Those of you who know me, know that I love music. When I started playing guitar a couple of years ago, it gave me the chance to learn and listen to many different kinds of music. Music from rap to country, from old rock and roll to pop hits from today. Being introduced to all of these types of music has made me understand how music can reflect how we feel. It also can help us to overcome sadness and make us happy.
It so happens that my Torah portion, Vayera, is one of the most musical parshas of the torah. Even thought it isn’t even mentioned once. As you might remember, during Rosh Hashanna, we read about Akaydat Yitzchak, the binding of Isaac. Abraham almost sacrifices Yitzchak, but instead, Hashem tells him that it was only a test of his loyalty and gives him a ram to sacrifice instead. This is where we get the idea of blowing the shofar and this is why we read it on Rash Hashanna. Music is the way we fill our lives with happiness and purpose. The Hebrew word for hollow, ‘halal’, also means wounded or hurt. In our lives, when we feel hurt, music heals us. One of the purposes of the shofar is that we all have to fill the hollow part of people’s lives and make them more whole.
My portion gives us several ways to do that. At the beginning. Hashem visits Abraham when he is in pain. This is the model for us of Bikur Holim, visiting the sick. Then Abraham welcomes three guests with open arms, and this is the first example of Hachanast Orchim, hospitality, or welcoming guests, another important mitzvah. The Torah shows us how important it is when Abraham even turns away from a conversation with Hashem to welcome the guests. Later in the portion, Abraham stands up for the people of Sedom even though he doesn’t know them, to save them all from being destroyed. Finally, we read about Akaydat Yitzchak, and the shofar.
In a way we are all shofars. Each of us has the ability to be the music to people’s lives. I’ve been doing this by going to Sunrise Assisted Living to lead Shabbat services on Friday afternoons and play wii. When I go there I don’t know how many people will join me. It could be two or twenty but it doesn’t matter because the people who are there really enjoy it. Doing this taught me that volunteering benefits the person who you are helping and yourself.
Now a Bat Mitzvah, I’ve learned many ancient melodies and seen how important music has been for the Jewish people for thousands of years. And now, I get my chance to add a few notes of my own.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary: Rachel Steinmetz on Lech Lecha
At the beginning of my Bat Mitzvah parsha, Lech Lecha, Avraham is commanded to leave his native land and go to the land that Gd will show him. He is promised a special land, set aside for him and his descendants, but he has no idea where he is going.
When I was little, I had an experience of leaving home and not knowing where I was going. One winter day, my mom and aunt packed us in the car and told us to prepare for a long trip to a mysterious destination. We took our blankets and got comfortable for the big trip ahead. As we were just dozing off, about ten minutes into the trip from my grandparents’ house in Greenwich, my mom woke us. “We’re here”, she said, as we pulled up to the Rye Town Hilton, our mystery destination! We were pretty surprised! I may not have been promised a special land set-aside for my descendants like Avraham, but I did have a great weekend with my family!
In Lech Lecha, we read in this portion that Avraham was known as an “Ivri”, which means a Hebrew. He was the first to be called that. The root word for Ivri is: Ayin, Vet, Resh, which also means “the other.” Avraham was an outsider; bold enough to stand up for what he believed in. In a time of idol worshipers, Avraham worshipped only one Gd. No one had ever believed in one Gd before, and he was not so popular for his beliefs.
I can relate to Avraham standing up for his beliefs. Most kids my age are on Facebook after school, and it can be fun to talk to my friends. However, sometimes people say mean things about each other or gossip. It’s easy to get involved in nasty conversations, and it takes courage to stand up for the person who people are putting down. I try to stand up for my belief in kindness and take the side of the victim as often as I can.
Avraham’s courage shines though as he leads a group of kings in a war and rescues his nephew Loat, who had been taken captive.
Then, Avraham has to overcome a different kind of fear – the fear of abandonment and a life without children. God reassures him and makes a covenant with him.
At the end of the portion, Avraham had that child but needed to overcome a different kind of stress. He circumcised himself at the age of 99. Now THAT took courage.
A lot of things in life take courage. For Jews, it’s taken a lot of courage simply to survive, after centuries of persecution. When President Roosevelt said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” he could easily have been talking about the Jewish people.
But there are times when we are in fact supposed to fear. The word “fear” YIR’AH, also means to respect. So we can and should fear God.
We should also respect our elders. I respect the people I was named for: my first name Rachel was for my great grandmother, Rose. She was an independent, generous, warm woman who loved to cook and spend time with her family and friends. She was ahead of her time. She graduated high school and got her driver’s license at a time when few woman did. She loved to travel so much that she and a friend drove to Kansas at a time when that was considered a bold thing to do. I also have a strong sense of adventure and dream of traveling out of the country sometime soon.
My middle name, Shoshana, was for my great grandfather, Sam Resnick. He had a store in Greenwich, and he worked so hard, never taking time off or spending even one night away from home. He took good care of his family. Like Sam, I work hard at the things that I love.
Respect for my elders is what has inspired my mitzvah project. For the past seven months, I’ve been going to Sunrise Assisted Living to lead games of bingo for the residents. I’ve come to know some of them very well and really enjoy their company. They love Bingo and really hate it when I have to leave.
I learned that your Hebrew name, or shem, is connected to your soul, or Neshama. In fact, the word neshama has the word shem right in the middle! I will try to be even more like the great grandparents for whom I was named, working even harder at the things I love.
And like Avraham and Sarah, I hope to be even more kind and courageous and make my family proud!
When I was little, I had an experience of leaving home and not knowing where I was going. One winter day, my mom and aunt packed us in the car and told us to prepare for a long trip to a mysterious destination. We took our blankets and got comfortable for the big trip ahead. As we were just dozing off, about ten minutes into the trip from my grandparents’ house in Greenwich, my mom woke us. “We’re here”, she said, as we pulled up to the Rye Town Hilton, our mystery destination! We were pretty surprised! I may not have been promised a special land set-aside for my descendants like Avraham, but I did have a great weekend with my family!
In Lech Lecha, we read in this portion that Avraham was known as an “Ivri”, which means a Hebrew. He was the first to be called that. The root word for Ivri is: Ayin, Vet, Resh, which also means “the other.” Avraham was an outsider; bold enough to stand up for what he believed in. In a time of idol worshipers, Avraham worshipped only one Gd. No one had ever believed in one Gd before, and he was not so popular for his beliefs.
I can relate to Avraham standing up for his beliefs. Most kids my age are on Facebook after school, and it can be fun to talk to my friends. However, sometimes people say mean things about each other or gossip. It’s easy to get involved in nasty conversations, and it takes courage to stand up for the person who people are putting down. I try to stand up for my belief in kindness and take the side of the victim as often as I can.
Avraham’s courage shines though as he leads a group of kings in a war and rescues his nephew Loat, who had been taken captive.
Then, Avraham has to overcome a different kind of fear – the fear of abandonment and a life without children. God reassures him and makes a covenant with him.
At the end of the portion, Avraham had that child but needed to overcome a different kind of stress. He circumcised himself at the age of 99. Now THAT took courage.
A lot of things in life take courage. For Jews, it’s taken a lot of courage simply to survive, after centuries of persecution. When President Roosevelt said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” he could easily have been talking about the Jewish people.
But there are times when we are in fact supposed to fear. The word “fear” YIR’AH, also means to respect. So we can and should fear God.
We should also respect our elders. I respect the people I was named for: my first name Rachel was for my great grandmother, Rose. She was an independent, generous, warm woman who loved to cook and spend time with her family and friends. She was ahead of her time. She graduated high school and got her driver’s license at a time when few woman did. She loved to travel so much that she and a friend drove to Kansas at a time when that was considered a bold thing to do. I also have a strong sense of adventure and dream of traveling out of the country sometime soon.
My middle name, Shoshana, was for my great grandfather, Sam Resnick. He had a store in Greenwich, and he worked so hard, never taking time off or spending even one night away from home. He took good care of his family. Like Sam, I work hard at the things that I love.
