Kefirot

Blame ______

2011-11-06T11:20:00.002-05:00

Alright - I need some help here. I don't understand what people are thinking lately. The entire world has gone nuts - maybe its something they're putting in the water? What with the various "Springs" and "Occupy Something" movements, it enough to make my head spin. (I think Israel should get on the bandwagon and stage an Occupy Territories protest, but that's another matter...)

At the moment, it's the Occupy folks that really bug me. Look, I own a small business, and am well aware of the vicissitudes of the market. For small businesses like mine, it can be feast or famine from week to week. And with the economy taking as big a hit as it has in recent years, I'm acutely aware that people are struggling. I'm also aware that the top 1% of the population of this country has a hugely disproportionate amount of its wealth. I'm even aware that sometimes - perhaps even often - big businesses use their personal wealth and business clout to unfairly skew things in their favor. For example, Apple's recent attempt to buy up the entire world-supply of "touch glass" (the glass used for touch-screen devices), in order to prevent their competitors from having any, was, at least in my opinion, dirty.

And so people have taken to the streets in cities across the U.S., disrupting many small businesses, and therefore livelihoods, in the process, in order to protest... something. It doesn't entirely seem clear. Some folks are protesting the government; some big business; some just seem to feel entitled to things, and want rich people to pay for them. Heck, there's even talk now of a "Robin Hood" tax, which just taxes rich people for... being rich.

But as I looked through the images of the various Occupy protests, you know what I noticed? There's no shortage of smart phones out there - everyone seems to have one. Laptops, digital cameras and video cams are plentiful as well. And Internet connectivity is ubiquitous. I see musical instruments that look like new, or at least in really good condition. There are people in designer clothing.

And I wonder where they got all that cool stuff. Didn't big corporations make those things?

We DO have a way to protest big corporations, if that's what we think is important. We DO have a way to make them listen to us. It's called Fiscal Responsibility. It's not buying things we don't really need, just because we WANT them. Do people REALLY NEED to line up for 3 blocks outside the Apple Store when a new model of iPhone or iPad comes out?! Do they REALLY NEED to keep up with the latest fashions?! Why do people care about Kim Kardashian at all - has she ever been an icon for an important social value? Why give her so much bandwidth in our hearts and minds? If there's anyone we should be mad at, it's the media and advertising agencies, who work to convince us that we need the next cool toy!

But no - we're going after the corporations for getting rich on stuff WE CHOSE TO BUY! The nerve of them...

You know whom I admire? People like Kristen Christian (nice Jewish name, don't you think?) who started Bank Transfer Day. She received a notice from BofA informing her that they were going to start charging a $5 monthly fee to use her debit card. And do you know what she did? She fought back with her money! She decided that on a specific date, she was going to transfer her accounts out of BofA, and into a credit union. And then she used Facebook to tell 500 of her friends about it, and recommend that they do the same. And they told their friends, etc. And now there are some 75,000 people planning to do it. BofA has since cancelled that obvious money grab over people they thought were powerless. Like that scene in Disney's A Bug's Life, where the ants finally realize their power, and stand up to the grasshoppers. Suddenly, the banks are on the defensive. BofA's new commercial campaigns focus on how easy they make making for the consumer. They're trying to tell us that they're still relevant; they still have what to offer us. They're begging people not to pull out their money. Now that's power!

Instead of boycotting Wall Street, what if everyone decided to put down their cell phones for a week? Even for a day? What would that do to revenues of the telecom giants? What if 100,000 people decided that they were NOT going to buy the latest smart phone this year? What if people decided not to buy into the next cool thing, but to spend some time focusing on their real NEEDS in life? What if they decided that good enough was, in fact, good enough? What effect would that have on the world?

Maybe we need to start teaching our children the meaning of the term Opportunity Cost, and teach them that they don't have a right to everything they want just because they want it.

Bottom line: Grow the hell up people. You make choices and then want someone else to blame when you figure out that you chose badly. But that's just not the way it works.

Or am I just misunderstanding something?

Sheva Brachot Speech

2011-07-15T16:35:00.002-04:00

The following is the d'var torah portion of the speech, that I gave at my nephew's Sheva Brachot last night. It's based on one of Rabbi Yochanan Zweig's divrei torah for Parshat Balak, but I adapted it for this speech:

In the last bracha of the Sheva Brachot, we find a curious expression: “…Ahava v’achva v’shalom v’rei’ut.” – “Love and brotherhood and peace/harmony and friendship.” That’s what we’re wishing the chatan and kallah. Now it seems logical that there is a reason for the order in which this was phrased, and it seems further logical to presume that the order would be ascending.

But in Parshat Kedoshim, we find the commandment, “v’ahavta l’rei’acha ka’mocha” – “Love your friend as you love yourself.” Well, if you’re commanded to Love your Friend, then he/she had to have been a Friend already. And that implies that Love is greater than Friendship.

Well which is it? Is Friendship higher than Love, or vice-versa?

In his commentary to Pirkei Avot, the Rambam cites Aristotle who defines various levels of friendship: The most common are simple friends; friends with whom one shares experiences, and enjoys spending time. But even though we enjoy their company, we still maintain a façade with them. We are not willing to present our vulnerabilities to them, because we’re afraid that the information might somehow come back to bite us. Much rarer, and much more significant, are the friends with whom we place our complete trust, and for whom we are willing to let down our façade; to share our insecurities. This can only happen when we know that this friend is completely dedicated to our growth and success; that his/her motivations are guided only by his/her concern for our best interests.

Taking that into account, perhaps there is no contradiction between the verse in Kedoshim and the phrase in Sheva Brachot. They’re just talking about different types of “ray’im”. In Kedoshim, we’re commanded to love our simple friends as we love ourselves. But that’s axiomatic for a married couple. They’re already in love. In the Sheva Brachot, Chazal have us blessing them that their relationship should, BE”H, transcend Love and move right up the chain to Reyut – the second kind; the kind that involves complete trust in one another.

A Thought on Parshat Balak

2011-07-12T10:09:00.004-04:00

At the end of the parsha is the story of Zimri, Kozbi (not to be confused with Bill). Rashi describes the situation as follows (paraphrased): Zimri was... doing the deed with Kozbi... right in front of the Ohel Mo'ed, and asked Moshe, "Is this allowed, because if you say no, then who gave you permission to marry your wife? (She was a Midianite.)

In other words, this wasn't so much an act of inappropriate sexual congress (which it was as well), as an act of sedition against Moshe. It was an attempt to bring Moshe down a peg. A "What makes YOU so high-and-mighty?"

Now I find this to be curious, because according to Rashi in the story of Korach's rebellion, there was a similar attack. Rashi there says that Korach also attacked Moshe "intellectually". I'm not going to go into that attack - too complicated. (In fact, my personal thought has always been that his attack there was a bit silly, but be that as it may...)

So here's my question, and I don't yet have an adequate answer for it: Korach had a motive. He felt that Moshe was a nepotist, dealing out choice positions to his own family-line, because he could. Korach, who was Moshe's first-cousin, felt that he had just as much a claim as anyone else to positions of power and honor, and that he had seniority to boot. So right or wrong, Korach had a motive.

But what was Zimri's motive?

Being Noticed

2011-07-06T08:22:00.003-04:00

Last Shabbat, we held a Seudat Hoda'a - a "Meal of Thanksgiving" (not to be confused with the American tradition held in November, but of similar original intent) - for the bad car accident that happened last year. I could have sworn I wrote a piece on it here, but I can't seem to find it...

Alright - the brief version. Many of the boys of our Boy Scout troop (Troop 1299) went to Camp Broadcreek for a week of Summer Camp last year (as every year.) On the way back, at around 5:30 PM on Friday, July 2, they were in a bad accident. Thank God, everyone survived, and came away with no majorly persistent health issues (although the driver had to be flown to Shock Trauma).

So this year, our son asked us to make the Kiddush, in commemoration, and I had to find something to say. This is the main point of what I said:

In Parshat Chukat, we are told, (Numbers 20:1) "וַיָּבֹאוּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל כָּל הָעֵדָה מִדְבַּר צִן בַּחֹדֶשׁ הָרִאשׁוֹן וַיֵּשֶׁב הָעָם בְּקָדֵשׁ וַתָּמָת שָׁם מִרְיָם וַתִּקָּבֵר שָׁם" - "And the entire congregation of the children of Israel arrived at the desert of Zin in the first month, and the people settled in Kadesh. And Miriam died there and was buried there." And then the very next verse says, "וְלֹא הָיָה מַיִם לָעֵדָה וַיִּקָּהֲלוּ עַל מֹשֶׁה וְעַל אַהֲרֹן" - "And the congregation had no water; so they assembled against Moses and Aaron."

So Miriam, Moshe's sister; the one who put him into the river in a basket, and watched over him; one of the leaders of K'lal Yisrael, died. And apparently, no one noticed. No one cared. We don't see any outpouring of grief for her passing, like we do see for Aaron and Moshe. Nothing. What do we see? We see that they were concerned they had no water. Rashi explains that the juxtaposition of the two verses is due to the causal nature of the first to the second. He says that the reason they had water for all those years in the desert was that there was a well that traveled with them, in Miriam's merit, that always provided water for the people. For 40 years in the desert, they had water - which is life - due to Miriam. Now she died, and the only concern of the people was that the well was gone. In fact there is at least one opinion that says that the reason the well dried up after her death is precisely because no one seemed to care that she died.

And so this is one of the messages of the parsha: Show Gratitude. Be grateful for the people in your life, who have helped you. Be grateful to God. Be grateful for the things that make your life more enjoyable - just turn off your A/C for a few hours, in the Summer, and see how grateful you can be for a "thing."

That's the gist of what I said. This morning, I found the following article, which just seemed to resonate with this whole idea: Woman Dies, No One Notices for 8 YEARS. Can you imagine dying, and no one even noticing?

Have We Learned Nothing?!

2011-06-17T16:45:00.004-04:00

When I happened to see this particular headline on the Baltimore Jewish Times web site, I was stunned. Maybe I shouldn't have been, but I guess I believed that, at least publicly, we were already getting beyond this kind of nonsense. Guess again!

Here's the headline, and the link, and frankly, you should go read this piece before coming back to mine. I'll wait: Agudah Rabbis: Talk To Rabbi, Not Police About Molesters

As I sit here now, my mind is absolutely racing! I've got too many things going through my head at once, but ALL of them have an underlying theme: Are they out of their minds?!?!

Haven't we learned anything yet?! Haven't we yet learned that we can't just keep pushing these things under the carpet?! That they won't just go away?! That we have to expose them to the light, if we want them to die, instead of allowing them to hide away and fester?!

I'm sickened by this, to the point that I don't really think I'm writing coherently. If you haven't already read my last blog post, The Carpet, read it. Everything I said there, applies just the same here. We should be ashamed of the Agudah for this, because they don't seem to have enough sense to be ashamed of themselves.

The Carpet

2011-06-05T18:35:00.005-04:00

This past weekend, we went out of town for a friend's simcha (which was beautiful, but that's not the point here.) Over the course of Shabbat, we got to meet some of their friends, including a divorced woman who had been in what I'll politely describe as a very abusive marriage.

Now I'm not going to talk about the nasty things her husband did to her. My concern is actually not so much with him, specifically, as with the community: the community leaders who knew, and who not only allowed it to continue, but in at least one situation, actively made the problem worse; the community at large, which turns a blind-eye to it; and to us as individuals, and what we need to work on to prevent this sort of thing from even being conceivable.

At this point, the woman is living nowhere near her ex-husband, but in order to get her Get (Jewish divorce), she was forced to accept an agreement whereby she gave up her Ketuba (Marriage contract - meaning she gave up the money her husband had promised to pay, in the event of a divorce.) Otherwise, he wouldn't agree to give it to her at all, leaving her an Aguna - unable to remarry. She does not have access to most of her children, and her Ex has been poisoning them against her. They call her a whore. They tell her that she doesn't care about them; that all she cares about is money. In short, they mistreat her in some of the same ways her husband did.

But he is still respected; well-regarded in his community. Even though the rabbonim KNOW what he is.

