish community has never ceased talking about it, long after George the Elder suffered electoral demise after scoffing that ineffable and elusive quality we call "vision."

So what is vision, anyway?

It s that which allowed a Herzl to look at the squalor of Jewish life in Europe and see modern Maccabees building up a Jewish state; or Moses to see broken slaves and imagine a people proud and free. Jews were quixotic long before Quixote ever flailed against his first windmill. Without the most audacious imagination, we could never have survived in Exile. Yet vision is so lacking in Jewish life today.

Is it simply that we have been hammered down for so long that we no longer can bring ourselves to envision the light at the end of the tunnel? Or is that that we ve become so pessimistic that, even when we do see the light, we automatically assume that its source must be an oncoming train?

Part of the problem might be that things are too good. Because we live in a time of such extreme affluence, with a secure Jewish state in one pocket and a Papal apology in the other, we ve lost the ability to imagine the future getting any better. All we can do is suppose the opposite, a cataclysm that any card-carrying Jew feels must be inevitable when times are good. We feel like we re being set up by God for one of those Satanic Joban deals. I call it the "P tu P tu" theory of Jewish life. When things are good, all we can see is the evil eye lurking behind the bend. Every policeman becomes a Cossack, every crucifix a potential dagger, every extended hand a cynical ploy to catch us off guard.

Time and time again we ve been told that the specter of anti-Semitism will no longer motivate Jews to greater involvement, yet we continue to return to the Holocaust as our primary rallying cry. Sometimes I look at all the attention being paid to these dark shadows of our past and wish to cry out "Never Again!" as in, "Never again will I allow myself to say Gevalt in public and allow the my message to be succumb to such despair."

Then I went to Terezin, and I understood the true nature of vision.

Recently I was part of a group of thirty-plus rabbis, representing the full geographical and denominational spectrum of North American Jewry, who traveled to Prague in a trip coordinated by the North American Boards of Rabbis (NABOR). We journeyed there to fulfill a vision -- several visions, actually. We went to accept a genuine offer of reconciliation from Church and government leaders. We also went to demonstrate an authentic model for unity amidst diversity. Rabbis from the group offered a class to the Prague Jewish community the first ever in Eastern Europe taught by rabbis of three different denominations. And we went to pay respects to the victims of Terezin, the infamous concentration camp located an hour s drive from the Czech capital.

At the end of a long and emotional tour of the camp, the guide brought us to a site only recently discovered, a small synagogue hidden in the basement of a bakery. It was an oasis of holiness in the midst of hell, never defiled by the Nazis, a place where the condemned could utter ancient prayers and dare to hope.

On the walls are Hebrew liturgical inscriptions, two of which absolutely floored me. One says, "Know before whom you stand," a verse found in synagogues everywhere, but one that took on a whole new meaning in that place; for on the other side of that wall stood the S.S. guards. They knew in their hearts that the One before whom they really stood was God, a sovereign whose very existence they certainly had every reason to doubt. In spite of it all, they believed.
And with belief comes vision. On the front wall of the synagogue is inscribed a verse from the Amida, "May our eyes be able to envision Your return to Zion in mercy."

Never again will I be able to recite the Amida without thinking of this holy place.

"Hazon" in Hebrew means "vision" and that word is embedded in the inscribed verse. Note that the prayer doesn t ask that the people themselves be whisked to Zion. The Jews of Terezin were not so quixotic as to imagine that they themselves would ever see the spectacular sunrise over Jerusalem. They didn t pray for their own return to Zion but for God s. Hidden away for a moment of sanity amidst the madness, these heroes had the audacity to pray that God and the Jewish people survive the Holocaust, even though they knew that they themselves most likely would not. They not only saw the light at the end of the darkest tunnel in human history, they shined it toward a distant future that no sane person could possibly have imagined, a future that certainly would not include them.

We were in tears. Spontaneously we davened the afternoon service, although very few of us had prayer books. It didn t matter. The prayers were calling out to us from those walls. It suddenly didn t matter that there was no Mechitza separating the men from the woman or whether the language was gender-neutral. Nothing mattered but that we were Jews, praying together, the living fulfillment of their vision.

Then I read aloud two selections from that classic collection of children s poetry written in Terezin, "I Never Saw Another Butterfly," and I felt like a pilgrim on the steps of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, reciting psalms. The poems were all about the joy of being alive.

If these residents of hell could find the vision to see butterflies and pray for God s renewal, how dare we allow ourselves to become mired in cynicism and negativity! The words of the prophets were written on these subterranean walls:

"May our eyes be able to envision."

And when I reach that verse of the Amida, never again will I dare to yawn.

Shabbat-O-Gram for April 6, 2000

This message runs the gamut this week, from deep concern and protest to laughter and song, from the sublime to the ridiculous.  We begin with the sublime:

Today (Thurs.) is Rosh Hodesh Nisan.  Happy New Year (in the biblical sense)!  We read in the Torah (last Shabbat in fact) the instruction, "HaChodesh HaZeh Lachem..." "This shall be the first of months for you."  What a perfect time, in this beginning of the spring month, to, in the words of Isaiah (40:26) "Lift your eyes heavenward and see Who created these..." 

Once a month, it is customary to look to the sky, check for the Moon, make sure it is not even partially obscured by clouds, and say Kiddush Levana, the prayer over the new moon. This will be done by many people this Motza'ei Shabbat.  Aside from this once a month mitzva, one can and should look at the sky often and be filled with a sense of wonder at God's creation. This might not be a specific mitzva, but it is definitely mitzva-ish in that it can bring a person to a greater appreciation and feeling towards God. 

A very special opportunity of this type presents itself tonight. A short time after sunset, low in the western sky (towards the south), we will be treated to a pretty sight - a slender crescent moon, bright "evening star" Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars close enough to each other to be framed by a circle of thumb and pointer held at arm's length.  