Respect for my elders is what has inspired my mitzvah project. For the past seven months, I’ve been going to Sunrise Assisted Living to lead games of bingo for the residents. I’ve come to know some of them very well and really enjoy their company. They love Bingo and really hate it when I have to leave.
I learned that your Hebrew name, or shem, is connected to your soul, or Neshama. In fact, the word neshama has the word shem right in the middle! I will try to be even more like the great grandparents for whom I was named, working even harder at the things I love.
And like Avraham and Sarah, I hope to be even more kind and courageous and make my family proud!
Friday, November 6, 2009
Living Waters for Dry Times - Interfaith Event
An important interfaith event will take place in Stamford this Sunday from 2-5 at the First United Methodist Church, 42 Cross Road, in Stamford.
It is entitled: "LIVING WATER FOR DRY TIMES; Faith Communities Meeting the Needs of Stamford."
Religious communities from all over Stamford will come together to be inspired by one of America’s greatest preachers, and address how they might work together to meet the increased needs of this city during hard times. LIVING WATER FOR DRY TIMES is the brainchild of the Rev. Doug McArthur, senior pastor the First United Methodist Church, and is sponsored by the InterFaith Council of Southwestern Connecticut. The keynote speaker will be the Rev. James Forbes, Senior Pastor Emeritus of Riverside Church in New York City, and founder of the Healing of the Nations Foundation.
Participants will gather to hear Rev. Forbes speak, and then break into sessions dealing with health, education, housing and employment. The design team has invited Stamford experts in each of these fields to serve on panels and help guide the discussion toward practical actions that faith communities can help undertake. Participants will choose one break-out session to attend, and will be invited to be part of “solution roundtables” after hearing from the panelists.
The Housing panel will include Congressman Jim Himes (4th CD), Joan Carty (Housing Development Fund) and Ross Burkhardt (New Neighborhoods). The Employment panel comprises Kip Bergstrom (Urban Development League), Jack Condlin (Stamford Chamber of Commerce) and Tom Failla (Norwalk Community College). Education will be addressed by Eileen Swerdlick (Stamford Public Schools, ret), Michael Duggan (Domus) and Peggy Sarkela (Reach Prep), and Mary Judge.
Rregister online at http://livingwaterforstamford.eventbrite.com/
The planning team includes: Rabbi Joshua Hammerman; the Revs. Kate Heichler, Tommie Jackson, Cari Jackson, Mark Lingle, Doug McArthur, Juan Paniagua, Leroy Parker and Mary Thies; Michael Hyman (Domus); Deborah Katz (Stamford Public Health); Phil McKain (CTE); and Eileen Swerdlick (Stamford Public Schools, retired).
Regrettably, a funeral will now prevent me from attending this important event - it is my deep hope that the Jewish community will be well-represented. And also join me at our monthly "Learning and Latte" interfaith discussion at Borders, this coming Tuesday at 7:30 PM.
It is entitled: "LIVING WATER FOR DRY TIMES; Faith Communities Meeting the Needs of Stamford."
Religious communities from all over Stamford will come together to be inspired by one of America’s greatest preachers, and address how they might work together to meet the increased needs of this city during hard times. LIVING WATER FOR DRY TIMES is the brainchild of the Rev. Doug McArthur, senior pastor the First United Methodist Church, and is sponsored by the InterFaith Council of Southwestern Connecticut. The keynote speaker will be the Rev. James Forbes, Senior Pastor Emeritus of Riverside Church in New York City, and founder of the Healing of the Nations Foundation.
Participants will gather to hear Rev. Forbes speak, and then break into sessions dealing with health, education, housing and employment. The design team has invited Stamford experts in each of these fields to serve on panels and help guide the discussion toward practical actions that faith communities can help undertake. Participants will choose one break-out session to attend, and will be invited to be part of “solution roundtables” after hearing from the panelists.
The Housing panel will include Congressman Jim Himes (4th CD), Joan Carty (Housing Development Fund) and Ross Burkhardt (New Neighborhoods). The Employment panel comprises Kip Bergstrom (Urban Development League), Jack Condlin (Stamford Chamber of Commerce) and Tom Failla (Norwalk Community College). Education will be addressed by Eileen Swerdlick (Stamford Public Schools, ret), Michael Duggan (Domus) and Peggy Sarkela (Reach Prep), and Mary Judge.
Rregister online at http://livingwaterforstamford.eventbrite.com/
The planning team includes: Rabbi Joshua Hammerman; the Revs. Kate Heichler, Tommie Jackson, Cari Jackson, Mark Lingle, Doug McArthur, Juan Paniagua, Leroy Parker and Mary Thies; Michael Hyman (Domus); Deborah Katz (Stamford Public Health); Phil McKain (CTE); and Eileen Swerdlick (Stamford Public Schools, retired).
Regrettably, a funeral will now prevent me from attending this important event - it is my deep hope that the Jewish community will be well-represented. And also join me at our monthly "Learning and Latte" interfaith discussion at Borders, this coming Tuesday at 7:30 PM.
The Dance of Bibi and Barack
Both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama will be speaking to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America next week in Washington. You'll be able to see the speeches on the GA website.
Meanwhile, it is not known whether the two leaders will meet next week or even if the US Adminsitration was informed in advance of the visit. Stay tuned. But with things heating up over Iran, including Israel's seizure of an arms-laden ship headed for Lebanon, Abbas stewing and bowing out of upcoming elections in Ramallah and the Goldstone fiasco making its way through the U.N., it seems like a good idea for Bibi and Barack to break bread.
For more background, see:
ANALYSIS / Netanyahu, Obama don't need love to advance peace
Abbas withdraws from presidential race
Ayalon: Threat of striking Iranian nuclear facilities not a bluff
Iran's Nuclear Diversion
Iran's Nuclear Program and Israel
UNGA endorses the Goldstone Report
The Goldstone Illusion: What the UN Report Gets Wrong about Gaza and War
How Israeli Naval Commandos Seized the Francop -
The Haul: 320 Tons of Katyushas, Other Rockets, Shells and Bullets
Meanwhile, it is not known whether the two leaders will meet next week or even if the US Adminsitration was informed in advance of the visit. Stay tuned. But with things heating up over Iran, including Israel's seizure of an arms-laden ship headed for Lebanon, Abbas stewing and bowing out of upcoming elections in Ramallah and the Goldstone fiasco making its way through the U.N., it seems like a good idea for Bibi and Barack to break bread.
For more background, see:
ANALYSIS / Netanyahu, Obama don't need love to advance peace
Abbas withdraws from presidential race
Ayalon: Threat of striking Iranian nuclear facilities not a bluff
Iran's Nuclear Diversion
Iran's Nuclear Program and Israel
UNGA endorses the Goldstone Report
The Goldstone Illusion: What the UN Report Gets Wrong about Gaza and War
How Israeli Naval Commandos Seized the Francop -
The Haul: 320 Tons of Katyushas, Other Rockets, Shells and Bullets
Can I Congratulate the Yankees?
This one is hard. But not as difficult as it used to be. Back in the dark days B.C.E. (Before the Curse was Extinguished), in otherwords, pre 2004, it was much harder to smile in the face of Only Yankee Victories Every Year (acronym O.Y. V.E.Y.).
Now I can look on the bright side. For this century, at least, the Sox still have one more championship (counting 2001 as the first year of the new century), even though the Yankees still far outspend even the Bosox every year. My son Ethan has succinctly explained in a recent column why baseball's lack of a salary cap has become a joke. As he wrote,
"Let’s be frank for a moment. Baseball is dying a slow death as America’s pastime. The Super Bowl has already passed the World Series as the year’s premier sporting event. Regular season and playoff ratings were lower than ever this year. TBS is broadcasting playoff games, for heaven’s sake. TBS!"
In this regard, the Red Sox are every bit as culpable as the Yankees, even though they don't spend as much. The TV ratings speak for themselves, despite a healthy jump for the World Series (but even then, the best rating resulted from an NFL doubleheader lead-in that scored even higher).
