Israel's Toyota Strategy

Regrettably, I won't be able to attend the AIPAC Policy Conference in two weeks (since I'll be going to Israel next month, I had to prioritize one trip over the other), because it ought to be a doozy. Prime Minister Netanyahu is set to appear and presumably President Obama will speak too; both have a real need to be on that stage, especially given this week's comic-tragedy of errors in Jerusalem. But the way things have been going, you can expect Obama's speech to be interrupted by a murmer in the crowd and then an announcement from the Israeli interior ministry revoking the conversion to Judaism of Rabbi Capers Funnye, Michelle Obama's first cousin.

How bad was this week? When Vice President Biden comes off looking like the most levelheaded person of the bunch, that's bad. Poor Michael Oren. The Israeli ambassador to Washington must be wondering what his government will do next to alienate American politicians and American Jews.

Let's see... I know! Why don't we insult the Vice President AND then give the meshuggah chief rabbinate the power to revoke all conversions done by rabbis everywhere. And let's do it all in the same week! And let's do it precisely at the moment when Israel needs to tighten its ties to America the most, with Iranian sanctions on the UN docket likely to be watered down or vetoed. Hmm... and maybe, just for the fun of it, let's try to convince the world that the Prime Minister has no control over his own government, even in an area of the greatest diplomatic sensitivity, just as he's thinking about sending his air force into it's most complicated mission ever. Nah, let's prove a point instead. And let's do it a half hour before one of Israel's greatest friends, the Vice President, who has proven himself a friend of Israel's many times over more than his boss, is about to sit down for dinner with the Prime Minister.

People talk about gridlock in Congress. Well in the Knesset, a little more gridlock would be a good thing. The diplomatic track with the Palestinians is going nowhere, which is fine for now, as long as there isn't slippage on that front while the economic situation for the West Bank continues to show marked improvement. The "facts on the ground" that will make peace more possible in a year or two would be thriving industrial parks in Nablus and Jenin, not added construction in Shilo and Ariel. Meanwhile, with the lid on that kettle, Israel and America can focus on the situation that can't wait: Iran.

But instead, Israel's leaders pursue a Toyota Strategy, both in diplomatic and internal affairs: Take 'er out on the highway, rev 'er up, place the pedal to the metal and come what may!
True, apartments in Jewish areas of Jerusalem - even post '67 areas - should not be confused with far-flung settlements (Obama is not the first American President to make that mistake); but reckless decision making can not be sanitized by the excuse that it was simply a matter of
bad timing. Stupidity is stupidity, no matter what time it is. We'll switch our clocks this weekend and even in daylight savings time, we'll wake up on Sunday morning and the Toyota Strategy will still be stupid.

Yes, I'd love to be a crumb of hametz on the wall at AIPAC in two weeks.

For a variety of astute opinions on this week's fiasco, see this New York Times online commentary.

TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary: Corrie Minkoff on Vayakhel-Pekuday

Those of you who know me might know that I really love cars and motorcycles. I don’t drive them – YET – but I have been on my uncle’s motorcycle! Cars are interesting for me – I love the different models from different times – from the 1950 T-birds with their large grilles and tailfins, to more modern Mustangs and Ferraris. They can go sooooo fast!

Would you believe that my portion has something to say about that?

No, there were no Harley Davidsons in Moses’ time. And “Hell’s Angels” had a very different meaning in the Bible!


But the message of my portion is the same message we find in any NASCAR race: Whatever you do, just keep moving forward.


That message was expressed in one of my favorite all time movies, except not in terms of cars racing but of fish swimming. That movie is “Finding Nemo.”


In “Finding Nemo,” there is a song called “Just Keep Swimming.” Just when Nemo’s dad is about to give up, she swings to song, singing:


“Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.


The key for Dory is always to be moving forward, never to stay still.


In my portion, that was also the key to Israel’s survival in the wilderness. They couldn’t stay in one place. They needed to keep moving.


One problem we find in these chapters is, when you keep moving forward, where does God rest? And where can you pray?


