parsha thoughts

Rather be the Tail of a Lion than the Head of a Fox

2012-02-12T12:57:00.007+02:00

What did Rav Matyah Ben Cheresh mean when he said "better be the tail of a lion than the head of a fox" in Avot 4:20?

Was he saying it is better to accept a lower position in a bigger company than a higher position in a smaller one? Better be a small part of a huge project rather than lead a smaller one?

I used to think so, but recently I'm thinking his statement is about religious faith and serving God.

Rav Matyah can be read to be saying that whatever is done with the wrong intention, i.e. for something other than serving God, is like being the head of a fox. But the most mundane of activities, if done for the service of God, is like being the tail of a lion.

Yitro

2012-02-11T21:27:00.007+02:00

If the 10 Commandments are the most powerful symbol of the Jewish contribution to Western morality, could the preceding story about Yitro - a non Jewish priest who both recognizes the Jewish God and also offers advice about how Moshe should be running his judicial system - be the Torah's way of telling us to be open to wisdom from gentiles? There is in the story of Yitro's meeting Moshe both the preservation of Jewish identity and the accepting of advice from someone outside the Jewish faith. Had the Torah wanted to relay a pro-Wisdom-in-all-its-forms-and-sources message, it might explain why it specifically places this story before the 10 commandments. The message seems to be not to be closed off to Wisdom from the outside...

On the other hand, there is a strong (unanimous?) tradition in Rabbinic literature that Yitro converted. What converted means specifically in the context of Israelites in the desert is not clear at all, but the word "Vayichad" would support this reading. The question then of why the story of Yitro precedes the 10 Commandments can still be partially answered by pointing to openness to external Wisdom, but Yitro's conversion in and of itself would suggest more than that.

Perhaps, just as we read about Ruth before we celebrate receiving the Torah on Shavuot, so too right before the 10 Commandments we tell the story of Yitro. Both these people freely chose to join the Israelites -- a powerful example for those born into a life where Torah is taught to them before they can actually choose it for themselves.

Anger management

2012-02-07T11:24:00.002+02:00

If I told you that you had won the lottery and handed you the winning ticket, would it change your mood? What if someone that very next minute said something obnoxious, someone close to you, talking to you in a hurtful way. Something really obnoxious and shallow. Would you get angry? Would you have the strength to ignore it? Would you at least be able to control the explosion? Maybe contain it instead of letting it blow away that good feeling of having won the lottery?

The point is that without a purpose to your life, you won't be able to. Without meaning, which is outside the current situation, but has the power to help you see the situation differently, you won't be able to get through the day.

Orthodox Judaism teaches that life has a huge purpose. Serving God.

The idea of serving God is not appealing to a person who doesn't feel they benefit from such an activity. But for people who do see the value in Serving God, people for who service of God is a live, flowing experience of His Holiness, for such winners of the spiritual lottery there is a way to handle anger. Because just as a man would be a fool to burn his winning lottery ticket, so too would he be a fool to burn up his relationship to God.

A princess was in love with a peasant. But the king wanted her to marry a prince from a far away land. It would help build the kingdom. The princess wanted to please her father but she loved the peasant.

One night she ran away. She gave it all up and ran. The king was distraught but the princess, knowing this would be so, had left him a letter saying - There was a fire raging but I'll be back.

It was raining heavily. She ran through the night, swamps, mud, sewage. Finally, she arrived. The bridge under which the peasant lived was safe. She married him. She wanted to bring him back to the palace. But the peasant said it would cause a fire and they must wait. So they lived under the bridge, and waited.

Sometimes there is no way to change another person immediately. But over time, quiet persistence might accomplish what a thousand battle ships could not.

The Master and his Emissary - Iain McGilchrist

2012-01-31T21:31:00.004+02:00

I have been reading and thinking about psychiatry and psychology a lot lately. Reading The Master and His Emissary makes me think about mind as something that is distinct from experience. Experience itself is consciousness-enabled, and consciousness -- that intangible mystery -- seems to me to most clearly the breath of God. That means I have God in me. Not sure if thats OK to say. But it makes sense on so many levels. Reading this book, written by one of the world's leading psychiatrists -- leads me to what seems like a rational conclusion: the purpose of life is to serve God. Consciousness must meet that Other Great Intangible - God.

Carlebach Judaism

2011-10-17T23:01:00.003+02:00

At the moshav modiin festival today I see a fragile old man walk past me, long grey hair, balding and white yalmuke laiden, tie dye shirt and baggy white pants. Something in his face looks like a square without corners, light seeping out gently. A salvation of sorts. I don't think much of it. Then at mincha I see him in shul, mumbling prayers to God with a rhythmic flow usually seen in those schooled in the prayer book at the tenderest of ages. Tie dye or black hat I think. And then I get it. Both.

Four entered in a Pardes...An interpretation of Chagiga 14b

2011-08-28T12:40:00.024+03:00

Four men entered, in a field:

Rabbi Akiva warned them: When you get to the white marble, don't say "Water! Water!"

They went in.

One man died.

One man went mad.

One man cut the shoots.

Rabbi Akiva came out unharmed.

One made died:

He said: "I have lived my life with the belief that reason would lead me to my God. Now I see it does not. I cannot live." His soul departed, and we learn that God holds dear the passing of His righteous ones.

One man went mad:

He went running through the night, holding a lantern in his hand and asking strangers: Have you seen Him? Have you seen God?" They laughed a nervous laugh. Then he jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "I will tell you!" he cried "We have killed him -- you and I. All of us are his murderers!" He threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out.

One man cut the shoots:

He said: I will live only by that which can be demonstrated. That which cannot, I will disregard. Hope will come from within.

We therefore say he cut the shoots.

But Rabbi Akiva came out unharmed:

For he had remembered to remain silent.

My Tisha Be Av Reading

2011-08-09T17:54:00.003+03:00

1. Emil Fackenheim's "To Mend The World"

2. Emil Fckenheim's "God's Presence in History"

3. Simon Sebag Monifiore's "Jerusalem"

Lonely man of faith on approaching God through nature, and through his involvement in the world.

2011-08-03T21:15:00.000+03:00

"As a matter of fact, at the level of his cosmic confrontation with God, man is faced with an exasperating paradox. On the onehand, he beholds God in every nook and corner of creation, in the flowering of the plant, in the rushing of the tide, and in the movement of his own muscle, as if God were at hand close to and beside man, engaging him in a friendly dialogue. And yet the verymoment man turns his face to God, he finds Him remote, unapproachable, enveloped in transcendence and mystery....[]... resides in every infinitesimal particle of creation and the whole universe is replete with His glory[] In short, the cosmic experience is antithetic and tantalizing. It exhausts itself in the awesome dichotomy of God's involvement in the drama of creation, and His exaltedness above and remoteness from this very drama. This dichotomy cancels the intimacy and immediacy from one's relationship with God and renders the personal approach to God complicated and difficult. God, as the cosmic ruler,is beheld in His boundless majesty reigning supreme over creation,His will crystallized in the natural law, His word determining the behavioral patterns of nature. He is everywhere but at the same time above and outside of everything. When man who just beheld God's presence turns around to address himself to the Master of creation in the intimate accents of the "Thou", he finds the Master and Creator gone, enveloped in the cloud of mystery, winking to him from the awesome "beyond." Therefore, the man of faith,in order to redeem himself from his loneliness and misery, must meet God at a personal covenantal level, where he can be near Him and feel free in His presence."

Rav Soloveitchik on Rambam's Yesodei Hatora 1:1

2011-07-19T01:09:00.002+03:00

Here are the Rav's words about yesodei hatora 1:1.

Maimonides term "Leida" transcends the bounds of an abstract logos and passes over into the boundless intimate and impassioned experience where postulate and deduction, discursive knowledge and intuitive thinking, conception and perception, subject and objects are one. Only in paragraph five, after the aboriginal experience of God has been established by him as a firm reality (in paragraph one) does he introduce the Aristotelian cosmological proof of the unmoved mover.

From Lonely Man of Faith

Keneth Seeskin's Maimonides: A Guide for Today's Perplexed

2011-07-06T00:15:00.004+03:00

Here's a good review of the above mentioned book, by Israel Drazin:

Kenneth Seeskin, Director of the Jewish Studies Program at Northwestern University, recognizes that Maimonides classic book on philosophy The Guide of the Perplexed is difficult reading for most people. It is long; made up of three books with 178 chapters. Secondly, Maimonides never intended that an insufficiently educated general audience should read it. He expected that his readers knew the sacred books of Judaism, the classics of Greek philosophy and the commentaries written on these classics. The third problem is that this book was composed in the twelfth century when science was radically different than it is today. Seeskin states that he intends to make Maimonides clear to modern readers. He does so by writing in clear English and by clarifying each point with examples from modern life.

What is idol worship?
Maimonides contends that the Torah considers idolatry to be the most reprehensible wrong. It is another name for ignorance, for disregarding what is rational. People can only worship God when they abandon superstition and other forms of ignorance and seek to understand God and the universe in a rational way. In a word, Maimonides felt that Judaism is a religion that teaches the truth. If people think that the Jewish faith is a belief system for which there is no supporting evidence, only blind reliance on tradition, they are wrong; this is not Judaism. This Maimonidean teaching becomes clear when we understand several of his ideas.

God has no body and human functions
Seeskin begins his book, as does Maimonides in his Guide, by stating that God has no physical form and does not act like a human being. Since God has no eyes, feet, and mouth, God does not see, move about or speak. When the Torah uses such terms as God looking, going up and down, coming near, speaking, and creating humans in the divine image, Scripture is speaking figuratively. The Bible does not intend that these words be taken literally because if they were taken literally, they would be describing a God with a body or doing an act that implies that God has a body.
As in English, God "looking" in the Bible does not mean that God has eyes, it should be understood as thinking, as in "I see your point." When the prophet Isaiah says in chapter 6 that he saw God, he means that he understood something about God. Similarly, when the Bible states that God "comes down," it means that there is a divine revelation, and "going up" means that the revelation ended, as in "she moved on to higher mathematics." God did not move. When Scripture writes that God is "coming near" it means that the person begins to understand, as in "the doctors are getting closer and closer to finding a cure." When a prophet hears God "speaking," he is thinking that he understands what God wants him to do. God has no mouth. The statement that humans are created in "God's image" does not imply that God has a physical form, but that humans are given intelligence. Thus the relationship between humans and God is not physical, but intellectual.

What can humans know about God and how should God be worshipped?
If God has no body, how can people describe God? Maimonides insists that it is impossible for humans to know anything about God. God is unlike anything here on earth. He is not like humans at all. When people speak about God knowing or God being all-powerful, they are saying something that is wrong. All we can do is confess ignorance.
If all biblical descriptions of God should be understood as figures of speech and if we cannot know anything about God, how can we worship God? Maimonides explains that while we cannot know God we can know what effect God has upon the earth and humans. We are unable to know if God is just and merciful; however, we are able to read in the Torah how God can cause justice and mercy to occur. This is really all we need to know about God, that God causes good, and we should copy these attributes of God and also act to produce good results. Thus Judaism is not a religion that encourages passive philosophical thinking about God, it is a practical and active religion that teaches true ideas about the world and helps improve individuals and society.
One of the ways that people can "copy" divine behavior is to remember that the Bible begins by teaching that people are created in God's image. Thus one human duty, indeed the paramount human duty, is to "copy" God by not accepting ideas simply because people claim that something is true; people have a duty to think rationally.
Seeskin stresses that Maimonides was opposed to religious fundamentalism; people must use their reason; this is what God wants. This is the implication of people being created in the "divine image."

How was the world created?
Since we cannot know anything about God other than the consequences of the divine acts, what can we know about how the world came into being? The Torah seems to say that God created the world out of nothing. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato claimed that God formed the world from pre-existing matter. His student Aristotle said that both God and the world existed for eternity. Some scholars are convinced that Maimonides was unable to decide between these three views. Maimonides states explicitly that if he wanted he could read the Bible as expressing any of the three views. "In fact," Seeskin writes, "he is so open minded about it that some scholars think he is actually committed to a version of the Aristotelian position." Seeskin himself thinks that Maimonides preferred the Platonic view.

Do miracles occur?
Should the biblical accounts of miracles be understood literally? Seeskin notes that Maimonides is not altogether clear on this issue. He describes some biblical miracles as dreams and others as really part of the natural order. People viewing an unusual event might think that it is not natural - such as a twelfth century man seeing a plane flying in the air. While Seeskin is correct that Maimonides is unclear whether miracles occur, other scholars say that Maimonides is hinting that all "miracles" fall into one of these two categories, but he does not say this explicitly because he did not want to offend or confuse those people who felt strongly that God interferes with nature and performs miracles.

Evil
Does the universe contain evil? Maimonides answers, "No." Some things in nature appear to be evil but are not. It is impossible to have a universe without the imperfections inherent in material things. When a mountain is washed with rain, the rocks that compose the mountain will be eaten away. When the sun shines on part of the earth, the other part will be dark. When a doctor saves a person's life with surgery, the person will experience pain. This is the nature of this world. The eaten away rocks, the darkness and pain are not evil; they are the natural consequences of having a universe.
Why do good people suffer? Maimonides states that God is not behind misfortunes; suffering may come from one of three sources. The first is the one just described. The individual suffers because of the laws of nature. A wind or hurricane blows and harms a person. The second is the harm that people do to themselves, such as by laziness, greed or self-deception. The third is the harm that some people inflict on other people, such as cruelty, murder, robbery and injustice. Maimonides adds that people need to understand that the universe does not revolve around people. We do not know and cannot know why God created the world, but it seems clear that it was not focused on humans who make up a very small part of the world.

Prophecy
What is prophecy? Maimonides describes three positions. The first, the one held by most people, is that prophecy is supernatural. God chooses the person to speak to. The human has no choice in the matter and he or she may be smart or ignorant, rich or poor. The second is a natural view: prophecy is a natural event; it is a higher level of intelligence; only a highly intelligent and well-learned person can be a prophet. God is not involved. The third notion is called a compromise. It is the Maimonidean view. It accepts the second position that prophecy is a higher level of intelligence, but says that while God does not instigate it, God can stop it.
Scholars debate what Maimonides understood by his statement that God can stop prophecy. Seeskin takes Maimonides' words literally, although an individual has attained the level of prophecy and wants to communicate his or her ideas, God may not concur and may stop the prophet from speaking. However, others, such as Joseph ibn Caspi, say that God is not involved at all. He understands that Maimonides is saying that even the most intelligent person will be unable to express an understanding/prophecy if that person is ill or depressed. By saying "God can stop prophecy," Maimonides meant what he said at the end of the section on prophecy, in 2:48: many actions are ascribed to God even though the act is not directly done by God, but is simply the result of natural laws, but they are ascribed to God because God is the ultimate cause of everything, since God created the world and its laws of nature.
What kind of intelligence does a prophet need? A prophet must have both a keen understanding of the world and the imagination of how to implement what he or she understands. The prophet must also be virtuous. A person who only has one of these attributes will not be able to help improve people and society.

The Torah commands
Since prophecy is obtained through intelligence (and can only be stopped but not started by God, according to Seeskin), then, Seeskin writes, the Torah commands must also be the result of the natural use of intelligence. Yet all are divine in the sense that they contribute to human excellence.
Most Jews today and yesterday thought that they must obey God's commands even if they are irrational simply because God as king demanded that they be obeyed. Maimonides rejected this view. He wrote that all the Torah commands, without exception, are rational and have one or more of three purposes. They (1) teach true ideas, (2) help society, and (3) provide for an individual's physical or mental health. Since the goal of the commands is best achieved when people understand why they are acting, it follows that the proper way to observe the commands is to understand why they were instituted, teach this understanding to others and act in a rational way with others. Maimonides understood that most people are unable to do this.
Contrary to the method of study of most people today who feel that they have fulfilled the obligation of Torah study if they simply read the Torah at least in the synagogue without understanding it, as if the Torah were prayers, Maimonides felt that Torah must be studied carefully. He even said that only a person who has mastered secular subjects, such as philosophy and science, can decipher the wisdom in the Torah. A fervent recital of the basic biblical statement "Here Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one" twice a day places the Jew within the community of monotheists, but without study and understanding, the recital does not clarify what the community is committed to and how individuals can help themselves and others.
Maimonides recognized that some biblical commands were developed to wean the people away from idolatry (teach true ideas) and others were instituted because of the needs of people, for example God has absolutely no need for sacrifices, but the Torah allowed them as a concession because the ancient Israelites felt that this was the way to worship and show love to God.

Summary
In his appendix, Seeskin mentions that the Maimonidean scholar Leo Strauss put heavy emphasis on the talmudic prohibition against teaching esoteric matters publicly. Therefore Strauss concluded that Maimonides hid his true ideas in the Guide and that Maimonides real message is given in hints and clues. Seeskin writes that his approach is the opposite; he assumes that the Guide was written just like any other book of philosophy.
The difference in the two approaches was shown above in how Seeskin and ibn Caspi interpret prophecy and how Seeskin and others see Maimonides' view on miracles. It can also be seen in the fact that Seeskin ascribes to the generally accepted notion that Maimonides thought that all thirteen of his famous thirteen principles of Judaism are correct, while other scholars insist that he only considered a few of them to be correct.