So I have less pain watching the Yankees triumph now than I did following other pinstriped victories. There is no spectre of Wade Boggs on horseback or Roger Clemens being, well, Roger Clemens. There is no Bucky ("Mazal Tov") Dent hitting homers over the Wall or Aaron Boone ruining my one and only playoff visit to the old Yankee Stadium.
I no longer have to entertain vast theological questions about why God causes bad things to happen to good Bostonians. The Curse was eclipsed so long ago that kids now don't even know it existed. It's somewhat analogous to how today's younger generation never knew of a Jewish people without a state of Israel. We take our good fortune for granted.
So there is nothing holding me back from issuing at least a 3/4 - hearted Mazal Tov. And there are several good reasons to do it.
1) Because a number of people whom I love and admire are Yankee fanatics. If I'm going to work and live in Yankeeland, that's just something I have to accept. I actually feel good for at least some of them today.
2) Because I've gotten lots of mileage out of this rivalry. I do many bar mitzvahs and 13 is when baseball interest peaks, just after firetrucks and Barbie and just before attention turns to, well, other things. So my inner child is cryogenically forzen at 13, and as long as the Rivalry thrives, I've got instant material. If the Yankees had gone many more years without winning, things would have begun to get boring.
3) Because of Mel Allen, z'l, whose grave I visit in our cemetery all the time. He was the ultimate mensch.
4) Because Yankee fans have been so sensitive to their opponents over the years. Look at the paternal love given to Pedro Martinez!
5) Because it's the right thing to do. When your opponent wins, you rise above it and congratulate him. It's what we call "derech eretz." As Rabbi Joseph Telushkin has written in his magnum opus on Jewish ethics:
"An ancient rabbinic text teaches, kadmah derech eretz et ha-Torah, 'the commandment of good manners [i.e, considerate behavior] preceded the Torah' (Leviticus Rabbah 9:3). The Rabbis explain that while the Torah's commandments were revealed and became binding only at the time of the revelation at Mount Sinai, the obligation to act with courtesy and civility toward others originated with Adam and the creation of humanity. God could imagine humankind existing for thousands of years without the Torah, but He could not imagine human beings existing without the need for civility."
6) Because defeat is a prerequisite for victory, and acceptance of defeat a necessary stage of maturity. A win is meaningless without prior defeat.
Rabbi Soleveitchik, a.k.a. The Rav, put it this way:
"Man, in Judaism, was created for both victory and defeat - he is both king and saint. He must know how to fight for victory and also how to suffer defeat."
"Modern man is frustrated and perplexed because he cannot take defeat. He is simply incapable of retreating humbly. Modern man boasts quite often that he has never lost a war. He forgets that defeat is built into the very structure of victory, that there is, in fact, no total victory; man is finite, so is his victory. Whatever is finite is imperfect; so is man's triumph."
Losing is good for the soul.
"...the readiness to accept defeat purges the uncontrollable lust for victory."
So not only do I congratulate the Yankees, I THANK them. And I thank the Angels too, for making my October good and miserable. Great and miserable, in fact.
NEXT year's Red Sox championship will be all the sweeter for having had to follow this year's Yankee win.
So as a charter member of the O.Y. V.E.Y. club, I say "mazal tov" to the Bombers!
Now I can look on the bright side. For this century, at least, the Sox still have one more championship (counting 2001 as the first year of the new century), even though the Yankees still far outspend even the Bosox every year. My son Ethan has succinctly explained in a recent column why baseball's lack of a salary cap has become a joke. As he wrote,
"Let’s be frank for a moment. Baseball is dying a slow death as America’s pastime. The Super Bowl has already passed the World Series as the year’s premier sporting event. Regular season and playoff ratings were lower than ever this year. TBS is broadcasting playoff games, for heaven’s sake. TBS!"
In this regard, the Red Sox are every bit as culpable as the Yankees, even though they don't spend as much. The TV ratings speak for themselves, despite a healthy jump for the World Series (but even then, the best rating resulted from an NFL doubleheader lead-in that scored even higher).
So I have less pain watching the Yankees triumph now than I did following other pinstriped victories. There is no spectre of Wade Boggs on horseback or Roger Clemens being, well, Roger Clemens. There is no Bucky ("Mazal Tov") Dent hitting homers over the Wall or Aaron Boone ruining my one and only playoff visit to the old Yankee Stadium.
I no longer have to entertain vast theological questions about why God causes bad things to happen to good Bostonians. The Curse was eclipsed so long ago that kids now don't even know it existed. It's somewhat analogous to how today's younger generation never knew of a Jewish people without a state of Israel. We take our good fortune for granted.
So there is nothing holding me back from issuing at least a 3/4 - hearted Mazal Tov. And there are several good reasons to do it.
1) Because a number of people whom I love and admire are Yankee fanatics. If I'm going to work and live in Yankeeland, that's just something I have to accept. I actually feel good for at least some of them today.
2) Because I've gotten lots of mileage out of this rivalry. I do many bar mitzvahs and 13 is when baseball interest peaks, just after firetrucks and Barbie and just before attention turns to, well, other things. So my inner child is cryogenically forzen at 13, and as long as the Rivalry thrives, I've got instant material. If the Yankees had gone many more years without winning, things would have begun to get boring.
3) Because of Mel Allen, z'l, whose grave I visit in our cemetery all the time. He was the ultimate mensch.
4) Because Yankee fans have been so sensitive to their opponents over the years. Look at the paternal love given to Pedro Martinez!
5) Because it's the right thing to do. When your opponent wins, you rise above it and congratulate him. It's what we call "derech eretz." As Rabbi Joseph Telushkin has written in his magnum opus on Jewish ethics:
"An ancient rabbinic text teaches, kadmah derech eretz et ha-Torah, 'the commandment of good manners [i.e, considerate behavior] preceded the Torah' (Leviticus Rabbah 9:3). The Rabbis explain that while the Torah's commandments were revealed and became binding only at the time of the revelation at Mount Sinai, the obligation to act with courtesy and civility toward others originated with Adam and the creation of humanity. God could imagine humankind existing for thousands of years without the Torah, but He could not imagine human beings existing without the need for civility."
6) Because defeat is a prerequisite for victory, and acceptance of defeat a necessary stage of maturity. A win is meaningless without prior defeat.
Rabbi Soleveitchik, a.k.a. The Rav, put it this way:
"Man, in Judaism, was created for both victory and defeat - he is both king and saint. He must know how to fight for victory and also how to suffer defeat."
"Modern man is frustrated and perplexed because he cannot take defeat. He is simply incapable of retreating humbly. Modern man boasts quite often that he has never lost a war. He forgets that defeat is built into the very structure of victory, that there is, in fact, no total victory; man is finite, so is his victory. Whatever is finite is imperfect; so is man's triumph."
Losing is good for the soul.
"...the readiness to accept defeat purges the uncontrollable lust for victory."
So not only do I congratulate the Yankees, I THANK them. And I thank the Angels too, for making my October good and miserable. Great and miserable, in fact.
NEXT year's Red Sox championship will be all the sweeter for having had to follow this year's Yankee win.
So as a charter member of the O.Y. V.E.Y. club, I say "mazal tov" to the Bombers!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Hoffman Lecture on Shalom TV
The recent Hoffman Lecture delivered by Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal will be available on free pay per view on Shalom TV, from November 8-14. If you have Cablevision, simply go to Channel 502, then select "News and World" and then Shalom TV. It will be in the category, "News and Israel." A brief excerpt can be found at the Shalom TV web site by clicking
here.
The lecture is still most timely, a month and a half after it was given.
Audio files are also available on our website.
here.
The lecture is still most timely, a month and a half after it was given.
Audio files are also available on our website.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
'New Jews' stake claim to faith, culture
(CNN) -- When Moses came down from Mount Sinai about 3,300 years ago, he couldn't have seen these Jews coming.
A blogger writes about how one of Judaism's holiest days ended, for her, in a strip club, while elsewhere a guy strolls into a tattoo parlor requesting a Star of David. Two women exchange wedding vows in a Jewish ceremony, and hipsters toss back bottles of HE'BREW, The Chosen Beer. A full-time software developer prepares to lead a group in Jewish prayer, as a PhD candidate in Jewish thought pens a letter criticizing Israel's policies.