About 17 years ago, there was a woman in the Los Angeles community, who was also beaten and mistreated by her husband. She went to her parents; they sent her back. She went to the rabbis; they sent her back. And then one day, he killed her. He strangled her with his bare hands, rolled her up in a tarp, and stuffed her in the garage. At the funeral, which was attended by thousands of people, rabbi after rabbi got up at the podium and said some version of "Forgive me. I knew, and I did nothing." At the time, I felt sad. But now? Now I feel sick! The 18th century statesman, Edmund Burke, once said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men do nothing."

How is it that we allow this sort of thing in our communities? How is it that we allow people to behave this way, and get away with it? What is it that would allow a God-fearing, religious Jew to commit acts like this?! And finally, WHOM DOES HE THINK HE IS FOOLING?!?!

In the book, Vintage Wein, there's a story called Un vos zocht Gott? (What would God say?). In it, he describes how, when Rabbi Wein worked for the OU, the head of the Kashrut division would often be heard to say: Un vos zocht Gott? If there were some issue that had both technical/Halachic and moral implications, this was his guiding principle: What would God say? Yes, something might be technically permissible, but is it really the right thing to do? And if his Jewish Moral Compass wasn't alright with it, he wouldn't do it.

What happened to our Jewish Moral Compasses? Why aren't we outraged when something like this happens in our communities, instead of just hush-hushing it all up, and sweeping it under carpet as quickly as possible? Why don't we destroy this kind of thing? Why aren't there siruvim (Censure decrees, sort of) against people who do it?

Here's the real question: Do we still really believe in God? I'm beginning to wonder whether we do. Maybe, after all this time in Galut (Diaspora), we just... don't anymore. Because if we did, how could we do it?

Think about this for a minute: Regardless of the halachic status of any of this, does this woman's ex-husband really believe that he's going to get away with it? The things he's done; the things he's caused others to do - does he really believe that, come his Judgement Day, he's going to be able to fool God? He's going to say, "Um, well, technically I wasn't violating anything." You know what God's going to say? "How about 'Kedoshim Tihyu?'" (the commandment to "be holy") "How about 'Lifnai Iver Lo Titein Michshol'?" ("Do not put a stumbling-block in front a blind man") Do you think that maybe God will hold him at least partially responsible for a frum girl ceasing to be frum? That maybe He'll hold him responsible for his children's failure to follow the mitzvah of Kibud Av va'Eim ("Honoring your father AND mother")? That maybe he'll be judged for failing to comply with his halachic obligation to pay her Ketuba? And many more. Many (if not all) of these are Bein Adam l'Chaveiro - Between Man and his Fellow - which God doesn't forgive. Only a person can forgive for a sin against him/her. But I'm sure that he's quite confident that, when he stands before God on his ultimate Day of Judgement, he'll be judged as a Tzaddik.

Where does this come from? It comes from Ga'ava - Haughtiness. I guess you'd call it Ego. It comes from a narcissistic sense that "I" am right, and that "you" don't have the right to challenge my inherent rightness. And that, too, denotes a failure to believe in God. There are too many cases, today, of people trying to hold each other hostage with Gittin, and the only reason that's even conceivable as an option is because of a need for Control. When are we going to realize that we aren't in control. Our responsibility is to manage ourselves as best we can. And if a marriage doesn't work out, just move on...

I think we need to start moving back to Emunah P'shuta- Simple Faith. We need to believe in God, and to leave this kind of pathetic pettiness behind us. But hey - that's just me...

A Sad Day for YR; for Baltimore

2011-01-16T10:37:00.004-05:00

The grave news was finally announced formally on Friday, but the rumors had already been circulating for a week. A local yeshiva day school - Yeshivat Rambam - is closing its high school at the end of this school year. The news was a bit of a shock, but not that much of a surprise, really. The school has been struggling mightily for several years now. Rocked by financial mismanagement, outright theft, administrative instability, and some generally poor decisions, it was almost inevitable. Nonetheless, we are saddened and incredibly disheartened by it. It's sad to see what has happened to our once-proud school; the only one in town flying the banner of Religious Zionism; of Torah u'Madah. Our kids are sad too, which is telling.

For me, though, the saddest part of this saga is the community aspect of it. Just a few weeks ago, in an article titled, Rambam Announces Potential New Site for School, there was an interesting, sad, and (thankfully) brief conversation that took place in the Comments section of the post. I'd like to quote two of the entries for you:

"Thank you to the committee for all of your hard work and difficult decisions. I recall about 18 years ago TA being in dire straits, the response at that time was for the Rabbis in town to all but require every family to donate $250 to TA whether or not you had children in the school. Clearly, the survival of this important institution is at stake, and the community needs to rally, the leaders needs to respond."

and then a follow-up post which read...

"$250? Who has that kind of money? We are paying full tuition to 3 different schools and didn't even have money to buy the teachers chanukah presents as all our money is going to tuition. Many in our community are having a very difficult time paying tuition, including ourselves, and we should find money for another school? Personally we do not give any tzedakah to any organizations in town as all our maaser goes to our kids schools in the form of full tuition. Also not everyone holds of Rambam's hashkafos. It may be right for some people but most of the gedoilei yisoel do not hold of the zionistic hashkafa and people do not want to donate to a cause they do not hold of."

Now, I'm not going to harp too much on the $250. Personally, I can understand why some would feel it's a sizable donation. I'm not going to tell someone else what they can or cannot afford. No, it's the last two sentences that bother me most. "The gedoilei yisoel (sic) do not hold of the zionistic hashkafa and people do not want to donate to a cause they do not hold of." That bothers me to no end for two reasons:

T.A. had no problem making that same request of people in the community who didn't hold of their "hashkafos." And many of those people gave to T.A. in their time of need.
Real "Gedoilim" are not quite so closed-minded; and those who are, are not real "Gedoilim."

Real "Gedoilim," and other real people, who are community-minded, understand that one size does not usually fit all, in just about anything.

Back in the mid-1980's, I attended yeshiva in Israel at Neveh Zion. Then, as now, Neveh dealt with boys who were... shall we say... not the fodder for the typical yeshiva. These boys were the progenitors of today's "At-Risk Teens," and Neveh excelled at handling them... us. For my 30th birthday, my wife sent me to Israel for a spiritual battery-recharge, and I spent much of my time at Neveh. During that time, the mashgiach - "The Mash," AKA Rav Yisroel Blumenfeld - and I had a conversation that I will never forget. He told me that things were rougher than they had been back in my time. That the boys were coming in with more serious issues than they had back then, and that he was concerned about the yeshiva. He said that he had gone to Rav Shach to discuss the issues with him. That he had suggested to Rav Shach that, perhaps it was time for Neveh to tighten up its entrance requirements a bit. Perhaps it was time for Neveh to also "move to the right." Now Rav Shach was hardly a liberal rabbi. He was the founder of the Haredi political party, Degel haTorah - and one of the strongest leaders of right-wing ultra-Orthodox Judaism to date. And this is what Rav Blumenfeld told me he replied:

"But then, where will all the Neveh boys go?"

He knew full-well, that Neveh boys didn't wear white shirts and black pants, and learn full time. But he also knew that these were important Jewish souls that needed to be built-up, lest they be lost entirely. And that's a measure of a real "Gadol haDor." A leader who understands that Jewish souls are what's at stake, and that those souls are more important than a particular theo-political perspective.

Once again, Baltimore's community has failed to support a critical institution. Once again, the Rabbis were silent when they should have spoken up in support of the students of Rambam, who will now have to find other schools, which may not fit their needs. Because let's face it: T.A. and B.Y. are not prepared for many of these kids, and many of the kids are not prepared for T.A. and B.Y. The real beneficiary here is going to be Beth T'filoh which, while an excellent school, is not (and doesn't really want to be) a Dati school. So thanks to people who, like the author of the second post quoted above, wouldn't help Y.R. because of their own warped sense of Frumkeit; thanks to rabbonim whose mere words could have made all the difference, there will be less Torah in the Baltimore community; fewer kids going to Israel for yeshiva and seminary. I hope you're satisfied. I wonder what God will say...

Conspiracy Theory: Sharks at Sharm-el-Sheik

2010-12-12T11:44:00.003-05:00

December 12, 2010

Since December 6, there have been a growing number of shark attacks on tourists at Egypt’s Sharm-el-Sheik resort. The most recent being today, when a 70 year old female German tourist was killed in waters very close to the shore. Scientists cannot, as yet, explain this behavior. There haven’t been this many shark attacks at Sharm-el-Sheik in over 6 years. There are a number of theories, including the possibility that fisherman have been chumming the water, and the fact that an inbound ship dumped a number of sheep carcasses in the Red Sea sometime last week, drawing the sharks to the area. Another theory, proposed by Conspiracy Theorist, Jonathan Kay, is that the sharks are actually “Jews in shark suits.”

Then there’s the theory propounded by the “famous” Red Sea diver, Mustafa Ismail. According to sources, Mr. Ismail was discussing the issue with an Israeli diver he knows, who confided that they had recently caught an Oceanic Whitetip shark in the gulf of Eilat, with a GPS transmitter on it. Mr. Ismail, a man known for his out-of-the-box thinking, has proposed the theory that the Mossad – Israel’s Intelligence agency – has been programming the GPS monitors on sharks to “monitor the sharks into Sharm-el-Sheik to attack tourists.” Clearly Mr. Ismail understands the use of the word “monitor” in its not-widely-known, nuanced meaning of, “controlling.”

His theory has begun to get traction. "What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark (in the sea)... is not out of the question," said South Sinai Governor Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shoush, according to the Egyptian news site, egynews.net.

Another variant of this theory may be closer to the truth. Our sources have discovered that J.K. Rowling, author of the popular, “Harry Potter” series, actually based many of her fictionalized characters on real people she knew, growing up. Our source has further discovered that the character, Draco Malfoy, was actually an unpopular Jewish boy named Asher Goldbergsteinowitzman, and that he could actually do magic! It is also known that Mr. Goldbergsteinowitzman made Aliya, to Israel, in October, 2004. Our attempts to reach him at his home in Petach Tikvah, were unsuccessful, but neighbors have reported seeing him coming and going at odd hours, in what appeared to be robes, often carrying what they believed to be a small stick. “I thought it was a really old, short lulav,” says Yosefa Cohenheimerberg, a neighbor. “But then I noticed that he was still carrying it, long after Sukkot had ended.” Curious, perhaps, but not too troubling.

But in recent weeks, there have been disturbing reports of Mr. Goldbergsteinowitzman coming home smelling, oddly, of fish. “It’s not normal,” said David Lipnermansky, 47, a bus driver who has driven Mr. Goldbergsteinowitzman to “work” every day for the past three years. “He always get off in a – how you say – industrial part of town. There are no other bus-stops close. This is not close to the ocean. Why he should smell so bad when he come home? The other pipples are complaining on him, but he is not listening. He say to them, ‘Mind yer own business’… I don’t know… something like this.”

Is it possible that Asher Goldbergsteinowitzman, aka Draco Malfoy, is bewitching sharks to attack tourists at Sharm-el-Sheik, at the behest of the Mossad? Mr. George Weasley - who is, coincidentally missing an ear, but insists that he is not related to the character in Ms. Rowling’s books - is a noted expert in paranormal activity. We asked him whether this sort of thing might be possible. “Indeed, yes.” said Mr. Weasley. “Bewitching animals is old-hat for most witches and wizards, although it is rather unusual to see it done with sharks, for some reason. But there is no reason, at least in principle, why this could not be done.”

We also called upon Ms. Rowling to give her opinion as to whether this would be the type of thing Draco Malfoy, aka Asher Goldbergsteinowitzman, would do. She was unavailable for comment, but someone on the street who is familiar with her books, explained that in Book 6, Draco demonstrates his prodigious skills with the Imperius curse, on Madame Rosemerta, so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t assume that he could do it with sharks.

We’re sure the U.N. will want to investigate these serious allegations.

A Thought For Rosh haShana

2009-09-18T12:01:00.003-04:00

This isn't actually my thought, but I liked it a lot, so I'm stealing it... Alright, it's almost יום הדין (Judgement Day), so stealing's probably not such a great idea... I'll borrow it, with attribution yet!