The answer was to build a dwelling place for God that was portable. They could keep on taking it down and putting it back up when they got to the next resting place.


The end of my portion marks the end of the book of Exodus. The last word of the entire book is very fitting – the word means “their journeys.” Dory couldn’t have put it better. All that mattered was to keep on moving.


God went with them on their journeys, by day as a cloud and by night as a pillar of fire.

The message here is that it’s not in a temple that we find God, so much as in our travels, our journeys, our adventures.


And that means on our motorcycles and in our cars! Maybe the main reason I love cars so much is that with a car, you can’t help but go forward (unless you are in reverse). You always have to keep swimming, as the song says.


That’s how I look at my life too. I always need to keep moving forward. That was the way I approached my bat mitzvah training too. I kept on swimming.


As I continue to grow, I intend to keep moving forward too… maybe in a brand new mustang!
For my Mitzvah Project, I’ve participated in a dodge ball tournament to help the people in Haiti and have donated money for Haitian relief.

Have a Cow, Man. In Fact, Have Two!

This week is Shabbat Parah, the third of the four special Torah readings read before Passover.
Parah means cow, and the section describes the red heifer that was killed as part of an ancient purification ritual . We are reminded to purify our homes - and ourselves - with the festival fast approaching. See this explanation of this week's haftarah.

This is truly the weekend of the cow, because our regular portion this week is Ki Tissa, which contains the Golden Calf account. See G-dcast's animated summary below.



Parshat Ki Tisa from G-dcast.com

More Torah cartoons at http://www.g-dcast.com/

The Envelope, Please!

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman’s Nominees for Best Picture

Ava Tar: Great aunt Ava shrieks as she steps onto a newly paved road in her flip flops.

The Blind Side: Jewish mother complains when her son secretly tries out for the football team

District 9: Extraterrestrial refugees stuck without a minyan in contemporary South Africa

An Education: A suburban London teen finds her traditional education replaced by something slightly more sinister when an older, worldlier Bat Mitzvah tutor teaches her to sing Adon Olam to the tune for "Jingle Bells"

The Hurt Macher: War veteran returns to shul and steams off when is not given an aliyah.

Inglourious Basterds: Brad Pitt stars as a shul president who joins with his rabbi in hunting down the guy who snuck pork rinds in to the knishes.

Precious: With a little help from a sympathetic teacher and a kindly nurse, a young, overweight inner city etrog manages to save her little pitom from an abusive lulav.

A Serious Manischewitz: A Midwestern physics professor’s life slowly begins to unravel after his wife announces that she's leaving him for a piece of matzah.

Up: A feisty septuagenarian gets phlegmy as he has his first aliyah.

Up in the Air: A corporate downsizer joins board of Jewish organization and complains that no issue is ever resolved.

Guide to Passover Preparations

Here is my guide to Passover preparations, followed by a sale of Hazmetz form. Click to enlarge each page.

The Infamous "Apartheid Week"

Thank you Jimmy Carter for falsely equating Israel with the most notorious racist regime of the late 20th century. So now, the propagandists try to turn this week into a mass outcry for on campus rallies and anti Israel activism. Fortunately, Jewish student groups have been up to the challenge. On the campus of American University, they even convinced Islamic groups to change the name to something less provacative, understanding that Israel is not even close to being an apartheid state. In Canada, they produced slick pro Israel campaign entitled "Size Doesn't Matter" featuring this edgy video on YouTube that will, at the very least, be noticed.

The Jerusalem Post has chimed in with an editorial on the subject and so has the Jewish Week.

But the best thing I've read by far is this op-ed by a college student, Brown students for Palestine (and Israel), dedicated to the memory of Avi Schaefer, the Israel activist and peace supporter who died two weeks ago.

It's always best to be armed with facts, and no one does that better than Myths and Facts:

Israel Is Not An Apartheid State

Even before the State of Israel was established, Jewish leaders consciously sought to avoid the situation that prevailed in South Africa. As David Ben-Gurion told Palestinian nationalist Musa Alami in 1934:

We do not want to create a situation like that which exists in South Africa, where the whites are the owners and rulers, and the blacks are the workers. If we do not do all kinds of work, easy and hard, skilled and unskilled, if we become merely landlords, then this will not be our homeland (Shabtai Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War, London: Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 140).

