tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28388197487355973012024-03-18T20:56:21.663-07:00Magash HaKesefStanding on the shoulders of giants, reaching for the stars.Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.comBlogger107125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-44879810767512486032012-01-21T22:57:00.000-08:002012-01-24T18:38:41.730-08:00Parashat Va'era: Heschel, King and the Legacy of Hardened Hearts<div class="Body1">A sermon given at <a href="http://www.renoemanuel.org/">Congregation Temple Emanu-El</a>, Reno, NV:</div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">Friends, at the first conference on religion and race, the main participants were Pharaoh and Moses.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">And Moses' words were, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go." While Pharaoh retorted, "Who's the Lord that I should heed his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord. I will not let Israel go." The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end. Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate. The Exodus began but is far from having been completed. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel uttered these words at the Conference on Religion and Race in 1963.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg284bT3ZZiGfBY4BrwxLWiafqmE9ElK0GTRZ5J8joXS3cwE4sTUh0tmqHTnqeWjjHiVowxjwslQYlBrryVjA3-yrMD6ph3Q_im6Qj_-oKfMSw_iQtQ5xicayDexYH3TJzDgLLBKRyk2qM/s1600/HeschelKing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg284bT3ZZiGfBY4BrwxLWiafqmE9ElK0GTRZ5J8joXS3cwE4sTUh0tmqHTnqeWjjHiVowxjwslQYlBrryVjA3-yrMD6ph3Q_im6Qj_-oKfMSw_iQtQ5xicayDexYH3TJzDgLLBKRyk2qM/s200/HeschelKing.jpg" width="156" /></a>During a week when we honored the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., Heschel<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span>s legacy rises quickly to the forefront, as well. Particularly with the advent of Facebook, everywhere I turned this past week, I saw a picture of Abraham Joshua Heschel, arms linked with Dr. King in 1965, marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, during the march for voting rights.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">When asked snidely why he wasn't in shul that morning, without pause, Heschel responded, "I felt like my feet were praying."<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">During my visit to Israel, Heschel's imprint and legacy weighed on my mind.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">I visited the shuk, Mahane Yehuda in Jerusalem three or four times each week. Avocados are being sold for a dollar per kilo! Yeah, that<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span>s right. Not each. But a dollar per kilo!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">I bought the newest Israeli music on the shelves, a blend of the ancient and modern, weaving traditional narratives of Jewish texts in modern Hebrew to the tunes of rock and roll. As we have seen together during our studies, Jewish culture lives in totally new ways over the past 60 years, expressions of piety and spiritual searching both by people that label themselves as <span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">“</span>secular<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">”</span> and <span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">“</span>religious.<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">”</span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">I traveled to northern Israel and spent Shabbat atop a mountain in a small village, fully in nature, following the sun as my only clock for the 25 hours.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">And then there were the many people in Yerushalayim who pulled over to the side of the road to ask me directions. During this visit, I felt more comfortable navigating the streets of Yerushalayim, and even directing others to their destinations, as any city I<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span>ve ever lived in. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">But Heschel has been on my mind recently not because of the enduring power that Israel has on me. Though he has been at other points in my life for <b>precisely</b><span style="font-weight: normal;"> this reason.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">He was on my mind because of the national and international press that our homeland has gotten over the past month, both when I was in the country and since I have left.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">Heschel spoke with the passion and vision of the Prophets that he studied throughout his life. He was a bridge builder <span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">—</span> among Jews, between Jews and other religious groups. He gave religion a voice in the American consciousness.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">He looked the Other in the face. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">This week we read of Moshe<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span>s encounters with Pharaoh, a classic impasse in the history of mankind. Pharaoh has a hardened heart, one that is certainly unwilling to negotiate. But also a heart that is even willing to hear the views of the Other in front of him.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">The twentieth century Jewish French philosopher Emanuel Levinas describes a face to face encounter as a privileged phenomenon in which both the other person<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span>s proximity and distance are both strongly felt. He states <span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">“</span>The Other precisely reveals himself in his alterity not in a shocking negating the I, but as the primordial phenomenon of gentleness.<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">”</span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">To translate into less complex English, Levinas expresses that an individual becomes more fully himself when looking into the face of another, and doing so does not compromise that person's individuality at all, but rather complements it. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">This is the ultimate, and original Facebook.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">Yet Pharaoh<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span>s unwillingness to see Moshe<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span>s face makes this transcendence impossible. This is the condition of a hardened heart.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">This narrative of closed hearts beats within me during several weeks of inner strife among the Jewish nation. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">More and more, women are being shut off from national discourse in the name of Judaism in our Holy and blessed homeland. And where it used to be a small group of marginalized individuals that did not give women a presence in discourse, it has now risen to a level of national policy. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">Recently, Professor Channa Maayan was unable to receive an award from the Israeli Health ministry for her recent book on hereditary diseases common to Jews, because the event was gender-segregated. She was unable to be on the same stage as men. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">The narrative of oppression became that much uglier on New Year<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span>s eve when a group of Jews dressed up as victims of the Holocaust, placing Yellow stars that said Jude on all of the children in attendance. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">But unfortunately the story is not resigned to this hyperbolic display of attention seeking by residents of the Meah Shearim neighborhood. This group was protesting what they deemed to be the mistreatment of their population for harassing Naama Margoles of Bet Shemesh. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">Naama became famous because she is an eight-year-old girl who was on her way to school and was spit on for wearing clothes that some deemed to be too promiscuous. She was physically attacked by a group. An 8-year-old. She was dressed to go to school.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">People have scratched out pictures of women from billboards. The Puah Institute for Medicine recently barred women from its gynecology conference. Yes, you heard that right. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">The list I just read is a litany. It is ugly to think about, let alone to read.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">During this week, of all weeks, where we celebrate the legacy of Dr. King, I utter with utter conviction that <span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">“</span>separate but equal<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">”</span> is not equal.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">One group<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span>s declaration of Jewish and religious intolerance does not make it dogma. Isolating and limiting women<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span>s involvement in society strays profoundly from both the political values of a liberal democracy and the Jewish values established when God created humanity in God's image.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">Yet, my teacher and mentor Chancellor Arnold Eisen states that for every <span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">“</span>no<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">”</span> we tell about Israeli life, we must scream 5 <span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">“</span>yes<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">”</span>es from the rooftops. There<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span>s something quite sage about that. It<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span>s no secret that Israel has its detractors in the national and international community.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">I am quite proud that we are bringing together the entire Reno community tonight around a shared passion for Jewish creativity and Israeli culture by watching the hit show S<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span>rugim. 7 pm right here.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">Yet here we are in 2012, with a Jewish homeland that is fighting amongst itself in ways that resound heavily to the same strife that we saw 1950 years ago at the destruction of the second Temple. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">Rabbinic literature speaks uniformly about the causes of the destruction of the Second Temple. Yes of course it was the Roman empire that breached the walls of Yerushalayim, and set flame to the Holy of Holies, a light that could be seen for miles on end. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">But our communal narrative does not look outside of itself to remember our greatest catastrophies, the fall of the Temple. We look at our own civil strife. The Temple was destroyed, we tell, because of Sinat Chinam, because of senseless hatred.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">The Jewish people were engaged in a civil war. And because of that, our people were helpless against outside attack.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">Last month, Rabbi David Hartman, founder of the Hartman Institute in Yerushalayim, a think-tank for Jewish studies, and the most prominent living Jewish philosopher in the world, wrote a feature-length article in the Israeli paper Yediot Aharonot entitled <span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">“</span>Religion is now more dangerous than the Arabs.<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">”</span> <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">Our inner strife makes us weak, vulnerable to all attacks from the outside. As Hartman says in the article: <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Body1"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">“</span><span style="color: black;">The leaders of Religious Zionism have lost all sense of purpose. Everything has become a war - a war with stones, a war to preserve power. Religion today is controlled by people who do not understand what Jewish revival is, what revolution is, and what we wanted to have here.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">”</span><span style="color: black;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="Body1">We stand at the brink of that civil unrest, one felt distinctly by citizens of the Jewish homeland. And this is the conversation by many currently in Israeli society, both colloquially and in the press. This was the topic of conversation over dinner during my second of three Shabbatot.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black;">And here, I return to Heschel. In that same speech to the National Conference on Race and Religion, he said the following: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">“</span><span style="color: black;">We are all Pharaohs or slaves of Pharaohs. It is sad to be a slave of Pharaoh. It is horrible to be a Pharaoh. Daily we should take account and ask: What have I done today to alleviate the anguish, to mitigate the evil, to prevent humiliation. Let there be a grain of prophet in every man!</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">”</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black;">We are both slaves and Pharaoh</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span><span style="color: black;">s, part of the liberation Exodus narrative both as the oppressed and the oppressors. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black;">As we have spoken about together, being a part of the covenant between the Jewish people and God means bearing witness to Wonder, acknowledging our flaws, not being afraid to question God, to question our own family. As Judy Hirsch said last month, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">“</span><span style="color: black;">This is a marriage, we</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span><span style="color: black;">re in it for the long haul.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">”</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black;">The events over the past month cause me such alarm precisely because I am in love with the country, because I return yearly to navigate the streets of Yerushalayim, to speak Hebrew with some of my closest friends. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black;">The messages of the past months reinforce even more strongly that No Religion is an Island. We cannot isolate ourselves within our own comfort groups out of convenience. Refusal to do so creates Pharaohs of all of us, individuals and communities that have hardened hearts, unwilling to interact with anyone that challenges us.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black;">Our message for Parashat Va</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span><span style="color: black;">Era speaks about encountering the Other, of Moshe</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span><span style="color: black;">s approach to Pharaoh. Of Pharaoh</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span><span style="color: black;">s inability </span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">—</span><span style="color: black;"> no, his unwillingness </span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">—</span><span style="color: black;"> to see Moshe</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';">’</span><span style="color: black;">s face.