The Rambam and Creation

2011-07-05T23:26:00.001+03:00

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

5. Creation

Throughout the Guide, Maimonides considers four accounts of creation: that of the kalam, Moses, Plato, and Aristotle. He rejects the kalam account (GP 1. 71–73) according which one demonstrates that the universe must have been created and then reasons that if it was created, it must have a creator. Like Thomas Aquinas, Maimonides believes it is impossible to show by logical considerations alone either that the universe was created or that it is eternal. Though Maimonides says he believes in creation, he admits one can do no more than tip the scales in this direction. As of Guide 2.13, he limits his discussion to the theories of Moses, Plato, and Aristotle.

Unfortunately Maimonides' characterizations of these alternatives are neither precise nor historically accurate [Seeskin, 2005]. Suffice it to say that his treatment of them is mainly thematic. Briefly stated, they are:

Moses: the world was created de novo and entirely ex nihilo.

Plato: the world was created de novo from a preexisting material substrate.

Aristotle: the world is eternal and its existence is best understood as eternal information of matter.

Based on his explicit remarks, Maimonides prefers the theory of Moses but allows one to hold that of Plato as a reasonable alternative. But there has always been a school of thought that maintains that he is secretly committed to the view of Aristotle [Harvey 1981]. My own position is with those who argue that Maimonides' explicit remarks are an accurate account of his view and that all the arguments he offers point in that direction [Davidson 1979; Feldman 1990; Hyman 1988; Wolfson 1973).

The historical Aristotle did argue that the world is eternal and that whatever is eternal is necessary [On Generation and Corruption 338a1–4, Physics 203b 29, Metaphysics 1050b8–15]. His medieval followers took this to mean that while the world is ontologically dependent on God, there is no moment when it first comes to be and therefore does not owe its existence to a decision to create. As we might say, it exists not because of anything God does but simply because of what God is. Because God's nature does not change, according to this position, neither does the existence or fundamental structure of the world. The most important consequence of this view is that God does not exercise free choice, which is to say that according to the Aristotelian alternative, the world is governed by necessity.

The standard arguments in favor of this position take one of two approaches: either they show that there is something inherent in the nature of the world that makes creation impossible or that there is something inherent in the nature of God that does. An example of the former is that change always proceeds from something to something else, as when a chicken springs from an egg or an acorn develops into a full grown oak tree. If this is true, it is impossible for something to come to be from nothing (ex nihilo). An example of the latter is that if God is perfect, it makes no sense to suppose that God could ever do anything new such as bring the world into being.

Maimonides' answer to the first argument (GP 2.17) is that given the world as we know it, change does proceed from one thing to something else. But why should we assume the creation of the world has to follow the same pattern? An account of creation is a theory of origin, how a thing comes to be initially. By contrast, an account of change is a theory of development or alteration, how one existing thing emerges into another. For all we know, the origin of a thing may be completely different from its development later on. Thus it is presumptuous to suppose that we can extrapolate from our experience of the world as it is at present to the moment of its creation. It follows that the first argument against creation is not decisive, which means that creation remains a possibility.

Maimonides' answer to the second argument (GP 2.18) is that in a perfect being, willing something new need not imply change. If I will today to take a trip tomorrow and events intercede to spoil my plans, I may have to change my mind, but to suppose that something analogous happens to God is absurd. Assume I will today to do something tomorrow independent of external circumstances — to think about the numerical characteristics of pi. And assume that when tomorrow comes, I do exactly as planned. While I would be undertaking something new, to the degree that I had intended to do it all along, it would be misleading to say that I underwent a change. Certainly I did not undergo a change of mind.

Maimonides takes this to mean that it is possible for a being not affected by external circumstances to will something new as long as it is part of his original intention. This is sometimes expressed by saying that changing one's will is not the same as willing change. So once again, the argument against creation is not decisive.

Maimonides is aware that all his arguments establish is the possibility of creation, not its actuality. To go further, and argue for the actuality of creation, he returns to the claim that everything that is eternal is necessary. If it could be shown that there are features of the world that are not necessary, it would follow that the world must have been created. Here Maimonides challenges Aristotle and his followers on the issue of astronomy.

Medieval Aristotelians believed as follows. God thinks and manifests self-awareness. Because God is one and simple, what emerges from God must be one and simple as well. In this way, God generates the first heavenly intelligence. According to Alfarabi, because the first intelligence is aware of two things — itself and God — it is capable of generating two things: the second heavenly intelligence and the outermost sphere of the universe. By contrast, Avicenna held that because the first intelligence is aware of God and duality in itself, it generates three things. The difference need not concern us here. The important point is that God's production of the outermost sphere is indirect; the immediate cause is the activity of the first intelligence. The process continues until we get the ten intelligences and nine primary spheres that make up the standard picture of medieval cosmology.

Maimonides criticizes this account in two ways. First if the originator of a causal sequence is one and simple, there is no way for complexity to arise, and everything else in the sequence should be one and simple as well (GP 2.22). Even if the sequence contains thousands of members, there is no way to account for the complexity of a celestial sphere, which is a composite of matter and form. When we get to the inner spheres, we have to account for even more because not only is there the sphere itself but the stars or planets attached to it. They too are composites of matter and form. How can we have such complexity if we start with something that is radically one?

Second, there are features of the heavenly bodies that defy scientific explanation and thus appear to be contingent in the sense that they were chosen rather than necessitated (GP 2.19–24). If the outer spheres impart motion to the inner ones, we would expect spherical motion to slow as we move closer to the earth. But this is hardly the case. As Maimonides points out (GP 2.19):

We see that in case of some spheres, the swifter of motion is above the slower; that in the case of others, the slower of motion is above the swifter; and that, again in another case, the motions of the spheres are of equal velocity though one be above the other. There are also other very grave matters if regarded from the point of view these things are as they are in virtue of necessity.

If there is no explanation for why the spheres behave in this fashion, or why some stars and planets emit more light than others, or why some regions of the heavens are relatively crowded while others are empty, there is no reason to think the phenomena in question are what they are by virtue of necessity. If there is no necessity, there are no grounds for eternity. The alternative is to say that God created the world as a result of a free choice and fashioned it in a particular way.

Maimonides recognizes (GP 2.24) that his argument does not constitute a demonstration. Just because science cannot explain something now, it does not follow that it will never be able to explain it. As he himself admits, science can and does make progress. But in the case of the heavenly bodies, he thought progress very unlikely. Because they too far away to make close observations, and too high in rank, we can only rely on inferences based on accidental qualities size, speed, and direction. As long as this is true, we will never know their essential natures and will never be able to support claims of necessity. As long as this is true, creation, though not demonstrated, will always be preferable to eternity.

Maimonides (GP 2.25) also offers a practical reason for believing in creation: How can a God without free will issue commandments? Beyond this there is a textual reason: belief in creation does less violence to scripture than belief in eternity. He concludes that the theory of Moses offers the best alternative, while that of Plato, which retains the idea of creation de novo, is acceptable. Though some people fault Maimonides for not coming up with a stronger argument on behalf of Moses, he would reply by saying that given the limits of our knowledge, this is the strongest argument we can expect. Although Maimonides is often seen as part of the Aristotelian tradition, and often expresses praise for Aristotle, his account of creation indicate that he is willing to depart from Aristotle when he thinks the arguments lead in that direction.

Beezrat Hashem

2011-07-03T12:25:00.002+03:00

Those two words boldly declare the hope that God is involved in our world, and can be involved in our lives too.

Just a quick thought. Nothing to add.

KORACH - 1973 SICHA OF HARAV YEHUDA AMITAL Z"L

2011-06-24T13:18:00.002+03:00

Dispute That is Not for the Sake of Heaven

LACK OF LOGIC

Sometimes, as we approach parashat Korach, we become so involved in lofty ideas and concepts that there is a danger of forgetting what Korach actually did, and the main lesson to be learned from the parasha. All kinds of explanations and reasons are offered for this episode, for the fact that this group rebelled against God, while the bottom line remains that there is no real explanation that can answer the question of why Korach acted as he did. This is the main message of the parasha: that a person who gets involved in conflict and argument acts illogically.

We look at great people who squabble with each other, and wonder: What got into that respectable, elderly man, who used to be so wise, to lead him into such foolishness? We forget that there is really no logic in a squabble.

In contrast to Korach's illogical behavior, Moshe and Aharon act with composure and equanimity. The Gemara, commenting on their demeanor, tells us:

The world exists only for the sake of Moshe and Aharon. There is it written, "What are we? (Va-anachnu ma – figuratively, we are ma)," while elsewhere it is written, "He hangs the world on nothingness" (belima).

Rabbi Ilaa said: The world exists only for the sake of one who holds himself back at a time of argument, as it is written: "He hangs the world on belima (figuratively, on restraint)." (Chullin 89a)

The world exists not by the merit of the pious, saintly ascetics of the world, but rather by the merit of someone who holds his mouth at a time of argument! It is specifically in this that a person's greatness is expressed.

We must remember that any person who gets into an argument has a "Kamtza" – a core of companions. He also has a "bar Kamtza" – people who dislike him. We should not think that if we enter into a dispute, we will be immune to the deterioration and illogic that always follows. We must elevate ourselves to the level upon which the world rests – the level of Moshe and Aharon, who held themselves back at a time of argument.

Adapted by Rami Yanai

Translated by Kaeren Fish

From the weekly Yeshivat Har Etzion Emails

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Parable of the Madman (1882)

2011-06-22T11:56:00.000+03:00

THE MADMAN

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" -- As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? -- Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him -- you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us -- for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars -- and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"

[Source: Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882, 1887) para. 125; Walter Kaufmann ed. (New York: Vintage, 1974), pp.181-82.]

Source.

The Interrupters

2011-06-14T15:54:00.002+03:00

The LORD said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.

The power of the spirit, today.

Notes on Philosophy and Revelation

2011-06-07T09:48:00.005+03:00

Erev Shavuot, here is a powerful excerpt from Chapter 2: The Philosophical Routes of the Holocaust, in David Patterson's incredible Emil L. Fackenheim: A Jewish Philosopher's Response to the Holocaust. The argument here is that contrary to Orthodox rationalism, which would wish to see philosophy and Jewish thought at peace with each other, this is not the case.

What has been said of Christian anti-Judaic doctrine-that, while it may not have been a sufficient condition for the Holocaust, it was a necessary one-can also be said of the speculative ontological tradition in Western philosophy. The tradition is as old as Thales, the Western world's first philosopher. It is said that he was walking along one night gazing skyward, contemplating the mysteries of the heavens, when suddenly he fell into a hole. He climbed out of the hole and resolved never again to take a step without first looking to be sure of the firm ground under his feet. Thus the birth of the Western speculative tradition, with its clambering after syllogistic certainty and final solutions, logical universality and universal conformity, all of which led to the deadly equation of thought with being.In the first century of the Common Era the Stoic Seneca taught that anyone who would submit the world to himself should submit himself to reason (see Letters 37:4). That, indeed, is the ontological project: to rule over reality through reason and thus appropriate everything outside the self for the self. Knowledge is the key. Knowledge reduces good and evil to concepts, nothing more than the understanding and ultimately the will of the knowing ego. Knowledge, then, is power, and power is the only reality. Jewishly understood, knowledge here is daat, which is a "joining together" intoa sameness, so that, once the categories are reduced to a human concept and not a divine commandment, there is no distinction between good and evil. Hence the biblical warning: on the day you eat of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, you will surely die (Genesis 2:17).Not only will you die-what is worse, you will murder, as it soon happened with Cain, who, rather than Thales, was perhaps the first philosopher. For with Cain we see the first positioning of the thinking ego at the center of all things. We die on the day we eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil because on that day we make good and evil into a self-serving sameness, in a vain attempt to become "like god" (Genesis 3:5), as the Gerer Rebbe, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter, has taught (1998, 10). The god we Would resemble, however, is not the God of Abraham, who is loving and compassionate, long-suffering and quick to forgive (see Exodus 34:5-7), but is the self-styled god of the speculative ego. Therefore, says Fackenheim, the ego's implicit denial of the God of Abraham, from whom the soul emanates, "is self-destruction or rebellion; it is never merely an erroneous objective stance" (1968, 38). That is why we die-die as Cain's soul died, by murder-when we eat the fruit of speculative ontological philosophy.The most the speculative thinker can muster with regard to a god outside himself is an Unmoved Mover or First Principle that neither judges nor cares. It simply is, neutral and indifferent. And, because it neither judges nor cares, the thinker can justify anything he can will. Despite every good intention, with reason as the philosopher's absolute, logical necessity is his or her truth, and with logical necessity comes natural necessity, so that all things are locked into an ineluctable chain of cause and effect, with the First Cause as the first link in the conceptual chain. Further, once the mind is situated at the center of reality, the body soon becomes the enemy, as we see, for example, in Plato's Phaedo (80a-81a [Plato 1969b]); and once this move is made, physical suffering-both in the self and in the other-becomes a matter of stoic indifference. After all, it is necessary, as the Stoics maintained. "What is noble?" Seneca asks. And he answers: "To bear adversity contentedly, taking whatever happens as if it we had wished it for ourselves" (Naturalium Quaestionum Libros 3:4 [Seneca 1996]). Because all that is, is necessarily so, said Marcus Aurelius, "to be disgruntled at anythingthat happens" degrades the soul (Meditations 2:16 [Aurelius 2003]). Said Spinoza, the Jew who was a philosopher but whose philosophy was hardly Jewish, non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere ("laugh not, weep not, curse nothing, but understand") (Spinoza 1914, 2:4). Thus the consolation of philosophy.
The philosophical indifference toward the suffering of the other human being stems from the indifference of Being itself, of its First Principle. The Unmoved Mover is moved by nothing, neither by suffering nor by joy, neither by righteousness nor by transgression, and least of all by prayer. Understood as sheer perfection, the ontological god of the philosophers is in need of nothing, as Aristotle asserts: it neither loves nor is in need of love (see Eudemian Ethics, 7.1244b [Aristotle 1992]). Nor does it have a name: we do not cry out "Y-H-V-H!" or "Father!" to the First Principle. The logos is not the Creator who summons us to rejoice, who is swayed by prayer, who in His love for us commands us to love others, and so on. In a word, the logos of the philosophers is not a caring who but a mute and indifferent what. Collapsing god, world, and humanity into the categories of thought, the speculative ontological tradition situates god in the self and the self in an isolation that would ultimately prove to be a source of sheer horror.
From the beginning, then, Western philosophy has stood in opposition to Jewish thought. Fackenheim explains:
At its apex, the God of Aristotle is ... the prime mover of the universe and the ultimate cause of what order there is in it. Even so, however, he is not beyond the universe but only the highest part of it. All this is in sharp contrast to the God of the Tenach, who makes His first appearance as Creator of heaven and earth. He does not create earth alone while dwelling Himself in heaven. He rather creates heaven-heaven fully as much as earth. And yet, though infinitely above the world and the humanity that is part of it, He creates man-him alone-in His very own image! The God of Aristotle does no such thing. (Fackenheim 1987, 108-9)
More than that, says Fackenheim, "having created heaven and earth, He, as it were, Himself'walks in the garden" (1970a, 40). Which means: the One who is most infinitely beyond all there is, is most immediately present within
all there is, making beyond and within into synonyms-a move utterly alien to ontological thought. As Elokim beyond, God judges; as 7-H-V-H within, He loves. Only thus understood can He be understood as the Creator, who in the constant movement of creation enters into a relation, both as King and as Father, with the human being created in His image and likeness.
Fackenheim correctly points out that, working only with what is, ontological "philosophical synthesis" cannot arrive at creation (1968, 77), the category most essential to Jewish thought. Indeed, in the opening line of Genesis it is written, `Bereshit barn Elokim," where bereshit is not precisely "in the beginning" God created, but rather "the first thing" or "most fundamental principle" is that God created. And with creation comes a revelation born of love. Ontologically speaking-and in contrast to Jewish teaching-there is cause but no creation, calculation but no caring, reasoning but no revelation. The god of Aristotle commands nothing and enters into no covenant. It asks nothing and demands nothing, for it is in need of nothing. It simply "is," without ultimate or inherent meaning or significance. A philosophy that embraces such a god cannot help but be hostile toward the God of Abraham, as well as toward the children of Abraham, who are His witnesses. One understands why the Talmud warns us to stay away from speculative philosophy (Berakhot 28b; Bava Kama 82b). It is a warning that the rabbis have repeated throughout the centuries and into modern times-indeed, especially into modern times, when the speculative tradition has reduced the child of God to a mere specimen of this race or that, of this gender or that, of this culture or that, who merely exists alongside others, operating only from self-interest, without ever entering into a genuine relation with anyone.

What does שְׂאוּ mean?

2011-05-29T08:12:00.019+03:00

Parshat בְּמִדְבַּר (Numbers) summarizes key statistics that relate to the nation of Israel as they pass through the desert. The language used between the various numbers cited raises interesting questions.

One such question relates to verse 2:

ב שְׂאוּ, אֶת-רֹאשׁ כָּל-עֲדַת בְּנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל, לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם, לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם--בְּמִסְפַּר שֵׁמוֹת, כָּל-זָכָר לְגֻלְגְּלֹתָם.

'Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of names, every male, by their polls

What does שְׂאוּ mean?

Could it mean "count", a logical translation of the word, given its context?

Such a translation would be deeply problematic, because the Torah specifically warns Moshe against counting the nation, and he has to do so only indirectly, through each person's donation of half a shekel.

יב כִּי תִשָּׂא אֶת-רֹאשׁ בְּנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל, לִפְקֻדֵיהֶם, וְנָתְנוּ אִישׁ כֹּפֶר נַפְשׁוֹ לַיהוָה, בִּפְקֹד אֹתָם; וְלֹא-יִהְיֶה בָהֶם נֶגֶף, בִּפְקֹד אֹתָם

'When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel, according to their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the LORD, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them.

There is also a 3 millenia-long tradition in Tanach against counting the nation, and in more recent times there has been a Halachik discussion regarding if and how one can take a census of Jews.

So translating שְׂאוּ as "count" is a problem.

The earliest occurrence of a word in the Torah with the same route is found after Cain's offering is rejected by God. In Genesis 4, he is told:

ז הֲלוֹא אִם-תֵּיטִיב, שְׂאֵת, וְאִם לֹא תֵיטִיב, לַפֶּתַח חַטָּאת רֹבֵץ; וְאֵלֶיךָ, תְּשׁוּקָתוֹ, וְאַתָּה, תִּמְשָׁל-בּוֹ.

If thou doest well, shall it not be lifted up? and if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door; and unto thee is its desire, but thou mayest rule over it.'

Not only does the word here refer to being lifted up, it also refers to being lifted up in the context of man's actions.

So how does this relate to Numbers 1:2?

The Ramban offers a fascinating insight from the Midrash which relates the word שְׂאוּ to Joseph's time in jail, and the story of his interpretation of dreams. There, Joseph tells Pharaoh's butler that he will be raised up (reinstated) to his former position, but that the baker's head will be raised up (hung) on a tree. The word used for both scenarios has the same route as שְׂאוּ

יג בְּעוֹד שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים, יִשָּׂא פַרְעֹה אֶת-רֹאשֶׁךָ, וַהֲשִׁיבְךָ, עַל-כַּנֶּךָ; וְנָתַתָּ כוֹס-פַּרְעֹה, בְּיָדוֹ, כַּמִּשְׁפָּט הָרִאשׁוֹן, אֲשֶׁר הָיִיתָ מַשְׁקֵהו

within yet three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head, and restore thee unto thine office; and thou shalt give Pharaoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler.

יט בְּעוֹד שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים, יִשָּׂא פַרְעֹה אֶת-רֹאשְׁךָ מֵעָלֶיךָ, וְתָלָה אוֹתְךָ, עַל-עֵץ; וְאָכַל הָעוֹף אֶת-בְּשָׂרְךָ, מֵעָלֶיךָ.

within yet three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee.'

Here we see that the word יִשָּׂא is used in two opposite contexts, both relating to the subject's actions.

So, does the Torah use the word שְׂאוּ to mean count, or is there a deeper meaning attached to the word?

Perhaps 3 key stories in the book of בְּמִדְבַּר can point us towards an answer: the stories of the spies, Korach, and Aaron and Miriam relate to examples of dissatisfaction and egotistical rebellion against Moses, that all end in disaster. These stories warn readers against the destructive potential of such hollow behavior.

In using the word שְׂאוּ to describe the nation numerically - the Torah's message seems to be that numbers in-and-of-themselves are not the true measure of potential. Rather, we can achieve our potential - whether it means to be raised up for the good, or for the bad, depending on our actions.

The First Ben Gurion

2011-04-27T21:15:00.004+03:00

Wasn't David.

Well, that is if you read it according the Kehati Mishnayot. Yidish Wikipedia describes father and son as Ben Garon.

[Hananiah ben Hezekiah Ben Garon/Gurion] was a Jewish Tanna sage, contemporary of House of Shammai and House of Hillel era. [It is recounted that] that after several sages had weighed in, to make Genizah (put out of use) the Book of Ezekiel, he made aliyah to the Land of Israel and took 300 barrels of oil along with him, and shut himself at that place, where he looked up and studied their claims, until he was able to resolve the contradictions.

Correcting the Bible - Marc B Shapiro

2011-04-20T01:37:00.003+03:00

Were he alive today, Maimonides would disqualify all non-Yemenite Torah scrolls. But this "less perfect" version of the Torah is what my father and grandfather listened to in synagogue, and it is the version that has been sanctified by the study of countless Torah scholars. It is this that makes it authentic, even more authentic than the Crown that for centuries had almost no contact with the people who would have benefited most from it. Perhaps it is fitting, then, that the final resting place of the Aleppo Codex is not a synagogue but a museum, which is where we place the valued parts of our heritage that we no longer use in our everyday life.

Here.

Not sure I agree on the last part, but it is food for thought.

Helpful Article on Sefirat HaOmer

2011-04-19T22:16:00.001+03:00

Here.

On the question of the status of Sfirat Ha’omer today we find three different opinions in the Rishonim. Most Rishonim are of the opinion that nowadays the mitzvah of Sfirat Ha’omer is only of rabbinic origin. On the other end of the spectrum we find the Rambam (Tmidim U’musafim 7/22,24) who is of the opinion that mitzvat Sfirat Ha’omer is Mideorita even in the absence of a Mikdash and the bringing of Omer. According to Rabenu Yerucham the counting of days is mideorita at all times while the counting of weeks is mideorita at the time of the Mikdash and only of rabbinic origin today. The rational behind this distinction is that the passuk which mentions the Omer speaks of “U’sfartem…sheva shabatot”, count seven shabatot, namely weeks not days. The next passuk which states “tisperu chamishim yom”, count fifty days, does not speak of the Omer at all.

From the Akeida to Torah - Evolving Concepts in Divine Service

2011-04-11T20:57:00.010+03:00

Traditional morning prayers have a section between the first Blessings and the "Psalms of Praise" (Psukei Dezimra) that are often mumbled through, or even ignored. And who can blame the mumblers and ignorers? There's a lot of detail, and its usually pretty early to be thinking too deeply.

But, I've recently started paying closer attention. The first part of this section is the story of the Akeida, that traumatic description of Abraham's willingness to offer up a human sacrifice to G-d, because he is told to do so. The second part is a collection of Biblical and Talmudic verses that cover a few of the sacrificial rituals that form part of the Divine service, including the washing of hands, slaughtering of animals, and creating of powerful aromas. And then, finally, there is a concluding section about Rabbi Yishmael and his 13 principles for learning the Torah.

So what we have here is:

1. The Akeida

2. Highlights of the Temple Service

3. Learning Torah.

Are there 3 elements here that actually represent the same idea -- that of drawing near to God?

First, human sacrifice, a "gift" to God, or the "gods", so as to come close to God -- through an act of murder -- which is at the same time a sacrifice. The idea seems to have been to allow nothing to stand in between God and man, not even a son.

Second, the Temple service, which removed this aspect of murder and still allowed for sacrifice, for giving up something of value, again, in order to come close to the God.

Finally, without the Temple Service, it is the Torah that becomes the medium through which, this list suggests, we come close to God. But how? Is not sacrifice the way to express this closeness? What is given, that allows us to categorize Torah as the natural heir to sacrifices?

Some will answer that in accepting Torah, a person is giving up their own will, in order to accept God's Will.

Although that can be the case, it is often not so -- Mitzvot like charity and honoring parents do make good sense after all, and we often even derive pleasure from them. Senseless Mitzvot would surely not pass the test of time, and would be abandoned.

Perhaps then, one might argue that the Rabbis of old were hinting at how they saw Torah. For with Torah, there is an embracing of the whole. The idea of a Divine Law, covering all actions both public and private, although sometimes a sacrifice of one's will and sometimes not, is at all times a giving of oneself.

And perhaps this is why, when formulating the prayers, the Rabbis of old placed Rabbi Yishmael's 13 principles at the conclusion of the Korabanot section. By creating a medium - Divine Law - through which to give oneself wholly to God, Torah becomes the progressive heir to the sacrifices of antiquity.

When the Torah talks about animal sacrifice...

2011-03-19T22:27:00.006+02:00

I think Jews today fall into three categories when it comes to Korbanot (sacrifices). Those who want them, those who don't want them, and those who don't care. Personally I don't want them, but, given the massive amount of attention the Torah gives the issue, and the fact that Orthodox Jews pray for a time when it will again be possible to perform these sacrifices, its not an easy thing for someone like me to not want.

So this time round, as I search for meaning in a portion of the Torah that is dedicated to the rituals of sacrifice, such as sprinkling blood on an alter, I'm fortunate to have come across two modern thinkers from the Orthodox camp, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and Yehshayahu Leibowit z, who seem to be aware of the tension between the central role of sacrifices in Torah-Judaism and their problematic nature in the contemporary world.

First Rabbi Jonathan Sacks - who talks about the replacement of sacrifices in Rabbinic Judaism with prayer being possible because the sacrifices themselves symbolized psychological processes, and therefore when they became impossible due to exile, were able to be replaced. How?

The short answer is that overwhelmingly the prophets, the sages, and the Jewish thinkers of the Middle Ages realised that sacrifices were symbolic enactments of processes of mind, heart and deed that could be expressed in other ways as well. We can encounter the will of God by Torah study, engage in the service of God by prayer, make financial sacrifice by charity, create sacred fellowship by hospitality and so on.

So despite the massive attention to sacrificial rituals that the Torah gives, the actions described merely channel deeper feelings that existed, and I might add, possibly still exist. Perhaps it is the task of the student to seek these emotions, and ask whether they exist in him or her?

Yishayahu Leibowitz points to a fascinating Talmudic commentary on the language used in Leviticus 3 37

זֹאת הַתּוֹרָה, לָעֹלָה לַמִּנְחָה, וְלַחַטָּאת, וְלָאָשָׁם; וְלַמִּלּוּאִים--וּלְזֶבַח, הַשְּׁלָמִים

Loosely translated as

This is the law of the burnt-offering, of the meal-offering, and of the sin-offering, and of the guilt-offering, and of the consecration-offering, and of the sacrifice of peace-offerings;

The question asked by Rava here is why does each sacrifice type have to be preceded by the Hebrew letter "lammed" "לָ" which means "of the..." ? Surely it would have been enough to simply state the sacrifices themselves, without adding the "lammed" "לָ" a total of six times!

He answers that the Torah is using a word play with its supposedly extraneous use of the "lammed" "לָ". Since "לָ" is also the first letter of the word לֹא, which means "no", it is placed there to teach us that anyone who studies the Torah doesn't need a burnt offering, doesn't need a meal offering, doesn't need a sin offering and doesn't need a guilt offering.

Astounding really. Or maybe not. But one thing is clearer for me now anyway: a set of seemingly irrelevant and problematic rituals has become, dare I say, intriguing. I hope to explore.

On Humility

2011-03-16T21:06:00.002+02:00

Does humility mean ignoring those strengths that differentiate a person from others?

Can someone be both humble and feel satisfied with his own strengths?

Reb Moshe Chaim Luzzatto has an interesting approach in his Messilat Yesharim: He likens a person's recognition of his own strengths to the case of a poor man receiving charity. Just as the gift received by the poor man is both a source of joy and a reminder of his dependency, so too with personal strengths - they are satisfying but should also invoke a feeling of gratitude for having been given to a person.

Amalek as a Culture Lacking Purpose

2011-03-15T13:27:00.002+02:00

From the VBM

We see here that what characterizes Amalek throughout the generations is the concept of "mikreh" – attributing everything to randomness and coincidence - while Am Yisrael is permanently "on the way" (ba-derekh), a concept denoting continuity. Amalek maintained an ideology of non-ideology: everything is permissible; there is no journey, no direction; everything is coincidental; there is no absolute value that must be held dear. Am Yisrael, in contrast is always "on the way" – they have a direction and an objective; they have clear values to which they cleave.

On the link between the Written and the Oral Torah

2011-02-27T23:37:00.019+02:00

There is a debate within Orthodox Judaism as to whether the Oral Tora, (Toshba) is an explanation of the Written Torah, helping us understand the Tora's original meaning, or whether the Oral Tora is more than an explanation, and is actually an independent entity, bound to the Written Tora but with equal and independent authority.

Proponents of the first view -- that the Oral Tora is an explanation of the Written Tora -- could, for example, cite the Mitzvah of Tefillin in defense of their claim: We are told to bind "these words between our eyes and on our hands", but we only know from the Oral Tora that this means Tefillin on our foreheads and arms. Thus the Oral Tora comes to explain the words of a verse that would otherwise be unintelligible to us.

Proponents of the second view -- that the Oral Tora is a separate entity, bound to the Written Torah but with equal and independent authority -- might cite the 39 Melachot of Shabat as an example of their claim: Traditionally, the prohibitions of the Shabat are linked to the work that was done on the Mishkan. But nowhere in Sefer Shemot are 39 categories of labor clearly mentioned when building the Mishkan. The only clear textual link between the Mishkan and Shabat is the juxtaposition of the narrative(s) regarding the building of the Mishkan with the Commandment(s) to observe Shabat. The idea of 39 Melachot of Shabat is first introduced in the Gemarah. The Torah does explicitly forbid work, lighting a fire (lo tevaaru esh), and collecting wood and manna (I think -- forming the basis for eruvin and prohibitions of cooking). Chazal, however, taught and passed on most of the melachot of the mishkan, and their corresponding prohibitions on Shabat, without having clear textual references for them in the Chumash.

So the question -- according the second view -- is: how strong is the link between the Oral Tora and the Written Tora? How independent is the Gemarah of the Chumash? Isn't it dangerous to give equal authority to the Oral Tora, which is continuous, dynamic and evolving today, as to the Written Tora, which is a sealed Book?

Yishayahu Leibovitz, who discusses this issue in his commentary of the Chumash, quotes the Baal Haturim on Parshat Vayakhel. Here, in a subtle but tremendously significant observation, he points out that the 40th word (39 + 1) of Parshat Vayakhel, (from Shemot 35:1) is -- Shabat! (Check it out for yourself.)

Of course, some will put this down to mere chance. An irrelevant fluke. And who could disprove them? But others -- dare I say believers -- can see much, much more here. What they can see is that the idea of 39 Melachot, that formative characteristic of what Shabat is in the Talmud, is hinted at, albeit mysteriously, in the Chumash! It is a remarkable example of how truly intertwined the Oral and Written Toras are.

Great pianists

2011-02-24T11:15:00.004+02:00

http://www.gregmaroney.com/

Symbolism of the Burning Bush

2011-02-21T22:50:00.001+02:00

What is the symbolism of the burning bush?

Maybe it symbolizes the fire in our souls that is lit when we serve God. It is a unique fire - a fire that doesn't consume - and a fire that cannot even be described, only experienced.

Some speak about God creating the world as an act of kindness. The truth is, that when the Rabbis talk about accepting the Yoke of Heaven (Torah), they don't really talk about why one should accept this Yoke. If God created the world as an act of kindness, why does it matter whether finite man accepts or doesn't accept the Torah? Does He care?

Maybe the answer is that the fire-that-burns-but-doesn't-

consume is a real possibility for man, and it is obtainable by accepting the Yoke of Heaven. And the possibility of experiencing this fire is an act of kindness by God, because it the possibility that allows man to touch Him.

Pirkei Avot teaches a man not to get arrogant if he knows a lot of Torah, because it is for this he was born. Prayer, Torah, Good Deeds, allow us to touch God, and for this we are indebted to His kindness.

Notes on Revelation

2011-01-23T23:31:00.002+02:00

Excerpts from a discussion of differing understandings of what revelation is, from Michael Morgan's Interim Judaism: Jewish Thought in a Century of Crisis:

Within the Jewish tradition, Buber's conception of revelation as direct, intuitive, non-cognitive, and ecstatic took shape as a reaction to three views of revelation that had predominated within Judaism. One was the tradition, going back to Maimonides, Saadia, and others, according to which revelation occurred through human reason. Throughout the Middle Ages, when Judaism and Aristotelian science and philosophy came into conflict, one common outcome was a view of revelation and prophecy conceived as an accomplishment of reason, especially scientific rationality. A second view held that revelation was the individual and communal reception of Torah, of a divine voice that communicated literally the word of God either in spirit or in fact, to Moses, the prophets, and then designated heirs of the mantel of authoritative receptivity. This view was canonized within the rabbinic tradition as the doctrine of the two Torahs, the Written and the Oral Torah [Torah sheb'al peh and Torah shebichtav]. A final view was that the revelation itself was linguistic but somehow shrouded in the mists of Biblical antiquity, that it was then embedded in the commentaries and later rabbinic reflections, and that contemporary access to it could be had only mediated through the interpretive tradition. This view was enshrined within both the rabbinic texts and within the Kabbalah. What all of these views shared as a common assumption was the notion of mediation; ongoing revelation was an indirect exposure of the divine to the human through some agency-reason, special experience, language, or some combination of these.