Meet the "New Jews," as some call them: pockets of post-baby boomers -- or more accurately Generation X and Millennial (Gen Y) Jews -- who are making one of the world's oldest known monotheistic faiths and its culture work for them and others in a time when, more than ever, affiliation is a choice.
more
A blogger writes about how one of Judaism's holiest days ended, for her, in a strip club, while elsewhere a guy strolls into a tattoo parlor requesting a Star of David. Two women exchange wedding vows in a Jewish ceremony, and hipsters toss back bottles of HE'BREW, The Chosen Beer. A full-time software developer prepares to lead a group in Jewish prayer, as a PhD candidate in Jewish thought pens a letter criticizing Israel's policies.
Meet the "New Jews," as some call them: pockets of post-baby boomers -- or more accurately Generation X and Millennial (Gen Y) Jews -- who are making one of the world's oldest known monotheistic faiths and its culture work for them and others in a time when, more than ever, affiliation is a choice.
more
House Condemns Goldstone Report on Gaza
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to condemn the Goldstone report.
The vote Tuesday urging the Obama administration to keep the report accusing Israel and Hamas of war crimes in last winter's Gaza war from advancing through the United Nations system, passed 344 to 36 with 22 voting "present."
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which lobbied hard for the non-binding resolution, said it "strongy applauds" its passing.
"Congress is sending a strong message that the United States will not agree to turn the victim into the perpetrator," AIPAC said.
The vote comes on the eve of debate on the report in the U.N. General Assembly; the report has already been endorsed by the U.N. Human Rights Council.
The resolution "calls on the President and the Secretary of State to continue to strongly and unequivocally oppose any endorsement of the `Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict' in multilateral fora, including through leading opposition to any United Nations General Assembly resolution and through vetoing, if necessary, any United Nations Security Council resolution that endorses the contents of this report."
The resolution was introduced by U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), its chairman.
The vote Tuesday urging the Obama administration to keep the report accusing Israel and Hamas of war crimes in last winter's Gaza war from advancing through the United Nations system, passed 344 to 36 with 22 voting "present."
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which lobbied hard for the non-binding resolution, said it "strongy applauds" its passing.
"Congress is sending a strong message that the United States will not agree to turn the victim into the perpetrator," AIPAC said.
The vote comes on the eve of debate on the report in the U.N. General Assembly; the report has already been endorsed by the U.N. Human Rights Council.
The resolution "calls on the President and the Secretary of State to continue to strongly and unequivocally oppose any endorsement of the `Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict' in multilateral fora, including through leading opposition to any United Nations General Assembly resolution and through vetoing, if necessary, any United Nations Security Council resolution that endorses the contents of this report."
The resolution was introduced by U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), its chairman.
Ask the Rabbi: Jews and Shoes
I was recently asked about an obscure custom of throwing away the shoes of the deceased, rather than donating them to charity. Suffice to say that it is a superstition that in fact flies against at least two prime Jewish values, that of not wasting precious resources (Bal Tashchit) and that of helping to clothe the naked and help the poor. By all means, give those shoes away!
For detailed background on this matter, including a historical survey as to how the wives tale developed, see this responsum by Rabbi David Golinkin, "The Custom of Discarding the Shoes of the Deceased."
For detailed background on this matter, including a historical survey as to how the wives tale developed, see this responsum by Rabbi David Golinkin, "The Custom of Discarding the Shoes of the Deceased."
Friday, October 30, 2009
Anti-Semitism is Down: Is that Good for the Jews?
Yes, a synagogue was attacked in LA yesterday (see Shooting at LA synagogue likely not a hate crime). But listen to this is good news, although, once the ADL has interpreted it, even a decline in anti-Semitism sounds really depressing. Surely there is work to be done, but is this good news? Judge for yourself.
From my perspective, if, in light of Goldstone, Madoff and a horrible economy, anti-Semitism is DOWN... that's VERY good news.
Poll: U.S. Anti-Semitic Attitudes Match Lowest Level Recorded
A nationwide survey of the American people released Thursday by ADL found that 12% of Americans hold anti-Semitic views, a decline from 15% in 2007 and matching the lowest figure ever recorded by ADL, in 1998. ADL national director Abraham Foxman said, "We can't dismiss that 12% of the American people means that there are still over 30 million Americans that hold anti-Semitic views." "The significant diminution of widespread prejudice against Jews is tempered by the manifestation of violence, conspiracy theories and insensitivities toward them."
"Some bad news remains a constant, such as 30% believing that American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to America, and 29% believing that Jews are responsible for the death of Christ. Equally of concern is that more than a quarter of African-Americans - 28% - hold anti-Semitic beliefs and more than a third of foreign-born Hispanics - 35% - have such attitudes." (Reuters)
See also 2009 Survey of American Attitudes toward Jews in America (Anti-Defamation League)
From my perspective, if, in light of Goldstone, Madoff and a horrible economy, anti-Semitism is DOWN... that's VERY good news.
Poll: U.S. Anti-Semitic Attitudes Match Lowest Level Recorded
A nationwide survey of the American people released Thursday by ADL found that 12% of Americans hold anti-Semitic views, a decline from 15% in 2007 and matching the lowest figure ever recorded by ADL, in 1998. ADL national director Abraham Foxman said, "We can't dismiss that 12% of the American people means that there are still over 30 million Americans that hold anti-Semitic views." "The significant diminution of widespread prejudice against Jews is tempered by the manifestation of violence, conspiracy theories and insensitivities toward them."
"Some bad news remains a constant, such as 30% believing that American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to America, and 29% believing that Jews are responsible for the death of Christ. Equally of concern is that more than a quarter of African-Americans - 28% - hold anti-Semitic beliefs and more than a third of foreign-born Hispanics - 35% - have such attitudes." (Reuters)
See also 2009 Survey of American Attitudes toward Jews in America (Anti-Defamation League)
A Serious Mensch: Don Adelman
The commentator Dennis Prager often talks about the need for "serious Jews," those who, regardless of their denomination or background, take Jewish learning seriously and bring Jewish values into their daily lives. Such a man was Don Adelman, who passes away suddenly last week. He was a serious mensch in every way. Here is some of what I said about him at his funeral last Sunday:
I loved Don Adelman – everyone who knew him did. He embodied what is best about the Jewish tradition, the values of learning and menschlichkite, the love of family and communuity; caring for the weakest among us. He embodied a love of Conservative Judaism in particular and of synagogue affiliation.
He was in my house just a couple of weeks ago – visiting my sukkah at our open house. At the end, after just about everyone else was gone, he was the only one left. First he talked with Mara in our kitchen for a half hour. Then, when I came inside, he schmoozed with me for another half hour. He loved to schmooze. He was a people person – and his love for all things Jewish emerged from every pore.
It has been noted by many – the fitting irony of Don’s passing while engaged in study – at the library, in preparation for teaching a Melton class – study and teaching energized him throughout his life – and his career essentially begin at a Melton program, when he was chosen by the Jewish Theological Seminary’s melton Research Center to go to Columbus, Ohio as part of the original team where he was assistant principal, youth director and teacher of many courses to all age groups, including adults.
Here in this sanctuary, Don was my right hand. Whenever I was away, he was the one I asked first to give a substitute d’var torah, and he never said no, He loved to do it, and people loved learning from him. Last June, when I was given the chance to take a few congregants down to NY for special seminars on the chancellor’s mitzvah initiative, I could think of no one more fitting than Don. I cherished those two long round trips in the car – and watching him light up returning to those hallowed halls of JTS. And he knew everybody. He didn’t just know everyone who was there – it seemed – but also all the people whose portraits were on the wall.
The best possible way to honor Don would be to learn. This past week's portion begins:
These are the generations of Noah. Noah was in his generations a man righteous and whole-hearted; Noah walked with God.
In the Talmud (Kiddushin 30a), we read, "Whoever teaches children Torah, it is as if he had taught his children and his children’s children until the end of all generations.”
