A Book Library in a Digital Age

I love my book collection. We have books in almost every room of our home, and they give me never-ending pleasure. 

On a Shabbat visit of my yeshiva students, they began to discuss whether it was worth accumulating books in a digital age. After all, most of our music and our photographs, our documentation and correspondence, has all shifted to the computer or hand-held e-device. It is worth asking why we still hold on to books in this day and age. Will they become obsolete?

I have an exceptionally strong attachment to my library. My well-worn Mishna Kahati sits next to to my Mishna Berura with my carefully written notes and highlighting. My Shas (Talmud) was a gift from my grandfather z"l for my bar-mitzva. A shelf of Rav Kook's philosophy and letters sits adjacent to a similar shelf of the writings of Rav Soloveitchik. Israeli poetry, contemporary fiction, books of my mentors Rav Amital and Rav Lichtenstein, classic Responsa, Bible commentary, new and old. Interesting combinations: Scholem and Shagar; Mandela and Scharansky, the Rambam alongside the Kuzari, Louis Jacobs with Rabbi Jakobovitz, and so forth. My library is my world. Every volume is a friend. Some volumes have shared deep and touching moments with me, others continue to accompany me on a daily basis, some will always be distant acquaintances, and there are others that I have yet to converse with, but I am happy for the presence of each and every one of them. This one I bought at Book Week, that one has a great autograph, another I picked out of a Jerusalem recycling dumpster that lay open, this is the massekhet that I am currently learning, and my battered Tanakh has over twenty-five years of mileage behind it.

This paean to my library was stimulated by an eloquent piece by Leon Wieseltier that I read today (link h/t Bookjed) . It elegantly and accurately articulates the perennial need for the authentic, old fashioned books; the hold-in-your-hand, have-on-the-shelf type. I couldn't say it better. Enjoy! :

THE LIBRARY, like the book, is under assault by the new technologies, which propose to collect and to deliver texts differently, more efficiently, outside of space and in a rush of time. If ever I might find a kind word for the coming post-bibliographical world it would be this week, when I have to pack up the thousands of volumes in my office and reassemble them a short distance away—they are so heavy, they take up so much room, and so on; but even now, with the crates piled high in the hall, what I see most plainly about the books is that they are beautiful. They take up room? Of course they do: they are an environment; atoms, not bits. My books are not dead weight, they are live weight—matter infused by spirit, every one of them, even the silliest. They do not block the horizon; they draw it. They free me from the prison of contemporaneity: one should not live only in one’s own time. A wall of books is a wall of windows. And a book is more than a text: even if every book in my library is on Google Books, my library is not on Google Books. A library has a personality, a temperament. (Sometimes a dull one.) Its books show the scars of use and the wear of need. They are defaced—no, ornamented—by markings and notes and private symbols of assent and dissent, and these vandalisms are traces of the excitations of thought and feeling, which is why they are delightful to discover in old books: they introduce a person. There is something inhuman about the pristinity of digital publication. It lacks fingerprints. But the copy of a book that is on my shelf is my copy. It is unlike any other copy, it has been individuated; and even those books that I have not yet opened—unread books are an essential element of a library—were acquired for the further cultivation of a particular admixture of interests and beliefs, and every one of them will have its hour. The knowledge that qualifies one to be one’s own librarian is partly self-knowledge. The richness, or the incoherence, of a library is the richness, or the incoherence, of the self.

Re-discovering the Kotel - A Magical Night at the Wall

Last night was the first time I have been to the Kotel in almost a year. I admit this with a real sense of guilt. I have always been committed to visiting the Kotel at least for each of the שלש רגלים in fulfilment of the Torah’s prescription:

"שלוש פעמים בשנה יראה כל זכורך את פני האדון ה' אלקי ישראל"

However, in recent years my regular chol hamoed visits have become increasingly unpleasant. The throngs that flock to Jerusalem over Chag have been (Barukh Hashem) so overwhelming that one year, we experienced a policeman directing the pedestrian traffic through the Rova. The parking has been impossible, and so what might have been a somewhat short visit to daven has become a hot, tiring, crowded trek for the entire family. In addition the pilgrimage has lacked a particularly spiritual component, as with the Kotel so full, it is difficult to concentrate or focus, and one is concerned to lose one of the kids. So, last chol hamoed, for the first time in about 20 years, I just didn’t go.

