The (Almost) Daily Jeff Report: Rabbi Jeff Salkin's Blog

Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin is the director and rabbi of Kol Echad: Making Judaism Matter. He is a well known author and teacher in the Jewish world. His many books on Jewish spirituality have been published by Jewish Lights Publishing.

I am precisely mid-way through Mitch Albom's new book, Have A Little Faith. Mitch Albom first jumped into national prominence with his memoir of his dying professor, Tuesdays With Morrie. Now, Albom takes on a different relationship with a different teacher: his childhood rabbi, Rabbi Albert Lewis, of blessed memory, a noted Conservative rabbi from Haddon Heights, New Jersey.

June 22, 2010 -- Thank You, Elton John!

I recall a line from a poem, written about a hundred years ago by the Hebrew poet Zalman Shneur: “Behold, the Middle Ages are approaching!” It sometimes seems that way, especially when you survey recent events in the Jewish world. Anti-semitism, disguised as anti-Israel sentiment, is revealed to be a new form of moral herpes; once the world gets it, it is always there, either visible or just below the surface.

The bad news of the week: Yesterday, activists refused to allow the contents of a Zim cargo liner to be unloaded — in the port of Oakland, California, no less. We are living in the middle of the rock and roll intifadda, in which various popular artists like Elvis Costello (whose music remains on my Ipod, for reasons that I cannot quite discern) and other rock groups that I have never heard of, have decided not to play concerts in Israel. Let’s hear it for Elton John, who stood up to his colleagues and played a sold-out concert in Tel Aviv. (Idea: let’s start a campaign to publicly thank recording artists who play in Israel, by buying their music en masse on Itunes).

Meanwhile, if you somehow missed it, this essay by Shelby Steele, one of America’s foremost black intellectuals, deserves serious reading.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575311011923686570.html

 

June 10, 2010 -- Farewell to A Doubting Thomas

Ouch. Sorry for that double entendre. But nowhere near as sorry as Helen Thomas must be at this moment. 

I'm referring, of course, to the sudden retirement of Helen Thomas, the elder stateswoman of White House correspondents who was most recently a columnist for Hearst newspapers. She was taped saying that Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go back to Germany, Poland or the United States. Her lack of understanding of Jewish history and of Israeli history is astounding. Her apology was insufficient to the task. President Obama, speaking on The Today Show this morning, agreed that her comments were "offensive." 

You certainly can find links to the video of her offensive remarks. They served as icing on a very bitter cake that the Jewish people has had to eat ever since last week's flotilla operation. It has been a very bad week for the Jews, and Helen Thomas made matters far worse. 

But, a few small insights into what happened. 

First, there were (thankfully) relatively very few public comments about how we should forgive Ms. Thomas because of her advanced age (she is 89), and very few speculations about her health and/or her ability to discern the real impact of her remarks. I was ready for an onslaught of those comments, and they have not appeared. The lack of speculation over the medical or gerontological etiology of her hatred is refreshing. It shows that the American public knows the difference between criticism of Israel's policies (which is every Jew's and every Israeli's favorite aerobic sport) and the destructive denial of the Jewish State. 

Second, there are those who say that she had the right to express her opinion. Of course she had the right to express her opinion. But it is not incumbent upon anyone to respect the opinion that people have the right to express. Let's not confuse rights with wisdom. 

Third, you really have to smile at the origin of all this. It started with a Conservative rabbi from Long Island who was at the White House Jewish heritage celebration and poked a small video camera, which must have cost him at most $200 at Best Buy or whatever, into Ms. Thomas's face. At which point, she opened her mouth and closed her career. And why did it take so long for this news to become public? Because the rabbi's teenage son had to complete his finals before he could upload the video onto his father's web site! 

This was not the work of an investigative reporter, or a professional journalist, or an expert in anti-semite detection. It was just ordinary people. A rabbi with an inexpensive video camera and a techie teenage son brought down Helen Thomas. 
It is sad that Ms. Thomas chose (I emphasize chose) to end her career in this way.

But it was, alas, her choice. 

But as for the way it happened -- never doubt the ability of ordinary people, using every day devices, to make a huge difference in the world.

June 2, 2010 -- Who Is Eyeless in Gaza?

As you all know, Memorial Day was marked by a deeply troubling incident off the Gaza coast -- an incident with tremendous implications for all of us as Jews and as Americans. Six ships, ostensibly carrying humanitarian supplies, attempted to break Israel's naval security blockade and to enter the port of Gaza. The IDF was forced to intercept those ships, despite numerous Israeli requests that they not enter.The Israel Navy requested the ships to redirect toward Ashdod, where they would be able to unload their cargo, which would then be transferred to Gaza over land after undergoing security inspections. The activists were carrying 10,000 tons of reported aid to Gaza. Israel provides 15,000 tons of aid weekly to Gaza. Aid convoys are already on the way to Gaza from Ashdod after being offloaded from the flotilla. 

Five of the six ships agreed to such terms; the sixth, tragically, did not. During the interception of the ships, the demonstrators onboard attacked the IDF naval personnel with live gunfire as well as light weaponry including knives, crowbars and clubs. The demonstrators had clearly prepared weapons in advance for this specific purpose. For a video of their attack -- http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/05/31/close-up_footage_of_flotilla_passengers_attacking_israeli_soldiers.html. Israeli soldiers were in danger of being lynched; some were thrown off the ship into the sea. The IDF responded, but only after a great deal of provocation. According to initial reports, these events resulted in over 10 deaths among the demonstrators and numerous injured.

The loss of life is tragic. Worse than tragic -- it was entirely unnecessary and politically-motivated. The "peace organization" on the ship, IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation (The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief, according to Henri Barkey, an analyst for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is "an Islamist organisation as it has been deeply involved with Hamas for some time." When you think Hamas, think Iran. In addition, Turkish authorities searched IHH headquarters in 1997, discovering "firearms, explosives, bomb-making instructions" as well as records of calls to an al-Qaida guest house in Milan.

One of world Jewry's most articulate observers is my friend and colleague, Rabbi Daniel Gordis. Once again, he hits the proverbial nail on the head. Read his blog posting here. http://danielgordis.org/2010/05/31/facebook-meets-the-flotilla/

Why the image of "eyeless in Gaza?" Because that is how the judge Samson ends his own life -- blinded, he pulls the pillars of the Philistine temple in Gaza down upon himself and on the Philistines. That is how Gaza became known for self-destruction. This is yet another chapter in Hamas's ongoing war against Israel and against the West. As Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon said in a conference call yesterday, this is a "seam line" in the fissure between radical Islam and the West. The seam runs through Kosovo and Chechnya and Kashmir -- and straight through the land of Israel and into the sea. 

Yes, there will be (there already have been) tremendous PR ramifications for Israel. What else is new? But know the truth, speak the truth, teach the truth. Israel needs our voices now -- yes, now more than ever. 

 

May 17, 2010 -- The Unfolding Story of Elena Kagan's Bat Mitzvah

Even as I sent out last week's blast about Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court, the rest of the story of her bat mitzvah was unfolding. It's even better than we had thought.

What had she fought with her rabbi about in connection with her becoming bat mitzvah? Oh, nothing big -- other than becoming bat mitzvah itself. It turns out that Elena Kagan's family belonged to Lincoln Square Synagogue, the premier modern Orthodox synagogue on New York's Upper West Side. The rabbi was the charismatic Shlomo Riskin, who would make aliyah and become the chief rabbi of Efrat. The young Elena approached the rabbi with her request to become bat mitzvah, and it turns out that she became the first young woman to become bat mitzvah under his tutelage. True, as he reminisced recently, she didn't get every ritual concession that she might have wanted. But she fought and in so doing, became a pioneer of contemporary Jewish life.

Only in America. Truly -- only in America.

May 12, 2010 -- Elena Kagan's Bat Mitzvah (or, why I feel sorry for her rabbi)

As the entire country is abuzz with conversation and speculation about Elena Kagan, President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, several crucial details emerge. Yes, she would be the third woman on the Supreme Court. And yes, she would be the third Jew on the Supreme Court. And yes, there will be no Protestants on the Supreme Court, which is itself highly symbolic of the social changes that are occurring across America.

But here's the other detail. The New York Times reported that as a young teenager, Elena Kagan openly challenged her rabbi on certain details of her bat mitzvah ceremony.

This is nothing less than a massive victory for us as Jews, and certainly for Jewish women. Unless Ruth Bader Ginsburg celebrated becoming bat mitzvah, Elena Kagan will be the first Supreme Court justice to have experienced this modern and quintessentially American rite of passage. But more than that: we can take pride in the fact that Ms. Kagan's first learned her skills at argumentation by challenging her childhood rabbi. The media has not revealed any of the details of her battle with her rabbi; perhaps this will come out in the confirmation hearings (!). What was the "theme" of the controversy? Did she not like her assigned Torah portion? Did she demand more aliyot for her family? Did she want to do less (or more) prayers in the service? Did she and the rabbi disagree on the subject of her devar Torah?

Let this give courage and inspiration to American Jewish teenagers.

Yes, Judaism teaches kavod ha-rav -- the respect that is necessary for rabbis and teachers. But kavod ha-rav can also mean challenging your rabbi, spiritually and intellectually, when it is appropriate to do so. Protest and challenge are woven into the very fabric of Jewish existence -- from Abraham to Moses to the psalmist to Job to Tevye to Elie Wiesel. It's why we are Yisrael, the God Wrestlers. The term chutzpah doesn't only mean "gall". It also has a theological dimension -- chutzpah c'lapei shamaya, audacity in the face of God. And our tradition notes that God needs it. God even loves it, rejoicing when we "win" -- "My children have defeated Me!" God sighs, lovingly.

I would like to imagine that the young Elena Kagan challenged her rabbi on a matter of deep principle. I am not even ashamed to say that I hope that she won the argument.

And I should like to think that her childhood rabbi is smiling broadly. After all, he (or she) gave young Elena her first experience in argumentation, and maybe also in listening and responding. No doubt she has carried that lesson with her -- from the Upper West Side to Princeton to Harvard to Chicago -- and now, let us assume, to the bench of the highest court in the land.

It's good for the Jews. And it is very good for America.

 

May 4,2010 -- A Song That Ended Too Soon!

Rabbi David Forman, z"l

There are times when you can really understand the ancient Jewish mourning practice of tearing one's clothing when hearing of a death. That's precisely how I felt this morning when I learned of the death of my colleague Rabbi David Forman, who died at the age of not-quite-66 years old while waiting for a liver transplant. 
Rabbi Forman was a Reform rabbi -- one of a noteworthy and notable group of Reform rabbis who made aliyah and who threw their destiny in with that of the Jewish state. He was also the son-in-law and brother-in-law of rabbis, including one Orthodox rabbi; I used to imagine what their family seders were like. He made aliyah in 1972, and served in the IDF, and authored several books -- each one skillful in its commentary and conversational in its tone. I loved his regular columns in the Jerusalem Post. David always told the truth.

But the best thing about David was his vision. He founded Rabbis for Human Rights in 1988 and served as its chairman from to 1992, and again in 2002-03. RHR is primarily concerned with the plight of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. In 1994, he was a member of the Israeli delegation to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for laureates Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin. The greatest thing about David was that he never subscribed to some of the more promiscuous Israel-bashing that exists within the Jewish world. Yes, he often criticized Israeli policy -- but always, always, as a Zionist and as a deep lover of the state of Israel. In that spirit, he directed the Israel office of our national Reform movement, and in that role, he was a pioneer in the effort to achieve religious pluralism in Israel. 

It is ironic (as if there are ironies): David died during a time when the issue of religious pluralism is very much on the international Jewish agenda. It is even more ironic that he died several days after Herzl's 150th birthday. 

Judaism has lost a great teacher and role model. May his memory be a blessing.

 

April 7, 2010 -- Indiana Jones, Eat Your Heart Out!

 
Qeiyafa is a relatively new archeological excavation (directed by the Hebrew University’s Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor) of an imposing Israelite fort on the border with Philistia dating to the late 11th–early tenth century B.C.E., the time of David and Solomon. The wall around the hilltop fort required more than 200,000 tons of bolders. Its presence is a powerful refutation of the claims of certain contemporary scholars who believe that Judah never existed as a state in the tenth century and that the “kingdom” of David and Solomon was a tribal chiefdom at most. This is hardly the case. A mere tribal chieftain would not have been able to build something like this.

But that’s nothing. As archeologists have rejoiced to discover, the “real” find in this excavation is a five-line, 6-by-6-inch ostracon, an inscription on a broken piece of pottery the equivalent of ancient notepaper. It dates to the early tenth century B.C.E. It is the oldest Hebrew inscription ever discovered.

But what does this ancient text reveal? While it has been damaged by the ravages of time, one thing is clear. There is a word that means “to exploit or abuse,” immediately preceded by the phrase lo ta’as – “do not do.” Therefore, analysts of the text are quick to point out that the oldest Hebrew inscription that we have is nothing less than an ancient prohibition against (most likely economic) abuse and exploitation. 

Some might have expected that the oldest Hebrew text would have been about ritual matters. Others might have suspected that it would be about some arcane legal matter. No, the most ancient Hebrew text is simultaneously the most modern. It testifies to who we are as a people and what our message has always been – and must continue to be. 

 

March 16, 2010 -- Hope In A Ruin

I admit that I have passed the synagogue numerous times over the years but never gave it a second thought. That is, until this week when its re-dedication was announced. I'm referring to the Hurva synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The Hurva, which means "destruction," had been destroyed by the Jordanians during the 1948 War of Independence. Its restoration had been going on for years, and this week of all weeks it was finally re-dedicated.

Yes, this week -- of all weeks. In the midst of the controversy over the new housing units in east Jerusalem -- a controversy that has provoked a crisis in US-Israel relations, the re-dedication of the Hurva reminds us of the spiritual essence of Zionism and Israel.

How so? The original synagogue had been built in the 1860s on a site where previous synagogues had been built and destroyed over the centuries. As such, its repair (think tikkun, repair) is a symbol of Jewish hope and renewal. It is a fulfillment of the words of Lecha Dodi: "a city built upon its own ruins."

That's Israel. And that's Judaism. Leon Wieseltier once said that Judaism is the record of what can be accomplished in a ruin. The accomplishment is the act of transformation itself.

 

February 10, 2010 -- The Kids Are Alright!

I suppose that the above quote is appropriate, realizing that The Who, in all their sexagenarian glory, performed during Super Bowl half time. But what, pray tell, does this have to do with Judaism?

Flash back to this past Sunday. I'm talking with my religious school kids about one of the most perplexing problems of Jewish thought -- the idea of the Jews as the chosen people.

Much to my gleeful surprise, none of the students believed that choseness implied superiority. Rather, they all believed that choseness implies duty to the world.

My favorite quote? The student who drew the following parallel: "It's like God has an army, and we're the front line troops." Spoken like a kid who's seen his share of Jewish soldiers from Fort Benning at services!

I had to think long and hard about that metaphor. Some might even feel a little squeamish about the military image (yes, it has its parallels in Jewish literature). In more ways than I can count, we are like God's first line of defense. The enemy? The armies of cynicism and despair.

The least -- the very least we can do --for the next generation of Jews is not to give up the fight.

 

January 13, 2010 -- Remembering Miep Gies (1909-2010), A Righteous Gentile

If we had to, each of us could name at least one perpetrator of the Shoah. Hitler, Eichmann, Heydrich -- the vile names trip off our tongues. If we wanted to, each of us could name at least one victim of the Shoah --  Anne Frank. Anne is the quintessential, archetypical Shoah victim -- a young woman whose life and death stand out as a symbol of both the innocence and the death of innocence. In our collective memories, Anne Frank is perpetually young, frozen in time at sixteen years old. It is hard to believe that had she lived, Anne would have turned eighty years old this past June. 

But herein lies a tragedy. Far fewer of us know the name of Miep Gies, who died this week at the age of one hundred years old. Miep had been Otto Frank's secretary, and she was among those who risked their lives to help the Frank family. As The New York Times obituary mentioned, Miep found food for them, brought books and news and provided emotional support. She is credited with having brought Anne her first pair of high-heeled shoes. On one occasion, Miep and her husband Jan Gies spent a night in the annex so that they could fully understand the terror of living in hiding. 
But more than that: It was because of Miep Gies that we have one of the great classics of twentieth century literature. She was the one who found Anne Frank's diary, and who gave it to Anne's father, Otto Frank, after the war. 

Life imitating Torah: Miep's extraordinary life ended within days after we read the portion of Shemot, the first section of the book of Exodus, which chronicles the story of Shifra and Puah, the midwives in Egypt who defied Pharaoh's murderous decree and saved the lives of Israelite children. Why did they do so? They "feared God," which is how the Torah refers to non-Israelites who demonstrate basic moral decency. The biblical text tells us that in reward for their heroism, God gave them "houses." Some commentators interpreted this as meaning that God gave them children (after all, they had saved the lives of Israelite children, so that reward made perfect sense). Other commentators suggested that Pharaoh sought to find and kill the defiant Shifra and Puah, and so God made houses for them to hide within -- genuine houses that would be impervious to Pharaoh. 

Miep Gies claimed no mantle of heroism for herself. She saw herself as simply doing what was right, as following in a long line of Dutch moral heroism. Her story makes us remember that we must remember -- yes, not only the perpetrators; yes, not only the victims; but also those who helped Jews. There were not as many as we needed, but there were far more than we know. 

I would like to think that God built special houses for Shifra and Puah in the World to Come. I would like to think that God has made a house for Miep Gies as well. 
No, scratch that. I would like to think that Shifra and Puah are, at this precise moment, throwing open the doors of their houses in heaven and saying: "Miep, Miep, welcome! We've heard all about you up here! Welcome!"

December 29, 2009 -- For All My Teachers

I am in the middle of reading Have A Little Faith, the new book by Mitch Albom (it happens to be our book club selection for this month -- Borders Buckhead, January 11, 8 pm.) It is a touching memoir of Albom's relationship with his childhood rabbi, Albert Lewis, of blessed memory, who also happens to be the father of Rabbi Shalom Lewis of Etz Chaim in Marietta.

Have A Little Faith is number three on the New York Times Best Seller List, which means that a lot of Americans -- predictably, the vast majority of them non-Jews -- are in the process of reading about a great rabbi who served his congregation for many decades with love, vigor and humor. Books by rabbis have jumped to the top of the charts; think of When Bad Things Happen To Good People by Harold Kushner, for example. But a book about a rabbi? This might be a first, and it goes into my large psychic folder: "How America's Relationship With The Jews Has Changed."

I am thinking of the relationship between Albom and his childhood rabbi. It gets me thinking about my rabbis and teachers -- about all the people who have influenced me and helped make me who I am. The man who made me want to be a rabbi is embarrassed to know about his influence on my life; not that he thinks me unworthy of his mantle, but that he cannot believe that he had such an effect on me. That's the point. You never know, really, how much impact you have on another person's life -- or, as Calvin Trillin once put it, how much space you take up in another person's life.

