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.
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¬oc=1>
&b=312458&content_id={B03F16FC-B9E1-4AC9-BD73-3B410581C1E7}¬oc=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
The best book on genocide in general? Again, no contest – Samantha Power’s America and The Age of Genocide
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 thi