Well – after my highly positive experience at the Kotel last night, I have a new plan.

I went there to give a shiur to my Talmidim. Yeshivat Eretz Hatzvi was holding its end-of-winter-zman “Mishmar” - learning all night with Vatikin at dawn – by the Wall.  I arrived at the Old City at 12:30 and headed to the Wall.   

As I emerged from the car, the air was fresh, the streets were quiet, serene, calm. Whenever one goes to the Kotel one anticipates an experience of “Klal Yisrael” – an encounter with a mix of  Jews that communicates a deep feeling that beyond our diversity and difference, that there is a fundamental unity of all Jews. This was my mindset as I made my way from Sha’ar HaAshpot towards the security checkpoint. It didn't take long to engage with that diversity. Far ahead were 3 Yeshiva Students. About twenty yards behind me were 4 people –  two couples – smiling, jovially teasing one another. They were secular; the women in jeans, the men bare-headed. But they too were making their way to the Wall. Alongside me, an elegantly dressed young lady wearing leggings, carrying a designer handbag walked with a sense of purpose. Who was this woman, I wondered? I was trying to define her, to label her into one of the classic categories, the “tribes” in which we live. As she approached the washbasin, she washed her hands with the washing cup – 3 times alternately. By the way she washed her hand, it was evident that she was accustomed to this ritual. Was she religious? Secular? Newly religious? Once religious? - Who knows? Did she come here regularly? Was she here to pray for someone sick? ... it really didn’t matter. I proceeded, enjoying the fact that we were all here, together; lots of different stereotypes. Tonight, it felt like we all belonged here, in all our difference.  

The Kotel was calm, beautiful and reverent. Even the people calling us for a minyan – “Arvit; Arvit!” - made their announcement in soft tones. The Hazzan who lead my minyan – a red-head Hassidic man – davened with expressive kavvana. A simple, daily Ma'ariv, became elevated. Somehow, whenever I am at the Kotel, I sense that I have a special opportunity to stand at the “Gate of Heaven” and to really speak to God. I tried to inject my tefilla with special meaning, to genuinely connect with God. At this late hour, there was no rushing, no pushing; the minyan took its time.

And then, giving shiur. The Yeshiva were congregated there, all sitting at shtenders in the inner area, under Wilson’s Arch, some in havrutot, some learning alone. One or two boys had fallen asleep. I gave shiur to 25 guys, all huddled together, and I tried to communicate to them a sense of our special historic privilege. I told the boys: “Look where we are! Some 2 thousand years ago, our forefathers walked across the bridge above our heads leading the lambs into the Temple, to bring the Korban Pesach! Jews yearned for thousands of years to stand at this very spot. We may not have a Beit Hamikdash, but the Shekhina never leaves this site. We can still fulfill our obligation (Shemot 23:17) to “present ourselves” before God’s presence.” My shiur was Pesach oriented – Redemption, Eliyahu Hanavi, and other related themes. 1 a.m. and I was inspired by the fire of Eliyahu Hanavi, and the interest of my students.

I emerged from the tunnel area after bidding my students a good night of learning. I had work the next day and couldn’t manage without a few hours sleep. The entire prayer area was virtually empty. The larger plaza was also deserted. But then I saw them -  a  Chattan and Kalla, a bride and groom - deep in prayer, standing right at the front of the Kotel plaza. It was 2am. Here was a young Haredi couple who had come to the Kotel straight from their wedding! What was beautiful about this scene was that they were all alone! It looked strange; one does not generally see a man and woman praying alongside one another at the Kotel. But of course, this couple who had married some hours earlier didn’t want to separate from one another. They didn’t go down to the prayer area, but instead, stood together, in perfect harmony, swaying together, praying together. What were they  davening for? For the future of their lives together? Were they praying for the sick and needy of Israel, having absorbed the tradition that a Chattan and Kalla on their wedding day have a special spiritual power to pray for others? It was a beautiful scene. Although they were distant from me and oblivious to my presence in this most public place, I almost felt like I was intruding on their intimate, special moment. I marvelled at this young couple who felt a need to bring God so palpably into their relationship and personal joy.