I was once leading a yizkor service at which my own teacher, Professor Eugene Borowitz, the dean of American Jewish theologians, was present. Since it was a small congregation of worshippers that morning, I decided to ask each person to name his or her departed teacher. We went around and people talked about the mentors who had influenced their lives. When it was Professor Borowitz's turn, he named his teacher, Samuel Cohon, of blessed memory. At that moment, I felt something akin to a tug -- a cord that bound me to Professor Borowitz, and Professor Borowitz to Professor Cohon, and from Cohon back to.....

That's the chain of tradition. You never know when another link is being forged. No doubt even/especially Mitch Albom had no idea, when he was a child, that Rabbi Lewis would come to mean so much to him. Those bonds get forged, whether we know it or not. And as that happens, I am convinced that God is smiling.

 

December 1, 2009 -- Mazal Tov To the Clintons and Mezvinskys!

You've already heard the news: Former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton has become engaged to Marc Mezvinsky, who is Jewish. Regardless of your political leanings, or even your theological leanings, I hope that you will agree: Isn't America great?

Why do I say that? Turn back the clock for a moment. Imagine the America of, say, sixty years ago -- even fifty years ago. Can you imagine the tongue-clucking if Margaret Truman had married a Jewish man? Or one of the Nixon daughters (I know: Don't go there). It wouldn't have happened -- or if it did, there would have been furtive murmurings and mumblings all around -- certainly at the club.

Fast forward back to 2010. The intermarriage rate in the United States has grown, for all sorts of reasons. Not least among them is the inescapable fact that anti-semitism has, in many ways, shrunken. Of course, vile incidents occur occasionally, and we should not deny their existence. But because social anti-semitism has essentially disappeared, it means that gentiles view Jews as suitable marriage partners -- as well as suitable sons and daughters-in-law.

It's not only the Clintons who will now have Jewish machetanim (one's children's in-laws). Al Gore has a Jewish son-in-law. So did Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Not to mention Donald Trump. America is different, and the American Jewish experience is radically different.

There's more, of course. Chelsea and Marc went to services on the Days of Awe at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Conservative Judaism's "mother ship." Will she take an Introduction to Judaism class? Will she consider converting to Judaism?

Stay tuned on this one. Yes, Bill and Hillary have been to Pesach seders before, probably many times.

But -- dare I imagine it? -- years from now, the Clintons hearing a grandchild chanting the Four Questions in Hebrew?

Like I said: Isn't America great?

November 18, 2009 -- Your Arm is Never Too Short To Box

This goes into the general category of "you can't make this stuff up."

This past week, a Jewish boxer who is studying to become a rabbi captured the world super welterweight championship. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Yuri Foreman of Brooklyn defeated champion Daniel Santos of Puerto Rico by decision in Las Vegas Saturday night to win the World Boxing Association 154-pound title. Foreman, 29, became the first Israeli fighter to win a world boxing championship. He spent the 25 hours before the bout observing Shabbat in his hotel room.

It's certainly a far cry from how I spent my rabbinical school years. 

But let's put it into its larger cultural context. Sixty two years after the creation of the State of Israel, the world is quite ready not to view Jewish men as "wimps." It's true at the movies; rent Defiance about the Bielski brothers fighting as partisans in the woods of Poland, or go see Inglorious Basterds, which is a Jewish revenge fantasy that radically re-imagines World War Two. As a gentile bully put it to me in the lunchroom back in June, 1967, during the Six Day War: "You Jews really do know how to fight, don't you?"

And in the "Life Imitates Torah" department: How startling that this happens during the week when we read about Jacob and Esau wrestling in the womb, with Jacob emerging first. Esau is the biblical macho man, the one who lives by his strength. Jacob lives by his wits. I am wondering if Yuri Foreman was thinking about the scene in the Torah portion when Jacob is dressed in hairy animal skins in order to deceive his father, Isaac, into thinking that he is Esau. What does Isaac say? "The voice of the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau."

Yuri Foreman shows that you can have the voice of Jacob -- the voice of Torah -- and still have the hands of Esau -- the hands of strength. Good for you, Yuri. May you go (literally) from strength to strength. 

November 3, 2009 -- A Serious Man, Seriously

Sheila and I saw the new Coen brothers movie, A Serious Man, this past weekend in Manhattan. There was a special significance in seeing it on the evening of Halloween, for the movie's depiction of Jews is grotesque. Probably no more grotesque than the way the Coen brothers have portrayed, say, Scandinavian-Americans in North Dakota (Fargo) or deep Southerners (O Brother Where Art Thou?) or the bloodless murderer/angel of death substitute in No Country For Old Men. But yes -- grotesque and troublesome nevertheless. 

I will be giving a class on A Serious Man on Tuesday evenings, November 11 and 18 at JF&CS http://judaismmatters.org/whats_new/  so I hope that you will go see it before then in order to adequately discuss the film. It's at the Lefont, among other places. It is an extended midrash on the book of Job, and it takes place in 1967, in the predominantly Jewish Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park (which is where the Coen brothers grew up, as well as Al Franken). It is the Coen brothers most Jewish work. Spoiler alert -- the first twenty minutes of the movie are all in Yiddish and in Hebrew. 

The part that troubled me the most was (surprise!) the way that the film depicted the rabbis of the tragic hero's synagogue. The "junior" rabbi utters vacuous observations about finding God in the parking lot; another rabbi tells a long parable about -- well, you have to see it; and the ancient retired rabbi is unavailable for counsel, and when he finally says anything, it is to quote -- well, you have to see it. 

With a few minutes of calculation (go ahead -- ask me how I did it),  I figured out that the movie took place two weeks before the Six Day War. I don't know if the Coen brothers themselves knew that, but I do know this: The Six Day War changed everything for American Jewry and American Judaism. We would never be the same. 

Neither, apparently, would rabbis ever be the same. Hopefully, no more meaningless analogies, stories and quotes from -- well, go see the movie.

October 6, 2009  This is no "Roman Holiday"

I may despise how various Hollywood figures have shrugged off director Roman Polanski's rape charges. But on some level, I understand it as being an essential part of celebrity tribal culture.

I may despise how certain aspects of European, and especially French, cafe society are ready to exculpate the director. But on some level, I understand it as flowing from a continent that has not exactly been working overtime in the moral discernment department.

But when a world class intellectual like Bernard-Henri Levy is quoted in The New York Times (October 4, 2009) saying that Polanski's drugging and rape of a thirteen year old girl was a "youthful error" that he made at the age of 43, I pause to drop my newspaper in dismay and despair.

Levy is not only an intellectual, but someone who has publicly defended both the West and the Jews against the savagery of our time.

So, try this on for size, Messr. Levy: a Nazi war criminal who, at 23, savagely raped a thirteen year old Jewish girl in a concentration camp. He has escaped prosecution all these years. Would you now be saying that he should not be prosecuted -- that this heinous crime was perhaps a "youthful error?" Or a 43 year old terrorist mastermind?

I didn't think so.

September 30, 2009 -- Getting Soaked For Sukkot?

The torrential rains that we experienced last week were no joke. Far from it -- they destroyed property and took lives. Beyond that -- they provided a sobering and sad commentary for the line from the Unetaneh Tokef on Yom Kippur: "Who by water?" Alas, nine people died of water here in Atlanta in a deluge that was absolutely unprecedented.

Ironic, then, that this week begins the season in the land of Israel (and reflected in our liturgy) when we start praying for rain. Rain is necessary for the agricultural cycle of the Land to maintain itself. But can there ever be too much rain?

We got one answer, a little early, last week. And here's another answer.

It is a mitzvah to dwell in the sukkah and to have meals there. Do you clear out if it starts to rain? No, if it's just a drizzle. And if it pours more than that? How much rain is too much? Here comes the traditional answer: If you're eating soup in the sukkah and the rain pours through the ramshackle roof and dilutes the soup so that it changes taste, that's too much rain.

It's a good metaphor. At Kol Echad: Making Judaism Matter, we want a full strength Judaism, and not one that has been watered down.

September 24, 2009 -- Jews To Be Proud Of

I was about as angry as I can get (which is not all that angry, actually) at Jane Fonda and a bunch of other celebrities at the Toronto Film Festival for their protest against the festival's honoring of Tel Aviv as a major city of cinema. Their protests were entirely based on their politics -- a gratuitous pro-Palestinian posturing that went beyond all boundaries of reason. Don't they know that the movies that come out of Israel are sometimes contain the harshest criticisms of "the situation" (as Israelis love to call it) that are available anywhere? If you don't believe it, go out and rent "The Lemon Tree."

Jane Fonda has apologized. She feels that she was manipulated. OK, this is the season of forgiveness, so I forgive her. She has done a great deal to help the Jewish people. She befriended the refusenik Ida Nudel during the Soviet Jewry struggle, and once complained that all the material about her involvement with Soviet Jewry somehow didn't make the final editing of her autobiography.

But along comes a bunch of Jewish celebrities -- Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Lisa Kudrow and Sascha Baron Cohen -- protesting the Toronto protest. It was actually the strongest pro-Israel statement that I have seen emanating from Hollywood Jews in.....well, maybe ever.

That is surely something to celebrate during these ten days of repentance.

August 26, 2009 -- Senator Edward Kennedy (1932-2009)

I admit that I have always had a great fascination with the Kennedy family. I admired each of the three surviving brothers -- John, Robert and Teddy -- for different reasons, while fully understanding their failings as well.
 
Why should his death matter to us as Jews? Because Ted Kennedy, like his older brothers John and Robert, tried very hard, and successfully, to erase the legacy of their father, Joseph Kennedy. Ambassador Kennedy was, according to many accounts, anti-semitic and certainly an isolationist in the war against Hitler. 
 
Here's something you may not have known. In realizing that America's health care system is in crisis, Senator Kennedy sought advice and models -- and the place to which he turned first was Israel. According to President Shimon Peres, Kennedy was one of the first American legislators to study Israel's health care system. In calling Ted Kennedy a "great American leader who was also a great friend of the State of Israel," Peres recalled that the Massachusetts senator had visited Israel in 1986 -- a trip whose specific purpose was learning about Israel's health care system.
 
Senator Kennedy was a great friend of the Jewish people, and certainly of the Reform movement. Whatever our political allegiances (and let us remember that one of Kennedy's closet friends was the Republic Senator Orin Hatch), we should join all American in mourning the loss of this great statesman and moral voice.May his memory be a blessing.

August 19, 2009 --The End of The Generation Gap: Woodstock Plus Forty

In biblical terms, the number forty represents a significant unit of time -- think forty days of the Flood; forty days that Moses remained on Sinai; forty years of wandering in the wilderness. So, let me add my voice to those who have noticed (as if you could help noticing) that we are marking the fortieth anniversary of the Woodstock music festival -- an event that both transformed and defined a generation and beyond. I am not a music critic, though I once wanted to be. It's both amazing and amusing how much both my sons, almost 17 and almost 23, and I seem to like much of the same music -- much of it flowing from a Woodstock aesthetic sensibility.

In terms of music and popular culture, Woodstock effectively ended the famed "generation gap" (remember that term?). In such matters, there is far less distance between me and my sons than there ever was between me and my parents. Case in point: My older son regaled me with highlights of the Paul McCartney concert. Forty years ago, I could never have done that with my parents. Quite the contrary; they viscerally disliked the Beatles, the Stones, and their ilk.

There are many people who think that Woodstock had some kind of redemptive magic. In one way, that was true. Recall: the opening act of the messianic age was to be the coming of Elijah, who would "turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the hearts of children to their parents" (Malachi 3:24). The messianic age would begin with the reconciliation of the generations.

In one small way, perhaps Woodstock was the beginning of that process. Its vision of universal peace and love and "getting back to the garden (of Eden?)" has never seemed more distant. But the generations...ah, that is another, blessed story.

August 10, 2009 -- Kol Echad Expresses Solidarity with the Victims of the Tel Aviv GLBT Center Shooting

For many years, Tel Aviv has been considered a haven for gays and lesbians. It has enjoyed a reputation of being the most tolerant and open city in the Middle East. In fact, there are many gay Palestinian men who have “escaped” to Tel Aviv, fleeing the repressive and grotesque treatment of gays and lesbians in the territories. This has been the subject of several films, most notably, The Bubble.

Alas, the bubble burst last week, when a gunman entered the Israeli LGBT center in Tel Aviv, 

which was hosting a weekly group for teens. Two people, Nir Katz and Liz Trubeshi, were killed and numerous people were wounded.  Kol Echad is a co-sponsor of a vigil that will be held in their memory -- Tuesday evening, August 11th, 7 pm, organized by Congregation Bet Haverim, The Rainbow Center at Jewish Family and Career Services, and other faith organizations. The vigil will be held at Central Congregational United Church of Christ, 2676 Clairmont Road (just east of the exit off I-85). I hope to see you there. 

We, at Kol Echad, are grateful for our organization’s lay leadership for their vision and compassion in agreeing that our learning organization should be a partner with those who want to teach a way out of bigotry. 

 

August 5, 2009 -- A Romantic Holiday -- With a Twist

I confess: I never heard of Tisha B'Av -- the ninth of Av, the commemoration of the destruction of the first and second Temples -- until I went to Jewish summer camp for the first time, exactly forty summers ago. The reason for this is not so heretical; after all, Tisha B'Av comes in the middle of the summer -- not exactly prime time for synagogue life. At summer camp, Tisha B'Av was a big deal -- an opportunity for programming about the various historical disasters that befell the Jews on that date. It was not only the destructions of the first Temple (by the Babylonians, 586 BCE) and the second Temple (by the Romans, 70 CE). It was also the expulsion from Spain in 1492, which happened on Tisha B'Av. And, before Yom Ha Shoah (Holocaust memorial day) became popular, Tisha B'Av was the day when we remembered the six million as well. We read from the book of Lamentations, sang sad songs, wept -- and the braver kids fasted. It is fair to say that Tisha B'Av worked its way into the Jewish calendar of mainstream Judaism precisely because it was observed at Jewish summer camps. 

I confess, as well: I never heard of an almost totally unheard-of holiday, Tu B'Av, the fifteenth of Av, until I worked at the same Jewish summer camp -- this time, exactly thirty summers ago. I don't know who on the staff "discovered" it, but here goes: Tu B'Av, celebrated on the full moon of Av, is a traditional Jewish holiday of matchmaking. It was the holiday when, in ancient days, Jewish women would dress up to try to meet eligible Jewish men. By the way, the other Jewish matchmaking holiday is, believe it or not, Yom Kippur. I suppose that's what happens when all the Jews of the community are "stuck" with each other for a full day...

I thought I knew about Tu B'Av, which happens to be today, until I studied the Mishnah about it this morning. This is what I found: "There were no days for the Jews that were quite as good as Tu B'Av and Yom Kippur, because Jewish women would go out in white borrowed garments...." OK, "white" I understand -- the color of simplicity, a certain lack of fanciness which might beguile the eye. But "borrowed?" Why did the garments have to be borrowed? "So as not to humiliate any woman who didn't have such garments." If everyone had to borrow garments, then even less-than-affluent women could not be humiliated. 

There it is. Smack in the middle of a quaint, obscure teaching about a quaint, almost obscure day -- an elegant teaching about Judaism's concern for the poor. That concern permeates everything we do -- even the quaint and the obscure.

Which it should. 

July 27, 2009 -- Judd Apatow just doesnt get it (but Sascha Baron Cohen does)

When summer comes, I take advantage of some of the added leisure time and go to the movies. I admit that I enjoyed Year One, a nice farce that recapitulates (in its own way) some ancient biblical history, merging the stories of Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, and Sodom and Gomorrah into one pseudo-epic. Very cute. I laughed, even though there wasn't any good sermonic or teaching material in it. 

Or so I thought.

This morning, I found myself thumbing through the most recent issue of Vanity Fair magazine and read the back page interview with the director of the film, Judd Apatow. Question: "What is it that you most dislike?" His answer: "Ancient religious laws."

Well, what did you expect from a director who just made a film that ridiculed (among other things) circumcision? Ho-hum. But here’s what troubled me. Judd Aptatow is Jewish. Yes, I am sure that you can make a list of ancient religious laws that are troubling. But leaving part of the field for the poor; taking care of the stranger, widow, and orphan; not gossiping, stealing, or murdering; the commandment to honor one’s parents; the necessity of building a society based on fairness and equity – these fundamental teachings come from the Bible. They don’t exactly emerge from biblical stories. They come from our ancient religious laws. They are no less valid today than when they were first written.  

Don't get me started on how Jewish celebrities, like Apatow, squander some very good chances to uphold Judaism in public and maybe even become role models for Jewish youth. Oddly and sweetly enough, Sascha Baron Cohen (Borat and Bruno) is a major exception to this observation. He grew up in an Orthodox and Zionist home in Great Britain. He speaks Hebrew fluently (what language do you think he was speaking in "Borat"?) He spent a year in Israel at Kibbutz Rosh HaNikra and Kibbutz Beit HaEmek. And he took part in the highly respected and competitive program "Machon l'Madrichei Chutz L'Aretz" for Jewish youth movement leaders. Not only this -- he has remarkably erudite things to say about the role of Jews, Jewish history, and the state of Israel. 

Is his humor sometimes vulgar and tasteless? You bet.

Is he hysterically funny? Very much so. Some think that he is the most talented British comedian since Peter Sellers, of blessed memory and also Jewish.

Could he be a role model for today’s Jewish youth? We could do far, far worse.

 

July 13, 2009 -- In France, they still don't get it

I don't know if you caught this news item in the New York Times this past weekend. It was about the guilty verdict in the case of the Muslim gang members in France who had been accused of torturing and killing a French Jew, Ilan Halimi, after first kidnapping him and demanding ransom money. 

According to today's Jerusalem Post, the prosecution will appeal the sentences of the gang members, who called themselves a "gang of barbarians," arguing that they were too lenient. Sentences for the 27 members of the gang ranged from life in prison, to 6 months behind bars, and to acquittal in the case of two of the members.

A lawyer for one of the defendants agreed that anti-Semitism had poisoned the perpetrators. But, he said, their anti-Semitism was not "based on philosophical, historical or religious criteria, but on crude clichés that first associated money and Jews, then associated Jews, the West and evil."

Wait a second. Disconnect. What, please, was the source of those crude clichés if not philosophical, historical or religious criteria? Is it really possible that two thousand years of anti-Semitic mythology had no affect on these barbaric murderers?

Some people still don't get it.

July 7, 2009 - Gary Tobin (1950-2009)

Probably very few of you heard about Gary Tobin, who died early this week at the age of 59 -- "before his time and before anyone's time," as the Hebrew poet Chayim Nachman Bialik famously put it. That's a pity, because so much of today's Judaism, especially our way of dealing with outreach, non-Jews in our community, conversion and Jewish giving, emanated from his wise observations and skillful planning within the American Jewish community. 

I first knew Gary when he was a professor at Washington University. He then moved to Brandeis University, where he became a tenured professor and director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies before departing to start his own think tank, the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, in San Francisco.

“Gary was a visionary about the Jewish community,” said Leonard Saxe, a professor at Brandeis University who succeeded Tobin as director of the Cohen Center. “He identified problems and issues in the community and often developed these really creative analyses, whether it was about the role of synagogues or the makeup of communities and more recently about philanthropy.”   He was truly a maverick. One of my favorite books is one of his most recent ones, The Uncivil University, which exposed the growth of anti-Israel and anti-semitic attitudes on college campuses. He then turned his attention to Jews of color, befriending Rabbi Capers Funnye, a black Chicago rabbi and cousin of first lady Michelle Obama. He argued vigorously for the inclusion of Jews of color in the Jewish community. 