Today, within Israel, Jews are a majority, but the Arab minority are full citizens with voting rights and representation in the government. Under apartheid black South Africans could not vote and were not citizens of the country in which they are the overwhelming majority of the population.

The situation of Palestinians in the territories — won by Israel in a defensive war forced upon it by its neighbors—is different. The security requirements of the nation, and a violent insurrection in the territories, have forced Israel to impose restrictions on Arab residents of the West Bank that are not necessary inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders. The Palestinians in the territories, typically, dispute Israel’s right to exist whereas blacks did not seek the destruction of South Africa, only the apartheid regime.

If Israel were to give Palestinians full citizenship, it would mean the territories had been annexed. No Israeli government has been prepared to take that step.

Meanwhile, Palestinians from the territories are allowed to work in Israel and receive similar pay and benefits to their Jewish counterparts. They are allowed to attend schools and universities. Palestinians have been given opportunities to run many of their own affairs. None of this was true for South African blacks.

AND HERE ARE SOME MORE RESOURCES COMPILED BY THE USCJ.....

The ICC (Israel on Campus Coalition), of which USCJ's KOACH is a member, has a handbook

They will ship batches of these handbooks to any campus that requests them.

They also have the following Resource Guide

and a Response by Dr. Yossi Olmert

The ADL (Anti-Defamation League) has produced a booklet entitled:

"Fighting Back: A handbook for Responding to Anti-Israel Campaigns on College and University Campuses"
Here is a link to a PDF file of the booklet

They also have: "Confronting the Apartheid Analogy"

Stand-with-Us has produced several brochures:

"Apartheid South Africa vs. Democratic Israel"

"Apartheid Today"

"Israel's Military Operation against Hamas"

The David Project has produced the following booklet:
"Apartheid: Fact or Fiction"

and have other resources at their website: click here

BUT IN THE END, IS THIS ANTI-ISRAEL CAMPAIGN EFFECTIVE? THE POLLS SAY A RESOUNDING "NO"

Americans Love Israel Even More Than You Think - Barry Rubin (Global Research in International Affairs Center, IDC, Herzliya)

Public opinion polls can be useful in countering myths. Gallup's latest poll measuring how Americans feel about different countries rates Israel 67% favorable and 25% unfavorable. Only one-fourth of those 25%, that is 6%, are really hostile. After 20 years or so of intensive media criticism, hostility on campuses, double standards, and controversy, that's nothing short of remarkable.

At the same time, the PA receives constant good publicity in the media, campuses, and among policymakers as moderate and friendly to the U.S. Yet only 20% are favorable to the PA and a whopping 70% are negative.

What about the idea that young people are steadily becoming more hostile to Israel? While 70% of those over 55 are favorable to Israel, that number only sinks to 63% for those between 18 and 34.

Why does all this matter? It matters to members of Congress who are running for election in November and know that voters don't want to see them bash Israel.

See also Israel Increasingly Popular. Surprised? - Editorial (New York Jewish Week) Support for Israel among Americans is at a 19-year high, according to a February Gallup poll that found that 63% side with Israel in the Mideast conflict, compared to 15% who support the Palestinians.

For all the criticism of the mainstream press among pro-Israel advocates in this country, most Americans get their news and views about the Mideast from the very same news media so often perceived of as biased against Israel. Somehow a positive message must be getting through. The encouraging survey results do not mean that we should, as a community, ease up on our advocacy for Israel. But we should keep our work in perspective, mindful of and grateful for an American society that appreciates the importance of Israel as a strong and loyal ally in an increasingly dangerous neighborhood.