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black;">If we are going to declare ourselves with integrity that we are Moshe in this narrative, there is a certain requirement that we engage with people who are different than us. It mandates that we reach across the aisle and engage with people of different faiths. It requires us to learn about the Other in our own extended Jewish family.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black;">During a week where we celebrate a national hero in Martin Luther King, Jr., we become abundantly aware of the work that remains to be done among our own family.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black;">Being Moshe in this narrative means being aware when we close our hearts -- and then opening it again. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black;">Our communal narrative mandates us to look the Other in the face. As Levinas explains, doing so does not compromise our individuality. We need not be afraid of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black;">Let us find the other in our midst and engage with these people. The first conference of religion and race was between Moses and Pharaoh. There are many more engagements of differences that we need now, and in our day.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="color: black;">No Religion is an Island. May the work of bridge-building begin and continue into the future. Ken Yehi Ratzon.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-35124821190665673882012-01-13T10:08:00.000-08:002012-01-13T10:09:28.499-08:00Walking by Revelation/Stopping to Witness Revelation<div class="MsoNormal">Every day upon entering the Jewish Theological Seminary, I walk under the institution's seal, an imprint of the burning bush from Sh’mot 3:2, and the words, “And the bush was not consumed.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihYi6FVSnDg4piYCt3ZQM01tRnPGN_QQPlvOOdJAIqkwnA2vcKpV18_ZwlRrTonH26lvWRHd389rsLh9MBaqlYXENt3DfDCGsLQbNwaN6wl2NvaJNdw8_O3zlNknVDGFmw4H8h3WTuHTE/s1600/burning_bush.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihYi6FVSnDg4piYCt3ZQM01tRnPGN_QQPlvOOdJAIqkwnA2vcKpV18_ZwlRrTonH26lvWRHd389rsLh9MBaqlYXENt3DfDCGsLQbNwaN6wl2NvaJNdw8_O3zlNknVDGFmw4H8h3WTuHTE/s200/burning_bush.jpg" width="200" /></a>Victor Brenner <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=iemvbwhzhBgC&pg=PA164-IA1&lpg=PA164-IA1&dq=victor+brenner,+penny,+jts&source=bl&ots=BKkiqIqLkd&sig=ybDJDgu-BesbhFMylfKqd5fxCvw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nIoMT8O0Ocr40gHZg-XUBQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=victor%20brenner%2C%20penny">first designed</a> the seal in 1902, corresponding to the ascendancy of Solomon Schechter to be chancellor of the Seminary. Brenner would become famous in 1909 for designing the imprint of Lincoln on the United States penny. With the reorganization of the institution in 1902, JTS sought to impress on the Jewish community that Jewish learning and living would live on into the future on American soil, never being extinguished.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This week we read of Moshe walking along and bearing witness to this ultimate wonder of God (3:1-4):</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">1. Now Moshe was keeping the flock of Yitro his father-in-law, the priest of Midyan; and he led the flock to the farthest end of the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, unto Horev.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">2. An angel of Adonai appeared to [Moshe] in a blazing fire out of a bush. He gazed, and there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed. <br />
<br />
3. Moshe said, “I must turn aside to look at this marvelous sight, why doesn’t the bush burn up?” <br />
<br />
4. When Adonai saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush: “Moshe! Moshe! He answered, “Here I am.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Look closely at the verses. Moshe does not recognize this revelation of God until the angel speaks to him out of the Bush. He is walking along, and there happens to be a burning bush on his walk past Horev. Had there been no voice, it seems very likely that Moshe would have failed to notice this epiphany. Humans go through life seeing through a dark glass. We often walk right by the revelation of God, whether walking through the desert, or down Lakeside Drive. Sometimes we hear a still, small voice, and sometimes we don’t need it. Often we just pass on by.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Michael Fishbane, author of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Attunement-Theology-Michael-Fishbane/dp/0226251713">Sacred Attunement</a></i>, describes this event as an “awakening of habitude, and through it we may perceive a first intimation of what covenant attentiveness might mean. It occurs in the wilderness, amidst the labors of sustenance and routine, in an endless terrain of sameness” (52). <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is an individual moment, the covenant of one person with God. The communal covenant will happen at Sinai. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Hence the first experience of Moses only provides a model for theological reflection about the primariness of covenant living in one’s personal life; and it is only with Moses’s second experience that we can derive some insight into the way a covenant may also establish a social structure for God-centered living. It is the foundation of this form that is so primary for biblical religion and theology; and its ongoing revision is of absolute centrality for Jewish theology and its various life-forms” (55).<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Through the model of explicating Torah, Fishbane outlines a lens of attuning to the divine in our lives. Covenant exists both in individual and communal contexts, sometimes overlapping, others not. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As we journey through the <i>parasha</i> this week, allow yourself some time to notice moments of revelation, those that call out to you and also those that you might have walked by.<o:p></o:p></div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-41640862500832396872012-01-05T09:44:00.000-08:002012-01-05T09:44:40.990-08:00A "closed parasha" during a week of chaos in the Holy Land<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Finding the beginning of <i>Parashat Vayechi</i> is a harder task than any other <i>parasha</i> in the Torah. It is the only <i>parasha </i>that does not have a break between it and the previous one, dubbed in Hebrew a <i>parasha</i> <i>setuma</i>, a “closed parasha.” <u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Like in English rhetoric, the physical separation in the Torah between <i>parshiot</i> typically represents a thematic break of some kind. But why no break this week?<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Rashi (Northern France, 1040-1105), citing the midrash, says that the first <i>pasuk</i> of <i>Parashat Vayehi </i>begins on a negative note, and thus the two<i> parshiot </i>are elided together in the writing of the Torah. We read in Breishit 47:27-28 (the end of <i>Parashat Vayigash </i>and beginning of <i>Parashat VaYehi</i>): <b>27</b> Then Israel lived in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen; and they got them possessions therein, and were fruitful, and multiplied exceedingly. <b>28</b> And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; so the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were a hundred forty and seven years. <u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Rashi suggests that because Yaakov’s death has been foreshadowed, his descendants blocked (<i>nistamu</i>) their eyes and hearts from the upcoming slavery that would await them. Another interpretation, Rashi says, is that Yaakov attempted to tell the people of Israel that his days were numbered, but they prevented him from doing so (<i>nistam mimeno</i>). <u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Common to both of these interpretations is that form follows function: just as Bnei Yisrael did not want to hear the negative news, the physical structure of the Torah itself does not want to begin the <i>parasha</i> on such a foreboding note. <u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Last week in shul, I heard <a href="http://www.torahinmotion.org/spkrs_crnr/faculty/bioBennyLau.htm" target="_blank">Rav Benny Lau</a> of Beit Knesset Ramban in Jerusalem add another interpretation to Rashi, dedicated to the memory of his uncle. He suggests that we have a <i>parasha setuma</i> in Parashat Vayehi not because of the beginning of <i>Parashat Vayechi,</i> but rather because the final <i>pasuk</i> of <i>Parashat Vayigash </i>speaks of the children of Israel becoming rich and multiplying while in Goshen. That was never supposed to happen. Yaakov’s children were supposed to make a quick trip to restock the food supply and then head back to Canaan. But they became preoccupied with the momentary wealth of this foreign land, ultimately being seduced by it. It would only be a matter of time before a Pharaoh “who did not know Yosef” would rise over the land of Egypt. <u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Rav Benny Lau represents the creative religious energy that is so refreshing with each and every visit I make here. He delivers each <i>dvar Torah</i> with passion and humility, packed with content, with a take-away connected to the cultural currents of the day. He is a model to me for what it means to live a committed Jewish life fused with lived experiences of the real situations that surround him. He emphasizes the need to build the state upon the values of our tradition, of crafting <i>Medinat Yisrael </i>that lives up to the deep morality entrenched in the Torah. <u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">During a week of Jewish infighting in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/world/middleeast/holocaust-images-in-ultra-orthodox-protest-anger-israeli-leaders.html" target="_blank">Jerusalem </a>and <a href="http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/148571/" target="_blank">Bet Shemesh</a>, I want to elevate Rabbi Lau’s model of religious passion and commitment to the fullness of Jewish expression in the Jewish state. Such creativity must shine forth during this nadir of <i>sinat chinam</i> (senseless hatred) among the nation of Israel. <u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism recently <a href="http://addyourlight.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">created a website</a> devoted to spreading the light of Judaism for all to see. In the midst of a group of Jews spreading darkness by dressing up in concentration camp uniforms and yellow stars, this message of the Rabbinical Assembly shows that so many Jews live a life committed to bringing the light of Torah into the world. Please consider adding your own pictures to the site. <u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As we learn from the <i>parasha setuma</i> between <i>Parashat VaYigash </i>and <i>Parashat VaYehi</i>, we do not end or begin a week on an ominous note, on one of destruction. As we finish the book of Breishit this week, let us bring the light of Torah, of Jewish creativity, with gusto into the world.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color -moz-use-text-color windowtext; border-style: none none solid; border-width: medium medium 1pt; padding: 0in 0in 1pt;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="border: medium none; padding: 0in;"><br />
</div></div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-47787566836416120902011-12-28T12:51:00.000-08:002011-12-28T12:52:23.418-08:00Yehuda: A model of Teshuva<div class="MsoNormal">We left Yehuda last week in <i>Parashat Miketz</i> swearing to his father that he would return with Binyamin in tow. He swears to Yaakov that if he does not return with Binyamin, that he would “bear the blame forever” (43:8).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Taking a step back, it is quite remarkable to see the arc of Yehuda’s journey from the beginning of our “Joseph narrative” in Parashat Vayeshev, beginning in Chapter 37. There, we see a character who influences his brothers to sell Joseph for the highest price possible. “Why kill him, when we can benefit,” he questions openly and coercively. He is not the oldest in the family, but his brothers respect him — and he knows it. So he is going to use that power to get what he wants.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Then in Chapter 38, his daughter-in-law tricks him, ensuring that her dead husband’s progeny will come from his lineage, an ultimate act of thinking outside of herself, for the sake of God (see my <i>d’var Torah</i> from Vayeshev for more details on this). When Yehuda learns that the child Tamar is bearing is his, he can only proclaim, “<i>Tzadka mimeni </i>She is more righteous than I!” Yehuda’s outpouring of emotion steadily moves from pure self-righteous ego-centrism, to a more holistic view of his family and the world at large.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It is here that we encounter Yehuda in this week’s <i>parasha</i>. The introductory words of the <i>parasha</i> describe in both words and deeds the noted change of demeanor in the heir to the Messiah. “<i>Vayigash elav Yehuda</i> Then Yehuda approached him.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yehuda approaches Yosef with an impassioned plea to release Binyamin. But look closely at his arguments:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -.25in;">1.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>Do you have a father or a brother?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -.25in;">2.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>The child cannot leave is father, for if he does, his father will surely die</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -.25in;">3.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>We told our father your request and told him that if we do not come with the youngest child, we will not be able to see you again</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -.25in;">4.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>My father said that one of my sons born to my beloved is surely torn in pieces, and if you take my other son of this wife, I will surely die</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -.25in;">5.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>I (Yehuda) have sworn to my father that I will return with him, saying that I shall bear the blame forever if I don’t hold my word</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -.25in;">6.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>I pray to you, take <i>me</i> instead of the youngest, for how can I look my father in the face and tell him that his youngest son is not here<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">None of this is rational. No case studies on where Binyamin was in reference to when the goblet was stolen. No use of witnesses. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yehuda seeks to evoke empathy from the man in front of him, the second most powerful person in the world. Moreover, he is arguing for the life of a known criminal. Yehuda has no doubt that Binyamin took the goblet — he was caught red-handed. All the evidence in the world was couched against him. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But despite this, Yehuda pleas on behalf of his brother. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Biblical scholar Yochanan Muffs describes this mode of standing up for those that are guilty in his influential essay “Who will stand in the breach” (1992, found in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Love-Joy-Language-Religion-Theological/dp/067453932X">Love and Joy</a></i>). It features a model of the prophet whose key role is not a scolder or occasional comforter, but rather is the defender of the people. As <a href="http://www.forward.com/articles/120565/">Professor Ed Greenstein</a> notes, the prophet is often “His majesty’s loyal opposition.” In essence, he states, “You’ll have to take me down, too!”