So, I thought to myself, I have now discovered that this is the time of day to come to the Kotel. I think I am going to try to visit regularly now, late at night, at this magical hour when all is calm, when one can daven without interruption, when the Kotel returns to being enchanting, spiritual, inspirational. It is wonderful to have re-discovered my path back to the Kotel.

Chag Kasher Vesameach!

You never know who you are talking to!

I would like to relate a remarkable story of everyday human respect. In response to Tisha B'Av this is an attempt to reflect upon one of the simple, small ways in which we can all improve our regular interaction with other people.

The story begins when I visited the gallery at Beit Avi Chai ome time ago. I had been interested in a photography exhibiti there, and when the opportunity arose, I went along to enjoy what was, a fantastic display. However, I took issue with the curator's written commentary finding it objectionable, and I decided to write a letter of complaint to the organization.

I am not usually a complainer. I rarely write letters of praise or criticism to public foundations. And yet, since I have great respect for the Avi Chai Foundation which champions Jewish unity, Zionism, and Jewish Education, and the aforementioned comments seemed at variance with those values, I decided to write an email.

10:30 pm - It was late Saturday night, and I searched online for the email of the curator. I couldn't find it. In the end, with some unsophisticated web-surfing, I guessed the museum director's email and sent off a one paragraph, polite email, articulating my objection.

8:45 am, Sunday: I opened my gmail to find a letter from the director of Beit Avi Chai, Mr. Dani Danielli. It was written in respectful, intelligent, gentle language. It explained, the museum's decision with reference to academic sources and historical evidence. The email was quite lengthy - 3 times th elength of mine - and it upheld the museum's perspective and demonstrated the validity of their approach.

I was bowled over.
1. Who forwarded it to the director?
2. Why did he respond to me?
3. He responded so promptly – first thing in the morning.
4. The fact that he wrote to me so respectfully and with no hint of aggression. I am so used to the Israeli "attitude" problem which generally means that any complain will be agressively rebuffed as a reflex defense mechanism automatically springs into place. In addition I have also become used to the telegraphic Israeli correspondence (army-style?) style which can strike an Englishman as rather abrupt.
5. The director was totally in touch with what was going on in his institution. He was fully versed regarding the topic at hand. He had thought through the issues and grappled with the ideological nuances.

Anyhow, this was quite a breath of fresh air, and a highly impressive response by Beit Avi Chai.

What do I take from this situation?

So often, I get an email at work. Sometimes, it is irritating. Other times, I am busy and I simply respond with a two line rushed statement. Sometimes, I am a little short or brusque.

So, 1.) I should respond to anyone who writes to me with respect. Mr. Danielli received my email. I had not listed that I was a Rabbi or educator. I could be just some nudnick off the street. And yet, he took the time to respond, present his case, articulate his thinking.

And 2.) I should take two extra minutes to ensure my language is not telegraphic, but gives my correspondent the sense that I value them and take them seriously.

If we all begin to respond to one another in more humane ways, we can genuinely make the world a better, human-elevating place.

Bike Riding, Juvenile Offenders and the Land of Israel

The Momentum of Chag

Jewish Festivals are so total, so enveloping. I can almost imagine Jackie Mason in a skit saying something to the effect of:

The Gentiles, when they have a festival, what do they do? - They make a party, they eat in the living room, they drink, exchange gifts. It's fun, it's relaxed.
But us - we build a shack, we shvitz to put up a rickety hut, and then we sleep in it and eat in it - and we call that a holiday? We clean the house on our knees, and wash the curtains and wipe down the kitchen and change our entire kitchen round, and eat indigestible matza - and we say: That's a Holiday! Ah! - A Yom Tov!
On their new year, they make a drunken party and sleep all day with a hangover. On our New Year, we get up early, and spend half the day in shul!
Some Festival!