My Father’s Chupah (NY Jewish Week)

                      See reactions to this article on the blog of the Jewish Outreach Institute

My Father's Chupah

by Joshua Hammerman

Special To The Jewish Week

The questioner was an African-American high school student — not Jewish — playing the role of Tevye’s daughter Chava in an astonishingly multicultural production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” one that brought together more than 100 students of all ages from 24 private and public schools in my modern Anatevka. Thanks to my son Dan, cast as Nachum the Beggar, I was asked to be the show’s rabbinic adviser.

“Rabbi, why does Tevye act like his daughter is dead when she marries someone who isn’t Jewish? Is that what Jews do?”

I had just watched them rehearse the wedding scene and couldn’t help but be struck by the irony of a Catholic Tevye and a Catholic Golda serenading their African-American and Asian daughters with “Sunrise, Sunset,” while a Hispanic rabbi, a recent immigrant from Colombia, performed the ceremony; and lurking in the background, a Jewish Cossack waited for his cue to wreak havoc on this bucolic scene.

At the center of the stage was the very symbol of Jewish continuity, the wedding canopy — and not just any canopy, but my father’s small, faded, linen chupah, off-white with gold tassels, embroidered gold flowers on the sides and a simple Jewish star on top. The four stubby wooden poles covered with peeling gold cloth give it a kitschy look, like something rescued from a Catskills catering hall, last seen in faded photos alongside the chopped liver and gefilte fish. My father, a cantor, had used this chupah for small, private weddings before stashing it in the attic sometime before his sudden death 30 years ago. There it remained in a crumpled pile until my mother and I rediscovered it when we were packing up the house. I had it cleaned and pressed and since then my father’s chupah has graced a number of weddings that I’ve performed.

But up until that moment when I sat there watching this “Fiddler” rehearsal, only Jews had stood underneath it.

A Catholic Tevye? Sounds crazy, no? Imagine a production of “1776” performed by Iranian mullahs, “Hair” by octogenarians or “Rent” by Republicans. But somehow, this all-school “Fiddler” worked. This dizzying production challenged some of my deepest-held convictions, forcing me to play a Tevye-like role in a 21st-century sequel, prodding me to calibrate what God might expect of us in an age of radical global shrinkage and swiftly dissolving boundaries.

Tevye, the Shalom Aleichem character, would never have allowed this Tevye, the Trinity Catholic student, to marry his fictional daughters. And the majority of the actors playing the daughters would themselves have been banned from standing under the chupahs of the real life shtetls where those fiddlers fiddled.But there they were, at center stage, standing under mine.

The cast members peppered me with detailed questions about lighting candles, kissing mezuzahs, and spitting to ward off the evil eye. I sensed from this very diverse group of students a desire to wrap their arms around their characters and make them their own. They wondered why it was seen as so radical for girls to dance with boys and whether Yenta still exists (“J-Date,” I replied). Somehow this production of “Fiddler” made perfect sense to them; and because of that it began to make sense to me as well, as it likely would have to Shalom Aleichem himself, a man who embraced life’s absurdities, saying, “No matter how bad things get, you got to go on living, even if it kills you.”

The chupah has long been a great symbol of both exclusivity and inclusivity. It represents the home — the Jewish home — that the couple will build together. In the Bible, the term connotes the private chamber where the marriage was consummated; today it still marks that sacred space reserved for bride and groom alone.

But it’s also said to be modeled after Abraham’s tent, which had open walls and welcomed all comers, dissolving boundaries between private and public, promoting an inclusiveness that is both intimate and ultimate.

Back in the ’60s, the closest my father came to officiating at intermarriage was something involving fans of the Red Sox and Yankees. As a justice of the peace, he often performed small weddings in my home, both for Jewish and non-Jewish couples. I was too young at the time to care which of these weddings were of the shotgun variety; my curiosity was limited by the bifurcated universe I inhabited, preoccupied with one question only: Jewish or goyish? If the guy wore a yarmulke, bingo! A Jewish wedding! Chalk up another one for our team!

But the chupah was always the most definitive clue. When my dad took it out of the closet, I knew it would be a Jewish ceremony. When he did not, it was not. Life was very simple back then.

But not anymore.

Do Jews still mourn with sackcloth and ashes when their kids intermarry?

