My Obiter Dicta

In Loving Memory, Betty Birnbaum Woolf זכרונה לברכה

2012-01-03T22:19:00.003+02:00

Tonight is my mother's twenty-first yahrzeit. She was, by all accounts, a remarkable, strong, intelligent and loving wife to my Dad and mother to three, not easy to raise, sons. The more time that passes I wonder at her strength of character and faith. She was eight years younger than I when my Dad died, and she was left to carry on alone. Very few people were there to help her, and yet she persevered and prevailed; with dignity, with presence and propriety. 'Always do the right and proper thing' was one of her central lessons. She was also a lot of fun.

God put her through many trials. She wasn't able to go to College, because she had to work to help her struggling immigrant parents. She once told me how her paycheck went straight to my Bubbe for food. She struggled with my father through good times and bad, with good humor and always shielding us from adversity. She created a Yiddishe heim, which had kashrut, Shul, Shabbat, and Yom Tov. And while we were not strictly Orthodox, I challenge any Shomer Shabbos person to match the warmth and yiddishkeit which characterized the home she made for us. When she was struck with cancer, she faced it straight on and lived to the fullest...and beat it for ten years. And then, when the disease returned, and she felt that it prevented her from having a dignified life, she was ready to return to her Creator, with dignity. As she breathed her last breath in the hospice, and I said Shema into her ear, she was calling to her mother; who I assume had come to bring her home.

Today, parts of my own life are extremely difficult, while others are wonderful. I struggle with the question why evil people are allowed to prosper, and derive courage and inspiration, perspective and strength from my mother's life and example to appreciate the blessings God has given me, and not to empower the bad things that come my way. In the long run, they matter not. She used to say that evil can only hurt you if you let it. She never let it, and blessed everyone whom she touched with her example.

תהי נשמתה צרורה בצרור החיים ותהי מנוחתה כבוד.

על הדרת נשים: ראיון שלי ברשת ב

2011-12-27T00:03:00.003+02:00

הערב התראיינתי לתכנית 'הערכת מצב' ברשת ב, בנושא הבוער של הדרת נשים בחברה הישראלית. הראיון במלואו נמצא כאן (בין דקה 14:53 ל22:23). אולי בגלל רגישות הנושא הייתי יותר עצבני מהרגיל ושומעים את זה בדבריי. לטעמי, העברתי את המסרים העיקריים שרציתי: 1) החילוניים תופסים טרמפ על נושא האלימות החרדית הקיצונית כדי לקדם את סדר יומם הפוסט-מודרני והאנטי-דתי. לכן, אלה מביננו שמתנגדים למחיקתן/גירושן של נשים מהציבוריות הישראלית חייבית שלא ליפול למלכודת התעמולתית שהשמאל מציב לנו. 2) אין תקדים ביהדות לגירוש הנשים מהמרחב הציבורי בצורה כה גורפת. לא הספקתי לומר שמידת מעורבותן של נשים בחיים מחוץ לבית היא פועל יוצא של תנאי החברה הכללית בכל דור ובכל מקום. 3) יש עימות חזיתית בין המתירנות המינית של העידן הנוכחי לבין יחסה היותר שמרני ומאופק של היהדות למיניות ולרצונה למנוע התנהגות לא נאותה בין אנשים. 4) הקפדה על הרהור עבירה מוטלחת על הגבר ולא על האישה. כאן, נדמה לי שדבריי בנושא קול אישה וכדו' היו שטחיים מדי, כפועל יוצא מקוצר הזמן.

למדתי שוב לקח במגבלות השיח בתקשורת. השתכנעתי עוד יותר כמה חשוב ללמוד להעביר מסרים יהודיים מורכבים בשפה המובנת לכל. לא בטוח שהפעם הצלחתי. יש עוד הרבה עבודה לעשות...

The Unknown Miracle of Hanukkah

2011-12-25T16:59:00.005+02:00

A quick survey of the types of lectures, shiurim, articles, and various other discussions of Hanukkah that flood the internet reveals that they focus on two, eminently predictable, motifs: the victory of the Hasmoneans over the Seleucid Greeks and and the miracle of the little cruse of oil, bearing the seal of the High Priest, that lasted eight days instead of one. How do these relate to one another? Why doesn't the Talmud emphasize the military victory? Why do the First Book of Maccabees (IV, 56-59) and Josephus not mention the miracle of the cruse of oil?

All of these questions are important but, in my opinion, they miss a deeper, more central and more resonant miracle that occurred 'in those days at this time of year.' Allow me to explain.

The decrees of Antiochus IV Epiphanes were, in many ways, unparalleled in the history of civilization. Paganism, by its very nature, is extremely eclectic and, by extension, tolerant. The expectation was that everyone would worship and respect everyone else's gods. After all, there were so many gods around, what difference would one more or less make? Over time, given the phenomenological similarity between the various groups of Gods, they became identified with one another. Amun merged with Ra, Zeus merged with Jupiter, and Jupiter merged with Baal; and so on and so on. There was no push, or need, to force anyone to worship other gods. As a result, moreover, the concept of apostasy was almost non-existent. Apostasy was, by definition, non-existent. (Socrates was executed on a charge of atheism i.e. not believing in 'the gods.') The only group in the ancient world that rejected this arrangement was the Jews, who were commanded by God 'not to have any gods besides Me.'

Historians are sharply divided as to why Antiochus decided to wipe out Judaism, to forbid the worship of the One True God, and to force them to worship Zeus Olympus. Whatever his reasons, it is clear that this was the first time that Jews had encountered an out and out attack on Judaism, in its totality. (The affair described in Daniel 3 were a partial precedent, but not long lived. On that occasion, moreover, the Jews were not asked to abandon Judaism but to bow down to an idol. This was, of course, a heinous sin and constituted grounds for martyrdom. It was, however, not on the scale of things that Antiochus and his Jewish Hellenizing supporters conceived.) For the first time, the question of martyrdom arose. Just when and for what infractions was one obligated to die? (The famous determination that one is martyred only when forced to worship idols, murder or submit to sexual immorality was only made in the years before the Bar Kokhba Revolt. Cf. Sanhedrin 74a.)

A. The Beginnings of Kiddush HaShem

There appears to have been little, or no, unanimity on this question. And the initial responses (if we are to trust the stories in I Maccabees) came first from the people:

Ch. 1, 41-50: Moreover king Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people, And every one should leave his laws: so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king. Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, and sacrificed unto idols, and profaned the sabbath. For the king had sent letters by messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Juda that they should follow the strange laws of the land,And forbid burnt offerings, and sacrifice, and drink offerings, in the temple; and that they should profane the sabbaths and festival days: And pollute the sanctuary and holy people: Set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine's flesh, and unclean beasts: That they should also leave their children uncircumcised, and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation: To the end they might forget the law, and change all the ordinances. And whosoever would not do according to the commandment of the king, he said, he should die.

57-63: And whosoever was found with any the book of the testament, or if any committed to the law, the king's commandment was, that they should put him to death. Thus did they by their authority unto the Israelites every month, to as many as were found in the cities. Now the five and twentieth day of the month they did sacrifice upon the idol altar, which was upon the altar of God. At which time according to the commandment they put to death certain women, that had caused their children to be circumcised. And they hanged the infants about their necks, and rifled their houses, and slew them that had circumcised them.Howbeit many in Israel were fully resolved and confirmed in themselves not to eat any unclean thing. Wherefore the rather to die, that they might not be defiled with meats, and that they might not profane the holy covenant: so then they died.

2Maccabees 6,7-19: And in the day of the king's birth every month they were brought by bitter constraint to eat of the sacrifices; and when the fast of Bacchus was kept, the Jews were compelled to go in procession to Bacchus, carrying ivy. Moreover there went out a decree to the neighbour cities of the heathen, by the suggestion of Ptolemy, against the Jews, that they should observe the same fashions, and be partakers of their sacrifices: And whoso would not conform themselves to the manners of the Gentiles should be put to death. Then might a man have seen the present misery.For there were two women brought, who had circumcised their children; whom when they had openly led round about the city, the babes handing at their breasts, they cast them down headlong from the wall. And others, that had run together into caves near by, to keep the sabbath day secretly, being discovered by Philip, were all burnt together, because they made a conscience to help themselves for the honour of the most sacred day. Now I beseech those that read this book, that they be not discouraged for these calamities, but that they judge those punishments not to be for destruction, but for a chastening of our nation. For it is a token of his great goodness, when wicked doers are not suffered any long time, but forthwith punished. For not as with other nations, whom the Lord patiently forbeareth to punish, till they be come to the fulness of their sins, so dealeth he with us, Lest that, being come to the height of sin, afterwards he should take vengeance of us. And therefore he never withdraweth his mercy from us: and though he punish with adversity, yet doth he never forsake his people. But let this that we at spoken be for a warning unto us. And now will we come to the declaring of the matter in a few words. Eleazar, one of the principal scribes, an aged man, and of a well favoured countenance, was constrained to open his mouth, and to eat swine's flesh. But he, choosing rather to die gloriously, than to live stained with such an abomination, spit it forth, and came of his own accord to the torment.

B. Warfare on Shabbat

The challenge of religious persecution was not the only unparalleled challenge that faced the Jews of Eretz Yisrael. An even more striking example is described in I Maccabees, 2: 31-38:

Now when it was told the king's servants, and the host that was at Jerusalem, in the city of David, that certain men, who had broken the king's commandment, were gone down into the secret places in the wilderness, They pursued after them a great number, and having overtaken them, they camped against them, and made war against them on the Sabbath day. And they said unto them, Let that which ye have done hitherto suffice; come forth, and do according to the commandment of the king, and ye shall live. But they said, We will not come forth, neither will we do the king's commandment, to profane the Sabbath day. So then they gave them the battle with all speed. Howbeit they answered them not, neither cast they a stone at them, nor stopped the places where they lay hid; But said, Let us die all in our innocence: heaven and earth will testify for us, that ye put us to death wrongfully. So they rose up against them in battle on the Sabbath, and they slew them, with their wives and children and their cattle, to the number of a thousand people.

This behavior is problematic, to say the least. What happened to the iron-clad rule that פיקוח נפש דוחה שבת, that saving a human life trumps Sabbath observance? Did the Jews, at the time, think that Kiddush HaShem required dying and not fighting? Did they think that there was a difference between saving a life medically and fighting? Did they think (as one scholar has suggested) that using weapons was forbidden on Shabbat? Or, had it never happened that Jews fought on Shabbat? (This is not so far fetched since, until the nineteenth century, wars were formal affairs carried out in set piece battles by relatively small armies.)

Whatever the explanation, it is clear that many pious people (including rabbis) thought that fighting on Shabbat was forbidden. Something had to be done, and Mattathias acted:

39-42: Now when Mattathias and his friends understood hereof, they mourned for them right sore. And one of them said to another, If we all do as our brethren have done, and fight not for our lives and laws against the heathen, they will now quickly root us out of the earth. At that time therefore they decreed, saying, Whosoever shall come to make battle with us on the Sabbath day, we will fight against him; neither will we die all, as our brethren that were murdered in the secret places. Then came there unto him a company of Hassidim who were mighty men of Israel, even all such as were voluntarily devoted unto the law.

I believe that Mattathias' action was quite extraordinary. In order to understand why, we need to turn to yet another religious challenge that was posed by a happy occasion, the re-dedication of the Temple.

C. The Defiled Stones of the Altar

After the conquest of Jerusalem in Kislev, 165 B.C.E., the author of I Maccabees reports (42-47):

So he chose priests of blameless conversation, such as had pleasure in the law: Who cleansed the sanctuary, and bare out the defiled stones into an unclean place. And when as they consulted what to do with the altar of burnt offerings, which was profaned; They thought it best to pull it down, lest it should be a reproach to them, because the heathen had defiled it: wherefore they pulled it down, And laid up the stones in the mountain of the temple in a convenient place, until there should come a prophet to show what should be done with them. Then they took whole stones according to the law, and built a new altar according to the former.

The altar had, albeit, been destroyed by the Babylonians but it had never been profaned. Two questions had arisen: 1) Can one continue to use the original altar, built in the Days of the Return to Zion? 2) Did the defiled stones retain any sanctity, and thus require respectful disposal, or not? The decision was to rebuild the altar with new stones. However, they could not decide what to do with the old ones. So they put them aside 'until there should come a prophet to show what should be done with them.' If they decided the one question, why not the second? And why wait for a true prophet? (Most of the Talmudic questions that are left over for Elijah's coming are theoretical.)

One could object that the question of the final disposition of the old altar was not a burning concern, so that it could be delayed. Later in I Maccabees, however, we find a passage that sheds a different light on the desire for a 'true prophet.'

After finally defeating the Greeks, and attaining national autonomy as a client state of the Seleucid Empire, I Maccabees 14, 35-41) reports:

The people therefore sang the acts of Simon, and unto what glory he thought to bring his nation, made him their governor and chief priest, because he had done all these things, and for the justice and faith which he kept to his nation, and for that he sought by all means to exalt his people....Also that the Jews and priests were well pleased that Simon should be their governor and high priest for ever, until there should arise a faithful prophet;

The combined role of rule (ethnarchos) and High Priest was unprecedented, and controversial (cf. Kiddushin 66a and Ramban, Gen. 49, 10 s.v. וזה היה). Notice, though, that the Jews were unsure of their actions and made them conditional upon the arrival of a true prophet, who would decide whether their action was legitimate, or not.

D. The Miracle of תורה שבעל פה

The Hanukkah story occurred less than three hundred years after the cessation of prophecy, in the time of Malakhi. Up to that time, it appears that (with all due respect to the Rambam) prophets played an integral role in interpreting the Torah, and did not confine themselves to exhortations and predictions. Consider, when the Jews wanted to know whether they should continue to fast on the Tenth of Tevet, the Ninth of Tammuz, the Ninth of Av and the Third of Tishrei, they asked the prophet Zekhariah (Zekh. 8, 19). Once prophecy ceased, Judaism became totally a religion devoted to the interpretation of the record of Revelation, i.e. the Torah, as a way of knowing what God desires of man. This worked well during the fourth and third centuries.

In the second century, however, questions arose and decisions had to be made for which there was no precedent, no obvious verse, and no Divine guidance. Mattathias and his generation had to courageously step forward and take responsibility to try to discern what the Torah teaches when one is required to eat non-kosher food, desecrate the Sabbath, delay circumcision, dispose of the sacred stones of the altar, create a form of government never seen in Israel prior to that time, and yes, to create a new holiday with absolutely no Divine mandate (direct or indirect).

They were well aware of the risks involved. They yearned for the appearance of a true prophet in those unparalleled, troubled times. Yet, they knew they must be courageous and act for Torah, out of the conviction that the Torah must have an answer for each new circumstance. To deny that would be blasphemy.

The unknown miracle of Hanukkah, then, is the spiritual courage of the Sages of that generation to stand up and be counted. They didn't cower in the Battei Midrash and say that they can't, they aren't worthy and so on. The times demanded heroism. God and His Torah demanded heroism. So the stood up and acted heroically, all the while aware that the True Prophet might disagree. In his absence, though, they would do their best for Fear of God and Love of God.

The Rav זצ"ל used to say that Hanukkah is the holiday of Torah she-b'al Peh. I never really understood why.

I think that now I do.

חג אורים שמח!!!

But Israel is Home: A Guest Response to Jeffrey Goldberg

2011-12-05T19:57:00.002+02:00

The Jewish World is all aghast at Israel's aggressive campaign to get Israeli expatriates to return home. The lead has been taken by Atlantic reporter and blogger, Jeffrey Goldberg. I am, personally, conflicted about the campaign. One, impassioned and thoughtful response is by a young friend whose blog posting I repost here:

Dear Mr. Goldberg, That's Right. America IS No Place For A Proper Jew

by Chana Rivka Poupko

I have 2 great passions in life and hope to one day develop a career in both fields.

The first is advertising, the second, Jewish identity. So when I came across the latest campaigns targeted towards Israelis in the U.S. telling them to come home, I could not ignore it, and I definitely could not ignore it after the uproar which it created amongst American Jewry. There is an on going argument amongst advertisers- is all publicity good? Some believe that even bad publicity is good, since it gets the company's name out in the public. I am glad this campaign is creating such an uproar. This gives us a chance to finally discuss this important topic that has been relevant for the past 2,000 years.

One cannot find on YouTube the ad with the child saying it's Christmas, when he actually should be saying it's Channuka. It seems that the ad had hit an exposed nerve in the body of American Jewry.
Jeffrey Goldberg at his blog writes ("Netanyahu Government Suggests Israelis Avoid Marrying American Jews"):

The idea, communicated in these ads, that America is no place for a proper Jew, and that a Jew who is concerned about the Jewish future should live in Israel, is archaic, and also chutzpadik

I would like to tell Mr. Goldberg, “That's right. America IS no place for a proper Jew. And any Jew who is concerned about the Jewish future should not be living abroad. And, by the way, chutzpah in Israel is not a negative term. It’s having the nerve to say what needs to be said, no matter how unpleasant, in this case to tell Israelis who have gone to American for the “good life,” that they may have sold their birthright for a mess of lentil soup.”

Other bloggers have written about the scare tactic in this campaign. The question arises: “why hasn't the campaign gone down a calmer road, convincing these Israelis to come back home for reasons like, sunshine, a low unemployment rate, real felaflels? Using fear in a campaign is a very strong tactic, but most- sometimes it's all that works. Sunshine, good food and a steady economy, may not be cards strong enough to play.

I was talking to a relative who moved to Israel a few years ago. We spoke after she had some trouble in a few stores that day and of course she began the classic "Oh, in the states that would never had happened". But then she paused and said "it’s moments like this that remind you that you move to Israel for spiritual reasons, not materialistic reasons." Anyone who’s been following the Israeli news over the last 6 months knows that financially life in Israel is not simple for many of us.

During college I've heard my friends saying that in a few years they hoped to live somewhere outside the land of Israel. Some of my friends found out that I'm an American citizen and I can get up and leave anytime I wish to do so. They've told me I'm crazy for staying here when I have an opportunity to just get on a plane and not live here anymore. But those are just some of my friends.

On the other hand, I have a fair number of friends who've made aliya. These friends have chosen to voluntarily join the army and start a life here without their family. I greatly admire these friends. Truth be told, if you look at their actions through materialistic eyes – then yes, they are crazy. But when you know that moving to Israel is not immigrating to another country, but something much deeper than that, the Jews who live out of this great country, may be the crazy ones.

One does not immigrate to Israel, one makes aliya, and one is not an immigrant in Israel, one is an Oleh. Aliya, and Oleh come from a root that means "going up". Moving to Israel is a difficult but an uplifting experience for your soul, from what I've heard. I myself cannot share my experience of making aliya, I was lucky enough to be born here. But my parents have made aliya 30 years ago and everyday I thank God for that.

Not too long ago, a friend who made aliya asked what my favorite thing about Israel is. I had no answer. Later that night I went to bed asking myself that question over and over again. I realized I don’t have a favorite thing about life in Israel. Life in Israel is my favorite thing. Knowing that I am lucky enough to be living in the land that has been promised to my forefathers thousands of years ago is an astonishing thought to me. But living here is not amazing just because of historical reasons. A Jew's spirituality is not whole while living out of the Land of Israel. Although G-d dwells everywhere, his presence is strongest in the land of Israel. A Jew is closest to G-d while being in the Land of Israel. Making aliya is not just for religious people. Aliya is for anyone who understands the importance of Jews living in their home land.

Julie Wiener ("Israel To Ex-Pats: Come Home Before Your Kids Start Celebrating Xmas") suggests that a parody campaign should be done, presenting the "dangers" of aliya Americans making aliya and producing "bizarre" offspring who will call their mother "Ima". Wiener is afraid that God forbid, these offspring will cut in line in the super market. In life one should keep a sense of proportion. On the micro level, cutting in line is disturbing to me; on the macro level – Jews living outside of Israel is much more disturbing to me. I feel sorry for Jews whose ancestors prayed for two thousand years to be able to return to the Land, and now that we can, they don’t. I try to imagine to what these people's ancestors would say if 200 years ago they'd been told their grandchildren would have the possibility to live in Israel, yet chose to ignore it.

It seems that those frightened by this campaign are threatened by the thought that someone actually is telling them that living out of Israel undermines Jewish and Israeli identity. You do not have to be a professor of sociology to know that immigration creates a new identity for immigrants and if not for them, then for their off spring. The percent of Jewish assimilation is incredibly high. The number of Jews in the world today is the same as it's been in 1980, which means, we're still having children, but were disappearing too. One can say they will make the effort in order to keep his/ hers Jewish identity, but our forefathers said the same thing when they moved out of the shtetel. We all know that did not last for long.

Every day I pray for all Jews to realize the importance of life in Israel. How can we claim this land is ours while we're still living all over the world? Why should the common Joe Smith believe in the Jew's right to the land of Israel, while half of his colleagues are Jews, not living in the Promised Land?

Living in this great country may be a crazy thing to do, but still, I know this is where I'm suppose to be, and that's what keeps here.

Chana Rivka Poupko is a 24 year old Jerusalemite; she is a PR intern and hopes to see the day when all Jews move to Israel. Besides that she has lots of love of world Jewry and cares about their future. She'd love it if her kids will have Israeli chutzpa instead of having no Jewish identity.