Jewish Festivals do have their grueling aspects at times. But I love them. and I love them precisely because they are so overwhelming, so all-encompassing.

Take the Yamim Noraim. The Shofar 30 days before, the selichot - getting up early in an intense vigil of chanting, day by day. And then the symbolic foods, the Shofar, the prayer service, and the intensity of the Asseret Ymai Teshuva. It all crescendos perfectly at Neila. Even for a person who isn't prepared in any particular way, the acts of our tradition create a certain momentum, they propel a person forward, thrusting him or her into the mood, the themes, the ideas, the mindset of that particular time of year with totality and immersion.

Take Sukkot which we just celebrated. The lead-up straight after Yom Kippur, with buliding the Sukka, and then decorating it, buying the Arba'ah Minim, cutting Aravot. It's an entire mobilisation. And then Chag itself, when we try to spend as much time possible in the Sukka, eating, relaxing, I even took my laptop out to the Sukka, and we had an entire family sleep-in for 7 days as we all slept in the Sukka. Not to mention Hallel with Arba'ah Minim and Hoshanot each day. And here in Israel, the kids are off school, and we are off work. The country is filled with a variety of music and arts Festivals, and people are all out enjoying themselves. It has a real Holiday feel! Suddenly, the Chag starts weaving its magic. As one lies in the Sukka and the flimsy roof over one's head, the deliberate move away from the creature comforts of one's bedroom and living room, one is inexorably prompted to ponder the deeper meaning sof the Chag, and behaviourly, existentially, the Holiday begins to penetrate, to infiltrate to seep into our minds and souls.

And similarly for Pesach, and other special times of the year, for example the Three Weeks. What is phenomenal is that the more intensely and comprehensively one observes the laws, rites, traditions and practices of the Holiday, the more it envelops your reality, weaving a magical web, and literally reframing one's environment. It is as if life were a stage, and suddenly the backdrop, the scenery and soundtrack were able to generate an entirely new vista, a radically different world, a fresh mode of living, with its unique texture , sounds, smells, feelings, thoughts, a different mood, a new reality.

I think that it is only in recent years that I have become more sensitive and aware to the power of the Chag and its Laws in generating the atmosphere and content of the moment. When in school, we spend ages studying about the upcoming Holidays. we learn the customs, and songs, the ideas and the texts. We are over-primed!

But as life is more busy with kids and work, I have felt (even as a teacher, teaching my students about the Chag) that I have less and less time to work my brain into the correct atmosphere and mindset. With all the hectic preparations, we frequently dash out the shower to shul for YomTov without having engaged ourselves in deeper thought about the chag! It is here that the comprehensive nature of our tradition, the huge numbers of traditions and Halakhot, the physical investment in building the Sukka, or burning the Hametz, and then the rhythm and tempo of the Chag itself, begin to have that amazing effect of penetrating our psyche, our consciousness, as the content and inner spirit of the Chag begin to spread their special aroma throughout our minds, body and soul.

I'm looking forward to Channukah already!

Women's Learning and Women Rabbis

I surprised myself the other week by engaging in a passionate Feminist speech. I say surprised myself, because as I see it I have never held particularly Feminist views. I have certain problems with Shira Chadasha - the current cutting edge of Orthodox (?) Feminism - and I frequently find Feminist activism as petty, irritating and destabilising/anti-establishment.

So my harangue began as we raised the topic of the Maharat ordination (link1 link2). For the uninitiated, the Marahat is a title aimed at ordaining women as Rabbis in the Orthodox community. It has been instigated by Rav Avi Weiss of HIR in Riverdale and Yeshivat Chovevai Torah.

I guess a few comments are in order as a prelude:

1. I am a big believer in Limmud Torah for women. I believe that true depth in Jewish belief, practice and emotional experience is a function of the extent to which we have learned and absorbed classic Jewish texts into our consciousness. This can only happen through serious and extensive Talmud Torah. I see no difference between men and women in this regard.