Buber had an affinity for the experiential side of mysticism and for the fideist reaction to modern rationalism. Indebted to Kierkegaard and his reaction to the Hegelian tradition, he turned to a conception of revelation as direct divine-human relation. Revelation or faith was, to be sure, grounded in human experience, but it was a larger notion. Faith incorporated the entire life of the believing Jew as he or she sought to respond in language and in action, in myth and in ritual, to the experience of revelation. The believer's experience confirmed or transformed the significance of the pristine encounter between God and the people of Israel, the earliest response to which is recorded in the Biblical story. For Buber, even in his early or mystical period, the revelation of God to the Jewish people was not a revelation of a content as much as the revelation of a presence. This presence made a demand, called for a decision. To be sure, prior to World War I he associated the moment of revelation, on the human side, with ecstatic experience, a view he would later abandon. Nonetheless, the key was that this revelation was not for him a matter of content, rational or linguistic, but rather a matter of demand and decision.

Every single Thou is a glimpse of that. Through every single Thou the basic word addresses the eternal Thou.... [Each Thou] attains perfection solely in the immediate relationship to the Thou that in accordance with its nature cannot become an It. One does not find God if one remains in the world; one does not find God if one leaves the world.... Of course, God is "the wholly Other"; but he is also the wholly same: the wholly present ... the mystery of the obvious that is closer to me than my own I. What is ... the primal phenomenon, present in the here and now, of what we call revelation? It is man's emerging from the moment of the supreme encounter, being no longer the same as he was when entering into it. The moment of encounter is not a "living experience" (Erlebnis) that stirs in the receptive soul and blissfully rounds itself out: something happens to man.... The man who steps out of the essential act of pure relation has something More in his being, something new has grown there of which he did not know before and for whose origin he lacks any suitable words....

Man receives, and what he receives is not a "content" but a presence, a presence as strength. This presence ... includes three elements.... First, [it makes] life heavy with meaning ... second: [the meaning] is guaranteed. Nothing, nothing can henceforth be meaningless.... [The meaning] does not wish to be interpreted by us-for that we lack the ability-only to be done by us. This comes third: it is not the meaning of "another life" but that of this life.... The meaning we receive can be put to the proof in action only by each person in the uniqueness of his being and in the uniqueness of his life. No lprescription can lead us to the encounter, and none leads from it.

Rosenzweig and Beyond

Revelation is a reciprocal event. God and human agency collaborate; the divine reveals and the human receives. Revelation succeeds only when both occur. But, one might ask, how can both occur, for after all the divine is divine and the human human? How can the absolute reveal itself, communicate, touch the relative and limited, and still be absolute? And how can the conditional and finite receive the absolute and survive the encounter?
One solution to this paradox of revelation is mystical union. Not only is the human in touch with the divine; it also achieves unity and wholeness in the very act of encounter. But it does so-the self accomplishes unification-only by grabbing one horn of the dilemma. The divine remains divine, but the human does not, as it were, remain human. The self dissolves into the godhead; distinctness and limitation are overcome. The divine and the human come into direct, unmediated encounter but only by means of the sacrifice of the human.
Franz Rosenzweig, so far as I can tell, never leaned in the mystical direction-although others, from Georg Simmel to Buber, Georg Lukacs, Ernst Bloch, and Gustav Landauer, did. Rosenzweig's response to the need for revelation and transcendence and the challenges of historicism, relativism, and nihilism was, in a sense, to grab hold of both horns, to hold together the divine and the human, to argue for the integrity of each and to accept their ultimate incommensurability, and yet to remain with the immediacy of their encounter. Buber, in his conception of dialogue, came to agree to something similar. Both started with the need for human orientation, for the groundedness of value and direction; both recognized the limitations of reason, nature, and history. Value, purpose, and meaning must be grounded in what transcends nature and humankind. But how? Only by means of an act of divine grace. Humankind cannot bring about the divine directedness; it can receive it, respond to it, and even need it. But God and God alone can enter history and nature, open itself to human acknowledgment, and call forth human response. In the spirit of such a view, in 191$, Rosenzweig became a convert to Eugen Rosenstock's notion of revelation as an event of orientation, which he took to be a decisive response to the problems of relativism and nihilism. It was this view that he developed from 1917 to 1918 into a full-blown account of what revelation is, how it occurs, and what it means to humankind.

But revelation contains no human language as its content. Revelation is an event of-akin to-address and response; yet it employs no concepts, words, or expressions. What language there is in the orbit of revelation occurs before and after, most notably as one mode of response to the orienting directedness itself.

"All men are Jews, except they don't know it"

2011-01-16T13:21:00.002+02:00

From an interview with the incredible Bernard Melamud z"l, that I just came across:

The Fields: There has been much critical commentary concerning a statement you are alleged to have made: “All men are Jews.” Did you ever actually make this statement? Do you believe it is true? It is, of course, a view one cannot take literally. In any event, would you elaborate on the “All men are Jews” statement?

Malamud: I think I said, “All men are Jews except they don’t know it.” I doubt I expected anyone to take the statement literally. But I think it’s an understandable statement and a metaphoric way of indicating how history, sooner or later, treats all men.

Psalm 27 - ה', אוֹרִי וְיִשְׁעִי

2010-12-29T17:00:00.006+02:00

A thought on the first verse: "The Lord, my light and my help."

Is there any significance to these opening words?

Perhaps the Psalmist is capturing the dual nature of man's relationship with God.

On the one hand, we can relate to God, in times of trouble, as the source of help. As a cynical friend of mine once joked: "God, I know you don't exist, but I'm in a spot of trouble here...". When we are in trouble, we instinctively pray.

On the other hand, in times where we might not feel troubled-- when one can focus on spiritual matters -- the Psalmist recalls God as his light.

Heda Margolius: 1919 -2010

2010-12-21T22:34:00.003+02:00

I'm reading her amazing story, Under a Cruel Star. Just one excerpt, thanks to Kindle's copy and paste...

Sometimes a bedraggled and barefoot concentration camp survivor plucked up his courage and knocked on the door of prewar friends to ask, “Excuse me, do you by any chance still have some of the stuff we left with you for safekeeping?” And the friends would say, “You must be mistaken, you didn’t leave anything with us, but come in anyway!” And they would seat him in their parlor where his carpet lay on the floor and pour herb tea into antique cups that had belonged to his grandmother. The survivor would thank them, sip his tea, and look at the walls where his paintings hung. He would say to himself, “What does it matter? As long as we’re alive? What does it matter?” At other times, it would not turn out so nicely. The prewar friends would not make tea, would not suggest any mistake. They would just laugh and say in astonishment, “Come on now, do you really believe we would store your stuff all through the war, exposing ourselves to all that risk just to give it back to you now?” And the survivor would laugh too, amazed at his own stupidity, would apologize politely and leave. Once downstairs he would laugh again, happily, because it was spring and the sun was shining down on him. It would also happen that a survivor might need a lawyer to retrieve lost documents and he would remember the name of one who had once represented large Jewish companies. He would go to see him and sit in an empire chair in a corner of an elegant waiting room, enjoying all that good taste and luxury, watching pretty secretaries rushing about. Until one of the pretty girls forgot to close a door behind her, and the lawyer’s sonorous voice would boom through the crack, “You would have thought we’d be rid of them finally, but no, they’re impossible to kill off – not even Hitler could manage it. Every day there’re more of them crawling back, like rats...” And the survivor would quietly get up from his chair and slip out of the waiting room, this time not laughing. On his way down the stairs his eyes would mist over as if with the smoke of the furnaces at Auschwitz. Friends from the country would send an invitation: Come see us! We want to feed you. We have plenty of everything! The survivor would arrive at the village, unable to believe his eyes. The farmhouse would be twice its prewar size. A refrigerator would be standing in the kitchen, a washing machine in the hall. There would be Oriental carpets on the floor and original paintings on the walls. The sausage would be served on silver platters and the beer in cut glass. The old farmer would stroke his whiskers and worry, “No sense denying it – we did very well during the war. People had to eat, you know, and with a little thinking... But now things are different... Just as long as the Communists don’t take over...” It took me some time to muster up the courage for a trip to the village of Hut where we used to spend our vacations. Our country house there was as much of a home to me as our apartment in Prague had been, maybe even more so for all the happy memories it held. To return there all alone, the only one of my family who was left, was hard. On the way out the train seemed to be moving too fast, the air was hot and stifling, my head throbbed, and my stomach ached. In Beroun, where I had to change trains, I was seized with such anxiety that I almost returned to Prague. At last I reached Hut and made my way haltingly from the station to the village, glimpsing from far away those windows where I used to see my mother looking out, alive and happy. The trees in our orchard were past their bloom and no one seemed to be about. The door of our house was locked. I rang the bell and, after a while, a fat unshaven man opened the door, stared at me for a moment, and then yelled, “So you’ve come back! Oh no! That’s all we needed!” I turned around and walked into the woods. I spent the three hours until the next train back to Prague strolling on the mossy ground under the fir trees, listening to the birds.

The Horror of Divine Silence

2010-12-05T22:55:00.008+02:00

This weekend we lit Hanuka candles without the usual festive spirits. The memory of 41 lives, lost in Israel's most dreadful event in recent years seemed to darken any room lit by candles.

For all their political incorrectness, those religious leaders who rushed to give their own theological interpretations to the senseless loss of life weren't really that far off the mark - at least from the mood of the people. It's natural to ask why. It's also dangerous to answer that question. But just because there is no answer doesn't mean there is no question. And perhaps all one can truthfully do is meditate on the question. 41 public servants, doing the right thing, family members, representatives of the law and the order that ultimately justify our State's continued existence. Why? It is painful to ask.

Of course, some will answer that this is proof of God's uninvolved role in the world. His non-intervention policy. That is certainly a perspective that has grounding in traditional Jewish sources. The Midrash about the palace burning is the most prominent example.

But some religious people aren't satisfied with a world view of man as the only actor in history. The Bible certainly tells us God gets involved, (e.g. the Exodus) and so there is also solid ground for a religious person to reject that view of God as uninvolved in history.

Perhaps silence is the best response a religious person can give when confronted with tragedy. But if we do say "Baruch Dayan Emet", at least to ourselves, as our tradition tells us we should, we must remember to do so with tears in our eyes. We must not turn away from the suffering of those 41 families when we say those words. Those words shouldn't be an escape from their suffering.

Emil Fackenheim on Kant, Kierkegaard and the Akeida

2010-11-10T21:37:00.003+02:00

I have been reading Emil Fackenheim's analysis of the both Immanuel Kant's and Soren Kierkegaard's understanding of the Akeida. It's taking a long time, but here is a quote that points out the problem with Kierkegaard's idea that like Abraham, all men should be willing to suspend their sense of right and wrong in order to answer the immediacy of God's calling, and if need be, even act today, as Abraham did.

The problem with that, says Fackenheim, is that we know the Torah prohibits child sacrifice, and does not want us to act today as Abraham did then. Judaism does not want us to be willing to offer child sacrifices, and thus cannot accept Kierkegaard position:

For Kierkegaard, the ethical is actually suspended in the Akeida and potentially suspended for every knight of faith after Abraham. In Judaism, the Torah ends the possibility of any such suspension... In short, whereas Kant bids Jewish thought to reject even the original Akeida, Kierkegaard demands of Jewish thought the eternal perpetuation of its possibility. Whereas Kant will not let the Akeida rest on Abraham's merit, Kierkegaard would rob us of the Torah, which forbids child sacrifice.

Emil Fackenheim, Encounters Between Judaism and Modern Philosophy

Understanding Leviticus

2010-07-28T21:16:00.002+03:00

Jacob Milgrom z"l, in "Leviticus":

What are Israel's priests trying to convey through this ritual? I submit it is their answer to the question of questions, as voiced by Jeremiah, "Why does the way of the wicked prosper?" No intellectual circle within ancient Israel evaded the challenge of theodicy (justifying the ways of God), but none found an adequate explanation. The prophets agonized over it but came up with no immediate solutions-they only prophesied that answers would be provided by a future messianic king. The wisdom teachers gave their superficial answers: for example, the wicked will ultimately receive their comeuppance-and an entire book (Job) was written to refute them. We should expect a priestly answer, but we search in vain. Is it possible that Israel's priests, whose prime function was "to teach the Israelites" (10:11), had nothing to say regarding God's providence?
We know now where to find their answer-not in words but in rituals, not in legal statutes but in cultic procedure-specifically, in the rite with the blood of the purification offering. I call their response "the priestly Picture of Dorian Gray" In the novel by Oscar Wilde, when virtuous Dorian was granted eternal youth, he embarked on a career of increasing evil. Oddly, his evil acts did not affect his young, handsome appearance. His portrait, however, hidden away, became ever uglier and more grotesque. Like this Wilde character, the priestly writers would claim that sin may not blotch the face of the sinner, but it is certain to blotch the face of the sanctuary, and, unless quickly expunged, God's presence will depart.
Thus the fourth and final principle: the priestly doctrine of collective responsibility. Sinners may go about apparently unmarred by their evil, but the sanctuary bears the wounds, and with its destruction, all the sinners will meet their doom.
What of the innocents who will suffer along with the sinners? The priestly doctrine of collective responsibility yields a corollary. The "good" people who perish with the evildoers are not innocent. For allowing brazen sinners to flourish, they share the blame. Indeed, they, the involuntary sinners, have contributed to the pollution of the sanctuary (fig. 2). What of the "silent majority" of every generation-the Germans who tolerated the Nazi rise to power and territorial aggression, and the peoples of the free world who acquiesced in silence?
A column by Michael D. Hausfeld in the Houston Tribune dated Friday, February 27, 2001, revealed that IBM "inadvertently" aided Nazi Germany even during
the war years by selling it advanced technological equipment that compiled, sorted, and classified information. He concluded: "Crimes against humanity are not limited to perpetrators who define or sign the orders of extermination, pull the triggers, drop the pellets, or crack the whips. Those who aid, abet, or unconsciously participate in the furtherance of those crimes have their own responsibility for which they must be held legally accountable."
In the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., there is an enlarged photograph, covering an entire wall, of Allied planes over Auschwitz flying on to other destinations. It is estimated that the Auschwitz crematorium was gassing two thousand Jews and other "undesirables" each day. Imagine, had these planes released but one bomb, they could have stopped that killing machine for months!
How would Israel's priests see our world today? Without hesitation they would spot the growing physical pollution of the earth: oil spills, acid rain, strip mining, ozone depletion, nuclear waste. They would be aghast at the unending moral pollution of the earth: the murder of thousands in Bosnia, Somalia, Sudan, East Timor, Armenia, Angola, Rwanda, Chechnya . . . the millions dying of hunger or AIDS, while again the free world, involuntary moral sinners, silently observe the carnage on TV and-flip the channel. How long, the priests would cry out, before God abandons God's earthly sanctuary?
I have limited myself to one rite, of one ingredient, of one sacrifice. If only this ritual were fully understood and implemented, it could transform the world.

The Akeida In Context?

2010-06-29T22:14:00.004+03:00

My Sefardi spiritual advisor got me thinking today.

It seems fair to ask how Avraham could challenge God on the suffering of the righteous when he is told about the impending destruction of Sdom, but not do the same when told to sacrifice his son. The question isn't new, but today, in our discussion about moral authority, I was led to ask whether the two stories are placed near each other precisely because they represent different approaches to moral authority?

In fact, in the one story that separates Avraham's brazen challenge to God from his unquestioning submission to God's will is another story about moral authority. And in this story, it is Sarah who's authority wins the day.

So in short, I wonder if there is a structure here:

1) Avraham and Sdom represents man's own notion of right and wrong.

2) Avraham, Sarah and Hagar represents societal values and their influence on personal decisions

3) Avraham at the Akeida represents total submission to God's will.

Perhaps these are the three influences on our lives when it comes to moral authority. Our own sense of right and wrong, our environment, and God's will.

Micah 6:6-8

2010-06-27T00:57:00.004+03:00

A bold reminder from this week's haftarah reading - Micah 6:

⁶ With what shall I come before the LORD
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
⁷ Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
⁸ He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

The Hebrew words "Laasot Mishpat" are translated above as "to act justly". (This JPS translation offers "to do justice"). There are different words for rules in the Torah (e.g. chok, mishpat, torah) , so the word mishpat isn't so easy to translate. It seems, however, to be closely linked to laws that are concerned with justice.

Parshat Mishaptim (Exodus 21:2 -23:33) seems to support this, as we are given a list of laws that overwhelmingly are concerned with justice between people. It should be noted, as and side, that there are other laws in this Torah portion that don't seem primarily to concern justice, such as the celebration of festivals which thank God for acting in history for Israel.

JPS says that Micah was written around the 7th century BCE, around the time of the collapse of the northern kingdom of Israel. I wonder if when Micah uses the word "Mishpat" in 6:8, the reference is to the rules in Exodus?

Quick thought

2010-06-23T20:49:00.005+03:00

Interesting that in Parshat Balak the Torah tells us a story about a king who attempts to defeat Israel spiritually - not only militarily - by having the nation cursed by Bilam, who has a close connection to God....

More on book burning

2010-05-01T22:44:00.006+03:00

I'm currently struggling through chapter 5 of Avoda Zarah which has an in depth (and not easy) commentary by a Tosafist called Samuel ben Solomon of Falaise.