But he was, first and foremost, a visionary who saw the opportunities present in American Judaism. In a field too often dominated by pessimism, he was an optimist. He believed that American Jewry was not in a state of decline, but rather, in the middle of a powerful transformation. When he came to my synagogue in Rockville Centre in 1989, he spoke to our leadership and warned that synagogue life could simply not continue with business as usual.

 
Gary believed in new kinds of Jewish institutions that would respond to new kinds of needs. I should like to think that he would have rejoiced in Kol Echad's successes. 
I was proud of our friendship. He shall be sorely missed. 
For a complete article about Gary Tobin, check out http://jta.org/news/article/2009/07/07/1006373/gary-tobin-dies

July 1, 2009 -- " ...and doggone it, people like me!"

That’s the famous quote from Al Franken’s SNL character Stuart Smalley. Apparently, Franken was right. At least (or at most), 312 Minnesota voters liked Al Franken more than Norm Coleman, and in the great struggle between two Jewish politicians, Al Franken won. Either way, we would have had another Jewish Senator – of which there are now thirteen. This is both of grave concern to anti-semites, as a Google search for “Jews in the Senate” shows, and comfort to Jews. For the past thirty years, that Minnesota Senate seat has been a “Jewish” seat – think of Rudy Boschwitz and the late Paul Wellstone. Franken himself quipped: “I don’t think Minnesota is ready for a gentile in this seat." Minnesota! Is there any real doubt that American Jews are an accepted part of the American political fabric?

So, what about Franken as a Jew? These are his own words, taken from a 2003 interview in the Jewish Journal of LA http://www.jewishjournal.com/bloggish/item/is_al_franken_jewish_are_you_kidding_20090630/

“I grew up Jewish in Minnesota, in a place where we were a distinct minority. Minneapolis had been a center of anti-Semitism, in the ‘30s, ‘40s and 50s. My mom sold real estate, and she was very aware that there was redlining in Minneapolis for Jews. That awareness, of actual institutional racism by banks and realtors, made us even more keenly aware of the importance of civil rights laws.”

OK, good. Franken associates ethical behavior and social justice with being Jewish. “We did go to a Reform temple when I was a kid, and my parents were not particularly devout, but we were taught that there was a certain ethical base to our religion that was the essence of our Judaism, and I think my kids have grown up with that.”

Yes, but what about today?  “We don’t belong to a shul, and my kids have really been raised with no formal religious education, but they definitely consider themselves culturally Jewish. They have very Jewish senses of humor and went to a high school that was two-thirds Jewish.”

Is Franken’s Judaism all that different from the way that many Jews identify themselves? No. Will that style of Judaism – culturally Jewish, with very Jewish senses of humor, and being sociologically Jewish in terms of where you go to school – endure into the next generation? I wonder.

At the very least, I wish that the Frankens would join a shul. He obviously has good memories of that experience from his own youth, and no doubt his kids would profit from it as well. To paraphrase Stuart Smalley: He’s good enough and smart enough.

June 29, 2009 -- Mourning Michael

There is an old Jewish saying: “The Angel of Death takes no vacation.” Thus it must have seemed during this past week, as America said farewell to several celebrities, each one an icon in his or her own way: Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson.

For a variety of reasons, the death of Michael Jackson has attracted the most attention. Tributes have focused on his tremendous talent and energy – topics that are beyond my scope. (He also has children from Debbie Rowe, his second wife who is Jewish – meaning that his children are, at least halachically, Jewish).

What do I find particularly interesting – as well as disturbing -- about Michael Jackson? Not only his alleged lack of boundaries and his bizarre ability to re-invent himself in a variety of ways, it’s more than that. It was his absolute refusal to age, to retreat into a kind of Peter Pan-like Shangri-La of the soul and of the flesh – even at significant personal and physical cost.

You will not be surprised to hear that Judaism has something to say about this. Despite the fact that Judaism has always cherished continuity and the birth of children, it has never been a child-centered faith. The great parental ambition was for their children to grow up and to take on matured roles in the life of the community. This is the entire purpose of bar/bat mitzvah. Moreover, age and wisdom was the crowning glory of the Jewish role model. You couldn’t study Jewish mysticism until you were forty. Sages were called “elders." The possession of a beard, long before there were women rabbis, was the signature of the matured person of faith. Judaism requires sophistication. It prompts us to march into adulthood – with all its struggles and perplexities. That’s why we at Kol Echad: Making Judaism Matter have worked on creating a Judaism for adults.

All of which leads me – and many of us – to a kind of sadness about Michael Jackson’s death. Yes, the loss of a remarkably talented man, but also the waste of a life. In one sense, popular culture venerates and idolizes youth. But not always and certainly not in rock music. I love aging rock stars who do not hide their aging. Paul Simon is 68. So is Bob Dylan. Mick Jagger is 65. Paul McCartney, who is coming to Atlanta in August, is 67. James Taylor, going deliciously bald (but I am biased, I admit), is 61. Some of them are grandfathers. To which I say: Go, zeyde!

June 8, 2009 -- Buon giorno from Florence

I miss being with you all, but truth be told -- if you must spend time out of Atlanta, Italy is about as good as it gets. Sheila and I are enjoying our trip, and of course, imbibing some of the local Jewish color along the way.

Several vignettes…

Venice: We visited the ghetto in Venice (no sign of Shylock -- he was apparently out of town). Amazing -- four synagogues for only 20 Jews left in the ghetto out of 250 in all of Venice. Even more amazing, I know more than a little bit about the history of the Jews of Venice. My favorite Venetian Jew? Leon de Modena, the great Renaissance preacher and professional gambler (!) whose progressive ideas served as "ancestors" for Reform Judaism. 

When I think about the scholarship and communal vibrancy that emerged from such a tiny space (you could literally put the whole area into Little Five Points), it is a powerful statement about what power can emerge from such a small place.

Florence: The synagogue is spectacular. We went to Friday night services -- Italian Sephardic style. When the men's choir began to sing, it was breath-taking. You would have recognized some of the melodies. Good news: the synagogue was packed -- with Italian Jews and not just tourists.

And finally from Siena: A sculpture of Moses by Giovanni Pisano completed a few centuries before Michelangelo tried his famous hand at the subject. OK, it's not as good as the master's -- but here's what's inescapable. Michelangelo portrayed Moses with horns, a miss-translation of the Hebrew term keren, which can mean either "horn" or "ray of light." Pisano portrayed Moses with rays of light coming from his head. Pretty good.

I will be back teaching this coming Sunday at 5 pm for Haftarah Will Travel. The travels will be over and I hope to have rays of light coming out of my head.

May 11, 2009 -- A Victory For "Remember The Sabbath Day"  

When we hear the cliche "chiseled in stone," we think immediately of the Ten Commandments. For yes, they are chiseled in stone -- and not only for us as Jews, but for us as Americans.  

Therefore, we can rejoice in a small victory for one of the commandments -- a victory that happened recently in Atlanta. For the first time in its history, the Maimonides School, a Jewish day school in Brookline, Massachusetts, was preparing to send delegates to the National High School Mock Trial Championship here in Atlanta. There was just one problem: part of the competition was scheduled to occur on Shabbat, which would have disenfranchized Shabbat-observant students.

A decision was made by the Fulton County Superior Court Administrator's Office and the Fulton County Attorney's Office that unless an accommodation allowing the Massachusetts team to fully participate was granted, then the Fulton County courthouse facilities would no longer be available to the mock trial competition.

It really is an amazing victory -- on many levels. When you consider that this happened in the same general geographical area where, decades ago, Decatur chose to schedule school on Saturday deliberately to keep Jews from living there (as our friend Tom Keating has written about in his wonderful book on the subject), it constitutes a victory for Judaism, pluralism -- and yes, at least one of the Ten Commandments.

It may not have been a Sinai moment, but it was pretty close.

May 4, 2009 - Out of Crisis Comes Opportunity

Some of you may be aware of the financial crisis that is confronting Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reform movement's seminary for the training of rabbis, cantors, educators, communal workers and graduate students. The Jewish newspapers have been filled with speculation about its fate, and the possibility of this erstwhile institution being forced to close at least one, but possibly two of its stateside campuses (the College-Institute presently has centers in New York, Cincinnati, Los Angeles and Jerusalem). 

Here comes an idea, now, from several people. Why not combine the New York program of the College-Institute with the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Conservative movement's seminary that is located a mere 118 blocks away? Why not combine the Los Angeles program of the College-Institute with the American Jewish Academy, the Conservative movement's seminary that is also located in Los Angeles? True, there are massive financial considerations that are relevant to the discussion, but there's an educational dimension that is inescapable. Why shouldn't Reform and Conservative professionals-in-training learn with each other? Would it not be an economical use of some of the greatest minds in contemporary Judaism today -- for the Reform movement and the Conservative movement to pool their intellectual resources and, in the process, to create a broader and richer American Judaism?

It reminds us of the words of Pirke Avot, which we study during these weeks between Pesach and Shavuot: "Who is wise? The one who learns from all people."

April 27, 2009 - The Ultimate Israel Independence Day Story

Just when you think you've heard them all.....I was visiting with a colleague recently who told me that about the most unusual funeral service that he ever conducted. It was many years ago, and it was for the man who had been the landlord for Harry Truman and Eddie Jacobson when they owned their famous men's clothing store in Kansas City. (It was Eddie Jacobson, Truman's Jewish business partner, who appealed to Truman to support the creation of the Jewish State. I tell the story in my book Righteous Gentiles in the Hebrew Bible, published by Jewish Lights).

Apparently, this man was not the nicest of guys. Far from it. Truman and Jacobson fell behind in their rent and he evicted them from their store. That was the end of Truman's career in the men's haberdashery business. But if this man had not been such a grouchy landlord, then Truman and Jacobson's store would have stayed in business. And Truman would never have gone into politics, would never have become president, and would never have been in a position to help birth the modern Jewish state...

So, just as fate or history or God put Truman in that particular place for that moment in history, so too did fate or history or God implant a curmudgeonly spirit within the heart of the landlord -- and all of Jewish history -- all of modern history -- changed for the better.

April 20, 2009 - Asher bachar Bono  (another bad, but deeply meaningful pun)

I was deeply moved by Bono's expression of his Catholic faith that he described on the op-ed page of yesterday's New York Times. The piece is called "It's 2009. Do You Know Where Your Soul Is?"

Apparently, the lead singer of U2 is absolutely clear as to where his soul is. Bono's spiritual literacy regarding his own tradition, and his ability to connect it to real world concerns, was -- in a word -- awe-inspiring.

Alas, it drove me to violate the tenth commandment -- "Thou shalt not covet." Where are the Jewish popular artists who are willing to bear witness to how their faith influences their lives?

Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Seth Rogen -- could you add your voices to the chorus? Many young -- and not-so-young -- Jews could use it right about now.

 

April 13, 2009 - Why there's no blessing for breaking the matzah

Everything in the Pesach seder seems to have a blessing attached to it-- with a notable exception. There is no blessing for the breaking of the matzah. It is done in silence. Why?

Here I rely on an interpretation that I learned from my esteemed colleague and teacher, Rabbi Harold Schulweis. Brokenness is not a blessing. It is painful and disjunctive. We live in a world that sometimes seems to be in as many pieces as the crumbled matzah. Yeats was right: "Things fall apart. The center cannot hold."

This is true of the international situation, and it is certainly true of our lives today. So many have tasted the bitter maror of economic brokenness, with all its accompanying stresses and struggles. And yet, we send our children searching for the afikomen -- the hidden broken piece of the matzah. Therein lies our hope for the future -- that our children will become the agents of a messianic era in which brokenness is but a mere memory. "And on that day, God will be One and God's Name Will Be One." God's reality, itself apparently broken, will someday become whole.

April 6, 2009 - Wait! I Know about Pesach. You mean there's another Jewish Holiday this week?

As if you didn't have enough to do this week in your pre-Pesach preparations, yes, there's an additional Jewish holiday this week. And just to show you that God has a sense of humor, it's smack dab on Wednesday itself. Yep, Wednesday -- as in the day before first seder. Just what we need, right?  

Apparently, it is. And if you miss it, you are going to have to wait another 28 years to observe it again. It's birchat ha-chamah -- the blessing of the sun. It occurs every 28 years, when, according to ancient rabbinic tradition, the sun returns to the place where it was during creation. And why is it always on a Wednesday? Because that's the fourth day of the week, and the sun and moon were created on the fourth day.  

While the sciences of physics and astronomy have certainly evolved since the days of the ancient rabbis, and we know that the sun doesn't move, birchat ha-chamah provides us with some serious spiritual insights. Here's just one for your consideration. If you know a little bit of Hebrew, you'll remember that the "usual" word for sun is shemesh. So why is this rite called birchat ha-chamah? Why is the word chamah used for "sun?"  

My own take on this: Shemesh is a word for the sun that is rooted in ancient Near Eastern mythology. It is related to the word shamash, meaning "servant." It sees the sun as our cosmic servant.  

But chamah is related to the word chom, which means "heat," or perhaps even passion. I daresay, then, that birchat ha-chamah can literally mean "the blessing of heat" or "the blessing of passion." It sees the sun as the source of that which invigorates us and fires our imaginations.  

And that is precisely what we need, we American Jews, as we approach Pesach. In the midst of a world that seems to have gotten colder, we need the heat and passion of our tradition. We need the heat and passion of our community. We need the heat and passion of our faith.

March 31, 2009 – Apparently, it wasn’t only the Israelites who groaned

There was a very interesting essay on the New York Times op-ed page this past Saturday on the history of puns. Those of you who know me well know that this subject is, sadly, a matter of great relevance to me. The author of the piece cited numerous historical examples of puns, but forgot one of the greatest sources -- Jewish sacred literature. The ancient rabbis loved puns -- whether it was banim (children) and bonim (builders), or charut (that which is inscribed on the tablets of the Law) and cherut (freedom), or Sinai (the place of God's revelation of Torah) and sina (hatred directed against the Jews).

I can relate to all this, of course, because last night we had a session called  "On the Borders of Passover" at Borders in Buckhead .  I spoke about Passover and fielded questions (far more than four) on the meaning and traditions of this ancient/modern holiday. I suppose that the session could have been called "Haggadah Tell You About the Exodus" or even "Seder But Wiser," but that would have been over the top. Besides, there's no prophet in doing so. Sorry. 

Once upon a time, people loved (or at least tolerated) puns because they combined wit with literacy. So, here's the best one for Passover. The Hebrew word for Egypt is mitzrayim. The rabbis saw the word metzer (the narrow place) in mitzrayim -- and in their elegant punning, determined that mitzrayim is not just Egypt, but any place of narrowness. 

This year on Pesach, may we all know the liberation from narrowness -- wherever and whatever it might be. 

 

March 19, 2009 -- Jewish Power? Really?

This is an abridged version of the most recent E-alert that I edited for ARZA -- the Association of Reform Zionists of America. An old but relevant joke. A prominent leader of the German Jewish community, circa 1937, is sitting in a cafe reading a newspaper -- which turns out to be Die Sturmer, the Nazi newspaper. His secretary walks by and says to him: "Herr Goldberg, I am shocked to see you reading this Nazi rubbish!" To which the distinguished leader responds: "Not at all. When I read the Jewish newspapers, I read about persecutions, arrests and the destruction of Jewish homes and businesses. But when I read Die Sturmer, I read that the Jews control the media, the banks, German culture and its government. It does my heart good!"
Foremost on everyone's mind (at least among those who read The New York Times) is what can only be called "Cohen-ism" -- the naive view of columnist Roger Cohen that everything is just fine in Iran and that we should welcome conversation with Hezbollah. Uriel Heilman responds to Cohen's series of proclamations http://www.arza.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1845. Read what Israeli Reform Rabbi Michael Boyden has to say as well -- http://www.arza.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1842. Important to note here: there is substantial controversy within the Obama administration -- no, make that outright negativity -- about engaging in dialogue with Hezbollah. 

And while we are on the subject of irrational anti-semitism, there are some things that you just can't make up. This is one of them. An Egyptian cleric believes that the woman on the Starbucks cup is none other than -- hold the presses -- Queen Esther. Starbucks, therefore, is a symbol of the Jewish quest for power and, says this cleric, should be banned from Muslim countries. Like I said, you can't make this stuff up. Check out the full story on http://blogs.forward.com/bintel-blog/#story-1

The big news of the past week has been the crumbling of Charles (Chas) Freeman's candidacy to become the new chair of the National Intelligence Council. Freeman has engaged in significant anti-Israel rhetoric and has demonstrated massive bias towards Arab, especially Saudi, interests. (He has also been an apologist for China's hard line policies). It is questionable exactly how much pressure, if any, the fabled "Jewish lobby" put on the administration to "dump" Freeman; members of Congress report that they didn't hear from any Jewish organizations -- not even AIPAC -- about it. In any case, Freeman's fulminations about the "Jewish lobby's" role in de-railing his nomination only serve to underscore that he wasn't the man for the job. For a great analysis, read what Brad Greenberg has to say in Jewcy.com -- http://www.arza.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1845

March 10, 2009 -- On Purim, Some Thoughts About Israel And International Anti-semitism

On a recent broadcast of "Prairie Home Companion," the poet Robert Bly read one of his poems that ended with the line: "William Blake, longing for Jerusalem." He then commented (and this is a paraphrase): "How wonderful it is when a poem ends with the word Jerusalem!"   The poet was right. All of our best poems end with the word Jerusalem; the most poetic of our dreams end with Jerusalem.    The fighting in Gaza has ended, at least for now. But the inner struggles continue. In the March, 2009 issue of Commentary, Ruth Wisse muses on what the Middle East -- and the world -- would look like if Israel was truly held to "proportionality" in its struggle against Palestinian violence. Read the abstract of the article herehttp://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/now--about-that--proportionality--15086; you will want to read the entire article, which would require getting your hands on the magazine. It is well worth it.   The political philosopher Michael Walzer, writing in Dissent, wonders aloud about the future of the two state solution after Israel's incursion into Gaza. The best insight: "What is necessary on each side [Israel and the Palestinians] is internal unilateralism." Both sides must make serious, hard-headed decisions that only they can make, and that will require no external negotiation -- only internal moral struggle. Read the entire article athttp://dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=211   Is it only coincidental that "Waltz With Bashir" was nominated for best foreign picture at the same time as the recent war in Gaza? Is the film intended to arouse us into thinking not only of the 1982 War in Lebanon, particularly the massacres of Sabra and Shatilla, but also of Lebanon 2006 and Gaza 2009? I personally loved the film, and rather than finding it condemnatory of Israel, I take delight in the fact that a vibrant democracy and intellectually fertile Israel could produce a film that makes the country worthy of its Hebrew name -- Yisrael, those who struggle with God and with meaning itself. Not everyone agrees, however. In the March, 2009 issue of Commentary, writer Hillel Halkin demurs, just a little bit, on the film's portrayal of the 1982 war. You can read the article in full athttp://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the--waltz-with-bashir--two-step-15082.    Enough about Gaza, for the moment. Time to focus on the growing wave of anti-semitism -- an appropriate Purim topic, if there ever was one. In The New Statesman, Rhoda Koenig describes the personal dimensions of the growth of English anti-semitism -- http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2009/03/jews-anti-friend-syria-dinner    In the Times of London, MP Denis MacShane reminds us of the chilling history of contemporary European anti-semitism and its economic roots: "As the world enters a new era of crisis, anti-Semitism is back. History, as ever, begins to repeat itself. The slumps and stock market fever expressed in Zola's novel, L'Argent, or the populist anger against Wall Street at the end of the 19th century gave rise to the virulent anti-Semitic politics witnessed in France in connection with the Dreyfus case or the takeover of Vienna by openly anti-Semitic politicians. The Great Depression gave rise to the worst expressions of anti-Semitism ever seen, namely the politics that led to the Holocaust." Read the whole piece at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5740603.ece and then Rabbi Brad Hirschfeld's thoug htful response in The New York Jewish Weekhttp://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c55_a15028/Editorial__Opinion/Opinion.html.    We are grateful that the Obama administration has made the decision to boycott Durban II. For those of you who remember, Durban I, that Woodstock of international anti-Zionism and anti-semitism, occurred literally days before 9/11; at that time, I wondered aloud whether "Durban had led to hurban (destruction). The Obama administration's refusal to go to Durban, despite earlier diplomatic efforts to mitigate the toxic effects of the conference, may be contagious; the EU is now giving serious consideration to dropping out as well. To read how bad the prospects for Durban II are, read this short piece from Jewcy.com --http://www.jewcy.com/post/durban_ii_disgraceful_and_distasteful   And so, along comes Purim with its temptations to metaphor (As Will Rogers might have said: I never metaphor I didn't like). Says Berel Wein in the Jerusalem Post: "Amalek is Durban I and II, it is the pious posturing of the NGOs which call self-defense war crimes; it is the biased media coverage of events concerning Israel and Jews; and it is Iran and its proxies bent only on the destruction of Israel, the state and the people.