2. I have many role models of wonderful women Talmidot Chachamim in my community (Alon Shevut). My neighbours include several women who are widely respected and consulted for their Halakhic knowledge as Yoatzot Halakha (link). Then there are my colleagues and friends - some of the finest and most sought after women Torah teachers in Jerusalem. Alon Shevut has a women's Daf Yomi that meets daily, and every day, I encounter committed, bright, halakhic, spiritually and religiously motivated women who are living exemplars of Torah and who are certainly learned by any definition of the term.

3. I have said for some time, in conversation with my students, that Rabbis serve four primary functions:
#1. psak halakha; #2. teaching; #3. Counseling and giving guidance/advice; #4. A synagogue function.
As for women, functions #1-3 they already do. Women DO pasken (Yoatzot Halakha), DO give guidance and advise, and DO teach men and women Torah (Nehama Leibowitz anyone?) All this is de rigeur in the Modern Orthodox community.

Function #4. is more problematic since we have seperate zones in shul. But effectively, ignoring that, what is wrong with a woman "Rabbi"?

... And having said all of that, I didn't see it important to push for a title, or a communal status. It just didn't seem that important!

So, back to my harangue. It is connected to my experience, and frustration, with my daughter's schooling. My daughter is an excellent student, thank God, and is generally at the top-end of her class. She frequently acts as if school just isn't that challenging.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered that in her school, she has just started a Torah Shebal Peh program this year. Let us begin with the fact that this topic receives only 2 hours/week, and she is in 5th grade...not exactly reinforcing the importance of the topic. But OK, if we do accept that, what are they studying in these 2 hours? - A single Mishna from Pirkei Avot each week. ONE MISHNA! These are Israeli kids who can simply read it. They aren't doing mepharshim. What are they doing???!!! Let me add that I have already studied multiple massechtot of Mishna with my daughter including Massechet Shabbat (24 chapters!) She knows Mishna. Why is Avot the only Toshb"p that she is doing in school?

[Just to make things clear, they study 18 hours+ Tanach a week! It is a high-level seriously religious girls school]

So why are they doing so little? So many excuses were given. But two things stood clear to me after some investigation:

1. The school doesn't particularly see the great need to teach my daughter Torah shebAl Peh. Let me add that in a neighboring school, boys are given the opportunity to study 2 extra hours of Gemara after school (called Tigbur - strengthening!) and the girls simply go home. Apparently girls don't need strengthening! But also it is clear that even in Gush Etzion with so many learned women and the towering institute of Migdal Oz, women's Torah Shebal Peh is not taken nearly as seriously, and is far below the level of their male counterparts.

2. One of the problems was that there simply were no female teachers on the staff of this particular school who felt adequately trained to teach Mishna at the requisite level. After all, a great Mishna teacher has studied Mishna and Talmud for years. He or she knows the material at a very high level and can bring all his or her experience to bear when teaching even basic material (Mishna) thereby injecting interest and investing the subject matter with depth and relevance. No women on the faculty had this capability.

So how can I change things? How can I get the school to take my daughter's brain and soul seriously? How can I get the teachers who know Torah Shebal Peh into the school?

And so, I began to think: In the Western world, when High Schools failed to take girls' physics seriously, someone said: "Well, we need women physics teachers. Until the students see a female role model, they will never take it seriously. And to get women's physics teachers we need female University professors. Because unless we have women teaching physics in University, we will never have physics taken seriously for girls at High School. " And I guess that is Feminism. And maybe - just possibly - it applies to my frustration. Maybe what is true for physics is true for Torah, or in our case, Mishna.

And I suddenly thought, well maybe we DO need to have publicly recognised communal figureheads who are versed in Torah ShebAl Peh. Maybe we do need women Rabbis, or at least women Talmidei Chachamim with some hefty public recognition. Why? -So that someone will take 5th grade Mishna seriously for my daughter!