My Latest Article: The Devil's Hoofs

2011-12-05T10:28:00.003+02:00

Everyone's heard of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, though most people haven't read the actual book (it's actually quite boring). It has become a symbol of the primal dread of a Jewish cabal ( a word derive from Kabbalah) scheming to take over the world.

Recently, Boston University's Center for Jewish Studies and Center for Millennial Studies published a collection of articles addressing the origins, use and contemporary valence of the Protocols.

My contribution (available here) examines the diabolization of Jewish Literature, especially the Talmud in Christian Europe (and now in the Muslim Word).

The Rav Soloveitchik Siddur: Some Conflicted Reflections

2011-11-18T09:41:00.004+02:00

This week the OU and Koren Press launched the The Koren Mesorat HaRav Siddur . I have yet to see the volume. However, if it is anything like it predecessors (the Yamim Noraim Mahzorim and the Kinnot), then I am sure it is a work of aesthetic beauty and spiritual power. It could hardly be otherwise, as it presents us with the inestimable interpretations and insights of מורי ורבי, Rav Soloveitchik זצ"ל on the liturgy. Prayer, the unmediated encounter with the Master of the Universe, was a central theme of the Rav's writings, and lies at the core of his understanding of the religious experience. This fact should not be under estimated. The Rav revolutionized our understanding and appreciation of prayer.

First, he restored prayer to the world of Yeshiva spirituality. Davening in Volozhin was notable for the brevity with which it was marked. There, the Study of Torah reigned supreme and the time allotted there to was maximized. The Rav, whose all encompassing involvement in Talmud Torah was no less intense than that of his forebears in Volozhin and Brisk, made extraordinary efforts to sensitize his disciples to the text of the siddur and the riches it contains. By so doing, he balanced out the perennial tension between Prayer and Talmud Torah as competing spiritual activities, a tension that marks Judaism from the beginning.

The Rav also made prayer both accessible and desirable for the intelligent modern whose daily life mires him in quotidian trifles, and renders him obtuse to Eternity, and to his Creator. He did this in his inimitable way by harnessing the totality of Torah and Western Culture to explicate both Halakhic discussions concerning the commandment to pray, and the text of the prayers themselves (and Worship of the Heart is but a foretaste of a much larger discussion).

So, the publication of this Siddur should be greeted with enthusiasm and gratitude to the many people involved in its production.

However.....

I am concerned that in all of the blessed publication of this material, תורת הרב הכלכך קרובה ללבי, a central part of his teachings will get lost: study.

The Rav did not write a commentary to the liturgy. He studied, very closely and creatively, the mahzor and the siddur, piyyut and tefillah. It was in the interaction between mind and heart, in the stretching of the mind and the invocation of interpretive creativity that the Rav was in his metier. He demanded not only results but process, from both himself and his students. I do not believe he was interested in a Soloveitchik canon for Divrei Torah and ווארטלטך, but rather to show the way to ever deeper understanding of the words of the liturgy, which will resound in the heart of the Jew as he/she undertakes the challenge of prayer.

So, in the end, whether this prayerbook (as with other collections of the Rav's interpretations) is truly Massoret ha-Rav (ie in the tradition of Rav Soloveitchik) will be determined not by its publication but by how it is used.

Dabber Ivrit ve-Hivreta

2011-11-13T18:22:00.002+02:00

This week's Makor Rishon had an article about an organization called ESRA, which helps Olim from English speaking countries to acclimatize in Israel (aka קליטה). The article highlighted an aspect of contemporary Aliyah from English-speaking countries, namely the tendency of Anglos to live in hermetically sealed English-speaking ghettoes, and to socialize solely with other Anglos. The result is that an ever growing Oleh population never becomes part of Israeli society.

Personally, I find the phenomenon both curious and painful. When we moved here in 1993, we worked very hard to become part of Israel. True, we spoke English at home and in no way severed our awareness of an involvement in American culture. Still, we have always had both Israeli and non-Israeli friends. We learned about Israeli culture and politics. My wife studied in Israeli schools and training programs. She volunteered for years in various connections and always worked in Hebrew speaking environments. As a university lecturer, I was immersed in the broader society from Day One (or actually, day 265 because I landed into the biggest academic strike in two decades). More than that, because I was too old to be drafted I spent ten years as a volunteer on the Jerusalem Police Force (מתמי"ד) both to make up for my not serving in the army and to taste something of the melting pot experience that army service provides. The children, despite being raised in an American environment, are integral, caring parts of the fabric of Israeli society. I take tremendous pride in that fact.

Indeed, I cannot imagine doing otherwise. My life is so much richer for being part of this tapestry. I have here a sense of Klal Yisrael, of belonging to the multi-variegated body politic of the Jewish People that cannot be fully expressed in words. The fact that we all speak the same language, understand the same codes, reference the same cultural and religious moments (even among many Secular Jews) is, for me, a profoundly spiritual experience. If you don't crack the language and the semiotic, you deny yourself of that moment of total lack of self-consciousness when something dramatic (good or bad) happens and your Israeli brother or sister says one word (or you do) and you implicitly, intuitively understand and share the experience. The Anglo Olim who, in their fear and/or their arrogance, keep to themselves, deny themselves of all of that.

They also harm the State of Israel. For Anglo-Saxon Jewry is one that grew up under real democratic rule. It is the Jewry that developed Modern Orthodoxy. It is commercially and academically successful and sagacious. In other words, it has its own riches to contribute to the miracle of Israel by adapting its heritage to the unique dynamic of this beautiful Jewish mosaic. It's not fair to keep all of that from the rest. Who knows, perhaps that's why they were privileged to come at this time.

One thing is certain, as with anything of lasting worth in Jewish tradition...If it's not in Hebrew, it will have no future.

לא רעב ללחם ולא צמא למים

2011-11-08T09:27:00.002+02:00

The Aramaic Targum on the Book of Ruth opens by saying that there will be ten serious famines prior to the coming of the Messiah. The last one will fulfill the vision of the prophet Amos (who lived not far from where I presently sit): הנה ימים באים נאם אדני יהוה והשלחתי רעב בארץ לא רעב ללחם ולא צמא למים כי אם לשמע את דברי ד or : 'Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of God' (Amos 8, 11).

There are, I believe, two sides to this prophecy.

Amos, himself, may have been telling the Jews of his day to appreciate the fact that there is prophecy in their midst, for a time will come when it will cease to exist. The Targum, though, was writing more than half a millennium after prophecy ceased. He lived in a world in which God hid His Face (as it were), a tragic reality that was reinforced by the destruction of the Temple, the Hadrianic Persecutions and the brutal aftermath of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. He yearned for God's word to make sense of the cruel, unjust reality in which he lived. Perhaps, he hoped that he was living in the End of Days, as evidenced by his generation's desperate need for unmediated Divine guidance.

That need, that spiritual hunger, grew ever more intense as the centuries unfolded and the Jewish historical experience grew more painful and heroic. In the wake of the cataclysm's and conundra of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it has over flowed. It is, however, solely up to God as to when He will break His silence.

There is another side of Amos' prophecy, which is both timely and which is within our power to address.

Hungering for God's Word is another way of describing an overwhelming desire for God's Presence, per se. For two thousand years, up till the Emancipation (at least), Jews sought God and found Him through Tefillah and Torah, through Mitzvot and Ma'asim Tovim. In Amos' terms, God's Word allowed the Jew to connect with his Creator and feel His Presence. That sense of propinquity is what made him feel truly alive (cf. הל' יסודי התורה פ"א ה"א) and truly happy (e.g. ושמחת לפני ד' א). In the age of secularism, aka the 'Age of Disbelief,' God has been banished from the public square, from educated discourse, and Jews can no longer connect with His Word. For a long time, it appeared that they didn't really want to connect, either.

As I've noted here on any number of occasions, the latter is no longer true, at least as far as the Jews of Eretz Yisrael are concerned. The spiritual upsurge, the Jewish Renaissance, that has marked the past decade and a half has been truly inspiring. Even the secular media has been marked by 'not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of God.' The search for God and Torah are at the front and the center of contemporary cultural discourse and personal desire.

That desire, however, is all too often unrequited. The people might want God's Word, but God's Word is often inaccessible.

It is often inaccessible because large swaths of the Orthodox World are caught up in political considerations that make their own power and funding more important than spreading Torah and Sanctifying God's Name. Today's nefarious decision by the Religion Ministry to kill the Tzohar Marriage initiative is typical of this trend (as is the persistent delegitimization by the Rabbinical Courts of conversions and Divorces issued by Orthodox Battei Din both here and abroad). Couples wishing to marry כדת משה וישראל will now have to either contend with the unfeeling and gross bureaucracy that plague the established rabbinate (along with not infrequent graft), or will choose to marry in Cyprus or marry by proxy in Paraguay. These are couples who seek God's blessing on their marriages, but will have nowhere to find it.

God's Word is also inaccessible because, for the vast majority of Traditional and even Orthodox Jews, they can't understand it and there is no one to teach them. It is not of the lack of teachers or classes that I write. Rather, it is the inability of the overwhelming majority of rabbis and educators to convey the Torah in cultural terms that can command the respect and (hopefully) the assent of the inquirers after God's Word. There simply aren't enough representatives of Torah (men and women, from all types of professions) who can intelligently convey God's Word to those who hunger for it. The enormity of this tragic circumstance is difficult to convey. It is compounded by the fact that (with a few exceptions) the community prefers to ignore the severity of the situation. In the Rav's terms, the Lover is knocking on the Beloved's door (which is locked from the outside). The locksmith, however, refuses to awaken and allow her to enter.

I do not know if we are living in the end of days. Happily, I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet. I do know, however, that when the Day of God, the Day of Judgement arrives all of us who presume to be involved, observant Jews will be asked why we did not help the Jews of Israel (who, according to Maimonides, are the life blood of the Jewish People everywhere) to slake their thirst for God and His Word.

The Children of Oslo 1993

2011-11-06T19:18:00.004+02:00

In 1991, writer/playwrite Shmuel Haspari composed a song 'Horef '73' about children conceived in the wake of the Yom Kippur War who were then being called up for their service in the Israel Defense Forces. The song quietly, but effectively, expressed the bitter disappointment of those who lived through the 1973 war that its leaders had not done enough to 'turn an enemy into a lover' (מאויב לאוהב, a line ironically taken from SY Agnon). The underlying premise was cognitively dissonant idea that the absence of peace in Israel was all Israel's fault. If only we gave the Palestinians what they want, we would have peace. That type of thinking led to the Oslo debacle of 1993.

The original song is here.

Now LATMA (the people who brought you 'We Con the World') have produced an updated version that expresses the feelings of the parents whose sons and daughters reported this year for induction, in the wake of ther hallucinations of Peres and Beilin, Deri and Rabin that if we only give them what they want, they'll strike a deal and make Peace. Turns out that they won't get what they want until we (ie the Jews) are no longer here. (The Hebrew is far more powerful than the English)

Gilad Shalit: Between Scylla and Charybdis

2011-10-14T14:59:00.002+02:00

There was no easy way to obtain Gilad Shalit's release, especially since the feckless Olmert-Livni government did nothing to rescue him during the critical first few days after his kidnapping. (Ironically, had he not been kidnapped, he'd have been court martialed for sleeping on guard, which is why he was taken.) As a very perceptive friend of mine noted, Israel should have given Hamas a daily ultimatum: Release Gilad Shalit or we will pulverize 'x' suburb in Gaza. Civilians would be aware of the need to leave, and then we would level it. If he hadn't been released, we should have continued: OK, release Shalit or in twenty minutes the port of Gaza will be destroyed, and so on. No other sovereign country would or could do less.

Olmert, however, did not stand tough. The Israeli government, once again, cared more for its PR image than for the safety of its citizens. Shalit was buried deep with in Gaza. Once that happened, it was only a matter of time that we would have to release unrepentant murderers in return for Shalit.

Personally, I'm torn. As the father of a soldier, I understand and identify with the Shalits. However, I also know that these animals that we are turning loose will murder again. Gilad Shalit will be home, but dozens, God forbid, of others will be thrown into a tail spin of grief from which they will never recover, because we paid this price. We have, once again, displayed weakness in the face of an enemy, who only respects force and fortitude, and who has absolutely no respect for human life.

It's a lose-lose proposition. I hope that the media circus that is about to descend upon us, led by Leftists who will always celebrate anything that makes Israel weaker, will give serious coverage to the renewed grief of parents and children, spouses and siblings who must now see the murderers of their loved ones free and feted by the Palestinians.

Damsels in Distress

2011-10-11T12:43:00.004+02:00

The long expected volume, Sefer Tuv Elem, in honor of my teacher, colleague and friend Professor Reuven Roberto Bonfil, has just been published. My article, 'Damsels in Distress,' examines the status of Jewish women in Renaissance Italy as reflected in the responsa of R. Joseph Colon Trabotto (Maharik).

The article may be accessed here .

The TOC and appreciation by David Ruderman article can be downloaded from here.

שלומית בונה סוכה

2011-10-10T09:41:00.001+02:00

Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die: Post Yom Kippur Reflections

2011-10-08T21:57:00.002+02:00

Yom Kippur 5772 was, for me, a truly profound, uplifting experience. Flanked by my sons, knowing that my daughters were sitting with their mother and grandmother, I was privileged to enwrap myself in its proffered sanctity and internalize the awesome power of the day, what the Rabbis called 'עיצומו של יום.' As the day reached its end and its crescendo at Neilah, I could not help but wish that the moment might never end. My emotions were, admittedly, mixed when the Shofar signaled the Shekhina's departure. And yet, the heightened spiritual awareness with which Yom Kippur vouchsafed us is so intoxicating, so overpowering that I dare to believe that it can accompany me (and everyone else who let it in) through the coming year. מיום כיפורים זה עד יום כיפורים הבא עלינו לטובה.

Here in Eretz Yisrael, Barukh HaShem, the number of Jews for whom the intimate encounter with God on Yom Kippur is important, rises every year. More and more formal and informal observances of the day are sprouting up over the length and breadth of the country. Communities and settlements that were doctrinally allergic to Judaism, know build synagogues, study Torah and reconnect with being Jewish. The papers claim that only 58% of Israeli Jews fast, but those numbers are (in my opinion) inaccurate. The real numbers are more like 70%. Either way, however, the rejudaization of the Holy Land is in full swing. It is, as many have noted, nothing less than a renaissance and Yom Kippur is a touchstone of that rebirth. The Jew's yearning for God, through Torah study and pure spirituality, is alive and well in Israel.

The state of the Exile is, sadly, much less promising.

After the fast, when I logged on to Facebook, I was really shocked and deeply saddened to see just how many of the American Jews with whom I am connected, were totally unaware (or didn't care) that today was Yom Kippur. When I was growing up, we spoke of Three Day a Year Jews. Then there were One Day a Year Jews. Now, it appears, there are many many No Day a Year Jews. I suppose it was inevitable. Through ignorance and intermarriage, acceptance in America and weakened identity, most American Jews will be gone within a generation. Or, they will have created for themselves a patina of attenuated Jewish affiliation that will not long last. The historian in me sees a parallel with the Graeco-Roman diaspora, which largely assimilated away during the First Century CE, when being Jewish ceased to be comfortable because the Jews of Eretz Yisrael kept rebelling against Rome, and Jews felt more comfortable in the academies of Greece than the synagogues of Jerusalem or Alexandria.

There are, of course, counter indications. Efforts at bringing alienated Jews back to Judaism are happily successful, and Orthodox Judaism rightfully prides itself in its achievements. The overall direction, though, is clear. The contrast with developments in Israel, only highlights that fact.

That does not mean that we should, God forbid, give up on any Jew in the Diaspora. However, it reinforces my conviction that any possibility of continued Jewish existence abroad is absolutely dependent upon the strengthening of Judaism in Israel. (Did I hear anyone say: כי מציון תצא תורה?)

One crucial way to do that is to create a credible Modern Orthodoxy in Eretz Yisrael, which will speak to intelligent secular Jews, and sensitively respond to men and women who can no longer relate to the religious koine of either the Religious Zionist or Haredi worlds.

Ultimately, as with our individual fates, so too the destiny of Jewish communities is in God's hands. However, we have a role in this as well.

The Book of Exodus (18, 13) recounts that: 'And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses sat to judge the people; and the people stood about Moses from the morning unto the evening.' The plain meaning of the verse is that Moses judged the people on the day after his father-in-law Jethro arrived at the Israelite encampment (as described in the previous verses). Rashi, however, asserts that the events described occurred 'on the morrow of Yom Kippur' (מחרת יום הכיפורים).

The Rav זצ"ל observed that, despite the textual difficulty, Rashi's comment contains a profound observation about the manner in which the Jew must go about his business. He must always feel, Rav Soloveitchik said, as if it were the day after Yom Kippur. The heightened spiritual awareness, the glow that remains from immersion in holiness that derives from one's encounter with God, must accompany oneself through the year.

In other words, in order to be Yom Kippur, Yom Kippur must transcend itself and infuse the other 354 days of the year. That lesson is both personal and national. On the personal level, as quotidian superficialities threaten to deaden our God-awareness, we need to hold on to the 'high' of Yom Kippur to prevent being dragged under, once again. One does that through ongoing actions like prayer and study, tzedakah and hesed; a carefully balancing of commandments between oneself and God and between oneself and one's fellow man or woman.

On a national level, that demands that all of us in Israel who were elevated by God's visit during these past ten days must work, through teaching and conduct, to intensify the trend back to Torah and to thereby save not only the Jews of Zion, but those abroad, as well.

Erev Yom Kippur 5772: Holiness Expands

2011-10-06T22:27:00.004+02:00

An enigmatic Talmudic passage (Yoma 81b) reads as follows:

Hiyya, the son of Rab, of Difti learned: ‘And you shall afflict your souls in the ninth [day of the month]’. But is one fasting on the ninth? Do we not fast on the tenth? Rather, it comes to indicate that, if one eats and drinks on the ninth, Scripture accounts it to him as if he had fasted on the ninth and the tenth.'

The Netziv (in his commentary to the שאילתות) interprets Hiyya's remarks to mean that Erev Yom Kippur merges with Yom Kippur itself to form one unit. On Erev Yom Kippur, we celebrate the sublime opportunity, nay the incalculable privilege, that God has given us to spend a full day in His Presence, basking in the unmitigated light of the the Shekhina. He offers us this time of intimacy with Him to ask forgiveness for our sins, to reconcile with one another and with Him. We know, deep in our hearts, that God's endless love for us will lead to סליחה, מחילה וכפרה if we only return to Him and set ourselves on the path of Teshuvah. So, the Torah instructs us to celebrate our quality time with God, our anticipated immersion in sanctity and our hoped for forgiveness, in advance of Yom Kippur itself!!

This means that both the ninth and the tenth of Tishrei possess a unique tangible charisma, קדושת היום.

You don't really need Hiyya bar Rav to teach you this truth. All day, as I saw everyone go about their business in the Hills of Judea and in Jerusalem, you could feel the sense of anticipation. 'Yom ha-Qadosh' (as my late father in law referred to Yom Kippur, מיט א ציטער) is upon us. Already tonight, the atmosphere is infused with an aetherial, other worldly feeling. It is the Ninth of Tishrei, and the sanctity of Yom Kippur is steadily descending and intensifying. It will grow, as the country winds down, and stops starting tomorrow night.

Listen carefully. The harbingers of the שכינה are already here. They are in the profound silence outside my window. They are gathering at the Kotel, where thousands of בני עדות המזרח are gathered for their most exalted selihot. The King is coming. The Shekhina is descending. A mixture of anticipation and awe, fear and excitement fill Eretz Yisrael, which is blessed not only with Yom Kippur but with Erev Yom Kippur.

אשרי העם שככה לו. אשרי העם שד' א-לקיו

גמר חתימה טובה לכל בית ישראל

Shanah Tovah

2011-09-27T11:00:00.000+03:00

חִזְקוּ וְגִילוּ כִּי שֹׁד גָּמַר

לְצוּר הוֹחִילוּ בְּרִיתוֹ שָׁמַר

לָכֶם וְתַעֲלוּ לְצִיּוֹן

וְאָמַר סֹלּוּ סֹלּוּ מְסִלּוֹתֶיהָ

תָּחֵל שָׁנָה וּבִרְכוֹתֶיהָ

צרכי עמך ישראל מרובין ודעתן קצרה.
יה"ר שתברך את כל עמך ישראל
בשנה טובה ומתוקה, שנת שלום ושלוה
שנת תורה ויראת שמים, שנת בריאות ופרנסה

שנה בה נלך יחד לבית ד' ברינה:

לשנה טובה תיכתבו ותיחתמו לאלתר
בספרן של צדיקים גמורים

מאחלים לכם ולשלכם,
ג'פרי, טובי, אבי, אריאל, חנה, אלישבע ומוריה
וולף

Warmest Best Wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year
From
Jeffrey, Toby, Avi, Ariel, Chana, Elisheva and Moriah
Woolf

A Cri de Coeur-- Reflections on Selichot

2011-09-25T01:17:00.000+03:00

A famous vort, attributed to the Kotzker Rebbe, goes like this:
The Kotzker once emerged from his inner sanctum to find his Hassidim swaying while praying. Angry (but wasn’t he always), he cried out: Der vos shokelt zich, shteht fun veitens. Loosely translated, and sacrificing the sharp homiletic, the Kotzker was saying people who shockel miss the point. One is supposed to tremble ‘inside’ (innervenig), and not merely outside.