The quote was a FaceBook post, by my friend, David Dannenbaum. I thought it was a very poignant message.

I saw this family on TV this morning. Something the father said struck me. After his daughter threw back the ball and the crowd laughed and got loud, she looked at her father with a scared expression, realizing she did something "wrong." He... immediately picked her up and gave her a reassuring hug. I was thinking how this mirrors the upcoming Rosh Hashanah experience. We reject our Creator's directives, mostly out of childish ignorance, rather than maliciously. When we realize our mistakes, we adopt a posture of contrition, only to be embraced with love and joy by our Father. That's what I want to plug into this weekend, for myself, my family, my friends. And I hope this coming year to respond to my own children's innocent mistakes with the same sense of love and compassion.

Make sure you check the YouTube link on that one - it's really sweet.

Anyway, of all the quotes and thoughts I've seen this week, leading up to the holiday, I think that one resonates with me most somehow. So thanks, Dave, for the great imagery. May you, and everyone else, merit a year of success, health and happiness.

כתיבה וחתימה טובה!

Of Tale-bearers and Teshuva

2009-07-31T18:47:00.003-04:00

Every weekday, three times a day, in the Amida, we say a prayer known as V'l'malshinim - "And to the tale-bearers". The first line says, "And to the tale-bearers, let there be no hope..." It then goes on to say a whole bunch of things, including how they should be broken, and destroyed, etc.

Now that's always bothered me. Why destroyed? Why not do teshuva? What is it about them and what they've done, that proscribes repentance?

Yesterday, Tisha B'Av, during Mincha, I think I figured out why.

Let's think about it in context for a minute: It was written during the brutal Roman occupation. The Romans, like many conquering nations world-wide, including the Incas and Aztecs, figured out some basic standards for conquest of other civilizations. They figured out that if you want to assimilate another culture into your own, the first thing you have to do is get rid of everything that defines them as different. Never mind that "diversity" nonsense.

One of the biggest definers, at least in the Ancient World, was religion, and so the native religion had to be displaced, or replaced.

In order to ensure that this took place, the Romans used very harsh tactics against anyone trying to continue their old religious systems. And we, the Jews, were the hardest.

But we were also smart. We - and by we, I most certainly do not mean all the Jews of the period - did a lot of things clandestinely. And so we had centers of Torah study that were disguised as gambling parlors - this is the origin of the dreidel or sivivon - and many other clever ruses designed to allow us to continue to follow the Torah, without the Romans cottoning on. The Romans must have been completely confounded by their failure to assimilate us.

Enter the Malshinim - those Jews, privy to the disguises, who chose to sell out their fellows. For personal gain? For a sense of lawfulness? Who knows? But they were the Romans' informers, and probably got a lot of Jews tortured and killed. So is that why they can't do Teshuva?

Well, partially... But I think there's another dimension to it.

Remember the Soviet Union? The most horrifying thing about it, I think, was not just the KGB. It was that you never knew whom you could trust. Anyone could be a KGB informant. Your spouse. Your neighbors. Your "friends". Your relatives. Anyone. The entire fabric of society was torn apart.

Maybe that's the real, unforgivable sin of the Malshinim. Not just the loss of the people who were given over, but the destruction of a viable religious society. And in general, it seems that crimes against society are those which are most unforgivable.

Natural Law

2008-10-24T14:26:00.001-04:00

A friend showed me a really interesting Netsiv, on parshat B'rei'shit. On the first pasuk, he quotes the well-known idea regarding the use of the word, "Elokim," denoting Din - Law.

Now, the common explanation of this is that God initially intended that the Universe be governed by pure Din, but that Man couldn't live that way, so he subsequently infused it with Rachamim - Mercy, to accomodate us.

The Netsiv says we're reading it wrong.

He says that the Din being discussed here is NOT the Din of Torah, which basically deals with issues of reward and punishment. This, he says, is referring to is "Din Teva" - Natural Law!

He continues on to explain that, when God created the Universe, the first thing He did was create Natural Law, and then used it as the system through which He created the Universe.

In other words, the Big Bang theory is not at all at odds with a Torah viewpoint. Neither is any other scientific theory that explains Creation. All they're doing is attempting to unravel God's Natural Law. The Netsiv says there's no inconsistency.

He also explains the subsequent infusion of Rachamim as not being an afterthought. Rachamim is required for the maintenance of God's Creation. After all, if the Universe continued running by means of strict Natural Law, there would simply be no room for Hashgacha Pratit - the personal involvement of God in our lives; in the world.

Pretty cool stuff.

New Direction-ish

2008-10-19T15:56:00.001-04:00

Well, if you actually read this blog, you'll know that I don't post here very much. I'm not sure why... Maybe it's because I try to have something good; something solid to say. But maybe I'm being too picky.

Well, I picked up this here app on my phone, which will allow me to post remotely... Maybe that'll stimulate more frequent posting. We'll see.

Obama, MLK and Irony

2008-06-05T10:40:00.005-04:00

I often listen to NPR in the car. I don't always agree with what I hear, but I do gain insight into things I would never have thought of otherwise. This morning, I heard a very interesting report called, Obama's Triumph: A Turning Point for America?, and this time, like many times, I had to actually shut off the radio in the middle of the piece, to mull over what I'd just heard.

In this particular story, they quote a woman named Jewel Plummer, who works as a secretary for the Black History Museum, in Alexandria, VA. This is what Ms. Plummer had to say:

"I don't think it has sunk in, the reality of it — of the first black president of the United States. Did you hear what I just said? The first black president of the United States."

"This is the first time, to me, that it truly represents 'we the people.' Finally, equal rights, not being judged on the color of your skin but the character — that's what this whole thing means to me."

I find this incredibly ironic. She celebrates the possibility of an Obama-Presidency as an example of not being, to quote MLK, "judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." And yet, Ms. Plummer is stating, outright, that the reason she is voting for Mr. Obama, because of the color of his skin!!!

Is it just me?

Annapolis

2007-11-25T16:00:00.000-05:00

Somehow, I'm on the President's Office's Jewish Public Liason mailing list. Now usually, I don't bother reading it, but this time I did. It was about the Annapolis Conference, scheduled to take place this coming week. Other than a perfunctory introductory and and closing paragraph, this is what the letter said:

This conference will signal international support for the Israelis' and Palestinians' intention to commence negotiations on the establishment of a Palestinian state and the realization of peace between these two peoples.

It will also provide an opportunity for the Israelis, the Palestinians, and their neighbors to recommit to implementing the Roadmap, with the U.S. monitoring their progress by the parties' agreement. Finally, the conference will review Palestinian plans to build the institutions of a democratic state and their preparations for next month's donors' conference in Paris.

I remain personally committed to implementing my vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.

This, I thought, fit in perfectly with last week's rant. See, Bush is "personally committed" to the "vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine." How nice for him, since he's not the one who has to live with the neighbors.

Once again, we're dealing with a country; an administration; a President who just don't get it. You simply cannot make peace with people who just want you dead.

Ironically, I'm watching the movie The Siege, and one of the characters, the terrorist Samir, has just explained that, "You believe that money is power. What you don't realize is that belief.. belief is power." Yes, that's the crux of everything I've been trying to say. What we don't understand is that belief is power. Belief... religious fervor. American's have largely lost their ability to truly believe in anything. So they no longer really understand what that sort of belief can do. I would have thought that, after 911, they would have begun to figure it out, but they haven't.

God save us.

Real Americans and The War - A Rant

2007-11-20T21:31:00.000-05:00

This evening, I was listening to WCBM (AM 680). I don't remember the name of the host, but he was talking to some families of soldiers who have died during the war. He then went on this mini-rant about how sick he is of all the war protesters, sitting in their BMWs, and bad talking his country. He said that his next guest was another "Real American," like the previous caller, and that he wanted us to all hear from Real Americans.

Now please forgive me, but I thought that one of the things that make us "Americans" is that we can say things against the government. So, kind of by definition, the folks who protest are Real Americans, right? It really bothers me that some people on the Far Right seem to have forgotten that it's our liberties that make us what we are! Let's not become a dictatorship, in the interest of preserving our American way of life, shall we?

And as long as I'm on the topic, I want to tell you that I am personally against the war - but probably not for the same reasons most people are. I am against the war because I don't believe we can win it - at least not right now. I am against the war because I don't think we truly understand our enemy, and until we do; until we're willing to do what is really necessary to beat the enemy, we are doomed to failure.

The Muslims understand the situation far better than we do. They say this is a war against Islam itself, and their fight against us is a Defensive Jihad. They are fighting a holy war; a war with (in their eyes) God backing them up. Any brutality they commit, or lies they tell in defense of Islam is sanctioned by God. And they are very willing to commit those brutalities, as Muhammed himself had no problem committing what we would, today, term atrocities, in service of his beliefs. They will behead our soldiers, as Muhammed beheaded his enemies, and as he sanctioned in the Quran. They commit acts of terror because they know that Muhammed himself committed them. They know that committing such acts will psychologically weaken us and our resolve. They believe us to be an enormous paper tiger, and at the moment, I fear they may be right.

I don't mean that as a slam against our service men and women, who daily put their lives on the line in service of our country. They have heart and ability, but they are hampered by political realities at home. People here have no stomach for having soldiers beheaded, so they protest against the government. They insist that the soldiers be brought home now, as if that were possible or even really desirable. They elect weak-willed representatives, who also don't understand the nature of the enemy or the war we're fighting, and make it hard for our soldiers to do their jobs. They think that cutting funding to the soldiers will make us bring them home sooner, but the reality is that it just results in more soldiers dying, which, frankly, also serves their cause.

So what should we do about it? I say we bring the mountain to Muhammed, as it were. Let's take the gloves off and show them what it really means to pick a fight with us... That's what I think we should do, but the Pentagon hasn't called me for advice yet.

Dumbledore Outed - So What?

2007-10-29T20:48:00.000-04:00

This month, Newsweek reported that, in front of a "full house of hardcore Potter fans," at Carnegie Hall, J.K. Rowling "outed" her character, Dumbledore. She told them that, in her mind, "Dumbledore had an unrequited love affair with Gellert Grindelwald."

I can't say how this news played out in other communities, but in at least some parts of the Orthodox community, it was fairly predictable. Disgust and anger. Statements about how no one should read Harry Potter books anymore, much less let their children read them.

And me? I say, SO WHAT?!

Now, I don't really mean "so what if he's gay." I actually do think that could be problematic, particularly for kids. It helps make homosexuality acceptable, and even somewhat normal - if you can call Dumbledore normal. It's clearly not what we believe in. The Torah is unequivocal in its condemnation of homesexuality, calling it a To'eva - an abomination. No, I mean, "so what if she says he's gay." She's allowed, and I'm allowed not to agree.

See, once the author releases the book into the public, it sort of takes on its own life, and the author loses some of the control of those characters. Much like the works of poets and other artists, the same work can mean different things to different people, and none of them necessarily mean exactly what the work-creator intended.

Now, if she had specifically written that into the books, that would have been different. But, wisely, she decided not to step into that fight directly - it would have hurt book sales. She wrote it with what could be construed as allusions to it, but not necessarily so. And I'm entitled to interpret those allusions as I please. Well, I choose to disagree with her as to the sexual predilections of her fabulous but flawed Headmaster.

But stop my kids from reading those wonderful books?! Books that have almost single-handedly brought Reading back to the forefront among this country's children? Books that have made reading "cool" again, and that are so skillfully written that both adults and children can enjoy them equally? Now that would be a shanda!

Man of the Earth

2007-10-18T15:32:00.000-04:00

During his speech last week, the Rabbi noted that there's a not-so-often-quoted midrash at the end of the parsha that compares Noah to Moshe. The Midrash points out that, at the beginning of the story, Noah is referred to as Ish Tzaddik - A righteous man. At the end, he's referred to as Ish Adama - a man of the earth. It then contrasts the Torah's descriptions of Moshe. At the beginning of the Moshe story, he's referred to as Ish Mitzri - a man of Egypt, but at the end of his life, he's referred to as Ish Elokim - a man of God.