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Such is certainly the case of Moshe’s defense of the people after the golden calf episode, when Moses pleads with God against destroying the people that he just redeemed from Egypt. There is no doubt that the people are guilty there. They just built a giant false-God out of gold. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So too is it with Binyamin in our narrative. Yehuda doesn’t try to appease the man in front of him. That won’t work. His brother, as far as everyone in the narrative knows, is guilty.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Rather he employs <i>pathos</i>, the energy and feeling of the prophet to sway the most powerful man he has ever encountered.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And after all of this energy, Yosef breaks down: <i>V’lo yachol Yosef l’hitapek</i> Joseph could not bear it any longer (45:1). He sends out everyone from the room and lets out tears. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yehuda has the chance to put his word to his father to the ultimate test. “Take me and not my brother,” he insists. And because he puts himself on the line, imploring the man who will reveal himself later as his brother, ultimately Yosef reveals his true self to his brothers. Yehuda’s bearing of himself, in turn, provides a model for how Yosef can do so.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Over the course of the “Joseph narrative,” Yehuda goes from the manipulator to the manipulated. He goes from the person who thought entirely about his own material interests, of how he could use his power to bring goods to <i>him</i>, to an act of ultimate sacrifice, giving himself up for a brother that <i>he knows is guilty of a crime.</i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We, the Jewish people, live the life of Judah every time we recognize ourselves as a people, as <i>Yehudim</i>. As <i>Yehudim</i>, we internalize the lessons of Yehuda over the course of this narrative, a character who stands in the breach for the other, who upholds family kinship as the essential value in his life. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yehuda represents the model of <i>teshuva</i> — returning to a primordial self. He finds himself in the same situation a second time, and acts a completely different way. Now, in <i>Parashat Vayigash</i>, he thinks of how he can affect change for others<i>.</i></div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-68388942715795495752011-12-17T19:24:00.000-08:002011-12-17T19:24:09.797-08:00S'rugim comes to Reno<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpQshAAUoL7H9uUMGiZIS45OmTEcrUjnVtdMRbFrr9X9Nj556dcD85uqLTPLHCV2_tzaejRzOiG427YJqFkrA3L5bvJ24qNce-_CxOSrNH0V8s8YOyNMRwB2FXmk3Z7rZZgLRFMa5S9XQ/s1600/MovieNightSmallPoster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpQshAAUoL7H9uUMGiZIS45OmTEcrUjnVtdMRbFrr9X9Nj556dcD85uqLTPLHCV2_tzaejRzOiG427YJqFkrA3L5bvJ24qNce-_CxOSrNH0V8s8YOyNMRwB2FXmk3Z7rZZgLRFMa5S9XQ/s400/MovieNightSmallPoster.jpg" width="308" /></a></div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-8719458629075175282011-12-17T19:19:00.000-08:002011-12-17T19:24:59.554-08:00Judah's Narrative Journey throughout the Joseph Story<div class="MsoNormal">For the next four weeks we will read about Joseph. His ego, his clothes, his dreams, his family relationships, his engagement with power. In many ways, the Torah gives us a fuller description of the full character of Joseph than any other figure in the Torah, with the exception of Moses.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But we also see a narrative arc for the character Judah, too. In this week’s <i>parasha</i>, <i>Vayeshev</i>, Judah leaps onto the scene while Joseph remains in the depths of a pit. He tells his brothers “What profit is it to us if we kill our brother, covering his blood. Come let us sell him to the band of Ishmaelites. Then our bloodguilt will not be upon him, for he is our brother.” The verse ends “And his brothers listened” (Genesis 37:26).<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Those final words are telling. Judah is not the oldest. That title belongs to Reuven. And a few verses earlier, Reuven had pleaded with the group not to kill Joseph, but rather to throw him in the pit, with the idea that Reuven would go save him later (verse 21). But while not the oldest in years, the brothers listen to Judah, they respect him. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Make no mistake, Judah most certainly was not acting altruistically in selling Joseph to the Ishmaelites. It was not to save Joseph’s life. If anything, it seems that Judah could have changed the tide of the brothers thinking in almost any case, and that he was directing it. The <i>Torah Temimah</i> (Rabbi Baruch Epstein, 19<sup>th</sup> century Lithuania) states the following about this leader of the brothers:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This verse about a compromiser was stated only in reference to Judah, as it is stated, "Judah said to his brothers, 'What gain will there be if we kill our brother?'" And anyone who praises Judah for this is considered a blasphemer. And concerning such a person, it is stated: "One who praises a compromiser [Judah] has blasphemed Hashem."<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We hear about Judah again in chapter 38, the infamous meeting between Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar. We rarely talk about this chapter. It represents a law of times gone by, that of the levirate marriage, of values that don’t resonate with almost all of our post-modern sensibilities. And perhaps it’s a bit icky, as well. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Stemming explicitly from Deuteronomy 25:5-6, should a man die without having a descendent, his wife will marry his brother, in order to continue the lineage. Such was the case of Tamar’s husband, Er, who died. His brother Onan, in turn refused this process of levirate marriage, choosing to spill his seed on the ground instead of conceive a child with Tamar. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Fast-forwarding in the narrative, upon confronting Tamar on the road, Judah thought that he was approaching a harlot, for she hid her face. But Tamar knew exactly who Judah was. She took his cord and his staff as a sign (the modern day driver’s license or passport) so that he would return with payment for the sexual services. She encountered Judah and fooled him to sleep with her, moreover, because she was obeying this law of levirate marriage, ensuring that her husband’s progeny continue on to the next generation — Judah had not told his other son Shelah to consummate the levirate obligations, and thus Tamar took it upon herself to continue the line, in accord with God’s law.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Judah was incensed when he heard that Tamar was pregnant, that she had sold herself to harlotry. Of course, he didn’t realize during this episode that the children were his. But Tamar came forth with Judah’s identifying markers, proof that the children were indeed his.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This twist in narrative in the course of two chapters, of Judah manipulating his brothers to sell Joseph for profit, and then being <i>the</i> <i>manipulated</i> by his daughter-in-law, is certainly striking. As is Judah’s response to Tamar when he discovers the reality of the situation. He exclaims, seemingly in an outburst: “She is more righteous than I! For I did not give her to son Shelah!” Judah realizes his misjudgment, and begins the process of <i>teshuva</i> that will continue on into future <i>parshiot.</i> <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The twins she bore might have familiar names: Peretz and Zevach. Each week during <i>L’cha dodi </i> of Kabbalat Shabbat we read: <i>Al yad ish, ben parzi</i> Next to a man, the son of the Peretz-ite. The line of the medieval poem refers to the Messiah, a descendent of Peretz. Judah is the ancestor of David. The line of the Messiah ultimately goes back to this tumultuous scene in Chapter 38 of Genesis. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ll again pick up with this narrative of Judah in two weeks with <i>Parashat Vayigash</i>. For now, read this narrative over, embracing the complexity of the character, of the narrative of arc of manipulation. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And perhaps most importantly, in two chapters where God does not communicate with any of the characters, there is a figure behind the screen seemingly pulling the strings of puppets along the way.<o:p></o:p></div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-31548315021005295382011-02-12T17:08:00.000-08:002011-02-12T19:38:40.613-08:00Jewish Geography 2.0I recently attempted to publish my greatest contribution to society on Wikipedia. They didn't find my post worthy, though.<br />
<br />
They told me if I wanted to play around, I should "go play in a sandbox."<br />
<br />
Rough, guys. <br />
<br />
Because Wikipedia is really the pinnacle of academic integrity.<br />
<br />
But even if it were... Jewish Geography has ventured across Shabbat tables around the United States, with many claiming that they themselves invented the phenomenon.<br />
<br />
Which is quite a compliment, really. It's traveled far.<br />
<br />
But let's be serious. We know where the game originated and has spread forth, in turn.<br />
<br />
So here's the ice breaker of the decade, published here on a measly blog instead of Wikipedia. Enjoy it as we have.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Jewish Geography 2.0</b><br />
<br />
It’s a common principle that when you assemble several Jews in the same location, they will have many acquaintances in common. “Oh, you know Rachel Schwartz? We went to camp together!” Particularly with first encounters, two people try and find the commonalities between them – who do we know in common? Around the Jewish world, that’s commonly known as “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_geography">Jewish Geography.</a>”<br />
<br />
During the fall of 2007, two friends staffed a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbaton">Shabbaton</a> for the <a href="http://www.solomon-schechter.com/Default.asp?bhcp=1">Solomon Schechter</a> High School in Westchester, New York. While there, they created an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-breaker_game">Ice Breaker</a> which brought the joys of “Jewish Geography” to the form of a game that helps facilitate interactions. Since then, the game has traveled throughout the American Jewish world, often without a name attached to it, particularly around Shabbat tables.<br />
<br />
<b>The Game</b><br />
<br />
Played with two people, or groups of pairs, each individual assigns him/herself either to say a common Jewish first name or a common last name.<br />
<br />
For example, Zach is assigned to take the first name and Sarit assigned to take the last name. On the count of three, which is counted out loud with three hand claps, each person says the name in his/her head.<br />
<br />
Thus, Zach might say Rachel and Sarit might say Shtern.<br />
<br />
They then look around the room and say “Rachel Shtern, anyone know a Rachel Shtern?”<br />
<br />
If you are playing with a large group, then the pair can subsequently move on to a different partner and continue the game.<br />
<br />
<b>Goals</b> <br />
<br />
1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span>To make people loose around each other through laughter<br />
<br />
2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span>Find commonalities among a gro<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=2838819748735597301&postID=3154831502100529538" name="_GoBack"></a>up<br />
<br />
3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span>Serve as a way to open up a program or discussion <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-90193174692306581792011-02-10T11:37:00.000-08:002011-02-10T17:31:11.512-08:00Author of Redwall Series DiesMy favorite author growing up was unquestionably Brian Jacques, author of the <a href="http://www.redwall.org/"><i>Redwall </i></a>series. The fantasy books pitted mice against stoats, badgers against weasels, shrews against foxes, traditional tales of good versus evil, all through the lens of fantasy animals.<br />
<br />
See <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/arts/09jacques.html?src=me&ref=homepage">here</a> for the NYT obituary.<br />
<br />
I have followed along with most of the books that Jacques has put out over the past ten years -- they still have a touch of the same magic that I encountered as a kid. I look forward to reading them to my own children.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.weymouth.ma.us/CMS200Sample/uploadedimages/redwall.jpg" /> </div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-59610041971569528572011-02-09T19:22:00.000-08:002011-02-09T20:45:06.196-08:00Hearing Israeli Music in the Indian Restaurant<style>
@font-face {
font-family: "Times New Roman";
}@font-face {
font-family: "ArialMT";
}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }
</style> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">After reading <a href="http://www.shirchadashnola.org/rabbis-corner/">Rabbi Ethan Linden’s relatively-new blog</a> on a daily basis, I have said several times that I should restart Magash Hakesef. If you aren’t checking in on the Chief Conservative Rabbi of Louisiana’s blog, then you should be. Add that one to your GoogleReader.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Tonight I went with my father and his friend and colleague Henry to Madras Mahal in the infamous “Curry Hill.” Southern Indian food – my favorite.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At a certain point I recognized the music playing in the restaurant. Because my Hindi is a bit rusty, I asked the waiter the name of the song. It turns out it’s a “nasha song,” a love song. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You might find it familiar:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TlVeb8sUpIo" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<span style="font-family: ArialMT;">Or maybe you don’t. But now listen to this one:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/I9ndh1Y9Jow" title="YouTube video player" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
As far as I'm concerned, they are the exact same music. Do you agree?<br />
<br />
Two love songs, same music and one or two Israelis make it over to India...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">I plan to look into this parallel a bit more, but can only assume that the Indian song came first. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">This same phenomenon happened to me several years ago, when I heard what I thought was a Yiddish folk song at a Japanese baseball game. It turns that the Japanese audio director for the Osaka Giants liked the title track for Dschingis Khan’s album and was not up on Mordechai Ben David’s “Yidden.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<span style="font-family: ArialMT;">Or maybe he knew both. Who am I to judge?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KhqQcYYyY7I" title="YouTube video player" width="480"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-Lcp6gHGU3g" title="YouTube video player" width="640"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<span style="font-family: ArialMT;">And we’re back in business. More commentary to come on a more continuous basis. </span></div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-31235968917532238632010-10-18T19:54:00.000-07:002010-10-18T19:54:00.290-07:00I am a Published AuthorIt has been awhile since I have posted. I have every intention of being a more regular poster in the coming months.<br />