These are the generations of Donny. All his students, and their children, until the end of time.
Like Noah, Don was a tzaddik / but also tamim – humble. And while walking was difficult for Don at times, he had no trouble walking with God. His life was a true march of the living.
Don was a legend in the Conservative movement. When I sent out a notice on Friday to my rabbinic chat group, I began to receive e-mails back from people whose lives Don changed. At Camp Ramah he was legendary, from his stints as director in Canada, Glen Spey and then in Palmer Massachusetts, where he personally oversaw the resurrection of a camp that had closed down in 1970. He brought it back to life.
I loved Don Adelman – everyone who knew him did. He embodied what is best about the Jewish tradition, the values of learning and menschlichkite, the love of family and communuity; caring for the weakest among us. He embodied a love of Conservative Judaism in particular and of synagogue affiliation.
He was in my house just a couple of weeks ago – visiting my sukkah at our open house. At the end, after just about everyone else was gone, he was the only one left. First he talked with Mara in our kitchen for a half hour. Then, when I came inside, he schmoozed with me for another half hour. He loved to schmooze. He was a people person – and his love for all things Jewish emerged from every pore.
It has been noted by many – the fitting irony of Don’s passing while engaged in study – at the library, in preparation for teaching a Melton class – study and teaching energized him throughout his life – and his career essentially begin at a Melton program, when he was chosen by the Jewish Theological Seminary’s melton Research Center to go to Columbus, Ohio as part of the original team where he was assistant principal, youth director and teacher of many courses to all age groups, including adults.
Here in this sanctuary, Don was my right hand. Whenever I was away, he was the one I asked first to give a substitute d’var torah, and he never said no, He loved to do it, and people loved learning from him. Last June, when I was given the chance to take a few congregants down to NY for special seminars on the chancellor’s mitzvah initiative, I could think of no one more fitting than Don. I cherished those two long round trips in the car – and watching him light up returning to those hallowed halls of JTS. And he knew everybody. He didn’t just know everyone who was there – it seemed – but also all the people whose portraits were on the wall.
The best possible way to honor Don would be to learn. This past week's portion begins:
These are the generations of Noah. Noah was in his generations a man righteous and whole-hearted; Noah walked with God.
In the Talmud (Kiddushin 30a), we read, "Whoever teaches children Torah, it is as if he had taught his children and his children’s children until the end of all generations.”
These are the generations of Donny. All his students, and their children, until the end of time.
Like Noah, Don was a tzaddik / but also tamim – humble. And while walking was difficult for Don at times, he had no trouble walking with God. His life was a true march of the living.
Don was a legend in the Conservative movement. When I sent out a notice on Friday to my rabbinic chat group, I began to receive e-mails back from people whose lives Don changed. At Camp Ramah he was legendary, from his stints as director in Canada, Glen Spey and then in Palmer Massachusetts, where he personally oversaw the resurrection of a camp that had closed down in 1970. He brought it back to life.
I can’t think of too many people who did more creatively for Jewish youth over the past half century, especially when it came to forging connections with Israel. What we saw here with Kulanu was just a small sampling. Here was a man who, while working for Ramah, brought many Israelis over to this country to work in the camps and develop relationships with the kids here. He led the AZYF for a time – and coordinated the great Israel Day parade in New York – that was our Don. Imagine the politics he had to deal with, but Donny knew how to deal with politics. Not through anger or manipulation, but with simple honesty and passion.
One of the youth programs he loved to talk about was his involvement in the recreation of the Exodus boat – that refugee ship that brought Jews from Europe to Palestine in 1947, only to be turned back by the British. He was so creative. There is no doubt that he personally was responsible for brining tens of thousands of Jewish youth to Israel during his life – including our Stamford group a few years ago. I was amazed that he could make that trip – but he never had trouble keeping up with the teens. Maybe the secret was that when he was in Israel, walking was never an issue, because he was always a few feet off the ground.
He also forged ties between Israel and US Jewry through his work with American-Israel Chamber of Commerce and Chief Executive of the Israel Cancer Research Fund. One of the people with whom he worked won a Nobel Prize just a couple of weeks ago. And even less formally, he had a profound impact on people with his passion for Israel. Here’s an e-mail I received last night:
After a beautiful Shabbat Noah, I opened my e-mail to read the sad news of the passing of Donny Adelman.
Though we have not met in close to 50 years he proved to become one of the most influential people in my life. We were classmates together in the late 1950’s at the JTS Joint Program. He had recently return from a unique year at the Machon L’madrikhei Hutz La’aretz. He began to work on me and ultimately prevailed upon me to register for what turned out to a transforming year in Eretz Yisrael, which brought me to an identity with the land and the people of Israel. After graduation, a stint in the US Chaplaincy, three civilian pulpits, my wife, four children and I made aliyah. We never looked back. After 32 years (and 11 sabra granchildren) we are thankful we had the zehut to be part of Eretz Yisrael. In part, thanks to Donny’s persuasiveness, which started it all… Yehi zikhro baruch
Another great and lasting accomplishment of Don’s was the Tikva program at Ramah, a program designed to integrate emotionally and mentally challenged teenagers into the Ramah community.
He was very proud of these accomplishments, as well he should be. But he didn’t just talk about them – he lived them.
We began with parashat Noah – we end with Lech Lecha, this week's portion, where God promises Abraham, Veheyay bracha, "You will be a blessing." In the words of one commentator, "While other nations will live but for their own welfare and glory, Abraham and his people shall know no greater task than to become a blessing to a great world."
All Don wanted was to be a blessing – to share his thirst for learning with us. It is the gift that he gave us until the very moment of his death – and it will be the gift that will keep on giving, for generations to come – dorotoav, all his generations, Don’s generations, for all time.
These are the generations of Daniel ben Zeev U'Peninah. A Serious Mensch.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Seriously Funny - Or Flawed?
Here's my challenge - to write some serious reflections about "A Serious Man," a film that seems to try very hard not to take itself seriously. But when, I think about it, the biblical book after which it was modeled, Job, was itself the Woody Allen flick of its day. I mean, what else can you say about a book that begins with an absurd wager between God and Satan, carries the gag through a sequence of inane encounters with three clueless advisers and then ends with God's ways being revealed as unknowable, roaring away in the midst of a tornado?
Wait a minute. Am I talking about the book... or the movie?
If there is a serious message at all to the film, and I have to assume that because I really didn't find it to be laugh-out-loud-early-Woody Allen - earlier-Philip Roth funny, it is that God's ways are unknowable in an unjust, absurd world. In the end, the only one laughing is God.
As the saying goes, מענטש טראַכט, גאָט לאַכט. Man plans, God laughs.
That's a key message of Job, where the friends try to explain Job's predicament in conventional ways that never stray from the box. They never fully understand that the times are a changin' and old theological formulas just don't cut it. Meanwhile, Job senses that he's just a pawn in some celestial game of chess, saying in verse 20:3 "Why should man be born to wander blindly, hedged in by God on every side?" Job, hardly the passive sufferer of lore, rails against the darkness of his plight, screaming out in chapter 20, verse 11, "Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not perish at birth?
Job the sufferer has it all over Job the "serious man."
Larry Gopnik never goes Joban, or even postal, in the movie. His wife is unfaithful, his kids are unredeemable brats more concerned with hair and TV reception than their parent' failing marriage; his job is tedious and unrewarding, his neighbor is a Jew-hater and his other neighbor a nymphomaniac, and his synagogue is an empty shell. The teachers can't teach and the rabbis can't empathize. The services are boring, the bar mitzvahs meaningless.
In some interviews, the Coen brothers alluded to their "nostalgic" look at the Minneapolis suburb of their childhood. This is hardly the nurturing shtetl fireplace, the "Oyfn Pripitchek"of Yiddish lore, where the elderly mentor slowly taught the wide-eyed child the "alef-beis." In this landscape, in fact, the rabbis are Satan, right from the very start of the movie, where, in an otherwise inexplicable prologue, a shtetl wife mistakes (we think) a saintly old man for a dybbuk. (On one level, the prologue works as an indictment of religious fundamentalism and superstition, which creates moral blinders so powerful as to allow good people to murder innocents out of a dream-provoked fear - but that's only if the strange visitor wasn't in fact, a dybbuk, something that is not firmly established).