"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1236246867575&pagename=JPost%2F

JPArticle%2FShowFull   OK. But on the other hand, not every anti-semite is Hitler, and most are, assuredly, neither Haman nor his ancestor, Amalek. As the late Jakob Petuchowski, professor of liturgy at HUC-JIR, noted some twenty-five years ago, there is a danger in "thinking in our ancestors' categories." (Check out the essay, re-printed in Studies in Modern Theology and Prayer, published by JPS). When we turn our enemies into Haman and Amalek, or Ishmael or Esau or Torquemada, we reduce them to symbols and archetypes. That makes it convenient for us to forget their humanity and reality, as bloated as it might have been -- and makes ultimate reconciliation difficult if not impossible.    So let's end on a note of hope -- the only authentically Jewish way of doing business. The Talmud says that "the descendants of Haman teach Torah in B'nei Brak" (Gittin 57b). Apparently, they -- even they -- converted to Judaism. Not bad. Actually, quite good.   

March 9, 2009 -- Laughter is the best defense

There's a reason why the sages believed that after every other Jewish holiday has been abolished in the Messianic age, Purim will still endure.

Perhaps it's because of a tragic sense of Jewish life -- that there are so many Hamans and so few Mordecais. Or perhaps it's because of the redemptive nature of laughter.

A number of years ago, I appeared on a national television show with a Muslim activist. He accused the Israelis of stealing from the Palestinians, and then ripped my glasses off my face as a demonstration.

Did I want to "deck" him? Sure. But instead I said to him: "You're making a spectacle of yourself." The TV crew dissolved into laughter. I had won --

non-violently and, I dare say, Jewishly.

Laughing at our enemies is still, sometimes, the best defense.

March 2, 2009 -- And the Oscar for the Best Jewish Memory Goes to....

This is the week of Jewish memory -- Shabbat Zachor, to be exact -- the Shabbat that leads us into the holiday of Purim. Could this holiday be more relevant? The growth of international anti-semitism, a descendant of Haman in power in Iran (which is, of course, Persia), Roger Cohen's op-ed piece in last week's New York Times that claims that everything is just fine for the Jews left in Iran....it's going to take more than graggers to blot out the memory of Haman this year. And maybe we shouldn't even try; amnesia is deadly.

Still, when we Jews think of memory, we remember how Hollywood enshrines memory. There were a great many films about the Shoah on the silver screen this past year and several of them were nominated for Academy Awards in various categories (Kate Winslet won for "The Reader"). And yet, a great Israeli film, "Waltz with Bashir," was nominated and didn't win.

I'm certainly not accusing the Academy of anti-semitism. "Waltz with Bashir" is a remarkable film about the moral angst of Israelis who fought in Lebanon in 1982. It is visually breathtaking -- a very powerful and gorgeous animation. It portrays Israelis struggling with the implications of that war and with the enduring memories of that war -- and how those memories intermingle with other, older memories of the Shoah.

Brad Burston writes in HaAretz that maybe Hollywood prefers Jewish victims in Shoah films to powerful Jews in films about Israel. Whether the film has been in black and white or in color, Hollywood has never been good with shades of gray. Go see "Waltz with Bashir," and think about all the Jewish memories that we have, or that we try to repress, or that we try to redeem. Maybe that's why the sages said that in the Messianic age every other Jewish holiday will be abolished -- with the exception of Purim. That's how powerful memory is or should be.

February 23, 2009 -- Too relevant?

That's one way you could describe our ongoing series at the Breman Museum -- "Why Is It Always the Jews?" This evening's class deals with the religious roots of anti-semitism. Has the idea of the chosen people "caused" anti-semitism? What about Jewish rituals, like circumcision? What about Jewish ideas about God?

The troubling truth is: anti-semitism is becoming, in the words of ADL executive director Abraham Foxman, a global pandemic. Much of it manifests itself as anti-Israel rhetoric; consider the rather bizarre tale of a food coop in Park Slope, Brooklyn, that is considering boycotting food products from Israel. And this in a significant Jewish neighborhood! Consider the specter of Durban II, which promises to become yet another festival of anti-semitism, anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism (the US government's role in that conference is debatable; is it better to boycott the conference or to be there to help mitigate some of its more negative aspects?)

All grist for tonight's mill.

February 16, 2009 -- Lieberman -- Phobia and other news

I'm not talking about Sen. Joseph Lieberman. I'm referring to Avigdor Lieberman, the far-right Israeli politician and head of Yisrael Beitenu ("Israel Our Home") who stands to claim fifteen seats in the new Knesset. His political strength will help determine the ideological complexion of the next coalition government.

So why Lieberman-phobia? Among other things, Lieberman has advocated drowning Palestinian political prisoners in the Dead Sea! He believes that all Israelis, but especially Israeli Arabs, should have to sign a loyalty oath to Israel's national ideals. Those who refuse to sign this oath, and who fail to perform national or military service, would lose both citizenship and voting rights while remaining in Israel as permanent residents. The candidate's campaign slogan makes it starkly clear: "No Loyalty, No Citizenship."  True, he also advocates instituting civil marriage, which would break the monopoly of the rabbinic courts, but that's only small comfort.

Our Lieberman-phobia is based on real worries. What is the place of non-Jews in a Jewish state? What kind of Israeli policies merit our support? What kind of Zionist vision will continue to command the respect and admiration of the majority of Americans? What kind of Israel will the new American administration continue to enthusiastically support? Moreover, how do we handle the PR disaster that would come on the heels of Lieberman's placement in a new Israeli coalition government?

It reminds me of the classic Jewish telegram: "Start worrying. Details to follow."

February 9, 2009 -- A lost Blackberry and a modern miracle

Yesterday, while I was on the shuttle train at the airport, I lost my Blackberry. No laughs, please -- while I can handle being out of email contact for a little while (a very little while), being phone-less was scary and frustrating. As for lost and found at Hartsfield, they should hang a sign over its entrance, straight out of Dante's Inferno: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."

Imagine my joy, then, when I got an email no more than an hour later from a man who identified himself as a member of a Reform congregation in Michigan who had found my phone and wanted to know how to return it to me. Unbelievable! And here's something better, and sweeter: When I offered to reward him for his kindness, he told me that he had read my book Putting God On The Guest List, and that was reward enough, because it had helped him and his family navigate the difficult waters of their child's rite of passage. 

Returning lost objects is a mitzvah -- one of those elegant mitzvot that no one thinks about. Believing in basic human decency is also a mitzvah, I think.

But the possibility that a Jew -- and an active Jew, and a Jew who had actually read one of my books -- would find my phone? There's only one word for that: bashert. It was meant to be. 

 

January 26, 2009 -- Reflections on the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival -- and more  

All I can say is: Wow. I probably didn't attend as many movies as some of you did (though based on the few that I did attend, it seemed that most Jews in Atlanta were there!), but the movies that I did see were quite wonderful. "Good" was great. I heard fantastic things about "The Case For Israel."  

But my two favorite movies fall into that sweet cinematic and literary genre that can only be called 'odd friendships' --the stuff that all good drama is made from. In particular, I enjoyed "Strangers" a love story about an Israeli man and a Palestinian woman and "The Little Traitor" the story of the friendship between a young boy in pre-state Palestine and a British soldier who is part of the occupying forces.  

A poignant but (I think) pertinent point about that last movie. There were some interesting historical parallels between how Jews felt about the British presence and how Palestinians feel about the Israeli presence. It would be tempting to overstate the parallels. Could we imagine, for example, a Palestinian boy forming a friendship with an Israeli soldier? It would make a great movie, actually...  

However, the symmetry is not quite there. Sadly and tragically, much of the dominant rhetoric among Palestinian leadership calls for the wiping out of the Jewish state. This was never the case, even among the most vociferous critics of the British occupation. We Jews wanted our own state, yes -- but we had no designs on London.   In these post-Gaza weeks, let us hope for a cooling down of the rhetoric, and that our new admnistration will make competent steps towards a lasting peace.

January 12, 2009 -- It Goes On  

The war in Gaza goes on, with no real signs of letting up. It has been an exhausting few weeks for the Jewish people, with the amount of anti-semitism, both internationally and even domestically, increasing. Attacks on Jewish youth in Paris. Synagogues in Chicago attacked and defaced. Vile anti-semitic epithets hurled in the streets of downtown Fort Lauderdale, crying for Jews to "go back to the ovens" (you read that right -- http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=3413903&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl =http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,477450,00.htm)  

One of the best defenses of Israel's actions comes to us from the French intellectual, Bernard-Henri Levy (who, for his efforts, has had his name added to a radical Islamic hit list). I have been Monsieur Levy's fan for quite some time. I heard him speak at YIVO about six months ago on the increase in international anti-semitism. He was stellar. He is a rock star, in every sense of the word. Check out this article, in which he states that the Palestinians will have to liberate themselves from Hamas -- http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=f555be7f-dd65-4941-bfa7-a5197b5e8bbe.  

Also: My favorite political philosopher is Michael Walzer, and he is probably the pre-eminent  thinker in the world today on the morality of war. Full disclosure: he is a liberal thinker, and editor of Dissent magazine -- and an unabashed, full-throated supporter of Israel. Check out his essay on the issue of proportionality --  http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=d6473c26-2ae3-4bf6-9673-ef043cae914f  

I will be speaking at Lovett and Paideia this week -- on (you guessed it) the operation in Gaza. It is a difficult but necessary assignment. Our young people -- not to mention our adults -- are hardly getting anything resembling the full story on Israel's actions. It's time for a little bit of light in that darkness.

December 29, 2008 -- Israel, Gaza and Us

As Hanukah draws to a close, we confront the grim reality of Operation Cast Lead, Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. Several of our students have asked me how to interpret this to their friends, family -- and even themselves.

 1. Let's remember the history of the situation in Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza and evacuated Jewish civilian settlements in the area at great economic, spiritual and psychological cost. Hamas immediately moved in, launching rocket attacks on Israeli civilian targets. Israel closed the border crossings as a deterrent against those rocket attacks. As one of my Israeli colleagues has noted: "Even this very day, in the middle of the current Operation, Israel allowed three aircraft from Qatar bearing humanitarian aid to land at El Arish airport in the Gaza Strip." 

2. Hamas is a terrorist force that has the backing of Iran, that ignores the rules of the Geneva Convention and refuses to recognize the existence of Israel.  

3. Israel never wanted this war. Even Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority and no friend of Israel, said that Operation Cast Lead would never
have started if Hamas had been prepared to extend the ceasefire. 

4. Notice that Egypt's opposition to Operation Cast Lead has been muted. Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said that Hamas must bear responsibility for not resuming the ceasefire. He has also blamed Hamas for not allowing the wounded to be treated in Egypt.

 5.  Many are Israel's critics (what else is new?). We would have liked to have heard their voices of protest and moral outrage during the months and years that thousands of Kassam rockets and mortar shells rained down on Sederot and kibbutzim and towns close to the Gaza Strip. Strangely, here there was only silence.
6. There are those who argue that Israel's action is "disproportionate." How shall we define "proportionate response?" The concept exists in international law, but no less an observer than Alan Dershowitz notes that proportionate response is based on the potential damage that could be done (by the missiles that have become a part of daily life in the south of Israel) rather than the amount of damage that has already been done. Should Israel have waited for hundreds of casualties before responding? Bear in mind something else: The Israeli actions are not retaliations; they are intended to wipe out the sources of terror at their very roots -- which, by the way, they appear to have successfully done.  

And yet, it is not for us to find any sources of glee in all this. Innocent people will die -- largely because Hamas's modus operandi is to operate under the shelter of civilian areas. Recall the Midrash: When the Egyptians drowned in the Sea of Reeds, the angels began to sing. God rebuked them, saying: "The work of My hands has perished, and you are singing?!?"  

This is no time to sing. Just to wait. And hope.

 

December 22, 2008 -- The Return of The Shandeh  

This has got to be one of the most challenging Hanukah seasons in American Jewish history, and there is little that illustrates that challenge more than the Bernard Madoff scandal. "Scandal" seems far too weak a word; "scandal" is what we use to describe, oh, Elliot Spitzer's fall from grace and power. This is far worse than that ("worser," as one former child used to put it). Every day, the newspapers carry more reports of yet another worthwhile charity, foundation, Jewish cause, and educational institution that has lost everything -- or nearly everything -- because of Madoff's scheme. Many, many good people have lost everything they have. In the words of one Jewish communal executive: It is as if an atomic bomb has dropped right into the middle of the Jewish community.  

While we are all figuring this out, one thing keeps coming back to haunt us: The notion that this was done by a Jew, to other Jews, to Jewish causes (yes, there were many other victims as well, of all ethnic and national groups). But the fact that we even notice the Jewish connection points to a very powerful truth. Our grandparents turned out to have been right all along. They used to scour the daily newspapers for Jewish names. A genius like Einstein gave them nachas (pleasure); a crook like Meyer Lansky was a shondeh (shameful thing).  

The (as of now, alleged) crimes of Bernard Madoff make Lansky look like a religious school child caught with his fingers in the tzedakah envelope. We are ashamed.  

We at Kol Echad send our heartfelt words of comfort to those who have lost resources as a result of the Madoff scheme. We pray that they will again know parnassah tova, the blessing of good sustenance. May God spread a tallit of strength around their shoulders, implanting within their souls a renewed sense of their own nobility and spiritual worth. May families and friends draw ever closer to each other, and may the sacred bonds of community prove to have their own healing powers.

December 9, 2008: Muslims React  

I have been promising this to all sorts of people since the horror in Mumbai. This article in the New York Times speaks about the protests of Indian Muslims over the terror killings that claimed, among many other lives, the lives of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg and several others in the Habad center there.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/world/asia/08muslims.html?_r=2  

Some of us will say: too little, too late. Like many of you, I bewail the general silence of much of the world's Muslim population over the apparent domination of militant Islam. You've heard me say that it is simply unfair to condemn an entire religion for the horrific extremism of its militants.  

I am quoting from Martin Peretz's blog, "The Spine," which is on the New Republic web site: http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_spine/archive/2008/12/08/some-better-news-from-india-mumbai-muslims-condemn-the-terrorism-of-their-brethren.aspx  

"In fact, it shows that India has a message of hope across the sectarian lines of hatred. Maybe someday the Shi'a of Iraq and the Sunnis of Iraq will demonstrate against their own for murdering their neighbor who hails from the other.Maybe, in fact, someday, British Muslims and American Muslims will separate themselves from their own who kill en masse and at random."   Maybe. Just maybe.

 

December 8 -- The Adonai Moving Company  

I'm not kidding. I was driving along 285, and I noticed a van in the lane adjacent to mine, with those words on its side panel: "Adonai Moving Company." Of course, I wanted to snap a photo of it, but traffic being what it was....I glanced at the driver, who did not appear to be wearing a black hat, payis (side curls) or any of the other accoutrements of ultra-Orthodox Judaism. For the record, I googled the company later, and discovered that there is, well, nothing Jewish about them at all. Maybe "Adonai" means something else in some other language?   But, I'm a rabbi, which means that one of the items on my job description is to think about the deeper implications of "The Adonai Moving Company." Here goes. First, it would seem to imply that Adonai is movable -- that our God is portable. This is a very valuable observation, I think, because this was one of the major insights of late biblical Judaism. Whereas the earlier conception of God was as a Presence sitting in His (sorry) Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the prophet Ezekiel experienced God as travelling across the heavens in a chariot. This makes sense; Ezekiel was living in exile in Babylonia, and if you're in exile, it would only stand to reason that you would want God to move with you. Hence, the ancient Adonai Moving Company was nothing less than the Jewish people themselves. We moved God with us.   But the second intepretation is even more compelling. Maybe it's not that Adonai is moving, but that Adonai moves us. God moves us -- to do mitzvot, to care, to study, to pray, to engage in meaningful acts of world repair. Isn't that the purpose of having a God in the first place?   A chance encounter on 285? I think not. It made my day, and got me thinking, and I hope it gets your thinking as well.

November 26, 2008 -- A Pre-Thanksgiving Message

I have known and have worked with Uzi Weingarten. He is a very talented educator and a specialist in the art of listening.  

I invite you to "listen" in on some of his words:  

As Thanksgiving Day approaches, I am counting the blessings in my life, and among those blessings are you, the graduates of Communicating with Compassion. I feel blessed to have met you, and to have shared with you these valuable skills.
 
Unfolding before our eyes, day by day, are the results of rampant greed, avarice and selfishness. This is in addition to the usual stories of individual pain and all the forms of abuse that people inflict on one another.
 
It is encouraging that in the midst of all this are people who care about the quality of their interactions with others, and invest time and effort to learn the skills of listening and responding with compassion. You are one of those people, and it is an honor and a joy to have you in my circle.
 
Many people will likely find Thanksgiving a bittersweet day this year. As we see those responsible for all this making off with millions in salaries and bonuses, while ordinary decent people struggle, it is easy to succumb to negative emotions, to blame those who betrayed our trust, and to fear, or even despair, for what the future holds.
 
However, even in the midst of the economic turmoil, we can still influence, at least partly, our individual situations. In the words of the well-known spiritual teaching, "What we focus on, expands". To the extent that we focus on fear and despair, we invite more of that into our lives.
 