<br />
For now, I wanted to let people know that I was recently published in the American Jewish Archives Journal for a piece which originally began as my senior thesis at the University of Pennsylvania, over five years ago. It has gone through several drafts since then and it has now hit the world of the academic journal. Welcome, "The Excommunication of Mordecai Kaplan."<br />
<br />
I'm quite proud of the piece,<a href="https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B2VMVFaVa6orNmUxZGFkMWItN2Q1NS00MzM4LTliYjYtODA5MTdkYjk5NDIz&hl=iw"> which you can find here</a>, and will be available shortly on the <a href="http://www.americanjewisharchives.org/journal/">American Jewish Archives website</a>, as well.<br />
<br />
For now, I'll paste the acknowledgements which I wrote for the original thesis. I should note that one person suggested that the acknowledgements were the best part of the thesis. So read away!<br />
<br />
Many adjustments should be made to these thanks based on the past five years, but here they are as they were in the original:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">This project did not originate as a thesis. It began as a twenty-page research paper as the conclusion of an independent study internship at the National Museum of American Jewish History. But quickly it started to consume me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My dad says that this thesis managed to combine every segment of my college experience. I used my love of journalism unconsciously as a model for how to pursue a story and search for the last source that is out there — because that’s where the best information sits. I incorporated my love of studying Jewish texts, nurtured both in the classrooms of the University of Pennsylvania and in my own pursuit of knowledge. I have also realized that I am deeply passionate in the American Jewish experience in the twentieth century and how Jews express their Judaism. Overall, however, I love thinking and talking about Judaism.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I thrust myself at this project because it had already been growing inside of me for some time. And thus it grew from a term paper to a project that I chose to continue attacking, whether that included sorting through archival materials on one of my several trips to New York, speaking with various scholars or typing during the nights in my designated corner of Penn Hillel.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Many people aided this process, for which I am extremely thankful. To my friends, many of whom assembled a mini fan-club around this thesis, sparking a “Mordecai Kaplan fact of the day” montage throughout second semester. But above all, who supported me in this project because they knew it meant so much to me, and perhaps that is the most touching part of all of this. The crowd that came to hear me present the thesis made me feel extremely lucky.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My professors at Penn continue to draw my respect with how they combine a deep interest in pedagogy and a complete mastery of their subjects. I have loved absorbing the subject matter of the classes I have taken, but I have also taken notes on how these scholars communicate their knowledge, which is equally impressive to their scope of learning. Thank you for being such great models for the discipline and giving me a fantastic undergraduate experience.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Thank you to the many scholars across the country who showed keen interest in the project and immediately offered their insight and advice. Particular thanks to Rabbi Neil Gillman of the Jewish Theological Seminary, who invited me to follow him for a day, and whose anecdotal accounts of his own time as a student under Mordecai Kaplan proved to be particularly fruitful. Each of my interactions gave me a new respect for the academy and the notion of collaborative scholarship. The care that each of the scholars puts into his or her work is inspiring.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">To Professors Beth Wenger and Ari Kelman at Penn, who nurtured this work most closely and watched it grow. I adopted Dr. Wenger as a second adviser during second semester of this year partly because she led the “Senior Seminar” for the Jewish Studies major. But more than that, Dr. Wenger was completely willing and enthusiastic to discuss the thesis. Ranging from micro issues of prose to discussing larger themes in American Judaism, Dr. Wenger continues to help me to understand broader notions of what it means to be a historian. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Dr. Kelman helped me to work through this process from my opening ideas of only knowing that I wanted to write something about Mordecai Kaplan. Throughout this project he remarkably was always able to steer me in the correct direction, even though I had done the research. He showed a keen awareness for the process and helped to direct me throughout the course of the year. With an interest in film, Ari both literally and figuratively helped me to craft a storyboard for this work, offering help in all three main segments of the process: research, writing and revising. His e-mails consistently served to inspire me and keep me going, often necessarily pulling the reins and making me laugh all at the same time. In pursuing this project, I also got the opportunity to speak about many greater issues in American Judaism, and discovered that we have similar views about most issues on the current American Jewish scene. His greater vision and easy-going general outlook on life made working under him a privilege.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Perhaps I learned most that no matter how much children try to run away from their parents, that even if they sit on benches outside of art museums instead of going in just to be spiteful, ultimately we are all truly our parents’ children. I have truly loved this experience and have now begun to realize why —and how— my dad can sit upstairs in front of a computer for up to fourteen hours at a time with only Diet Dr. Pepper, a baseball game and a stack of books about Dutch etchings. Some would say other than my choice of subject, I wasn’t so different with this project— except that it was basketball season this time. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Thank you to everyone who helped me craft what has been the most rewarding intellectual experience in my undergraduate career, one that hopefully is just the beginning of this exploration.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-88896579521890510292010-08-27T08:31:00.000-07:002010-08-27T08:31:29.492-07:00Life imitates West Wing? Or vice-versa, perhaps.<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div>From today's <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/nine-justices-and-ten-commandments/?hp?hp">New York Times</a>, a discussion about placing religious symbols in public locations.</div><div><br />
</div>From Episode 13 of Season 1 of the West Wing (Take out the Trash Day):<div><br />
</div><div><pre>Toby is working at his desk. Sam enters quietly.
TOBY
Yeah?
SAM
There is a town in Alabama that wants to abolish all laws except the Ten Commandments.
TOBY
I saw it.
SAM
Well, they're gonna have a problem.
TOBY
Because the Constitution prohibits religious activity in any form connected to Government?
SAM
Good point! Two problems.
TOBY
Sam, I'm busy here!
SAM
I just mean that some of those Commandments are pretty hard to enforce.
TOBY
What is it?
SAM
I just got a call asking me if I wanted to comment on a story that's gonna run in the
Georgetown Hoya tomorrow.
TOBY
The student newspaper?
SAM
A sociology professor has been teaching what the paper, at any rate, feels is racist
stuff. Too much funding for Head Start, welfare mothers, and...
TOBY
And why are they talking to us?
SAM
Zoey's in the class.
TOBY
Who cares?
SAM
This minute? The Georgetown Hoya. Tomorrow...?
TOBY
The President's daughter got an idiot sociology professor, and we gotta...
SAM
I'll talk to Zoey.
TOBY
Please. [long pause] What else?
SAM
Coveting thy neighbour's wife, for example. How are you going to enforce that one?
TOBY
Sam!
</pre><div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div></div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-55178050029730315772010-08-02T10:26:00.000-07:002010-08-02T10:26:17.258-07:00Turn your ear into a funnel: A D'var Torah for Parshat Ekev<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I delivered these words this weekend at Beth Judah Congregation in Ventnor, NJ. I owe many of the thoughts to the teaching of <a href="http://www.mechonhadar.org/faculty?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_5IKh&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-3&p_p_col_count=1&_101_INSTANCE_5IKh_struts_action=/asset_publisher/view_content&_101_INSTANCE_5IKh_urlTitle=rabbi-shai-held&_101_INSTANCE_5IKh_type=content&redirect=/faculty">Rav Shai Held</a>. Additional inspiration from <a href="http://www.ramban.org.il/rav.asp">Rav Benny Lau.</a> </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">--</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span></span></div></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">There are few things Jews can agree on. So go the idioms: Two Jews, three opinions. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">One island, two synagogues. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">But if there’s one thing that we Jews agree on, is that we love food. Sure you say kugel, I say kiegel. But in the end we all ask for seconds. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">And so at the end of the first aliyah today, when Moshe introduces the people Israel to a land literally overflowing with bountiful food, you can picture the scene. All mouths drop — simultaneously. A land not only flowing in milk and honey, but one with streams, springs and fountains, of wheat, barley, grapes, figs, dates, pomegranates and olive oil. The seven species of fruits of the land of Israel. The list puts even the great produce junction to shame.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It is a land where the people will lack nothing. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Yet the Israelites are reminded just verses earlier to slow down. Not so fast my friends! After all, they survived in the dessert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><i>Ki lo al lechem lvado yihyeh haadam ki al kol moza pi adonai yiheye haadam.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><b>“Humanity does not live on bread alone, but may live on anything that HaShem decrees.”<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">One does not need to mine the depths of the Rabbinic consciousness to draw a direct connection between Torah and bread from this pasuk, between physical satisfaction and spiritual nourishment. Humanity does not live by bread alone. But by what God issues. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Humanity survives on more than what it farms. It lasts, indeed thrives, on the words of God.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Let’s follow the metaphor. Bread and Torah.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><i>HaMotzi Lechem Min HaAretz</i>. It’s such a fundamental statement. The first prayer we learn as children. There’s that cute tune from pre-school, “We give thinks to God for Bread, our voices rise in song together.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">But when we take a second glance at it, even briefly, we notice that on its simplest level, it is simply not true. We don’t bring forth bread from the Earth. Humans make it from component parts. We do the plowing the reaping, the grinding, the baking.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Some of the early <i>kibbutzniks</i></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> in Israel went as far as to change the <i>brakha </i></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">to “Praised be the farmer who brings forth bread from the Earth,” a switch which caused the religious establishment in Israel to bristle. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Yet this is clearly not the norm, rejected by the kibbutz movement, certainly by the rest of the Jewish world.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We don’t have any problem stating <i>HaMotzi Lechem Min HaAretz</i>. We joyfully teach the blessing to our children. We believe that God had a hand in the creation of bread. And humanity carried forth in the rest of the process. There is sheer Wonder in the process of planting a vegetable in the spring and then digging into the soil and digging it out of the soil in the fall. Failure to acknowledge it as anything less as Wonder bears perjury to the soul.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">But for many of us, the term <i>Torah min HaShamayim</i>, Heavenly Torah, is a tougher term to swallow. We may have taken an Introductory Academic Bible class at university and learned some of the theories that the Torah is made up of component sources, that the first two chapters of Genesis represent the P source and the J source. We recognize immediately the parallels between the Code of Hammurabi and Parashat Mishpatim of Shmot and wonder what is so different between our Biblical Law of “Eye for an Eye, Tooth for tooth” and that of other Ancient Near Eastern legal codes; between our flood story and that of the Atrahasis Epic or of Gilgamesh. The History Channel always shows the historical roots of the Biblical Exodus during the spring months, trying to match up the plagues with natural events during the time. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">So then, what is Torah Min HaShamayim, with all of the above facts, and more?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Firstly, Torah min HaShamayim has many meanings, and has since the Rabbis of the Talmud first began explicating the depths of the Torah during post-Second Temple times. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s magnum opus <i>Torah min HaShamayim,</i></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> recently translated by Rabbi Gordon Tucker, culls Rabbinic literature for how the Rabbis interpreted the notion of a Heavenly Torah. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Even by simply looking at the size of the book, by judging it bys its cover, so to speak, we ascertain that the Rabbis had many understandings for the term “Heavenly Torah.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">During Shavuot last year, my teacher Rabbi Shai Held drew my attention to an article by 20<sup>th</sup> century Jewish Theologian Jakob Petuchowski, appropriately titled for today <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=-AOOUTTQM9IC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=not+by+bread+alone,+petuchowski&source=bl&ots=DUqwGYdKHC&sig=GIqu6Vi_jx41SNi9WngfGlkV72Q#v=onepage&q=not%20by%20bread%20alone%2C%20petuchowski&f=false">“Not by Bread Alone.”</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">He identifies this essential trop of the Torah and bread sustaining humanity. The parallelism of <i>Lehem </i><b><i>min</i></b></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><i> <b>Ha</b>Aretz</i> and <i>Torah </i><b><i>min</i></b></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><i> </i><b><i>Ha</i></b><i>Shamayim</i>. Bread <b>From</b> the Earth and Torah <b>From</b></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> Heaven.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We say one with gusto, without thinking twice. So should it be with Torah. I believe in Torah from Heaven just as I believe in Lechem min HaAretz. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I say this not to appease myself. Nor anyone in this room. But because I believe it is the honest articulation of what it means to study the breadth and depth of our Tradition. To live a Jewish life of <b>passion</b></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">, charging forward and learning as much as possible without straps which hold me back. To study the entire gamut of Torah min HaShamayim, a divinely given corpus of text, infused with human ingenuity and interpretation throughout the generations.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This is the meaning of Torah min HaShamayim. This is the meaning of Lechem Min HaAretz.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I push the metaphor of bread and Torah one step further. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">If indeed there is direct parallel between physical nourishment and spiritual nourishment, then why do we not say a <b>Birkat HaMazon</b> of sorts after we study, as is Biblically prescribed for food in this very Parasha! We read in Chapter 8, verse 10, <i>V’achalta v’savata, uverachta ed Adonai Elohecha, al haaretz hatova asher natan lach.</i></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> When you eat and are satisfied, you should bless HaShem your God for the good land that God has given you. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">If we’re going to use a metaphor, after all, let’s use it. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">There is a discussion in Massechet Brachot page 11a, about the proper prayer that we should say before studying Torah, determining that it is <i>asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav laasok bdivrei torah</i></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">, who commanded us to engage with Torah, as well as the blessing we are familiar with from <i>Birkot HaTorah</i></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">, <i>asher banu mikol haamim v’natan lanu et torato</i></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">. (These are on page 6 in your Sim Shalom siddur)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Commenting on this, the medieval commentators the <i>Tosefot</i></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> (the grandsons of Rashi, for historical reference) rhetorically ask why one only should say this prayer only in the morning? Why not say the prayer over studying Torah every time one sits down to study?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">They answer: because every hour that one is awake one has the obligation to study. Therefore one says it upon waking up in the morning and is exempt for the rest of the day. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Translating it back to my question about <i>Birkat HaMazon</i></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">, one is never satisfied or satiated from studying Torah. Therefore there is no finality to the “meal.” One prayer before studying lasts the entire day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The Tosefot say this in the grammatical indicative. One is exempt from saying this prayer for studying throughout the day because the obligation for study is not bound to a particular time. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I issue it in the grammatical imperative. Of all times, during Shabbat pick up a book that you haven’t read before. Read over the parsha. Mine the depths. Make studying for half an hour a regular part of your Shabbat afternoon, at the beach, at your home, with your family, on your own. Let’s face it. We’re all going to the beach this afternoon, anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We read on page 3a of Massechet Hagigah in the Talmud, <i>Taaseh Oznecha k’afarkeset ukneh lcha lev mevin</i></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">. Make your ear into a funnel, thereby acquiring for yourself an understanding heart. (such imagery!). The moral? Listen first. Allow all information into your mind and heart. Filter it only after you have opened your ear as a funnel.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">On this Shabbat, turn your ear into a funnel. Ensure that saying the <i>brakha</i> over studying Torah in the morning really does last for the entire day, because you will be studying throughout the course of Shabbat.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Acquire yourself a <i>lev mevin</i></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">, an understanding heart, through the spiritual nourishment of <i>Torah min HaShamayim. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><!--EndFragment-->Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-14438049287196266822010-07-22T07:53:00.000-07:002010-07-22T07:54:36.946-07:00Annie Lewis on becoming a rabbiMy friend Annie Lewis recently put words to paper on her growth into the position. My writing teacher in college said that with good writing, you can feel the texture between your finger tips. "You feel it?" he'd ask.<br />
<br />
You be the judge here.<br />
<br />
This was published on the <a href="http://www.lilith.org/blog/">Lilith Magazine Blog</a> and seems to be part of a series.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"></span><br />
<h2 style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.6em; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 30px; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.lilith.org/blog/?p=821">Letter from Jerusalem: Listening on the next generation of Conservative women rabbis</a></h2><div><br />
</div><div class="entry" style="line-height: 1.4em;"><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><em>“Get yourself a teacher, acquire for yourself a friend.” – Pirkei Avot 1:6</em></div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">Blessed are You, God, who clothes the naked. My mother’s closet is full of clothing from various eras of her life. Suits hang in every jewel-tone from decades of shul-going. She has even saved her Bat Mitzvah dress, yellowed lace with patches of pastel. When I was younger, I used to love playing dress-up in her closet, awaiting the day I would grow into her clothes.</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">Among the diverse discussion topics when a group of women rabbinical students gathered in Jerusalem living rooms this past year was the contents of our own closets: how we see ourselves and how we are seen; the ways we choose to cover and uncover; the garments we have inherited and those we have taken upon ourselves. My hevruta (study partner), Kerrith Solomon, and I convened this group of women from the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Ziegler school so we could talk with our peers about things we have not yet had safe space to explore within our schooling, reclaiming and exploring our identities as women on our paths toward the rabbinate in the Conservative Movement.<br />
<br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">For my first two years in rabbinical school, I felt pressure to be both a Jewish man and a Jewish woman. I accepted the full gamut of ritual obligation, but never had any conversation around integrating my gender identity into the role of rabbi. I fastened kippot to my hair and didn’t quite feel at home. When a male colleague argued that all female students should be obligated to wear kippot, my reflex was to guard my hair from the demands of others, to preserve it as a domain for self-expression. I found myself choosing to wear my most feminine garb to class and spending time in front of the mirror with a mascara wand. Encountering older layers of text from the tradition I thought I was in love with, I experienced a sense of loss and lack that I didn’t know how to name. A committed feminist, I felt alienated and disconnected from so-called holy sources that related to women as objects and second-class citizens. Many days, I felt like a spinning head, detached from my body. Often, I would end up with the mascara as a smudged trail down my cheeks.</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">Some of the women in our group wear kippot, others choose not to cover their hair. Still others have dipped into Jerusalem’s colorful market of headscarves and hats of all shapes and sizes. Some of us worry about how Conservative congregations might react to a rabbi in a fancy hat on the bimah. Two female classmates who wear kippot cover the covering with a scarf or beret when venturing into public spaces in Jerusalem.</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">Walking through Jerusalem, I often feel as though everyone is in costume or uniform. We all feel hyperaware of how what we wear here conveys messages about who we are. When I arrived in Israel, newly engaged, I bought a book with instructions for tying intricate designs with headscarves. Some days, I have wrapped my hair in flowery cloths, perhaps for practice or perhaps to entertain my curiosity, noticing if people treat me differently when I code into my outfit a message of being off-limits. Though my mother might have palpitations if she saw me, there is something sacred to me in making space for ritual role experimentation.</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">As I brace myself to enter marriage this summer, I am particularly grateful for one open conversation we had in the group around roles and responsibilities at home, telling the stories of the models we knew growing up. One classmate shared how her mother pours her father’s cereal every morning. Another spoke of her parents’ emphasis on performing chores of choice, having themselves been raised with servants in South Africa. Where will we carry on family traditions and where will we create practices of our own?</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">This year, meeting as a group with our teacher Rabbi Miriam Berkowitz, we have looked at halakhic and traditional texts and examined our own emotions around niddah, mikveh and kissui rosh (head covering). We have spoken about boundary issues, rereading the laws of “yihud,” in the Shulkhan Arukh (a 16th century authoritative Jewish legal anthology), which regulate men and women spending time alone together).</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">Some women were comforted to find a place in the traditional sources that supports our right to say, “These are my boundaries.” I saw it as an opening for discussion of sexual tension and transference that may arise in pastoral work and steps we can take to establish healthy contours for relationships in our professional lives. We encounter these conventional codes for gender relations with awareness that in our group and communities, people have a range of identities in regards to sexual orientation and differing comfort levels with intimacy of various sorts.</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">What does it mean to pick up and dust off things the Conservative Movement has stored away in corners, such as hair-covering, or niddah (the laws mandating, in their most stringent interpretation, no physical contact at all between husband and wife during her period and for seven days after) that I have generally associated with Orthodoxy and with the perpetuation of gender hierarchy? Why are we reaching for these rituals? Can we call our search for meaning feminist, or is it something else?</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">One participant spoke of her commitment to observing the laws set out by Jewish tradition as well as the need to attribute new meanings to Halakhah to make it relevant to our lives. “When the tradition says go to mikveh, I go. I find joy in fulfilling the mitzvah. I find it meaningful to have time apart from my partner to reinvest in my self. I find immersion in the water relaxing. Once, a mikveh attendant told me that if you pray in the mikveh, God will hear your prayers more. I have made it a time for spontaneous prayer, to acknowledge what is happening in my life, to ask God for strength and healing. I feel like it is the closest thing I have to a “Holy of Holies,” an intimate and quiet space, alone with God.”</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">* * * * * * * * *</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
“God, open my lips and my mouth will sing your praise”</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">I have a recurring dream in which my teeth fall out into my hand. I have spent the past few years in rabbinical school spiritually sore, as if my soul has been teething; as if I have been waiting for something to break through, to catch the cries and to form them into words. In this group, I feel finally able to speak, to articulate, to give language to an intensive search effort for who I might be, as a rabbi and as a person.</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">One Wednesday evening, over lentil stew, we spent time on questions of feeling authentic, about perceptions of what a rabbi “looks like,” about dreams of becoming pregnant or raising families and concerns about how that might impact our careers.</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">“How big do you want to be?” Aderet Okon Drucker was asked by a mentoring rabbi when she sought advice about which internships and jobs to pursue as she begins her rabbinic career.</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">“How big do you want to be?” What does it mean to want to be big? What sacrifices will we have to make in order to make room for our influence to grow? Are we allowed to not want to be big? We discovered we were annoyed with the go-to definition of “big” and the culture of comparing congregation size–A, B, C, D–that we have heard permeates rabbis’ gatherings. I joked that mine would be a Double D, if only there were a correlation between shul size and bra size.</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">One woman redefined big as an integrated identity that allows you to be your many selves as a rabbi, partner, parent, friend, daughter and person. Being big would mean having a sense of self that could hold and weave together many facets of life beyond the professional realm.</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">We spoke of hopes that our generation can redefine rabbinic identity in this way, taking some of the pressure off of the expectations of unyielding self-sacrifice placed on the rabbi. Our vision of the rabbinate would involve a makeover of communal expectations, in which it would be acceptable and encouraged for clergy to have time and life outside of the pulpit/office etc. We see benefit in this for rabbis-to-be and rabbis-that-are of all genders.</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">If this is what it means to be big, I would like to super-size my rabbinate.</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 1.05em;">-Annie Lewis</div></div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-20404815842511191772010-07-21T10:30:00.000-07:002010-07-21T10:30:35.465-07:00The Rotem Bill explainedPeople have spilled large amounts of ink, virtual and tangible, about the recent conversion bill which hit the Israeli Knesset (Congress) floor, a law which would give designated Israeli Orthodox courts the sole rights over conversion to Judaism, and hence hold a monopoly over the age-old question of "who is a Jew" (certainly in reference to immigration to Israel).<br />
<br />
The news left the banter of the Jewish world with Alana Newhouse's<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/opinion/16newhouse.html?scp=1&sq=alana%20newhouse&st=cse"> NYT Op/Ed</a>; it continues to flow through the pages of the Jerusalem Post, HaAretz and every Jewish blog I've encountered thus far.<br />
<br />
But my friend Jonah Lowenfeld has provided the best analysis I've seen thus-far. He outlines the politics of how the bill once really was out to help Russian immigrants gain status as Jews in Israel but turned to a political barnstorm of attempting to buy Charedi votes, giving political muscle to Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat and beyond.<br />