So Noah went spiritually downwards, while Moshe went upwards. Why? The Rabbi explained that it was because of how they went about trying to perfect themselves. Noah went for isolation. The world was a bad place, and the best way for him to stay right with God was to keep to himself; to work on himself, and his family. Moshe, on the other hand, was always outwardly focused. He focused on helping everyone else, and by so doing, was raised up himself in the process.

Now I found that fascinating, and immediately related it to a conversation I had, about a year ago, with a young man from a very charedi family. He told me about an article he had read, in Israel, about a group of secular Jews trying to start a Rabbanut Chiloni - a secular rabbinate. He thought it was funny, in an ironic sort of way. What does it mean to have a rabbinate if you're secular?

I answered that I thought it was very sad. Here was a group of secular Jews looking for some religious experience in their lives. But not like those Charedim! Anything but that!

And why? I think it's because, by and large, the Charedi community isolates themselves from all external influences. Of course the do it for their own protection, but in the process, they have often become insensitive to the needs and concerns of those outside their own folds. They take very hard-line positions, and often refuse to budge a millimeter - they're on the metric system there. ;) - on those positions. They are too often terrified of anything "modern," and very quick to point the cherem-gun at those who choose to view things differently. (Just look at what they did to Natan Slifkin! Moreover, look at how they did it!)

The Charedi community, at large, has not done much to endear itself to the non-Charedim, much less the secular. And that's a shame, because there's much within their communities to praise: Their commitment to Torah and its values; their commitment to family, and much more.

But look at the ones who have put themselves out to the broader Jewish community! Look at Aish HaTorah and Ohr Someach - both having a clear Charedi bent. Look at Meir Schuster's Heritage House. Look at (my alma mater) Neveh Zion, which has been working with "At-Risk Teens" since before there was such a term! These, and many others, are the ones working from the bottom up - the ones growing toward kedusha.

Political Conservatism and The Greens

2007-09-18T08:34:00.000-04:00

I listen to a fair amount of talk-radio. I find it interesting and informative, often dealing with things I wouldn't have otherwise thought of. I listen to NPR for the stories, and I listen to a lot of "Conservative Radio" on our local WCBM AM-680, with folks like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. (I also listen to music. I sometimes even enjoy listening to 99.1 El Zol, but I'm odd like that.)

There's been a lot of talk, lately, on Conservative Radio about Global Warming. They don't like it. Well, nobody likes it, but what I mean is that they don't even like the idea of it. They view it all as nonsense. If they even admit that things do seem to be warming up a bit, they insist that it has nothing to do with us, and that we couldn't do anything about it anyway.

Now let's say, for the moment, that they're right: There is no such thing as Global Warming, and if there is, there's nothing we could do to stop it anyway. I can live with that as a possibility. But why is it that what follows seems to be, "so let's pollute the air, water and earth as much as we feel like?" In other words, from a Conservative perspective, is there something wrong with taking care of our environment?

Years ago, I heard Rush talking about nuclear proliferation. There was something about some environmentalist wacko group (and many of them are wackos) complaining that we could already destroy the planet and somesuch. I don't remember the issue exactly, but I do remember Rush's response. He said, "I simply don't believe that God would allow us to destroy the planet." Now I thought about that statement. I agreed with him. God seems to have plans for us, and wiping all life off the Earth doesn't seem to be included in those plans - at least not yet. But I thought about it more, and discovered that, while I still agree with that, I don't think I do quite the way he seemed to.

See, we believe that God doesn't like to do things outside of derech tevah - Natural Law. And that even when He does do nisim - miracles - He does them such that they at least fall within Natural Law somehow. God didn't just make the Egyptians pursuing us, as we left Egypt, disappear or suddenly drop dead in their tracks or fall into a black hole that just happened to pass by at that moment. He also didn't just teleport us across the water. Ostensibly, He could have, but He didn't. He chose to work with Natural Law, even when performing a miracle. That's why the Torah specifically tells us about the winds that blew all night before the Red Sea split, for example.

So I decided that it would only make sense for God to do His work to protect us from ourselves, also through natural means. In other words, Rush was right: God isn't going to allow us to destroy the planet, but perhaps some of the mechanisms He's using are the environmentalist wacko groups who put political pressure on the EPA and the rest of the Gov't. That, while their beliefs and methods may be extreme and even illogical, they too have a purpose in God's world. (Which is ironically amusing considering that many of them are also rabid Atheists!)

The same thing applies to Global Warming. Ultimately, God may want to use Global Warming as a mechanism for His works. The US put pressure on Israel to make Gush Katif Judenrein. The day Israel finally complied and kicked the Jews out, Hurricane Katrina kicked hundreds of thousands of Americans out of their homes. Environmental groups point to Katrina as a harbinger of cataclysmic events that will be brought on by Global Warming. I see God's fingerprints on that. So maybe they're right - perhaps we can't do anything to stop it, really. Be we can do the best we can, can't we?

Lo alecha ha'm'lacha ligmor, v'lo ata ben-chorim l'hitbatel mimena. It's not up to you to finish the job, but that doesn't free you from your responsibility to do what you can.

G'mar chatima tova to all!

Cardinal Lustiger, A"H

2007-08-23T22:07:00.001-04:00

A friend of mine forwarded me this brief article, which can also be heard from its source at NPR.

The following commentary was given by Scott Simon in NPR radio, Saturday morning August 11, 2007:

"There used to be a joke in Paris, what is the difference between the chief rabbi in France and the Cardinal of Paris? The Cardinal speaks Yiddish!

Jean Marie Cardinal Lustiger was buried yesterday; he died this week of cancer. He was born almost 81 years ago to Polish parents who ran a dress shop in Paris. When the German army marched in his parents sent him and his sister into hiding with a Catholic family in Orleans. Their mother was captured and sent to Auschwitz.

In 1999 as Cardinal of Paris, Jean Marie Lustiger took part in reading of the names of France's day of remembrance of Jews who had been deported and murdered. He came to the name Gesele Lustiger, paused, teared and said, my mama. The effect in France during a time of revived anti-Semitism was electric.

He was just 13 and in hiding when he converted to Catholicism, not to escape the Nazis he always said, because no Jew could escape by conversion, and not of trauma, he said. Among his most controversial observations, I was born Jewish and so I remain, even if that is unacceptable for many. For me the vocation of Israel is bringing light to the goyem. That is my hope and I believe that Christianity is the means for achieving it.

There were a great number of rabbi's who consider his conversion a betrayal. Especially after so many European Jews had so narrowly escaped extinction. Cardinal Lustiger replied, to say that I am no longer a Jew is like denying my father and mother, my grandfathers and grandmothers.

I am as Jewish as all other members of my family that were butchered in Auschwitz and other camps.

He confessed to a biographer that he had a spiritual crisis in the 1970's, provoked by persistent anti-Semitism in France. He studied Hebrew, and considered emigrating. He said I thought that I had finished what I had to do here, he explained and I might find new meaning in Israel. But just at that time the pope appointed him bishop of Orleans. He found purpose he said in the plight of immigrant workers. Then he was elevated to Cardinal. The Archbishop of Paris.

Jean Marie Lustiger was close to the Pope. They shared a doctrinal conservatism. He also battled bigotry and totalitarianism. For years Cardinal Lustiger's name was among those who was considered to succeed John Paul. Without putting himself forth, the Cardinal joked that few things would bedevil bigots more than a Jewish Pope.

They don't like to admit it he said, but what Christians believe, they got - through Jews.

The funeral for Cardinal Lustiger began at Notre Dame Cathedral yesterday, with the chanting of Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead."

What an unfortunate, confused man he was. How do you shine the light of Torah to the nations, by turning away from it? May God have mercy on his Holocaust-survivor's soul.

It's the Little Things...

2007-08-19T22:28:00.000-04:00

We spent Shabbat in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago. The Rabbi's drasha was very interesting. I've been thinking about it quite a bit since...

He was talking about the Minneapolis bridge collapse that has occupied so much time on the news lately. He said that what failed were the little things; the bolts and whatnot, and that the engineers had been saying that there were problems for a long time. But the major structures were intact, and things seemed okay... Well, those little things, that hadn't been attended to, collapsed under the massive weight of the bridge.

He then likened the bridge collapse to the fights we all have daily within ourselves. He, correctly, pointed out that, it's not the big things we wrestle with. Most Orthodox Jews don't have difficulty with things like belief in God or keeping Kosher and Shabbat. We're used to it, and we do it. No, it's the little things that begin to wear at the seams. Going to minyan every day, not to mention for 3 services. Setting time to learn on a regular basis. Complimenting our spouses, and children, for the good that they do, instead of just pointing out their faults. Things like that, he said, are the underpinnings that we tend to forget about, because they're small. But when they go, the whole structure can go with them.

I liked it, so I thought I'd share.

Accentuate the Negative?

2007-07-06T14:23:00.000-04:00

In response to a recent post, one reader made the following comment:

Lvnsm27 said... lashon hara is more interesting to people. But we need to think of the consequences. People just think of the popularity they'll have. They don't realize the punishment for this aveirah...

She's right, of course, but it did make me think about the emphasis she, and many others put on things. Why do we always tend to think about things in terms of "the punishment for this aveirah?" Why do we feel like we have to say, "I'm a bad boy, but please don't punish me, Abba?"

Wouldn't it be better to look at it from a more global perspective? Speaking Loshon HaRah is a bad thing to do for so many reasons; on so many levels. It's bad personally. It's bad communally. It's bad for business. It's just... bad. It gives us an excuse not to improve ourselves because, in our minds, we're better than the competition. But that still doesn't make us better. It doesn't really help us.

There are so many better reasons, in my mind, for us to avoid speaking Lashon HaRah, or committing other aveirot for that matter. Yet we usually wind up speaking in terms of punishment. Our teachers teach it to us in terms of punishment.

It's weird to me.

But then, maybe that's just my not liking the idea of being a little boy again...

Perfidious Jews

2007-07-06T14:11:00.000-04:00

Interesting post about Pope Benedict XVI's decision to re-adopt the Tridentine Mass. And for those of you looking for the meaning of the word, Perfidious... well, there it is.

The American Israeli Patriot: The Tridentine Mass: One Step Forward or Two Steps Back?

Irony Wall?

2007-06-27T08:10:00.000-04:00

This isn't news. Just something I was thinking about the other day, for no apparent reason. (Actually, I think I was listening to an NPR piece about the U.S. border).

On July 25, 2003, President George W. Bush said (in reference to the Israeli Separation Wall), "I think the wall is a problem." This "wall" has drastically reduced the number of successful Islamic attacks in Israel.

In November, 2006, that same President Bush signed a bill authorizing the construction of a fence along one-third of the 2,100-mile (3,360-kilometer) U.S. border with Mexico.

Can someone please explain that to me?

Well, Waddaya Want?

2007-06-16T23:09:00.001-04:00

I had an interesting conversation with someone who had objected to one of my earlier posts. Among his complaints, which were valid, was that you have to be careful about what you post online, as it goes out to the Internet, and you can't control who will read what you write. Better to avoid controversial topics.

So last week, after posting nothing whatsoever for quite some time, I posted a Torah thought on Mishle. I then forwarded him the link to it, partly because I thought he might be interested in what I had to say (or ask, rather), and partly to demonstrate that I was no longer posting the kind of things he had found so objectionable.

His response surprised me, a little.

He said (and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember it word-for-word), "I just glanced at it and didn't have the chance to read it through yet, but it looked like it was just Torah." When I said that's what it was, he said, "Ah - that's all? I don't need to read that!"

Now, this was not someone who doesn't value Torah, and I know he didn't mean that Torah isn't important. The way I took it was that there is (thank God) lots of Torah available on the Internet, and you couldn't possibly sit and read it all. But, now, if it had been something more titillating, it would be worth really reading.

I do understand that perspective, of course, but I find it to be a bit like speaking out of both sides of one's mouth. On the one hand, I shouldn't write about things that are controversial. On the other hand, things that are more pareve aren't very interesting to read.

This is the same reason that most people speak Loshon Ha'Rah. With the exception of the folks who are actually trying to hurt people with their speech, most people talk about other people because other people find it interesting, and everyone wants to be listened to. Nobody wants to be boring. Not even those who genuinely are.