On the other hand, focusing on gratitude and love (of which compassion is a part), which are the two highest energies in the world, brings us more blessings. When we focus on gratitude, life brings us more things to be grateful for. When we express compassion and kindness to others, we find our own lives held in grace. "Like attracts like" is a spiritual law.
 
The best thing is that they are free, and there are endless ways to express them. Here are some examples from my own life. First, I take time to appreciate all the blessings I have. Like everybody else, there are things in my life that are disappointing or frustrating. I get to choose, however, if to focus on them, or on all that is good in my life. And there is so much that is good.
 
I find that when I focus on the good and am grateful for it, I am calmer, appreciative of what I have, and able to make decisions that are more likely to bring me more good things. It is hard to choose well when we are all upset. This is from a purely practical standpoint, in addition to the spiritual law of "like attracts like".
 
I make a point to thank people for things they do for me, even if it is their job and they get paid for it. I thank them in a conscious way, with an open heart. So when I am home, I thank the mail carrier when she delivers the mail. When I am served in a store, I look for something I can acknowledge and thank for. Perhaps a special effort was made in accommodating a request of mine, and perhaps it is simply their usual courtesy. "Thank you for taking care of me so well" is so simple and easy to say. All it takes is a desire to add to human joy. It can be such a gift to people who serve dozens or hundreds of clients a day, and who often hear only complaints. The looks of joy on their faces, the happiness in their voices, as they respond to what I have said, lets me know how valuable these words are.
 
I love getting creative with gratitude. I remember seeing the person mopping the floor in the supermarket, and wondering how I could express gratitude to him. After a moment of thought, I thanked him for "keeping our store clean". He was a Mexican immigrant who likely was not used to being greeted at all. There was a look of shock on his face when I thanked him. Then he smiled, and as I thanked him regularly, his smile got bigger each time. I wonder how often he is treated like a person rather than a fixture in the store.
 
Kindness and compassion are as simple as a kind word. I greet the "people greeter" at the supermarket with a friendly word or a funny joke to brighten his day. He has often told me what a difference those short, simple exchanges make. Now, when he sees me approaching the store, his face lights up, and he often claps his hands in joy and anticipation.
 
Although Thanksgiving has become a time of Macy's parades, football games and turkey dinners, it is wonderful that there is a day whose primary purpose is gratitude. I hope that your holiday is filled with that spirit, and that it spills over into the rest of the year.
 
(Please feel free to pass this message along, provided it is unchanged and the copyright below is included.)
 
(c) 2008 Uzi Weingarten, Communicating with Compassion, www.uziteaches.com   I hope that you found Uzi's word as redemptive as I did -- and that they will serve as an introduction to our December Monday evening course at Winter in midtown on how to cope with disappointment in life. Click here for more details.

November 7, 2008 -- "A Time To Build"

Those words, of course, are from the book of Ecclesiastes, that quintessential autumnal book of the Bible, filled with pessimism and despair. How ironic -- how joyfully ironic -- that they effectively encapsulate my feelings today, two days after the victory of Barack Obama. It is a time to build. 

Let me be hasty in reminding any of our readers that these opinions are mine, and do not necessarily reflect the leadership of Kol Echad. We are, as you know, a joyfully apolitical organization. But since we are an organization that believes in making Judaism matter, I believe that it mattered -- and America mattered -- far more in recent days than I could have ever imagined. 

As Leon Wieseltier put it in the New Republic -- http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=1945c380-a40f-44dd-b8d2-5f95e7017263 -- there is something authentically American about weeping over this remarkable event in American political history. How I wish that I could have been at Ebenezer Baptist Church to celebrate that evening. As I said to Marcia Rothschild: I only wish that your father, Rabbi Jacob Rothschild, could have lived to have seen this moment -- this utterly unique confirmation of America's promise. Living as we do in the heartland of the civil rights movement, and fifty years almost to the day after The Temple bombing, this victory touches us all deeply -- and it does so in ways that go far beyond party politics. 

And as Jews? I remember feeling the same way -- tearful and awe-filled -- when Joe Lieberman got the nod and became the vice-presidential candidate in 2000. Any advancement of the goal of civic equality in this country is a victory, in some ways, for Judaism itself -- a faith and a story and a program that believes in the inexorable forward motion of human history and striving.

Still, let us be sober enough to reflect -- despite the near messianic giddiness of this moment, President-Elect Obama is not the messiah, and the tasks that stretch before this great nation are overwhelming. But, to quote the tired cliche that cannot afford to be tired: Yes, we can. 

PS. Yes, Rahm Emanuel is Jewish. He is, in fact, an Orthodox Jew who has Israel very close to his heart. (His brother, Ari, is the model for the Ari Gold character in HBO's "Entourage," which will not, suggestions aside, become the topic of a Kol Echad class). This is, as we like to say, very good for the Jews. 

November 4, 2008 -- It's Election Day, Which Is No Laughing Matter

We had close to thirty people at our "Seinfeld-ology" class at Winter last night, where we watched an old Seinfeld clip ("The Pony"), followed up by the controversial "Curb Your Enthusiasm" show "The Survivor." I don't recall a funnier, or even more enjoyable, Kol Echad class. If you were there, thanks for adding your laughter and insights.
On the topic of the essential connection of Jews to the humor industry, check out this article in the current Moment magazine about the man who is reputed to be one of America's most trusted television journalists -- Jon Stewart. Yes, he's Jewish. http://www.momentmag.com/Exclusive/2008/2008-11/200811-JonStewart.html

And, need I remind you -- vote!

 

October 19, 2008 -- Yes, I Saw "Religulous" -- and it wasn't that bad

You know how I feel about the current wave of hip atheist works -- Christopher Hitchens and his ilk. Well, maybe you don't know -- I am usually not that impressed by their arguments. 

Still, I did see the new Bill Maher movie, "Religulous." It is, of course, problematic, but it had some (ahem) redemptive moments. Check out my review of it in The New York Jewish Week. http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c55_a13698/Editorial__Opinion/Opinion.html

October 14, 2008 -- This Great Uncertainty

Shanah tova to everyone -- a good, sweet year. There was a particular poignancy to this year's services on the Days of Awe. Perhaps it was the gasoline shortage, and no doubt it is the great economic collapse that we are witnessing (even with its modest and welcome improvements as of today). We wonder: why have so many modern catastrophes occurred during this season -- 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the current financial crisis? We sense that the author of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer knew what he was saying: "Who shall be rich and who shall be poor? Who shall be tranquil and who shall be driven?" 

The sukkah that we build on this festival reminds us of the transitory nature of so much of what we have and own. It reminds us that our structures are, at best, temporary. As Reb Nachman famously wrote (and as we sing): "The entire world is a very narrow bridge. But the essential issue is not to be afraid." The narrow bridges that we cross are less narrow when we cross them with friends and with a renewed sense of community. 

I constantly note how Genesis begins with the existence of primordial chaos (tohu va-vohu), and darkness over the firmament. Then God says, "Let there be light." Out of the chaos of existence we find God's word, God's presence, God's light. A renewed committment to Jewish learning is one way that we make that light manifest in our lives. Another way is to work on those pieces of ourselves that are not dependent on markets -- becoming better parents, partners, children, siblings. 

And, in my case, a teacher. I feel blessed to have so many of you as students, teachers, and fellow searchers. Let us continue to cross that narrow bridge together. Singing, if possible. 

 

Remembering 9/11, Seven Years Later -- September 11, 2008

September 11, 2008 will forever remain imprinted within the American consciousness as a date that ranks with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. It is not only that we will always remember where we were at the time; we will always remember that date as the end of our national innocence. 

Where was I on that day? In Port Washington, New York, on the north shore of Long Island. From the beach near where our family lived, I was able to see the second tower fall. As the rabbi of a synagogue in an affluent, Wall Street-based community, I fully expected that our congregation would have sustained massive losses. At our staff meeting that day, we came up with a system for deciding on funeral arrangements for our members. Miraculously, we lost no one, though many people lost relatives. In the adjacent town of Manhasset, the losses were much heavier. I will always remember going to the Starbucks adjacent to the train station on September 12, and hearing the young barristas whispering about the cars left unclaimed in the station parking lot the night before -- mute reminders of those who would never come home. I will always remember paying a call on the owner of an Afghan restaurant in our town, whose windows had been smashed, and consoling him and telling him that no, we did not blame him, or his people. 

The stories of bravery, and of heartache. The people who went to work when they were not supposed to go to work. Or those who stayed home because a child was sick, and who now are alive precisely because of that. The people who used to work at the World Trade Center, but now work elsewhere. The people who turned down the other job offer, and went to work at the World Trade Center.  The gentile woman who worked in the World Trade Center. She fell in love with a Jewish man. She decided to convert to Judaism, and when she told her parents about her decision, they were not happy. On September 11, her parents called her in anguish, looking for her. Finally she called them back and said, "I'm alright." She had never gone to work. "What happened?" they asked through audible tears of gratitude. "I skipped work today," she said. "I had an appointment with the rabbi who is teaching me for conversion." Her parents came around. Judaism saved that woman's life. 

There is that moment in Deuteronomy when Moses cajoles his people: "You must never forget what your eyes have seen." He meant that they should always remember the flames and smoke that emanated from Mount Sinai. But ever since that day exactly seven years ago, the smoke and the flames of memory are a different kind of smoke and a different kind of flames. We now live with what our eyes have seen, and what we will never forget.

 

August 19, 2008 -- Kosher: It Ain't Just Food

I know that many of you have been following the scandal in Postville, Iowa, regarding Agriprocessors, the kosher meat company. Agriprocessors is the largest producer of kosher meat in the country. Back in May, government officials raided this meatpacking plant, and arrested hundreds of illegal immigrants. They have been accused of hiring illegal aliens (reportedly the largest single roundup in the history of the United States); paying below minimum wage; withholding health benefits and threatening arrest and deportation if they complain; violating child labor laws and worker safety laws, as well as various other sordid acts. It is, as our Yiddish-speaking grandparents (assuming that they were Yiddish speaking, which is a big assumption) would have called a shonda – a shameful thing.

It is bad enough that it puts the kosher meat industry in a bad light. It is bad enough that it bring disrepute to traditional Jewish eating customs. It is bad enough that it is embarrassing for all Jews, and not just for those who keep kosher. There's another word for it, as well – a hillul ha-shem, a desecration of God's Name. It's bad for God because it's bad for Judaism.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, whom I love to quote, once addressed a class at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. "Gentlemen," he said (for there were no women rabbinical students at that time), "you have all become quite adept at spotting a drop of blood in an egg. A drop of blood in an egg renders the egg unkosher. I hope that you will be able to spot the drops of blood in money as well."

Do the pious Hasidic Jews who run Agriprocessors not know the ethics of business? Of course they do. But there is a huge difference between knowing and doing, and there is an eternal temptation to cut corners and to do that which seems to be expedient.

Meanwhile, it is time for us to remember that kosher isn't just about the way we eat. It's about the way we do business, and the way we use our money, and the way we speak and the way we wage war, and…

And it's not just for the Orthodox. It's about, and for, all of us – and for us to offer to the world as well.

 

July 3, 2008 -- In The Wake of The Terrorist Incident In Jerusalem

Yes, I am safe -- and I thank all of you who expressed concern. The truth is, the Hartman Institute, where I am studying, is literally on the other side of Jerusalem from where the incident took place. It is interesting to note how many conflicting interpretations of the occurrence are floating around the city. There are some who believe that the driver was "merely" deranged; others are convinced that the official explanation -- that this was a terrorist attack -- is, in fact, true. I tend to agree with the latter group. 

What makes this tragedy particularly perplexing is that it comes about through the hands of a Palestinian who lives in a village adjacent to Jerusalem, and therefore not "officially" within the territories and therefore not outside the separation barrier. 

And yet, I remind you all of the all purpose Hebrew phrase -- af al pi cheyn -- "nevertheless." Despite the incident yesterday, the streets of Jerusalem were filled -- filled! -- with happy strollers and diners and street musicians. The atmosphere is overwhelmingly positive and joyful and hopeful. And that, too, is an evocation of the Jewish spirit. 

 

July 1 -- From Jerusalem (Via Rome)

There is nothing quite like coming to Jerusalem by way of Rome. I spent three days in Rome on the way to Jerusalem, and it was a remarkable experience. While it is very hard to really "do" Rome in three days, I had a successful series of ventures to such sights as the Colliseum, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon, the Vatican sights -- and, of course, the ghetto. I even went to services on Friday night at the Great Synagogue in Rome -- the same synagogue that Pope John Paul II visited a few years ago. The Italian-Jewish rite is very different from ours, to be sure -- and beautiful in its own way. Let's not even mention the pasta and the gellato -- the latter was particularly welcome, given the 100 degree heat. 

But here's the point about going from Rome to Jerusalem. Rome was, of course, the capital of the pagan world, and its very name was synonymous with Jewish powerlessness. Indeed, I learned from my guide at the Colisseum that this amazing structure was built by 10,000 Jewish slaves. Moreover, just a few meters away from the Colisseum, one can walk under the Arch of Titus. In the arch, you can see engraved the Roman visual record of the conquest and vanquishing of Judea in 70 CE -- complete with a depiction of the sack of the menorah and other valuables from the ancient Temple. 

But to go from Rome to Jerusalem takes only two hours by plane -- and two thousand years by historical reckoning. To walk in a re-built Jerusalem is to say, essentially: Rome didn't win. We did. Judaism and the Jewish people lives. 

More to come. Stay tuned, everyone.....and see you next Sunday evening for Psalms. 

June 6, 2008. Robert Kennedy z"l

Z"l means zichrono livracha -- "may his memory be a blessing.". Forty years later, we still remember Bobby Kennedy.

However, many of us have forgotten why he was assassinated. Check out my essay in the current issue of The Forward. http://forward.com

May 16, 2009 -- Thinking About My Son's Graduation from College  

It is hard to believe that my older son, Sam, is graduating from George Washington University this weekend. I thank everyone who has already offered their good wishes -- and a special note of gratitude to Janice Rothschild Blumberg, whose gracious "capitol" hospitality has made this weekend possible.  

The good folks at GW asked me to deliver the benediction at graduation ceremonies. They did so with a caveat, of course -- that I remember that I will be the only thing that stands between the assembled multitudes and, well, lunch. I will have been sitting sitting there in my rabbinic robes for God knows how long, so I will not likely be hanging on my every word either.  

Nevertheless, this is what I plan to say.  

Benediction for graduation ceremony, George Washington University

O Source of Being, One of countless names and numberless voices:

We ask Your blessings upon these graduates who go forth from this place of learning and ideas, into a realm of boundless opportunities and challenges.

Find them good mentors who will teach them the maps of life.

Keep their minds alive to the greatness of words and ideas.

If cynicism assaults them, protect their souls by offering them vision.

If success seduces them, guard their innermost parts by offering them humility.

If failure confounds them, build fences of hope around their dreams.

Remind them, always, that they are co-creators with You in the ongoing re-imagining of the world. Wherever they go, let them see the sparks of You in every person they meet. In whatever they do, may they do their part and see their life work as helping to bring wholeness and healing to a broken world.

May this be Your will. Amen.

 

May 15, 2009 -- No "Tears At The Birthday Party"  

That's a line from a song by Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach, and it seems to be relevant to how many of us feel about Israel's sixtieth anniversary as a state, which we mark during these days. You've heard me speak about this milestone quite often; I have written about it at length -- book length, to be exact

(http://www.jewishlights.com).  

Yes, we could join all the media tear-meisters and bewail Israel's admirable list of not-yet-successes (far be it from me to list them here). Why do I call them "admirable?" Because as Jews, we have no illusions about Israel's perfection Perfection is not of this world. The first two Jewish commonwealths (under David and Solomon, and under the Maccabees and their descendants) did not win any historical awards for statescraft. This third Jewish commonwealth is far more successful, by far.  

True to its name, Yisrael means "struggle." Let us applaud and offer blessings to those Zionist and Israeli leaders whose eyes were filled with vision and who helped create a state that makes us all proud to be Jews. Israel is central to Jewish identity in our time; I wouldn't have it any other way.  

 

May 12, 2008 -- Israel at 60

You would have expected more coverage of this major event in Jewish and world history, wouldn't you? Like a cover piece, perhaps in Time or Newsweek? Well, there was that cover piece in Atlantic Monthly -- the piece that asked aloud whether Israel was "finished" and which re-imagined the Israeli flag in Palestinian national colors. Thanks a lot. As Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach put it: Why are there always tears at the birthday party?

Time for some good writing about Israel. The New York Times comes through. Check out Bill Kristol's wonderful op-ed piece in today's paper. It is worth reading and even saving. 

At another time I will wonder aloud: Why is it that only self-proclaimed "neo-cons" have something nice to say about Israel? Does Israel totally lack for liberal friends?
Even as I ask the question, I shudder to consider the answer. Gulp. I hope I'm wrong. Here's the good news: Every presidential candidate is committed to Israel's security and integrity as a Jewish State. Let's start from there and move forward. 

 

May 3, 2008 -- The First Draft of an Ethical Will For My Sons

I delivered these words to Gabriel this past Sunday, as he was confirmed at The Temple. Several people have asked me for copies; feel free to take a look. 

I am deeply grateful to my colleague and friend Rabbi Don Berlin for inviting me, on your behalf, to address the confirmands and my fellow parents today. You should all know, however, that he lovingly admonished me: “Jeff,” he said, “be short.”  I’m afraid that it’s a little too late for that…:)

The most native form of Jewish spiritual writing is the ethical will –in which a parent outlines for a child not the disposition of things of cost, but the disposition of things of value. The ethical will is not a guilt trip. It is neither the clucking of the tongue nor the wagging of the finger, but the throbbing of the soul. This is the first draft of an ethical will for my son who is being confirmed today. Seven short points; seven for the days of creation.

In two years, you will be free to attend any college that you can get into, that we can afford, and that has a significant Jewish population. Wherever you go in life, I hope that you will always seek out the Jewish community and that you will do everything possible to sustain it and add your own gifts of heart and mind to it. 

Honor the rhythms of the Jewish clock. I hope that you will always do something special for Shabbat. I hope that you will continue to fast on Yom Kippur; to be leavenly-challenged on Pesach; and to build a sukkah on Sukkot. Moreover, I would hope that at least once a week you will learn something Jewish – whether it is from an ancient text or from a column in a contemporary Jewish magazine or website.

The land, state and people of Israel are all central in our family’s life and consciousness. Go as often as you can. Defend her, intellectually, with pride and integrity.

I hope that you will continue to avoid consuming some of the animals that were listed in your bar mitzvah portion from Deuteronomy. But the list of those laws is infinitely shorter than the list of laws that concern economic justice and how to treat the most vulnerable members of society. Judaism and politics and public policy do mix. It is the only way to make sure that Judaism matters.

This tradition has sustained a great many people before you, in many different times and places. At the very least, I would hope that you would approach it not with a chip on your shoulder, and not with an eye to see what you can possibly negate, but rather with great spiritual and intellectual openness.  In that way, you will be among those who keep Judaism alive.

I want Jewish grandchildren. Frankly, I don’t care how you get them. Just get them.

And finally, always remember my favorite proverb: Your mind should never be so open that everything falls out.