<br />
If you read one article on the topic, <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/cover_story/article/the_israeli_conversion_bill_20100720/">this is the one to read.</a><br />
<br />
It appears that the bill has been tabled until the next session of the Knesset, in no small part due to the outpouring of letters from Diaspora communities to PM Bibi Netanyahu (upwards of 50,000 — 25,000 through the <a href="http://www.masorti.org/email/form-letter.html">Masorti website</a>, alone). <br />
<br />
Haven't written yet? Make it happen.Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-42215437840657431402010-07-11T17:59:00.000-07:002010-10-19T12:05:39.575-07:00Israel and the Diaspora — Embracing Tension<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">A <i>Dvar Torah </i>for last week's <i>parasha</i>, "<i>Matot-Masei</i>." Delivered at <a href="http://web.me.com/aojserkis/BethJudah/Welcome.html">Congregation Beth Judah</a>, Ventnor, NJ.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>V’horashtem et haaretz vishavtem ba. Ki lachem natati et haaretz lareshet otah.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“You shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have assigned the land to you to possess.” Numbers 33:53.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It’s a pretty specific order. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Nachmanides, Ramban, the medieval Biblical exegete, legalist and one of the first Kabbalists, lists this pasuk as the basis for one of Biblical imperatives — to dwell in the land and inherit it. Both Maimonides and Nachmanides cull the Torah and create a list of the 613 Biblically prescribed commandments — but Maimonides does not list a commandment to live in the land of Israel. Nachmanides does in his gloss to Maimonides’ list in Sefer HaMitzvot. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It’s another part of the chain in a centuries-long rabbinic argument about the place of Israel in the life of the Jewish people.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">We find the aforementioned pasuk in Chapter 33, verse 53 of B’Midbar. But take a look at the previous 52 verses, beginning with the very name of the second of the two parshiot we read today, Mas’ei, from the Hebrew root to travel. It is a chapter of motion, of marching from place to place. Each detail matters. There is a story at each location in the journey.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">From Ra’amses to Sukkot. To Etam. To Pi-hahirot. To Marah. To Aleph. To Bet. To Tav.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">And finally, enough of this wandering. You’ve gone far enough. Stop here. Go settle.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the current chief rabbi of England, describes this journey in these terms:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“The paradox of Jewish history is that though a specific territory, the holy land, is at its heart, Jews have spent more time in exile than in Israel; more time longing for it than dwelling in it; more time traveling than arriving. Much of the Jewish story could be written in the language of today’s sedra: “They journeyed from X and camped at Y”. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Hence the tension. On the one hand, monotheism must understand G-d as non-territorial. The G-d of everywhere can be found anywhere. He is not confined to this people, that place – as pagans believed. He exercises His power even in Egypt. He sends a prophet, Jonah, to Nineveh in Assyria. He is with another prophet, Ezekiel, in Babylon. There is no place in the universe where He is not. On the other hand, it must be impossible to live fully as a Jew outside Israel, for if not, Jews would not have been commanded to go there initially, or to return subsequently. Why is the G-d beyond place to be found specifically in this place?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">All of this, of course, I am saying during the week following July Fourth, the anniversary of American Independence. This is a land that has given room for the Jewish people to grow unlike any other country in history. Without any doubt amidst tribulations, it is simultaneously a haven which has welcomed the tired, the poor and at this point in history, provides the opportunity for social mobility, for expression of autonomy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This year was only the second time in the past 17 years that I have seen the fireworks on July Fourth. I’ve either been at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, in Israel or in a different country. After a year of studying in Israel, celebrating American Independence Day earlier this week reinforced the absolutely unique place in history in which all of us sits today. I am an American Jew, dedicated to my home community, my multiple communities here. And simultaneously I feel indelibly tugged toward a land and people across an ocean.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I spent this past year thrusting myself toward an Israeli experience of life. Speaking Hebrew was my entrance to Judaism; I raced through the work books during my fourth grade Hebrew school class and asked my parents to go to Solomon Schechter the following year. And they agreed. I continue to find Israeli music to be one of the most authentic engagements with contemporary Jewish life, living lyrical expression of centuries’ old themes. Modern rock and roll painted with the brush strokes of ancient stones. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">On May 31, I jumped and sang along with three generations to the 25<sup>th</sup> anniversary concert of the rock band Mashina. During sukkot, lights and sounds bounced off a wadi by the dead sea as both “secular” and religious Jews bounced up and down to Gidi Gov’s version of Yaaleh v’Yavo. This can only happen in Israel. As the refrain of another rock song goes, “Rak B’Yisrael.” Only in Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">We have autonomy in America. It is a home. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Israel represents the building of Jewish civil society, the religious and cultural dream of a nation. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">And because we have these multiple opportunities, these two nations of growth, of depth, along comes tension. <b>And it</b></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>s one we should relish</b></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It’s fundamentally a tension which has been a part of our condition from the outset. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Complexity is the authentic position of our tradition. Certainly about this particular case of our relationship with Israel. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">We find two polar statements in the writings of our Rabbis about our case at hand. From the Tannaitic Midrash <i>Mekhilte</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> <i>d’Rabbi Ishmael</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">: “Wherever the Israelites went into exile, the Divine presence was exiled with them.” Clearly, God’s presence is not tied to a particular place. After all, God is God.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In turn, virtually the opposite from Massechet Ketubot of the Talmud (110b): “One who leaves Israel to live elsewhere is as if he had no God.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Entrenched throughout the Rabbinic cannon there is conflict. Between the rationalism of the school of Ishmael and the irrationalism of the school of Akiva. Between describing an immanent and a transcendent God in peoples’ lives. And here, between God who is with the people Israel in all places and at all times and who has a special seat in Jerusalem. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“Can one find God, serve God, experience God, outside the holy land? asks Rabbi Sacks. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Yes and No. If the answer were only Yes, there would be no incentive to return. If the answer were only No, there would be no reason to stay Jewish in exile. On this tension, the Jewish existence is built.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">As Jews sitting along the coast of America, <b>the mandate in turn must be how we acknowledge and endorse the fundamental tensions in our lives and don’t reduce them to platitudes</b></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Complexity is not a vice. The tradition authentically articulates that this very struggle of identities is part of who we are as individuals, as a nation. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Chapter 53 portrays the wandering from place A to place B to place Z. And finally a chance to rest. It’s here we’re supposed to settle. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Yet it’s clearly more complicated than that, as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Let us not reduce our ideologies to black or white. We must live the paradox. Again, complexity is not a vice. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">During this week of celebrating the country where we live, let us continue the conversation of defining the meaning of Judaism in a melting pot, one where we wear multiple hats of identity, where we pledge allegiance to more than one flag. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Indeed this is <b>both </b></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">the American dream and the Jewish vision for life, one of complexity, of depth. Of constant struggle not because of insecurity or angst.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">But because living a tension is the authentic expression of our people.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-71609863030207755692010-07-10T19:11:00.000-07:002010-07-11T18:06:58.964-07:00Thoughts on today's haftarah<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">An introduction that I gave to the <a href="http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1102.htm">haftarah</a> reading today at <a href="http://web.me.com/aojserkis/BethJudah/Welcome.html">Congregation Beth Judah </a> in Ventnor, NJ. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Times New Roman";
panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-parent:"";
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Today in this second of three <i>haftarot</i> of admonition, recited during the three weeks between the fast of the 17<sup>th</sup> of Tammuz and the destruction of the 9<sup>th</sup> of Av, we read the excoriations of the prophet Jeremiah. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">We read of a people that has no concept of Wonder. Who has so quickly forgotten of being led through the wilderness. Who has turned to other Gods and prophesied by the them. Who has turned to idolatry in every form possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Shimu dvar Adonai</i>, Jeremiah implores the people. Hear the word of God. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The people have not only forsaken God, but also created new cisterns which cannot hold water. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">As the Hebrew idiom goes, <i>ein mayim eleh Torah</i>. Water is known exclusively as Torah. The people have restructured their entire world of following the Torah with a new, seemingly improved worldview. But they have done so with leaky plumbing! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">During these three weeks of rebuke, we approach a day where we commemorate the destruction of the first and second temples, but also calamities in each generation. We read in Massechet Yoma of the Babylonian that the Temples were destroyed because of a breakdown in civil society, there was unchecked Sinat Chinam, acts of Senseless Hatred. Moral guidance stood in anarchy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">We read in today’s <i>haftarah</i> about ancient idolatry. So to are we conscious of modern day idolatry. Not in the form of bowing to idols, to offering incense to an iron, bronze or stone statue. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">But the idolatry of paying more attention to a bright screen in our pockets than the people across the table from us. The idolatry of knowing the details of the contracts of three basketball players rather than honoring the vows in the marriage contract on our walls. The idolatry of when our hearts are stirred with more wonder by the pyrotechnics of Pentium chips than the crest of the sun making its way above the horizon line of the Atlantic Ocean each morning.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Where are those Gods you made for yourself? asks Jeremiah at the end of chapter 2. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Let them arise and save you, if they can, in your hour of calamity. For your Gods have become, Oh Judah, as many as your towns!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"> But don’t despair, we skip to chapter four of Jeremiah to conclude our <i>haftarah</i> on an optimistic note. If the people Israel returns to God. If it does not waver, then nations will bless themselves by the nation and praise themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">As we approach Tisha B’Av, we listen today to the scolding of Jeremiah, rebuke toward his generation and a message for us, as well. It’s a warning bell. Undergo <i>Teshuva</i>. Be aware of your actions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-30429619786141902412010-07-10T19:01:00.000-07:002010-07-11T15:47:33.430-07:00Israelites stop along the way for Ice Cream<span style="font-size: small;">Reading today's parasha, I noticed that one of the stops that the Israelites make on their journey is Yotvata. YOTVATA!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">They stop there, then they camp there.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">במדבר לג</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">לג. ויסעו מחר הגדגד; ויחנו ביטבתה</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">לד ויסעו מיטבתה, ויחנו בעברנה </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Numbers 33</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>33</b> And they journeyed from Hor-haggidgad, and camped in Yotvata</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>34</b> And they journeyed from Yotvata, and camped in Abronah.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Shoko b'sakit clearly makes their life complete, too.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlpySlew4A9Gt71o0_Cf1baw3xftOIUFxKszWY8dMsAJfizt-6nbl0juYO7hsyyEsq2r1vZAhGSjJIWpXrO2mb6VkNuVUjpPMBHUiQMlORfb4vIcjJ7CVUu19DorVcWpcsrN4nUWXFBM4/s1600/choco_shakit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlpySlew4A9Gt71o0_Cf1baw3xftOIUFxKszWY8dMsAJfizt-6nbl0juYO7hsyyEsq2r1vZAhGSjJIWpXrO2mb6VkNuVUjpPMBHUiQMlORfb4vIcjJ7CVUu19DorVcWpcsrN4nUWXFBM4/s320/choco_shakit.jpg" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">(I'm aware that this isn't the actual Yotvata. Please laugh anyway. Thanks)</span>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-79152787669710282352010-05-18T01:12:00.000-07:002010-05-18T01:12:43.914-07:0049 days, which equals 7 weeks of the OmerAnd we've arrived. Crossing off the final day from Ari's "Omer chart." Well done, team.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinLZeewKXZL6GiQvVmK2ks4PXUN-l9DZ1w4ohgeOzrkh0Nj6fM1FbIZ6e-pvgz0Ni4ypX6138u7BOElEVBBDQJ6OfOGKHqOsXLF0qttYhSVR58mMx11yjFEDImZ1iBuKxlwlVWHtXBZ18/s1600/IMG_2471.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinLZeewKXZL6GiQvVmK2ks4PXUN-l9DZ1w4ohgeOzrkh0Nj6fM1FbIZ6e-pvgz0Ni4ypX6138u7BOElEVBBDQJ6OfOGKHqOsXLF0qttYhSVR58mMx11yjFEDImZ1iBuKxlwlVWHtXBZ18/s320/IMG_2471.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Photo credit: The Dew of God</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Happy Pentecost to one and all. </div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-36308863732893759472010-05-04T07:10:00.000-07:002010-05-04T07:14:24.815-07:00R. Shai Held: Halacha and Innovation are not Mutually ExclusivePlease read the <a href="http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial_opinion/opinion/halacha_and_innovation_are_not_mutually_exclusive">following article</a>.<br />