It turns out that Rabbi Samuel

took part in the renowned controversy instigated by the baptized Jew Nicholas Donin

who

went to Rome, presented himself before Pope Gregory IX, and denounced the Talmud. Thirty-five articles were drawn up, in which Donin stated his charges of virulent attacks on the virginity of Mary and the divinity of Jesus.

The Pope was persuaded that the accusations were true and dispatched to the authorities of the Church, transcripts of the charges formulated by Donin, accompanied by an order to seize all copies of the Talmud and deposit them with the Dominicans and Franciscans. If an examination corroborated the charges of Donin, the scrolls were to be burned.

This order was generally ignored, except in France, where the Jews were compelled under pain of death to surrender their Talmuds (March, 1240). Louis IX ordered four of the most distinguished rabbis of France -- Yechiel of Paris, Moses of Coucy, Judah of Melun, and Samuel ben Solomon of Château-Thierry -- to answer Donin in a public debate. In vain, however, did the rabbis argue against the charges of blasphemy and immorality which were the main points of Donin's arraignment. The commission condemned the Talmud to be burned. In 1242, fire was set accordingly to twenty-four carriage loads (ten to twelve-thousand volumes) of written works.

So -- much more than just sharp rational analysis.

Ed: I wasn't sure if Samuel ben Solomon of Château-Thierry and Samuel ben Solomon of Falaise are the same person, but it turns out that Château-Thierry and Falaise are near each other.

Burn it

2010-04-25T21:43:00.004+03:00

This Shabat we shared a picnic with a family of Messianic Jews, followers of "Rabbi Yeshua". We were meeting them because Tova has an anthropology project about communities in Israel, and this was a good opportunity to gain some insight into their way of life.

Half way through the picnic, a friend of theirs who is not fully mentally fit, walked over and gave me a New Testament. Our co-picnickers were horrified as they realized that his actions could easily be seen offensive. I didn't, however, take offense, for a few reasons, one of which was that our friends clearly didn't want that to have happened.

Anyway, to the point of the story, I had this gift and wasn't sure what to do with it. The truth is I don't mind having a copy of it around the house, for reference (for example I didn't know that Mathew 2.20 has one of the first uses of the term "Land of Israel" outside Tanach) just like I don't mind having a copy of the Kuran to hand. But at the moment we live a small apartment, our books are in the living room, and I just don't feel like having it out there on display next to everything from the Chumash to my Excel book. It's just very political, and at the moment I can use the internet if I want to look something up.

So, what to do? I decided a good option would be to just hand it over to a Christian. San Simon park has a Greek Orthodox monastery and I walk past there often, so this morning I took a detour and tried to find the entrance. It turns out that the entrance is opposite an old age home, and as I buzzed and buzzed, I felt eyes watching me. Behind me were two men, sitting next to a third more elderly man. I assumed they were visiting their father or grandfather, and they were just watching me buzz. Nothing.

Eventually, a bewildered looking monk popped his head up from the roof top and asked me in Hebrew what I wanted. I'm not sure if he was annoyed because he had been meditating, or had little trust for Israelis, but he looked a bit scared and clearly had little time for me. I yelled up - "I have a book for you!" and he just looked at me blankly. "It's a Christian book!". Still a blank look , and then he was gone.

I waited, and nothing happened.

Then the men opposite me started talking. "Just burn it, why are you giving it back?"

"Burn it??"

"It's Avoda Zarah"

"Ummm"

"They would burn your books"

"So that means you should burn theirs? Leviticus 19:18 - Love your neighbor as yourself. If you don't want them to do that to you, don't do it to them".

An astounding exchange. Burning books reminds me of what was done to us so often in our history. As if in recognition of how much faith and strength we find in our texts, the burning or our texts is an assault on our faith and identity. And whilst I might not share a faith with a Greek Orthodox monk, the last thing I want to do is attack it, or him.

Of course, I don't think these men represented anything other than a bunch of brutes, similar to those that I have found in the US and UK. I placed the book inside the gate on a ledge (hopefully out of the two men's reach) and walked away.

But the one line I wish I would have had to mind was a line in Almansor, a play by Heinrich Heine written in 1821:

"Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings."

How true.

Tough Faith

2010-02-16T21:18:00.004+02:00

Tonight is the Hebrew date of passing of my father's father, who died about 20 years ago. I didn't have a chance to know him at all, and I suppose its normal not to give too much thought, growing up, to someone who you didn't know.

But a Granddad is a Granddad. And they should occupy a certain place in your mind. One of the only memories, or should I say images, that I do have of Zeidi Chaim is of him sitting with a Talmud in his hand. The truth is that I suspect even this memory is more a manufactured one -- my grandmother told me one thing about him -- that he learned a lot.

My father asked me to honor his father's memory by leading a prayer service tonight, which I did. At the end of the service, I decided to say a few words.

I've included them here:

With the permission of the tzibur I wanted to say a few words about my grandfather Zeidi Chaim, who lived just round the corner from this shul, and who passed away before I had a chance to know him well. Before my grandmother, his wife, passed away last year she wrote an essay about her life with the help of her daughter. In the essay she wrote about how Zeidi Chaim lost two daughters in the Auschwitz concentration camp (she also lost a child there). We shouldn't know such horrors. This was something that I had either not been told before, or was told at an age when I didn't remember it. One of the only images I have of Zeidi Chaim in my mind is that of him sitting with a Gemarah in his hand. He remained dedicated to his Torah after everything he went through in WW2.

I am reminded of a story that the Chief Rabbi of England, Rav Jonathan Sacks recently told. He tells of how a woman once wrote to him and asked him why God doesn't just give us irrefutable proof of His existence, so that we could just know once and for all that He exists. Rabbi Sacks answered her that knowing God exists is not so hard at all. What is hard is having faith in God.

When I think about the trials that Zeidi Chaim's faith must have endured, I am humbled by the memory of him learning Torah. To experience what he did, and to come through it, and build a family again, remaining dedicated to his faith, is I think, an example of what Rabbi Sacks means when he says that it is faith that is the hard part.

Biblical Criticism and Orthodoxy

2009-08-15T22:52:00.005+03:00

Modern scholarship on biblical history is starting to have an impact on the Jewish Orthodox world, although, on the whole - understandably - its still not a hot topic on in the Yeshiva world. Pirkei Avot does teach that one should know how to respond to a cynic. Not easy when the cynic is backed up with a wealth of evidence that might seriously challenge your theology.

I plan to write more about biblical history and its impact on Orthodox Judaism - for me it is an issue close to home. But for starters, I'd like to share a short translation of a paragraph from Chapter 1 of Rav Mordechai Breur's (z"l) The Chapters of Genesis. The topic at hand is "understanding the text's plain meaning" in light of the contradictions that exist between different parts of the Torah (Pentateuch). The question posed is how to reconcile the Talmudic assertion that the Torah was written to be understood 'simply' with the contemporaneous contradictions in the text:

The author of Shaagat Aryeh (The Lion's Roar) has already pointed out that in the book of Chronicles we find many contradictory statements, even though it says in the Talmud that the book had only one author, and that was Ezra. And on the problematic nature of these contradictions, he explained that Ezra didn't actually write the book of Chronicles himself, rather he "copied chronologies from different sources that he found... in one book he found thus and in another book he found thus, and copied what he found... and didn't want to change the words that he found."

This is how we are reconcile the Talmudic assertion that the Torah's "spoke simply" (Dibrah be lashon bnei adam"). It isn't that the complete text is written to be understood simply, but rather, that the Torah is written in language that was copied from different sources and collected together in one book. And this was the simple language that The Ineffable One's Torah spoke in. For the Giver of the Torah ("Noten Hatorah") found with hidden power individual books Self-Authored that reflected different Divine attributes, and copied the Torah from them. "In one book He found thus and in another book He found thus, and copied what was found... and didn't want to change the words that were found." This book was first written with black fire on white fire and afterwards he read it to Moses our Teacher on Mount Sinai, so that he could write it in ink. This is the Sefer Torah that is passed from father to son , from Rabbi to pupil, from the first generation to the last generation.

"Strangers" by Guy Nattiv and Erez Tadmor

2009-07-17T00:58:00.004+03:00

Strangers is a Middle Eastern Romeo and Juliet, but the details more than the general theme make the movie. Eyal (an Israeli traveling to Berlin for the mondial - or football World Cup) meets Rana (a Palestinian ex-pat), and they fall in love. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this film is that it was filmed unscripted, with the actors simply being told to act out what came to mind. But with an Arab and an Israeli playing an Arab and an Israeli, the tensions caught on camera are very real. When Eyal and Rana first talk politics, for example, he complains that "We always try and give so much, but they always say no". She flashes back "And why do you think that is?". Confusion meets anger - and it isn't acting. Their halting conclusion that "we won't.. solve the problem .. tonight" also comes across as on-the-spot pragmatism. In a reality where two people with a bitter disagreement touch on the topic in question, the actors seem to remember to co-operate because they are acting.

Rana is played by Arabic speaking Lubna Azaba, Eyal by Hebrew speaking Liron Levo. Azaba's first role as Palestinian was in Paradise Now, where she played a woman returning to the West Bank who becomes romantically involved with a man planning to become a suicide bomber. Strangers is set in a more neutral France and Germany, and allows her to explore meeting an Israeli, as she would meet any man - without anger.

Rana's character is complex by design, with secrets unraveled as the film progresses. But it is the calm and straight-forward Eyal who gets me thinking. In his late twenties - traveling to the mondial to see his German ex-girlfriend, Eyal is an Israeli who has finished his compulsory military service and still has to decide what to do with his life. So many Israelis like Eyal get the traveling bug. He too is at home away from home. When we see him reaching for his phone to call his dad again - usually from a bar - it seems that Berlin is as close as Tel Aviv.

Eyal tells Rana about a previous relationship with his German ex-girlfriend that he gave up - because she wasn't Jewish. He loved her, but he didn't want to upset his family. Coming from a background where ethnic ties are just as strong, Rana is sympathetic. His ex-girlfriend though, isn't returning his calls. Was there ever an Israeli girlfriend? We don't know.

And then there's football. What is it about football and Israelis? Children in India and China watch their latest heroes on TV, but in some sense it's different here. As a 12 year old in Israel for the year, I recall my friend - the dedicated Liverpool supporter - smiling almost mystically when the conversation would turn towards English football. I don't think he played the game at all - it was a magical dream of constant glory which Liverpool in the 80's gave people. This guy belonged. And Eyal too, I think, wants to belong. But to what? We see images of him in the crowd, sharing passion, jumping with joy. But was this really about football? The mondial, where his country have failed to qualify ("because they play like Arabs") is perhaps the most universal cultural event in the world. Could it be that the real motivation here was his wanting to be a part of that universal family of nations?

The directors hone in on this theme. At one stage we see images of the crowd - Slavic and Nordic children, in their country's colors, next to Eyal. Then the screen splits and we see Israeli tanks jolting from the force of firing heavy shells. Striking contrast. The message - you're not really here. You're not fully part of this.

The Lebanon war actually started while the movie was being shot, and the directors fortuitously decided to incorporate it into the story. The war brings out those tensions between Eyal and Rana, and also those within Eyal himself. At the relationship level we see two lovers watching football in each others arms, content. Then we see them watching the war news together, with no interest in anything but calling home. This is Romeo and Juliet. Internally too, Eyal can no longer be so care-free either. We see him alone in two contrasting scenes - able to enjoy being part of the crowd watching the final, and then worried, watching the news. Whilst Rana belongs to a culture that has the sympathies of the world, Eyal has no such luck. In one scene he is even thrown into the role of IDF spokseman, defending against the latest allegations of atrocities. Didn't so many Israelis play that role somehow during the war? Didn't so many of us feel isolated, like Eyal?

Two other images from the movie stick in my mind. The first is at a hospital, when a nurse calls the immigration police to report Rana for being in the country illegally. Perfectly curved and French, the nurse looks down as Rana is dragged away screaming. Jews know that betrayal. It was an insightful touch.

The other image in my mind is of Eyal playing with Rana's son. An Israeli man playing with an Arab child. A sense of humanity overcoming what stereotypes would demand, strength and vulnerability mixed into a walk down the street.

But sentiment aside, the question that remains for Eyal is what to do? We watch him struggle with forces pulling him in both directions: To leave Rana is to give up her love, to stay is to gamble with his identity. Could he have both? Should he give up one?

Fundraising Corruption at Human Rights Watch

2009-07-16T12:05:00.005+03:00

A snippet from Jeffery Goldberg's blog:

In other words, yes, the director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division is attempting to raise funds from Saudis, including a member of the Shura Council (which oversees, on behalf of the Saudi monarchy, the imposition in the Kingdom of the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islamic law) in part by highlighting her organization's investigations of Israel, and its war with Israel's "supporters," who are liars and deceivers. It appears as if Human Rights Watch, in the pursuit of dollars, has compromised its integrity.

read the whole thing here.

The Book of Ezra

2009-07-10T15:49:00.002+03:00

One of the main themes in the book of Ezra, and perhaps most relevant to Zionism today, is that the Jews make immense efforts to return and rebuild the land, but these efforts are severely impacted by the blessings (small 'b') of imperial rulers. Cyrus says they could rebuild their temple, they rebuild. Artaxerxes says they should stop, they stop. Darius says they can start again, they start again. Ezra repeats the idea heard first in Exodus, "Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph". What happens in the corridors of power, whether they be in Pasargadae or Washington, impacts Jewish interests. The Jews did well, both in ancient and recent times, to accept what they were offered.

If Jewish submission to imperial power is a major theme in the book, what are we to make of the book's ending? Ezra orders Israelite males who have taken foreign wives to send them away. It's not clear how a heroine like Ruth would have fared in this difficult story, but a larger question on my mind is - what's this story of divorce en masse doing next to the story of the rebuilding of the Temple? Is there a connection?

If there is a connection, it might be the underlying theme of Jewish power (or lack of power) that we see in the book.

The unprecedented order to divorce non-Israelite wives could have been an attempt to strengthen a new power-less Israelite identity. With a temple rebuilt at the grace of non-Israelite rulers, and Israelite prayers (and possibly taxes) now directed towards his well being, the powerful political position Israel enjoyed during the first temple period was clearly over.

The strong identity that members of a powerful group naturally enjoy - an identity not threatened by foreign cultures - was at stake. Going forwards, the way to marry a non-Israelite woman would therefore involve either an act of conversion or one of desertion (marrying 'out'). One could perhaps go as far as saying that this was a step towards the creation of a religious-Jewish identity, from a national-Israelite identity.

Syria and a town called Quneitra

2009-07-06T14:50:00.002+03:00

There's a very good post over at Daniel Pipes' blog, here. He asks, and answers, an interesting question -

How come, 35 years and one day after the negotiated return of Quneitra by Israel to Syria June 26, 1974, the town remains unrebuilt? To make a propaganda point, its population has been prevented all these years from returning to the town and resuming their lives.

The full post is well worth checking out.

Change They Can Believe In

2009-06-17T13:44:00.003+03:00

Walter Russel Mead, author of the amazing God and Gold (and top dog at Harvard and CFR) says America can do what hasn't been achievable yet between Israel and the Arabs - but in order to do so Palestinian refugees have to become the central element of the discussion.

He quotes - as an estimate of the cost of resettling the refugees - an enormous $80bn, and says that Israel should pay a "significant" portion, with the US, Germany, Britain, Japan and Europe paying the rest. He believes this is justified as the wars between Jews and Arabs were a direct result of the UN's failure to provide security for both sides.

Many people have tried to end it; all have failed. Direct negotiations between Arabs and Jews after World War I foundered. The British tried to square the circle of competing Palestinian and Jewish aspirations from the time of the 1917 Balfour Declaration until the ignominious collapse of their mandate in 1948. Since then, the United Nations, the United States, and the international community have struggled with the problem without managing to solve it. No issue in international affairs has taxed the ingenuity of so many leaders or captured so much attention from around the world. Winston Churchill failed to solve it; the "wise men" who built NATO and the Marshall Plan handed it down, still festering, to future generations. Henry Kissinger had to content himself with incremental progress. The Soviet Union crumbled on Ronald Reagan's watch, but the Israeli-Palestinian dispute survived him. Bill Clinton devoted much of his tenure to picking at this Gordian knot. He failed. George W. Bush failed at everything he tried. This is a dispute that deserves respect; old, inflamed, and complex, it does not suffer quick fixes.

Helping Palestinians

2009-06-16T23:43:00.002+03:00

From Elliot Abrams, at the influential Council of Foreign Relations:

The Obama administration seems determined to repeat all the mistakes the Bush administration made, especially that of concentrating on fancy negotiations on final status issues while slighting the chances for real-world progress on the ground in the West Bank. So determined is our government to produce nirvana for Palestinians, it seems willing to ignore chances to bring them better lives now—something Netanyahu pledged to work with the U.S. on immediately. If the administration chooses to keep fighting almost entirely on the settlement "freeze" issue, it will be showing that a confrontation with Netanyahu is not a problem it seeks to avoid but a tactic it seeks to embrace. And once again, any chance of helping Palestinian moderates to deliver real improvements in Palestinian life will be lost.