Or, for a daytime experience of awe, simply lok at the first buds of spring and say the special blessing over them.

The trial of the "Iran 13"(Iranian Jews imprisoned on the pretext of spying

for Israel) is scheduled to begin next week. 

As International President of the United Synagogue, I am calling on all

congregations to devote this Sabbath to special prayers, sermons, and other

appropriate programs.  The Hebrew names of the 13 individuals are Yaakov ben Mohtarem, Asher ben Sltani, Nasser ben Peeran, Shahroch ben Shhnaz, Faramaz ben Eshrat, Farzad ben Eshrat, Najat ben Nosrat, Farhad ben Hamdam, Daniel ben Soraya,  Orech ben Zoleicha, Ornid ben Soraya, Ramin ben Malak, Ramin ben Sarah.

We are also including recommendations for action, which are based on months of ongoing consultations of the Presidents Conference Special Task Force on the Iran 13, leaders of the Iranian Jewish communities in the US and abroad, many experts, and government officials.

This list of activities was developed keeping in mind at all times that our

primary obligation is the well-being of the 13 and of the Iranian Jewish

community. The complexity of the situation imposes certain restraints and

restrictions. We have sought throughout to give Iran a face-saving exit

strategy and to avoid provocations. We continue to believe that mass

demonstrations and protests could be counterproductive, although they may

be called for in the future.

Expectations that the situation would improve after the recent Iranian

elections have not been borne out. If anything, the Khatami government

appears to have adopted a harder line.

This list of suggestions will be updated periodically as developments

dictate.

Public activities will begin in North America and Europe this weekend, and

other communities will be joining thereafter.

DIPLOMATIC AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES

1) Contact embassies and consulates of West European countries, Japan,

Muslim nations and other countries to urge continued intercessions with the

government of Iran at the highest level, and ask that they underscore that

the case of the 13 will affect their future relations with Iran.

2) Members of Congress should be urged to support resolutions now

being circulated. 

        (Texts will be sent separately.)

3) The Administration should be encouraged to continue approaches to

foreign governments, to oppose the World Bank loan to Iran, and to warn

Iran that no further gestures or concessions will be forthcoming until the

13 are free.

4) The United Nations should be urged to continue direct representations. Write to UN ambassadors calling on them to press their governments to act.

5) The UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva should be urged to send a

representative to Iran and to raise the plight of the 13. A resolution regarding human rights in Iran is pending and is due to be introduced on April 18. Urge support for the resolution.

6) Governments with resident ambassadors in Iran should ask that they

request to be observers at the trial.

CONTACTS WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONS

1) Human rights organizations, groups, church bodies and particularly

Muslim organizations should be asked to issue statements, write to the Iranian government, and send representatives to Iran to be observers. Joint

declarations of support for a fair trial, legal representation and freedom

for the 13 are in order.

2) Solicit interfaith participation in vigils, joint statements.

3) Business associations, Chambers of Commerce, and particularly those

having contacts to those doing business in Iran should be enlisted.

SYNAGOGUES AND JEWISH ORGANIZATIONS

4) Devote this Sabbath to special prayers, sermons, and other

appropriate programs. A list of the Hebrew names of the 13 is attached.

5) Special prayer services can also be held on Sunday and during the

week of the trial.

PUBLIC ACTIVITIES

1) We do not believe that street protests and mass demonstrations are

appropriate at this time. However, public vigils with the participation of

Jewish and non-Jewish clergy, governmental leaders, human rights figures,

cultural figures and other personalities are in order. These should be

conducted around the clock (at least throughout the day) at key locations

(e.g., near Iranian diplomatic posts or at central, high profile sites).

2) Press statements and press coverage of vigils are encouraged. Urge

editorials in newspapers and the electronic media.

3)  Promote public statements, letters to the editor and interviews

with human rights activists, clergy and political personalities.

4) Secure ads by legal associations, rights groups, etc. (A suggested

text is available.)

5)      Events should be scheduled to assure continuous activity during the

3 days before the trial.

THEMES

1.      Release of the 13 and, at least, granting the ten bail.

2.      The allegations of espionage are groundless.

3.      No formal charges have been brought after more than one year of

imprisonment.

4.      Allow full legal rights, including the choice of lawyers. This is

in accordance with the Iranian constitution, which provides:

"The parties to a suit have the right to appoint a Lawyer in all courts and

if they are not able to appoint a lawyer, facilities for appointing a

lawyer must be provided to them." Article 35 of the Constitution of the

Islamic Republic, The Single Article Act approved by the Council of Discernments of the Exigencies of the Regime provides: 

"All the parties in a litigation have the right to appoint a Lawyer and all

the courts that are established in accordance with law are required to

accept such Lawyers. "

To date, the judge has refused to recognize the attorneys chosen by the

families.

5.      An open, fair trial with observers from the UN, legal associations,

the Jewish community, etc.

6.      Remind Iran that the case of the 13 is a "barometer" for future

Iran-US relations, as Secretary Albright said; a "test case" of the Khatami

government, as Vice President Gore said, and will affect their standing in

the international community, as declared by many governments.

7.      The emphasis must be on humanitarian and human rights and not

attacks or threats against the government of Iran.

We will also post this information on our (USCJ) website. Fact sheets and

materials will be made available.

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

These announcements were found in shul newsletters and bulletins.  Even spell check wouldn't have helped!...

Don't let worry kill you.  Let your synagogue help.

Join us for our Oneg after services.  Prayer and medication to follow.

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our congregation.

For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

We are pleased to announce the birth of David Weiss, the sin of Rabbi and Mrs. Abe Weiss.

Thursday at 5:00PM, there will be a meeting of the Little Mothers Club.  All women wishing to become Little Mothers, please see the rabbi in his private

study.