Those are my words to my son. Perhaps some of you will have heard at least one thing that would start a conversation with your child, or with your parents. It is thrilling to be back on this bima again with this gorgeous group of young people. May God bless you always – and to my fellow parents: That we kept our own commitments to our children and to the Jewish future means that in many ways, this mazal tov is for all of us. 

 

April 29, 2008 – Obama and Wright

Grandiosity. Egocentrism. Narcissism.

Those are just a few words that describe Pastor Jeremiah Wright’s pitiful performance at the Washington Press Club.

This is the letter that I just sent to The New York Times. I can’t imagine that they will print it, so you might as well read it.

To The Editor:

Let me see if I got this wright, er, right. Sen. Obama has spoken respectfully, even lovingly, about his pastoral and spiritual relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright.  In one of the most bizarre re-definitions of the meaning of “gratitude,” Rev. Wright takes advantage of the situation and uses it for an exposition of his own radically unbalanced views, further embarrassing his parishioner.

As a rabbi, I don’t get it. Where I come from, that’s not how you treat the guy in the pew. That Obama has not utterly distanced himself from Wright by resigning from his church shows one of two possibilities. One: he doesn’t like to fight. Two: he’s too much of a mensch (decent human being) to return the fire.

As to which one of these tendencies will ultimately be better for an American president, God knows.

 

April 20, 2008 – Remembering The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 65 Years Later

Noting that the first day of Pesach was the 65th anniversary of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, I refer you to an an item from Deborah Lipstadt’s blog, which in turn refers to an essay in The New Republic magazine about a new book describing  the career of Emanuel Ringelblum, the chronicler of the ghetto http://lipstadt.blogspot.com/2008/03/warsaw-ghetto-new-book-on-historians.html .

I read the article in the original issue of The New Republic while on a plane flight; while reading it, I started to weep, which caused a few people to wonder what was wrong. I wouldn’t have had sufficient time on the flight to even begin to tell them. The article is inspiring and moving – it is perfect reading for Pesach. As is one of my favorite stories – how Martin Peretz, editor of The New Republic, took then-vice president Al Gore to Warsaw for a commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Uprising, back in 1993. One of the members of their entourage noticed that twelve Israeli paratroopers were placing a wreath upon the memorial, and wondered aloud about the significance of the number “twelve.” “Does it refer to the twelve tribes of ancient Israel?” the observer asked.

“No,” said Peretz. “That’s not it at all. It refers to something else. It means: ‘Don’t ever, ever __________________with us again.’”

We can only wonder: How many European Jews might have been saved had there been an Israel in 1943? Certainly not all, but many. Among many other things, Israel represents the Jewish determination that the Jewish people’s long, bemoaned history of victimization is over. Or, at the very least, that it should be.

 

April 14, 2008 – Kabbalah In The New York Times Magazine

 I’m sure that many of you saw this article in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/magazine/13kabbalah-t.html?ref=magazineAbout The Kabbalah Center and celebrity-centered Jewish mysticism. I thought that the article was pretty fair, but I wish that it would have made the following point more, well, pointedly: While we appreciate that there are many in the world who are coming to love the richness and depth of Jewish mysticism, it is impossible to truly understand that tradition if it has been severed from the context of Judaism and Jewish history. Gershom Scholem, Moshe Idel and Adin Steinsaltz, among others, did not spend their lives studying this material only to see it transformed into a New Age cult.  

There. I feel better. And vindicated, as well, for teaching “What Madonna Doesn’t Know.”

 

April 10, 2008 -- A Kol Echad: Making Judaism Matter triumph!

Last evening, Rabbi Hirshy Minkowicz and I made history. Well, I think that we made history. It’s not often that a Reform rabbi and a Habad rabbi appear together and teach text in an atmosphere of tolerance and mutual appreciation. Rabbi Minkowicz taught the passage from the Haggadah about how Laban, Jacob’s uncle and father-in-law, sought to destroy Jacob. And yet, Rabbi Minkowicz pointed out, that contention is supported nowhere in the Biblical text. True, Laban sought to cheat Jacob, steal from him, etc. But destroy him?

Ah, said Rabbi Minkowicz, the threat of destruction was not physical; it was spiritual. There had been the danger that Jacob would have learned the ways of Laban (some of us might argue that this, in fact, did happen to some extent, in regard to the pilfered birthright and blessing) – and had that happened, that would have been the end of the moral excellence of the Jewish people.

I countered by saying that the Haggadah mentions Jacob’s lengthy sojourn with Laban because it was the “dress rehearsal” for Egyptian bondage – and the escape of Jacob’s family from Laban, happening in the middle of the night, was the dress rehearsal for the Exodus as well.

It was a lovely night – made even nicer by the presence of Lynne and Howard Halpern, our president and chair, who made gracious welcoming remarks.

Let the record note: Our study session was in memory of the eight yeshiva students who were killed in Jerusalem exactly a month ago. At the end of the session, we recited El Male Rachamim for these victims. So, we not only studied together – we prayed together. It was a joy.

Remember:

This Sunday evening – Steve Chervin is teaching Psalms.

This Monday evening – my new class on the meaning of Israel’s Declaration of Independence starts in midtown at Winter. We are going to study the Declaration and talk about Israel’s ideals and realities – and yes, you will learn 18 Hebrew words from the Declaration.

This Tuesday evening – part two of “Seder But Wiser.” BYOH – Bring your own Haggadah as we go through the text!!!!

 

March 21, 2008 -- Wow! Someone Disagrees With Me! This is so great!!!  

You never know....so I recently wrote an item about the Pew research about shifting religious identity in America. Lo and behold, a woman named Sheri, who has her own blog, found our blog and commented on what I had written. Here goes:  

http://anitalmidah.vox.com/library/post/the-pew-survey.html  

It is wonderful to be able to engage in dialogue with people whom you've never met.....and even better to have someone disagree with you without being disagreeable. That is a rare commodity in this world, and it brings to mind the rabbinic dictum: Eilu v'eilu -- these and these are the words of the living God.

 

March 17, 2008 -- Obama's Problematic Pastor  

Many of you have asked me my opinion on how Sen. Barack Obama should have dealt with the issue of his pastor's outrageous comments about America, etc.  

As is often the case, I am moved by these words by one of my closest friends in the rabbinate, Rabbi Marc Gellman, who has a column on newsweek.com  He gave me an advanced peek at how he deals with this issue, and I was so moved by it that I had to share it with you.  

Obama's Problematic Pastor How the candidate should explain why he stood by his mentor, even while rejecting the reverend's views Marc Gellman
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Updated: 7:48 PM ET Mar 14, 2008

Barack Obama has a problematic preacher and I think I can help him. I sent him this letter:

Dear Senator Obama,

We have never met but I thought I might write and share with you some thoughts about how you might respond to the problem you are having now because of the sermons of your pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I would say this if I were you,

My fellow Americans,

Much has been made lately about the statements of my pastor. This is what I believe about him and about what he said.

His statements were not a distraction. They were not a mistake, They were not taken out of context. They were not merely wrongheaded. In my view, and in my soul and in my faith, I consider them to be nearly pure examples of hate speech. They were bigoted and like most bigotry, they were utterly false and terribly hurtful. They were also unpatriotic and utterly false. I have come to believe that my pastor and other members of the church are also anti-Semitic. This is not hard for me to say because it is the truth, but it is not the whole truth.

This is the whole truth. This flawed bigoted man saved my life. He took me from a life of despair to a life of hope, from a cynical indifference to a life of faith. He did this for me. He saved me. And this is why I never left his church. This is why I will always credit him as my mentor and friend. This is why I asked him to marry me to my beloved Michelle. This is why I asked him to baptize my girls. This is why I will always honor him as my teacher. I would rather lose the presidency than spit on my pastor.

However, I did not go to him for his anti-American politics or his blatant racism. I went to him for personal guidance, for hope and for a way to Christ. To understand how that could be true I ask you, all of you who are listening to my words, to think about your own lives and your own mentors and teachers and family and friends. The ones who loved you and believed in you and taught you to believe in yourself may also have been bigots. Many of them may have come from immigrant pasts or slave pasts or pasts where they were beaten or degraded or worse because of the color of their skin or the nature of their religion or their country of origin. Many of them were right about you but wrong about many other things, perhaps most other things. God works with broken instruments. Let me ask you how you dealt with the awareness that the people who had helped you and loved you the most were themselves broken and bigoted because of their experience of suffering discrimination. Did you denounce them for their flaws or did you accept them for their love?  It is unfair to end a friendship or break the bonds of family or friendship because the person who loved you could not find the love and spiritual generosity that you developed in your life.

There is a way to explain this that comes from the Jewish tradition and was told to me by a rabbi. Once there was a great rabbi named Elisha ben Abuyah. He had a brilliant student named Meir. One day, after seeing the death of a child, Rabbi Elisha ben Abuya became an apostate, an atheist, a denier of the existence of both God and justice. He said, "There is no Justice and there is no Judge." After his apostasy, all his students left him and denounced him, except for one-Rabbi Meir. He continued to study with his former teacher, scandalizing all the other rabbis who severely criticized Rabbi Meir for studying with a man they now only called Aher, the other one. Rabbi Meir calmly answered them by saying, "My teacher is like a pomegranate. I throw away the bitter skin and drink the sweet juice."

I know many of you cannot imagine any sweet juice flowing from a man whose entire 36 year ministry has been boiled down into 20 seconds of bigotry. I understand. But you did not know this man. I am saddened by his words, I am revolted by his words. He will have nothing to do with my campaign. (On Friday Obama did say, "I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Reverend Wright that are at issue.")

But I say to you, just as you might say about the prejudice in the heart of those who might have once taught you, I can still taste the sweet juice of faith and hope and pride that I drank, not from his lips, but from his heart.

Thank you and God bless my pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright

 

March 6, 2008 -- The Horror in Jerusalem

We are shocked and angered by today's terror attack on the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in the Kiryat Moshe quarter of Jerusalem, in which at least six students have been killed and dozens more wounded. 

"What makes this heinous crime all the more reprehensible is that it was carried out at a religious institution," said American Jewish Committee Executive Director David A. Harris. "This is a stark reminder about the true intentions of those who murder civilians to advance their destructive ends."

Far from being the headquarters of radical settler ideology, as some media reports have indicated, the Mercaz Harav yeshiva was founded more than 80 years ago by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first chief rabbi of the yishuv (the pre-state settlement in Israel). He was one of the great figures of religious Zionism, as well as being a mystic, poet and an ideologue of vegetarianism. 

Yes, the students were ultra-Orthodox, and their world view might have been somewhat different from ours. As you know, it doesn't matter. The gunmen came after Jewish students because they were Jewish students. Theirs were the hands of Esau trying to choke the voice of Jacob.

 

March 3, 2008 -- Post-LIMMUD Musings

Atlanta made Jewish history last weekend – and I’m not talking about “Driving Miss Daisy” or the Leo Frank case. No, this was something better. We should all be very proud of LIMMUD, the one day festival of Jewish learning and engagement that happened at Ogelthorpe University on Sunday, March 2. When you consider that there were about seven hundred people there, at one point or another during the day, and that we had more people than Los Angeles LIMMUD, and that Los Angeles’ Jewish community is about double our size – it really is remarkable. The organizers deserve a hearty yasher koach – for their vision, creativity, and the sheer amount of planning that went into such a large event. We should all be deeply grateful to Larry Schall, president of Ogelthorpe, for his support and hospitality.

Kol Echad: Making Judaism Matter was very blessed to be involved in LIMMUD. The spirit continues, because we at Kol Echad: Making Judaism Matter are making it continue.

 

February 25, 2008 -- Putting On a New Faith

Dan Benardot sent me this link to an article in today’s New York Times. It’s about how a record number of adults are switching faiths – a staggering 44 per cent (factoring in people who have switched from one Protestant denomination to another)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/us/25cnd-religion.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

This is an amazing finding. It also coheres with what we have discovered at Kol Echad: Making Judaism Matter – that there are many people who are experimenting with faith and texts. We have been blessed to have many gentiles studying with us, and we find it wonderful that they believe that Judaism has something to offer them. In what is clearly a free-flowing religious marketplace, the market is truly open – and Judaism has found the ability to compete.

That’s the good news. Here’s the not-so-good news: What is the role of tradition, history and family in all this? Are our lives constantly open to re-invention and our own inner texts open to editing? Does this kind of religious experimentation only increase the possibility of alienation?

Perhaps that was just a minor quibble. How good that Judaism can provide a road map for those who are on a serious spiritual journey.

 

February 17, 2008 -- Vive L'Sarkozy!

I must say that I truly admire the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. Check out this article from the front page of Saturday's New York Times. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/world/europe/16france.html?ref=world

In short, President Sarkozy is advocating that every child in France be able to personally identify with a child who died in the Holocaust. Moreover, he has said (correctly, I believe) that many of the problems in today's Europe flow from a lack of transcendence and religious emptiness.

Sarkozy will get and is already getting a great deal of criticism for his efforts. When we consider how difficult life is now for French Jews, his efforts, even and especially in the midst of controversy, are both refreshing and highly commendable. As Jews, we do well to thank him for what he is doing. It is a breath of fresh air. 

 

February 13, 2008 -- Congressman Tom Lantos, of blessed memory

The American Jewish community, and America itself, has lost one of its great statesman with the death of Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA), the only Holocaust survivor to ever serve in the House of Representatives.
His experience during the Shoah became his template for his world-view
-- a deep hatred of tyranny and a deep suspicion of American isolationism. For an interesting assessment of his political career, read this article from the current issue of The New Republic

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=6f5e1a78-e158-4612-a907-300ef773de6e

It is sad enough that we have lost him. But even sadder -- the number of survivors continues to shrink, as shrink it must with the passing of time. Let us begin, now, worrying about a world in which the word "survivor" might only mean someone who has recovered from a devastating illness -- or, much worse, a television show.

 

February 12, 2007 – The News From Sderot

In a word, terrible.

We have all heard a great deal about the difficult situation in Gaza, which has been suffering under a blocade imposed upon it by Israel. But the media rarely, if ever, pays any attention to the underlying causes of such a difficult situation – which is that missiles from Gaza have fallen, in an unbroken volley, upon the Israeli city of Sderot, turning that town into a ghost town.

  

We have read so much about the situation in Gaza and the seemingly Draconian measures that Israel has had to take against the citizens of that beleaguered area.

But perhaps it is time for us to consider the reasons for such actions – which is that the town of Sderot is under constant bombardment from missiles that are being fired from Gaza. In fact, the media has been absolutely silent on the situation in Sderot. And, frankly, we haven’t been as vocal as necessary either.

  

But why listen to me? Read this heartbreaking account of a recent Shabbat in Gaza.

  

“On Saturday night the 9th of February, two brothers 19 and 8 year old, Rami and Osher Twito, borrowed their mother's credit card to go to the Sderot ATM machine to buy after shave lotion as a birthday present for their father.

“Within moments, they were lying next to each other in a pool of blood on a Sderot side walk.

“Pieces of their legs scattered on the street. One of Osher's legs was immediately severed. Osher's second leg was shattered. Rami and Osher were running for their lives after they heard the RED COLOR siren. They didn't have enough time to run for the shelter which was 100 meters away, knowing that they only had 15 seconds until the Kassam missile would explode.

“Tens of Sderot residents ran to help the boys. Then another siren went off, and they all ran for the shelter once again. There was utter despair on the people's faces -- helplessness of the fathers and mothers carrying their children.

“What a Sabbath in Sderot, with 40 missile attacks fired at Sderot.

“Thinking about Friday night. Sitting at a Sabbath dinner with the Gad family. Hava Gad is the Sderot Parents Association spokeswoman A siren was fired while the soup was being served.

“The whole family took cover in their hall way, which is the safest place in the house.

“The missile fell across the street. A boom rocked the house. Hava collapsed. Tzfania, her husband, a reserve military officer, leaned over Hava, calming her down. Their 9 year old son Yanai played his own role -- supporting his mother, calming her down.

“A few seconds later another explosion. And then another one. It quiets down and everyone returned to the Sabbath table.

“Dr. Reuven Ehrlich, the head of Intelligence and Terror Information Center, visited Sderot last week and reported that over 8,000 missile attacks had occurred over the past seven years.

“Yet the unkindest cut of all came from Washington.

“On Thursday, the US State Department issued a strong statement to warn Israel to show concern for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. A call placed on Friday to the US embassy to ask whether the US State Department would issue a statement about the humanitarian crisis in Sderot and the Western Negev went unanswered.

The above speaks for itself.

The only question now is – Who will speak for the hapless citizens of Sderot?

 

February 1, 2008 -- Lies and Truth in American Political Life

Friends:
The following message is not intended to be an endorsement of Senator Barack Obama. Far from it. 
It is, however, an endorsement of truth within the American political process. It is also a condemnation of that most grievous sin that Jewish tradition calls lashon ha-ra -- gossip -- which, say the sages, was one of the reasons why the Temple was destroyed.

The leaders of major Jewish American organizations sent the following open
letter to the Jewish Community condemning the hateful and false emails
attacking Senator Barack Obama. Please see the letter below and forward it
on to all who have received these emails.  You can help pass on the truth
about Senator Obama and his strong support for Israel and the Jewish
Community.

An Open Letter to the Jewish Community:

As leaders of the Jewish community, none of whose organizations will endorse
or oppose any candidate for President, we feel compelled to speak out
against certain rhetoric and tactics in the current campaign that we find
particularly abhorrent.  Of particular concern, over the past several weeks,
many in our community have received hateful emails that use falsehood and
innuendo to mischaracterize Senator Barack Obama's religious beliefs and who
he is as a person.

These tactics attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a
presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks and innuendo
based on religion.  We reject these efforts to manipulate members of our
community into supporting or opposing candidates.

Attempts of this sort to mislead and inflame voters should not be part of
our political discourse and should be rebuffed by all who believe in our
democracy. Jewish voters, like all voters, should support whichever
candidate they believe would make the best president. We urge everyone to
make that decision based on the factual records of these candidates, and
nothing less.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean, Simon Wiesenthal Center
William Daroff, Vice President, United Jewish Communities
Nathan J. Diament, Director, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of
America
Abraham Foxman, National Director, Anti-Defamation League
Richard S. Gordon, President, American Jewish Congress
David Harris, Executive Director, American Jewish Committee
Rabbi David Saperstein, Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
Phyllis Snyder, President, National Council of Jewish Women
Hadar Susskind, Washington Director, Jewish Council for Public Affairs

http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nl/content.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH
<http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nl/content.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=312458&c ontent_id=%7bB03F16FC-B9E1-4AC9-BD73-3B410581C1E7%7d&notoc=1>
&b=312458&content_id={B03F16FC-B9E1-4AC9-BD73-3B410581C1E7}&notoc=1

Let me add the following "RASHI": And if Obama was a Muslim, what of it? And if his middle name happens to be Hussein? Have we forgotten that not quite fifty years ago, a presidential candidate with the middle name "Fitzgerald" was almost, well, treif? And have we forgotten the candidacy of a man who actually observes Shabbat and wears a kippah (Joe Lieberman)?
I urge you to copy this email - gratuitously and with reckless abandon -- to everyone in your email address book. For surely you know the story of the man who engaged in gossip and who asked his rabbi what he could do to rectify the situation. The rabbi said, "Open a pillow in the marketplace on a windy day and watch the feathers scatter. Then try to gather them up again. That is the power of gossip."
It seems to me that the only remedy for bad gossip is to spread better, more redemptive gossip. 
Go. Do it. 
Shabbat shalom, Jeff Salkin

January 24, 2007 – Waiting for LIMMUD

Here’s something to really look forward to -- Atlanta’s forthcoming upcoming Limmud Atlanta + Southeast Conference, March 1-2 at Oglethorpe. 