I was reminded of that comment during Selihot the past two nights. Technically, they were fine. The hazzan’s pronunciation was exact. The cantillation impeccable. What was missing? Soul, awe, dread, fear, apprehension, kavvanah and elation at the opportunity for Teshuvah. There was absolutely no indication that anyone in the places I davened was aware of Rabbenu Yonah’s statement (Sha’are Teshuvah I, 1):
מן הטובות אשר היטיב השם יתברך עם ברואיו, כי הכין להם הדרך לעלות מתוך
פחת מעשיהם ולנוס מפח פשעיהם, לחשוך נפשם מני שחת ולהשיב מעליהם אפו

What did I see? I saw more of what I see all over Israel and all over the Orthodox World. The pace and the body language of the people cried out: ‘It’s 1233AM (sic!). Let’s get this over with quick. I’ll do exactly what I’m supposed to. If the Shaliah Tzibbur misses a note or uses the wrong nusah, I’ll be the first to send him to Golgotha. However, don’t you dare make me devote more time to this than I need to.’ As we all know, in a different context, Tosefet Shabbat be-yetzi’ato is a sin.

This is the tragedy of much of contemporary Orthodoxy. Halakhic punctilliousness has conquered the field, but in too many places spirituality has been banished. As Professor Haym Soloveitchik concludes in his magisterial essay, ‘Rupture and Reconstruction’: ‘Having lost the touch of His presence, they seek now solace in the pressure of His yoke’ (Tradition, 28(1994), 103).

I have no doubt that he is correct. The state of affairs that he describes, however, is neither sufficient nor acceptable. It leaves observance anemic, at best, and totally stale, at worst. The massive search for spiritual expression that presently characterizes contemporary Orthodoxy of every stripe is a loud protest not against Halakhah, but of the legitimate need to infuse mitzvot with feeling and with God’s Presence. The Rov זצ”ל already foresaw this need. From the late 1950’s on, he consistently complained of having failed, as it were, at developing a sensitized spiritual awareness among many of the same disciples who had mastered the Brisker Method and were capable of dazzling hiddushim in every area of Halakhah. (See, e.g., ‘Al Ahavat ha-Torah u-Ge’ulat Nefesh ha-Dor’ and his oft-cited remarks in his eulogy for Reb Haim Heller, ‘Peletat Sofrim’).

In light of this lugubrious reality, is it any wonder that so many of our children and youth take off their kippot?

There is, however, even more to my deep sense of ennui and despair the past few days after Selihot. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are presently in very serious trouble, both as a people and a religion. Assimilation is an aggressive cancer eating away at the body politic of our nation, both here and abroad. The forces of evil really are planning to destroy us, and are developing the means to do so. As the Psalmist said (Ps. 85, 5): They have said: ‘Come, and let us exterminate them as a nation; that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.’ Throughout the Summer, as we read Sefer Devarim, the words of the Torah had an immediacy and a global relevance that I had never felt before. Particularly during the most recent war, I walked around feeling as if I was living in the midst of Shirat Ha’azinu. From conversations with many, many others, I am not alone in that feeling.

Isn’t that enough reason to cry out from the depths of our souls to God to save us? Is it such an imposition to move ourselves to feel? How long will we sophisticate ourselves to death? After all, Tefillah be-Et Tzarah is the commandment of prayer according to the Ramban, and a special dimension (qiyyum) according to the Rambam ( See Sefer HaMitzvot, Aseh 5 and Hassagot Ha-Ramban and Hil. Tefillah 1, 1 and Kesef Mishneh, ad loc.).

Self-satisfaction is the perpetual malady of the Jew. It is also quite lethal, as we will read on Shabbat Shuvah (Deut. 32, 15): ‘Jeshurun thus became fat and rebelled. You grew fat, thick and gross. [The nation] abandoned the God who made it and spurned the Mighty One who was its support.’ This ailment comes in all shapes and sizes, visiting both ostensibly observant Jews as well as the non-observant.

There are a few days left to prepare for Rosh Hashanah. We should search our souls, unleash our souls, and not just check the size of the shofar and the rate of the stop watch to time the teqi’ot.
Our Lives, and our souls, depend upon it.

The Real Victims of the Palestine Authority

2011-09-18T11:08:00.000+03:00

The world's hypocrisy, especially the hypocrisy of the Jewish and Israeli Left, is best borne out by the Palestinians themselves. No, I'm not referring to the well-dressed, well-fed self-appointed representatives of the PA, the PLO, and Hamas. I'm referring to the simple, working class Palestinian Arab.

You see, as opposed to the Left, I live among Palestinians. Right now, I hired an Aran named Ghattib and his son Ayman, to help us move to a temporary apartment while we renovate our house. The tale he tells us is horrific. They have no medical insurance. They have no medications. They have only fifth class hospitals (as in Bethlehem and Hebron). They used to get a minimum ration of oil and flour. Once the PA goons found out that Ghattib does occasional work for Jews, they cut him off because he must rich. His daughter-in-law has rheumatism and had to travel to Amman for treatment. Ghattib is working overtime to fund her treatment. Why don't you have medical insurance, I asked?

The fatcats in the PA take all the money and build themselves mansions, buy clothes and fancy cars. They leave nothing for us.

This is the state the same fatcats are crying for. I guess it's good for them. For Ghattib, it's an ongoing nightmare.

Forty One Years Later: My, Father, A. Irving Woolf ז"ל

2011-09-02T17:52:00.004+03:00

It seems like only yesterday. It was a cold, drizzly Friday morning in Nantasket. I heard my mother ע"ה scream (it was 5:45AM). I ran into her room. She was standing with the phone in her hand. Wit a look of shock and horror on her face she cried: 'Daddy passed away in his sleep!' It was left to me to wake my brothers and tell them the horrible news that would change our lives forever.

It seems like only yesterday, but it happened forty-one years ago. I have often thought that time (on a certain level) stopped for me at that moment. Of course, it didn't really. I was blessed with a heroic, wonderful mother and siblings. I found my עזר כנגדו with whom I had the merit and love that allowed us to build a family based on אהבת ד, אהבת העם ואהבת הארץ. I was privileged to study at the feet of the greatest leaders of my generation, both Torah giants and Leaders in צדקה and חסד.

God has blessed me in so many ways.

Yet, the cold chill of that moment never goes away. Someone is always missing. I miss smiling, fun-loving man who was always there and able to show us how to enjoy life (especially on the spur of the moment. 'Full of Fun' is how a cousin described him). I so wish he'd been here longer for me to learn that lesson, or to just have someone to talk to (as I imagine sons speak to fathers). Not only my life, but that of my children would've been that much better for it. I miss sitting with him in Shul, with his hand lightly on my shoulder. He was an emotionally shy man, who poured his obvious love for us into actions and hesitant words. We played Little League, he was the team manager. We were in Cub Scouts, he was the Packmaster....You get the idea.

But, oh, if I could I could only summon up the memory of his voice.

He was such a good, kind man. Like every good man, he told none of us of the many many acts of חסד that he performed. We only heard about many of them during the Shiva and after. Perhaps the greatest tribute to him was the large contingent of Blacks who he had helped to buy their own homes who came to the funeral and, one by one before the service, came forward to kiss the casket. (A ringing denial of a nefarious, agenda-ridden history of the times.)

Forty One years, only yesterday and lifetime ago.

Maybe this year I'll learn to embody the lessons of his short life to a greater degree. That would restart the clock.

יהי זכרו ברוך.

Why Was the Land Lost? A Moral Quandary

2011-08-23T21:05:00.014+03:00

The Rov זצ"ל used to remark that his students should cultivate Torah 'in the widest sense of the term.' It's a turn of phrase that has always given me pause. What does it include? More intriguingly, what did he mean to exclude? In my case, since the Rov knew that I was pursuing a degree in Jewish Studies (and considering his feelings about historicism), I"m sorry I didn't ask him. Over time, however, I have arrived at a partial answer to the question.

The Talmud in several places (Nedarim 81a and Baba Metzia 85b) preserves the following discussion:

For Rav Judah said in Rav's name: What is meant by, 'Who is the wise man, that he may understand this? And who is he to whom the mouth of God has spoken, that he may declare it? Wherefore has the land perished and been laid waste like a wilderness, so that none passeth through?'(Jer. 9, 11) ?

Now, this question was put to the Sages, Prophets, and Ministering Angels, but they could not answer it, until the Almighty Himself did so, as it is written (ibid.12), 'And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken my Law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein.' ...Rav Judah said in Rav's name: [It means] that they did not first recite a benediction over the Torah.

The commentators (led by RaN, Nedarim ad loc.) are puzzled by the non-sequitur. Obviously, the Jews were studying Torah. If so, as important as the blessing preceding study might be, why was the penalty for its lack of recital deemed to be so severe. The RaN suggests that the lack of blessing indicates a less than serious attitude to the Torah. That, however, is hardly abandoning God!

Or, maybe it is.

On many occasions, the Rov noted that the Torah itself demands the recitation of a blessing before study (ברכת התורה מדאורייתא) to serve as a declaration of surrender and submission to God prior to study. It means not judging the Torah, God forbid, but living with questions and giving the Torah (and He who gave it, the benefit of the doubt).Its point actually is to distinguish Torah study from all other intellectual pursuits, exalted and important as these must be. Reciting ברכת התורה means renewing a commitment to a religious, moral and upstanding life as a result of Torah Study. Without that context and commitment, Torah study itself can easily be seen as an abandonment of God.

I firmly believe that, in terms of Jewish Studies, the ability to recite a ברכת התורה over the subject matter is a litmus test of that which is included in 'Torah in the widest sense' and that which is not. Certainly, the mere fact that a person is a scholar of Jewish History or Jewish Studies does not per se make him or her a credible or legitimate representative of Judaism or a moral example (and I include here rabbis whose Torah doesn't penetrate their moral character).

"Wherefore is the land perished and laid waste like a wilderness, so that none passeth through?" Because the moral values of the Torah are dust under the feet of those who do not recite the blessing first.

Eighteen Years in Israel: Light and Darkness and Light

2011-08-19T12:31:00.004+03:00

In our family, today is a holiday. Eighteen years ago, we had the זכות to make Aliyah with our children (and to undo the expulsion of my great-grandparents by the Turks, exactly one hundred years ago). We made Aliyah in the days before Nefesh b'Nefesh. In fact, we were the only Olim on our flight. We were met by a nice AACI volunteer, who told us to meet with an Aliyah counselor, and that was it. We sort of winged it, בסעייתא דשמיא and advice from a lot of friends.

It has not been easy. ארץ ישראל נקנית ביסורים. Our's have been tangible, both easier and harder than those encountered by others. There have been moments of personal and national joy, as well as four wars and personal and national loss. One thing, however, has never changed. We may have had a more challenging harder life, but it is always, but always, a worthwhile life. Nowhere else have I felt more grounded, more purposeful, more at home than here in Israel. Every step you take contributes to the eternity of the Jewish People in the only place it can call home. I appreciate the yeoman's efforts undertaken by institutions and individuals around the world to preserve the Torah and rescue Jews from oblivion. The real action, though, is here. I know this not only from being personally, intensively, involved in dialogue and Modern Orthodox initiatives, teaching Torah (in the broadest sense of the term) in both academic and non-academic settings. I know it from the flow, and power, of daily life in the Land that God Himself gave to His People. I firmly believe, with every fiber of my being, that the future of Judaism and of Jewry will be secured here, and not abroad.

Being a Jew requires sacrifice. Sometimes, that sacrifice is one of time, or of money. Sometimes, God Forbid, we are asked to sacrifice our lives. That was brought home, tragically, with yesterday's attack on the road to Eilat. I'm not going to mar this post with a discussion of Islam, Al Qaeda and so on. The truth is that much of the Christian World, as well as the Dar al Islam, wishes that we would all disappear. They have been nursing that hope for thirty five hundred years, and will keep on nursing it.

I want to focus, instead, on what the Jews do (as Ben Gurion once put it). Last night, my wife and I decided to go out in honor of our Aliyah anniversary and (belatedly) to celebrate the acceptance of my book for publication. We chose to go to En Kerem, because it's beautiful, quiet and I'd never really seen it up close (mirabile dictu). It's a gem of Jerusalem. We explored galleries and dined at a novelty (a kosher restaurant in the vicinity). There were no tourists, only Israelis. We all knew what had happened. One gallery had the news on, and it was blaring from the makolet. Whoever heard, looked at one other in that deep look of silent understanding that expresses the rock bottom, steeled determination of Israelis to defend ourselves and build our country, with God's help.

We all went on living. It was dissonant, but real. That's how Jews live, and thrive. We acknowledge our pain, and our sacrifice and we go on living. As friend of my wife, a child of Holocaust survivors, used to observe: 'The best revenge is living well.' I would add, that the best revenge is living well here, in Eretz Yisrael.

And that is precisely what I'm going to say tonight as we have Shabbat dinner in our home in the Hevron Hills.

And it is precisely for that, that I will thank God tomorrow night אי"ה at the Kotel.

Catching Up

2011-08-17T18:39:00.004+03:00

A friend just commented to me that I've not posted here in two months. Two Months?!! I couldn't believe it. I used to post daily (or close to daily). Nevertheless, sure enough, I can see that the last time I posted was almost two months ago. Part of the reason, I'm sure, is that a significant amount of the cross-posting I used to do (e.g. calling attention to articles in the Press etc), I now do on Facebook. It's just easier with their 'Share' function. (And, I repeat my invitation to any of my readers to 'friend' me on FB so that they can participate in the very lively debates that go on on my page.)

Still, that's not the whole story. The whole story is that all of my energy has been devoted to finishing my book on the Qehillah Qedosha, and three additional articles that are now required for me to apply for promotion to Associate Professor at Bar Ilan. I'm happy to say that the book received its final acceptance for publication last month (DOP: Late Spring 2012) and I just submitted the third of the three articles for publication. So, while there are still tons of things on my plate (including packing up our house for the fabled renovations on our home: I'm soon to intensify my status as an 'obstacle to Peace') I feel liberated enough to start posting again on a more regular basis.

Bottom Line: Stay Tuned.

On Jewish National Identity: A Response to Daniel Gordis and Yitzhak Adlerstein

2011-06-20T20:06:00.003+03:00

Daniel Gordis' observations concerning the alienation of non-Orthodox rabbinical students have elicited a thoughtful response by Yitzhak Adlerstein. He advises against Orthodox triumphalism, out of a serious concern for the Jewish collective. I support his sentiments as far as they go. They do not, however, go far enough. For, as far as real concern and identification with Israel is concerned, American Orthodoxy has much with which to be concerned.

I left the following comment, which I hope to expand later:

Overall, I agree with your reaction to Gordis’ piece and with the overall tenor of the comments (except for the first, which I think is reprehensible). I would only add a further reason for caution, lest we pat ourselves on the back overly much.

I have just completed a four month sabbatical in the US. One thing that struck me was how incredibly self-satisfied large swaths of American Orthodox Jews appear to be. For many of the people I met (though assuredly not the majority, I hope), Israel is a place to visit, without really engaging or encountering it; to use, without internalizing; to pine for in low keys on Tisha B’Av, without putting Aliyah on the agenda. One indicator of this attenuation of relations is the Hebrew illiteracy (both in speaking and writing) that marks the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jews (including rabbis and Lamdanim). Without a common language, how can there be a common cause?

So, while we share the secret of our blessed solidarity and sense of peoplehood with other Jews, it behooves the Diaspora Jewish Community to check itself, as well.

To his credit, R. Adlerstein's response to my remarks (in a private note) were both open and appreciative.

The Rebellious Son: A Wonderful Movie

2011-06-14T19:16:00.004+03:00

Many of you are, I hope, aware that the Maaleh School for Film has created an entire generation of gifted Religious Zionist Filmmakers. The most famous is, I suspect, Laizy Schapiro who created the inimitable series Srugim, which just completed filming its third season for Israel’s Yes TV (and which I"ve discussed on many occasions).

One of these truly talented people is Shoshi Greenfield. She has written, produced and directed a number of high quality films that touch, with sensitivity and humor, upon issues that lie at the core of the intersection of Judaism and Zionism in contemporary Israel. Now, her prize-winning film, ‘The Rebellious Son’ is available for viewing on the web in Hebrew with English subtitles online for only $4.00. [Website, here.]

The integration of men and women from the religious community into the visual arts is a tremendous Kiddush HaShem, and deserves support. Films such as these support that effort and bring home to your members the reality of life in Israel, in ways that even visiting cannot achieve.I strongly and warmly recommend that you watch them yourselves and publicise them among your community members.

The Rebellious Son

https://sites.google.com/site/therebelliousso/watch-now

By Shoshi Greenfield

Documentary, 72 min.

My cousin Ya’acov’s secret ambition is to go unnoticed. He dreams of becoming a monk, a recluse. One summer, towards the end of his high school days, he fulfills his monastic ambitions.He drops out of school and becomes a shepherd on a forsaken farm in southern Mount Hebron. The mystery and magic that he discovers in the mountains aren’t exactly greeted with enthusiasm by his family. This rebellious son’s high jinks draw them into family quarrels that expose fresh, surprising points of view on themes such as love, war, and the beard my cousin has decided to grow.This is a family story about one individual's attempt to find his own path and independence, even when those around him think differently.

Shavuot:: The Unforgottable Festival

2011-06-07T00:27:00.005+03:00

A provocative article in today's Jewish Ideas Daily claims that almost no Jews know about Shavuot, and tries to account for that fact. One of the factors that the author cites is the fact that (in the absence of the Temple) there are no ceremonies or mitzvot that are uniquely associated with the festival. On the face of it, that's true. Upon closer examination, that is not only a false assertion, it is profoundly misleading.

To begin with, Shavuot is wonderful specifically because it is unencumbered by considerations beyond the laws of Yom Tov. Indeed, it is Yom Tov, pure and simple. It's a day given totally over to rejoicing before God. The Torah commands us, ושמחת בחגיך. The Rav זצ"ל always pointed out that the ultimate joy a Jew can experience is to stand before God, ושמחת לפני ד'. On other holidays, there are all kinds of accessories to help us do that. On Shavuot, in the afterglow of Pesach and 49 days of spiritual preparation through the Omer period, we are bidden to just experience God's presence and rejoice; physically and spiritually. The paucity of ceremonial is, indeed, its power.

In addition, Shavuot has a mitzvah. We are bidden to re-experience Revelation and to sit and study Torah. What is better, more sublime. more exalted and more spiritually intoxicating than meeting God, the Creator of the World? As R. Hayyim of Volozhin writes in Sefer Nefesh ha-Hayyim (4, 3), attaining insight into the Torah is a personal act of Revelation. And we do it through a meeting of physicality and spirituality (רוחניות וגשמיות).

That is why, for me, Shavuot is not only unforgettable. It is my absolutely favorite Hag.

Hebrew (Teachers) College ע"ה

2011-06-03T15:49:00.008+03:00

It is with profound sadness, that I must record the death (for me) of an institution for which I have hitherto felt nothing but affection and gratitude, Boston Hebrew College (aka HTC). It was there that I received the broad Hebrew, Jewish education upon which I subsequently built much of my personal and professional life. It was there that I had the privilege of studying under some of the most remarkale teachers ever to walk the face of God's earth: Rose Bronstein ע"ה, R. Arnold Wieder, R. Isaiah Wohlgemuth ז"ל, Israel Levin, Ehud Luz, Reuven Kritz, David Schapiro, Solomon Schimmel and others. In addition, it was R. Schapiro who, while teaching there, arranged for me to start learning under the Rav זצ"ל and who urged me to pursue my doctorate at Harvard.

HTC was also an intimate Jewish community that was integrally and intensely attached to the State of Israel (and previously, to the Yishuv). Indeed, it was founded by Palestinian Jewish educators. The Hebrew culture we imbibed was inextricably tied up with that of Israel. Despite the fact that it was officially a secular institution, it was open and accepting to a broad panoply of Jews, and eminently respectful of tradition. One thing that bound us, in particular, was a profound sense of Jewish Peoplehood.

The school was headed, for many years, by Eisig Silberschlag, who was an accomplished poet and a member of Bialik's inner circle. He embodied, in many ways, all of the best the school sought to represent. I will never forget the assembly of thanksgiving that was held in the wake of Israel's miraculous victory in June, 1967. We were all so thankful that the Second Holocaust that we had feared just days before, had ended in the liberation of our people from destruction, and the reunification of Jerusalem. I don't recall all that was said in that electric moment. I will, however, never forget how Dr. Silberschlag kept saying (his voice choked with emotion): כל הכבוד לצה"ל!!!!

It grieves me to say that this school, the one I loved so much, is dead. Its death has, I admit, been a long, drawn out affair. It started when Hebrew (its ostensible, raison d'etre) was dropped. It continued as it diluted its academic content. It sank deeper, as it ominously entered the fabian world of post-denominational Judaism with its rabbinical school. It has now, for me, finally died a death worthy of Peretz Smolenskin.