I grew up in a community that had similar types, at a similar time. We had Hebrew School teachers that were utterly clueless to the ways of assimilated American baby boomers (though, unlike the kids of this movie, my passion was more for baseball cards than smoking pot, unlike the bar mitzvah students of this film. But, like them, I did sneak a transistor radio into Hebrew School during the 1967 World Series to hear the Red Sox). Our rabbis were not shallow idiots, however pedesteled ( see The Problem With Pedestal Rabbis) and pedestrian they were. I followed my muse to Allen, Roth, loved "The Graduate," and viewed rabbis and religion with a healthy skepticism, if not at times an unhealthy cynicism. At times I saw them as emblematic of the plastic culture we were railing against.
In college, I wrote scathing critiques of those clueless Hebrew teachers, essays and stories that would make even the Coens cringe. But I also was able to lift them off the page and give them some humanity. There was Abraham Solomon Schindler (we kids loved his initials) - who was jolly, until someone stuck gum on his chair. There were the teachers who taught only in Hebrew, admiring their work on the blackboard, even as the Woodstock sky was falling and the late '60s teenage hormones raging behind them.
I once wrote a poem about rabbis called "Painted Plastic." You can guess where that one was going. It bemoaned those half-baked handshakes and the banal advice:
"Hello dear friend," he's say, and walk away....
But there was a counterculture Judaism that I also grew up with, and that Judaism was exciting and vibrant and meaningful - and it had a home in the very same synagogue, my synagogue, that also housed the creaky - crumbling Judaism of the Coens' film. It is sad to think that the Coens had one but not the other. This might be the difference between Minneapolis, where they lived, and Boston, which was at the time churning with new ideas. They had the conformity and conventionality, a synagogue as cold as that church at the end of "The Graduate," but none of the juice of the early Havurah movement. They had A.S.S. but none of the teachers with the long hair who hummed "The Times They are a Changin.'" I had both.
They had snot spitting, phlegm-y walking corpses. I had the disciples of Heschel and Buber.
That's what saddened me about the film, them lack of appreciation for the life that was being injected into Jewish communities at that time, and while there were scenes that hinted at authenticity, the lack of humanity in any of the characters left me gasping.
When Larry moved out of the house at the request of his wife and her lover, that's where he stopped being Job and morphed into Bontsha the Silent, the I.L. Peretz character (see notes here) whose passivity crosses that fine line from goodness to madness. Passivity is not good - nor is the biblical Job passive (or "patient," as the Christian stereotype suggests). Turning the other cheek is not a Jewish idea, especially with a guy who is making off - and out - with your wife. So Larry stopped being a serious Joban character at that moment for me, and this ceased being a serious attempt to grapple with Job.
As for God's place in all this. God only knows. The message seems to be a Joban one, that we have no idea what are God's ways, so as Archibald MacLeish wrote in his Joban midrash, J.B., "Blow on the coal of your heart. and we'll know..." The idea is simply to live and love and make the most of an absurd world.
Abraham Joshua Heschel put it best in his last serious (and only known) TV interview, recorded shortly before his death:
The interviewer Carl Stern asked him, “What message have you for young people?”
Heschel's reply: “Let them remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Let them be sure that every deed counts, that every word has power, and that we can all do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all frustrations and all disappointments. And, above all, [let them] remember…to build a life as if it were a work of art.”
At the end of the movie (spoiler alert), Larry finally succumbs to the temptations facing him, and either because of or despite his moral lapse, a tornado is bearing down on his son's class and the doctor alludes to some bad news regarding his health. There is no rhyme or reason, no rhythm to this world spinning out of control, save for the tunes on the boy's coveted transistor radio.
Wait a minute. Am I talking about the book... or the movie?
If there is a serious message at all to the film, and I have to assume that because I really didn't find it to be laugh-out-loud-early-Woody Allen - earlier-Philip Roth funny, it is that God's ways are unknowable in an unjust, absurd world. In the end, the only one laughing is God.
As the saying goes, מענטש טראַכט, גאָט לאַכט. Man plans, God laughs.
That's a key message of Job, where the friends try to explain Job's predicament in conventional ways that never stray from the box. They never fully understand that the times are a changin' and old theological formulas just don't cut it. Meanwhile, Job senses that he's just a pawn in some celestial game of chess, saying in verse 20:3 "Why should man be born to wander blindly, hedged in by God on every side?" Job, hardly the passive sufferer of lore, rails against the darkness of his plight, screaming out in chapter 20, verse 11, "Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not perish at birth?
Job the sufferer has it all over Job the "serious man."
Larry Gopnik never goes Joban, or even postal, in the movie. His wife is unfaithful, his kids are unredeemable brats more concerned with hair and TV reception than their parent' failing marriage; his job is tedious and unrewarding, his neighbor is a Jew-hater and his other neighbor a nymphomaniac, and his synagogue is an empty shell. The teachers can't teach and the rabbis can't empathize. The services are boring, the bar mitzvahs meaningless.
In some interviews, the Coen brothers alluded to their "nostalgic" look at the Minneapolis suburb of their childhood. This is hardly the nurturing shtetl fireplace, the "Oyfn Pripitchek"of Yiddish lore, where the elderly mentor slowly taught the wide-eyed child the "alef-beis." In this landscape, in fact, the rabbis are Satan, right from the very start of the movie, where, in an otherwise inexplicable prologue, a shtetl wife mistakes (we think) a saintly old man for a dybbuk. (On one level, the prologue works as an indictment of religious fundamentalism and superstition, which creates moral blinders so powerful as to allow good people to murder innocents out of a dream-provoked fear - but that's only if the strange visitor wasn't in fact, a dybbuk, something that is not firmly established).
I grew up in a community that had similar types, at a similar time. We had Hebrew School teachers that were utterly clueless to the ways of assimilated American baby boomers (though, unlike the kids of this movie, my passion was more for baseball cards than smoking pot, unlike the bar mitzvah students of this film. But, like them, I did sneak a transistor radio into Hebrew School during the 1967 World Series to hear the Red Sox). Our rabbis were not shallow idiots, however pedesteled ( see The Problem With Pedestal Rabbis) and pedestrian they were. I followed my muse to Allen, Roth, loved "The Graduate," and viewed rabbis and religion with a healthy skepticism, if not at times an unhealthy cynicism. At times I saw them as emblematic of the plastic culture we were railing against.
In college, I wrote scathing critiques of those clueless Hebrew teachers, essays and stories that would make even the Coens cringe. But I also was able to lift them off the page and give them some humanity. There was Abraham Solomon Schindler (we kids loved his initials) - who was jolly, until someone stuck gum on his chair. There were the teachers who taught only in Hebrew, admiring their work on the blackboard, even as the Woodstock sky was falling and the late '60s teenage hormones raging behind them.
I once wrote a poem about rabbis called "Painted Plastic." You can guess where that one was going. It bemoaned those half-baked handshakes and the banal advice:
"Hello dear friend," he's say, and walk away....
But there was a counterculture Judaism that I also grew up with, and that Judaism was exciting and vibrant and meaningful - and it had a home in the very same synagogue, my synagogue, that also housed the creaky - crumbling Judaism of the Coens' film. It is sad to think that the Coens had one but not the other. This might be the difference between Minneapolis, where they lived, and Boston, which was at the time churning with new ideas. They had the conformity and conventionality, a synagogue as cold as that church at the end of "The Graduate," but none of the juice of the early Havurah movement. They had A.S.S. but none of the teachers with the long hair who hummed "The Times They are a Changin.'" I had both.
They had snot spitting, phlegm-y walking corpses. I had the disciples of Heschel and Buber.
That's what saddened me about the film, them lack of appreciation for the life that was being injected into Jewish communities at that time, and while there were scenes that hinted at authenticity, the lack of humanity in any of the characters left me gasping.