The ladies of Haddassah have cast off clothing of every kind and they may be seen in the basement on Tuesdays.

A bean supper will be held Wed. even. in the community center.  Music will follow.

Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the JCC.  Please use the large double door at the side entrance.

Rabbi is on vacation.  Massages can be given to his secretary.

Mrs. Goldblum will be entering the hospital this week for testes.

The Men's Club is warmly invited to the Oneg hosted by Hadassah.  Refreshments will be served for a nominal feel.

Please join us as we show our support for Amy and Rob, who are preparing for the girth of their first child.

If you enjoy sinning, the choir is looking for you!

The Associate Rabbi unveiled the synagogue's new fundraising campaign slogan this week:  "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours."

Rabbis' Visit to Prague

 

Community must maintain vigilance in batter against hate (Advocate)

 

The Show Must Go On (Jewish Week)

Originally Appeared in The Jewish Week 2/9/00

I was 18 at the time, a neophyte iconoclast, bursting with hormonal angst and long, shaggy hair. It was the mid ‘70s, and with the War and Woodstock fading memories, the only thing I could rebel against was, of course, religion.

So I went up to the bima of my home synagogue on that fateful Shabbat morning and delivered the sermon (to this day called by many, "THAT Sermon") at our annual teen-led service. I discussed with great sympathy Aaron’s rebellious sons, who were killed in a flash while performing an unusual sacrifice, an "aish zara (strange fire)." Then I went on to offer my own brand of strange fire, critiquing the repetitive, predictable and overly theatrical offering being made by my elders on that pulpit week after week. I called it a show.

For some reason, the rabbi took offense.

It was a show, and the service I lead today is too -- only now I realize that that's not necessarily a bad thing. I've learned that the question should not be, "Is it a show?" but "Is it a good show?" Is this offering pleasing to the Lord? Is it real?

In rabbinical school I was advised that services can't possibly compete with Lincoln Center and Broadway, so best not to try. OK, I thought, so we’re not supposed to aim for that part of people’s souls that cry when they hear Aida or laugh at the banter of Neil Simon. We can’t compete, so let’s just be mediocre, weighed down by rote, suffocated by committee, callused by custom. I was led to believe that the only way to get people to return to services regularly is either by scheduling special events, (meals, guest speakers, honorees, special cantatas, special sermon themes), or by appealing to guilt.

I never bought into that. It's the service that matters, and my goal has always been to build my message from the power of the service itself, not to educate, but to connect; not to teach, but to inspire. I aim for the emotional jugular, all the time. And if that means adding a dramatic pause here and a well-timed joke there, if it means utilizing some of the tools of the actor and playwright, so be it. Each week, I expose more of my inner self than all the guests on Oprah, not to shock, but to share, to engender vulnerability. There's nothing wrong with drama, as long as it doesn't sink into melodrama. It can be real and still be a show.

What people bemoan as clergy-centered "performance Judaism" has little to do with it being a performance and lots to do with it being a bad performance. How does one differentiate good from bad? The answer has little to do with how polished or aesthetically balanced the performance is; it's based more on how intense and authentically human are the emotions evoked by it. Almost always, the people decide. They vote with their tears, their singing voices and their feet.

Recently, my synagogue was privileged to host the New York area debut of "Friday Night Live." Originated by the musician Craig Taubman and Rabbi David Wolpe, this monthly service attracts upwards of 2,000, primarily young singles, at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. It was inspired in part by B’nai Jeshurun in New York, and although the two styles are quite different, through the use of beautiful, contemporary and sing-able music, the results are remarkably similar.

On a frigid Friday last month, Craig Taubman and his band galvanized a packed sanctuary of seekers. I imagined how my father, a hazzan of the previous generation, would have reacted, as Taubman walked among the congregants with his guitar, interspersing humorous anecdotes and warm commentary between the prayers. I decided that, traditional though my dad was, he would have smiled -- the same way he beamed with pride on the day I offered my "strange fire" sermon a quarter century ago. Taubman presented each melody not as a solo, but as an invitation; and all of us, from expert to novice, total strangers, swaying, repeating, closing eyes and holding hands, sang with a power that I have rarely seen in a synagogue.

Was it a show? Yes. But no one exited that service feeling emotionally cheated or manipulated. No one would rather have been at Lincoln Center. We connected at the deepest level. And when I spoke briefly that night on the need for young, wayward Jews to return home to Judaism, I felt at one with my message.

A few days later, I got a note from one young woman with a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, who that night attended a Shabbat service for the first time. "It was WONDERFUL," she wrote, "filled with God’s spirit. I felt right at home. I’M SO EXCITED!!!" In reaching out to Jews on the fringe, we touched at least one who had strayed far beyond it. Her letter alone was enough to convince me that this show must go on.

Craig Taubman will be "performing" Friday Night Live at the upcoming Rabbinical Assembly Convention. I urge my Conservative colleagues to listen closely to their own voices singing along. Orthodox Jews will recognize this revolution in the popularity of the Carlbach style of service, which like Taubman's and B.J.'s, is also now being exported to distant places. And Reform Jews need to heed Eric Yoffie's recent cry for liturgical reform.

There is a Darwinian aspect to this that we must understand. That which brings life to our worship will survive, and that which doesn't will not. The Germanic-Eastern European music that energized synagogue life for two centuries did its job well, but its day is done, except as it is being synthesized into contemporary forms. The psalms themselves are imploring us, "Shiru L'Adonai, Shir Hadash," "Sing unto Adonai a new song." The caravan has already moved on to other ways of making our ancient, sacred prayers come alive. Service attendance will continue to decline until we all understand that it's either good show -- or no-show.