No, I told Chava. No one does that anymore. Even Tevye wouldn’t, if he were alive today. I explained, as sensitively as possible, how Jews have always seen immortality less in terms of their own souls’ ascent to heaven as in their children and grandchildren carrying on the faith. But Jews also want to be welcoming, like Abraham was.

Would I sit shiva for my child if he married out? Would I officiate at his wedding?
No and no.

But would I celebrate?

In the words of the immortal dairyman: I’ll tell you... I don’t know.

But I know that, like Abraham, I will love anyone who comes into my home with an unconditional, unbounded love. I’ll do it because it is precisely that kind of love that will bring renewed vitality to the Jewish people and eternal relevance to the Jewish message.

And I’ll do it because, as I’m sure Tevye would agree, loving our neighbor is a tradition; for it reminds us who we are and what God expects us to do.

Haiti Concert This Monday!

From the Jerusalem Post Blog

Rabbi Wernick explains why the status quo in the Kotel "is not acceptable"

(see 360 degree view of Kotel here.)

Q: Here's the thing: it seems that there aren't enough Israelis willing to invest time and effort in making the Kotel more accessible to groups who do not follow Orthodox custom. If that's the case, why would anyone try to impose on those Israelis who care the most about the place, and visit in much greater numbers than all other groups (namely, the Orthodox) arrangements that will make them uncomfortable?

A: By this same logic we should not have interfered with Soviet law to support Jewish refusniks. We should not be concerned about Dafur. But if Israel is to be truly a Jewish and Democratic state, then we who love it and support it certainly have the right - no, the responsibility - to speak out on issues such as this one.

The issue here is the idea of minority rights. Say that the government did make some changes at the Kotel, and even after those changes were made the majority of the people at the Kotel were ultra-Orthodox. That doesn't mean those changes shouldn't be made. A pluralistic democratic society cannot ignore its minorities and it cannot deny them their rights. Instead, such a society should try to compromise and accommodate everyone as much as possible. In Israel, that means not only Jews who are non ultra-Orthodox, but, among others, women, gays, the handicapped, Arab-Israelis, and Ethiopian immigrants.

But remember that we don't have any idea how many non-ultra-Orthodox Jews would visit the Kotel if it were more welcoming to them. The ultra-Orthodox may go there more than other groups now because they are the only people who feel comfortable there. That doesn't mean that the Kotel has more meaning to them than it does to Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist Jews - it simply means that they daven there more often. (I would also point out that if your only concern is to appease the majority, you should keep in mind that there are more non-ultra-Orthodox than ultra-Orthodox Jews living in Israel).

You also say that implementing non-ultra-Orthodox customs at the Kotel would make the ultra-Orthodox Jews uncomfortable there. Please do not dismiss the level of discomfort other Jews feel when they visit the Kotel now, or the discomfort that keeps other Jews from making that visit in the first place. Israel must take the beliefs, feelings, and customs of every side into consideration. We don't advocate riding roughshod over the ultra-Orthodox. Everyone should feel welcome at the Kotel.

The T.B. at T.B.E.

Some say I'm the Top Banana at Temple Beth El. Others claim that we are a Banana Republic. Well, this past Saturday night, for Purim I was literally a Banana (that's Rabanana to you!). I explained that we are going Green, and I was green just a few days ago. It was a great Purim. Here I am above, with some seventh graders and Mara, all decked out in their M and M finest. Check out more pictures below and at this website (which also has a terrific video montage) - and thank you to Steve Labkoff for taking them. Click on the photos to enlarge.