So if I'm not supposed to speak Loshon Ha'Rah, and I'm supposed to stay clear of things that are controversial, and Torah topics are boring, what should I write about?! I know, I know... No one says I have to write about anything. No one says I have to write at all! But I like to write, and it's flattering to think that people read it.

I guess I'm going to continue writing what I write anyway, and like I said in my first post here, if you don't like what you read, feel free not to. But this was sort of eye-opening to me... a little... but not entirely... which is, frankly, sad.

Thanks

2007-06-14T21:24:00.000-04:00

My wife and I were talking, this evening. We do that on occasion. Somehow we got onto the topic of the overwhelming number of people on anti-depressant meds. It got me to thinking: Is it bad medicine, i.e. are doctors just over-diagnosing Depression and doling out pills like candy in an effort to make us all Happy People? Or could it be that, societally, we truly are increasingly depressed?

While I think there is likely much of the former, I also think that the latter is very true. Somehow we, and I mean in Western Society at large - not just the Orthodox Community - are increasingly unhappy in our lives. We've lost sight of the ideal expressed in Pirkei Avot (Ch. 4, Mishna 1) that says, "Eizeh hu ashir? Ha'same'ach b'chelko" - "Who is wealthy? He who is happy with what he has."

I've been thinking about that a lot lately. At first, I didn't really appreciate the wisdom of those words. To me, they seemed to be anti-ambition: "Why can't you just be happy with what you have?" This never really satisfied me as a child, or as an adult. So I just chalked it up as one of those pithy sayings you see sometimes, that sound good but aren't really very useful.

Lately, though, I've taken another view on it. My wife and I have been working very hard on improving ourselves, personally and financially. So, we've been reading books and listening to books-on-tape (well, CD's really.) Among them are things like Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" and "The Secret," by Rhonda Byrne. Both books are very similar in many ways, speaking of the importance of a positive attitude, and of giving charity. (Ayn Rand is doing backflips in her grave.)

One of the concepts that both those books, and others we've read, suggest is that the starting point for everything else they're trying to teach is Gratitude. That's the foundation, without which you really can't get anywhere.

Now I don't know about you, but that wouldn't have been my thought. I would have said something like, Organization or Creative Thinking or Persistence, etc. So I had to think about that for awhile, and have concluded that it's true.

Gratitude is the appreciation of what you already have. It doesn't mean you don't want more, but it does mean that your life won't be governed by what you don't have. If that's your focus, you'll never be happy - because there will always be something you don't have, and you'll be consumed by your wanting of it. You'll convince yourself that, if you just had that thing, you would be happy. And so, even if you inherited Bill Gates' fortune, you wouldn't be happy.

On the other hand, if you appreciate what you do have, you'll always be happy. You can focus on increasing material wealth, if that's your bent, or anything else you want to work on, and you will be happy. Once you've accomplished that, then you're ready to use the positive energy or Law of Attraction or good karma or whatever you want to call it, to your benefit.

So that's what I now believe Chaza"l meant in Pirkei Avot. Be grateful, and the rest will come.

But today we're continually fed a stream of negativity. Gasoline prices are going up. The war in Iraq. Bush is bad. Global warming is going to kill us all in 15 minutes. I mean, when was the last time you saw a happy story on the news? Alright, I don't mean the ones they play at the very end, showing the duck who's learned how to rollerblade or the kid who saved a puppy trapped in a meat grinder. I mean a real newsworthy story about something good. Almost never. And we're bombarded by media all day, every day.

No wonder we're all depressed!

The trick seems to be in getting back to gratitude. I'm working on that. So thanks for reading this post.

Midot Award

2007-06-08T19:12:00.000-04:00

Last night, my oldest daughter graduated high school. We're very proud of her.

She didn't win awards last night, but that doesn't bother me. I know who she is, and so does she. So even the "Midot Tovot Award" went to someone else.

A boy came from Silver Spring (about an hour away) because he was "close friends" with two of the graduates. My daughter wasn't one of his friends, but somehow, after graduation, this kid wound up having no place to go. His friends didn't want him messing up their after-grad party plans.

So he came to our house, and my daughter and her friend drove him home. She didn't go to the after-grad party.

The Midot Tovot Award winner did.

But I still think she won.

Etz Chaim?

2007-06-08T08:25:00.000-04:00

I'm learning Mishle (Proverbs) for the first time. I'm back on my track of trying to go through Nach, at least so's I can get some idea as to what's in there. Most kids - even Orthodox kids - aren't exposed to very much Nach in their school careers. This is especially so with boys, who are instantly shunted to Mishna and Gemara once they're old enough. Nearly 20 years ago, while trying to learn a particularly difficult piece of Aggadic Gemara, I realized that part of the reason I was finding it so difficult was that I didn't know the events and people the Gemara was referring to. So I embarked on this effort.

Anyway, enough about that.

In Proverbs, Chapter 3, there are two verses that I find interesting, both in terms of their placement, and in terms of reference. I'm including the Hebrew here both to show off that I can (and that I'm practicing typing in it), and because the verses are well known in Hebrew.

17: "דרכיה דרכי נעם וכל נתיבותיה שלום" - It's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace.
18: "עץ חיים היא למחזיקים בה ותומכיה מאשר" - It is a tree of life for those who grasp it, and those who draw near it are fortunate.

Now here's what interests me:

First, we say these verses during davening, when putting the Torah away. Except, we say them in the reverse order. I'm wondering why?

Second, these verses, usually quoted in reverse, as mentioned, are often used by rabbis as referring to Torah. In other words, when it says "It is a tree of life...", the it is said to be Torah.

The problem is that's not what the verses seem to indicate.

To find what the verses are referring to, you have to go back until you find the apparent definition of "It" (or "She", if you want to be technical). So let's go back some verses:

16: Length of days is in its right hand; in its left hand are riches and honor.
15: It is more precious than pearls, and all your desirable things cannot be compared to it.
14: For its commerce is better than the commerce of silver, and its gain is better than fine gold.

Nope. None of these tell us what it is. You have to go all the way back to verse 13.

13: Fortunate is the man who has found wisdom and a man who gives forth discernment.

Aha!! We've found the elusive it! It is WISDOM.

So Wisdom is the tree of life.... Wisdom's ways are pleasant.

That does make sense. The problem is that rabbis all over the place don't tell us that. They say it means Torah. Now I suppose you could say that Torah is the Mekor Chachma - the source of Wisdom, and I wouldn't argue that point. But it does seem a little bit dishonest to tell us that the verse is referring directly to Torah, when it clearly isn't.

Once again, I don't, as yet, have an answer to these. Any thoughts?

Maybe Talk Isn't So Cheap

2007-04-18T13:49:00.000-04:00

I recently posted a blog entry about something having to do with sexual abuse (Other than my Touched By a Rabbi post). It related a conversation I had with someone about it, and what might be done about it. I made efforts to keep things anonymous and not to let identifiable information slip, but evidently I didn't go nearly far enough in that. Upon request, I pulled the post, first temporarily; now permanently. It seems that, in my efforts to describe my struggle to decide what to do in a particular situation, I may have hurt people, and jeopardized the entire thing. I hope I didn't.

To be honest, I didn't think there were more than 5 or 6 people who actually read my blog. (My suspicion is that, other than the previous two posts, there aren't.) And I guess I failed to really understand the reach of these things. After a long conversation with someone I respect (more now, even, than before,) I think I understand it better.

Writing helps me sort out how I feel about things. It's cathartic, somehow, to set down my thoughts, sift through them, and try to really get to the crux of it all. But they say that Abraham Lincoln used to write letters to all sorts of people, that he would then put in his desk and never send. I guess that was one post I should have never let out either.

In any case, I'm sorry, and am pretty much done blogging on this topic. I do hope you'll continue reading, though. It's nice to think someone actually reads this.

Touched by a Rabbi

2007-04-10T22:26:00.000-04:00

In it's February 23rd issue, Phil Jacobs, of the Baltimore Jewish Times, led with a cover story called "Today, Steve is 25." (I'd link to it, but the article seems to be no-longer-available on the JT website.) The article was important because it began to open a dialog in our community that has been long repressed: Sexual Abuse in the Orthodox Jewish Community. This article generated a lot of response, both the to BJT and to Phil, personally. (See Phil's blog - As of this post, pay particular attention to the articles: "Way Too Much Fear," "It's About the Victims," and "Is This Orthodox Bashing?")

Two weeks later, the article was followed up by a short piece describing Phil's visit to a local weekly kiddush, where many of the participants are men (age ranges from 20's to 40's) who were abused by teachers and others in their youth. (Again, I would link to it if I could find it.) These guys talk about the subject most weeks, both reliving past events, and discussing things that are going on currently. I know this because I periodically go to the kiddush as most of these guys are my friends. The title of this post, in fact, is something one of them came up with.

Sexual abuse, particularly by an authority figure, is a terrible thing. It's insidious. It messes with people's lives in ways they can't even explain. It effects their marriages, their relationships with their children, their self-esteem, their careers. In some cases, it leads to further abuse, as the abused become abusers themselves. For some victims, there can be tremendous guilt as though they might be partially to blame. This is especially so in cases where a boy was abused and his own arousal was required for the abuse to take place.

It's horrible, and I will never say anything to defend the perpetrators of these crimes.

But I have a few questions:

The problem, historically, has been one of power. The authority figure held power over the victim. His word was more likely to be believed than that of the victim. Sometimes the power came from powerful families whose names were seen as better not besmirched.

The problem today is that the power is shifting to the other extreme: to the victims. One has only to say that there has been an abuse, and the "abuser" can be destroyed, even without proof. "Where there's smoke, there's fire," is the attitude, and while that may protect some people from a real danger, it may also destroy a career and/or a family, even if the person is innocent. As Ray Donovan put it, "Where do I go to get my reputation back?"

A byproduct of this is that good-quality teachers and leaders are sometimes choosing to stay away from these fields that could potentially cost them so much with so little effort. I know personally of one situation in which an excellent educator, with many years of experience, is being pressured by his family to leave teaching because of their fear of this. It will be a terrible loss if he does.

So how do we structure this to both protect our children (and even young adults) from sexual predators disguised as teachers and community leaders, while also protecting good teachers and community leaders from unfair accusations?
How should the community react towards a person who has been accused, or even convicted? Should we ostracise them? Place them in cherem? Should we refuse to do business with them, have them in our shuls or even to acknowledge them on the street?

How about their families? Should we hold them accountable? What about parents who know that their son is a predator, and try to protect him instead of turning him over to the police?

Similarly, what about school administrators who knowingly get rid of a problem teacher by sending him elsewhere (which has happened many times)? Should they be punished too? How?
Finally, for whatever we do decide is the appropriate community action, for how long? I mean, a teacher who abuses students should never be allowed to teach kids again, as far as I'm concerned. The recidivism rate is too high. The Torah tells us "Don't put a stumbling block before a blind man." Putting a predator back in with the prey would just be asking for trouble. But if, for example, ostracism is part of the community reaction, should he be ostracised forever? And again, how about those that enabled him to continue?

These are serious issues that need to be considered and addressed by our community leaders. And the guidelines need to start coming soon.

Yesterday, I sat and talked with one of my friends, who was abused, about this. See, I know someone who is a predator. So I asked my friend, "How do I react towards him, when I see him? When he comes over to me and wishes me a 'gut Shabbos' and asks after my family, what do I do?" My friend said, "It's always harder when there's an actual person associated with the name." He's right on that. But it still doesn't help me.

Today was the last day of Pesach, and rabbis across Baltimore spoke publicly about this problem, and some of the things the community is working on to deal with it. We're expecting materials to be coming in the mail, discussing the issue. This coming weekend, we're also expecting another major article on the topic in the BJT. I'll keep you posted.

A Crossed Line

2007-02-11T17:11:00.000-05:00

I do a lot of networking. Not the kind with wires and computer (although I do that too), but the kind with people. I go to several networking events regularly, and run a "chapter" of one group once a week. On occasion, I go to visit other group meetings within the same organization - it's a good way to meet new people and see how other folks run their meetings. Several weeks ago, I made such a visit. It was a good meeting, and I came away with a few people with whom I wanted to have further contact with.