A group of Atlantans just returned from New York LIMMUD…..and this is what we can anticipate:

At Limmud NY I davenned with an Argentinian cantor whose melodies made Shabbat worship soar. I studied in chevrusa with a rabbinical student and a soccer mom, had drinks and danced with 20-somethings, and saw some terrific movies. I was brought to near tears by the words of an 85 year old lifelong learner, kibbitzed with an old friend, and met tons of new people, including folks from Denver, Philly, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Washington DC, who are planning Limmud conferences in their cities. It was exhausting, exciting . . .and I can't wait to go next year!
--Nina Rubin (Marketing Chair)

It was great to participate with the vibrant Limmud New York community.The sessions were outstanding learning and social opportunities. I feel empowered from taking the steps to an exciting Jewish journey of discovery. I am looking forward to continuing this journey at Limmud Atlanta. 

--Anthony Erdman (Children's Program)

You will laugh alot, learn alot, be amazed by the talent, and meet some cool Jews that you didn't realize live 5 minutes away from you.  Limmud is...kinda like summer c amp or Jewish youth group weekends...but FINALLY not just for kids!   I've caught the bug and I want to share it with you.  It must be good if the Brits have been doing it for 28 years.
--Renee Rosenheck  (Saturday Night Program)

Limmud fills me up with Jewish knowledge and energy. I do Jewish things all year but nothing give me the energy and excitement that I get from Limmud.  It's like a well that I can draw on all year.  It fuels me!
--Jodi Mansbach (Conference Co-Chair)

And, a heartfelt endorsement from one of Atlanta’s greatest gifts to American Judaism, Professor Deborah Lipstad:

I am a GREAT fan of Limmud. I go to lots and lots of Jewish meetings and gatherings during the year but nothing, I repeat
nothing, charges my batteries and enriches me the way Limmud does.  I am not sure if it is the richness of learning, the volunteer aspect, the
pluralistic nature [denominationally, age-wise, outlook etc. etc.], the sense of being back at camp... Whatever it is, I am completely hooked and
think it will be a great thing to bring to the Southeast.

I have attended LIMMUD in Great Britain several times; each time it was spiritually, intellectually and emotionally uplifting. You are going to want to be at Atlanta LIMMUD. I will be teaching a bunch of classes……for more information -

http://www.jacatlanta.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=54142

 

January 12, 2008 -- How To Insult A Jew

You ’d be amazed how many times Jews come up to me and ask me: “Rabbi, I’m Jewish, but for years I have longed to know the answer to this question: How does one Jew insult another Jew?” 

Actually, no one has ever asked me that question, but I will ignore that sobering reality for the moment, if you will. 

But if they did…..this is what I would answer. 

Lesson One: The first way that a Jew insults another Jew is to call that person an apikoris. What a great word! It probably comes from the Greek philosopher Epicuros. That school of philosophy taught that God or the gods had no interest in human affairs. They believed that belief in divine reward and punishment was the chief source of human anxiety, and that such religion was superstitious and little more than terror.  
But to the Jew of the first and second centuries and beyond, an apikoris was a heretic, a free thinker, someone who argued a little too much with the tradition, sometimes even a mocker and a scoffer. An apikoris was one who spurned a fellow Torah scholar, or who called his teacher by his given name, as opposed to by the title Rav (it’s OK, you can still call me Jeff if you want to). An apikoris was one who said that the Torah was not of divine origin, or perhaps that it was of divine origin, except for one small detail. You will not be surprised that the Orthodox have frequently hurled that epithet at non-Orthodox Jews. 

There’s the famous story about the young man from Minsk who wanted to be an apikoris. So he went to Pinsk to meet the great apikoris of Pinsk. The apikoris of Pinsk asked him: “Have you studied Torah? Talmud? Maimonides?” To each query, the would-be novitiate admitted: “No.” To which the older man replied: “I’m afraid that you are not an apikoris – you’re an am-haaretz! “

Before I bring you to Lesson Two on how to insult a Jew, and tell you what an am-haaretz is, let me speak up in favor of apikorsim. To tell you the truth: The modern world and modern Jewish history is the collective biography of apikorsim. Consider the list: Spinoza, the first modern philosopher. Karl Marx. Sigmund Freud. Albert Einstein. Take those last three – Marx, Freud, and Einstein – and you have the three thinkers who shattered the old categories and created the modern world. Each of them, secular Jews (Marx was actually a convert to Christianity and was more than vaguely anti-semitic, but I suppose that for the moment we could claim him as an apikoris). 
So, let me be clear: There are worse things in the world than to be an apikoris. Some of my best friends are apkorsim. And some of our best Jews have been apikorsim. 
Go back to what the Apikoris of Pinsk told the young man from Minsk: Young man, you are not an apikoris – you’re an am-haaretz! Young man, don’t congratulate yourself on being a heretic and a free thinker! You’re not! If you’ve never studied Judaism in any depth, you’re not an apikoris! You’re worse than that! You’re an am ha-aretz! You’re a person of the earth -- an ignoramus!

So there you have Lesson Two on How To Insult a Jew: Call him or her an am haaretz. It is far worse to be an ignoramus than a heretic. Heresy and spiritual rebellion in the Jewish community is of no danger to us. But ignorance is. Or, let me put it to you this way: You can be a free thinker. But you can’t be a non-thinker. 

This is truly amazing. Do you know that we are the only spiritual tradition that does not have among its heroes the figure of the pious fool? That we are the only religious tradition that has as its motto “the ignorant cannot be pious?” 

I am talking about the need for Jewish cultural literacy. I am talking about the need for more than simply cultural literacy. I am talking about the vision of a community that is committed to life long learning as a value….as the sine qua non of Jewish purpose in the world. 

Thanks to all of you who have made the first six months of Kol Echad such a blessing. None of you will ever be an am ha-aretz again. 

January 4, 2007 -- Whose Story Will Win?  

The morning after the Iowa caucus, I find myself reflecting on this "first shot" in the 2008 presidential campaign. While I am by no means a political analyst, it seems fair to say that people don't necessarily vote for platforms or positions. They vote for stories -- in the old mythic sense. Or, to use the language of the academy -- who has the most compelling narrative?   I suspect that there might be a long history of this in national elections. When you think of many victors in presidential elections, you can detect (with major exceptions) a pattern. John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton -- each of them had a compelling story. For Kennedy, it was youth and vigor. For Reagan, it was the fact that he seemed to be a cowboy, which is what we wanted and needed at that Ayatollah-riddled moment in American foreign policy. Bill Clinton was the boy from the backwoods who danced with the devil and lived to smile about it. That explains the Obama victory. Yes, people like the message. But people are resonating to the story -- in all its multicultural glory. The mere fact that an African-American man has gotten this far is almost, miraculous. And they seem to have rejected the other possible stories. (I'm keeping my eye on Edwards).   It also explains, I think, the Huckabee victory. It is not that people were voting for his story, problematic as it is. It may well be that they were rejecting the other stories. The Romney Mormon narrative is foreign to many in this country. How ironic: there was less "noise" when Lieberman ran as a traditional Jew.   We Jews know about stories. We have our own story, which is very ancient and constantly being renewed. Let's watch as this plays out.

 

December 17, 2007 – When They Criticize Israel, Let Them Read This

This is an excerpt from an essay by Daniel Gordis, one of Israel’s most important Jewish educators and thinkers. I advise printing it out and carrying it with you in your pocket in anticipation of the next conversation you have in which the subject of Israel comes up.

 ….Together with my son, Avi, and a friend visiting from Los Angeles, I drive up north to visit two Sudanese refugees recently released from Israeli jail, just as the Darfur story is starting to become headline news here. By the time we make it to the moshav where they're living, working as day laborers on a farm, it's getting a bit dark. We sit outside the converted shipping container in which they're living (it's only a metal shipping container, but I notice that it has an air conditioner and a satellite dish on the "roof"), and they begin to tell us their story.  

One, whose English is a bit better (and whom we'll call Ibrahim for our purposes), does most of the talking. He'd had four-hundred head of cattle in Sudan, which I assume made him a wealthy man. He'd also been a teacher, and had a library of some consequence in his home. He didn't tell his story in anything resembling a chronological account, but we cobbled it together. He was one of eleven siblings, from a respected family. But his wealth and his position did him no good. The Junjaweed attacked his village, killing most of his siblings, forcing him to flee into the wilds with his father. His father eventually died, and he himself was later captured.  

His captors, he told us, would burn one or two of the captives alive each night in front of the others, allegedly to get them to reveal "information." On the eve of the night when he was to be burned alive, his captors ran out of wood. So the captives, under the watchful eyes of their armed guards, were dispatched into the thickets to bring back more wood. Ibrahim knew what would happen if he returned to camp. So he and another man, working in the shoulder-high brush, plotted their escape. The details are complex, but suffice it to say that they evaded their captors, and walked for three days with leg chains until they could find someone to help them saw the chains off.  

Eventually, "Ibrahim" made his way to Egypt. There, he met and married another Darfur refugee. A few months later, she was pregnant, and they applied for refugee status from the United Nations. In December 2005, though, they attended a large rally outside the UN headquarters in Cairo, pressing the UN to process them more quickly. But the Egyptian army broke up the demonstration using water canons with ice cold water (in December). In the confusion, Ibrahim was separated from his wife, and as he was pushed onto a bus, he saw her being shoved into a police car.  

After several days in an Egyptian prison cell with sixty other inmates (the space was only large enough for thirty to sleep at any one time, so thirty would sleep on the cement floor for a few hours, while the rest stood and then they would switch), Ibrahim was released from prison, and went looking for his wife. At first, there was no sign of her. Eventually, after searching all over the city, he found her name on a list of the dead, affixed to a Church door.  

Now, Ibrahim could barely speak. Neither could we, of course. For it was a story we'd heard before, only before, it had been about us. Families, secure and respected, suddenly torn asunder and murdered. Husbands separated from wives. Cruelty that defies description. Entire communities scattered and murdered.  

Ibrahim continued. "I knew I must go to Israel. I have read in the Bible that the Jews are good to strangers. Israel will take care of me, I know."  

He paused, and suddenly, I was unable to look at my son I wished that I hadn't brought him. Because I knew what was coming. Ibrahim was going to tell us that the Bible says that the Jews are good to strangers, but look what we actually do. We throw them in jail, don't we? I found myself gripping the arms of the plastic chair on which I was sitting, listening to Ibrahim, but staring straight into the ground.  

He described how he and another refugee (the quiet man now sitting next to him) had slowly made their way across the Sinai desert, without flashlights or candles. In the day they would sleep and stay still so as not to be detected, and at night they would inch their way forward, trying not to head too far west (and end up in Gaza) or too far east and thus (in their understanding of the geography) end up in Jordan. Eventually, after weeks of wandering at night, they came to a barbed wire fence. They knew it was a border, but they weren't sure which border it was. They crawled through it with no trouble, he said, and stood up, surveying the new country in which they'd arrived.  

Within seconds, Ibrahim told us, army jeeps streamed towards them, spotlights flooding the area with glaring white. Soldiers jumped out, their guns at the ready. It must have been terrifying, I imagined. But Ibrahim said, calmly, pointing at the spot on his shirt above his breast pocket, "I see on the soldiers writing I do not recognize. And I know this is Israel. I know I am OK."  

I almost laughed. He sees Hebrew, so he thinks he's safe. But I knew that Ibrahim had been arrested, and I just knew that there was going to be a nasty story about these soldiers. I glanced at Avi, and his eye caught mine. Just having graduated high school, he's not far from getting drafted himself, and I felt for him. They were going to tell us about the army he's soon to join, and it wasn't going to be pretty.  

Ibrahim continued. The soldiers, having no idea what to do with these men (this was before the flood of refugees began), put them in their jeep, and took them to base. There, they told Ibrahim and his friend, "We'll figure this out in the morning." In the meantime, they gave them dinner, made them some beds, and let them go to sleep.  

Now, that wasn't what I'd expected to hear. 

 

The rest of the story is complicated. Because he'd entered the country illegally (and as a Sudanese citizen, he's a citizen of a country formally at war with Israel), Ibrahim was eventually arrested. When our friend from Los Angles asked him how it was in Israeli prison, he smiled and said, "Yes, very good." "No," our friend said, assuming he hadn't understood the question. "In prison. How was it in prison?" "Yes," Ibrahim insisted. "Good. They give us food. The guards are kind." At last, I allowed myself a brief glance at Avi.  

Eventually, a judge let him out of prison, and he was permitted to work on this moshav, which had taken in a number of refugees. In a few weeks, he told us, there would be no limits on his freedom. He would head to Tel Aviv, he said, to try to find a job, and to start his life anew.  

"Do you think you'll be allowed to stay in Israel?" my friend asked him. Ibrahim's smile disappeared. "I must," he said. "This is wonderful country. People here are very kind. I rather die in Israel than go back to Egypt or Sudan. They will kill me there." He's seen them do it, we should recall. 

We took some pictures, exchanged cell phone numbers. Ibrahim had forgotten my son's name, and asked him what it was. "Avi," Avi said. Ibrahim looked at his friend, and they smiled. He turned to us and said, "Avi was the name of a guard in prison. He was very nice man."

December 14, 2007 -- Thank God, There’s Finally A Chaplain on “ER"

The cast of characters on NBC’s “ER” changes so quickly that you probably didn’t notice a new character. She’s a hospital chaplain named Julia. In a recent episode, she held a service to consecrate the emergency room, as well as to remember deceased patients. She might be the most compelling character on the show ever since a crashing helicopter apparently vaporized the insufferable Dr. Romano.

Julia is the first chaplain on any medical show in television history. What about Father Mulcahey on “MASH?” Yes, but that was wartime, and everyone knows that there are no atheists in foxholes. OK, so make that the first civilian chaplain.

Hallelujah. God is certainly not done with the television industry.

Let it be no secret why I am such a fan of hers. True – I am a rabbi and teacher and writer. But I am also a compulsive viewer of television medical shows. I first got the bug back in elementary school with “Dr. Kildare” and “Ben Casey.” I graduated to “Marcus Welby, MD” and then to “Trapper John, MD” and on to “St. Elsewhere” over to “Chicago Hope” and “ER.”

So, I am a veteran of a forty-year viewing career of seeing doctors, nurses, patients, patients’ families, administrators, custodians, ambulance drivers and file clerks passing across the television screen. But these most recent “ER” episodes constitute a famous first – for which this rabbi uttered a long-overdue prayer of thanksgiving.

In more than a half century of television medical history, is it really possible that no member of the clergy ever visited any of those patients? This is so not real life. Spend time in any hospital and you will see clergy visiting patients and offering consolation to their family members. Priests, nuns, ministers, rabbis and imams sit on medical ethics committees. Quite often, clergy people are among the “first responders” to any trauma. And as any member of the clergy knows, if you don’t visit the sick soon enough or well enough, you might start singing the final hymn to your tenure – or, to put it in TV-ese, you could get cancelled.

Why am I so surprised? Television’s theme song might well be “Losing My Religion” by REM. Almost no one on television seems to go to church or synagogue – and when they do, it’s almost always a ludicrous experience; I’m thinking of that “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode where High Holy Day tickets get scalped right in a synagogue itself. Clergy members are deeply flawed people (think of Father Phil on “The Sopranos”) or the butt of jokes, like the dweeby rabbi and the hysterically inept mohel (ritual circumciser) on “Seinfeld.”  Come to think of it – what religion is Chaplain Julia, anyway? So far it seems as if it’s none in particular – or all in general, which is even worse.

We don’t even see clergy where we expect to see them. I watched HBO’s “Six Feet Under” (may it rest in peace) for its entire run. The show was about the funeral business. Hey, I said to myself, I don’t get it. As far as I could tell, no minister ever did a funeral on “Six Feet Under.” Well, OK, there was one – a woman rabbi who made a brief appearance, long enough to have a fling with Nate Fisher, which, off screen, probably didn’t play very well with her lay leaders.

The question is not only: “What took television so long to get religion?” It’s also: “Why now?” Perhaps it is because of this overly faith-driven presidential campaign, in which every candidate seems to be posturing for the position of Theologian in Chief. (I’ve heard God mentioned more on the campaign trail over the last few months than I heard in rabbinical school over five years, but that’s another story). Perhaps this is a subtle way of striking back against the Hitchens-Harris atheism tracts, that newly emerged cottage industry of bah humbug-ism. Perhaps it is because of the hitherto unknown ramifications of the writers’ strike, the possibilities of which may have caused some Hollywood pen-wielders to confront their own fragility and/or career mortality.

Or, as this rabbi would like to believe:  Perhaps it is because “ER,” created in 1994, is now thirteen years old, and is therefore celebrating its bar mitzvah. Having reached its age of religious maturity, the show has decided to become, well, religiously mature.

I wish chaplain Julia a lot of luck on “ER.” True, she may already be off to a rocky start with the rest of the staff. When some of her colleagues hear that one of the doctors has been seeing her, the response is incredulous and vulgar: “You mean you’re banging the chaplain?” – which somehow transmits the message that clergy, whatever their faith, are supposed to be sexless. Like any practitioner of faith in a secular setting, she views her task as missionary work. Her job is to create meaning and to instill hope in the lives of not only patients, but staff as well.

May Julia not go the way of all flesh and meet the same demise as George Clooney, Noah Wyle, and Julianna Margulies. I pray that faith will not get written out of this script. It is too precious to wind up on the cutting room floor.

 

December 5, 2007 --  That’s It! No Chocolate Hanukah Gelt For Christopher Hitchens!!!

Sigh. That’s about all I can say about Christopher Hitchen’s latest screed --

http://www.slate.com/id/2179045/   

in which he “scrooges” Hanukah. Christopher just can’t stand that holiday. First of all, he vastly prefers Greek culture to Judaism, and therefore wishes that the Maccabees had lost the battle. Second, because the Maccabees won, Judaism survived and therefore gave birth to Christianity - -and had that never happened, Jews would never have been accused of being Christ-killers (which makes sense in its own twisted way). Not only that, but there would not have been an Islam, either, he says (I wonder).

Hitch is right about a few things. It is true that the Maccabees were fanatics for Adonai. It is true that they were hardly liberals, and that the only religious freedom they fought for was the right of Jews to be Jews. As someone once said, the Maccabees were far more akin to the Taliban than they were to Reform rabbis. And he is also right that the Maccabees, as the Hasmonean dynasty, were terrible rulers – so terrible that the Romans had to intervene to keep order, which led to the ultimate Roman occupation of the land of Israel – and the rest of the historical story you probably know.

If I wanted to look at this historically, I could easily make the point that Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel has been a mixed bag, to say the least. The first Jewish commonwealth under David and Solomon ultimately fell apart. The second Jewish commonwealth under the Hasmoneans fell apart. And the third Jewish commonwealth – the state of Israel – has had countless successes in its sixty year history. Politics hasn’t always been one of them.