Giving U.S. Kids Their Birthright (Jewish Week)

The Jewish Week, January 14, 2000

As we rush head-first into a new century, it is difficult to imagine the world of a century ago, before automobiles, televisions and computer connections were commonplace. Bat Mitzvahs didn't exist back then either, until Mordecai Kaplan instituted the practice for his daughter Judith in the 1920s. Imagine Israel a century ago, without Tel Aviv, the kibbutz or Hebrew University -- without it being Israel.

So much has changed that it is hard to remember that each positive change was the result of Herculean effort and outstanding leadership. Looking back, these monumental culture changes seem to have occurred naturally, with an air of inevitability. But looking forward, such challenges seem far more daunting, if not impossible, and positive change is certainly not seen as inevitable."Changing the culture" has become a rallying cry in Jewish life, but it is turning out to be much more difficult to accomplish than changing the calendar. Jan. 1 will come and go, but we'll enter the new era with the same problems unsolved: stagnant synagogues, a growing chasm between American Jews and Israel and the prospective loss of the bulk of an entire under-40 generation to meaningful connection with the Jewish people.Grand visions are plentiful, but changing the culture implies finding the means, step by step, to turn a few of those visions into reality, knowing that the path won't be easy. Most dreams never get far beyond the drawing board, while others are nurtured over time and somehow are destined to stick.So now, given the unpredictable nature of bringing visions to fruition, what dream should we Jews be nurturing?

I've hitched my wagon to Birthright Israel, the ambitious project to send every Jewish teen and young adult age 15 to 26 to Israel. My community has been selected as one of 10 Birthright Israel North American pilot communities for next summer, as this visionary project expands to what many consider its most significant phase: the high school market. Up until now we've been hearing primarily about the 10-day college trips currently getting under way. But many experts feel that the full impact of the program will be felt only when the vast majority of high school-age Jewsknow that, as their "birthright," the Jewish world will send them to Israel on a summer teen tour of at least four weeks in duration.

Until now Stamford, Conn., like many other Jewish communities, has not done especially well in this regard. But early signs indicate that this summer the numbers of teens we send to Israel might quadruple last year's total, because we are presenting the kids with an offer they can't refuse: money and immortality.

A few days ago I visited a group of teens to promote a four-week tour that my synagogue is planning in conjunction with the Birthright grant. I asked how many had been to Israel. Very few raised their hands, and this from the kids who are actively involved in Jewish youth activities. Israel simply isn't on their radar screens. But when they heard that they could be pioneers, the chalutzim of a historic moment that could transform Jewish life, and that they would get a huge stipend toward that end, that turned them on.

I then asked them to imagine why the State of Israel would commit $70 million to a project like this when her security needs are still overwhelming and with a million Israelis live below the poverty line. The idea that Israel cares that much for us -- and that our predicament of losing Jews is deemed to be that urgent -- visibly moved them. A number of the teens were ready to sign up then and there. I left feeling great, sensing the cultural weathervane already beginning to shift in our favor.

I believe that Birthright has the potential to transform Israel-diaspora relations, but only if we allow it to. The problem is that the high school phase is going to be much more complicated than the college phase. Since the high school trips will be much longer than the college excursions, the stipend won't cover all expenses, so it's a tougher sell to begin with. We're also dealing with very diverse communities and local federations with diverging interests. And big money is involved. Things will get complicated.

Those who oppose Birthright cite bureaucratic complications or bemoan the fact that cheap Israel trips are no panacea for assimilation. Such people would likely have advised Ben-Gurion to cut his losses, hold off on statehood and send it to committee. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg says that a leader should aim to be at most 15 percent ahead of his people. I sense that in this case, the people, especially the students, are at least that much ahead of some of their leaders, and that the proponents of Birthright Israel are right in step with the times.

While there is indeed no panacea for assimilation, neither have there been many other grand ideas with such potential to bring together so many Jews for the common good and bring so many back to the Jewish fold. Already, the power of this vision has lit a spark in Stamford. Israel has invested wisely, demonstrating a deep concern for my teens and our future. We now know how much Israel cares. We'll soon find out how much the rest of us do.

Pokemon's "Swastika" and the Right to Cultural Privacy (Jewish Week and Stamford Advocate)

 