Yesterday, as I travelled home from New York, I read Daniel Gordis' column in which he describes the post-modern, relativist posture that the institution adopted toward Yom ha-Zikkaron. The message, and the PC disingenuous response by the school's dean, has so filled me with pain and rage that I urge you to read Gordis' piece (with which I fully agree). The school has effectively denuded itself of Jewish national sentiment, of substantive Jewish and knowledge and abandoned the Hebrew Language. I have contacted the school asking to be removed from their mailing list, or to be referred to as an alumnus. I will continue to treasure the school that once was.

The institution, however, that pretends to be its continuation is a mere knock-off.

The real Hebrew College is dead.

תהי נשמתה צרורה בצרור החיים.

UPDATE:

I received the following response from Hebrew College. (I don't think they got it.):

Dear Dr. Woolf,

Thank you very much for your email. We have removed you from our mailing lists. I am glad you have positive memories of your time here and thank you for reaching out.

Sincerely,

Join me as we Explore Exotic and Historic Portugal

2011-05-11T16:24:00.002+03:00

I want to personally invite my readers to join me as we explore and experience the beauty of Portugal and the Power of Portuguese Jewish History.

We’ll follow in the footsteps of Don Isaac Abravanel and of the Conversos who transformed Jewish History and Judaism.On the way, we"ll meet descendants of conversos and hear of their steps to rejoin the Jewish People.

As always, with Deluxe Kosher Tours you can be sure of fresh (and plentiful) kosher food, great accommodations and considerate port to port service. Sign up by June 15 and save $100 on the trip.

Click here and start your adventure.

For Yom Ha-Atzmaut

2011-05-10T19:12:00.002+03:00

In honor of Yom HaAtzmaut, I delivered one of last Sunday's lectures at Midreshet Yom Rishon at YU.

The topic was: 'God Inspired the Kings to Expel the Jews': The Galut Mentality in Halakhah and Hashkafah.' It expresses alot of my feelings about Galut and Israel, as my sabbatical winds down. You can here it Here.

Yom ha-Zikkaron 5771

2011-05-08T18:20:00.001+03:00

Erev Yom Ha-Shoah 5771 (Rome Airport)

2011-05-01T17:02:00.001+03:00

Doing the research for my book opened my eyes to unimagined dimensions of human existence, both past and present. Above all, I became highly sensitized to the difference between ‘space’ and ‘place.’ Space is a void. It possesses no unique character. It is a blank canvas. It may be compared to an empty loft or apartment, or a blank canvas. It is full of potential but devoid of evident character or personality. When an individual enters empty space; when he furnishes and decorates it, he imprints his personality and character thereupon. Immediately, empty ‘space’ is transformed into unique ‘place.’ Ironically, ‘space’ is not limited to virgin areas; to pristine expanses. British Sociologist, Philip Sheldrake, has observed that places such as malls and airports possess no unique identity, and are frequently indistinguishable. Hence, in a very real sense, they are literally ‘nowhere.’

It’s the eve of Yom Ha-Shoah (נדחה), and I am literally nowhere. I am sitting in Fiumicino Airport outside of Rome, waiting for a connecting flight to New York. I’m not in Israel, not in Rome, and not in New York. Yet voids, as with all vacuums, naturally fill up. For me, the café in which I’m sitting is a vortex of Time. The television is broadcasting the beatification of John Paul II. The Church is at its best, its most regal, its most powerfully resplendent. My fellow travellers are transfixed by the awesome power of the chants, the Latin introit, the sacred choreography. It is, I readily admit, seductive. The Jew in me, however, can’t take it all in so easily. The previous pope, whom they are beatifying, while he condemned anti-Semitism and was more sympathetic to Jewish suffering than his effective predecessor, could not acknowledge the role that his church played in aiding and abetting the horrors that we will recall tonight. The pope who is presiding has dedicated himself to canonizing a predecessor who signed the infamous Concordat with Nazi Germany and did nothing while the crematoria burned.

The vortex brings ripples of time from other eras. The present ceremony is taking place a few meters from where Urban II penned his call to crusade, which he proclaimed in November, 1095. Five months later, in those days at this time of year, forces of Christendom bore down upon the Jews of Speyer, Worms and Mainz; Köln, Trier and Regensburg. Crying ‘Deus Lo Vult’ (‘God Wills It!) they forced the Jews to choose between physical death and spiritual death through apostasy. They, thus, brought about the deaths of thousands and (perhaps) tens of thousands of Jews; the cradle of Ashkenazic Jewry. The crusaders, in this regard, were only acting out the implicit contradiction that lies at the core of Christianity, one side of which would have it that the Jews have no real justification to continue and should convert and disappear. That belief, too, is rooted in this incredible city that I find so personally attractive and bewitching. For the Pauline doctrine of Christian supercession is most fully stated in Paul’s epistle to….the Romans (ironically, as a Jew writing to other Jews).

Of course, not far from the Vatican, at the edge of the Roman Forum stands the Arch of Titus commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem by Pagan Rome. Close by, in its mute majesty, stands the Coliseum where so much death and pain was meted out to the delight of the crowds. That horrific symbol of Roman bestiality, we now know, was built with the spoils of Jerusalem. And, a stone’s throw from there is the gate to the ghetto. It was to that spot that the captives of Jerusalem were brought, and redeemed by their fellow Jews. The ghetto, as Reuven Bonfil has noted, embodies the ultimate contradiction in Europe’s attitude to the Jew. Christendom tried to quarantine the Jews, lest they infect the body politic. At the same time, by setting them apart Europe was conceding that it could not rid itself of the Jew. That was true until Hitler. Then all the hounds of Hell: German, French, Dutch, Italian, Slovak, Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Ukrainian, Bosnian, Greek, Moroccan, Tunisian, Libyan and Palestinian joined forces to finally rid the world of the Jew. Sitting on the outskirts of Rome, at whose gates the Messiah is said to dwell; sitting nowhere on the soil of this blood soaked continent, all of these ripples converge. All roads do, indeed, lead to Rome.

They did not succeed. They came close. They murdered more of us than anyone could have ever imagined. Now, less than a century later, they are trying again. Some try to murder us physically through acts of terror, and soon, of war. They will call it the liberation of Palestine, but we know better. It is not for nothing that Palestine (another Roman invention) rhymes with Judenrein. Others, like the Europeans who aided the Nazis, will try by hiding behind hypocritical sophistication and moral relativism. Still others try to murder s spiritually. Some (among whom are not a few pathologically self-hating Jews) deny our patrimony, and deny the very existence of the Jewish People. Others would murder Judaism by turning it into some sort of self-indulgent narcotic; a feel good drug that makes no demands upon the individual and requires of him no act of sacrifice for his fellow Jew. These too echo in the satires of Juvenal, the epigrams of Martial, the fulminations of Apion, the invectives of the Church Fathers and the disciples of Dominic and Francis Xavier.

All roads, it seems, still lead to Rome.

And the Rabbis teach that the Messiah will appear at the end of that road to Rome, undo its worst and lead all of us home; Eretz Yisrael, our Place.

Am I Jewish?

2011-04-26T16:43:00.002+03:00

Monday morning, before going off to shul, I read an article in the Jerusalem Post (not yet online) that recounted the story of a young man from Pennsylvania who wanted to get married here in Israel. His mother was Jewish, so there should not have been any problem. He was wrong. The Rabbinate's rules are that only someone married in Israel, or whose parents were married by an Orthodox rabbi whose name appears on their approved list, is automatically certified as being Jewish. This young man did not fit into either category and his file was sent for investigation to a special office of the Haifa rabbinate. He was required to find photos of his grandparents' graves and copies of their immigration papers, ship manifests of their arrival in the United States and other supporting documents. With the help of Rabbi Seth Farber and the ITIM institute, the task was achieved and our young man was married (barely) on time.

Then it struck me, that had I wanted to get married in Israel I would have been in the same position, or perhaps in a worse position. My parents (ז"ל) were married in Boston by a Conservative rabbi in 1954. So, my file would have automatically been sent for investigation. So I'd have needed to collect documents. Gravestones I have, check. The problem is that my maternal grandparents entered the United States under separate last names, because my grandmother wasn't well. She came under her maiden name, Littwak (אלא מה?), and he came under Czertok. At Ellis Island, he changed his family name to Birnbaum, because Czertok means the 'devil' (and he was less than fond of his father, anyway). So, I would have to stand in front of a bunch of rabbinic inquisitors and make the case that they were both Jewish, and my mother's parents. (Never mind that my Bubbe ע"ה was the embodiment of the nice, little (she was 4' 11") Jewish lady).

Contemplating this possibility, and knowing how officious and mean spirited many of the denizens of the Rabbinate can be, I felt vicariously degraded. A wave of empathy for all those forced to legitimize themselves as Jews before the apparatchiks of the Rabbinate washed over me. Even granting that certification is sometimes required (as with the former Soviet Union), still stories like that reported in the Post (the like of which occur every single day) are unnecessary and insensitive sources of pain, anguish and Hillul Ha-Shem. Jewish Law provides very clear guidelines for establishing identity (such as testimony by witnesses). Relying on the extraordinarily stringent rulings of a noted Hungarian מחמיר like R. Menashe Klein is simply unacceptable for a governmental agency charged with representing the mainstream view of the Torah.

There has to be a better way.

My Rebbe, זצ"ל on his Eighteenth Yahrzeit

2011-04-22T15:52:00.003+03:00

About a year after R. Aaron Soloveichik זצ"ל passed away, I asked my friend, הקדוש David Applebaum הי"ד how he was coping with his rebbe's death. David, for those who had the privilege of knowing him, was the embodiment of a devoted disciple, a true תלמיד מובהק. Indeed, as R. Aaron wrote in the introduction to his book on the Rambam, פרח מטה אהרון, David was as much his son, as his biological children. It was, thus,only logical that I seek his insight in coping with my ongoing feeling of bereavement at the Rav's absence (though, I certainly would not have the temerity to claim as intimate a relationship with the Rav as David had with R. Aaron. On the other hand, every talmid has his own unique relationship with his rebbe. Anyone who knows me, or has read anything I have ever written, knows that the Rav was my spiritual father and that without his teachings, without sitting in his shiur for almost a decade, without the personal relationship that we did have I don't know how I might have made my way in the world of Torah and mitzvot.)

In response to my question, David gave me a quizzical look. "What do you mean that R. Aaron was נפטר? he asked.' I'm learning הלכות נידה with him now. David, of course, meant that he was listening to recordings of R. Aaron's שיעורים and, in that way he kept up the ongoing relationship of learning that bound them together. R. Aaron lived, as long as David learned from him.

Over the years, I've followed his advice, especially as more and more tapes of the Rav's shiurim come on-line and more manuscripts have been published. On those occasions, I agree with my beloved, much lamented friend, the Rav still lives as long as I continue my rebbe-talmid relationship with him. Thus, when learning the second and third chapters of Pesahim this year, I've kept my notes of his shiurim nearby.
I've also tried to spread his teachings and expound them in print and orally. Today, on the occasion of his eighteenth yahrzeit, I devoted myself to writing a long study of his attitude toward time awareness as a source of spirituality. Given the amount of revisionism about him and his teachings, I feel something of a sense of mission in trying (to the best of my ability), to understand and transmit his legacy without apology or defensiveness.

And yet, it's not enough. It's not enough because the Rav has been gone for eighteen years, and he retired from the public stage twenty-five years ago. The world has changed much since then, and stayed much the same (only more so). When I listen to his shiurim I am stunned by how prescient he frequently was, and how dated other things he said appear. That is, of course, to be expected. Great thinkers live in their own times and are ahead of their times. The challenge is to distinguish between the two. That requires living up to the challenge he frequently set up before us: 'What do you have to say?' For those of us who were privileged to sit at his feet have the obligation to go further and see farther, as dwarfs on the shoulders of giants.

So today, on the eighteenth yahrzeit of my beloved rebbe, רבן של ישאל, I have decided to commit myself to finally writing a book in Hebrew on the interaction between Torah and Hokhma, on (Post)Modernity and Judaism, on Spiritual Daring and Intellectual Humility. It will be what I think, and what I've learned about these issues, for the Israeli community that has never encountered or grappled with them.

I do this as a tribute to one who embodied all that (and more) for four generations of disciples and a world beyond, still waiting to be guided by the ideas he set forth; a person who wanted his students not to be mimics but autonomous creators and servants of the Creator.

A Plug for Jew in the City (by a Mayim Bialik Fan)

2011-04-22T14:35:00.004+03:00

One of the most intriguing, creative and successful Jewish websites that I know is Jew in the City. It is the brainchild of a bright, eloquent woman named Allison Joseph who, with style and humor, sensitivity and common sense breaks down stereotypes about Orthodox Judaism, and conveys the Torah's message on a plethora of issues in a manner that can be appreciated by a broad, sophisticated audience. Her undertaking is best represented by the videos she produces, to which I always look forward. Overall, Jew in the City is a real קידוש השם.
[I won't say that I agree with everything she says, and I've told her as much. However, it would be churlish to be picayune in the face of a really impressive and successful enterprise such as this. We, self apppointed, cognoscenti often miss the point, and the boat by raising our eyebrows and rolling our eyes. היכה ארץ בשבט פיו is reserved for the Messiah וד"ל.]

One of the most intriguing, creative and successful Jewish personalities today is, IMHO, Mayim Bialik. (Full disclosure: I am a Mayim Bialik fan who used to watch Blossom reruns and now watches [בזמן שלא מן היום ולא מן הלילה] The Big Bang Theory.) Mayim, over time, has been on a path toward a life of Shemirat Mitzvot, in an ambiance that is very often, extremely hostile (note the vicissitudes of Steven Hill. I've had my own, up close and personal experiences with Hollywood et al along similar lines.). She has, however, pulled it off with aplomb, sensitivity, enthusiasm and a disarming lack of self-consciousness. In a world wherein Orthodoxy is increasingly under severe criticism and disdain, Mayim Bialik represents another, first rate, קידוש השם.

You may wonder where I'm going with this. Well, before Pesach I received an invitation to attend a fundraiser on behalf of Jew in the City, which will feature Mayim Bialik (details here). It seems that Ms. Joseph is Dr. Bialik's ongoing חברותא. Anyway, though I rarely endorse causes (aside from Modern Orthodoxy generally) or businesses (aside from Deluxe Kosher Tours), I'm making an unsolicited exception here.

I think it would be a great, and enjoyable mitzvah to support Jew in the City by either attending the parlor meeting with Mayim Bialik (or by supporting it with a donation, which allows an online link to the proceedings, so they say). The Rambam bemoans the inability of rabbis and preachers to convey the message of Torah in a manner that demands the attention, assent and (hopefully) consent of their listeners. Jew in the City does that, ודי לחכימא. [Click HERE for information.]

The Blessings of Pesach Preparation

2011-04-17T16:45:00.002+03:00

I am watching a beautiful sight. The children, led by the two older daughters (C and E), are leading the last push to make over the kitchen from Hametz to Pesach. The caring, fun loving, and devoted way they're working brings tears of joy to my eyes.

I see that they've internalized the lesson that Shabbat requires Erev Shabbat, that Hag requires Erev Hag and that Pesach requires Erev Pesach (which for us begins after Purim when we stop eating Matzah).

They've learned that creating a sacred space, free of Hametz and all that it symbolizes, is the first step to personal and national redemption. In between Youtube videos and episodes from their favorite TV shows (played in the kitchen on the laptop, surrounded by Kitniyot) they are lovingly creating a place for Yom Tov to settle.

By kashering and cleaning the way they are, they are imitating the way that my parents and their mother's parents prepared for Pesach. In that way, they are joining generations of Jewish men and women who've prepared for Pesach all the way back to 1200 BCE.

Finally, judging from the conversation, they all feel the ongoing specialness of doing all of this in Eretz Yehudah in Eretz Yisrael, which was the end point of the Exodus in the first place.

People who only make reservations for Pesach will know neither the effort or the reward, the timeliness and the timelessness of the effort.

מי שטרח בערב שבת יאכל בשבת.
ברוך שהחיינו וקיימנו והגיענו לזמן הזה.

חג כשר ושמח.

Join Me in the Balkans!!! June 26-July 14

2011-04-01T22:19:00.002+03:00

SAVE THE DATES!!! I will be leading an incredible tour of Bulgaria and Romania this Summer (June 26-July 14). We will explore the beauty of these breath-taking countries and experience their rich Jewish Heritage, dating back to Roman Times. Click here for details.

On Halakhic Integrity: A Reaction to Gordon and Levy

2011-04-01T07:05:00.002+03:00

I recently had the occasion to read an article in Azure by Evelyn Gordon and Hadassah Levy, entitled 'Halacha's Moment of Truth.' After finishing it, I was at a loss as to how to react.

To start with, I have long admired Evelyn Gordon's incisive critiques of Israel's judiciary, especially her devastating analyses of Aaron Barak's 'Judicial Revolution.' In addition, I am a priori very sympathetic to the necessity of a straightforward and courageous engagement with the multifold, and frequently, unprecedented challenges that the Torah faces. I was, therefore, loathe criticizing it.

The authors seem to have hoped that an intellectually grounded, cri de coeur would advance their cause. They may be right. However, what they have written is far from being a responsible, learned excursus on Halakhic history and its potential in a contemporary context. It is riddled with factual errors and misinterpretations. Based upon the footnotes, which overwhelmingly refer to secondary literature (some of which is famously agenda driven), the reader is led to conclude that the authors lack a basic mastery of rabbinic and post-Talmudic literature and methodology, without which no cogent case can be made on this topic.

More egregious, however, is the apparently total lack of understanding as to how the Halakhic system works. The authors nurture a vision of 'Halacha ex machina' in which rabbis do as they please and make wholesale changes in the Torah, as they see fit. Such an approach denies Jewish Law any type of internal consistency, or integrity. It is, according to the authors, 'as clay in the hands of the potter.' Such an interpretation, it is true, lies at the heart of the Conservative movement (and its Reconstructionist progeny). However, it is wrong historically and a fatal mistake communally.

As Professor Haym Soloveitchik, the acknowledged doyen of the History of Halakhah, as asserted: 'If law is conceived of, as religious law must be, as a revelation of the divine will, then any attempt to align that will with human wants, any attempt to have reality control rather than to be itself controlled by the divine norm, is an act of blasphemy and is inconceivable to a God-fearing man' (H. Soloveitchik, 'Religious Law and Change: The Tosafist Example,' AJS Review, 12(1987), 205).

That, of course, does not mean that the Law doesn't change, of course it does. The question is what is the texture of the process that engenders or countenances that change. Here, I fully endorse the characterization of Professor David Berger: 'A similar assessment seems appropriate with respect to the closely related issue of change in Jewish law. While the most traditionalist circles maintain that change is, and has always been, out of the question, non-Orthodox figures, and even some in the most liberal sectors of Orthodoxy, assert that rabbis have always succeeded in finding ways to permit what they feel must be permitted. Blu Greenberg's bon, or mal, mot, 'Where there is a rabbinic will, there is a halakhic way,' was provided with a telling Hebrew translation by my distinguished brother in-law David Shatz: 'Im tirΩu, ein zo halakhah'. This question has been
subjected to scholarly scrutiny by Jacob Katz, Haym Soloveitchik, Yisrael Ta-Shma, and Daniel Sperber among others, and my sense, guided no doubt by my own predilections, is that social, humanitarian, and ideological factors - what I call competing religious values - have surely affected the willingness to rethink the plain meaning of texts, but in the final analysis the texts still matter' (D. Berger, 'Identity, Ideology and Faith: Some Personal Reflections on the Social, Cultural and
Spiritual Value of the Academic Study of Judaism,' 25). [Strikingly, Gordon and Levy do not cite any of the above noted scholars- the universally acknowledged leaders in the field of halakhic history.]

This is how rabbinic figures behaved, then as now. If the authors wished to sway them, and the population that is most loyal to Halakha, then their point of view is (at best) a non-starter. Indeed, it is worse than that. For by embracing an understanding of Torah that is an anathema to the halakhic loyalist, they cast serious suspicion on the salutary (and necessary) enterprise of breaking the present halakhic paralysis.

Since I am sure that the authors were well-intentioned, I will not close with the traditional adage posited of the well-intention. Rather, I assume that once can say of them that which the Khazar King heard in his dream: 'Your intention is acceptable, but your actions are unacceptable' (Kuzari 1, 1).

ANNOUNCING: A 1-Year MA in Talmud

2011-04-01T03:10:00.003+03:00

The Talmud Department at Bar Ilan University, the best of it's type in the world, is please to announce the launching of a One Year MA Program, opening in October 2011. This is an unparalleled opportunity to study wit leading lights in the fields of Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, History of Halakha, Mishpat Ivri, Midrash, and Rabbinic Theology. I am proud to be part of the initiative and will offer a course entitled: Halakhah, Kabbalah and Philosophy (with some added suprises).

If you're Israeli, or planning on being in Israel on a sabbatical, this is a wonderful opportunity.
For information write: depttl@mail.biu.ac.il .

הידיים ידי ישמעאל

2011-03-15T06:50:00.003+02:00

I am still too deeply in shock to write about the events of last Shabbat. After much soul searching, and after the family requested it, I am posting this video that Youtube decided to pull.

video platform video management video solutions video player

Sacred Trash: A Must Read

2011-03-07T06:47:00.002+02:00

I just finished reading an incredible book, with a most unlikely title. It's called: Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza. The book, which will be published later this month (and launched at the start of April) is the latest in a stunning series of original works that is published jointly by Nextbook and Schocken (NY). [I read an advance copy. Who needs proteksia when you have friends?]