The Evil Doers' Final Four

In honor of Shabbat Zachor, when we recall the evil done to us by Amalek, and in anticipation of March Madness here is a link to an ingenious bracketing of the most evil villains of Jewish history, all ranked and rated, as if they were NCAA basketball teams. My son Ethan did this in 2008, but it's still pretty accurate today. Unfortunately, our enemies seem to have as much staying power as we do. Madoff wasn't there yet, so maybe we need to add a play-in game to this tournament. See it here

Latke vs Hamentaschen Debate

The Great Debate -- Latkes vs. Hamentaschen

There have been many great debates in world history: Lincoln vs. Douglas, the Scopes trial, and of course that all time classic, "tastes great" vs "less filling." Jews have been avid debate fans ever since Abraham took it to the limit with God over the future of Sodom. But no debate has stirred up Jewish passions over the years more than the one that we feature today: Latkes vs. Hamentaschen. And so it is only natural that this great debate has spilled over onto the pages of the Web. Dozens of sites analyze this great match-up, giving it the hype it deserves. This is the Super Bowl of Kosher Culinary Combat. And for rabbis and academicians, this is the Super Bowl of "pilpul," the art of taking Talmudic logic to absurd extremes.

You can read all about it by clicking here. Some of the links to this Shabbat-O-Gram classic are regrettably no longer in operation.

Spirituality and the Internet

It's been ten years since I wrote this... and while the experience of surfing the Internet has now become routine, and many of the dangers exposed (not the least of which the isolation it can paradoxically bring), my initial claim still rings true. The Internet still connects people to something Beyond unlike anything else.

Sit down in front of your computer after midnight and see what is there. Reach out to connect - and not necessarily with people. Simply connecting to the latest news, to stock results or late ball scores, is enough to evoke a feeling of “humble surrender” and awe. How lovely can this universe be, how orderly and sound, when, without waking a soul, I can order cut-rate plane tickets to Chicago? How close to the mountaintop can you ascend, when, with a few clicks, you can see the deep blue earth from the perspective of a roving satellite hundreds of miles up? How dusty must my weary pilgrim’s feet get, when I can click my way to a live shot Jerusalem’s Western Wall in seconds, and fax my prayer to be placed within its ancient cracks? Mircea Eliade, a modern master of the study of the Sacred, writes of a sacred space as a place of breakthrough, a point of passage to another realm, an absolute reality. From where can we jump off into a higher world if not from a springboard whose range appears so limitless? Who would have thought that the “road less traveled” could be so easily located on the Information Superhighway?” (thelordismyshepherd.com, p. 113)

The Best Purim Parodies and Jewish Jokes

What does Purim have to do with humor and parody? EVERYTHING. The book of Esther, properly read, IS itself a parody. Read about Purim Torah and the art of scholarly parody, in this web journey from the Shabbat-O-Gram archives (some of the links are no longer active).

Our survey of Purim Parodies has to begin with this video from the Shushan Channel.




See Backward: A Purim Spoof, the Forward's annual foray into Purim absurdity, this year featuring God Resumes Prophecy — Via Twitter and Israeli Rabbinate Declares Non-Orthodox Jews ‘Kosher — and Delicious’.

Also see the "Jewish Weak" Purim Spoof including Kotel Schnorrer Pleased With Portfolio Rebound, YU Prez Bans Male Study Partners, Informant In Syrian Rabbi Case Can’t Stop Squealing, Mirthright Israel To Show Lighter Side Of Jewish State and Four Arrested At JCPA Debate On Civility.

For some good general jokes, a great option is Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion "Joke Machine" and his Annual Joke Show.

Then there is MyJewishLearning's Jewish Humor Bank, featuring these all time classic videos and jokes:

Mel Brooks
You Don't Look Jewish
Jerry Seinfeld
Rain in Chelm
Woody Allen
The Riddle
Sarah Silverman
Our Luck
Jackie Mason
Hoodlums
Marx Brothers
The Terryifying Rumor
Adam Sandler
The Census
Sacha Baron Cohen
The Converts
Jon Stewart
Manure
Jewish Movie Scenes
Lightbulbs
Jewish Internet Sensations
Teaching English
Richest Man in Town
Jewish and Goyish
Showing Up Late
Haikus for Jews
Public Toilets
Jewish Word Play
Charity
Lenny Bruce Was Jewish...
Divorce
Schlemiels and Schlemazels
34 Years
Marriage Brokers
Cheating
Schnorrers
Comfortable
Sages of Chelm
Million Dollar Question for God

The Top Hat

And these additional links:

Jewlarious
Bang It Out
Frum Satire
Joel Chasnoff--Jewish Stand Up Comic
Old Jews Telling Jokes
Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour

The Chelm stories are a genre unto themselves. See this guide explaining how this little village in Poland, which later became the sight of an infamous death camp, found its way into Jewish lore as the silliest place on earth. One story has it that an angel was flying over a mountain with a sack filled with souls. The bag got caught on a tree, and ripped open. All the foolish souls were in the bottom, and tumbled out, landing in the village of Chelm.