When Larry moved out of the house at the request of his wife and her lover, that's where he stopped being Job and morphed into Bontsha the Silent, the I.L. Peretz character (see notes here) whose passivity crosses that fine line from goodness to madness. Passivity is not good - nor is the biblical Job passive (or "patient," as the Christian stereotype suggests). Turning the other cheek is not a Jewish idea, especially with a guy who is making off - and out - with your wife. So Larry stopped being a serious Joban character at that moment for me, and this ceased being a serious attempt to grapple with Job.
As for God's place in all this. God only knows. The message seems to be a Joban one, that we have no idea what are God's ways, so as Archibald MacLeish wrote in his Joban midrash, J.B., "Blow on the coal of your heart. and we'll know..." The idea is simply to live and love and make the most of an absurd world.
Abraham Joshua Heschel put it best in his last serious (and only known) TV interview, recorded shortly before his death:
The interviewer Carl Stern asked him, “What message have you for young people?”
Heschel's reply: “Let them remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Let them be sure that every deed counts, that every word has power, and that we can all do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all frustrations and all disappointments. And, above all, [let them] remember…to build a life as if it were a work of art.”
At the end of the movie (spoiler alert), Larry finally succumbs to the temptations facing him, and either because of or despite his moral lapse, a tornado is bearing down on his son's class and the doctor alludes to some bad news regarding his health. There is no rhyme or reason, no rhythm to this world spinning out of control, save for the tunes on the boy's coveted transistor radio.
It's hard to find the meaning beyond absurdity in this kind of resolution. God gets the last laugh, but only if there is a God. Sort of reminds me of something I saw in a men's room stall in my sophomore year at Brown, on the third floor of the Rockefeller Library:
"God is dead." - Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead." - God
God always has the last laugh.
Did you hear the one about the tornado that decimated the Hebrew School?
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Voting is a Mitzvah
We had the chance to hear from Stamford's two outstanding mayoral candidates this week.
There is one incumbent running in this election, and I have no problem making that incumbent the subject of a personal endorsement: it is incumbent upon all of us to vote!
There is one incumbent running in this election, and I have no problem making that incumbent the subject of a personal endorsement: it is incumbent upon all of us to vote!
Yes, I believe that voting is not only an American privilege, it is a Jewish value. The following is adapted from Koach’s guide to elections put together a few years ago:
We never hear about the rabbis of the Talmud voting. And Moses certainly didn’t take a vote before leading the people out of slavery. Still, the democratic value inherent to voting does find expression in Jewish tradition:
Not long after the Israelites leave Egypt, God calls for a census. This count of the population reminds us of the significance of every individual. In the nation being created, each person must be accounted for, as each person plays a vital role in the viability of the whole. In the same way, each person in the United States plays some role in determining the future of the country as a whole.
The principle “you should go after the majority (Exodus 23:2) is understood by the rabbis to mean that the majority rules in legal disputes. In one famous Talmudic story, a group of rabbis argue over a legal point. Even though a divine voice supports the lone opinion of one rabbi, the majority opinion wins. Once the Torah has been transmitted to the Jewish people, the will of the people—understood as the majority opinion of the decision makers—determines the law. (Talmud Bava Metzia 59b)
The concept of hiyyuv, or personal obligation, is the central theme of Jewish law. We have obligations toward ourselves, toward God and toward others. Living with this sense of obligation means approaching the world with a feeling of responsibility for what happens. Voting is one way of acting on each of our individual obligations to make our part of the world a more just place.
Jews were deeply involved in both the women’s suffrage movement of the 1920s and in the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, which, among other accomplishments, achieved the extension of the right to vote to African Americans. Some early Jewish voting-rights advocates included Clara Lemlich who, in 1909, following the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, organized one of the most important strikes in American history and who then turned her energies to creating a working class women’s suffrage organization; and Gertrude Weil, a leader of the North Carolina Equal Suffrage League beginning in 1915 and a crusader for voting rights and election reform.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Should Jewish Children Trick-or-Treat?
Halloween has increasingly become a source of tension for some Jews. The glib answer is, "We've got Purim, a dress-up holiday where we give instead of take." That is true, but Purim is many months away and Halloween is now.
Below is a selection of views from Moment Magazine.
As you might be able to tell, I come from the “lighten up” school of thought when it comes to Halloween. But the question as to whether or not Halloween is “un-Jewish,” is complex. It's all about “Jew-sion,” the fusion of Judaism and surrounding cultures. It’s a perfect time to discuss this, because there is a clear connection between the story of Noah (this week’s portion) and the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, as well as other ancient legends. See a chart comparing the two epic tales here. It shows clearly how the destiny of all humankind is intertwined.
Below is a selection of views from Moment Magazine.
As you might be able to tell, I come from the “lighten up” school of thought when it comes to Halloween. But the question as to whether or not Halloween is “un-Jewish,” is complex. It's all about “Jew-sion,” the fusion of Judaism and surrounding cultures. It’s a perfect time to discuss this, because there is a clear connection between the story of Noah (this week’s portion) and the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, as well as other ancient legends. See a chart comparing the two epic tales here. It shows clearly how the destiny of all humankind is intertwined.
Should Jewish Children Trick or Treat?
Here’s a selection of views from Moment Magazine (always a great barometer of Jewish currents). While the overwhelming sentiment here is that Halloween is harmless, non-religious and American and basically no big deal (a sentiment that I subscribe to), there are those who feel differently.
Modern Orthodox
This is not so much a halachic question; it is a public policy question. Do we want to prohibit or permit this activity?
This is not so much a halachic question; it is a public policy question. Do we want to prohibit or permit this activity?
Historically, Orthodoxy has been suspicious of letting its youth celebrate American holidays for fear that this would lead to assimilation or adoption of “practices of Gentiles.” When I was growing up Orthodoxrabbis were critical of those who celebrated Thanksgiving, but as Orthodoxy has acculturated such attitudes have relaxed.
One could argue for prohibition of Halloween because it is associated with witches and ghosts. Judaism has implacably opposed witchcraft or attempted communication with the dead since biblical times. Monotheism is the antithesis of magic. “There is none beside Him” (Deuteronomy 4.35), and no abracadabra tricks can manipulate God to get unnatural results.
That having been said, Halloween is almost entirely a product of American consumer culture, and there’s more mockery than true belief to be found in the ever-popular costumes of witches and monsters.
My wife and I discouraged our children from trick-or-treating—partly out of fear of religious syncretism, but mostly because we did not want them to internalize American consumerist psychology and because eating a lot of candy is unhealthy. But I confess, trick-or-treating is popular in our neighborhood. In order to be good neighbors, we leave boxes of fruits, treats and candy goodies in front of the house with a sign inviting kids to help themselves to one item out of each box. We don’t check if any of the kids are Jewish. Conclusion: If a Jewish child wants to go trick-or-treating for social reasons, it’s not a big deal.
Rabbi Irving Greenberg
President, Jewish Life Network/ Steinhardt Foundation
New York , New York
President, Jewish Life Network/ Steinhardt Foundation
Conservative
As Halloween is celebrated nowadays, it is mostly about trick-or-treating, dressing up, having fun and getting free candy, with few or no religious overtones. That said, there are issues about celebrating it that areJewishly problematic and are worthy of consideration by thoughtful Jewish parents.
As Halloween is celebrated nowadays, it is mostly about trick-or-treating, dressing up, having fun and getting free candy, with few or no religious overtones. That said, there are issues about celebrating it that areJewishly problematic and are worthy of consideration by thoughtful Jewish parents.
There is a halachic prohibition against a belief in sorcerers and magic. Some of this begins with the biblical tale of Saul, who consulted a fortune teller instead of God about his future. His misjudgment resulted in Saul losing both his throne and his mind.
As long as parents discuss with their children the difference between believing in sorcery and reality, I see no significant objection here. Most of my objections are related to the conflicts that can arise between celebrating Halloween and doing the right thing, Jewishly. For example, for the family that keeps kashrut, there is surely the issue of whether some of the candy and food that their kids will “bag” will meet the Jewish edible standards. But this could be addressed by carefully “sifting” through the candy, and donating all unacceptable items to a food bank for other children who can partake without religious restrictions.