The book tells the story of the discovery of the Cairo Geniza and the generations of scholars who extracted whole worlds from its detritus (a word the authors love to use). It is, however, much much more. The authors brilliantly recreate the personalities and interactions of the many colorful personalities who touched and were transformed by the Geniza. Names that I knew only as authors of important studies suddenly came alive, adding depth and excitement to the authors' tale.

At the same time, the book also brings to life various episodes and dimensions of the Geniza's riches with elegance and a keen sense of drama. The authors introduce us to Ben Sira and Hivi al-Balkhi, Karaites and Payyetanim, Dunash and Ha-Levi. It warmed my heart to anticipate how that which gets an academic's blood flowing can infect the lay reader with enthusiasm and interest.

I have to ask that the book is a joy to read. It's written beautifully. The wonderful use of language, the rich vocabulary and the passionate mode of description were simply intoxicating.

Sacred Trash, an absolute must read this Spring.

Sometimes You Need to be a Triangle

2011-03-01T05:08:00.005+02:00

The prophets of Israel abhorred and excoriated those who hid moral corruption behind a mask of ritual punctiliousness. Typical in this regard are the defiant words of Jeremiah, uttered as he stood at the very entrance to the Temple (7, 9-10):

הגנב רצח ונאף והשבע לשקר וקטר לבעל והלך אחרי אלהים אחרים אשר לא ידעתם:

(י) ובאתם ועמדתם לפני בבית הזה אשר נקרא שמי עליו ואמרתם נצלנו למען עשות את כל התועבות האלה:

Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and offer unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye have not known, and come and stand before Me in this house, whereupon My name is called, and say: 'We are delivered', that ye may do all these abominations?

Jeremiah's audience, tragically, never got the message. They paid a very high price for their obtuseness. Their descendants in the Orthodox community, both Haredi and Modern Orthodox, don't appear to be any more enlightened. There is a moral rot, an ethical disconnect that too often appears among the members of our community. This, it seems to me, is an especially egregious fault when we consciously blind ourselves to the heinous moral iniquities of those upon whom we look to as leaders.

It is truly incredible. We would not brook a thief or a murderer as a Rav, a Rosh Yeshiva or as a Religious intellectual who seeks to use his or her position to participate in the ethical discourse of the Observant community. However, we have no trouble ignoring or denying behavior which destroys families, undermines the lives of children and is no less worthy of moral calumny. We make excuses for them, מאכען ניט וויסענדיק, and bask in the chiaroscuro brilliance of their words and writings, teachings and pronouncements.

We have, it must be admitted, become morally obtuse and lost our basic sensitivity.

This apocryphal vignette puts it best:

While a Professor of Ethics at Harvard, Bertrand Russell carried on an adulterous affair. He was called in by the university authorities and censured. He maintained that it his personal life had nothing to do with his academic responsibilities. When it was objected that he was, after all, a professor of Ethics, Russell replied: “I was a Professor of Geometry at Cambridge,” Russell rejoined, “but the Board of Governors never asked me why I was not a triangle.”

This may be true in academia. However, it does not and cannot pass muster among those who presume to represent, and interpret, God's Torah. The Torah makes no distinction between ethical and moral behaviors, or between Yoreh Deah, Even ha-Ezer and Hoshen Mishpat. If you flagrantly reject one, you forfeit your right to an opinion on the others.

Sometimes, we are expected to reshape ourselves....even into triangles.

Iranium

2011-02-16T21:37:00.000+02:00

The Rebbetzin's Letter: Another Take

2011-01-21T07:59:00.000+02:00

במרומי הר הזיתים

יוסף (ג'פרי) וולף

במרומי הר הזיתים, משקיפים על הר הבית, שוכנים קבריהם של ישראל ורבקה לפין זכרונם לברכה.

בשנת 1881, בעקבות שילוב של חיבת ציון ואנטי-יהדות רוסית, החליטו הזוג לפין לוותר על חייהם המבוססים והמוצלחים בוולקוביסק שבפולין, לאסוף את שני בניהם, את בתם ובעלה, ולעלות לארץ ישראל. בדרך לא דרך, הגיעו ארצה בתחילת 1882. קודם התיישבו בפתח תקוה ואחר כך עלו ירושלימה. שם בנה ישראל במו ידיו חצר גדולה ומרווחת, והקים עסק משפחתי משגשג, בגלל שלא רצה ליטול חלק (תרתי משמע) בתרבות החלוקה. חלומם הגדול של ישראל ורבקה היה שמשפחתם תכה שורשים עמוקים בארץ ישראל ותצמיח ענפים רבים של יהודים הנאמנים לדתם ולעמם. תקוותם לא התממשה. ישראל ורבקה נאלצו לרדת מהארץ בעקבות התנכלויות מצד הרשויות הע'ותמאניות. הם עברו לבוסטון שבארה"ב. שם השתרשה משפחתם, ושם גרים כמעט כל צאציהם. 'כמעט' בגלל שישנם שבעה צאצאים של ישראל ורבקה הגרים בארץ היום, אני ובני משפחתי. גורלם של השאר הוא ההיפך המוחלט ממה שלו ייחלו ישראל ורבקה.

גורל זה נודע לי עוד לפני שעליתי ארצה, לפני יותר מ-18 שנה, כשקיבלתי לידי ספר שהכינה בת-דודה רחוקה, המתעד את גורלם של כל בני משפחת לפין עד שנת 1990. הנתונים היו מדהימים. לישראל ורבקה יש מאות רבות של צאצאים, פרושים בכל רחבי תבל. אולם, מכל אותם צאצאים בדור ילדיי (ז"א דור ששי לישראל ורבקה), מעט מזעיר מזדהים בצורה משמעותית כיהודים (ורבים רבים מהם, אינם בכלל יהודים).

זוהי, רבותי וגברותיי, ה'התבוללות' עליה מרבים לדבר ונגדה להפגין בזמן האחרון. זהו ה'אובדן' מפני נישואי תערובת מפניו מזהירים רבים וטובים. הקשר בין השננים זו מאומת ע"י מחקרים רבים ומגוונים הן בארץ והן בחו"ל. הסטטיסטיקה הוכיחה, חזור והוכח, שאחוז מכריע (כ- 80% ומעלה) של ילדי בני זוג הנשואים בנישואי תערובת לא יזדהו כיהודים באופן מהותי ומחייב (ועוד לא התחלנו לדון בזהותם ההלכתית). מבחינה סוציולוגית והיסטורית, מצב זה הוא לגמרי צפוי ונורמלי. ההתבוללות והטמיעה בזהות ובתרבות הרוב הן תהליכים חברתיים טבעיים. נוח יותר להיות חלק מהרוב, להיות כמו כולם, לא לבלוט בנוף האנושי.

דווקא שמירת הזהות והמרקם האתניים של קבוצת מיעוט היא החריגה, והשגתה דורשת הקרבה מצד הנאמנים לה. נאמנות למשהו גדול ונשגב תמיד מחייבת הקרבה. אולם, אי-שם באנרכיה הנקראת 'פוסט-מודרנה', החליטו יהודים רבים מספור להקריב את העם היהודי לטובת נוחותם האישית (במעטה של נאורות ואוניברסליות). הם החליטו ש'האהבה תנצח' ולכל הרוחות התוצאות. ואכן, מאחורי דברי הביקורת הקשים שהושמעו בימים האחרונים במחאות נגד נישואי תערובת, מסתתרת שאלה אחרת לגמרי: מי זה שיכתיב לי עם מי אתחתן ואיך יגדלו ילדיי (במידה שיהיו)? התשובה היא פשוטה: עתיד העם היהודי הוא הדורש. תאהב את זה או אל תאהב את זה. לפני מי שנולד יהודי עומדת הבחירה בין קצת יותר חיים לעמו, או קצת יותר אבדון. כי ההיסטוריה של מאתיים וחמישים השנים האחרונות הוכיחה, וממשיכה להוכיח, שנישואי תערובת, יחד עם בורות יהודית, הם מרשם בדוק להיעלמות קבוצתית.

אין בעמדה זו שמץ של גזענות, ומי שמשמיע טענה טיפשית כזאת סתם מתעסק בדמגוגיה מהזן הזול ביותר (וההשוואה בין עדיפות בן זוג יהודי לחוקי נירנברג הידועים לשמצה היא כל כך נלוזה שאיננה ראויה לתגובה). התורה מלמדת שלא-יהודים נבראו בצלם א-לקים בדיוק כמו יהודים. השאלות האמתיות הן: האם יש ערך בשמירה על העם היהודי? האם יש הצדקה לצמצם את בחירת בן או בת הזוג ליהודים עבור בניין בית יהודי יציב, המבוסס על ערכים יהודיים ועל זיכרון קבוצתי שיעניק השראה לדורות הבאים? אם התשובה תהיה כן, ולדעתי עתיד המדינה מותנה בתשובה חיובית לשאלות אלו, אז בנוסף להקרבה בתחום המסים והצבא מוטלת חובה להמשיך להקים משפחות יהודיות בישראל; להעביר הלאה את מורשת התרבות והתודעה, המוסר והדת היהודיים הלאה ולשמור על הגיבוש הלאומי של העם היושב בציון. ובל נשלה את עצמנו, ניתן להתבולל גם בארץ ישראל.

אישית, אני מיצר על אלה המקבלים החלטה עקרונית להעדיף את האוניברסליות על פני המשכיות יהודית לטווח ארוך. אני גם מכבד את החלטתם ואת זכותם לנווט את חייהם כרצונם. אולם, לכל מעשה יש תוצאות, עליהן חייב האדם לקבל אחריות ולשאת בהשלכותיהן. מי שמחליט, כעיקרון, להיחשף לתהליך הטבעי של התבוללות, שלא יבוא אח"כ ויצעק שמוציאים אותו מכלל העם היהודי. מכל העולמות האלה, לפחות, אי אפשר ליהנות.

כל שנה, אני נוהג לפקוד את קבריהם של סבה רבה ישראל וסבתא רבה רבקה. הם הורישו לי, לילדיי ולאחיי דוגמא של הקרבה למען העם והמורשת היהודית, דוגמא שמלווה אותנו מאודנו עד היום. שאר קרוביי, ביניהם גדלתי, החליטו שאין סיבה אמתית להישאר יהודים בצורה משמעותית. לא היה להם נוח. לא היה מתקדם מספיק עבורם. לא היה אוניברסלי מספיק עבורם. הספיק להם להשתייך למשפחת האדם. כך הם הפכו חלק של כולם, ויתרו על עצמיותם, ונעלמו לבלי חזור.

בר בורוכוב פעם השווה בין התבוללות להתאבדות. על קבר אבותיי אני מבכה גם את המתאבדים.

Half the Work: Facebook

2011-01-10T18:49:00.002+02:00

This blog used to serve two, distinct tasks. Primarily, it's a place for me to record my ideas and observations on various subjects in a discursive fashion. In addition, though, I've also used it as a means of bringing important issues and articles by others to my readers. Over the past year, I've used my Facebook account to fill the latter task. With the easily accessed share functions attached to almost all websites, it's just quicker and easier.

I realize, though, that this keeps out readers who are not able to access my Facebook page. So, I've decided to do two things. First, I will try to cross-post those pieces that I think are especially important. And, I will 'friend' any of my readers here who would like to avail themselves of the references listed on Facebook.

Finally, in the near future I plan to start experimenting with VLOGS and am contemplating a move to Wordpress.

Limmud 2010

2011-01-09T12:45:00.003+02:00

I had the privilege of being invited to Limmud 2010 at the University of Warwick (UK). It was a breathtaking, refreshing experience. Imaging, 2500 people from around the world who gathered together to study Jewish things, and all of it לשמה! In addition, I got to deliver a paper to a wonderful group of colleagues under the aegis of the London School of Jewish Studies. Part of the payoff was a trip with two friends to Warwick Castle and a chance to become friends with that gifted caricaturist, Shai Charka (creator of Baba!).

All Too True

2011-01-06T10:12:00.001+02:00

Next Stop India: Deluxe Kosher Tours Does it Again

2010-12-21T08:40:00.002+02:00

Join us on an unforgettable tour of mysterious, exotic India. Discover why the sights and sounds of the sub-continent draw Jewish tourists, like a magnet. Experience all this, while staying in deluxe hotels and being provided with plentiful, fresh kosher meals. For an itinerary, see here.

Make your reservations, here.

Scholar in Residence Available

2010-12-19T08:22:00.000+02:00

Just a Reminder that I will, אי"ה, be a visiting Professor at Yeshiva University this Spring. As a result, I am accepting invitations to visit communities as Scholar in Residence (or other fora). Just contact me at woolfj@gmail.com for details.

אלו ואלו: לפרשת ויחי

2010-12-18T21:52:00.003+02:00

בשנת ר"ל (1469/70) הריצו יהודי פירנצי מכתב בהול לגדול חכמי אשכנז בתקופה, הרב יוסף קולון בן שלמה טרבוטו (מהרי"ק; 1420 – 1480), שבאותם הימים היה גר במנטובה. מעשה שהיה כך היה.

בפירנצי, מאז ומתמיד היו החתנים שולחים לארוסותיהם מתנות יקרות לרגל השתדכותם. למתנות אלו, הידועות בשם סבלונות, לא יוחסה כל חשיבות הלכתית ולא משמעות של קידושין (השווה קידושין דף

מ"א ע,א). לכן, במקרה שלא עלה השידוך יפה (כפי שקרה הרבה באותם הימים), לא ראו צורך לחייב גט מהאישה ובבוא הזמן, הייתה מתחתנת (בשעטו"מ) עם מישהו אחר. הדברים התנהלו כסדרם, עד

שהגיעו לטוסקנה רבנים מאשכנז (במקרה הזה צרפתים) שערערו על מנהג יהודי פירנצי וטענו, על יסוד פסק דין של מהר"ם מרוטנברג, שיש לחוש שמתנות אלו מהוות סוג של קידושין ואין להתיר את נישואי

הנשים בלי מתן גט. משמעות הדבר, שיהודי פירנצי הם ספק ממזרים! לניסיון זה של חכמים אשכנזים להטיל את מרותם על יהודי טוסקנה, ולהטיל ספק בכשרותם, הצטרפו כמה חכמים מקרב האיטלקים

שהעריצו את הלמדנות של חכמי צרפת וגרמניה ורצו (אף הם) להימנות ביניהם. מובן, א"כ, הדחיפות והבהלה שאחזו ביהודי פירנצי ולמה פנו דווקא לגדול חכמי האשכנזים (שהיה בעצמו ממוצא צרפתי)

להצילם.

מהרי"ק לא אכזב. בשתי תשובות ארוכות ומנומקות, הוא פסל מכל וכל את ניסיון הרבנים החדשים מקרוב באו להטיל דופי במנהג בני פירנצי ובכשרות ייחוסם. כפי שכתב בתחילת תשובתו הראשונה (שו"ת

מהרי"ק סימן ק"ע): "כי אמרתי אל לבי שאי אפשר שיורו הסבלונות האלה ענין קדושין שהרי ידענו וגם ספרו לנו אבותינו הראשונים אשר היו לפנינו היו הרבה תופסי תורה בגלילות איטליא וחסידים ואנשי מעשה

אשר מסתמא שגם הם נהגו מנהג זה ואם היה בזה חשש קדושי' אם כן היתה מכשלה גדולה יוצאה מתחת ידם וחלילה וחס להוציא לעז על הראשונים ...וגם עוד היום חכמה יש שם וזקנה יש שם...ולפי מה

ששמעתי מזקני הארץ הזאת ותושביה שלא ראו שום פוצה פה ומצפצף להצריכה חליצה כשמת או גט כשמתחרטין אם לא על ידי חדשים מקרוב באו אשר על זה תמהו איש אל אחיו ...." במהלך התשובה הוא

מדגיש שבענייני מנהג, איסור והיתר, לכל מסורת פסיקה הלכתית יש יושר וזכות ואין להרהר אחריה, בטח שלא לבטל משום כך מעשה בית דין שהוציאו חכמים מקום, משום שלכל נהר יש את המסלול שלו

('נהרא נהרא ופשטיה').

הרעיון הזה, המעניק לגיטימיות לדעות הלכתיות שונות, בעקבות דברים שאמר מו"ר רש"י הגרי"ד הלוי סולובייצ'יק זצ"ל, מוצא ביטוי בפרשת ויחי. שם מסופר שיעקב אבינו אסף את בניו לפני מותו ואמר:

האספו ואגידה לכם את אשר יקרא אתכם באחרית הימים (בר' מ"ט, א). אלא שרש"י מספר שנסתלקה ממנו שכינה ויעקב היה מנוע מלגלות את הקץ לבניו. הגמרא בפסחים (דף נ"ו ע"א), מתארת את מה שקרה

כך: ביקש יעקב לגלות לבניו קץ הימין, ונסתלקה ממנו שכינה. אמר: שמא חס ושלום יש במטתי פסול, כאברהם שיצא ממנו ישמעאל, ואבי יצחק שיצא ממנו עשו. אמרו לו בניו: שמע ישראל ה' אלהינו ה' אחד.

אמרו: כשם שאין בלבך אלא אחד - כך אין בלבנו אלא אחד. באותה שעה פתח יעקב אבינו ואמר: ברוך שם כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד.' אלא שיש מקום לשאול למה ייחס יעקב אבינו את הסתלקות השכינה

לאפשרות שאחד מבניו איננו ראוי או מוכן ליטול את מקומו בשלשלת המסורה שהתחילה עם אברהם אבינו? הרי גם אברהם וגם יצחק העבירו את היעוד הא-לקי לבן אחד בלבד ולא ראינו שנפגמה הבחירה

באברהם בגין כך! אלא, נראה שגזרה ההשגחה שעם ישראל חייב להיות מורכב מ12 שבטים שונים, כשלכל שבט יש אופי אחר ושליחות אחרת בעבודת הבורא ובלימוד התורה. אם אחד ייעדר, אזי קדושת

האומה לא תחול על השאר. לכן, נאנח יעקב לרווחה, ובירך שם כבוד מלכותו ית' כששמע את בניו בקול אחד מקבלים על עצמם עול מלכות שמים.

יש להדגיש שהצורך הזה בקיומן של השבטים והדרכים השונות בעבודת הבורא מתבטא בהלכה. ישנן מצוות שחלותן מחייבת מצב של 'רוב תושביה עליה' היינו שרוב היהודים בעולם יגורו בארץ ישראל. אולם,

אין זה רק ענין שבמספרים. לפי הגמרא (ערכין ל"ב ע"ב), כל השבטים חייבים להיות מזוהים ובמקומם כדי לקיים את התנאי הזה (שיתמלא, כנראה, רק לימות המשיח. השווה רמב"ם, הל' מלכים פי"ב ה"ג).

אמור מעתה, שבלי כל הדרכים הלגיטימיות בעבודת הבורא ולימוד התורה, חסרה נוכחות העם עלי אדמתו, אפילו עם מספר היהודים בא"י משקף יותר מ50% מהיהודים בעולם.

מכל מקום, המסר הוא ברור. בתוך הציבור שומר תו"מ יש מקום ליותר מדיעה אחת ויותר מעמדה אחת (א"כ יש גבולות למותר ולאסור). לגורם אחד אין בכלל רשות לכפות את דעתו על עדה אחרת, ק"ו בן בנו

של ק"ו, לבטל את גיוריו או את גטיו. מי נוהג כך סוטה מדרך התורה, וגורם לשכינה שתסתלק מישראל, כפי שקבע יעקב אבינו ברגעיו האחרונים.

את הדברים האלה דרשתי השבת בבית הכנסת לב אפרת לעי"נ אמי מורתי פעשא בת יוסף ע"ה שנפ' בט' טבת תשנ"א , לפני עשרים שנה. תנצב"]

Renting to Arabs: An Initial take

2010-12-15T12:28:00.003+02:00

R. Aharon Lichtenstein has issued a letter in response to the call by R. Shmuel Eliyahu and others to ban the rental of housing to Arabs in Jewish areas. The reason for this is the abuse of this right by Arab tenants (not all) who blatantly disrespect the religious and quotidien sensitivities of the (generally, Orthodox or Traditional) Jewish residents of Safed. In addition, there is serious reason to think that some of this Arab activity is being underwritten by the Palestinian Authority, for blatantly political reasons.

Nevertheless, it is my conviction that this action by these rabbis was fundamentally wrong, and led to a terrible Hillul HaShem.

My reasons for saying so are:

1) The Hillul HaShem is an expression of their inability to communicate Jewish concerns in a manner that can command anything close to respect. Indeed, the entire situation reminds me of the way the Rambam characterizes the first of the three approaches to Drashot of Hazal. Certainly the result is precisely as Rambam describes there, that the average person ends up mocking the Torah (or worse)

2) The issue is not whether there is a problem (there is). The issue is whether this is a properly halakhic issue (very questionable), and whether it should be pushed as an halakhic issue (IMHO, absolutely, positively not). The reasons for the latter require more careful formulation. Suffice it to say that issuing halakhic diktats, which are moot (at best) is counter productive.

3) Such declarations are only as effective as the number of followers one has, and usually end up ignored. This further undermines rabbinic authority and credibility. Like excommunications, they only testify to weakness, not strength.