I met one of them in his office. Nice guy. Seemed very interested in talking to me. When we sat down in his conference room, he made sure to mention that he had a bar-mitzvah. Now I go to my business meetings and such with my kippah on, so I'm used to people saying things like that to me. They want to make sure you know they're Jewish, so they'll say things like, "... and I said, 'Oy gevalt!'" or something like that. I figure that it's nice that they're trying to connect with me, so I kind of nod and smile, and continue on to the business at hand.

So this guy is obviously not frum, so I was a little surprised when he said, "You know, I have a book I'd really like you to read. It really helps deepen our understanding of Torah." Now, I know quite a few people who would have things to say that could deepen my understanding of Torah, but this guy wasn't one of them. It made me very suspicious, and my first thought was, Jews for Jesus. Nonetheless, I said something non-committal and continued with the meeting. By the end of the meeting, he hadn't really said anything else like that, and he hadn't handed me any books, so I figured it was over.

Three weeks passed by before the package showed up in my mailbox. Sure enough, it was a book essentially trying to reconcile Christianity with Judaism, and trying to prosyletize me. The book's called Betrayed, and it's about this one particular guy's struggle with his daughter's decision to become a "Jewish Christian." PS - in the end, he and his whole family wind up converting to Christianity. Nebach.

Now from a religious perspective, I'm not worried. See, Christianity is something of a hobby of mine - I don't practice it; I just find it fascinating that so many people believe in it. Anyway, I have no doubt that I've spent far more time studying Christianity than he has studying authentic Judaism, and am not worried that he's going to "get" me.

But I'm offended by his behavior. I met with him in good-faith, to discuss business. This is sort of a violation of generally unwritten groundrules. It's chutzpah. (I guess I gotta admire his "brass," though.)

Oh, he also included a note suggesting that we could go out for lunch, on him, if I read the book and had any questions.

Two weeks later, he called me to make sure I got the book. I wasn't ready to speak to him about this. Frankly, I was still mad. After speaking with him for about 15 mins... well, mostly I was trying to get a word in edgewise, I've come away unsure about his real intentions. He told me that he really didn't have any Jewish background growing up - which I'd figured - and that he really didn't find anything "spiritual" until he was introduced to Christianity. I told him that it was sad that he felt he had to go out there to find what was truly available (and in the original yet) in here. He said that if I sent him some information, he'd be glad to read it.

Now I'm not sure if he means he'd be willing to give his own heritage a real chance, or if he's after something else, and I'm not sure what to send him. I don't want to send him something combative, like You Take Jesus, I'll Take God, because it attacks his beliefs. That's not the way to convince anyone.

Have you had an experience like this? What did you do? Any suggestions on materials to send, if any?

Chirac Reveals French Opinion

2007-02-01T09:42:00.000-05:00

From the NY Times:

PARIS, Jan. 31 — President Jacques
Chirac said this week that if Iran had one or two nuclear weapons, it would not pose a big danger, and that if Iran were to launch a nuclear weapon against a country like Israel, it would lead to the immediate destruction of Tehran.

He went on to try to call journalists back in, to retract his statement, saying, “I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record.” In other words, "That is what I truly believe, but I didn't want to go on record as having said it."

So there you have it, folks. In case there was still any doubt as to what France thinks of Israel, you are hereby on notice: The French don't consider it a big deal if Israel is destroyed by nuclear weapons.

Not that this is a surprise...

Borat: The Joke's On You, America!

2007-01-14T21:57:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I never posted this, back in January. It's now the end of June and here it is.

Alright, I admit it. I watched Borat, Sasch Baron Cohen's movie about a "Reporter" from Kazakhstan who comes to America to learn about us, and Pamela Anderson.

Now, I can't say it was a hilarious movie, although parts of it were amusing. I can't even say it was a good movie. In fact, just as a movie, it was somewhat boring, and even a bit disturbing. But the most interesting thing about the movie, to me anyway, was that the vast majority of the audience, didn't even get it, and that was part of the joke.

One of the central jokes Mr. Cohen seems to bring out is the ease with which our Non-Jewish neighbors can be drawn into anti-semitism; how very close beneath the surface it lies. Of course, his earlier foray into that realm was with his character, Ali G, and his famous "Throw the Jew Down the Well" video, which took place in a honky-tonk in Arizona. He had those folks dancing and singing, with one woman even making horns with her fingers while singing the lyrics, "You must take him by his horns..."

But while the people directly involved in the overtly, if not downright exaggerated anti-semitism, in Mr. Cohen's work are clearly demonstrated to be anti-semites, the real joke seems to be on the American public; the audience.

Let's consider some of the numbers:

According to the latest (as of this writing) US Census Bureau data, there are approximately 299.4 million people in America.
According to American Jewish Committee data, there are 6.4 million Jews in America; about 2% of the American population.
According to the movie-industry analysts at The-Numbers.com, "Borat" has grossed $126,738,371, as of 1/11/2007.
According to the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), the average ticket price in the US in 2005 was $6.41. For my calculations below, I'm going to raise it to $6.50 for 2006, which is probably at least close to accurate.
Using these numbers, we find that approximately 19.5 million tickets have been sold for this movie, since it opened on Nov. 3, 2006.
This means that, even if every single Jew in America saw this movie, there would still be over 13 million non-Jews who also saw it.
Borat was the #1 movie in the country for two weeks, and was still in the Top Ten for an additional four after that.

Now you don't get to be the #1 movie if people don't like it. So that means that, for at least two weeks, people thought this movie was the best thing running! They recommended it to their friends. They thought it was hilariously funny!

And who wouldn't? I mean, what could be funnier than that scene with "The Running of the Jew," where two ultra-stereotyped charicature "Jews" run down the street in Kazakhstan, complete with horns, big noses and sidelocks (on the man, of course)? And when the Jewess lays an egg, and all the children are encouraged to go break the egg with sticks to make sure it doesn't hatch? I mean, that's comedy right there!

Virtually none of them realized that the joke was not only on them; it was them.

I wonder how many weeks it would have been in that slot if he were making fun of any other minority

Why Do We Fast?

2006-10-10T18:27:00.000-04:00

Alright, so it's now smack-in-the-middle of Sukkot, and here I am writing about fasting... which would certainly have been more appropriate two weeks ago. Hey, such is life. Deal with it.

This actually does stem from a conversation I had with one of my sons immediately prior to Yom Kippur, though. He asked me why we fast. Obviously, he had Yom Kippur on his mind, as well he might - he doesn't fast well - but it's a good question.

Well I thought about the question for a minute or so, and came up with something I thought I should write down.

We fast because we can.

Alright, so it's a little simplistic, but not very much so.

See, it occurred to me that we are probably the only creatures on the planet that can fast, and that somehow that's connected with the reason we do it. (Animals can refrain from eating, but that's not the same as fasting. They do it because their bodies don't require food at certain times, because there is no food available, or because they are sick.)

Think about it. How do we really differ from the rest of the animal kingdom? Monkeys make tools. There are some dolphins, whales and maybe even gastropods and apes that are smarter than we are. Yet, none of them has dominated the planet as we humans have. Naturists will tell you that there are a number of animals that have developed complex family structures. But not one of them has developed an actual civilization. None of them have notions of commerce, religion, written language, property rights, laws... (Hmm... Sounds like John Lennon's Imagine, actually... )

In short, nothing but Man seems able to think, and act, based on things beyond immediate self-preservation; the here and now. Perhaps the key distinction between man and the rest of the animal kingdom is our ability to act based on our beliefs, in ways that are not evidently in concert with our physical needs.

So if we wanted to demonstrate our Humanity; If we wanted to show God that we are His special creation, and therefore deserving of some slack when we don't always do what He wants of us, how should we do that? By doing an act which is clearly not to our evident benefit, out of choice, not necessity. (We don't fast because we're not hungry; we fast despite our being hungry.) So fasting becomes, in a real sense, a simple yet profound statement about what we really are.

In other words, we fast because we can.

Jewish Policemen

2006-09-29T16:35:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I just scan through the stations while driving, to see whether there's something interesting, beyond the stations I have "preset". Today, I happened to come across our former Chief of Police, Ed Norris, on his regular talk-show on WHFS (105.7 FM). Happened to be that the topic they were discussing at the time was (as described on www.ednorris.com):

"A Towson University police officer is in a battle with the school over his off time. He became an Orthodox Jew in 2000 and has asked for the Sabbath off. The school at first said ok, and no is saying no citing unfairness to other officers and unneeded overtime costs and more. Are his religious rights being violated? Why should and employer be forced to allow employees time off for religious functions?" [sic]

I listened to this for awhile, until I got to my meeting and had to get out of the car. Now, I've heard his show before, and often agree with what he says - he's no dummy - and I guess I can concede that this could be a somewhat complicated issue. But Ed drew an analogy with which I have a big problem.

He said that this is akin to any other situation where someone is simply not capable of meeting the requirements of the job. His position was that if the guy can't do the job - for whatever reason - then he needs to find a different job. He compared it to someone who can't lift 50 lbs. wanting to be in a job where he needs to be able to lift 50 lbs, and that political correctness has robbed our country of good sense.

The problem is that, according to this line of reasoning, just about anyone should be allowed to discriminate against Jews (or Muslims, or others for that matter) on religious grounds, for just about any job. Let's explore some possible jobs that could be affected:

Stock Boy: Now surely an orthodox stock-boy wouldn't have a problem, right? Well let's see... What if, once a quarter, all the store employees are required to work over the weekend to check inventory. But this poor guy can't work on Friday night and Saturday... What would Ed say? "Oh well... I guess he's just not able to do the job. He'll have to find something else to do."

Lawyer: Now there are lots of Jewish lawyers out there, so this shouldn't be a problem at all. Some even work for large firms! They're working on a big case, and this one particular Orthodox Jewish lawyer is the one of the leads. The judge decides to hear arguments this Monday (Oct. 2, 2006) - Yom Kippur. Hey - Monday's a work day, right? And they need him on the case, but the judge isn't hearing any of it. He says, "You have other attorneys who are familiar with the case. Put one of them on it." Now, his boss says he needs him to be ready for trial because this is a big case for the firm. Look, the judge is a jerk, but that's the job. And what would Ed say? "Oh well... I guess he's just not able to do the job. He'll need to find something else to do."

This same logic can apply to just about any job where he's not the boss. From the staff-doctor at the hospital to the guy who sweeps the elephant dung at the zoo. If his religious beliefs don't adhere to those of the Christian Majority in this country, Ed seems to believe that he (or she, of course) can be discriminated against. To hell with religious freedom! To hell with the Constitution! This country was created by Christians, damnit, and if you don't like it, git back to where you came from... right, Ed?

The problem is, I also understand where Ed's coming from. There are terrible abuses of the system. There was the wheel-chair bound college kid who sued his school because he wanted to take dance, for example. (Don't ask me when or where - it's been so long, I don't remember.) And there are countless examples of things like that. People suing companies for jobs they really can't do, because "they're being discriminated against."

I don't know the answer to this problem. I'm not even sure that this Jewish policeman should get to keep his job. Ed might be right, in this case... or he might not. What I am sure of is that Ed's reasoning is shortsighted.

Fighting for Peace

2006-07-16T15:39:00.000-04:00

Greetings from beautiful, sunny San Diego, where my wife and I have come so she can take a business seminar. Alas, I am doomed to wander San Diego by my lonesome for two days. Whatever shall I do... first?

'Nuff said about that.

Years ago, ironically in Israel, I saw a t-shirt that read, "Fighting for peace is like f***ing for virginity." (Stars are mine.) I thought it was a cute slogan, but dead wrong... but I never really considered exactly why.

I think that last week's parsha - Pinchas - and the current situation in the Middle East can give us some insight to that.

The parsha begins by describing Pinchas as the grandson of Aharon. R. Yissachar Frand asks the following question:
Why did tracing Pinchas' genealogy to Aharon satisfy anyone? Everyone realized that Pinchas had two grandfathers. What does it help that he was the grandson of Aharon? No one disputed that. This would not seem to mollify anyone's complaint - that in this instance he undertook an action which reflected on his descent from a Priest of Avodah Zarah [ForeignWorship, i.e. - idolatry].