Pokemon's "Swastika" and the Right to Cultural Privacy by Joshua Hammerman Originally Appeared in The Stamford Advocate, 12/19/99 On Veterans Day last month, the day after the Pokemon Movie opened, nine-year-old Paul Springer and his younger sister Ilana came to my office, seeking my advice. They brought with them a Pokemon trading card featuring two of the series’ 150 characters, Golbat and Ditto, alongside what looked like a swastika. They wanted their rabbi’s opinion as to whether engaging in further Pokemon activities was, well, Kosher. Much was riding on my recommendation. Paul had already given away most of his Pokemon cards and was quite upset, as was his grandfather, a refugee from Poland who had lost many of his family in the Holocaust. As a father, I couldn’t help but consider that my own two children were looking forward to seeing the movie that day. As a rabbi, I couldn’t help but think of how our synagogue’s parking lot had been desecrated with swastikas only two months before. And Buford Furrow’s attack on Jewish children near Los Angeles was also fresh in our minds. But as a lifelong student of religions and advocate of cultural diversity, I knew something else -- that it wasn’t really a swastika. I pulled a book from the shelf and held up the Pokemon card to a photo of Hitler, with arm extended in his infamous salute and an "authentic" Nazi swastika on his sleeve. As one Hebrew School student later remarked, "the tentacles face the other way." It wasn’t a swastika at all next to the Golbat and Ditto. It was a "manji," a Japanese sign of hope, a symbol whose meaning evokes for the Japanese exactly the opposite of what a swastika connotes to those of us in the West. Doing some quick research on the Internet, I was intrigued by the claim that the Nazis deliberately reversed this emblem, transforming an ancient Asian symbol of life into one of death. I managed to convince Paul and Ilana and myself that a strong letter to Nintendo might be in order, but that it was OK to see the movie. A few weeks later, Nintendo pulled the card, claiming that it was never intended for distribution in the West and that "what’s appropriate for one culture may not be for another." That claim at first made me bristle at the company’s insensitivity to the Pauls and Ilanas of this world. But then I wondered about the fairness of it all, whether we in the West have a right to bulldoze ancient cultures whose symbols don’t quite suit our sensibilities. Or have we simply reached the point where East has met West, and never the twain shall part? In our new border-less civilization, is there still room for cultural privacy? Or must everything fit neatly into a single, bland package? In this global village, the wall of separation between church and state still stands tall, but the one separating church from mosque and synagogue is dropping fast. Through the Internet, a Jew whose name isn’t Kissinger can now "visit" Saudi Arabian holy places, and I do, often, then occasionally extending my multicultural hajj to Chartres, the Vatican, or to one of my favorites, the gorgeous Meenakshi Hindu temple in Madurai, Southern India. Usually, I end up at the Western Wall in Jerusalem (called the Kotel in Hebrew), where, through a live camera feed called Kotel Kam, this Conservative male rabbi can zoom his way smack into the women’s section, unbeknownst to the Ultra-Orthodox overseers of this Jewish holy site. I love these on-line expeditions, but wonder if through my temerity I am crossing too many cultural boundaries, compromising the uniqueness of other faiths and denominations, and possibly betraying my own. As we become more crowded on this shrinking Earth, there still must be a place to respect the belief-space of the other. If any symbol deserves to be internationally taboo, it is surely the swastika. Nintendo should have been able to see the problem that would arise. But I fear for a world where the symbol police will be out in force, cruising the Web for non-conformity to standards that no one really sets. Maybe it is time to set some, so that cultural privacy will be respected, and so that those few symbols sullied by universal evil will gain the international censure they deserve. Perhaps our world is small enough now that Buddhists might consider voluntarily giving up or modifying the manji, understanding that they are paying an unfair but necessary price for the crimes of leaders half a world away. Other faiths must also be willing to follow suit. The Catholic Church has certainly done its part, reversing centuries-old positions regarding Jews and Judaism, tenets of faith that had fed anti-Semitism for nearly two millennia. Adherents of all faiths are coming to understand that no one creed possesses a monopoly on truth, and that we all have much to learn from the Other. Given this increase in dialogue and understanding, new rules of interfaith engagement might prevail. That means not engaging in missionary activity, especially of a deceptive nature. "Jews for Jesus" and other so-called Messianic Jews routinely dupe people with their Christological interpretations of Jewish symbols and rituals like the Passover Seder. This activity demonstrates no respect for the cultural integrity of another faith. For Jews, the Millennium presents a particular dilemma, since it is based on a Christian calendar calculations. By the Jewish date book, we are in the year 5760, and Y2K is based on the supposed birth date of a popular Jew whom Jews don’t recognize as the Messiah. Yet rather than scorn at the world on Dec. 31, Jews would do better to join others in serious reflection, made even more serious by the fact that New Years Eve and Day happen to coincide with the Sabbath. So in the end, we all have something new to learn from the manji: for us in the West, to see the joy the serenity it brings to the Buddhist, and to accept it; for our Eastern neighbors, to see the grimace of pain on the face of Paul’s grandfather, and to change it.

A Review of Give Me That On-line Religion"

 "Surfing for God:

A Review of Give Me That On-line Religion"

(This article originally appeared on JBooks.com)

"Give Me That On-line Religion" by Brenda E. Brasher. Jossey Bass. 208pp. $24.95

If there is one commonly accepted truth about the emerging cyber-culture, it is that the only constant is change. Only a couple of years ago, when I was in the midst of writing my own book about spirituality and the Internet, people were just beginning to realize that cyberspace connected us to one another in ways analogous to offline religious experiences.

Now that fact is accepted as a given, what with the proliferation of major religious Web sites like Beliefnet and the nearly universal access to the Internet that suddenly spans all the generations. When I toured with my book, I was astonished at how many seniors turned out for my lectures, and at how cyber-savvy they had become.

So we've reached a new stage in our exploration of religion in cyberspace, one of redefinition and advocacy. This is the underlying premise of Brenda Basher's most recent contribution to the growing genre of books dealing with online spirituality, entitled, "Give Me That Online Religion." Basher, an assistant professor of religion at Mount Union College in Ohio, draws upon her vast understanding of a variety of world religions and the role of religion in society in exploring the topic from a variety of perspectives.

She makes two main points: 1) that religion is a necessary and valuable contributor to a civil society, or as she calls it, "a rich incomparable meaning resource -- necessary ballast to individual identity," and 2) that religious expression must be fostered, cultivated and protected online.

She looks at how traditional religions, including Judaism, have been enhanced. She notes that previous technological innovations were catalysts for change -- television, for instance, led to the slow ascendancy of image over word, and to religious services designed to look like media events. Now, we are moving toward what she calls an "electronic souk of the soul," where developing forms of hypertext surfing are becoming a religious experience unto themselves.

We are learning to broaden our spiritual horizons. Where television opened the door to seeing carefully staged presentations of other cultures, "cyberspace puts us in direct one-on-one contact with our neighbors around the world." Millions of people are only a mouse click away, she adds, "and they are all our neighbors." This poses some moral dilemmas (such as whether cyber sex constitutes adultery) that Basher explores in detail.

She broadens the definition to include some cultural phenomena that we might not automatically associate with "old time religion," including virtual shrines to the cult of celebrity (everything from "Star Trek" celebrations to Princess Diana memorials). Basher also explores modern apocalyptic movements like Heaven's Gate, emphasizing again that, despite the dangers, cyberspace must continue to be a place preserved for people to "climb and roam."