The BNP on Jewish Continuity

2009-06-14T22:43:00.002+03:00

The Independent sent Peter Victor to interview the British National Party's newly elected MEP Nick Griffin. (He's black, and so the discussion is about why the BNP want him to leave England).

Halfway through the interview, when discussing intermarriage, he mentions Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:

What would he do, then, if one of his three daughters brought home someone like me? "I would be as disappointed, as I know many Sikhs, Hindus and black people would be, and I'd talk to them both about it, try and put them off. But in the end that's their business.
"Children grow up and do their own thing. I wouldn't go as far as, say, someone from the orthodox Jewish community could well do, which is to hold a funeral, a symbolic funeral for them. But I would ask you again – unless you're going to condemn the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, for writing a book called Will We Have Jewish Grandchildren? – don't call me a racist, or some kind of wicked bigot, for saying I would be very disappointed."

Intermarriage is indeed a difficult thing for most Orthodox Jewish parents to accept (although the symbolic funeral is something I have never seen - what I have seen is the exact opposite). And Jonathan Sacks did indeed write a book about Jewish continuity.

But Jonathan Sacks also wrote a book called The Dignity of Difference, arguing not simply for tolerance of difference, but for a celebration of difference as a cure to intolerance. It is a powerful a call for a new religious pluralism.

That's not BNP.

A thought on Amalek

2009-06-09T21:54:00.003+03:00

In this week's Torah portion (Shelach Lecha), the spies return from their journey into Canaan and report negatively on what they saw. There are attempts to explain what exactly was negative about their report (one of my favorites is from I believe the Chafetz Chaim who said it was that they spoke negatively about themselves when they said "we can't do it").

But I wanted to briefly dwell on something that Rashi says at the start of their report. In Numbers 13:28 and 29 the spies mention Amalek twice. In 13:28 they say "moreover we saw Amalek" and in 13:29 they say "Amalek dwell in the Negev".

Rashi says that this second mention of Amalek was an attempt to scare the Israelites, given that they had been attacked by them as they were departing Egypt. Once would have been a sufficient description of what they had seen, but twice implied something more than a factual report. Sewing the seeds of fear, implies Rashi, was wrong.

But hold on - is there more to be said here?

If we fast forward to Deuteronomy 25:17 - we read:

"Remember that which Amalek did to you on your way out of Egypt - they attacked your weak ones when you were tired and weary, and did not fear God...[when God defeats your enemies].... erase the memory of Amalek from under the heaven - don't forget!"

One of the perplexing questions raised by this commandment is the paradoxical nature of the prohibition to remember to forget Amalek. How can a person remember to forget anything? Isn't it like me telling you not to think of a cat? See, you just thought about a cat.

However, one might also see Deuteronomy 25:17 as a commandment to act in two different ways, depending on the circumstances.

At times when national security isn't guaranteed, (in the Bible's language - when God hasn't defeated Israel's enemies), this verse tells Israel to remember that which Amalek did. In other words, be alert - preoccupy yourself with security.

At times when national security is guaranteed (or in the Bible's language - when God has defeated Israel's enemies) don't think about Amalek. Or perhaps in other words, let yourself be occupied with other, more positive elements of Jewish life.

It was God who told Moses to "scout out the land" (Numbers 13:2). The spies were supposed to recognize their situation as one where they were guaranteed national security. Their report - with its emphasis on the sightings of Amalek - failed to emphasize the positive aspects of the land - and in doing so betrayed a fatal misreading of the situation's true potential.

World Outside My Shoes

2009-06-08T19:24:00.001+03:00

Learning from Rwanda to equip and inspire each one of us to enter the world of the “Other”. The “Other” may be under our own roof or on the other side of the globe.

World Outside My Shoes

Obama: "Only Likud can make peace"

2009-06-05T09:40:00.001+03:00

Well, not exactly - but nearly:

"Just as so many Palestinians lost confidence and faith that the process can move forward, I think many Israelis lost confidence that they will ever be recognized by Arab states or there will be security," he continued. "So I believe Netanyahu will recognize the strategic need to deal with this issue and in some ways he may have an opportunity that a Labor or a left leader might not have."

What Obama didn't say

2009-06-04T20:06:00.001+03:00

From David Horovitz:

Where he, terribly, missed a vital opportunity from Israel's point of view, however, was in legitimizing our Jewish nation-state solely on the basis of our people's persecution through the centuries, which "culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust."
Yes, of course, denying the Holocaust is 'baseless, ignorant and hateful." And yes, "threatening Israel with destruction" does indeed serve "to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve."
But our rights in this land are not predicated solely, or even primarily, on the tragedies that have befallen us during our history in exile. Those rights relate, rather, to the fact that we were in exile - from this land, this historic Jewish homeland. This is the only place on earth where the Jews have ever been sovereign, the place we never willingly left, the place to which we always prayed to return.
The culminating tragedy of the Holocaust occurred only because we had been denied that rightful homeland. Six million Jewish lives were lost because that legitimacy was not internationally internalized in time. This president, in that place, should have emphasized the point - stressed the physical root of our legitimacy to a Muslim world, and especially a Palestinian populace, that overwhelmingly refuses to acknowledge it.
Instead, unfortunately, the president spoke of the "displacement" of Palestinians "brought by Israel's founding" (while making no mention of the Arab world's rejection of the Arab entity that would have been simultaneously created alongside us). In so doing, he reinforced the very portrayal of Israel as a modern colonial upstart that Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad so cynically and strategically asserts.
In so painstakingly calibrated an address, delivered in so vital and urgent a cause, this was a stark failure, and one Obama should himself recognize the need to rectify as he translates his talk into action. For Muslim recognition of our fundamental right to be here, precisely here, is central to the president's admirable quest to make a better world, a peaceful world, a new beginning.

Obama on Mid-East peace

2009-06-04T10:07:00.002+03:00

Here is what President Obama reportedly told Thomas Friedman about his approach to peace in the Mid-East:

“We have a joke around the White House,” the president said. “We’re just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working — and nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East.”
A key part of his message, he said, will be: “Stop saying one thing behind closed doors and saying something else publicly.” He then explained: “There are a lot of Arab countries more concerned about Iran developing a nuclear weapon than the ‘threat’ from Israel, but won’t admit it.” There are a lot of Israelis, “who recognize that their current path is unsustainable, and they need to make some tough choices on settlements to achieve a two-state solution — that is in their long-term interest — but not enough folks are willing to recognize that publicly.”
There are a lot of Palestinians who “recognize that the constant incitement and negative rhetoric with respect to Israel” has not delivered a single “benefit to their people and had they taken a more constructive approach and sought the moral high ground” they would be much better off today — but they won’t say it aloud.
“There are a lot of Arab states that have not been particularly helpful to the Palestinian cause beyond a bunch of demagoguery,” and when it comes to “ponying up” money to actually help the Palestinian people, they are “not forthcoming.”
When it comes to dealing with the Middle East, the president noted, “there is a Kabuki dance going on constantly. That is what I would like to see broken down. I am going to be holding up a mirror and saying: ‘Here is the situation, and the U.S. is prepared to work with all of you to deal with these problems. But we can’t impose a solution. You are all going to have to make some tough decisions.’ Leaders have to lead, and, hopefully, they will get supported by their people.”

More on Bibi and Obama

2009-06-03T12:37:00.002+03:00

from the Economist:

...relaxing with an intimate group of American conservative magnates who have backed him over the years, Mr Netanyahu gave vent to his discomfort. For all his efforts to set the scene in a Jewish-historical perspective, he felt that the president focused more on the plight of the Palestinians. “What moves Mr Obama?”, he wondered edgily aloud.

Freezing natural growth in major settlements - not worth the fight (at the moment)

2009-06-01T16:03:00.007+03:00

Akiva Eldar argues that this is the wrong time to fall out with the US over settlement growth. Obama has a key trip to the Middle East in the coming weeks and needs to shore up support for action against Iran - Muslim perception of the US will play a role in determining the support he can win:

Does Israel have a greater existential strategic asset than its relations with the U.S. and its neighbors' understanding that these intimate relations are unshakable?

Is this the way to keep "all options open," including receiving American approval to fly over the skies of Iraq, on the way to attacking Iran's nuclear installations? And what will we do when the Iranians launch missiles at Tel Aviv? Will we send the new Abba Eban, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, to Washington to ask Obama to declare war on Tehran? At the same time, the settler from Nokdim can reprimand the president for refusing to take his "natural growth" into account.

I do think that his point is a good one - in the grand scheme of things, at least whilst we still need the US for dealing with Iran, it may be better to put a freeze in place. In the long run however, freezing growth in places like Talpiot, Gilo, Efrat and Ariel - major settlements that don't disrupt Palestinian life - would not be in the israeli interest. As for other settlements, those located in large palestinian population centers and that bring Israel closer to becoming an apartheid state, they should come down and stay down.

Yona Baumel dies without knowing MIA son's fate

2009-05-31T12:19:00.001+03:00

Yona Baumel, 81, died on Friday without fulfilling his heart's deepest desire: to discover the fate of his son Zachary, who was last seen on the Sultan Yakoub battlefield in Lebanon 27 years ago.

article here.

Bible podcasts

2009-05-27T12:54:00.003+03:00

I just found this website.

Books read extend beyond the Tanach and include Christian books too.

Netanyahu-Obama dynamic

2009-05-24T20:07:00.003+03:00

David Horowitz is always worth reading, and here is his latest piece on the Netanyahu-Obama meeting in Washington. There is criticism of Netanyahu's refusal to endorse Palestinian statehood in principle, but there is also an interesting description of PR-savvy Bibi's body language in the meeting:

WHERE YITZHAK Rabin and Ariel Sharon were regarded by their American presidential counterparts as experienced elder statesmen, and treated with deference, respect and affection, Obama and Netanyahu was a meeting of heavyweight and, let's kindly say, middleweight, as was clear in the body language and the presentation: Obama, sitting back relaxedly in his chair, was dominant, cool and dispassionate. Netanyahu, in the unaccustomed position of having had some of his arguments rebuffed by his interlocutor, switched from uneasy lecturer, when he leaned forward and looked almost plaintively at the president as he spoke, to subordinate, when he sought to bridge or mask the differences between them, looking down at the floor when his points were weakest.

George Galloway Interview

2009-05-17T21:54:00.003+03:00

George Galloway makes a fool of himself.

Wake Up!

2009-05-14T04:55:00.005+03:00

At the start of the Shmoneh Esreh we have the following words

He ... fulfills His trust to those who sleep in the dust.

That is the common translation of the term Liyshenei Afar - to those who sleep in the dust.

If you think about it - these words are quite striking.

Dust is a humbling concept to describe man as being related to - but what of sleep? Is this the sleep that a human being cannot function without?

Perhaps it isn't. Perhaps here, with the words those who sleep in the dust, Chazal are referring to a psychological state of unawareness - a state of being without really being - and at the same time the implication is - wake up!

Share tourism revenues?

2009-04-30T21:00:00.001+03:00

From Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, at Marginal Revolution:

“In my view, it is a mistake to look for strategies that build mutual trust because it ain’t going to happen. Neither side has any reason to trust the other, for good reason,” he says. “Land for peace is an inherently flawed concept because it has a fundamental commitment problem. If I give you land on your promise of peace in the future, after you have the land, as the Israelis well know, it is very costly to take it back if you renege. You have an incentive to say, ‘You made a good step, it’s a gesture in the right direction, but I thought you were giving me more than this. I can’t give you peace just for this, it’s not enough.’ Conversely, if we have peace for land—you disarm, put down your weapons, and get rid of the threats to me and I will then give you the land—the reverse is true: I have no commitment to follow through. Once you’ve laid down your weapons, you have no threat.”

Bueno de Mesquita’s answer to this dilemma, which he discussed with the former Israeli prime minister and recently elected Labor leader Ehud Barak, is a formula that guarantees mutual incentives to cooperate. “In a peaceful world, what do the Palestinians anticipate will be their mainsource of economic viability? Tourism. This is what their own documents say. And, of course, the Israelis make a lot of money from tourism, and that revenue is very easy to track. As a starting point requiring no trust, no mutual cooperation, I would suggest that all tourist revenue be [divided by] a fixed formula based on the current population of the region, which is roughly 40 percent Palestinian, 60 percent Israeli. The money would go automatically to each side. Now, when there is violence, tourists don’t come. So the tourist revenue is automatically responsiveto the level of violence on either side for both sides. You have an accounting firm that both sides agree to, you let the U.N. do it, whatever. It’s completely self-enforcing, it requires no cooperation except the initial agreement by the Israelis that they are going to turn this part of the revenue over, on a fixed formula based on population, to some international agency, and that’s that.”

Liberate the oppressed and the oppressor

2009-04-30T10:03:00.004+03:00

There's a great post over at South Jerusalem blog, by Gershom Gorenberg discussing the author's call for Palestinian non violent struggle. The whole essay is worth reading, but here is an excerpt that stands out - a response to those who think Israelis don't have the right to tell Palestinians how to fight:

There were others who asked whether I as an Israeli had any right to suggest that Palestinians risk their lives, and quite possibly lose them, in nonviolent struggle. Richard Silverstein, for instance, raised that question, in an astoundingly sour screed at his Tikkun Olam site attacking my “fantasy” of non-violence. “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has coarsened both sides to the point that an Israeli would just as soon kill a Palestinian as look at him (and vice versa),” Silverstein wrote.

To which I have several responses: First, it seems to me that Silverstein, at great distance from real Israelis and Palestinians, is the one that has been deeply coarsened about both sides - as shown by the ease with which he assigns one mentality to all Israelis and all Palestinians. Besides that, I think that progressives are people who dare to imagine a better future and work for it, who “have a dream” - not people who mock such “fantasies.”

Parshat Tazria - Sanctity and Impurity

2009-04-27T02:07:00.002+03:00

Vayikra isn't the easiest of books to get through. It has been called Torat Cohanim, (the rules for Priests) because of the great details found in it relating to sacrificial and other priestly duties.

Parshat Tazria-Metzorah has rules that pertain to states of purity and impurity. In this discussion, Rav Aron Liechtenstein places these laws in context, saying that the Jewish approach to purity and impurity occupies the space between a nihlistic perception of the universe and one that sees purity and impurity as an inherent part of the universe's structure:

The Jewish approach in this regard differs from the two other prevalent attitudes to this issue. The magical approach claims that there are in fact forces of sanctity and impurity inherent in the world, but they are primordial, embedded within the natural order. There are demons, evil spirits and the like, but man does not and cannot bring them into existence; they emerged together with the rest of creation. The scientific approach, by contrast, maintains that no forces of sanctity or impurity exist in the world whatsoever. No object can be seen as more sacred then the next, no given place can be considered holier than the next, and no quality of impurity can be attributed to corpses or anything else. Simply put, science outright rejects all these concepts.

Judaism disputes both positions. On the one hand, it rejects the scientific approach and insists upon the existence of sacred and profane, purity and impurity. Even further, it believes in a hierarchy of levels of sanctity and purity. On the other hand, it disputes the magical approach and sees all sanctity and impurity as emanating from man, not from nature. Man creates sanctity - he writes Torah scrolls and tefillin (and only with the proper intention in mind), he designates an animal as sacred for the purposes of sacrifices, and he even infuses specific periods of time with sanctity.

The full text can be found here.

What motivates Neturei Karta's anti-Zionism?

2009-04-22T22:10:00.012+03:00

I recently watched Jonathan Hoffman debate Aron Cohen - the Neturei Karta representative notorious for standing loud and proud with Israel's worst enemies - on Iranian government controlled Press TV.

What was striking about the interview was Aron Cohen being challenged on his own turf, a message being sent to those watching, that he does not stand for Jews, he is not the proud ambassador his Iranian sponsors make him out to be.

So hats (or should I say fur hats) off to Jonathan Hoffman for challenging Aron Cohen on his own turf. Ethics of the Fathers teaches that "in a place where there is no man - be a man". Jonathan Hoffman is stepping up to the plate - he is leading the fight. We should all be grateful - and follow his lead.

But there's more going on here, the debate really got me thinking, and I wanted to try and collect some of those thoughts here:

The arguments expressed in this debate represented deeply opposing world views - and in the few minutes the participants were given - these views were not explored.

Aron Cohen became part of Neturei Karta Judaism through independent choice - he was born into a mainstream Orthodox Jewish family - and it is presumable that he was attracted to the spiritual purity that Hassidic Judaism strives for. Through their separate clothes, extreme dedication to Torah study and observance, Neturei Karta achieve what they strive for - life in a vacuum - as far away as possible from any possible hint of distraction or spiritual compromise.

Part of this religious attitude, I think, fundamentally involves resisting change and idealizing the past. For example, the fur hats (streimels) worn by Aron Cohen and other Hassidm are only recent additions to Hassidic Jewish culture. In fact, there is very little that is Jewish about these hats in their origins - and contrary to what some might say - Jews did not wear them at the splitting of the Red Sea. Originally worn by aristocratic non-Jewish Poles, these fur hats were adopted by the Hassidic communities in Eastern Europe and only recently came to be considered essential religious items in these communities.