Some say these are Jewish versions of Polish jokes. If so, at least no actual Jewish Chelmites exist anymore, so we are not making fun of real people (except maybe for those living in Chelmsford, Mass.). Or maybe there are still Jews there. Well, I know that there will be - for one night at least. In April, our March of the Living group will be staying one night in Chelm. I can't wait. But I might hesistate before stepping into the elevator.

A typical Chelm story:

The town of Chelm decided to build a new synagogue. So, some strong, able-bodied men were sent to a mountaintop to gather heavy stones for the foundation. The men put the stones on their shoulders and trudged down the mountain to the town below. When they arrived, the town constable yelled, "Foolish men! You should have rolled the stones down the mountain!" The men agreed this was an excellent idea. So they turned around, and with the stones still on their shoulders, trudged back up the mountain, and rolled the stones back down again.


Stay tuned for further updates as Purim approaches, send me your favorites - and BRING them to services this Shabbat and Purim!

The Shechina Has Left the Building!

When I first visited the Kotel, as a 16 year old on a teen tour, it was the evening of Tisha B'Av. Over 100,000 Jews, people of all backgrounds, clustered in small circles to recite Lamentations. My group sat on a perch looking down at this mass of Jewish humanity. We prayed on our own but felt at one with them all.

After we finished I approached closer to the Wall and saw a white dove about halfway up, glowing in the light, perched on a nest of moss. I quivered with recognition of the Shechina, God's most manifest and loving presence, sent to that very spot to weep with Her people among the ruins. For centuries, that legend and that weeping bound motionless stones to a yearning nation.

But things have changed since the summer of '73.

The controversy over who "owns" the Western Wall continues to rage, following last week's new incident involving the harassment of women seeking to pray there. The Women of the Wall have met with increasingly hostile treatment lately, including interrogation and arrest by the police. Last week's incident was "mild" by comparison. They were "only" called Nazis by the jeering fundamentalists.

In a statement released Monday, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, rabbi of the Western Wall, condemned the women's group, saying, "As a place dear to the heart of every Jew, every movement, and every world view, the Western Wall must remain a place that unifies rather than separates the people of Israel. The different movements need to understand the complexity and sensitivity of the Western Wall, and leave it outside the borders of conflict."

I agree that the Kotel should be a place of unity for the Jewish people. That was, after all, one of the two main functions of the sanctuary built in the Wilderness, the mishkan, described in great detail over the second half of the book of Exodus. The other function was to be a symbol of God's continued presence among the Israelites. The Temple, whose design was said to be based on the Mishkan's, also fulfilled both purposes. The Kotel, as a remnant of the second Temple, and should fulfill the same two roles.

Twenty years ago, I had no problem bringing groups of congregants to the middle of the plaza, men and women together, for Friday evening services, after which we would approach the Wall as individuals to share in the euphoric cacophony of singing Yeshiva students, tourists, new immigrant, worn pilgrims and curious seekers and long-lost friends from the States. But such is not the case today.

As a location of unity, the Kotel is failing miserably, since it represents only the interests of those who maintain an ultra-Orthodox posture. As Rabbi Julie Schonfeld,Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Assembly, writes,

"Discrimination and harassment -whether sexual, racial, or religious--are demeaning and dehumanizing. We fool ourselves if we think we can stand by while Jews in the Jewish state utilize government agencies to harass and oppress other Jews based on religious practice. The soul of the state of Israel and of the Jewish people is at stake."