4) These rabbis, in particular, lack the ability to be understood by the average person whose awareness of Post-Modern Liberal ideas is far greater than his awareness of Halakhah. They are thus, willy nilly, open to a specious charge of racism.

Making this into a halakhic issue automatically puts the Torah in the sights of the anti-religious Left who control the media and distort the news. This, in turn, empowers the Left to beat up more on the Torah and alienate Traditionally minded, uneducated Jews.

What should be done is for rabbis to learn to speak in political and human rights terms. One should point out that respect goes two ways; that Arabs who live in Jewish neighborhoods must also respect the needs of their Jewish neighbors. Hamulot do move into houses, so the local authorities have to be constantly badgered to follow zoning laws and landlords could be forced to file bonds against infractions. often do so as political actions.

More to the point, the rabbis and allies should go in the Human Rights offensive. If Arabs want to live in Jewish areas, groups of Jews should settle in towns with deep Jewish historical resonance (Sakhnin, Shefaram, Gush Halav etc.) We should tell the Left to put up or shut up about Shimon ha-Tzaddiq (Sheikh Jarash). IOW, this is a political issue so the tools of politics must be used.

Once again, the weakness of a rabbinate that hasn't a clue about general culture and discourse undermines our attempts to judaize the country and to struggle over Eretz Yisrael. Personally, I have no illusions about the signatories to this letter. They are almost all on record against secular education, against gaining the tools to lead to respect of Torah by those who do not accept its discipline.

In a word, the cause is legitimate. The personnae, the means, the mode, the effect and the implications are wrong. Dead wrong.

This is the Fast I Desire

2010-12-03T15:33:00.003+02:00

Earlier this week, there was a lot of debate about the propriety of having the Chief Rabbinate call for a Fast Day to beg for Divine intercession for much needed rain. I thought I'd made my point in the comments to this posting, and let that suffice.

As of last night, I've changed my mind.

The first reason was provided by the inferno raging on Mount Carmel (now apparently caused by Arab arson), which has killed 41 people, destroyed over 5,000 acres of forest and destroyed a kibbutz and hundreds of homes. The wide extent of this horrendous disaster is primarily due to the lack of rain (adumbrated by the lack of proper fire fighting equipment). So much for the argument that the present drought does not constitute an existential danger to us in Eretz Yisrael.

The second motivating reason was supplied by a conversation I had with someone who belittled the entire idea of fasting, prayer and beseeching God to send rain and preserve us. This, ostensibly religious, individual averred that God does not reply to our prayers and that nature will always take its course. When I objected that I could never agree to such a proposition, and that I have seen too many miracles in my life to think otherwise, I received the response that I was primitive and that if I've seen miracles, it's because I was looking for them.

So, here it is. I believe that, irrespective of the initiators of the Fast and Prayer Assembly, there is every reason to support their being held. First, the lack of water and rain is an existential problem for us. In addition, I see absolutely no reason not to continue believing that (even in a world wherein God hides His Countenance from us) rain is a sign of Divine Providence, or that God doesn't answer our prayers (though sometimes the answer is no). Isn't that the message of Hanukkah that God works through what are, prima facie, natural processes. Is this not the essence of נסים נסתרים, of Hidden Miracles? (And, by the way, Ramban actually did believe in Natural Law.) Even granting the danger of people adopting a puerile attitude toward prayer (I'll ask, God will give.), based upon a Deus ex Machina type of attitude, that does not justify not crying out for Divine Intervention.

The fast that God wanted was that we should come to know Him. Or, as the Kotzker said, God is where ever one lets him in.

When we light the candles tonight, we might as well light our souls and burn or skepticism..

Hating the Orthodox/Hating Orthodoxy (Part I)

2010-11-14T15:00:00.000+02:00

A wise Rav once called my attention to that fact that the Midrash refers to Amalek both as a fly and mad dog (Tanhuma, Ki Tetzeh no. 12). These, he offered, refer to different types of Amalek. A fly, on the one hand, is attracted to an open wound. It is drawn to attack corruption. Similarly, there are times when the failings, failure and corruptions of the Jews invite attack from those who search out our failings. Regarding this type of Amalek, the Torah commands us (Deut. 25, 19): 'Thou shalt utterly wipe it out.' It is our responsibility to tend to the festering wounds on the body politic of Israel, and to destroy the Amalek who alights upon them.

There is another type of Amalek, though. Like a rabid dog, its hatred of the Jew is irrational. His is a pathological loathing that no amount of explaining, no amount of attempted (re)conciliation and no amount of self-correction can calm. It matters not whether the Jew is fully observant, or totally assimilated. The very presence of the Jew ignites a deep seated dread and animosity before which the Jew is powerless to act. It is regarding this, senseless, pathological loathing of the 'Eternal Jew' (Der Ewige Jude), that the Torah promised (Ex. 17, 14): 'Verily, I will utterly wipe out the memory of Amalek from beneath the heavens.' There is nothing one can do to address, much less to eradicate this type of Jew hatred. God Himself, in all of His Glory and Power, will undertake that task.

This dual typology is not restricted to anti-Jewish sentiment on the part of Gentiles. It is fully relevant to intra-Jewish relations. In particular, it is manifest in the attitudes of non-observant Jews to their Orthodox brethren. Many, far too many, non-Orthodox Jews relate to observant Jews on a spectrum ranging from cordial dislike to intense animosity to absolutely pathological hated.

Here, too, the Amalek dynamic engenders the animosity. There are numerous open wounds and corruptions that invite (and partly justify) the intense attacks of non-Orthodox Jews upon us. Tomer Persico has recently highlighted this aspect of the dynamic in an essay to which the second portion of this posting will, אי"ה , be devoted. We must forthrightly take responsibility for these festering wounds, these cancers on the body politic, which engender (or give succor to) hatred of Torah and its adherents.

On the other hand, there is an odium religionis judaeorum, a pathological hatred of Orthodoxy and of Orthodox Jews about which we can really do nothing. No amount of civility, no amount of self-adaptation will defuse this type of ingrained hostility. When confronting this type of hostility, one can only stand proud on one's principles, and put one's faith in God that in His good time, such judische selbst-hass will cease to exist.

The challenge, the wise Rav observed, is to have the wisdom to know the difference.

Parshat Hayye Sarah: Too Much Loss

2010-10-29T16:11:00.002+02:00

The Parsha begins by informing us that after receiving the word that Sarah had died, Abraham came to Hevron to eulogize Sarah and to cry for her. The Rav זצ"ל used to emphasize that ordinarily the order is the reverse. First once cries. Only after time passes and perspective returns, can one eulogize the departed and evaluate who they were.

Sometimes, though, one is obligated to suppress one's primal shriek of pain in order to tell the world just who the person was who has gone. That way, the Rav said, we try to involve as many people as possible in mourning the tragedy. Once the eulogy is achieved, we may all let ourselves go and cry out in pain.

This week God recalled unto Himself the souls of two most remarkable women: Rebbetzin Shayndel Feuerstein and RivkA Matitya. They were inspirartions to all who knew them in their חסד, their optimism and their nobility in suffering. They embodied dimensions of עבודת השם, the profudity of which I have never before seen.

I am unsure what mankind did to earn their presence. It is beyond me how He could have taken them away from those that loved and needed them.

ד' נתן וד' לקח יהי שם ד' מבורך.

Tehillim for RivkA bat Tirtzel

2010-10-20T22:33:00.002+02:00

Please say Tehillim for one of the most remarkable and courageous women I have ever encountered: Rivka Matitiah (רבקה בת תירצעל).

Her friends added this to her blogpage:

As most of you know, RivkA has been hospitalized.

I would like to start an open-ended mishmeret tehillim for her. Participants would each take a chapter or chapters of tehillim to be said every day for up to 40 days. The mishmeret will start tomorrow (to give people time to sign up). Please forward this email!

Participants say 'bli neder I will say these tehillim every day as a zechut for a refua shleima for "RivkA bat Tirzel" and say their tehillim, the same chapters, every day.

It's recommended that you have a buddy, in case you cannot say your chapters or in case you forget.

Every day I will, bli neder, say the traditional prayer before reciting tehillim in the morning, and the prayer up on completion every night.

If, be'H, we can keep going after 40 days, we'll create a new page.

Please click this link and choose your tehillim.
http://tehillim.mamash.com/?signup_id=13

Read more: http://coffeeandchemo.blogspot.com/#ixzz12vvrHta4

Allan Nadler on Modern Orthodoxy: Some Initial Observations

2010-10-08T12:19:00.003+02:00

Allan Nadler is, without a doubt, one of the most insightful and brilliant people I know. He is also fearless. He gives no quarter to those whom, he believes, deserve none. His elegant, dazzling and forthright style of writing is always wonderful to read, thought-provoking and (for many) often infuriating. Therefore, when he sets his sights on a subject, attention must be paid. [In the interest of openness and full disclosure, Allan and I have been good friends for (gulp!) almost thirty-five years.]

In the present case, I refer to his review of the latest volume published by YU's Orthodox Forum. That volume revisits the question of the 'The Relationship of Orthodox Jews With Believing Jews of Other Religious Ideologies and Non-Believing Jews.' Nadler's, admittedly disappointed, take on the enterprise is:

Despite the forum’s presumably noble aspirations, many of its essays are marked by a palpable condescension toward “the others,” rendered all the more distasteful precisely because they were made manifest in a forum whose fundamental conceit is that there is something uniquely open, modern and even ecumenical about the Modern Orthodox community. The tangible sense of the book is that this characteristic, though never properly defined, renders it more evolved, if not superior, to the Haredi community.

As far as Modern Orthodox Relations with non-Orthodox Jewish groups, Nadler decries the lack of creativity evinced by the various contributors to the volume. He zeroes in on what he views as the Rav's 'paralyzing paradigm' in which he distinguished between the 'Covenant of Fate,' shared by all Jews, and the 'Covenant of Destiny,' which uniquely belongs to those who are committed to Traditional paradigms of Observance and Belief. He properly notes the fact that, in many ways, Orthodoxy has learned from and adapted much that originated on its left flank. Nevertheless, the impression one gets is that many of the writers related to this topic in much the same conflicted manner as Caesar responded to the crown that was offered him: 'he was very loath to lay his fingers off it,' (Julius Caesar I, ii). In other words, the issue was there, but it was neither embraced nor rejected.

I am the first to admit that Nadler raises many important, painful (for me, at least) points about the present state of Modern Orthodoxy. Still, there are a number of places where I instinctively sense that the reality with which he counters the essays in the book are a lot more nuanced and complex than it would appear. For example, the Haredi/Modern divide cuts both ways, both in Israel and in the Diaspora. While there is much to bemoan about the fabled 'slide to the right' within our community, Haredim have adopted (and are increasingly adopting) key elements of the Modern Orthodox agenda, especially secular education and (unofficially), culture. From another angle, there is the issue of Hiloini-Dati relations in Israel. Here, Nadler highlights the daring and creative essay by my friend and neighbor, R. Yuval Sherlo. R. Sherlo is, indeed, a courageous and forward thinking individual. On the other hand, the dynamic between Hiloni and Dati and Haredi Jews in Israel is so fundamentally different than that which obtains in the US and elsewhere, that I am extremely hesitant to discuss Sherlo's essay with the rest.

In any event, I intend to engage the questions and strictures posed by Professor Nadler in the near future. His questions, though, should be carefully considered by those of us for whom the Modern Orthodox enterprise is not an 'option,' but the essence and promise of Orthodoxy and Judaism in the future.

Hoshana Rabba: Saving the Torah

2010-09-29T09:55:00.003+02:00

Last night, I presented an hour long shiur on Modern Orthodoxy in Israel, at Ma'aleh's Tikkun Leyl Hoshana Rabba. I am proud to say that the room was packed, such that they ended up locking the doors. For those who were unable to attend, the recording and sources are here.

אתמול בלילה, העברתי שיעור במסגרת תיקון ליל הושענא רבה שמקיימת עמותת מעלה. לאלה שלא הגיעו, או שלא יכלו ליכנס מחוסר מקום, ההקלטה והמקורות נמצאים כאן.

יה"ר שיתקבלו תפילותינו ושאיפותינו לרצון ע"י אבינו שבשמים.

פתקא טבא. א גוט קוויטל.

A Clarion Call for Modern Orthodoxy in Israel

2010-09-27T11:07:00.001+02:00

will be delivered by yours truly on Tuesday Night, the Eve of Hoshana Rabba at Heichal Shlomo (Jerusalem) at 12 Midnite.

Another Noah Feldman?

2010-09-20T22:06:00.004+02:00

According to Tablet Magazine, eighteen year old Esther Petrack is on her way to becoming the next body blow to Modern Orthodoxy. Indeed, the writer notes that 'she dealt a blow much less eloquently, though no less severe, to the Modern Orthodox experiment as, say, Noah Feldman did in his New York Times Magazine essay, “Orthodox Paradox”' (about which I had a few things to say myself, some of which are pertinent in this case, as well).

What did she do? She appeared as a contestant on America’s Next Top Model , and was asked by the host, Tyra Banks how she could remain Sabbath observant and keep up with the 24/7 demands of ANTM? She replied that she would be willing to forgo Shabbat in order to advance as a model, and win the ANTM competition.

I agree that Ms. Petrack's response really is a very sad moment for Orthodoxy. More than that, it's an indication of a serious malaise in Modern Orthodoxy, but not for the reasons noted by Dvora Myers in the Tablet piece. As deeply regrettable as Ms. Petrack's response was, it is light years better than Feldman's arrogant, narcissistic temper tantrum; his eloquently hysterical cry for validation and attempt at spiritual parricide. Esther Petrack, on the other hand, failed when tested. She was asked to choose between God and her own ambition, between the dazzling lights of the runway and the flickering lights of the Sabbath candles, between the glamor and fame of the super model and the lesser note of the less than super model. She chose the glamor, the fame, the money....basically she chose her own self-fulfillment. She made her personal choice, as misguided as I (and others) might think it to be. She wasn't the first and, unfortunately, she won't be the last.

Nevertheless, Petrack's case is indicative of deeper issues in the Modern Orthodox community (and, in not a few Israeli cases, the Haredi community, as well). We have accepted the the Western illusion that we can 'have it all'.

We have forgotten, perhaps because of the economic and social success of Orthodox men and women and the relative ease with which one can be observant today, that Judaism demands that man lead, as the Rav זצ"ל never tired of reminding us, a sacrificial and heroic existence. We have lost our nerve, our spiritual backbone. We cannot bring ourselves to say that there is something I desire with all my being, but the Torah says 'No.' The idea of depriving ourselves of anything is just too foreign, too horrifying, too traumatic. Most of us never have to make Esther Petrack's choice. We do have to make choices, though. So, we use our halakhic sophistication to cut corners, square the circle, and make ourselves feel good that we 'only' violated איסורים דרבנן with a שינוי, or walked to that important meeting, even though we know that other Jews might be made to violate Shabbat, as a result, or who knows what else. (And no, not everyone is entitled to the same leeway as Senator Joseph Lieberman.)

In the end, we all too often don't have the spiritual fortitude to take the high road, to stand on our principles and really sacrifice for God and for Torah. That's the message that doesn't get through.
And therein lies both tragedy and challenge.

[Afterward: I can't help thinking about Tyra Bank's reported comment: 'Tyra sternly informed her that ANTM contestants work all the time, seven days a week....Would Esther, Tyra wanted to know, be able to adhere to the ANTM work schedule?' When you think about it, Tyra is advocating slavery. True, it's comfortable and incredibly remunerative. However, it remains a form of bondage; exactly the type of bondage that God sought to eradicate when he blessed us with Shabbat. As philosopher Eliezer Schweid once wrote, 'Unfettered freedom enslaves, submission to God through Shabbat, liberates.' ]

[Postscript: After reading, and receiving comments on this episode, it is clear that the issue is more basic and nuanced than I had previously thought. Ms. Petrack's choice goes far beyond the question of Shabbat, and it is very surprising that the most vociferous Orthodox reactions on the Tablet article ignored that. Ms. Petrack's choice (and the focus on Shabbat) has everything to say about the internalization of contemporary attitudes towards women and their bodies, and all of my readers know that I am fiercely opposed to the radical obsession with צניעות in the Orthodox community. Still, at the end of the day Athens and Jerusalem really are in conflict. Apparently, Athens is winning, hands down.]

Shanah Tovah 5771

2010-09-08T13:28:00.000+03:00

תכלה שנה וקללותיה

חזקו וגילו, כי שוד גמר לתור הוחילו בריתו שמר

לכם, ותעלו ציון ואמר: סולו סולו מסלותיה

תחל שנה וברכותיה:

צרכי עמך ישראל מרובין ודעתן קצרה.

יה"ר שתברך את כל עמך ישראל

בשנה טובה ומתוקה, שנת שלום ושלוה

שנה שבה תצילנו מאויבנו והשגחתך עלינו תתגלה לעין כל

שנת יראת שמים ותלמוד תורה, שנת בריאות ופרנסה

שנה בה נלך יחד לבית ד' ברינה:

לשנה טובה תיכתבו ותיחתמו לחיים טובים ולשלום

מברכים אתכם

ג'פרי, טובי, אבי, אריאל, חנה, אלישבע ומוריה וולף

May you be Inscribed and Sealed for a Happy and Healthy

New Year.

Jeffrey, Toby, Avi, Ariel, Chana, Elisheva and Moriah

Woolf

Sadducees Among Us

2010-09-07T10:40:00.002+03:00

On the night of Yom Kippur, representatives of the Sanhedrin would pay a call to the High Priest and abjure him to follow the dictates of the Oral Law when he entered the Holy of Holies, the following day. 'You are our emissary, and the emissary of the court' before the Holy One, blessed be He (M. Yoma I, 5).

They were forced to do so because, toward the end of the Second Temple era, the High Priesthood had become corrupted. The office was a political commodity, and those who occupied it were all too often unworthy. Their corruption was not only venal, it was spiritual. The High Priests were often adherents of the Sadducean form of Judaism, which denied the validity of the Oral Law and, as a result, was extremely strict (even criminally strict) in its interpretation of the Torah's commands. With the destruction of the Holy Temple (שייבנה במהרה בימינו אמן), the Sadducees lost their basis of power and authority and disappeared. (Although, there are good reasons to think that their influence continued to be felt, and that the Karaites were their reincarnation, of sorts.)

Today, in the Land of Israel, the Sadducees have reappeared in a different guise. Instead of the Priesthood, we have the Rabbinate and its component parts, the Bet Din system and the Marriage and divorce registry. As in Temple times, the highest and most sensitive offices are political footballs. Appointments are far too frequently based upon power politics, and not upon piety and learning. Overwhelmingly, the Hareidim have a lock on these appointments. Those who 'serve' as Dayyanim and City Rabbis are frequently not the best that the Yeshivot have to offer. These are interested only in becoming Rashei Yeshiva. The second and third raters, who need the ample salaries of a judge or a city rabbi are those who are shoe-horned into the positions.

In addition, while there are some fine judges and rabbis in the system, far too many hold the rabbinate, the State of Israel and anyone who is not Hareidi in absolute, total contempt. Thus, they impose upon the Jews of Israel rulings that evince insensitivity and an attitude of aggressive violence that is worthy of condemnation. For them it's no big deal. They don't care about anyone but their own community. They are not our emissaries!!!!

They are not the emissaries of the courts, that is of Orthodox Rabbinic Tradition!!!!

Consider:

1) The refusal of the Rabbinate to recognize conversions undertaken by the Army rabbinate is merely the latest example of the high handed, sectarian manner in which the Rabbinate tramples the rulings of Hazal, Rishonim and Aharonim. The wholesale ex post facto invalidation of conversions and divorces, which is unprecedented in the History of Judaism, is a gross violation of the fundamental principle of collegiality among rabbinic courts that allowed Halakhah to keep the Jews alive as Jews for millennia. The arrogance and temerity of these people, who could not shine the shoes of the true גדולי תורה whose rulings they belittle (e.g. ר' חיים עוזר גרודזנסקי זצ"ל) boggles the imagination.

They are not our emissaries, or the emissaries of Bet Din!!!

2) Hazal, Rishonim and the great among the Aharonim were concerned with the plight of the Agunah. The present Rabbinate does precisely the opposite. They keep women in chains. They refuse to countenance even the remedies that Halakhah has recognized for centuries, to free women from recalcitrant husbands. They blithely overturn divorces and don't give a damn if they create mamzerim.

They are not our emissaries, or the emissaries of Bet Din!!!

3) The Torah, as R. Israel Isserlein asserted לעשות נחת רוח לנשים, insofar as that was possible (and I am more conservative- small c - in this issue than most). The Rabbinate (in the person of the aparatchik who bears the exalted title רב המקומות הקדושים), drives women away from the holy places of Israel, in the name of modesty. He immorally siezed 30% of the women's section at the Kotel, leaving the daughters of Hannah little or no access to the remnant of our Temple. He drove women from קבר שמעון הצדיק. The same happens all over Israel.

At a time when more and more Jews seek God and Qedushah, the Rabbinate desecrates God's Holy and Ineffable Name in public, drives His people away from the Torah's Life giving waters.

They are not our emissaries, or the emissaries of Bet Din!!!