Before I get carried away and criticize an attitude that is fundamentally backwards looking and not forwards looking, I should say that, being an Orthodox Jew, I am sympathetic to this backwards looking world-view. Passing values onto children is difficult without some kind of fondness for what was. Whether it was Psalmist remembering Zion by the rivers of Babylon, or the Hassid making sure he has the right type of fur hat, a people in exile longs for the past. When it ceases to do that, it is no longer in exile. On an individual level too, religion seeks comfort and inspiration in what is. Never mind that God reveled himself to Moses for the first time as "I will be as I will be" (Exodus 3:14 - a statement inherently dedicated to eternal evolution in the future). Many look to God for comfort. What is new, what threatens the status quo, is uncomfortable. It should be shunned.

Aron Cohen and Neturei Karta's attitude to Zionism should be seen through this lens. Zionism represents a breaking with the past, a refusal to accept historical fate and an attempt to shape a destiny through human action. This emphasis on human action is the polar opposite emphasis of what is Neturei Karta's focus - inertia accompanied by blind faith. This is why they can't stand Zionists.

So Aron Cohen would be right if he said that he represents an Orthodox Jewish world-view. He certainly does. But he actually represents one particular form of an Orthodox Jewish view, and one that is certainly not exclusively Jewish - it can be found all over the place - certainly in Islam and Christianity.

So the claim to represent the only Orthodox Jewish world-view needs to be exposed for what it is - elitist and misguided. He needs to accept that not all Orthodoxies are backwards looking, and that change does not necessarily mean loss.

Apparently he refuses to travel to Israel, but if he did I would be happy to take my cousin on a tour of the country's Hesder seminaries, institutions designed to allow male soldiers to combine Torah study with their compulsory military service. These boys have a love for Torah study he would want for his own grandchildren, but by refusing to come here - he refuses to acknowledge this. There are plenty of other examples of Orthodox Jewish Zionism that refute Aron Cohen's claim to be the only Orthodox Jewish world view. But I will leave him with one thought, if he is reading, which I hope he is.

When the Jews left Egypt they found themselves in a difficult situation. Up ahead was a sea - right behind them was an Egyptian army going for the kill. Moses prayed. And what did God say?

Why do you cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to go forwards! (Exodus 14:16)

The miracle at the Red Sea happened after human effort.

The holocaust - in which Aron Cohen and I lost family members - is the most recent historically relevant event to the Exodus story. Zionism, which was a response to the antisemitism that was to cause that tragedy, is a human effort that echoes Exodus 14:16.

10am, Jerusalem, Yom Hashoah

2009-04-21T10:46:00.003+03:00

The sirens sounded at 10 am today across the city.

It was haunting.

Cars and buses stopped, people stood.

I looked around.

I don't know these people, but I know they are my people, and we share history and (I hope) destiny.

Three buses stood still, at a green light. The driver and his one passenger, in the bus nearest to me, just standing.

Not surreal - very, very real.

This is Israel.

These are my people.

Palestinian children sing for Holocaust survivors

2009-03-28T20:20:00.003+03:00

Strings for Peace, youth orchestra from Jenin refugee camp, gives a touching musical performance for Holocaust survivors in Israeli town Holon as part of Good Deeds Day.

Update - PA Dismantles W. Bank youth orchestra

Free Choice and the Tree of Knowledge

2009-03-23T21:27:00.003+02:00

Leon Kass makes an interesting comment on the prohibition (in Genesis 3) of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad:

Every act of uninstructed free choice, the text seems to intimate, is an implicitly prideful act, presupposing as it does the possession of knowledge of what is good for a human being. Every act of choice implicitly expresses a judgment of good and bad, better and worse. Every act of choice presupposes that the human agent knows - or thinks he knows - what is good for him (or someone else), on which basis he chooses accordingly. On this interpretation of the text, the fact that God wants to keep man from the tree of knowledge of good and bad suggests that He wants man to remain an innocent, contented and unself-divided being who follows instinctively the path to his natural good. Or better, reading morally rather than historically, through God's command about the tree the text teaches the reader that it is his own freedom - and its implicitly yet necessarily disobedient character - that is the cause of all human troubles.

Palestino, 6 Euro

2009-03-18T21:41:00.002+02:00

You can now show your solidarity in pink and lime. Keffiyah scarves, 6 Euros.

The Rabbi and the Taxi Driver

2009-03-04T10:22:00.002+02:00

A classic Jewish story: a learned rabbi and a taxi driver depart this world at the same time and arrive together at the gates of heaven. The angel at the gate signals to the taxi driver to enter, then turns to the rabbi and sadly shakes his head. "What is this?" asks the rabbi. "I am a learned rabbi and he is only a taxi driver who, not to put too fine a point on it, drove like a lunatic." "Exactly so," replies the angel. "When you spoke, people slept. But when they got into his taxi, believe me, they prayed!"

from the Chief Rabbi's weekly email.

"What does God want you to do?"

2009-03-02T00:56:00.005+02:00

We recently spent Shabbat my ultra Orthodox sister in law and her husband. I had been looking forwards to discussing a situation that arose about 10 years ago in London: On the way home from shul on Shabat morning, I was asked to help push a car to side of the road. I was faced with the dilema of either breaking Shabbat by helping push the car, or not breaking Shabbat by refusing to help push the car.

The initial response was "don't break Shabat to help the guy out". But when I pointed out that helping out your fellow man while he is struggling is also a Mitzvah the difficulty of the situation was acknowledged.

Actually, the difficulty of the situation was summed up brilliantly with words I hope will stay with me forever. My wife's brother in law said: "What does God want you to do?"

What does God want you to do?

It's a crazy question. Or maybe its not so crazy, maybe it is simply the question. The same one that lies behind the thousands of pages of Talmud that we have in our tradition. Debates about what God wants from us.

I thought about it long and hard. (Ok, with a 20 month old, anything over an hour is long and hard).

What does God want me to do?

Its a tough one. Shabbat is so important in Judaism. But to ignore a man in trouble? For me, I can't really say I have full confidence that I made the right decision, on that day, to refuse to offer my help. Next time, I think that I might try and muster the courage to help.

But that question still lingered in my mind. It was brilliant, so deep, relevant to so much more than just one situation.

What does God want me to do?

Learn a lot of Torah.
Make movies.
Raise a family.
Set up a business and employ people in Israel.

These were all good attempts, contained a grain of truth in them. But I didn't feel satisfied. I was looking for something deeper, something below the surface, something that joins all these together. And then I had my mini-revelation. If it wasn't prophecy, then at least it was exciting.

God's wants what is best for me.

Is that obvious? I don't know. It wasn't to me. But the more I've thought about it, the more it makes sense. If my religious experience can indeed be described as reaching out to God, the elusive "Face of the Other" (as Levinas so eloquently describes God), reaching out and trying to understand what is desired of me, then what could be desired of me - by a loving God - more than what is for me? Sounds selfish? Well, maybe it is. But if I think that what is desired of me - by a loving God - is what is for me, it follows that what is desired of all others - by a loving God - is what is for them. So not so selfish!

In short, God wants what is best for us.

I guess that is the easy part. The hard part is trying to figure out what is actually best for us. And that is a question that permeates every field of human activity. Law, science, government, ethics, religion. Wisdom.

And Proverbs 1:7 comes to mind:

"Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom".

Glorious Rain!

2009-03-01T13:53:00.003+02:00

Although our ceiling has been enjoying the drought this winter - for the second weekend straight we've been trapped indoors because of the downpours!

But we're not supposed to rely on miracles.

So here's an article about boosting water supply in Israel by desalinating water from the ocean and deepening freshwater ground reserves.

Leo Strauss on Assimilation

2009-02-24T23:53:00.003+02:00

I really like this quote from Leo Strauss z"l on assimilation:

Assimilation proved to require internal enslavement as the price for external freedom. Or, to put it somewhat differently, assimilationism seemed to land the Jews into the bog of philistinism - of shallow satisfaction with the most unsatisfactory present - a most inglorious end for a people which had been led out of the house of bondage into the desert with careful avoidance of the land of the Philistines. To quote the words of the Torah (Exodus 13,17): When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though it was near. It is always near.

Progress or Return? Jewish Philosophy and Modernity, Essays in Modern Jewish Thought
here.

Oh Chomsky, enough!

2009-02-16T21:13:00.004+02:00

Noam Chomsky says

any people, even knowing little about the matter, were revolted by the savage cruelty and cowardice of the IDF, brutally attacking defenseless people locked in a cage.

Cowardice. Don't make me laugh! What would he call Hamas fighters hiding in hospitals and firing rockets from press buildings?

At least he does admit that most of those revolted by Israel's "savage cruelty" in Gaza, were also those knowing little about the matter.

Indeed.

An interview with Khaled Abu Toameh

2009-02-15T22:15:00.003+02:00

There's a fascinating interview with Khaled Abu Toameh over at Michael J. Totten's blog. An excerpt:

Max Boot, Council on Foreign Relations: What about the Israeli expectation that with these attacks they will have established deterrence against Hamas? Do you think that's true?

Khaled Abu Toameh: Yes. Yes. Look. The West Bank was quiet during the attack in Gaza. Now, I was talking to many people. You know what they were saying? And this is the funny part. “You know what?” they said. “The Jews have gone mad. This is not the time to mess around with them.” And, you know, when you hear this from the man on the street, it really does create deterrence. I would rather see deterrence created in another way, but there is this perception on the Arab street today that the Jews have gone crazy, there are no more red lines, nothing, they don't care, and we should be careful. So in that sense, yes, there is some kind of deterrence, for the short term at least.

Before this war, four days before the war, I interviewed a number of Hamas guys. I published it in the Jerusalem Post. And the headline was Hamas Mocks Israel's Nonresponse to Qassam Attacks. What were they saying, the Hamas leaders? Basically that the Jews are cowards.

They think Israel ran away from Lebanon, that Hezbollah defeated them. They thought the Jews were scared and would not come into Gaza. They were really confident that Israel wouldn't fight back. Really. They were. They thought at most that Israel would send a few tanks into open fields just to calm Israeli public opinion. So the response really caught them by surprise, especially the first day.

So yes, there is this perception today in the Arab world that our neighbor has gone mad.

Robert Fisk and the Israeli "Genocide"

2009-02-14T21:29:00.006+02:00

Robert Fisk is accused of consistently trivializing Palestinian suffering by pointing out that queues at check points in the West Bank are not the same thing as queues at the selection ramp at Auschwitz.

I was especially taking exception to a Palestinian blog now going the rounds which shows a queue of Palestinian women at one of Israel's outrageous roadblocks and a (slightly) cropped picture of the Auschwitz selection ramp, the same platform upon which Leon Greenman was separated from his young wife and child more than 60 years ago. The picture of the Palestinian women is based on a lie; they are not queuing to be exterminated. Racist, inhumane and, sometimes deadly – Palestinian women have died at these infernal checkpoints – but they are not queuing to be murdered.

I've written to Robert Fisk twice, both times to complain.

The first time I suggested that he was too scared (living in Lebanon) to condemn Hezbollah's initiation of a war that brought disaster again to the country. The second time I asked him to start paying attention to Israeli, and not just Palestinian outrage.

He didn't respond.

Robert Fisk is not a friend of Israel - his articles are totally biased. They reserves their most bitter condemnations for Arab suffering caused by Israel, and use a totally different language and tone to describe Arab suffering caused by Arabs.

But I will also say this: Robert Fisk knows what genocide is and what it isn't. And he has stood firm in distancing himself from those who use the term to describe Israel's wars.

Israel Beitenu's rise to power

2009-02-12T11:38:00.013+02:00

What to make of Israel Beitenu's rise to power in this last election?

Their most controversial election platform was the suggestion that all Israeli citizen's, Arabs should take a loyalty test. In their own words:

Israel Beiteinu does not ask Israeli-Arabs to renounce their Arab identity. However, it does ask that they recognize this country as a Jewish state. If they wish to live here as citizens with full rights and benefits, they must contribute to its success and not apply their efforts toward its destruction.

Jonathan Freedland didn't like it, and asked several members of the party

if they could name a single democracy anywhere that had removed citizenship from those who already had it. I asked what they would make of demanding that, say, British Jews, swear an oath of loyalty to Britain as a Christian country on pain of losing their right to vote.

They are interesting questions - but not entirely fair.

For starters, there a plenty of cases of discrimination against ethnic minorities who reside in a society which their home country is at war with. Japanese farmers in America had their land confiscated in WW2, loyal or not. Is it far fetched to say that Germans demonstrating proudly in support of the Third Reich during the blitz would have got treated any better in Britain? I doubt it. And to be honest, I don't think I would have a problem being asked to display some form of loyalty to Britain as a Christian country, so long as my rights (including religious rights as a Jew) remained secure. Asking the Jews to display loyalty on pain of losing their right to vote would be be justified if the Jews were out there offending most British people's sensibilities during times of war.

Do these examples mean discrimination is OK? Of course not. But an article asking Israel "to take a long look at itself" should at least have made the point that after 60 years of living as an ethnic minority in Israel, the country's Arabs are becoming increasingly radicalized. It is no secret that when Israeli Arabs voice open support for enemies of Israel, they are perceived by most Israeli Jews as a fifth column. His article doesn't mention that.

I don't like Lieberman's politics. I despise the way he responds to Arab politicians and I don't feel proud to see him as a leader here. But as a Likud voting friend of mine recently pointed out, Lieberman is only saying what most Israelis want to hear. Haim Watzman puts it well:

The great majority of people who voted for Lieberman are not ideologues. They voted him not because of his political philosophy, but because he knows how to appeal to their most basic fears. Lieberman’s voters are scared stiff—they fear war and terror, they fear Muslims and Arabs, and they have felt horribly insecure under a government that has talked a lot about peace agreements but which has actually led the country into two wars.

and he continues

The best friends of totalitarianism, whether of the right or the left, are fear and instability. When people fear for their lives and don’t know whether they’ll have a job tomorrow, they grasp at what straws they can, and a glib populist can exploit them.

I do think Lieberman is a glib populist. He is, as Freedland points out, a Moldovan immigrant telling a native Palestinian what to do. I also think a sizeable portion of Israeli Jews (including myself) would refuse to take the oath, on grounds that it is the wrong way to deal with the problem. There has always been an unspoken understanding for Arab feelings towards the Jewish State - that's why Israeli Arabs are not required to serve in the army or perform national service when they reach 18, like Israeli Jews are. But these last few years have seen an increasingly emboldened Israeli Arab electorate behave in increasingly threatening manner towards Israeli Jews. Israel Beitenu is the unfortunate response.

Seven Jewish Children

2009-02-11T21:38:00.003+02:00

Caryl Churchill's new play expresses outrage at Israel's recent actions in Gaza. The play centers around the lies children growing up in Israel in the last 60 years have been told by their parents. A few excerpts:

Tell her we won

Tell her her brother’s a hero

Tell her how the tanks rolled in

Tell her how big their armies are

Tell her we turned them back

Tell her we’re fighters

Tell her we’ve got new land

Tell her it’s our water, we have the right

Tell her it’s not the water for their fields

…

Don’t tell her not to look at the bulldozer

Don’t tell her it was knocking the house down

Tell her it’s a building site

...

Tell her the Hamas fighters have been killed

Tell her they’re terrorists

Tell her they’re filth

….

Tell her we killed the babies by mistake

Don’t tell her anything about the army

So I was about to get angry.

Then I read this gem from Jonathan Hoffman at Harry's Place:

If you should meet Caryl Churchill (maybe at meetings of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign where she is a Patron) please tell her that she has written a play which reinforces false stereotypes and demonises Israelis. Tell her there is a vibrant press in Israel where all opinions can be found and freely expressed. Tell her that Israelis are not the heartless, murderous triumphalists that she portrays. Tell her that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, removing military bases and its citizens from Gush Katif but nevertheless continuing to provide Gazans with electricity, water, and goods. Tell her how workers at the power plant in Ashdod risked injury or even death from the rockets which were being fired from Gaza — the place where they were supplying electricity. Tell her that Israeli parents tell their children the truth and therefore do not teach them that Palestinians are subhuman and to be hated. Tell her that it’s antisemitic to use the phrase “chosen people” to imply that Jews believe they are superior to non-Jews (tell her the phrase involves responsibilities as well as blessings).

But the trouble is, she probably knows all that.

So tell her then that there’s a nice job waiting for her at PressTV.

Truth discovered and Truth inherited

2009-02-11T14:15:00.003+02:00

From the Chief Rabbi:

wisdom is the truth we discover, by reason, observation and experience. Torah is the truth we inherit. Revealed at Sinai, it has been handed on from generation to generation. Wisdom teaches us facts; Torah teaches us laws. Wisdom tells us how the world is; Torah tells us how it ought to be.

here.

The Likud, bro

2009-02-10T20:56:00.009+02:00

I only noticed towards the end of this election campaign that the Likud party has been marketing itself as Ha Likud-Achi, which loosely translates as "the Likud, bro" (achi in Hebrew means brother). I've been torn between Meimad-Greens and the Likud, leaning towards the Meimad-Greens, but when I saw that "achi" stuck on the end of the name of the party that Menachem Begin once led, I felt put off.