In a brilliant expose, Rabbi David Golinkin documents conclusively that throughout Jewish history, the Western Wall never was intended to be a synagogue. Just as with the Mishkan and Temples before it, the Kotel was never the place for collective prayer, but rather for individual expressions of gratitude or concern. In bringing their sacrifices in ancient times, Jews left a little of themselves in that sacred spot, a place of personal selfless giving, as expressed in the Tale of the Two Brothers, a story that has informed our perceptions of that sacred space - of all sacred space - for many generations. And today, when we leave notes in the cracks in the Kotel, we are performing essentially the same act - leaving a little of ourselves, our prayers, behind.

Golinkin demonstrates that even when the lower plaza came under the control of the rabbinate in November of 1967, and in effect became a synagogue, the upper plaza explicitly did not. But now we are seeing a creeping annexation of even that upper plaza by the rabbinate. One solution proposed would be for non-Orthodox groups to pray at the area of Robinson's Arch, which is not controlled by the religious authorities and is a lovely, uncongested and equally historic spot. But that spot currently cannot accommodate the large number of groups seeking to pray there. A column in the LA Jewish Journal, "Take Back the Kotel Part II: Open Up Robinson's Arch," suggests that more funding be devoted toward relaxing the restrictions in that area.

But others say that the Arch, lovely as it is, is not the part of the Kotel that Jews have known and prayed at for centuries. And "separate but not-so-equal" does not fulfill the original vision that this be a place where all Jews can celebrate their unity, in the same place, together.

The best solution would be for Jews everywhere to pressure the Knesset to take that plaza back on behalf of the Jewish people.

Given the unlikelihood of that happening, there is one more alternative - to seek God's presence elsewhere in Israel. As I wrote several years back, while the Kotel has become a place not of harmony but of spiritless spiteful strife, the rest of Israel beckons.

In ancient times, the Kotel, the Temple's outer, retaining wall, was the place where all the people could gather, from the largest to the small, sheep and pigeons in hand, before arriving at the inner courtyards where degrees of separation set in. The Kotel scene was a festival of earthy democracy for the plain folk: the sweaty Herodian-era laborers who moved enormous slabs of rock, the late-Roman period artisan who scribbled joyous graffiti from Isaiah, the dying whispers of medieval pilgrims having reached their long-sought final destination, the teary paratroopers in '67, the final breath of my grandmother who never got there.

At the Wall, the Jewish body beat with one heart.

Now the stones have lost their heart and strangers beware.

The Shechina has left the building.

And where has She gone?

Why to the Mall, of course, where the people of Israel share a common language and meet on an equal canvas, bearing first fruits and exchanging them for a sip of coffee and a snippet of intimate conversation. Everyone is there, sharing small talk at Burger King on Ben Yehuda St. in Jerusalem or folk dancing at Ben and Jerry's on Tel Aviv's beach front.

If this all reeks of American cultural imperialism, I beg to differ. While the Western Wall has become bad Disney, the Mall has made Burger King a touchstone to the Sacred. A kosher Kentucky Fried Chicken isn't about the Americanization of Israel, it's about the Judaization of Americanism -- at long last Colonel Sanders has discovered our secret recipe for the sanctification of life.

At the Jerusalem's Malcha Mall there is equal access from every gate. Priests, Levites, women, the disabled, tourists: all are treated in like manner. A mall with honest shop owners, separate meat and dairy food courts and even a synagogue, is a mall that conveys the best of our value system to the next generation. Amidst the Hebrew Coca Cola bottles and Movie Star magazines there is a level of holiness, because they are bringing my children and their Israeli cousins together in a Jewish state speaking a Jewish language.

The Mall, democratic, serendipitous, wide-eyed, infused with Jewish values, just a little bit dirty and a whole lot Israeli; has become a place of pilgrimage and unity for the Jewish people -- just what the Temple's outer courtyard used to be. The Shechina now sits on a nest atop Burgers Bar, weeping no longer, for Her people have returned.

But alas, how lonely sit the ancient stones of the Kotel. I weep for them