This book reads best as a series of disconnected reflections rather than a sustained, integrated argument. But that in itself is a product of our new, hyperlinked zeitgeist, where writing, like praying and believing, is taking on the spontaneous, word-association flavor of Web surfing. The book will certainly find its place in this still tiny genre, a first-generation study at how we are religious online and how, all expectations to the contrary, traditions of the past are not being subsumed by the eternal present of cyber-culture. As we become more and more computer-like in our thought processes and more technologically sophisticated, we are most certainly not leaving religion behind. God is coming along for the ride.

We Need Aleph Jews (Jewish Week)

 

We Need Aleph Jews

by Joshua Hammerman
Originally Appeared in The Jewish Week, 11/26/99

We’ve been hearing a lot lately about the so-called Alpha Male, the meat-and-potatoes tough guy capable of garnering hundreds of votes with every primal grunt. This is because Vice President Gore, at the behest of hired consultant Naomi Wolf, has apparently decided to beef up his image pumping political iron, and in his battle against the athletic but cerebral Bill Bradley he’s looked at the electoral map and opted to take the Ventura highway.

According to the alphamalesociety.com Web site, the Alpha "puts the man back in manhood." It’s been rather funny seeing Al try to be something he’s not, sort of like watching Hillary Clinton stick a note into the Western Wall.

Or watching Jacob try to be Esau. For we all know that Esau was the first Alpha Jew, or Aleph Jew, I suppose -- even though we weren’t officially called Jews yet. Here was a guy for whom nature came naturally, a hairy ruddy hunter with a passion for hot soup. Passion is the operative word here, for Esau was passion incarnate, with all its negative baggage (no foresight, impulsive judgment), but all the positives too. Here was a guy who knew how to live for the moment. Esau was a great politician, so great that he was able to win over the toughest audience imaginable: his own father.

Jacob, on the other hand, was Bill Bradley without the jump shot. While Esau was out-there and intense, Jacob was literally in tents, introspective and aloof.

For two thousand years, Torah commentators almost uniformly endorsed Jacob’s way. Rebecca’s little skirt-hanger became the poster boy for the ideal Jewish male among the pasty Yeshiva set. Now, for many, this image has become a mark of shame. Now when we think "male Jew," the word nebbish usually comes to mind, a negative self-image that the ad campaign for Birthright Israel correctly identified. In its college phase, Birthright has marketed itself as the antidote to Jacoban Jew, much as the images of Ari Ben Canaan and other "tough Jews" inspired the previous generation of non-muscular males. Sandy Koufax was a hero not only because of the Yom Kippur thing, but because although he looked like the rest of us; beneath the Clark Kent appearance he was incredibly powerful. His voice was the voice of Jacob, but his left arm, man, THAT was the arm of Esau. Now Shawn Green, who even looks a little like Koufax, has picked up Esau’s big Dodger stick and hairy (and potentially even Mickey) mantle. He’s the next Jewish superstar and, thankfully, he knows it.

And so, fellow males, it is time to reclaim Esau as our own. Yes, Naomi, we all need to be Aleph Jews.

No, I’m not advocating that everyone drop their tefillin straps, pick up a gun with one hand and a Maccabee Beer in the other and go out and hunt venison in the backyard. We can’t go overboard on this one; something Gore has done. What we need to do is to find the synthesis that has eluded us since the first body-slam took place in Rebecca’s womb, that melding together of the hands of Esau and the voice of Jacob. Ironically, these two fraternal grapplers actually achieved that synthesis. By the time Jake and Esau were reunited, Jacob had learned how to wrestle at the ford of the Jabbok, and his name had been changed to Jacob "Hands of Esau" Israel. And then the next morning, Esau greeted his long-lost brother with a tag team of four hundred menacing honchos, but with gestures of sweetness that could only have been articulated by the voice of Jacob.

I’ve also tried to achieve that synthesis; not easy, since I’m not exactly athletic, although last week I did manage to reach the Bar Mitzvah boy when I threw the candy (OK, I was standing next to him). I saw long ago that all my rabbinical training had taken place in the tents of Jacob, while real life was being lived out in the fields of Esau; but I was fortunate to have a father who could take me there.

Cantor Michal Hammerman, my dad, died suddenly of a heart attack on New Years Day, 1979, one hour after the close of Hanukkah. This Aleph Jew had also been born on Hanukkah only 60 years earlier, and in between he brought to life the essence of that festival, a combination of oily miracle and Maccabean might that allowed him to amend the words of Zachariah: "Yes, by might, yes by power and yes by My spirit, says the Lord of hosts." And now, this Hanukkah, the Jews of Boston will gather at the shul that he served for 30 years, for a concert dedicated to his memory. We’ll remember, most of all, the passion.

For my father was not a man of words. He was a man of lyrics, but only if there was music behind them to sweep them aloft. He was primarily self-educated, although brilliant in his art; he avoided the ivory tower and disdained intellectualism. When I stumble to articulate, or scribble in my indecipherable handwriting, those are my father’s scrawls. But his hands of Esau went far beyond anything I’ll ever accomplish. He was a virtuoso with tools, a master builder. He even built a community residence for my brother and other adults with disabilities. And he did it all with passion.

Esau had the passion to live for the moment. Jacob, from his heel-grabbing birth, always arrived a minute too late (except when he wore the furry hands of Esau), ever detached from the experience at hand. Jewish males have been catching up to the moment ever since.

So thank you Naomi, Jesse V. and Al, for reminding us that we need Aleph Jews. And to make Aleph Jews, we need more Aleph rabbis.

thelordismyshepherd.com (Jewish Week)

 thelordismyshepherd.com

by Joshua Hammerman

It was late in the summer on 1995 when I first connected to the Web. I was playing around with this new supernatural toy from a company called "Gateway," when suddenly the pearly gates opened and I was in what they call a chat room. I looked up at the top of a pretty blank screen and saw that there were only two names there, and one of them was me. Well. not really me, but my screen name. Hamrab.