Discussing a party's marketing techniques isn't as shallow as one might think. We choose our leaders because we feel they represent us, and we want to feel proud of them. Call me an arrogant Ashkenazi, but I don't like being called achi by people I don't know. I don't care if its my taxi driver, shopkeeper or dentist, I'm not your brother when I'm paying you or voting for you.

OK so my friend (and one follower of this blog) Avram is going to lay into me for this, so for the record, he can call me achi. (If he wants to now).

In voting Meimad-Greens, I am hoping that those issues that come up in the next few years, (which I may not even be aware of), will be considered by people I feel I identify with. Rabbi Melchior has "marketed" a Judaism I like. It's tolerant, ethics based, and closer to the world view I have than the other religious parties. I hope it was worth giving him my vote.

The Meimad-Green party

2009-02-06T13:34:00.002+02:00

I've been trying to understand what exactly Rabbi Melchior's party will be standing for in this upcoming election in Israel. I found this:

The Meimad-Green party is the only party that has a deep and clear integration of Judaism, social-democratic priorities and ecological responsibility. Until today, we are used to seeing Judaism as something that divides and separates the political map. The Green Movement-Meimad turns Judaism into a unifying element, a foundation on which to build a society with social and ecological responsibility. A party like this in Knesset will support the growing movement of Judaism and social justice, will represent the movement in Knesset, and will eventually replace the ideological vacuum represented by the larger parties.

here.

Light and Dark

2009-02-05T03:05:00.004+02:00

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided between the light and the darkness

God can divide between
The light and the dark seen
And be above both

But man must choose
To win or to lose
And be only one

Here we go (again)

2009-02-01T00:33:00.000+02:00

An armed group vandalized Caracas' oldest synagogue, shattering religious objects and spray-painting walls with the words 'Jews, get out.'

article

Biblical debt jubilee may be the only answer

2009-01-27T12:14:00.002+02:00

I thought this was really interesting - from the Daily Telegraph:

In the end, the only way out of all this global debt may prove to be a Biblical debt jubilee

article here.

Needed: A Miracle in Gaza

2009-01-11T22:34:00.006+02:00

This morning, as I recited the Shirat Hayam (the Song of the Sea), I marveled at how the story describes the waters parting for the Israelites and then closing in again on the Egyptians:

The best of Pharaoh's officers are drowned in the Red Sea. The deep waters have covered them; they sank to the depths like a stone. (Exodus 15)

Israel survives, its enemies perish, and - with today's Gaza war in mind - only its enemies perish.

How desperately we need a miracle like that now.

There is a midrash that asks - Why did God put Israel in a situation where they were being chased by an army from behind them, and faced a sea in front of them? It answers simply - so that they would pray. Perhaps, in these tough times, Shirat Hayam can be that prayer.

Rav Mickey Rosen z"l: The Quest for Authenticity

2009-01-02T11:09:00.003+02:00

I often daven on Friday nights at Yakar, and I have not mentioned the passing of Rav Mickey Rosen z"l, the Rav of the shul. It might be best for me to mention Rav Rosen's z"l book, about chasidut - The Quest for Authenticity: The Thought of Reb Simhah Bunim. I bought it for my dad erev Yom Kippur and only gave it to him Neilah time so I had a good chance to browse through it. Suffice to say that I think it will become considered required reading. Although I can't say that I knew Rav Rosen z"l personally, I do remember his glowing face the Friday night of the week the book went to market. I believe it was deeply personal for him, and a major accomplishment, and perhaps we should be thankful that he accomplished it in his lifetime.

The Value of Time

2009-01-01T00:47:00.001+02:00

He who knows the value of time always has enough; not being able to lengthen it, he intensifies its value; and first of all, he does nothing to shorten it.

- A.G. Sertillanges, O.P.

Iran's Jews and Gaza

2008-12-30T17:52:00.003+02:00

Iranian Jews, in what looks like a display of loyalty to the country's Islamic majority, demonstrated against Israeli attacks in Gaza. If they are scared at the moment, who could blame them? (courtesy of the Huffington Post). Perhaps it is worthwhile to point out, that Israeli Arabs are confident enough not to feel the need to display their loyalty to the Jewish majority.

Animals and Prayer

2008-12-28T22:10:00.004+02:00

An odd post for an odd verse: In the longest discussion between man and God in the Bible, Job is asked rhetorically about animals and prayer:

Who provides food for the raven, when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food? - Job 38:41

The implied answer is, of course, God. But it's highly unusual to hear animals spoken about in terms of prayer, perhaps even more so in the Bible!

I do wonder whether the point of ascribing to animals a supposedly human action (perhaps the human action) is to equate human suffering and animal suffering from God's perspective. In other words, surely God cares about all His creations.

On a lighter note, I am reminded of the howling dog in John Steinbeck's The Moon is Down:

down toward one end of the village, among the small houses, a dog complained about the cold and the loneliness. He raised his nose to his god and gave a long and fulsome account of the state of the world as it applied to him.

Perhaps prayer is more natural than we think?

Not by bread alone...

2008-12-28T00:25:00.004+02:00

From Leon Kass:

It seems like only yesterday that the Enlightenment overthrew the rule of religious orthodoxy, promising an earthly paradise of human fulfillment based solely on scientific reason. Yet today, the enlightened children of skeptics are discovering for themselves that man does not live -- or live well -- by bread alone, not even by bread and circuses, and that science's account of human life and the world is neither adequate to the subject nor satisfying to the longings of the soul.

here.

Gaza

2008-12-27T21:14:00.003+02:00

David Horovitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post:

We are now going to find out whether those lessons from 2006 - on military preparation, on the need for effective military-political coordination, on operating in an immensely complex regional and global context, and on setting realistic goals for the use of military force - were indeed well learned.

here.

Chanuka 5769

2008-12-24T20:45:00.012+02:00

My friend Calev asks what the lesson of Chanuka's military victory is for us today:

for every Judah the Maccabee who fought against all odds and successfully freed his people from an occupying empire (Greece), there is a Bar-Kokhba whose revolt against an occupying empire (Rome) ended in defeat and mass slaughter and expulsion

Although the Maccabee/Bar Kochba question remains open, Chanuka's significance is important - and perhaps is not as ambiguous as one might think. Implicit in the Al Hanisim prayer's lack of military emphasis is Chazal's reluctance to celebrate warfare. Their shift away from a military emphasis towards a spiritual one sends out the message of Chanukah - power without purpose leads nowhere.

Joseph's Dream and Psalm 126

2008-12-20T22:47:00.004+02:00

we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves came round about, and bowed down to my sheaf

My friend Alex recently pointed out that there are only two places in the Bible where the Hebrew word Aluma (sheave) is used. The first time is in Joseph's first dream (Genesis 37:7) and the second time is Psalms (126:6).

I love textual parallels, and I wonder if this one is significant. Joseph's life is perhaps the classic story of holding onto faith. Betrayed by his brothers, jailed by his master, Joseph rises to win Pharaoh's trust and becomes his most powerful advisor. Then, in Genesis 45:8, during an emotional reunion with his brothers, he tells them not to fear his retribution because

it was not you that sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

At a moment where Joseph could be forgiven for feeling at least some animosity towards those same brothers who sold him into slavery, he reassures them: God did this, not you. God's hand was in my life, from the very start to the present.

This is a deep faith.

Perhaps this is also the faith echoed in Psalm 126, that other reference to sheaves. Here, we sing

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Though he goes on his way weeping carrying the seed bag, he shall come home with joy, bearing his sheaves.

I cannot help wonder - did the Psalmist have Joseph's faith in mind?

Biblical Criticism and Yirat Shamayim

2008-12-14T11:17:00.006+02:00

Rav Moshe Liechtenstein argues that we should study Tanach not as a source of faith but rather because of faith:

At its root, the issue is not unique to Biblical Criticism; rather, it is part of the broader subject of faith and science that has engaged religious philosophy over the past millennium, since the essence of the issue pits the analytical findings of the human intellect against the plain meaning of the Scriptural text. This leaves us with three options: (1) accepting the findings of science and rejecting the plain meaning of the revealed text, either by denial of the text’s authority or by reinterpretation of its meaning, (2) holding on to the literal meaning of the text and rejecting scientific knowledge as the product of fallible human reason, or (3) attempting to find middle ground, in which part of the scientific finding is recognized and integrated into the textual meaning while other portions are denied. In theory, yirat shamayim can accommodate all three of these alternatives, although the first only by a radical redefining of many basic tenets and texts. Therefore, the traditional approach has been to choose the second or third options in varying degrees. Thus, even though the classic sources relate mainly to natural science and not to Biblical Criticism, which is a more recent phenomenon, the basic methodology is applicable in the case of Biblical Criticism and biblical archaeology as well. However, since Biblical Criticism is not a natural science, the prevailing tendency has certainly been the third approach that declines any acceptance of critical theories.

A radical break with this tradition was initiated by R. Mordechai Breuer who established a method of interpretation that is based upon adoption of the first alternative regarding Biblical Criticism. The method is predicated upon the assumption that the textual conclusions of Biblical Criticism are accurate and their findings indisputable, so that intellectual honesty requires us to validate them. The religious challenge, therefore, is not to deny the textual claims but to provide them with a metaphysical framework that is compatible with an Orthodox viewpoint. R. Breuer’s approach figured prominently in a previous Orthodox Forum, whose papers have subsequently been published, there is not much point, therefore, in entering into a lengthy discussion of it here, despite its relevance for our topic. However, the discussions of that forum focused upon the theological implications of the method and did not relate to the educational aspects of it. These, though, are a crucial element for any evaluation of his Shitat Habechinot and its relationship to yirat shamayim.

The inherent dangers of contact with Biblical Criticism and the attempt to integrate it into an Orthodox framework from an experiential point of view are of a dual nature. The first is a function of its content. Aside from the dilemma of adopting (or adapting) interpretations that were arrived at by a method whose implicit metaphysical axioms are foreign to any God-fearing outlook and the concern that these principles may unknowingly be the motivating force that underlies the suggested interpretation – which was the subject of the previous forum – there is the additional problem of the slippery slope. Exposure to a body of work that is academically impressive but whose theological premises are in contradiction to yirat shamayim may cause a student to go beyond R. Breuer’s policy of accepting the details and rejecting the framework and induce him to accept the metaphysical structure as well. Essentially, such a person accepts the premise of R. Breuer’s critics that the interpretations and metaphysics are inseparable, only like R. Breuer and unlike his critics, he is so convinced of the interpretations that he does not have the option of rejecting them. Therefore, he has no choice but to redefine his beliefs. Even if this is sincerely done out of deep religious motivation, the result will be a system of belief totally incompatible with traditional Orthodoxy. R. Breuer himself brought attention to this phenomenon in a very poignant piece that he wrote in Megadim a few years ago.

The additional risk of this method is the emotional aspect. The constant contact with texts and/or people that treat Tanakh as an ancient piquant text lacking divine authority can have a corrosive influence. If the intellectual framework of reference is an academic milieu that treats Torah as fodder for deconstruction, then there is an existential price that is often exacted. The sense of awe, dignity, and reverence that we feel towards Torah as d’var HaShem is readily compromised in the soul if critical concepts become routine and cease to jar the ears. References to “the Biblical narrator” or other similar phrases that convey a detached academic aloofness and the loss of intimacy and varmkeit that must accompany the study of Tanakh are not worth any intellectual gains that may have been gotten by exposure to such materials. To employ a metaphor, if a person has to choose between knowing more about his father or mother, but at the price that the additional understanding will come at the expense of the warmness and intimacy, isn’t it self evident that it’s better to know less and feel more rather than vice versa?

This brings us to the heart of the issue of Tanakh and yirat shamayim. To paraphrase John Henry Newman’s remark about God and Nature, we do not believe in God because of the Tanakh, rather we accept the Tanakh because of our belief in Him.

Thanks to Hirhurim for the heads up. Article here.

Rabbi Emanuel Rackman z"tl

2008-12-11T14:51:00.006+02:00

In a tribute to Rabbi Emanuel Rackman z"tl, Rabbi Michael Broyde ends with four lessons he learnt from his teacher:

(1) Jewish law is a truth seeking venture which must live by the currency of logic and analysis, always living in the present and being driven by the data, both Talmudic and scientific.

(2) Ethical people live lives of compassion with the understanding that life is more complex in fact than in theory and are ready to recognize that sometimes people are frailand in need of help. Ethical people are measured by how they show compassion to the weak.

(3) Hard work is extremely important. Torah comes to those who work hard to acquire it, and virtually no one is a natural master of Torah. Regular and intense learning is imperative in being a torah scholar.

(4) Never be too sure of yourself and listen closely to the voices of the wise people around you. Rabbi Rackman once remarked to me that “everyone really needs a mentor, since a mentor serves the purpose of checking that one is not egregiously in error.

(Many thanks to Menachem Yoel Butler for the reference. The full article can be found at Hirhurim, here.)

Judaism is not "the opium of the people"

2008-12-11T00:39:00.003+02:00

From the Chief Rabbi:

Judaism is not an escape from the world but an engagement with the world. It is not "the opium of the people," as Karl Marx once called religion. It does not anaesthetise us to the pains and apparent injustices of life. It does not reconcile us to suffering. It asks us to play our part in the most daunting undertaking ever asked by G-d of mankind: to construct relationships, communities, and ultimately a society, that will become homes for the Divine presence. And that means wrestling with G-d and with men and refusing to give up or despair.

More here.

Isaiah 43:9

2008-12-09T21:46:00.002+02:00

I just happened to notice that there are different versions of Isaiah 43:9.

The American King James Bible:

Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and show us former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or let them hear, and say, It is truth.

The Douay-Rheims Bible:

All the nations are assembled together, and the tribes are gathered: who among you can declare this, and shall make us hear the former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, let them be justified, and hear, and say: It is truth.

More complete set of translations here.

Henry Townsend and Rabbi Akiva

2008-12-06T20:31:00.010+02:00

Henry Townsend is a black slave turned slave master in Edward Jones' novel - The Known World. It's unusual for a black man to be free in America in the 1800's, let alone be an owner of slaves. In his penultimate moment, Henry is disappointed to find himself deceived, renting, uncomfortable and denied an opportunity to share feelings with his wife. It is a moment of realization - a final reckoning of sorts: His idealization of ownership of land and slaves have led him to an unexpected place.

What is one to make of Edward Jones' description of Henry's death? With Henry's life accounted for in a single disturbing moment, I am reminded of Rabbi Akiva's teaching in Pirkei Avot, 3:20 -

"...the judgment is a judgment of truth. And everything is prepared for the BANQUET."

What 'banquet' was Rabbi Akiva reffering to? I have always understood it as referring to a final reckoning, a moment where the forces that dominated a person's life are examined by truth itself. A moment, much like Henry Townsend's, where falsehood, if it is there, is exposed.

London

2008-12-01T16:00:00.003+02:00

Here I am in London, the rain tapping against the window of a room overlooking nowhere in particular. You know you’re no longer a kid when a cab driver old enough to be your grandfather speaks to you like you’re his boss. Sitting next to an old, rather chatty judge on the plane, I got a glimpse at a liberal-English Jewish world view. “Civil rights for women and um, Palestinians” he explained. How different the world sees Israel to the way it sees itself. I sat humbly next to him. Maybe ten years ago I would have taken the endless road to nowhere and tried to change his view. Explain how right we are. But we’re not “right”, we are just scared. It is all about fear. Fear of a Mumbai in one of our cities. “I’m against torture” he said. "That Guantanamo Bay is a disgrace". I agreed. But torture? What if on September 10th …..? He conceded that was a tough situation. Of course, he is right. It is a tough situation. And we go on.

Is there a balance to be struck? Can we only torture bad guys? Can we only occupy terrorists?

Needed: Seperation of Shul and State

2008-11-09T17:15:00.005+02:00

We have a yearly list of Shabat times hanging on our fridge. We don't use it, there's a better online service here, but as I was doing something irrelevant in the kitchen, I took a closer look at this laminated blue sheet. In the top right hand corner of this page is the symbol of the Jerusalem municipality. They seem to have used taxpayers money to create and distribute this leaflet. I can't help but find that disturbing. \

Lech Lecha: Go To Your Self

2008-11-05T10:56:00.006+02:00

The Ishbitzer explains Abraham's journey as one away from material pleasures of this world and into himself, where he could seek the "source of his life" or in other words, God. Interestingly, he doesn't shun materialistic pleasures, only points out that they are there to alleviate worry and allow us to pursue this higher goal.

In trying to understand how the Ishbitzer reads the story, it's interesting to note that two of the promises that are given to Abraham ("I will make you into a great nation; I will make your name great") address the comforts that Abraham is told to leave behind him: becoming a great nation consoles him for having left his country and his people; making his name great consoles him for having left his father's house. God seems to be saying to Abraham, if you start this journey, I will take care of the things you are leaving behind.

In emphasizing Abraham's search for the truth that was inside him (go to your self), there is a message: God's blessing comes to those who seek out what is true.

Moses:	the world was created de novo and entirely ex nihilo.
Plato:	the world was created de novo from a preexisting material substrate.
Aristotle:	the world is eternal and its existence is best understood as eternal information of matter.