In any case, methinks that Hitchens doth protest too much. I spoke at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto back in October, and Hitchens had spoken there a few weeks before me. It had not been his first time at that venerable Reform congregation; I understand that he had spoken there in the past. He is certainly no enemy of the Jewish people; in fact, he is “sort of” Jewish and his children are being raised as Jews. I hope that he wants them to believe in something.

Happy Hanukah, everyone!!

 

November 28, 2007 -- As Annapolis Starts...

The Israel-Palestinian peace conference in Annapolis started yesterday, with optimistic expectations that the comprehensive process would be finished by 2008. Finished -- as in all issues resolved -- final status, Jerusalem, refugees, security, water, etc. 

It is ironic that Annapolis begins during the week when we mark the sixtieth anniversary of the UN vote to partition the land of Israel into a Jewish state and an Arab state. That Arab state was to have been a Palestinian state, and the collected Arab governments and armies made sure that it was still born. 
Few have said it as well as Bernard Lewis of Princeton University. I have taken the liberty of re-printing his recent essay in The Wall Street Journal in full. 

The Jewish Question by Bernard Lewis, November 23, 2007

Herewith some thoughts about tomorrow’s Annapolis peace conference, and the larger problem of how to approach the Israel-Palestine conflict. The first question (one might think it is obvious but apparently not) is, “What is the conflict about?” There are basically two possibilities: that it is about the size of Israel, or about its existence.

If the issue is about the size of Israel, then we have a straightforward border problem, like Alsace-Lorraine or Texas. That is to say, not easy, but possible to solve in the long run, and to live with in the meantime.

If, on the other hand, the issue is the existence of Israel, then clearly it is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between existing and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.

PLO and other Palestinian spokesmen have, from time to time, given formal indications of recognition of Israel in their diplomatic discourse in foreign languages. But that’s not the message delivered at home in Arabic, in everything from primary school textbooks to political speeches and religious sermons. Here the terms used in Arabic denote, not the end of hostilities, but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel can be resumed with better prospects for success. Without genuine acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State, as the more than 20 members of the Arab League exist as Arab States, or the much larger number of members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference exist as Islamic states, peace cannot be negotiated.

A good example of how this problem affects negotiation is the much-discussed refugee question. During the fighting in 1947-1948, about three-fourths of a million Arabs fled or were driven (both are true in different places) from Israel and found refuge in the neighboring Arab countries. In the same period and after, a slightly greater number of Jews fled or were driven from Arab countries, first from the Arab-controlled part of mandatory Palestine (where not a single Jew was permitted to remain), then from the Arab countries where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, or in some places for millennia. Most Jewish refugees found their way to Israel.

What happened was thus, in effect, an exchange of populations not unlike that which took place in the Indian subcontinent in the previous year, when British India was split into India and Pakistan. Millions of refugees fled or were driven both ways — Hindus and others from Pakistan to India, Muslims from India to Pakistan. Another example was Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, when the Soviets annexed a large piece of eastern Poland and compensated the Poles with a slice of eastern Germany. This too led to a massive refugee movement — Poles fled or were driven from the Soviet Union into Poland, Germans fled or were driven from Poland into Germany.

November 25, 2007 -- A Musical Tribute To Two Righteous Gentiles

Wow. That's all I can say. While surfing the web this past weekend (hey, there's a limit to how much leftover turkey even I can eat), I found this story. It's truly amazing. It's about the noted soprano Anne-Sofie von Otter and her new recording Terezin. It turns out that her father was a Swedish diplomat during World War Two who had an accidental encounter on a train with an SS officer named Kurt Gerstein. Gerstein poured out his heart to the elder von Otter, telling him of the mass killings of Jews that he had witnessed. It turns out that he had originally joined the SS in order to investigate the death by euthanasia of his mentally disabled sister-in-law. asked von Otter to inform the Swedish government. Von Otter did so, but the plea fell on deaf ears. Worse than that, when he looked for his own report in Foreign Ministry files, there was nothing to be found.

Gerstein, meanwhile, continued to risk his life by confessing to foreigners. Nevertheless, he was charged with war crimes. Von Otter wrote a letter on his behalf, corroborating Gerstein's efforts to help Jews. It came too late. Gerstein was found dead on July 25, 1945. He had either committed suicide or been murdered by other SS inmates.

Anne-Sophie von Otter's new album, Terezin, is a kind of musical tribute to these two righteous gentiles. It contains music that the Jews of that "model ghetto" performed for the visiting Red Cross, as well as a musical rendition of "I wander through Terezin," a poem written by nurse Ilse Weber for her son whom she had put on a train out of Prague, hoping to see him again some day.

The music is wonderful; the story is powerful. Read it here http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/071031-NL-angel.html

The story of Kurt Gerstein can be found here as well

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Gerstein

http://www.annefrank.dk/Gerstein/

I had never heard of him before, which bears witness to the fact that there is still so much more for all of us to learn about the Shoah.
And much of what we have to learn are stories of redemption.

While you're at it, go to ITunes and download music from "Terezin." At the very least, do it so that ITunes knows that the music is being heard.

 

November 20, 2007 - I'm Grateful for Thanksgiving

Just a quick message wishing everyone a joyous Thanksgiving. As I've often ruminated (that means using two stomachs for digestion, which is particularly appropriate for this holiday), most cooks can competently make a turkey. The real culinary skill emerges on Friday, Saturday and beyond: what do you do with the leftovers?

That's the real Torah of life. We Jews have always been adept at using the leftovers of existence. In the aftermath of the Roman destruction of Judean independence; in the aftermath of the expulsion from Spain; and in the aftermath of the Holocaust --Jewish creativity has always depended on how we have chosen to use what's left. Each time, we've re-created Judaism and we have shown new vitality in our faith.

Which leads me to a reminder. On Sunday evening, December 2 at 6 pm, join us for "In the Beginning" at The Halpern Center, 4381 Beach Haven Trail off Cumberland Pkwy in Vinings. We will formally dedicate the Center for Kol Echad: Making Judaism Matter, as well as mark the sixtieth anniversary of the UN vote to create the state of Israel. I will be reading from my new book A Dream of Zion: Americans Reflect on Why Israel Matters (Jewish Lights).

Good yontif, so to speak.

 

November 13, 2007 - Have You Been Praying For Rain?  

That was Gov. Sonny Perdue’s fervent request of religious leaders in Atlanta., and 250 faithful Georgians showed up at the Capitol to offer their prayers for rain that would end this state’s historic drought. http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/11/13/rainprayer_1114.html  

For some reason, I didn’t get the message about this interesting local theological happening, for I certainly would have been there. Actually, secret primitive man that I am, I wouldn’t have protested if there had been the suggestion to sacrifice one or more politicians or even certain local celebrities to the rain gods. The drought is so bad that this is no time to, er, uh, stand on ceremony.   For various reasons, I am not particularly offended by Gov. Perdue’s request. First of all, it does not favor any one religion over another. Second, it appeals to our nation’s natural religious character, i.e. the overwhelming majority of Americans really do believe in a God that is involved with nature in some way (Take that, Christopher Hitchens!) And third, we really, really do need the rain.   And as a Jew? I note that the Reform movement has just come out with a brand new prayerbok, Mishkan Tefilah, so ably edited by my colleague and friend Rabbi Elyse Frishman. http://ccarnet.org/_kd/Items/actions.cfm?action=Show&item_id=1123&destination=ShowItem

The new siddur contains a reference to the ultimate messianic resurrection of the dead, which would have been unthinkable in earlier Reform texts. It also re-introduces, within the text of the gevurot prayer, the traditional prayers for rain and dew in their appropriate seasons. Those appropriate seasons are the appropriate seasons for eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel, and those prayers further link the worshipper to the climatic patterns of our Land – a most appropriate gift for Israel’s sixtieth anniversary.   But you don’t have to be in Israel, or even thinking about Israel, when you pray for rain. Georgia may not be the Holy Land, but even not-so-holy lands need rain.   As I write this, the sky is cloudy. Maybe it will rain today, at long last. Maybe our prayers will have been answered in the affirmative.   As the old Yiddish joke puts it: It can’t hoit.

 

November 6, 2007 – Lessons From The Megachurches

I was sorry to have missed Hallelu Atlanta; I am sure that it was absolutely wonderful. In fact, there was an interesting article about it in the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/us/03religion.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

The best takeaway from the article? American Jews are no longer content on being insulated from what is happening in the larger religious world. We’ve known that for a long time, but we have always had a particular allergy (if not outright phobia) about communicating and learning from evangelical churches. It turns out that many of them are doing some wonderful things for their people and to enhance the worship experience. We can and should learn from their successes; as the article makes clear, this doesn’t mean that we have to sign on to their political or social agenda.

As it says in Pirke Avot: “Who is wise? The one who learns from all people.”

 

October 30, 2007 – Should There Be A Bar Mitzvah Ceremony For Black Boys?

Check this out:

http://www.forward.com/articles/11838/

It is an ingenious idea: create a ceremony for black youth who are entering maturity, as a way for them to declare that they will try to live responsibly.

Is the author writing tongue-in-cheek? I don’t think so. And I don’t know if any African-American leaders will read this and agree. But it does say something about the potential power of ritual to transform human beings into deeper and higher stuff, and it is yet another way that we Jews can offer our insights to the world.

And, need I add – to proclaim that Judaism matters.

 

October 22, 2007 – The Armenians and Us

I don’t know if you’ve been following this, but there is a major battle that is brewing in this country – and within the Jewish community – about the nature of the Armenian genocide.

Actually, it’s that last word – “genocide” – that is most controversial. There is a bill before Congress that would officially condemn Turkey for the slaughter/massacre/genocide of the Armenian population during World War One. Turkey is adamantly opposed to such a measure. So are many American leaders, especially President Bush, because of Turkey’s strategic importance in the Middle East. And so are major forces within the Jewish community, who don’t want to alienate Turkey, who is Israel’s best friend in the region. Those are very legitimate concerns, and the true debate is over whether realpolitik trumps historical memory and truth.

Truth be told: there are no two ethnic communities in the world that resemble each other more than the Jews and the Armenians. Food, family, faith, intellectual striving, exile – even our theologians think alike about our respective historical terrors. When you walk through the Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, the walls are adorned (wrong word, I know) with maps of Armenia, pin-pointing the locations of the major killings.

Was the Armenian catastrophe a genocide? Certainly genocide theorists think so. Hitler thought so, as well; he believed that just as people had already forgotten about what happened to the Armenians, so, too, they would forget what happened to the Jews. Thus, ever so tempting is amnesia. Armenians in this country are right to keep that memory alive – as we Jews know quite well.

I have always had a great deal of sympathy for the Armenian people. What Jew wouldn’t? But it wasn’t Turkey that did this to the Armenians. It was the Ottoman Empire. As the Ottoman Empire was in its death throes during World War One, its Muslim leaders saw the Armenians – Christendom’s oldest nation – as a religious and ethnic threat. They killed and starved and destroyed this people. At one point, the Tigris River was so crammed with bodies that its course was changed.

Turkey has had the opportunity to say: The fate of the Armenians was horrific. Yes, it was genocide. But the modern secular state of Turkey is not responsible for this. It was the Ottoman Empire, and Turkey is not nor wants to be the successor to the Ottoman Empire. Quite the contrary. Turkey wants to be….and here, using the elegant art of statecraft, Turkey’s leadership gets to articulate its vision for Turkey’s future.

Because, as Reb Nachman of Bratslav said, memory is also a kind of redemption. You can’t construct a future unless you can re-construct the past.

The best book on the Armenian situation? No contest – Peter Balakian’s The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response

http://www.amazon.com/Burning-Tigris-Armenian-Genocide-Americas/dp/0060558709/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5114717-1707351?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193072482&sr=1-1

The best book on genocide in general? Again, no contest – Samantha Power’s America and The Age of Genocide

http://www.amazon.com/Burning-Tigris-Armenian-Genocide-Americas/dp/0060558709/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5114717-1707351?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193072482&sr=1-1

 

October 17, 2007 -- "The “Munichization” of The Kingdom”

Why is there no Academy Award category for “Best Last Line in An American Film?” Imagine the winners -- Clark Gable’s for “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” in “Gone With The Wind”;  Joe E. Brown for “Nobody’s perfect” in “Some Like It Hot.” But at least, no movie-goers left those two classic movies scratching their heads over the philosophical and moral implications of those famous last lines. (Alright, “Nobody’s perfect” does raise some issues). So it’s time to open up a brand new category --  “The Most Morally Ambiguous Last Line in An American Film.”  “Envelope, please…..the award goes to ‘The Kingdom’ for ‘We’re going to kill them all.’”  

               

In “The Kingdom,” a suicide bombing lays waste to an American oil company’s picnic in a compound in Saudi Arabia. Then, in an attack that is (if possible) even more fiendish than the first, a second bomb kills teams of first responders. Among those killed is a particularly beloved FBI agent. When she learns of his death, Jennifer Gardner, playing a forensic analyst for the Bureau, weeps openly – and finds consolation in some words that Jamie Foxx whispers to her.     

Fast forward to the end of the film (and this really isn’t a spoiler): The FBI squad, operating in Saudi Arabia, has successfully killed the terrorist leader who was responsible for the atrocity. In his final moments of life, he whispers something to one of his family members.

The audience learns that the whispered sentence is the same: “We’re going to kill them all.” There is a stunned, knowing silence. The audience got up to leave, and I heard a college-aged kid turned to his friend and say, “Well, that about sums it up, doesn’t it? They kill and we kill, and there’s really no difference, is there?”

It may fly in the face of current moral and geo-political theory as taught in your average high-priced university, but yes, there really is a difference.

Since we’re all deconstructionists in this confusing age, let’s de-construct that last line and see where it takes us. Time for a moral grammar lesson.

First time around. The FBI agent says: “We’re going to kill them all.” If there could have been footnotes in the film, they would have looked something like this. “We” – bottom of page – the FBI. “Kill” – bottom of page – as a means of executing justice upon the terrorists. “Them all” – bottom of page – all of those responsible for this crime that killed adults and children with equal cruelty.

Second time around. The terrorist leader says: “We’re going to kill them all.”  “We” – the Muslim nation. “Kill” – because that’s what we think that we should do to infidels, using whatever means is necessary. “Them all” – all of the Westerners, or at the very least those who find themselves in Saudi Arabia.

When Jamie Foxx says those words to a bereaved Jennifer Gardner, it is his way of saying that there is a moral structure in the universe, and that the rule of law means that this brazen act will be avenged. When Abu Hamza, the terrorist leader, says them to those gathered around his dying body, he is offering a different kind of hope – a more eschatological hope. It’s his updated way of echoing the Soviet premier Nikita Krushchev, who famously said, “We will bury you.”

Where have we seen this before? In Steven Spielberg’s “Munich.” There, it’s the imagined parallel between the terrorists who were responsible for the massacre and the Israeli agents who pursue them like the Angel of Death. Enough terrorists’ limbs flying around hotel rooms in Athens and by the end of the movie, we’re all a little confused as to who the good guys were supposed to have been.

If all killing is the same (and it’s not, which is why the Ten Commandments prohibits “murder” but not necessarily killing), then try this on for size. A gay man is knifed to death in the West Village, as his murderer yells “Kill all the fags!” It is clearly an act of unmitigated gay-bashing – homophobia at its most blatant. A bunch of people chase the murderer onto West Street. Someone grabs him and punches him in the stomach, and he dies of internal injuries. Two acts of killing; are they both the same, morally? We can (maybe we should) be sad about killing #2. But are the two acts really the same? True – the Talmud teaches that no person’s blood is redder than anyone else’s blood. At what point do terrorists surrender a few shades of the redness of their blood? Are all killings created equal?

In the film version of the Tom Clancy novel “Patriot Games,” there is that eerily-memorable scene in which the CIA kills terrorists in the North African training camps. We watch it happen on a video feed, live from the satellite that was passing over the desert as it happens. When the operation is over, the supervising CIA agent, played by James Earl Jones, sighs.

When I watched the movie, in one of its numerous television repeats, with my (then) young son, he asked me about the James Earl Jones sigh: “Why was he so sad?”  “Because,” I replied, “when you have to kill, you must do it with a sigh.”

And that’s what’s different between the two killings in “The Kingdom.”  When terrorists kill, they don’t sigh.

 

October 15, 2007 -- All The News That Gives Me Fits, They Print

I'm talking, of course, about The New York Times. I have such a love/hate relationship with the Times. No day is complete without reading it. That day starts, of course, with coffee at an unnamed coffee joint and doing the Times crossword puzzle. Each day gets progressively harder (the puzzle, not the coffee). I can usually do pretty well until Thursday and then I'm lost. Plus I scan the obituaries and inevitably see someone I know or related to someone I know or used to know. Sometimes, in great and uncalled-for vanity, I wonder if it is my act of scanning the obits that is actually causing those deaths. Just kidding. Almost.

So,did you see the article in yesterday's Times Magazine about the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn? It is a fairly prosperous community, and a very intact -- some would say insulated -- community. The worse thing about the article is that it harped on the community's rigid opposition to intermarriage (did you expect anything else?) and even conversion to Judaism.

This got me thinking. Hasn't there been a lot of stuff in the Times Magazine lately that has been critical of Judaism? Remember the article by Noah Feldman this past July about being "dissed" at his yeshiva reunion?

So, I wrote this letter to the magazine. I don't know if they will print it, but here goes:

To the Editor:

Is it just my imagination? Isn't the New York Times Magazine article on the cultural boundaries of the Syrian Jewish community (October 14, 2007) the second article in the past two months to focus on perceived Jewish xenophobia? Didn't we just read about how Noah Feldman was cropped out of his yeshiva reunion photograph because he had married a gentile (July 22, 2007)

I don't get it. From where I sit in the non-Orthodox Jewish world, the images that the Times Magazine has chosen to present to the world are rather far from reality. In truth, and for better or worse, no sub-community in the United States has bought into multi-culturalism and diversity more than American Jews. Yes, anti-gentile attitudes still exist, but we're not the Amish (who themselves aren't quite the Amish anymore).

Still, twice in two months? As my kids would say: "What's up with that?"

Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin
Atlanta, Georgia

I'm not accusing "The Grey Lady" of being anti-semitic or self-hating, but you really have to wonder: Why this obsession with the Jews and our  (ahem) tribalism?

Just wondering.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/magazine/14syrians.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin

 

October 12, 2007 - That's It! Ann Coulter is so not invited to my seder!  

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter seems to have some interesting views on the Jews.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003657196

I met Ann Coulter once. It was pretty funny, actually. A few years ago, I was at a rabbinical convention in Washington, DC, and a bunch of us were having drinks at the bar, and one of my friends noticed Ann Coulter there as well. So he dared me to ask her to join us. I took the dare and said, "Hey, Ann, how would you like to have a drink with some rabbis?"

She replied, "You know, it's funny -- I was just saying to myself that I really don't meet enough rabbis."

Now we see why.   It would be very tempting to accuse all conservative columnists of harboring such thoughts. Maybe they do, but we haven't seen much evidence of it. Having such an ideology is one thing; saying it aloud is quite another.   It will be interesting to see who calls for Coulter's dismissal from the air waves over this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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