The other person was called Whalermouth. I tried to figure out what that meant, but then figured that if that other person was trying to do the same with my name he'd be having a hell of a time. It wasn't worth trying to shake the anonymity.

Then, my four year-old son Ethan noticed some words on the screen. "Hello, Hamrab, tell me if you are there."

My God, it talks! The computer was talking to me. Or really, some completely unknown yet distinct person, with the image of God, yet totally unseen and unheard, someone was reaching out to me as a human being in this most inhuman of environments. What was I to do?

I wasn't ready for this. Do I answer? Do I let on that I'm really there? Well, I typed in, "Hamrab says hello." Totally flustered, and not wanting to get involved with anyone who would call himself Whalermouth, I clicked my way out of the room and to a local weather report. It was an easy click, much easier than hanging up the phone on all those solicitors who call at dinner time. Too easy, in fact. Because the human factor had been so masked by words on a screen. I'm not even sure why I said hello in the first place.

The fact that my son was there is not in itself significant, except that, well, you see he had helped me to turn the thing on. You know someday, maybe when he's 16, he'll be able to hit a baseball further than his old man. And someday, like maybe when he's six, he'll be a few technological light years ahead of me. But that's OK, because I know that my parents, when they were my age, were just pleased as punch that they could get decent black and white reception of Milton Berle if the rabbit ears were turned in the right way. That was the extent their technological prowess, back in those good old days when gophers were pesky animals, the net was what you caught flies in on a hot summer day, and the web, well that was where Dad had to string up his son's baseball glove. Even Dad's glove had a web. Even granddad's.

God is all over the Internet, because of the net, because of the web. These are the metaphors for the Sacred that resonate in this age: the images of universal connection.

The Lord is my Web. The Lord connects me to anonymous Whalermouths, and to my sister 6,000 miles away. Cheap! And when I crash, the Lord's Net shall catch me, all the days of my life.

In the world of the Net everyone is equal, and everyone is heard. Everyone is connected by the humming fibers of phone lines and modems, and somewhere out there, our words land, we know not where. It's sort of like prayer.

And it doesn't have to be anonymous; in fact it can be incredibly intimate and informal, which is just how people want it. No one will correct your spelling on the Internet. It's assumed that the prose will be messy, as it is in normal conversation, and you can speak to people you love, people far away, for pennies. E-mail has become a prime form of communication between parents and children away at college. Aside from being far less expensive than the phone, it also eliminates completely that dreaded modern disease known as telephone tag. Instead of saying "call me," with e-mail you can send a message, know that sometime that day the other person will see it and respond, and if you happen to be on the computer at the same time, the reply can appear on your screen right before your eyes.

In some ways, and in spite of all the bad grammar going around, e-mail has restored some of the romance of the personal letter that was lost when the phone came onto the scene. As rushed as the e-mail process is, it is one step removed from the immediacy of a phone relationship, and sometimes that extra moment can be beneficial for a relationship, just enough time to collect thoughts and replace cliches with heartfelt responses.

There is much good about the new technologies. It can be a source of connection and comfort. There are even rabbinical kvetch lines. I can see it now: in the near future, more than a few Bar Mitzvah speeches will be ironed out by e-mail. And at our disposal will be a library of Jewish resources greater than the combined libraries of every rabbi of every previous generation since Moses. It is staggering.

But is God really there?

"Though I walk in a Valley Overshadowed by Death I will fear no evil for You are there"

God is found where there is death, where there is life, where there is flesh, where there is mass as well as energy. On the Web exists circuitry alone.

So let me give you the other side now. Martin Buber said that all real living is meeting. There has got to be something real when two human beings interact. And one must wonder, can blipping words on a screen serve that purpose? Does the internet, in the end, enhance life? And if so, why is the common complaint about people who spend their days in front of a screen that they should "get a life"? That is true, incidentally, for all modern technology. When virtual reality replaces absolute reality as the lens through which we view the world, it's like the couple who visits the Grand Canyon, and they look out and see it all, all the vast magnificence of rock and sun and wind. And one turns to the other and says, "Honey, this is incredible, it's just like a movie."

The technological explosion has left us all in the dust. Just as we began to get used to food processors, along came the microwave oven. And just as we began to allow our children to within thirty feet of the microwave, along came the VCR to torment us with that blinking digital clock screaming out our technical inadequacies. And just as we got used to that, and actually enjoyed knowing that we could tape our favorite shows when on vacation, along came cellular phones and fax machines, which basically told us that there would never be a real vacation again.

In Israel, where they have always been a little gadget crazy anyway, cellular phones are everywhere. And I mean everywhere. The ultimate occurred at a graveside funeral, when, just as they had finished shoveling the dirt, the phone began to ring, from down there. When the other world is calling, do you accept the charges? Well it turned out that the cellular phone belonged to one of the men who had been digging the grave; it fell out of his pocket. But what do you do when phones begin to ring from all sides during a funeral, or where our beepers often summon us to a higher calling? What do you do at the beach when all the laptops suddenly appear, and one is less at the beach than at the office. The tyranny of technology has not made life more convenient, it has made workaholism one of our greatest and most dangerous addictions. An October 1994 survey done for Hilton Hotels found that 19 percent of Americans call the office frequently during vacations, 13 percent take work along and 27 percent acknowledged being nervous that something would go wrong at work while they were away. I think many of us can relate to these statistics.

So technology, when embraced fully, can lure us from a life outside our work; but to live in God's image, one must, like God, take a rest from work once in a while.

But there is an even darker side to the matter of the Internet. And that is that we are losing the real as we embrace the virtual.

A book that has made its way around many intellectual circles of late is called "Bowling Alone." Its premise is that more people in America are bowling than ever before. And there are fewer bowling leagues in America than there have been in many decades. Too many of us are choosing to bowl alone, rather than to form the teams and leagues that used to weave a different kind of web in our society. The bowling leagues have given way to Internet chat rooms, as have many other social and fraternal organizations; we know how hard it is here to organize social events, to keep worthy organizations afloat. People would rather bowl alone.