A more serious conflict arises when Halloween coincides with Shabbat, Jewish holidays or Hebrew school attendance. What kind of message is a parent giving to his or her child when he or she is told that to go out trick-or-treating takes precedence over Jewish study or celebrating Shabbat and other Jewish holidays?
Parents may also wish to consider the values suggested by Halloween, such as demanding sweets from strangers. The original saying is in actuality a threat: “If you don’t give me a treat, I’ll give you a trick.”
Can Jewish kids live without these ghosts, goblins and candy? I certainly think so. Will it do irreparable damage to their Jewish identities if they participate? Probably not. But as parents, we should think about the values, priorities and commitments we want our children to develop.
A more serious conflict arises when Halloween coincides with Shabbat, Jewish holidays or Hebrew school attendance. What kind of message is a parent giving to his or her child when he or she is told that to go out trick-or-treating takes precedence over Jewish study or celebrating Shabbat and other Jewish holidays?
Parents may also wish to consider the values suggested by Halloween, such as demanding sweets from strangers. The original saying is in actuality a threat: “If you don’t give me a treat, I’ll give you a trick.”
Can Jewish kids live without these ghosts, goblins and candy? I certainly think so. Will it do irreparable damage to their Jewish identities if they participate? Probably not. But as parents, we should think about the values, priorities and commitments we want our children to develop.
Rabbi Ron Isaacs
TempleSholom
Bridgewater , New Jersey
Temple
Bridgewater
Reform
Though I write as a Reform rabbi, I offer what can be called (in the phraseology of Rabbi Isaac M. Wise) an American Jewish response.
Though I write as a Reform rabbi, I offer what can be called (in the phraseology of Rabbi Isaac M. Wise) an American Jewish response.
To be completely true to our tradition, the answer is, “No. Jewish children should not go trick-or-treating on Halloween.” Inasmuch as this is a Christian/ pagan holiday—no matter how secularized it has become—it is inappropriate for Jews to observe it in any manner.
However, the matter is more complicated. Are there moments when Jews have taken an essentially foreign idea and co-opted it and changed into an authentic Jewish tradition? Of course! And the most obvious example is the Passover seder. So many of our traditions were lifted directly from Roman influences. In acknowledging those antecedents, would anyone suggest that our practices are somehow inauthentic? Of course not!
In this same light, there are few who would connect the carefree, costume-wearing, candy- gorging escapades of our children on October 31 with the religious overtones that the holiday once carried. As such, the holiday has evolved into a secular celebration. Therefore, it would seem to be as innocent an activity as celebrating New Year’s Eve or Thanksgiving (both of which once had Christian connotations).
In this same light, there are few who would connect the carefree, costume-wearing, candy- gorging escapades of our children on October 31 with the religious overtones that the holiday once carried. As such, the holiday has evolved into a secular celebration. Therefore, it would seem to be as innocent an activity as celebrating New Year’s Eve or Thanksgiving (both of which once had Christian connotations).
Even in accepting Halloween, do I want our Jewish children to associate the best time of the year (dressing in costumes and getting as much candy as one can carry) with a holiday with nominal pagan and/or Christian overtones? Of course not! Instead, wouldn’t it be wonderful if they thought of the Jewish holiday where children dress in costumes, eat lots of goodies and act in all types of silly and fun ways? (Purim!)But that, I guess, is for another discussion.
Rabbi Arthur P. Nemitoff
TheTemple , Congregation B’nai Jehudah
Overland Park , Kansas
The
Reconstructionist
We could boycott All Hallow’s Eve for its ghoulish associations—and, in medieval Christendom, Jews received more trick than treat. We might avoid this holiday of “pagan” origin, lest we “do as the other nations.” Ghosts of Halloweens past may still haunt us.
We could boycott All Hallow’s Eve for its ghoulish associations—and, in medieval Christendom, Jews received more trick than treat. We might avoid this holiday of “pagan” origin, lest we “do as the other nations.” Ghosts of Halloweens past may still haunt us.
Or Halloween could be just a harmless diversion. We might accompany our Power Rangers and Doras around the neighborhood to say that “America
Mordecai Kaplan taught that we who “live in two civilizations” must answer as Jews and Westerners both. We live in mostly mixed communities where Halloween is an accepted norm. Our kids have friends, Jewish and non, who will invite them trick-or-treating. Though we reserve the right to withhold children’s immediate gratification, should we put our foot down here?
It’s a tightrope act: Avoiding Halloween may feel like the Jewish thing to do, yet a simmering feeling of “I missed the funnest thing ever” can subtly undermine future Jewish identity. So rather than decree or surrender, we should decide with our kids and engage them in discussion of the values at hand. Secular concerns at Halloween have a Jewish angle, too—moderation, safety, neighborliness, ethics of food—making it a “teachable moment.” We can balance values like kavod (respect), tzedakah, kashrut, briyut (health) and oneg (enjoyment). Options abound: Serve treats, but not go door-to-door? Avoid skeleton costumes?Collect candy, then donate it? Between abandon and avoidance lie many possibilities. Let’s choose wisely, together.
Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb
Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation,
Bethesda , Maryland
Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation,
Renewal
In the American melting pot of shared cultures, trick-or-treating is as religious as a bagel. Dressing in costume for occasions other than Purim is Jewishly acceptable. It makes sense that Jewish schools don’t celebrate Halloween, but it’s normal for Jewish students to want to take part in it.
In the American melting pot of shared cultures, trick-or-treating is as religious as a bagel. Dressing in costume for occasions other than Purim is Jewishly acceptable. It makes sense that Jewish schools don’t celebrate Halloween, but it’s normal for Jewish students to want to take part in it.
Halloween is a time to teach piku’ah nefesh—protecting or saving a life. A few examples: When trick-or-treating children should be accompanied by an adult. Teens are safer at a Halloween party than going out alone. Products that are unsealed shouldn’t be eaten. Large amounts of candy can be dangerous to our health.
When Halloween falls on a Friday, hold a party on motza’ei Shabbat. Invite your child’s Jewish and non-Jewish friends and serve delicious, kid-friendly food. More harm is done to Jewish continuity by forbidding youth from observing holidays like Halloween than by supporting the celebration in safe and healthy ways.
When Halloween falls on a Friday, hold a party on motza’ei Shabbat. Invite your child’s Jewish and non-Jewish friends and serve delicious, kid-friendly food. More harm is done to Jewish continuity by forbidding youth from observing holidays like Halloween than by supporting the celebration in safe and healthy ways.
Rabbi Pamela Frydman
President, OHALAH: Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal
Baltimore , Maryland
President, OHALAH: Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal
Independent
This is a tough one. Jewish children should learn about their own traditions rather than always celebrating everyone else’s. Still, it is far better for a Jewish child to go trick-or-treating than to celebrate an iota of Christmas and Easter.
This is a tough one. Jewish children should learn about their own traditions rather than always celebrating everyone else’s. Still, it is far better for a Jewish child to go trick-or-treating than to celebrate an iota of Christmas and Easter.
Why? Because Halloween is probably a whole lot closer to Jewish tradition than Christmas or Easter. After all, Jewish tradition also held annual rituals of warding off evil spirits, or winds, with the approach of major seasonal changes. As the Midrash teaches, “What is the ritual of the barley offering? One waves the barley shoots in its season, first inward and outward to ward off harsh winds that are harmful to the crops, then upward and downward to ward off harsh rains that are harmful to the crops. Others say, first inward and outward to the One to whom belongs all of the universe, then upward and downward to the One to whom belongs both the Upper Realms and Lower Realms.” Even the shofar that we blow so glibly these days on Rosh Hashanah was to our ancestors an implement to ward off evil forces. So if you must take your kids trick-or-treating, employ it as an opportunity to introduce them to the richness of their own tradition.
Rabbi Gershon Winkler
Walking Stick Foundation
Cuba , New Mexico
Walking Stick Foundation
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