<br />
In what partly is a response to Rabbi Hershel Schachter's recent remarks and prohibition of the ordination of women rabbis in Orthodoxy, Rabbi Shai Held powerfully articulates a progressive approach to Jewish law as a more authentic world-view than legal conservatism.<br />
<br />
An article filled with substance, that can indeed stand on its own (not as a response), anyone interested in Judaism in the modern world should read this piece.<br />
<br class="webkit-block-placeholder" />Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-9227983634932940712010-05-03T11:43:00.000-07:002010-05-03T12:00:36.934-07:00Reading material and a video, to bootHere's an amusing (perhaps hyperbolic, though maybe not) <a href="http://www.atlantajewish.com/content/012006/metrodox.html">sociological analysis of Jewish life</a> on the Upper West Side of New York.<br />
(Footnote to Shoshie for finding this)<br />
<br />
<br />
And the video for Hadag Nahash's best song on their new CD — עוד אח אחד (another brother).<br />
The song is a cover of a song written by rapper "Fishy HaGadol" and speaks about the endless cycle of violence, the refrain stating:<br />
<br />
עוד אח אחד ירד אל הקבר ומאמא בוכה היא בצעקות שבר, עוד אח אחד ירד אל הקבר את זעקות אבא שומעים מכל עבר <br />
Another brother descends to the grave and mother cries out, with broken screams. Another brother descends to the grave; father's wails can be heard from all directions.<br />
<br />
In addition to being a beautiful song musically, with poignant lyrics, this video socks the viewer in the gut toward the end.<br />
(Footnote to the Peaceful lion on this one)<br />
<br />
<br />
<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Rz-xsKZYnPw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Rz-xsKZYnPw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-59340036111031992912010-05-02T08:54:00.000-07:002010-05-02T08:54:22.610-07:00Ashley Parker, UPenn '05 — NYT Magazine Feature WriterDuring college, I took both of the classes that <a href="http://www.english.upenn.edu/People/Faculty/profile.php?pennkey=phendric">Paul Hendrickson</a> taught. English 145 and English 155.<br />
<br />
English 145, Advanced Non-fiction Writing, in that nook of a room at the end of the second floor. Filled with easy chairs and sofas. Three non-fiction pieces, the first a personal memoir, the second two — go out and find the stories and show their characters.<br />
<br />
English 155, Writing in the Documentary Tradition, just up the stairs and to the left — around the table. Follow a topic, a person, a place for an entire semester. Own the experience. Bring it to life. I chose the Penn basketball stadium, <a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AWVMVFaVa6orZGNrOHFkYzJfMzJkZGdwd2pmNA&hl=iw">the Palestra, </a>"College basketball's most historic gym," as many know it.<br />
<br />
Hendrickson went by PH — from the first e-mail he wrote to the class, colloquially among the students and straight to his face. He was a writer. Yes, teaching at a university. But a writer first and foremost —none of the formalisms, please.<br />
<br />
After thirty years at the Washington Post, writing features, a few books along the way, he found his way to Penn to teach.<br />
<br />
"You need to feel the words between your fingers," he'd say, rubbing his thumb and fore-finger together. "You feel it?"<br />
<br />
Ashley Parker's writing had that texture. Always.<br />
<br />
Her award-winning piece about <a href="http://thedp.com/node/43322">Penn's high-stakes poker players</a>. Her documentary following a resident at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">DP</span> <a href="http://thedp.com/node/43322">feature</a> on Communications Dean Kathleen Hall Jamieson, which underwent revisions in that nook on the second floor of the Kelly Writer's House.<br />
<br />
I took both of PH's class with Ashley. We served on the Daily Pennsylvanian's 119th board of editors together.<br />
<br />
In a class filled with writers who had to apply to get into these non-fiction workshops, where we work-shopped our pieces on a weekly basis, she blew us all out of the water.<br />
<br />
During one of the final classes of our Doc Seminar, Eliot Sherman said, "Parker — you're going to make it."<br />
<br />
We haven't spoken since graduation in 2005. But her cover story in the Times Magazine rocks my world.<br />
<br />
This <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/magazine/02obamastaff-t.html?pagewanted=1&sq=ashley%20parker&st=cse&scp=1">NYT Magazine Cover Story</a> indeed marks her arrival.<br />
<br />
Well done, Parker.Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-5270575218268764632010-05-02T07:16:00.000-07:002010-05-02T07:16:06.679-07:00Milot HaYomA few Hebrew vocabulary words for your Sunday afternoon.<br />
<br />
This one, courtesy of Guy.<br />
<br />
פרסה, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">parsah</span>: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">noun;</span> a hoof, a horseshoe, a u-turn<br />
לפרסס, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">lefarses</span>: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">verb;</span> to make a u-turn<br />
<br />
The word for making a u-turn in Hebrew is the same as the one for "horse shoe" or "hoof" — naturally enough, the shape of the u-turn.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://he.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%93%D7%95%D7%92%D7%A8%D7%99">דוגרי</a>, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">dugri: noun; </span>straight talk, to the point.<br />
<br />
Israelis are known for saying what's on their minds, cutting through the polite platitudes which are common in America. Let's cut to the chase – בוא נדבר דוגרי.Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-11381552031831786752010-05-01T10:43:00.000-07:002010-05-01T10:43:13.020-07:00The 40th anniversary of the Kent State massacre and a shoutout to Jonah LowenfeldReading through <a href="http://www.forward.com/">The Forward</a>, I happened upon <a href="http://www.forward.com/articles/127615/">this article</a> by my friend and former roommate Jonah Lowenfeld. As you will quickly see, anything he writes is worth reading.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #191919; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;"><h2 style="clear: both; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 28px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1em; margin-bottom: 7px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Remembering Kent State as an American Tragedy With a Jewish Face</h2></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 22px;">By Jonah Lowenfeld</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #191919; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;"><span class="dateline" style="color: black; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase;">KENT, OHIO — </span>At 11 p.m. on May 3, a group of marchers will begin a candlelight vigil at Kent State University in Ohio to recall what is for many a distant echo from another era.</div><div id="images-sidebar" style="color: black; float: right; margin-left: 20px;"><div id="article-image-box2" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(229, 233, 234); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(229, 233, 234); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(229, 233, 234); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(229, 233, 234); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; width: 300px;"><img src="http://www.forward.com/workspace/assets/images/articles/warcamehome-042910.jpg" style="-webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial; border-bottom-color: initial; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: initial; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-width: initial; margin-bottom: -2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 100%;" /><div class="photo-credit2" style="background-color: black; color: white; float: right; font-size: 8px; height: 100%; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 4px; margin-right: 4px; margin-top: -17px; opacity: 0.6; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-top: 5px; text-transform: uppercase;">COURTESY OF KENT STATE UNIVERSITY</div><div class="photo-caption2" style="-webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: #eaf1f3; background-image: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial; color: black; font-size: 11px; height: 100%; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 9px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 6px; text-align: left;"><strong>‘The Day the War Came Home’</strong>: Clockwise from top left, Allison Krause, William Schroeder, Sandra Scheuer and Jeffrey Miller were killed when Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on a group of unarmed students and bystanders during campus anti-war protests on May 4, 1970. The shootings came after some students hurled rocks at the soldiers.</div></div></div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">The killing of four unarmed students by members of the Ohio National Guard during a national wave of campus protests against the Vietnam War will have its 40th anniversary this year. And as they have every year since 1971, those honoring the students’ memory will circle the area where the demonstrations took place and end up in the parking lot where they were killed.</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">There, the gathering will hear students from the campus Hillel recite the Kaddish.</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">The Jewish prayer for the dead has been recited regularly at this annual event since the early 1980s — a reflection of the fact that three of the “four dead in Ohio” famously memorialized in song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were Jewish.</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">Neither at the time of the shootings nor since has anyone looked closely at this odd fact — one that seems odder still for a campus where Jews have never made up more than 5% of those enrolled. Karen Weinberger, a sorority sister of Sandra Scheuer, one of the slain, recalled that back then “it wasn’t anything that was really of great significance. The significance was the fact that you had four students that died and nine that were injured.”</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">But if the shootings themselves were not a Jewish tragedy, the first commemorations of them were overwhelmingly so. “What happened that day was not a Jewish event,” said Tom Sudow, an alumnus who transferred to Kent State in the fall of 1973. “The response to May 4 in a lot of ways, though, became a Jewish event.”</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">Today, the killings are memorialized by no fewer than four separate markers at and around the site. They convey official recognition of what happened there by everyone from the campus administration to the federal government, to the Ohio Historical Society. But in 1971, as the first anniversary of the killings approached, there were no plans to do anything to note the date’s passing. The war in Vietnam was still raging, Richard Nixon was still president, and Kent State seemed unwilling to confront its recent bloody history. “It wasn’t, ‘Cover up,’” Sudow recalled. “It was, ‘If we ignore it, maybe it will go away.’”</div><div id="images-sidebar" style="color: black; float: right; margin-left: 20px;"><div id="article-image-box2" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(229, 233, 234); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(229, 233, 234); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(229, 233, 234); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(229, 233, 234); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-top: 1px; width: 300px;"><img src="http://www.forward.com/workspace/assets/images/articles/kentstate-042910.jpg" style="-webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial; border-bottom-color: initial; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: initial; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-width: initial; margin-bottom: -2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 100%;" /><div class="photo-credit2" style="background-color: black; color: white; float: right; font-size: 8px; height: 100%; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 4px; margin-right: 4px; margin-top: -17px; opacity: 0.6; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-top: 5px; text-transform: uppercase;">JOHN FILO/GETTY IMAGES</div><div class="photo-caption2" style="-webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: #eaf1f3; background-image: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial; color: black; font-size: 11px; height: 100%; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 9px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 6px; text-align: left;"><strong>‘Four Dead in Ohio’</strong>: Mary Ann Vecchio screams as she kneels over the body of student Jeffrey Miller during an anti-war demonstration on May 4, 1970.</div></div></div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">It was the campus Jewish community that stepped up then. “Hillel was very involved and had a prominent role in commemorating the lives of the four students lost,” said Jennifer Chestnut, the current executive director of Hillel at Kent State.</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">The Kent State Hillel back then was housed in a rented apartment and had a staff of one: Rabbi Gerald Turk. A charismatic Orthodox rabbi known for his Bukharan yarmulke and his out-of-the-box programming, Turk led the effort to place a simple plaque bearing the names of the four victims on the ground of the parking lot where they died. Dedicated May 4, 1971, it was the first physical marker of the deaths on campus.</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">In 1974, the plaque was stolen and later returned, riddled with bullet holes. A granite replacement was rededicated by a group of faculty members on May 4, 1975. It remained the only physical memorial on campus until 1990, when the university administration dedicated its own memorial.</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">The Jewish community on campus still commemorates the events of May 4, often in the context of universitywide events. The candlelight walk and vigil — one of the most distinctive elements of the annual May 4 commemoration — exemplify this.</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">Initiated in 1971 by then assistant professor of sociology Jerry Lewis, the yearly walk begins in the area of the campus where the protests took place, and ends at midnight in the parking lot where Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder were killed. The midnight vigil continues, in 30-minute shifts, until 12:24 p.m. on May 4 — the exact time of the shootings.</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">Lewis, now a professor emeritus, has tried, by his own account, to keep the walk and vigil simple. But he did allow for one significant addition: “In the early 1980s, Rabbi Turk came to me and said, ‘Do you mind if I say Kaddish?’ I said, ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ because I knew that three of the students were of the Jewish tradition.”</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">In the meantime, as tempers have cooled, many of the questions about what happened then have been resolved, but not all.</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">When Nixon announced the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia on April 30, 1970, students on campuses across the country protested. At Kent State, students broke windows of some of the businesses in the city of Kent. And at 5 p.m. the next day, amid rumors of plans to destroy the ROTC building on the campus, the mayor of Kent summoned the National Guard. The ROTC building did go up in flames Saturday evening, May 2, and the guardsmen then cleared students from the area, using tear gas and bayonets.</div><div id="related-links" style="-webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: #f3f7f9; background-image: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(190, 190, 190); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(229, 229, 229); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(229, 229, 229); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(229, 229, 229); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; color: black; float: left; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 14px; margin-top: 2px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 10px; text-align: left; width: 220px;"><strong>Related Articles</strong><ul style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;"><li style="list-style-type: square; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 18px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 4px;"><a href="http://www.forward.com/articles/126850/" style="color: #217aa6; text-decoration: none;">Triangle Shirtwaist Fire: An Indelible Memory, Etched In Chalk</a></li>