He then quotes R. Meir Bergman to explain the answer. He says that, of course everyone knew that Pinchas was the grandson of Aharon. Their assumption, however, was that Pinchas' behavior could not possibly have been from the Aharon-side of the family. After all, Aharon was known to be the man of peace. Clearly, this must have been from the Yitro-side.

Not so, says God. This was from the Aharon-side of the family! This is what Aharon himself would have done in that situation!

And that is why Pinchas is not referred to as the Ohev Shalom, but rather the Rodef Shalom - and this is the main point. Rodef Shalom literally means, "Chaser of Peace". The Chasam Sofer explains that a rodef is one who chases something, and that in this case, it means that Pinchas was one who was willing to chase away peace - in order for there to be peace.

Sometimes, in order for there to be peace, one must chase peace away - in other words, make conflict; even war. There is evidently something that can be considered a bad peace, that must be removed in order to bring out a good peace.

Looking at the current situation in Israel, I think one can understand this as the difference between a sort of cold war, and real peace. For years, Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in a cold war; a war of open hostility, but little actual fighting, per se. Terrorist attacks, and retaliatory strikes... but no open war. This was a bad peace; a status-quo peace; a peace of uncertainty.

Now Israel has become a rodef shalom. They are actively pursuing peace, at the necessary expense of those determined to allow none. They are determined to rid their borders of those who have never made any bones about their intention to kill us all. All Hezbollah has to do is lay down their arms and commit to ending aggression against Israel, and the fighting will stop. In short, all they have to do is the one thing they will never do... until forced to.

Will Israel be successful in their endeavor? Not without God's help. There is simply too much to do, in my opinion.

But it's a start.

Death and Tehillim

2006-06-29T15:07:00.000-04:00

My cousin died this afternoon. She'd been battling cancer and she lost... so did her family... so did the rest of us. The world is a poorer place without her.

Last night, my brother called me to let me know that she'd been taken into the hospital with fluid in her lungs, and that things were very bad. He told me her Jewish name - the one I've been inserting into my tefillot for some 6+ months already - and said that we should daven for her and say some Tehillim.

It occurred to me to wonder why.

It seems that we're very often asked to daven for someone whom God has seen fit to give a life-threatening illness... and that God doesn't usually change his mind. There is no, "Well... I was gonna kill 'em... but then all these people started asking me not too... so I decided, what the heck!" My personal assumption is that He knew what He was doing when He gave them the disease in the first place.

Now I'm all for it when there's a realistic possibility that the person can recover. But at a certain point, I think it's sort of wasted effort to pray for their recovery. At those times, I think it would be more useful to daven for them not to be in pain, or for their families, or in their z'chut so that their n'shamot will have an aliya when the time comes. But for their recovery? God has already decided that they weren't going to.

Now, I know... I know... "But God can do anything. He could make them recover if He wanted to." Yes, yes... that's true. But first of all, we're taught al tismach al ha'ness - we don't rely on miracles. If someone has a disease like pancreatic cancer or something. If the prognosis is just bad, then maybe we ought to focus on what comes next.

In fact, I think that's alluded to by the Medrash when discussing the illness of Yitzchak. If I recall it correctly, the Medrash says that, until his time, people would just drop dead. When your time was up, it was up. Yitzchak prayed, asking that people be given time to get their affairs in order. And God responded by saying, "That's a good idea. I'll start with you."

Maybe, if we looked at terminal illness as the mechanism for preparing for our imminent departure, we'd be better off. We'd, at least, not be so frustrated when we've davened and the person dies anyway.

Please pray for the freed soul of Rena Tamar bat Ester.

We should meet only in... life?

2006-04-10T09:49:00.000-04:00

Recently, I got to thinking about that thing people say to each other, especially if they haven't seen each other in a long time (or aren't likely to), or if they are seeing each other on an unpleasant occasion: "May we meet only at simchot".

It occurred to me that I don't agree with this notion.

Simchot are times when, by definition, the heart is light. Things are good. The clouds have parted. The angels are singing. So it's very easy to meet at simchot; very comfortable. Unhappy events are not when we are at our best. Crying does not do much for one's appearance.

On the other hand, somehow it's often when there is an unhappy event, that we become bound together. Relationships become solidified. The slag is removed and people's true essences (good or bad) shine through.

So when someone says, "May we meet only at simchot", they could be saying, "I really don't want a relationship with you with any depth. Let's just keep things at the nice and comfy surface, okay?"

On the other, other hand, pain sucks. It's necessary, and part of life, but no one likes it very much. (Except those people who are just unhappy unless they're unhappy - and we all know people like that!) So we hardly want to be saying, "May our next meeting be in sorrow." It's just too intense.

So what should we say? Or at least, what should we mean, regardless of what we say?

I think both poles are necessary for a good relationship, and everything in between as well. So what we really should mean is something along the lines of "May we have other occasions in which to share each others' company," or "May we see each other again soon," or even just, "See ya'!"

The thing is, we also always want to end things on a "better" note. We're just wired that way. We're uncomfortable with bad stuff, which makes sense since it's necessarily uncomfortable.

So I guess I'm stuck with "May we meet in simchot" or "May we meet in happier times" or some such claptrap... but when I say it, you'll know that's not entirely what I mean.

Chag kasher v'sameach to all...

Learning from the Goyim - A Rant

2006-02-14T11:15:00.000-05:00

Bumper Stickers
You're driving down the road, and pull up behind a black woman waiting for a light. There's a bumper sticker - at least one - on her car. It says, "I brake for rapture!" or "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." or "Know Jesus, know peace. No Jesus, no peace." Maybe she's got all three on there!

Normally I don't think about it. This past week I did. I thought about the Christian community - particularly the Black Christian community, and it occurred to me that they've got something we've lost, for the most part. They're enthusiastic about their religion and their beliefs. And we, well we so often just do mitzvot because we have to; because it's ingrained. We all know, "Ivdu et Hashem b'Simcha", but yet we so often seem to forget that last word there. No wonder we have trouble inspiring our kids! We're not inspired ourselves!! Moreover, when we see someone who is inspired - you know, like new Ba'alei Teshuva - we think of it as just a little weird.

Prayer Mats
I remember walking in Manhattan - something I do very infrequently because I live in Baltimore, and because frankly, I hate NY - and seeing a Muslim taxi driver pull his cab over, take out his prayer mat, and start bowing toward Mecca, right in the middle of the sidewalk. No one bothered him, although he did get a few looks from the passers-by. Now maybe this was an unusal occurrence... but I've seen similar things in other places. Muslims, particularly Arab Muslims, have no qualms about their religious beliefs either. When it's time to pray, they just do.

And us, we try to dress so as not to stand out. We stand in phone booths when we're trying to daven Mincha (unless we're in a minyan), and pretend we're having phone conversations. We're embarrassed by our religious requirements, because they make us different - and we so don't want to be different.

But maybe
...just maybe... (alright, more than just maybe) we're wrong. Maybe this is something we should be making concerted efforts in our communities to address. Why should we be embarrassed by the trappings of our beliefs? Do we feel God is an imposition on our lives? (Maybe we do...) Why aren't we happy about God and our relationship with Him? What is our relationship with Him?

We taught Monotheism to the World. Now we need to study from our talmidim.

Lying to Pharoah

2006-02-14T10:49:00.000-05:00

In the past few weeks, the parshiot have discussed the Exodus from Egypt, and the preceding plagues. Something that's been bothering me about them is this:

Exo. 8:23

"What we must do is make a three day journey into the desert. There we will be able to sacrifice to God, our Lord, just as He told us."

He then further tells Pharoah that he's going to take all the women, children and animals when he goes. Pharoah doesn't like it, but eventually (after Makat B'Chorot) relents and sends them out. But it's clear that Pharoah has been given reason to believe that we were not leaving, we were going out for a few days to serve God.

Then we see the following:

Exo. 14:5

Meanwhile, the king of Egypt received the news that the people were escaping. Pharoah and his officials changed their minds regarding the people, and said, "What have we done? How could we have released Israel from doing our work?"

Now that first phrase there - he "received the news that the people were escaping." Clearly, Pharoah had not been under the impression that this was to be a permanent thing.

In other words, we left under false pretenses. At best, we allowed Pharoah to be fooled. At worst, we lied outright. Neither of these is acceptable, in my view, for the "Ohr la'goyim". The Torah tells us, "Mi'd'var sheker tirchak" - stay away from falseness. Yet we didn't exactly exemplify this here.

I haven't come up with a good answer for this yet, btw. Feel free to share your thoughts.

Meled

2006-02-14T10:33:00.000-05:00

This morning I received an email regarding a program in Israel called Meled (Mercaz L'mida Dati), in Jerusalem, which I think is very important. Meled takes disaffected youth from religious homes, and helps then reorient themselves. These are kids with problems, living in a world in which their problems may seem small to everyone else.

For all the wonderful things about Israel, it is also well known that Israelis can be hard people. If you have a problem, you are expected to just deal with it. I suppose you can't blame them, really, but there are kids for whom that approach doesn't work. Meled is working with them.

On our recent trip to Israel, we saw a number of these kids in Chashmona'im. Troubled kids from nearby Kiryat Sefer. My friend, Arie, told me that on Shavuot, he passed by a group of them, hanging out in the playground near the batei knesiot. One of them called out to him, "Learn with us." He did, and they enjoyed it.

These aren't dumb kids. They aren't bad kids. They're lost kids. Meled is helping them find their way home. Please take a look at their site, and their program, and help out where you can.

Parshat ha'Man and Humanity

2006-01-24T10:57:00.000-05:00

In the mornings, when I have time, I like to say some of the extra stuff at the end of davening. I try to say the 6 Zichronot, the Ani Ma'amins (more on that another time, I think) and the tefilot for parnasa, including Parshat ha'Man.

Now, for those of you who don't know what this is, it's a prayer for sustenance along with a selected Torah reading about the giving of the Manna - which is sort of the fundamental notion of God's provision of sustenance to His people.

There were a couple of things that struck me this morning... well, one of them struck me quite some time ago, but I've never written about it before.

One of the important things to know about it, if you haven't read it, is that it chronicles the People's failure to comply with God's orders... twice:

They were told to take only a measure for each person in their household, to last the day. They were not to take extra, and they were not to leave any over. The Torah records that they did, in fact, take extra, and that it became wormy and dried out. Moshe gets mad at them and yells at them.
On Friday, they went out and found double the amount they had found on the other days. They went and told Moshe, who told them that this is the way it was going to be. On Fridays they would collect double portions for everyone in the household, and prepare it for Shabbat. They would eat one day's portion on Friday, and the remainder they would hold over until Shabbat morning. They should by no means go out on Shabbat morning to collect Manna, because it wouldn't be there.

The Torah then records that the Manna they held over until morning did not become wormy and dried out, and that they did go out to collect, but found nothing. This time God Himself gets mad at them, asking Moshe, "Until when will they listen to me?" (or something like that - I don't have Chumash in front of me at the moment.)

Now, sidestepping the question about who got mad when and why, my question is basically, why get mad at them at all?

Now I have an answer to this, which is compelling, but not at all satisfying. Simply, God commanded them not to leave it overnight during the week, and not to collect it on Shabbat. These were, therefore, commandments for them. They don't directly apply to us today, but they were very serious Issurei D'Oreita for them.

There is no problem with this answer, but I guess it doesn't really address the underlying question which is, why get mad at them at all?

Here's how I'm looking at it: God said don't do it. They wanted to see what would happen if they did, so they tried it. It became dried out and wormy. End of discussion. God said don't collect it on Shabbat. They wanted to see what would happen if they did, so they tried it. There was nothing there. End of discussion.

This, to me, sounds like Science. Hypothesis, experiment, conclusion. What's wrong with that?

"But this is God," you'll say to me. "Where was their bitachon?"

Furthermore, I will acknowledge that it's unreasonable to hold that as an appropriate way to regard all mitzvot. In general, we don't believe in immediate, causal consequences. We don't believe, for example, that if you break Shabbat a lightning bolt will come down from the skies and cook you like a turkey, so that sort of experimentation wouldn't work with everything.