On the Eve of 5771, the Torah demands that we rectify our situation. Our continued life in the Holy Land requires that we come closer to God and the observance of all of the mitzvot. Ironically, I have come to the conclusion that in the present constellation of factors it is impossible to man the rabbinate with rabbis and judges who care about the whole Jewish People, and really care about the Torah. I wish that were possible. The alternative is to abolish the rabbinate, or to set up a parallel system that will create facts on the ground that the Sadducees will be unable to ignore.

יהי רצון שתשרה שכינה במעשה ידינו!

Teqi'at Shofar, Heroism and Devotion to the Nation

2010-09-06T11:15:00.002+03:00

Barukh HaShem: Our Eighteenth Year in Israel

2010-08-20T17:19:00.004+03:00

Seventeen years ago yesterday, we had the zekhut to make Aliyah. After years of planning, longing, scrimping and saving; we were able to undo the historic wrong when (for various and sundry reasons) my family left Eretz Yisrael and settled in New England.

Yesterday, Nefesh b'Nefesh brought yet another planeload of olim, and I found myself thinking about an early scene in the movie Exodus. Lee J. Cobb (the quasi-Ben Gurion character) greets new immigrants to Gan Dafna and describes how when he and his brother came to Eretz Yisrael there were no little cakes, no bands, only mosquitoes the size of horses.

When we made Aliyah, we were met by a little Old Lady from AACI, who told us to come make an appointment with a counselor, and disappeared, leaving us to the tender mercies of Misrad ha-Qelitah (and, later, to Misrad ha-Penim. To this day, in our family, if you want to tell someone where to go, you say: לך למשרד הפנים!). Essentially, we made Aliyah with the help of God and a lot of support and advice by friends (especially Israeli friends, always ask Israelis. Eventually, you'll come close to the answer to the perpetual question: How do Israelis do it?)

Anyway, no one gave us our Teudot Zehut on our arrival. There were no massive crowds or dignitaries. We were, in fact, the only US Olim on our flight (or that week or that month, from what I can tell). We lived through wars and strikes and terror attacks. We raised our five children to be proud, God fearing Jews, in the Land God gave to His People. It has been a tremendous challenge. It has been very hard.

Most of all, living here is a life worthwhile.

So, the arrival of the Nefesh b'Nefesh flights has made me feel (finally) like a vatiq, a veteran. To the new Olim I can only say:

Brukhim ha-Bai'm. You will have your own challenges. One thing I can assure you all, though. You have chosen to live a worthwhile life, in which every step you take and every quotidien deed you do, has eternal value for the Eternal People.

On the Rotem Conversion Imbroglio: From Rosner's Domain

2010-07-24T21:55:00.005+03:00

[I am honored to be one of Shmuel Rosner's interviewees. The following appears Rosner's Domain.]

1. Your view is that “American non-Orthodox Jews are being largely misled” on the conversion bill. What is it that they don't understand?

I get the distinct impression that many American Jews think that the Rotem Bill disenfranchises them as Jews and renders them ineligible under the Law of Return. This is simply not true. The eligibility of all Jews, including converts from the major Jewish denominations, for citizenship in Israel is explicitly upheld in the law, based upon

an explicit Supreme Court decision. The bill in no way excludes any Diaspora Jew from Israeli citizenship, or from his/her rightful place in the Jewish State.

The Rotem bill is intended to alleviate a domestic Israeli problem. Personal status issues in Israel are determined by the Orthodox rabbinate (a point to which I’ll relate further on). For reasons that are too involved to describe here, the rabbinical court system has fallen under the control of a cadre of Haredi rabbis (and politicians) whose reading of Halakhah is extremely narrow. What they demand as a minimum Jewish commitment by the prospective convert is far beyond that required by normative Orthodox standards. Many of these Haredi rabbis even refuse to recognize conversions performed by fully qualified Orthodox Rabbinical courts, both in Israel and abroad, acting along those more moderate standards. They have gone so far as to overturn conversions that had been performed decades before, leading to many personal tragedies. To the best of my knowledge, such lack of collegiality is unprecedented in the history of Halakhah.

The Rotem bill significantly expands the circle of rabbis who are authorized to deal with conversion, in accordance with traditional Halakhah. Most importantly, it reinforces the authority of the special courts for conversion that were set up independently of the established Battei Din. It also prohibits the revocation of any conversion performed by a duly authorized Bet Din in Israel. This will hopefully break the conversion log jam, and allow Russian immigrants, and others, to convert to Judaism in a way that will be accepted by the overwhelming majority of the Jews of Israel.

2. Misled by whom - and what is the purpose of misleading them?

Prominent non-Orthodox rabbis have been refreshingly honest in this regard. Rabbi David Ellenson, a noted historian of Halakhah and president of the Hebrew Union College, has admitted that he opposes the bill because it places conversion under the supervision of the Chief Rabbinate. That, in turn, will prevent the non-Orthodox denominations from advancing their desire, which is understandable from their point of view, to achieve equal standing in matters of conversion, and personal status generally, in Israel.

The tragedy is that by adopting this position, in the present circumstances, the non-Orthodox streams are playing into the hands of the obstructionists, who also oppose the bill. They will, thereby, undermine a brave attempt to advance a moderate, welcoming and open approach to conversion in Israel.

3. Don't you see any problem with a bill officially declaring that "authority" over conversion will be an authority of the rabbinate? And even if you don't - can you understand why other people might see it as problematic?

Giving the Chief Rabbinate authority over conversion causes me concern, and I certainly see it as potentially problematic. I am convinced, though, that this does not vitiate the very positive contribution that this law will make. The many rabbis and leaders who desire to resolve the anomaly of Israeli Jews who are not halakhically Jewish will certainly do everything to prevent obstructionist elements within the Chief Rabbinate from undoing its salutary effect. There is, after all, a limit to the degree that the Chief Rabbinate can interfere with the extant conversion structure. Furthermore, it should be kept in mind that the Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Shlomo Amar, has been very supportive of the moderates.

4. Do you think world Jewry should have a say on such matters, concerning Israel's Jewish identity?

This is a very thorny question. I agree with David Ben-Gurion’s commitment that Israel should not act unilaterally when it comes to questions of Jewish identity. That’s why I am pleased that the Rotem bill does not impact upon the Law of Return. And that is also why I favor government support of non-Orthodox religious and educational initiatives (E.g. TALI schools). Every effort to deepen Jewish knowledge, self-expression, historical awareness and self-identification is invaluable to the survival of Israel as a Jewish State.

I think we can take our cue, in this regard, from the era of the Second Temple. At the time, there were three (or more) ‘streams’ of Judaism. They differed vigorously, and vociferously, on many different questions of religious belief and observance. However, they did not differ on the basic definition of Jewish identity.

In that light, we need to face the fact that there is a significant disconnect between the way many (if not most) non-Orthodox Diaspora Jews define Judaism and their relationship to it. American Jews are characterized by a Post-Modern, absolute individualism. Most, as a result, bristle at the very idea that any person or institution can decide who is or who is not Jewish. On the other hand, the over 80% of Israeli Jews who describe themselves as either Orthodox or Traditional (including many Israeli Conservative Jews) see things very differently. Their conception of Judaism is not totally subjective, and their obligation to the Jewish people, as a whole, and their strong connection to Jewish collective history and memory is obligating and formative.

In other words, here, the seamless combination of Jewish nationhood and Judaism, which has characterized Judaism from time immemorial, is very much alive. As a result, conversion is not simply a matter of religious self-expression.

The late Professor Jacob Katz noted that only two issues can create a real schism in the Jewish body politic: Personal Status and the Calendar. Differences concerning Shabbat, Kashrut, prayer, or anything else, divide Jews, but do not tear them asunder. Once the ethnic-tribal fabric of the nation is frayed, once they are no longer able to unquestionably marry one another – an extremely dangerous situation develops. As an historian, and not simply as an observant Jew, it is my conviction that this societal unity, what we call ‘be-yahad,’ is a critical element for our survival. It is, in many ways, more critical than the quality of arms and material with which we equip our army. That is why I believe that personal status issues in the Jewish State must be based upon a halakhic common denominator, as traditionally understood. At the same time, I maintain, in the strongest terms, that moderate and wide parameters that millennia of halakhic tradition does provide, must be actively applied in matters of conversion.

5. In your view, should Israel pass the bill - disregarding world Jewish opinion? Disregarding the price in alienation?

As I write these lines, the media has reported that Prime Minster Netanyahu has tabled the Rotem Bill for six months. I hope that this time-out will be used to reach common ground on this very sensitive issue. Israel is the homeland of all Jews. All Jews should share in its joys, and we count upon their support in hours of travail. Especially now, with the prospect of a nuclear Iran looming, we need to affirm that which unites us.

I pray that all involved will work together to transcend their differences to arrive at an acceptable resolution of the issue.

A Commercial Announcement: Scholar in Residence

2010-07-02T01:29:00.002+03:00

I am pleased to announce that I will (אי"ה) be spending Spring semester, 2011 Yeshiva University as a Visiting Professor.

During that time, I will be available to visit interested communities for a Shabbat as Scholar in Residence. I have a broad list of interesting , and contemporary, topics to present.

Anyone interested, is warmly invited to contact me at: woolfj@gmail.com.

Emanuel Redux

2010-06-27T16:37:00.002+03:00

My primal reaction to the events in Emanuel produced a lot of comments, and I am greatful to everyone for their observations and insights. I've not posted further on the subject, because I am also not a little confused by it all. Looking things over from a different side of the ocean, it really is a very complex, nuanced situation. Based, in part, on the incisive observations of my readers I've come to the following, developing, conclusions.

1) In stark contrast to the RZ/MO world, the Ashkenazi Haredi world suffers from serious anti-Sephardic bias, which borders on (and frequently crosses) the line of racism. It is an open secret that Ashkenazi Haredi (AH) institutions discriminate against Sephardic students. There are quotas for them in yeshivot ans seminaries. (The סמינר הישן in Jerusalem is just one example.) Sephardic Shiddukhim are shunned, leading to desperate efforts by them to 'pass.' They change their names, dress, family customs...whatever it takes to make it, according to the benchmark set by the AH community. I suspect (and I confess that I don't know) that some of the Sephardim who were against integrating the school in Emanuel fall into that category.

2) There is, as a number of the comments noted, another side of the story. The parents in Emanuel, who were today released from jail, claim that the problem may be found in the inappropriate level of religious observance and comportment among the girls in question. In other words, the parents want an elite, tribally and religio-culturally homogenous school environment wherein they can shelter their children from baleful influences.

Personally, I have a real problem with that kind of elitism. What happened to kiruv? What happened to Ahavat Yisrael? What happened to Torah is for everyone? On the other hand, isn't there a fundamental right of association and lack of association? [Here, the fact that the school in question receives government funds may be a moderating factor.] From this vantage point, as much as I find the behavior of the Slonimer Hasidim (and the loathsome apparatchiks of the Yahadut ha-Torah party) repulsive, there is definitely a civil liberties issue here that got lost in all of the screaming.

3) Hypocrisy cuts both ways. Many of the same fur-clad righteous (צדיקים אין פעלץ) who blasted the racism in Emanuel grew up and send their children to schools that are no less elitist, no less supercillious and no less obnoxious than those against which they took aim.

4) The Supreme Court, once again, is the villain here trying to be the dictator populae. OK, so they want integration in the school. Why do it in Une, when there are a mere three weeks left to the school year? They sit on cases for years without a verdict. Here, though, they send people to jail when there was absolutely nothing to be done. Why not issue an inunction that eveything has to be resolved by Rosh Hodesh Elul, and avoid ripping the country apart? The only reasonable explanation is that they wanted to flex their muscles and stick it to the Haredim in Emanuel, who are the flotsam and jetsam of the Haredi world, as it is. (This was a point made to me by Ben Chorin, though I don't agree with every aspect of his take.)

I Could Just Scream

2010-06-16T22:57:00.003+03:00

I honestly, honestly don't know what to say about the Haredi uprising against the Supreme Court ruling integrating the Immanuel Bais Yaakov.

I want to scream. How low can they go? How disgusting can they be? These people are preaching racism in the name of the Torah. Where the hell do they come off?

And just how Uncle Tommy can Shas be? They were elected to defend the honor of Sephardic Jewry. So they sit there and take obscene abuse from their Ashkenazi handlers, and aid and abet a Hillul HaShem.

And all that is going on while Iran is sending a flotilla to start God knows what...

Yup. Sometimes, all you can do is scream....

Flotilla Ship to Israeli Navy: "Go Back to Auschwitz".

2010-06-05T21:38:00.001+03:00

We've discovered Helen Thomas' Scriptwriter.

We Conned the World

2010-06-04T14:18:00.003+03:00

I've been flooded all week with ideas, emotions and indignation in the wake of the lynch perpetrated by the world on Israel. Adrenaline usually gets me writing. Too much adrenaline, however, appears to paralyze.

So, Erev Shabbat, as Israel battles back (for once) against the evil insanity of Islamofascism and its Western useful idiots (especially the Israeli version), I decided that the best summary is this brilliant video that has taken the blogosphere by storm.

The New Crusaders: On the Gaza Flotilla

2010-05-28T10:55:00.003+03:00

[I submitted this piece to a few papers. I fear, though, it might be a bit too esoteric for that. In the meantime, I've come to agree that we should let them in, and finally put the lie to the idea that Gaza is besieged.]

The Gaza Flotilla: A Medieval Moment

Jeffrey R. Woolf

The flotilla that is wending its way to the Gaza coast is a quintessentially post-modern enterprise; a perfect internet moment. Different codes, different world-views, and different scales of values are in play here. Ironically, the fundamentally disconnected character of the encounter is apparent to none of the players. From the vantage point of the ivory tower, we medievalists can discern the real contours of the unfolding drama.

On the one hand, there are the participants. Driven on by a burning sense of mission, they are determined to smash the inhuman siege of Gaza. Their determination to bring Justice to PalestinePalestine to redeem it from occupation and oppression. Pious Christians all, they sallied forth with the cry: Deus lo VultHumanitas et Justitia volunt. Phenomenologically, they are crusaders. invokes that of their ancestors a millennium ago. They, too, travelled by boat to (God wills it!), on their lips. The intrepid sailors en route at present, are similarly driven by their abiding faith in universal Justice and Liberal Humanism. Their cry might be:

Then, there are the recipients of this aid; the suffering masses of Gaza. There is no question that there are many innocent victims among them. They, however, live in a very different world than their putative saviors. Their society resembles the Palestine into which the ancestors of the Gaza flotilla sallied forth in 1099. It is a totally integrated world that revolves around a deep and abiding Islamic faith. It is a highly stratified world, in which those in power exploit the masses for advancement, both their own and that of the religio-political ideals that they share with those masses. Believing that God has placed them in power, the Hamas government of Gaza (as the Ummayids, Abassids, Fatimids, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Ottomans and Fatahids) sieze and control the material sustenance the Israel sends to Gaza, in order to strengthen its grip on the strip. Ad majorem Dei gloriam.

And then there are the Jews.

A trained medievalist cannot but be stunned by the feeling that he’s seen this all before. The Jew poisons the wells of Gaza (this time with low grade uranium), and gleefully tortures Palestinian children (as with Simon of Trent). The Jew is rapacious, unfeeling and diabolical. If he sends tens of millions of tons of supplies to the civilians of Gaza, these are either too little, corrupted or ignored. This is certainly understandable. The Jew is eternally condemned for the original sin. Once, it was deicide. For the humanitarians of Sweden, they are guilty of the original sin of returning to Palestinedhimma and establishing their state in the ‘House of Islam.’ For Jews, it is frightening confirmation of the Passover refrain: ‘In every generation they rise up to destroy us.’ and succeeding. For Muslims, they are guilty of the original crime of violating the

The flotilla that is wending its way to Gaza is quintessentially post-modern. It exemplifies the encounter of different, totalistic world-views and cultures that do not understand the ‘other.’ It is also typically medieval. Sincerely held, Faith based worlds, fueled by messianic fervor that only a medievalist can appreciate.

What to Do When You're Feeling Overwhelmed....Write

2010-05-24T22:02:00.002+03:00

I confess that, of late, I've been feeling quite overwhelmed.

On the home front there's teaching, a last minute rush by dilatory graduate students to get their research proposals in on time, research, writing, two deadlines for book reviews, the Bat Mitzvah of our youngest, preparing for Summer School, and marketing and preparing DKT's upcoming trip to the Baltics (aka Lita).

Then there are the larger issues, about which I've written so often here but whose real resolution I am skeptical about really affecting. You can't fight every battle, as deserving as they all are. I think I know which one I'll pick to fight. I've already started by picking up the pen in the cause.

You can guess which one I've decided on.

Join me in the Baltics!!!!

2010-05-18T09:55:00.006+03:00

Choral Synagogue, Vilna

It's official!!! I will be personally leading, P-G, Deluxe Kosher Tours' upcoming trip to the Baltic, from August 1-9.

In addition to the breathtaking beauty of the area, we will visit Vilna, Volozhin, Riga and Kovna. (I am planning a few, off the beaten track visits, too).

As an added attraction, we will be joined by best-selling author, Naomi Ragen. Naomi is currently at work on a new novel with Lita as a backdrop.

Check out our website:
http://www.deluxekoshertours.com for details.

No Other Nation Will Ever Understand

2010-05-11T07:39:00.003+03:00

Jerusalem Day 5770: Time is Fluid

2010-05-10T13:43:00.002+03:00

An approachable past, an anchored present and an attainable future are the basic components of the traditional Jewish sense of time and of history. I first learned that lesson from the Rav זצ"ל. Later, my appreciation of this sophisticated view of history was deepened by studying with the late Yosef Haim Yerushalmi, and by reading Geoffrey Barraclough, Mircea Eliade and Aron Gurevitch.

That kind of merging of Past, Present and Future are reinforced for me daily by living in Israel.

As I write these words, I am seated in the Reading Room of the National Library in Givat Ram (Jerusalem). It's very quiet here, as the patrons of the library are (largely) well-behaved. There are great minds seated around me, and there are great researches into the past of our people, our religion and our civilization developing on the perennial green tables that furnish this room. The stillness, for me, invokes the timeless nature of the pursuits that its patrons undertake.

Yet, it was not always so quiet or pastoral here. Forty three years ago, Jordanian guns opened up on West Jerusalem and shelled it. The shells fell not far from where I am sitting. The verdant campus outside was a staging area for the Israeli counter-attack that liberated Jerusalem, and the Temple Mount. Some of the predecessors of my colleagues in this room were killed either by shells, or in the fight to liberate the City of God, bedrock of Judaism and the Jewish People, Jerusalem.

In my imagination I can hear the shells scream overhead. They resound in the silence of this room, where the eternity of Torah and of Israel is retrieved, recorded and advanced. The quiet determination of the scholars here, along with the whispers of eternity, betray a secret that our enemies have never quite understood. Long after the Jihadists, long after the Radical Left and Radical Right have all been consigned to the dustbin of history, there will be Jews in Jerusalem; celebrating Jerusalem; studying Torah, researching our past and securing our future, here.

That's not kitsch. It's not maudlin jingoism. It's an existential reality. All you need to do is listen to the echoes of the shells in the silence, and the cry of הר הבית בידינו.

אני אחיך

2010-05-04T10:15:00.007+03:00

This song is being roundly condemned for incitement against Israeli Democracy, and the singer has received death threats. ) (Words and music here.)

The truth is that the song is really a heartfelt (though not too musical) protest on behalf of Israeli soldiers, patriotism and against such paragons of Israeli patriotism as Anat Kamm, Uri Blau, Ha-Aretz and the New Israel Fund. The Left, it would appear, is becoming increasingly desperate to silence the Jewish majority of the state of Israel. As it's masthead publication puts it: Haaretz: 'The Newspaper for Thinking People' (as long as they think as we do).

"אני אחיך" / מילים ולחן: עמיר בניון

אני שומר לך על הזהות

אני מגן לך על הילדים

אני מוסר את נפשי בשביל המשפחה שלך

ואתה יורק לי בפנים

אחרי שלא הצליחו להרוג אותי בחוץ

אתה בא והורג אותי מבפנים

לא ראיתי את אמא כבר חודש

לא את בני לא את ביתי לא את אשתי

אני מסתער תמיד קדימה

עם הגב שלי אליך

ואתה משחיז את הסכין

יותר מכל, המחשבה הזאת שורפת לי את הנשמה

ואתה, איך אתה עוד לא מבין

אני אחיך,אתה אויב

אתה שונא אותי אני אוהב

כשאני בוכה

אתה צוחק מאחרי גבי

אתה הורג אותי

אתה הרי אחי

אני עתיד

אתה עבר

וההווה בינינו נשבר

אני רעב למענך אתה זולל וסובא

כשגרוני יבש אתה שותה שיכר

הפה שלי חתום תמיד למען ביטחונך

אבל אתה מוסר אותי לזר

אני אחיך, אתה אויב

אתה שונא אותי אבל אני אוהב

כשאני בוכה

אתה צוחק תמיד מאחרי גבי

אתה הורג אותי

אתה הרי אחי

אתה הרי אחי מִי שֶׁבֵּרַךְ אֲבוֹתֵינוּ אַבְרָהָם יִצְחָק וְיַעֲקב

הוּא יְבָרֵךְ אֶת חַיָּלֵי צְבָא הֲגַנָּה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל,

הָעוֹמְדִים עַל מִשְׁמַר אַרְצֵנוּ וְעָרֵי אֱלהֵינוּ

מִהלְּבָנוֹן וְעַד מִדְבַּר מִצְרַיִם

וּמִן הַיָּם הַגָּדוֹל עַד לְבוֹא הָעֲרָבָה ובכל מקום שהם בַּיַּבָּשָׁה בָּאֲוִיר וּבַיָּם.