<li style="list-style-type: square; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 18px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 4px;"><a href="http://www.forward.com/articles/113279/" style="color: #217aa6; text-decoration: none;">Sixty Years Since the Peekskill Riots</a></li>
<li style="list-style-type: square; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 18px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 4px;"><a href="http://www.forward.com/articles/112429/" style="color: #217aa6; text-decoration: none;">Revisiting the Kate We Wanted to Be</a></li>
</ul></div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">The next day, Ohio Governor James Rhodes visited the campus — by then wholly occupied by the Guard. Rhodes, who was in a tough race for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate, gave a speech designed to cement his position as a law-and-order candidate. He called the students who rioted “worse than the Brown Shirts and the communist element,” and promised to use “whatever force necessary to drive them out of Kent.” On Monday, May 4, at a noontime protest, demonstrators defied dispersal orders from the guardsmen, with some of the students hurling rocks at them from a distance. After an extended standoff, 28 guardsmen fired 67 rounds in 13 seconds at a group of unarmed student demonstrators and nearby bystanders. Four were killed; nine were wounded.</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">Protesters Krause and Miller were both Jewish. Scheuer and Schroeder, were bystanders, Scheuer being the third Jew.</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">In September 1970, a federal panel established to investigate the Kent State deaths — as well as the killing of two black students at Jackson State University in Mississippi and campus unrest nationwide —condemned the “indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students” at Kent State as “unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable.”</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">In the years since, numerous articles, books, government inquiries, TV specials and films have attempted to answer some of the difficult questions about “the day the Vietnam War came home.” Were students armed, as was initially reported? (No.) Were guardsmen ordered to fire? (It appears that they were — though no individual was ever clearly identified or held accountable for giving the order.) Were so-called outside agitators responsible for inciting the students to protest? (Possibly, but every one of the dead and wounded was a full-time Kent State student.)</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">Alan Canfora, a Kent State alumnus who was among the wounded protesters, recalled, “There were about 500 protesters there, and another 1,500 bystanders.” That three of the slain were Jews, he said, was “just an extremely unlikely mathematical probability.” No one believes they were — or could have been — especially targeted.</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">Few beyond the Kent State campus know about the Jewish connection to the events of May 4. But in 1970, at least some American Jews were aware of their connection to Krause, Miller and Scheuer. “I heard from so many people,” said Elaine Holstein, Miller’s mother, “and I know there were people in the Jewish community. Most people were very supportive.”</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">Canfora, as director of the Kent May 4 Center, for years has been collecting materials related to the shooting. When the Krause and Scheuer families invited him to retrieve materials from their houses for his archive in the 1990s, he found “numerous letters from synagogues across the country” among the papers. Each family had also received “hundreds of certificates,” Canfora said, “where members of the Jewish community across our country had purchased a tree in Israel and planted it in memory of our martyrs.”</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">In recent years, the university has become more comfortable with the legacy of May 4. At the urging of students, faculty and alumni, Kent State has established a number of memorials to the slain and wounded students. Earlier this year, part of the campus was added to the National Register of Historic Places. And later this year, the university will open the May 4 Visitors Center, which tells about the history of the university’s darkest day.</div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px;">But to all this, Doris Krause, whose daughter, Allison, was 19 when she was killed, responded as any mother would. “I wish it weren’t so,” she said.</div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-29354954801482352772010-04-22T04:51:00.000-07:002010-04-22T04:51:07.159-07:00Rak b'Yisrael (only in Israel) and a return to Milot HaYom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxtbDeFBIP47G0-Fm_iEQbS_XCUEjWt5IJOqvEbirwT8xizKNkHenaVt790i3P96JmOpFIBoYdSPKZ6oT_m_Ao2-urDZ_mJddWqqyMHQrQjOYY5U_JkiuUskLcisCeMjsD_f_kNWAj4zQ/s1600/IMG_0844.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxtbDeFBIP47G0-Fm_iEQbS_XCUEjWt5IJOqvEbirwT8xizKNkHenaVt790i3P96JmOpFIBoYdSPKZ6oT_m_Ao2-urDZ_mJddWqqyMHQrQjOYY5U_JkiuUskLcisCeMjsD_f_kNWAj4zQ/s320/IMG_0844.JPG" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">The intersection of Rav Ashi and Ravina, in the Ramat Aviv neighborhood of Tel Aviv. These two Babylonia Amoraim are traditionally attributed as the editors of the Babylonian Talmud.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And now back to our Milot HaYom portion of the program:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: David; font-size: 15px;">אֻמְדָּנָה</span>, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">umdena</span>: assessment, evaluation. </div><div style="text-align: left;">I am the only American in the class where we read this word in an article (as well as the only male, providing a particularly unique perspective) and the teacher still chose to translate it into simpler Hebrew. That was encouraging.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: David;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">מַשְׁכַּנְתָּא, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">mashkanta</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">: mortgage.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: David;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Ari thinks that this word sounds like an expletive when said quickly and sometimes uses it as such</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #000099; font-family: David;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">.</span></span></div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2838819748735597301.post-19824232413978536202010-04-19T07:08:00.000-07:002010-04-19T07:21:53.082-07:00When you are not a mourner — Thoughts on Yom HaZikkaron 5770<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo4821ROzRQdA9TTg8qiPp7VgDZ7q2O2j9XI67_-iQnP91YO83zuWINDrr86pqzEY7nDjRgogNuAie04bZ7Oa0p7NN9qiwAzxoUL-4GC33x1gu4RFSAnXLGo3qoI8eFPIM-j6ckSP15XM/s1600/IMG_0847.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo4821ROzRQdA9TTg8qiPp7VgDZ7q2O2j9XI67_-iQnP91YO83zuWINDrr86pqzEY7nDjRgogNuAie04bZ7Oa0p7NN9qiwAzxoUL-4GC33x1gu4RFSAnXLGo3qoI8eFPIM-j6ckSP15XM/s320/IMG_0847.JPG" /></a></div>Last night the Peaceful Lion and I headed to <a href="http://www.mouse.co.il/CM.shows_item_show,408,208,18580,.aspx">Kikar Rabin in Tel Aviv </a> for the city’s commemoration of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Yom HaZikkaron</span>, the National Memorial Day for Fallen Soliders and Victims of Terror. Over the years, Israel has built a canon of poetry and music devoted to the memories of those that have died. The songs are slow, they invite the crowd to sing along. They often allude to other canonical texts from throughout the course of Jewish civilization. Sure there are the classics, but there are also enough to fill the radio waves for an entire day with very few repeats.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sunday night’s <i>tekes</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> (ceremony) featured the best of Israel’s rock stars singing said classics in front of a standing-room only crowd in what equates to the town square. In between, the MC said a poem, the jumbo-tron played a clip of a family telling the story of their loved one who died. We heard the narrative from the sources, related to the intangible through poetry.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This morning, I went to the <i>tekes</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> of HaGymnasia HaIvrit, a high school in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem dating back to 1909. The school remembered 138 people this year. The MC formally welcomed us to the event, we again heard narratives, interspersed with music. And heard each of the 138 names.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Over the past two days, I’ve felt tugged in multiple directions, an outsider who does not have Israeli family, who thankfully does not have a personal connection to one of the narratives that play on television on every 4 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Iyyar</span> (I am aware of the calendar differences from year to year). But I am continually drawn to the importance and imperative of this communal narrative, of educating about it, as I relate personally to the civil religion of Israel through music, though stories of the common human, stories that have evolved to become a part of the National religion of the Jewish nation. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">While sitting in the school courtyard this morning, I thought about what it means to force a nation to mourn. What it means to force individuals to mourn. Is this possible when people are personally connected to the event, whether family or otherwise? All the more so, is it possible when people are there without a personal story of their own that they are remembering?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The <i>gemarra </i><span style="font-style: normal;">in </span><i>Masechet Sukkah</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> explicates the Mishnah’s statement “</span><i>Shluhei Mitzvah peturin m’hamitzvah</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” (those who are on the way to do a commandment are exempt from performing [another] commandment). It assumes the general rule that “</span><i>haosek bamitzvah, patur min hamitzvah</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,” one who is performing a </span><i>mitzvah </i><span style="font-style: normal;">is exempt from another mitzvah (Sukkah 25a).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the course of this discussion, we learn that a person who is <i>tarid</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, worried or obsessed with something, is exempt from a </span><i>mitzvah</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> in the same way that someone who is physically performing a </span><i>mitzvah</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. From here, we learn that the groom is exempt from Shema on his wedding night. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We also learn specifically that someone who is in mourning is <i>not exempt</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> from </span><i>mitzvot</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, because as the </span><i>gemarra</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> describes, this mourning is </span><i>tirda dirshut</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, voluntary distress. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t think it’s only a post-modern reading to say that on the face of it, saying that a mourner “voluntarily” emotes, where the groom cannot help himself, is morally problematic. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But Rashi's (11<sup>th</sup> c. Northern France) commentary emphasizes why this is the case: despite the fact that the mourner is required to perform the physical mourning acts, he <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">i</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">s not required to emote</span>. (<span class="font_000005">טירדא דרשות -</span> שאף על פי שהוא חייב לנהוג אבילות של נעילה רחיצה וסיכה להראות כבוד מתו - אינו חייב להצטער.)<br />
<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Perhaps this is because it is <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">impossible</span> to mandate someone to mourn emotionally. One can mandate physical action, which might lead to an emotional outpouring in turn. But not emotions. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Thankfully, I am not a mourner today in the technical sense of the word, <i>halakhically</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> or more abstractly. But on a day when the fabric of the world is shakier than normal, I greatly appreciate the foundational character of the </span><i>tekesim</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> across the country. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On a day when I certainly cannot force myself to mourn, the civil religion of Israel, the National religion of the Jewish people provides a structure which can allow for the necessarily different mourning of each individual. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
The Israeli radio station Galgalatz is currently playing in my living room and soon I will head to the<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> tekes maavar,</span> the bridge ceremony between <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Yom HaZikkaron </span>and<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> Yom HaAtzmaut</span> (Independence Day). There will be more music tonight and tomorrow of a decidedly different character.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Below is a video assembled from last year’s <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">tekes</span> in Kikar Rabin:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/oQeBrScjEuA&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/oQeBrScjEuA&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>Zachary Silverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201614908028106690noreply@blogger.com1