But in this case, it did. It was like testing Gravity or Air Pressure. "I wonder what happens if..."

And there's another thing... This is how God created us. He gave us an innate curiousity about the world. He made us want to experiment and to find out how things work. He's why we have Science; why we've developed the methodologies we use to learn about our world.

Not only that, but you can see this in us, His creation, since our beginnings. This is exactly what Chava was doing with the Tree of Knowledge. This is especially true according to the opinions that hold that the whole conversation between Chava and the snake were really taking place in her head. She saw the snake on the tree and wondered why it didn't die - after all, Adam said, "Don't touch the tree, lest you die". But the snake was all over the tree, and fine. So she touched the tree... and didn't die. Hypothesis, experiment, conclusion. Then she hypothesized again... maybe you could actually eat the fruit...

Alright, so we're imperfect beings, but at least we come by it honestly... and God knew that because he created us this way. So why get so mad about the Manna?

I guess that's the personal responsibilty thing. Yes, it's in our nature to be curious, and to want to experiment. But we are expected to overcome our instincts and natural curiousities, if it means transgressing the Torah. The Rambam, for example, makes it very clear that we do not refrain from eating non-kosher food because the food is bad. We do it because God said so, and that's that.

About Reuven

2005-12-31T22:52:00.000-05:00

This week's parsha (Miketz) got me thinking - admittedly, sometimes a dangerous thing - about Reuven.

Yosef is playing headgames with his brothers - there are many questions about this, but that's not my topic for the moment - and he eventually comes to Binyomin. He wants to see his only full-brother. The other brothers try to talk him out of it, but he's not having any of it. He wants Binyomin, and refuses to give them any food until they produce him.

The brothers go home, and try to approach Yaakov about it. They know it's going to be a hard sell, after all, look what happened the last time one of Rachel's children was left in their care. So Reuven - being the oldest, and all - decides that he'd better be the one to step up and take personal responsibility for Binyomin's safety. And how does he do this?

Gen 42:36-37
And Jacob their father said to them, "You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin; all this has come upon me." Then Reuben said to his father, "Slay my two sons if I do not bring him back to you; put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you."

Reuven tells his father, "Pop, I'll tell you what. If I don't bring Binyomin home, I'll let you kill your grandkids. Trust him with me."

Yaakov declines the offer - wisely, in my opinion.

So the question is: What was Reuven thinking?!

I mean, did he really expect to be taken seriously with that kind of offer? Was he perhaps smoking too much of the local herbs? What could possibly have been going through Reuven's mind to say something like that?

We were talking about this a bit at kiddush this morning, and I realized that this really seems to be part of Reuven's character, and probably the reason he was not worthy of the malchut. I think that while Reuven was generally well intentioned, he was just a bit impulsive. He just didn't think things through before acting on them.

In fact, this is at least the third time in Tanach that we see this sort of behavior from him. The first time is when Reuven moves Yaakov's bed into Leah's tent. He decided it was fair, and did it, not considering whether his father might have an opinion about the matter. The second time was with Yosef and the pit. It was Reuven who had him moved to the "empty pit that had no water", which Rashi tells us was instead filled with snakes and scorpions. In other words, Reuven didn't check out whether this was a safe thing to do. He just acted.

This, of course, is not to say that Reuven was not a great man - he clearly was. But it does seem to indicate a certain personality flaw.

Given that I have at least one son with this same sort of problem, I guess this gives me some hope that he can still grow up to be a great man some day.

What can you give the God who has everything?

2005-11-13T15:34:00.000-05:00

There's an interesting sequence in last week's parsha - Lech Lecha:

Gen. 14:18-20

But Malchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine; he was a priest of God, the Most High. He blessed him saying, "Blessed is Abram of God, the Most High, Maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God, the Most High, Who has delivered your foes into your hand"; and he gave him a tenth of everything.

Now, it's not so hard to understand the concept of blessing Abram, in the name of God. But Malchizedek also blessed God, and that's a little more complicated. How do you give God a blessing? Can you really give God something he doesn't already have? This is a problem that apparently did bother the Sages, some of which came up with explanations of how he meant different things in each case.

But I think that perhaps it is possible to give God something he doesn't have. In fact, I think God designed us that way.

According to the Rambam (at least I think it was the Rambam), the two tablets are to be understood as being analogs of each other: the first pertaining to the relationship between Man and his Creator; the second pertaining to the relationship between Man and his fellow. Each Commandment deals with the same underlying issue, as applied to each of those categories.

I'm not going to get into that in detail here - perhaps another time. I am going to explain the relationship between the first and sixth, which are pertinent here. First, let's remember that the first Commandment is, "I am the Lord your God..." and the sixth is, "Don't murder."

Now how do these two things relate to each other? The first doesn't even really sound like a Commandment - I mean, what exactly are we being commanded to do? And the sizth is completely baffling... How does one murder God?!

Well, according to Rabbi David Fohrman (and I think he got this from the Rambam too, but I'm not positive about that), you have to consider what the act of murder is: Murder is the process of removing a person from the world. We are not allowed to do that. So what, then is the first Commandment? Well, we're not allowed to remove God from the world either. And how does one remove God from the world? By refusing to recognize Him and His dominion over the Universe.

Now this may seem a little strange to say... I mean, refusing to recognize someone doesn't change the reality? Either God IS or He IS NOT. But the issue isn't really about what IS or IS NOT... it's about what is perceived. One of the primary functions of humanity, and the Jewish People, in particular, is to bring God's Presence into the mundane. "I am the Lord, Your God" is a command to bring God into the world! Don't think that God is out there, God is in here too, and it's our job to make the world aware of that.

And God had that in mind when He created us. He gave us sentience and free-will exactly for this purpose. The one thing that God can't have without us is our appreciation of Him.

I think that's what Malchizedek was trying to demonstrate. We can't give God much... except ourselves, and our blessings.

The Garden State

2005-11-13T09:19:00.000-05:00

One of my neighbors made a "Shalom Zachor" this week - I think this is their 7th child. Anyway, his Rav spoke, and one of the things he said made me think about the creation of Man, and the Garden of Eden.

According to Midrash, someone once asked a Tanna (I don't remember either of their names. I didn't actually look into the Midrash; I'm just using his explanation of it.): "If God saw fit to create men with an orlah (foreskin), why do we believe that we should remove it?"

The answer given was, "Do bread and wine grow on trees? Just as they are raw materials that need to be made into a final product, so too Man is born 'unfinished' and needs to be completed."
A worthy question, and answer, frankly.

But then he went on to describe Gan Eden. He said that originally, Adam was created with a Milah, in other words, without an orlah, and bread and wine grew on trees. This is God's conceptual image of the world, but we screwed it up. Given the curses God pronounced when casting us from Gan Eden, this makes some manner of sense.

Gen. 3:16 To the woman He said, "I will greatly increase your suffering and your childbearing; in pain shall you bear children. Yet your craving shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."

In other words, until this point, the intent had been that women would be truly equal, and would bear children without much discomfort. More on this later.

Gen. 3:17-19 To Adam He said, "Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate of the tree about which I commanded you saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' accursed is the ground because of you; through suffering shall you eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it sprout for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread until you return to the ground, from which you were taken: For you are dust, and to dust shall you return."

In other words, until this point, our sustenance came easily to us. We did not have to struggle and work hard in order to provide food for ourselves and our families.

But I was thinking about this a bit, and came to the conclusion that I don't think this Midrash is meant literally. I don't think it's rational to believe that the trees literally produced wine and bread, etc. I think there's another way to consider it.

Perhaps the truth is that the changes that took place weren't to the World, but rather to Humanity itself. Maybe, just as we changed in respect to being born without an orlah, so too we were changed in other ways. The results are interesting, at least to me:

Animals do not prepare their food. Cows don't go cooking the grass in the pasture. Lions and tigers don't season their prey first. (Gators and crocs do, but what they do is pretty gross, and beyond my scope here.) Animals basically take the world as it comes, and the world provides complete foods for them without further preparation. Perhaps, then, Man was also physiologically different in that he was able to directly use the produce of the world, without further preparation. Thus when it says that bread grew on the trees, it doesn't literally mean that you had white, rye and pumpernickel trees there. Rather, it means that the plants available were, for them, as complete as we would view bread. In fact, there are also Midrashic sources that describe the trees of Gan Eden as being edible. Again, perhaps it wasn't the trees that changed, but rather us. We used to be able to eat trees, just as well as their fruit.

Similarly, the issue of childbirth. For example, even the largest kangaroos, which grow to slightly larger than man-sized, give birth to tiny joeys, which then climb their way into their mothers' pouches, and continue to grow until they are big enough to leave the pouch. So mother kangaroos don't really have birthpangs, like human women do. The darned things are too small to cause that much difficulty. No, I'm not suggesting that we started off as marsupials, but I am suggesting that it is conceivable (no pun intended) for us to have started off having tiny babies, that grew large outside the mother's body.

Now, if what I'm suggesting is right, then it comes out that the Garden of Eden is not so much a place as a physical state. The Garden State, as it were. And that Brit Milah is our attempt, to quote CSNY much out of context, "...to get ourselves back to the Garden..."

I'm not entirely sure any of this makes sense... just a thought.

So Am I a Kofer?

2005-11-13T01:25:00.000-05:00

So what is this blog about? Well, it's about Jewish thought, but not just any Jewish thought... My Jewish thought, which frankly can be a bit different; certainly different than the "accepted" views of many. There a number of major areas in which these difference are manifest:

I do not believe that previous generations were quasi-magical beings who never did anything wrong, or without in some way having pure intentions. I believe that while they were, great and learned people, they were also human, with human failings. Sometimes they made mistakes. Sometimes they did bad things. And contrary to making them less, I believe that makes them more. They were able to rise to their levels of greatness despite their failings.
I think that Chazal were very real about the world in which they lived, believing that God put us in this world to reckon with, and appreciate, as it is. This doesn't mean the world is perfect. It doesn't mean there isn't even extreme ugliness in the world. But even the unpleasant aspects of life are part of God's world, just as the beautiful parts.
I believe in Science, and that most of the time, it is possible to reconcile it with Torah. I do believe there are aspects of the Bri'ah that we don't understand... parts that are, perhaps, mystical. But in General, I believe that God created the universe, and the scientific rules that govern it. And if God believes in Science, that's good enough for me.
I do not believe that Chazal were never mistaken about the universe. I believe that they lived within the context of their day, and that understood things within those frames of reference. So if the Gemara talks about spontaneous generation, which it does, that doesn't mean that it really happens. It doesn't even mean, as I've heard many explain, that things used to be that way, but then nature changed. I think that's a ridiculous assumption. It makes much more sense to assume that peoples' understanding of the World changed, and hence their descriptions and explanations of it would do likewise.

Those are some the kinds of things you'll find here. I hope that most of them will be at least marginally coherent, but I make no promises. If you truly don't understand what I'm trying to say, by all means, let me know. If you understand, but disagree, and can make a coherent argument, please feel free to post. If you're really good, you might even get me to change my mind; I try to be intellectually honest. If you understand, disagree, and just want to harangue me about my views with comments like, "How can you say such things about the Gedoilim?", you probably shouldn't bother... unless, of course, they're truly stupid and worthy of serious ridicule, in which case, by all means, please post them. And if you're being mean and nasty, I'll just delete your comments anyway, so don't bother.

Finally, and I really don't mean to offend, but the purpose of this blog is to express my ideas, and allow some dialogue about them, as I continually quest to hone my understanding of things, and my own thoughts about God, Judaism, and the Universe. If it interests you, and you are able to take anything away from it, I'll be thrilled. But if some of the concepts, or terms, are a bit too esoteric - and depending on whom you are, and your background, they may just be that - I'm not going to slow down to explain much... at least not here. Mi she'yavin, yavin...

So, am I a kofer? I don't think so, but based on many of my conversations with the yeshivishe velt through the years, I think some of you will conclude that I am. That's your perogative. You're welcome not to read this stuff. If you do, well... you've been warned.

-- The Half-Heretic