אני אחיך, אתה אויב

אתה שונא אותי אבל אני אוהב

כשאני בוכה

אתה צוחק תמיד מאחרי גבי

אתה הורג אותי

אתה הרי אחי

כי אדוני אלוהיכם ההולך עמכם

להלחם לכם עם אויבכם להושיע אתכם ונאמר אמן.

Ani Yehudi

2010-05-03T16:07:00.004+03:00

For years I've been saying that Israel is, Barukh HaShem, becoming increasingly Jewish (something that is driving the troglodytes of Schocken Street and Ramat Aviv crazy). This video, courtest of RivkA, says it better than I ever could.

Censorship, Islam and South Park

2010-04-22T22:27:00.004+03:00

Yael at Oleh Girl has just posted this video. It is self-explanatory and is a must see.

(Yael's blog is a must read, on its own merits, and it has been that from her pre-Aliyah life. She is, without a doubt, one of the best Aliyah success stories ever.)

The Unholy Trinity that Undermine's Israel's Existence

2010-04-21T08:57:00.004+03:00

Martin Sherman has laid out the Orwellian circumstance in which Israel finds itself. Entrenched, self-destructive and ideologically Leftist elites in the Judiciary, the media and academia undermine and thwart Israel's Democracy and, ultimately, its very existence. I wish this were a crazy nightmare, but it's all too real.

Who really runs Israel?

Martin Sherman explains why Israeli election results are often meaningless
Martin Sherman

Consider the following remarkable facts regarding Israel’s parliamentary history:

(a) For 20 of the 28 years between 1977- when the Likud first won the elections on a platform of "Greater Israel - and 2005 - when a Likud government withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in stark contradiction to its electoral pledges - the Israeli government was headed by a prime minister from the Likud.

(b) When the Likud came to power, the entire Sinai Peninsula was under Israeli control, any suggestion that Israel might evacuate the Jordan Valley was virtually unthinkable, any thought of dividing Jerusalem was tantamount to blasphemy, and any hint of withdrawal from the Golan was almost akin to treason.

(c) Yet today, over a third of a century since Menachem Begin’s dramatic electoral victory, all the above are either already faits accomplis or are widely considered inevitable in the not-to-distant future.

This clearly demonstrates that although the "right-wing" consistently wins elections, it never really gets into power. It is a phenomenon that can only be explained by the existence of some influence extraneous to the political system that imposes policy outcomes that diverge radically from those that should be expected from regular operation of political routine.

As such it is a phenomenon that has virtually emptied the Israeli democratic process of any significance.

Thus, Yitzhak Rabin who in1992 was elected on the basis a series of hawkish "nays," radically switched his policy mid-term, transforming them all to dovish "yeas" which begot the Oslowian fiasco. Even more dramatically, Ariel Sharon, elected on a platform opposing any notion of unilateral withdrawal, adopted precisely such policy, advocated by his Labor party rival and rejected by the electorate.

Far-sighted wisdom?

Two claims not infrequently espoused to account for these cases of flagrant disregard for electoral pledges must be summarily repudiated.

The first is that they were the result of international - particularly US - pressure. However, nothing could be further from the truth. In the case of Oslo, the entire unfortunate process was covertly conceived exclusively by Israelis and Palestinians in remote Scandinavia without any international coercion. In fact, the PLO, cosignatory to the accords that emerged from this ill-considered initiative, was still listed a terror organization by the US governments at the time of their conclusion. Likewise, the disastrous disengagement was not a product of American pressure. Quite the reverse, Washington initially opposed unilateral initiatives and had to be convinced by Sharon as to the merits of the idea.

The second claim that needs to be dispelled is that these mid-term policy reversals reflect some far-sighted wisdom in dovish policies of territorial concessions and political appeasement that made the post-election abandonment of more hawkish political platforms inevitable.

Indeed, one of the most astonishing aspects of the Israeli political system is of ostensibly "hawkish" politicians adopting, once in power, "dovish" policies they previously repudiated. After all, these policies have consistently and continuously proved disastrous failures.

So if the most dramatic political initiatives over the last two decades cannot be attributed to international pressure, or to the far-sighted wisdom of Israeli leaders, or the preferences of the Israeli electorate, what can it be ascribed to?

Trinity of influence

The answer is to be found more in Israel's sociological structure than its political mechanisms. More specifically, it lies in composition of its civil society elites who control the legal establishment, dominate the mainstream media, and hold the sway in academia (specifically in the social sciences and humanities faculties - where the politically-correct dominates.) These groups comprise an interactive trinity of influence that in effect dominates the socio-political process in Israel, sets the direction of the national agenda at the strategic level and imposes, with great effectiveness, its views on elected politicians and the general public.

Thus, for example, the legal elite can impede any assertive initiative that the elected polity may wish to implement. Similarly, the media elite can promote any concessionary initiative that the elected polity may be loath to implement. And when the stamp of professional approval is required for either, the amenable academic elite is ever-ready to provide it.

It requires little analytical acumen to identify that these were the mechanisms that generated most of the major political processes over the last two decades. Accordingly, the ability to understand the political realities in Israel is contingent on understanding the worldview and the cost-benefit analysis of these powerful and influential elites.

For them, the approval of peer groups abroad is far more important in determining their agenda than the approval of Israeli citizens at home. Invitations to deliver keynote speeches at high-profile conventions, sought-after appointments as visiting scholars at prestigious institutes, lucrative grants for research projects are far more forthcoming if one in identified as empathetic to the Palestinian narrative than as committed to the Zionist one.

This reality has far reaching effects. For example, it prevents the adherents and all those under their considerable influence from portraying the Arabs in general, and the Palestinians in particular, in their true light. After all, such an assertive portrayal would make the dominant elites' worldview look outrageously irresponsible. They are thus compelled to depict the Arab/Palestinian side in a far more favorable light than reality warrants while portraying the Israeli side in a far more negative one - otherwise there would be no justification in handing over areas of vital strategic importance to Arab/Palestinian control.

Grave consequences

After all, to acknowledge Arab brutality and backwardness, to focus on the repression of women, the suppression of dissidents, oppression of homosexuals, to draw attention to the harassing of critical journalists and the hounding of political opponents would gravely undermine the prudence of any policy advocating establishment of a Palestinian entity barely a mile from the national parliament, overlooking Ben-Gurion airport, adjacent to the Trans-Israel highway and atop crucial water resources.

It is difficult to overstate the gravity of the consequences that the imposition of elite political preferences on Israeli policy has - for both the preservation of Israeli security and Israel democracy.

Firstly, with regard to security, the aversion to drawing attention to the real nature of the Arab world prevents Israel from persuasively presenting its case and creating international understanding for the dire dangers that it faces in contending with such adversaries.

Secondly, with regard to democracy, the dramatic elite-induced policy reversals since the early 90s constitute a powerful disincentive for partaking in the electoral. For what is the point of voting any party or person into power if they end up implementing precisely what was rejected by the voters?

Contending with this phenomenon is no easy matter within the constraints of democratic norms, and the operational details of a strategy to address it are beyond the scope of this article. However, whatever form such strategy may take, its point of departure would need to be an accurate articulation of the problem and its overriding objective to publicly expose those responsible for the dangerous distortions they impose on the nations political mechanisms, unveil their myopia and/or their malice, undermine their standing, and erode their status. This is the only way to neutralize their influence and contain enormous damage that they inflict on the nation.

A Shiur for Yom ha-Zikkaron and Yom ha-Atzma'ut

2010-04-19T20:40:00.002+03:00

This is the link to a shiur I gave this evening, during the transition from Yom Ha-Zikkaron to Yom ha-Atzma'ut in our shul, Congregation Lev Efrat. (The shiur was in Hebrew)

The topic was: האם יש קדושה בדגל?

You can access the sources, here.

Yom ha-Zikkaron 5770

2010-04-18T18:55:00.003+03:00

---Natan Alterman (1910-1970)

העולם, כולל יהודי הגולה, לעולם לא יבין ולא יעריך את המחיר ששילמנו עבור עצמאותנו ועבור היותנו ערבים זה לזה לעתיד עמנו. הוא לא יבין את פגישת העיניים המבינה בין שני ישראלים בשדה הקרב, או למשמע בשורת על פיגוע. הוא לא יבין את עוצמת נחישותו של העם הזה להיאחז לנצח על אדמת המולדת, בעזרת ה' יתברך. אולם, אנחנו מבינים. ואלקים מבין. ויותר מזה, אנו לא צריכים

Ahavat ha-Torah

2010-04-16T11:50:00.001+03:00

(Hattip: Talmud Blog)

Kollel 'Culture' II

2010-04-16T07:50:00.003+03:00

The comments that were posted to my previous remarks are so important, that I decided to respond to them in a post of their own.

1) Malnutrition etc.- It is an open secret among welfare workers and therapists that 'holy poverty' leads to hunger, malnutrition, spousal and child abuse, abandonment, divorce, and sarvanut. These phenomena are not confined to the Baal Teshuvah population (as many FFB Haredim would like to believe). The tip of the iceberg has been addressed by Haredi columnist, Tali Farkas, on YNET.
(It's also not irrelevant to mention that the fantasy that everyone should be a Gadol ba-Torah and only learn Gemara is a central factor in the ever increasing phenomenon of Juvenile Delinquency, crime, abuse and abandonment of Judaism by Haredi men and women.)

2) At the same time, Haredim have perfected the art of exploiting the system (not, per se, contemnable). In the process, the community has developed an attitude of entitlement that is absolutely contemnable. The attitude is: You owe me a living and have to work to provide it.

3) It was observed that the statistics are questionable, because many Arabs and Haredim work 'off the books.' The statistics are easily available here. (Thanks to Religion and State for the link.) Not a few Haredim work off the books. However, I fail to see how that helps. They don't declare the income and they do absolutely nothing to contribute to the country. On the contrary, they both work off the books and take government and Kollel stipends. In brief, they're guilty of theft. Such people are halakhically רשעים and disqualified to serve as witnesses.

What should be done? I'm afraid that, given the doctrinal inflexibility of the Haredi leadership, the only thing to do is to drastically limit support of Kollelim, and largely stop that support after a certain age. Further support can be provided promising students, and those who commit to enter education (with education degrees). At the same time, the government will have to create the scenarios to train Kollel students in whatever field they want.

There will be incredible upheavals over this. However, if the abject failure of the rabbinic ban on the internet is any indication, the effort will ultimately succeed ויגדיל תורנה ויאדירה.

An Existential Danger: Kollel 'Culture'

2010-04-15T16:05:00.006+03:00

Who hasn't discussed it innumerable times? Who hasn't asked, wistfully, how long the culture of institutionalized poverty for which Kollel culture is responsible can sustain itself? Who hasn't deeply resented the supercillious attitude of Rashe Yeshivah and their students toward equally religious (and learned) Jews who (together with their spouses) work long hours not only to support their families, but to sustain those who have decided that they 'deserve' to be supported in their studies?
Who, in the non-Hareidi world, doesn't resent the outright Hillul HaShem that Life long Learning on other people's חשבון causes?

And, among those who know, who hasn't been outraged by the price that this 'holy poverty' exacts upon the families subjected to it? Malnutrition, broken families, drugs, juvenile delinquency, and all of the evils illnesses of Egypt accrue to families who subscribe (or are subscribed) to the idiotic idea that everyone should learn Torah full time; that everyone will be the Gadol HaDor and that getting a job and supporting one's family (and, a fortiori, getting the education required to make a living) is a terrible shame and should block the marriages of such a person's children.

For whatever reason, those of us who know better, are silent. We have bought into the idea that we are second class Jews. Our Torah is no Torah. Our mitzvot are of lesser value. Our lives, like those of the Gibeonites, only validated because we are the water-carriers and the wood choppers of the Yeshiva World, whose denizens protect us from our enemies. God, they would have it, prefers their Torah to that of those who work all day and study by night (מיעוט שינה); who defend the lives of six million Jews and learn whenever they can.

Now it appears, that the Kollel Culture is not only a drain, it's a danger. According to a recent study, reported in today's Jerusalem Post, universal Kollel study ad infinitum is an existential danger to the State of Israel:

--------
As the latest “State of the Nation Report: Society, Economy and Policy” by Jerusalem’s Taub Center for Social Policy Studies warns, growing segments of our society are ill-equipped to participate in modern economic processes. Being left behind doesn’t just impact them and play havoc with our national statistics. It also costs the productive members of society heavily, forcing a diminishing population segment to support those who don’t pull their weight.

We’re hit by a double whammy. Israel’s economy is denied the contribution of those who remain on its sidelines, and it also must deduct from its GDP what’s shelled out to nonproductive societal components by way of entitlements – money spent on social services. We may be fast approaching a situation in which we pay out more than is coming in. Less will consequently be left to encourage innovation, tempting the more enterprising, upwardly mobile but inordinately burdened among us to pull up stakes and relocate to greener pastures.

ABOUT ONE-THIRD of Israeli households nominally subsist under the poverty line, while almost 20 percent of men between the ages of 35-54 don’t work. The malaise, though, isn’t equally endemic in all social sectors. Its gravest concentrations are among Arabs and haredim. Unemployment figures for Arab men had soared from 15% in 1979 to 27% in 2008.

Among haredi men it spiralled from 21% 30 years ago to a whopping 65%.

Making these numbers more alarming yet are school-enrollment trends. Should these continue, by 2040 78% of Israel’s youngsters would be educated in haredi or Arab schools, the very ones that notoriously ill-prepare their graduates for the modern workforce.
--------

Everyone should have the right to learn Torah. Those who are uniquely gifted, should be fully supported to grow in learning, just as we support young scientists and writers. Anyone else should work like a mensch. If he or she chooses not to work there is absolutely no reason that others should pay for it. Certainly, as R. Israel Salanter used to say, no one, absolutely no one, has the right to do mtzvos at someone else's expense. Enough is enough.

It is time to stop the global support of Kollelim and to enforce the Rambam's unilateral declaration:

רמב"ם הלכות תלמוד תורה פרק ג הלכה י

כל המשים על לבו שיעסוק בתורה ולא יעשה מלאכה ויתפרנס מן הצדקה הרי זה חלל את השם ובזה את התורה וכבה מאור הדת וגרס /וגרם/ רעה לעצמו ונטל חייו מן העולם הבא, לפי שאסור ליהנות מדברי תורה בעולם הזה, אמרו חכמים כל הנהנה מדברי תורה נטל חייו מן העולם, ועוד צוו ואמרו אל תעשם עטרה להתגדל בהן ולא קרדום לחפור בהן, ועוד צוו ואמרו אהוב את המלאכה ושנא את הרבנות וכל תורה שאין עמה מלאכה סופה בטילה וגוררת עון, וסוף אדם זה שיהא מלסטם את הבריות.

The Torah will only benefit.

Please Go Away....

2010-04-08T09:23:00.005+03:00

with Deluxe Kosher Tours.

Sometimes, you just need a trip.

The Four Sons: My TV Premiere

2010-04-02T12:42:00.003+03:00

Yesterday, I had my TV premiere on Channel 10's London et Kirschenbaum. The topic was the 'Four Sons' and I had a great time. The clip is here and pictures are here.

Pesach 5770

2010-03-29T17:07:00.002+03:00

והיא שעמדה לאבותחנו ולנו. שלא אחד בלבד עמד עלינו לכלותנו, אלא שבכל דור ודור עומדים עלינו לכלותנו. והקדוש ברוך הוא מצילנו מידם.

לשנה הבאה בירושלים הבנויה

חג כשר ושמח לכל חבריי.

Standing Strong

2010-03-26T16:58:00.003+03:00

I don't envy Benjamin Netanyahu, and the other members of the government. He is not only being pilloried by Barack Obama, but by the entire Israeli media elite. They all want concessions. They want Israel to give up the store, even before the direct negotiations start. They are desperate to see Jerusalem divided, a withdrawal to the 1949 ceasefire lines and an abandonment of the Golan.

I actually understand Obama. He is a Post-American, multi-culturalist who looks for validation to the Third World only. He really believes that Jews only deserve (if they deserve) a country because of the Holocaust. He really supports the Palestinian agenda, that the Arabs were unjustly forced to pay for the crimes of Christendom (as he believes that all Third World Countries must be avenged on the Europeans), and naively believes that if they receive a state there will be world peace. That's why he has no patience for Jewish claims to Jerusalem, or to our presence in the Biblical hinterland of the Land of Israel. He is deep in denial about the underlying, religio-cultural animus that drives the Muslim World (though he should know better).

Far more problematic are the Israelis who are egging him on. Last week, the papers reported that opposition leaders predicted a blowup over Jerusalem, two weeks before VP Biden arrived. I'm not a conspiracy buff, but I know that the Israeli Left (from Haaretz on down) would do anything to bring down Netanyahu and to maintain its hegemony over Israel. As a well informed friend observed today, Israel is growing ever more Jewish in culture and identity. You see it everywhere. It's the most blessed development in years and it is more important security wise than any weapon.

The Israeli Elite (media, academia, judiciary, business) is terrified of this development, and loathes anything to do with Judaism or Jewish identity (as my encounter with Yuli Tamir bore out). Thus, they advance the idea of a "state of all of its Citizens,' advocate divesting the State of its Jewish symbols and cannot wait to be rid of Jerusalem (and a fortiori access to Israel's Biblical heartland. Don't believe me? read Amos Oz.)

Like the Virginia Planters who opposed Andrew Jackson, the alienated progeny of many of those who founded the state) have tried to keep Israel as their private fiefdom through manipulating the Judiciary and the media. There is every reason to suspect that they are willing accomplices (at least, post factum) in facilitating this gross violation of Israeli sovereignty by the United States.

I firmly believe that the Jews of Israel, almost across the board, reject Obama's demands. We've seen too many die after making gestures to appease our enemies. We are a Jewish country, and this Land is our ancestral homeland; since Time Immemorial. As a result, there must be red lines. There is room for concessions. There is room for negotiation. There is room for compromise.

Jerusalem, however, is a Red Line. Here, we need to stand fast and show some backbone. Indeed, that's what Ben Gurion did.

Responding to Obama, and other Foes

2010-03-25T19:54:00.003+02:00

At the Yom Iyyun for first year semikha students in 1978, Rabbi Norman Lamm recounted how he once had the occasion to read through Yiddish papers that were published in the early to late thirties. He was struck by the purple prose, and the giant headlines, as different Jewish groups duked it out on many sundry internal issues. Most of these were Orthodox organs, so you can well imagine the type of issues that were discussed: kashrus, Zionism, Qitniyos etc.

What struck Dr. Lamm, he noted, was that other items were modestly posted in smaller letters: 'Hitler becomes Chancellor' 'Nurenberg Laws Passed in Germany' etc.

I was reminded of this story, upon considering the types of undeniably important issues that have been fiercely debated recently within the Orthodox Community.

However, things need to be placed into proportion. President Obama's artificially created, but no less real, diplomatic crisis poses an existential threat to the State of Israel. He is, apparently, hell bent on imposing a 'solution' to the Arab-Israel conflict, in time to ensure his re-election. That 'solution' requires withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines and the division of Jerusalem. Since, according to him, the Palestinians are the injured party, they need not concede anything.

The problem runs deeper. First, by stressing Jerusalem in the first stage, Obama is willy nilly making it impossible for the Arabs to compromise on anything (including the Kotel). This is because the emphasis on Jerusalem focuses upon the specifically religious aspect of the conflict which is insoluble, by definition. Second, even if a formal scheme is worked out, does anyone really believe that it will be honored by the other side? Third, Obama has consistently advocated the Palestinian narrative that Israel is a payback for the Holocaust and that, by extension, Jews have no natural right to a state here. In other words, he is striving to undermine our very legitimacy.

Predictably, the press in Israel has already started beating on the drums of concession, as part of its ongoing campaign to liquidate Israel as a Jewish State. Israel has become far more Jewish in the past few years, but I'm never sure just how long we can withstand the kind of brainwashing that the media dishes out.

From my vantage point, the situation in the United States is equally grave. Most American Jews don't seem to care about us here. Even official leaders (did someone mention the leading Reform rabbi?) seem to have naively accepted the essentially racist position that if we only give the Arabs more, they'll be nice to us. (The position is racist, because it ignores what the Arab and Muslim world says to our faces, and assumes they think just like enlightened westerners.)

Of course, while we rely first and foremost upon HaQadosh Barukh Hu, it seems that the Orthodox community is our only human ally. It is critical that that community be mobilized to pressure Democrats, especially, to stand up for Israel as it's being bullied by an ideologically driven, Palestinian ally (backed by his inevitable Jewish advisors).

I am not an alarmist. However, this is potentially a matter of life and death. The Arabs have waited for decades for the US to abandon us. All of our neighbors are sitting on Islamist insurgencies, which could easily force them to war. They are also well aware of the global rise in anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment (especially in Europe), and that the American Jewish community is slowly dissolving any national sentiment it might have.

We need to stand fast now.

A Moving Message from Jew in the City

2010-03-24T15:04:00.001+02:00