The protagonist of the hit film, "The Net" was such a loner that no one at all on this earth could vouch for her or identify her when the net turned on her and denied her an identity. She literally needed to get a life. And the life you can get for yourself on line is not a real one. No, I really don't go around calling myself Hamrab. If you can't see the faces, if you can't smell, touch or hear, than the only thing left is the brain and that blip on the screen.

Yes, there are millions of volumes of sacred texts in the data bases of our computers, but is there a single musty page or cracked binding? Does anything last, or does it get downloaded and tossed away? Can God's name really justifiably be found on the computer screen, if it will inevitably be erased? There are still those of us who have certain reverence for the texture of a page, which we do not feel for the computer screen.

And a living religion needs that texture. David Gerlernter a Jewish Computer Science professor at Yale, makes this point in a recent article. For a Christian, walking into Chartres is a moving experience --- to inhabit that landscape and be moved by it is part of being a Christian. For a Jew, beat up old volumes of Talmud are our Chartres. It's more than the words.

Torah study is not as easy as flicking a mouse. It is difficult. It needs the immediacy of people talking together than you can't duplicate, even on a video conference call. It needs people, live and in person. We cannot lose the feel of a classroom. We cannot lose this central address, where the eternal light does not blink, we cannot lose our true community, not the ones we don't really know, but the ones who know us, with all our flaws and imperfections. We cannot lose the sound of people all around us at prayer or laughing and crying together, or even nodding off, we cannot lose all of this; we cannot lose our spiritual landscape, for then we do lose the image of God.

So can God be found on the Internet? Only if the Internet doesn't become God. For God can never be Virtual. God is as real as the lush meadows, the still waters, and the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

 

Inscribed in the Video of Life (Jewish Week)

 

Inscribed in the Video of Life

by Joshua Hammerman
Originally Appeared in The Jewish Week, 10/14/99

I am a rabbi – and I play one on TV.

While it’s unlikely that you’ve seen me on your set, I’ve appeared in upwards of five hundred televised productions – a number that includes the vast majority of life-cycle events I’ve conducted during my decade and a half in the rabbinate. And these videos are passed down from generation to generation, lighting up the screen long after treasured copies of "Titanic" have gathered dust.

Videos of weddings, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs and the even occasional funeral are one matter; but now it is conceivable that soon my every working moment will be on camera. As a result of recent attacks on synagogues, including my own, my congregation is considering installing a video surveillance system in the building. My life is in danger of becoming "The Truman Show."

Maybe that isn’t so bad.

A century ago, Rabbi Avraham Ya’akov of Sadigora said, "You can learn something from everything: From the railways we learn that one moment’s delay can throw everything off schedule. From the telegraph we learn that every word counts. And from the telephone, that what we say Here is heard There."

During the Days of Awe, we speak of a "Book of Life," where one’s deeds are inscribed. Perhaps it is time to fine-tune that metaphor. I’ve nothing against books, but I’m discovering that it is on the "Video of Life" that our deeds actually are being recorded all the time. What we utter Here is being seen There. Jews have always sensed a divine presence overseeing our behavior; now God is joined by my congregants, my unborn grandchildren, the security guy at the parking garage and my bank teller in having available an instant replay of all I do and say.

When I first came to my current congregation, I wasn’t crazy about their allowing videotaping of Bar/Bat Mitzvah services. So much of life is staged, and our obsession with the historical record too often overwhelms the immediacy of the moment. But I have come to understand and harness the constructive potential of this technology. The congregants don’t see the camera, which peeps through a hidden window above the back wall of the sanctuary. But I do.

The key is never to look at it. And when I charge the Bar or Bat Mitzvah, I follow all the rules of the TV game. I try to be witty, personal, brief and most of all, to stay on message:

It's immortality, stupid....

...the kid's; the family's; the Jewish people's; my own; and the immortality of the words themselves.

The goal is to take this pre-pubescent human standing before me and link him or her to a transcendent destiny. But embedded in my message to the student is a subtle wink to the camera, especially when I remind the child how comfortable he or she is in the sanctuary, and how, no matter what, it will always be home.

"I was watching the Bar Mitzvah video the other day," I hear in varying forms from so many grateful young adults, "and I don’t think I fully appreciated your comments at the time."

That’s because you weren’t supposed to back then. My words, like time-released sinus pills, were intended to be digested by the aimless twenty year old you are now rather than the thirteen year old jumble of hormones you were then. Back then you felt rooted. Back then you couldn't understand why your grandparents were bawling in the front row or why I told you my door would always be open. Now you do.

With the cameras rolling, every word carries immense weight. Long after this student has left the fold, as so many do in their college years, my words might be the only means of reeling him back in. I go into each event knowing that a single slip is unacceptable, that this tape will be scrutinized as closely as the Zapruder film and Monica's beret. "God lives in a Word," wrote Abraham Joshua Heschel. In the end, the indelible Word remains.

We are not the first generation to play to the cameras for immortality. But our yearning to avoid the purgatory of anonymity drives us to do increasingly crazy things, like flailing wildly in the sub-freezing dawn outside the windows of The Today Show. At a recent birthday party, a group of young children were drawn to their images on my camcorder's LCD monitor like moths to a light. My kids love to peer into security cameras at stores. Rather than being threatened at the prospect of Big Brother’s watching them, instinctively children seek the enduring glory of being on the tube.

Come to think of it, don’t we all?

Television is not inherently evil. It provides a vehicle for our lives to echo through the vast reaches of time and geography. So we'd best choose our words carefully; all are being recorded on the "Video of Life." And no matter what the medium, the message is still the message.