Now, .... I am still torn, still a little stuck on this one. Maybe I am just torn between innovation and traditionalism. Maybe I am wavering due to my inability to read the long-term implications of such a move. I know that I don't particularly like the Maharat title as such. To be honest, I would like to see the Yoetzet title develop as the prime title that recognises women as masters of Halakhic study, (even if it is in Hilchot Nidda... after all, traditional Semicha is just on Kashrut topics.) I also have no real clarity as to the precise role I want such a women to play in shul, if she were to be the sole spiritual leader of a congregation. And yet, let me reiterate that unless the community see women Talmidei Chachamim ( - It doesn't have to be a Rabbi, or a Maharat, or a Yoetzet - ) and recognise that role of scholar, teacher and religious guide as a valuable pursuit, as a noble status for women; until then, our daughters' Talmud Torah will be relegated to second-rate status. Always.

Simple Kindnesses

Chassidic stories and the like have a legend of "hidden tzadikkim", good people who look ordinary but do very special work behind the scenes, when no one in particular is looking. Where does one find such people?

Well, we made a "simcha" this past weekend - my eldest son's Barmitzva. It was all wonderful, and we had much to celebrate. It is the first "simcha" that we have made beyond the rushed organisation of a "Brit." And so in our planning and running of the events, we discovered certain things, or maybe I should say, people, that we did not expect.

Planning the Shabbat of a Barmitzva is quite a feat. If one wants to avoid the inordinate cost of a full blown caterer, how does one manage? After all, one needs tablecloths, napkins and dishes, and one wants them to be elegant, colour coordinated and the like. Moreover, one may wish to eat of china rather than plastic plates. How do we do this for forty people in a cost effective way?

What we discovered is that our Yishuv (community) has a Gema"ch (free loan society) for family celebrations. They have a storage room with tablecloths in about 20 colours, serving dishes, decorative pieces for the table, every last detail including a board to cut the Challah, and a mirror on which to place Shabbat candles. and the amazing thing is that one can take all these things for FREE! (One has to pay to get the tablecloths laundered but that is the total cost.) The people who work there volunteer. I don't know who set it up, nor who donated all the beautiful things there. But what an amazing concept! Everyone has bar/batmitzvas, aufrufs, and other family parties. Why not have a central facility that helps everyone to have a high-quality upscale simcha for minimal running costs? The fact that all this is offered to the community without charge is astounding.

And after the Shabbat, we had leftover food. Friends informed us of a man in our community who distributes leftovers to needy local families. We took him the food. He ensured that needy families received it. This man has created a discreet network which ensures that he is informed of families in need, and he provides for their basic needs.

Once again, here is a shining example of exemplary work performed without fanfare or prestige but this is a service which, no doubt, restores dignity and hope (let alone nutrition) to many desperate homes.

And I am quite amazed that I have lived in this community for 15 years and I was absolutely unaware of these terrific public services. It would appear that certain acts of kindness are done quietly; so quietly that until a person stumbles upon them, one just doesn't know about them.

But beyond these special acts and institutions let me mention something even simpler. we received many phone calls: from friends abroad, family, my parents' friends, all wishing us Mazal Tov. It warmed our hearts. So many people cared to boost our simcha. It doesn't take much to pick up the phone and speak and listen for 60 seconds, but it made a powerful difference to us. I frequently forget to call people in these situations. Now I understand just how incredible it is. The sense that people who you care about are remembering you and celebrating together with you is deeply heart warming. so this has taught me an important lesson, of the power of joining with others in their simcha, the potent force of caring and expressing love to others. That nurturing a friendship and demonstrating concern for friends - not the needy but friends - is also an act which raises us up and make our lives happy, worthwhile and meaningful.

Basic Books and Questions of Cultural Literacy

This post is appropriate at any time, but maybe especially in the lead-up to Shavuot, raising questions of our Kabbalat Torah and the extent to which we engage in the commitment of Brit Sinai (the Covenant that we made at Sinai.)

I'll begin with an anecdote. The other day, I took my son to the Hebrew bookshop i.e. the Sefarim store - Sifrei Kodesh. we were supposed to make a Barmitzva List - a list of books that he has designated, so that guests to the Barmitzva can have an easy time choosing a gift.

When I asked him what he wanted, he didn't really know, so I suggested that we buy the basic books that a person who wants to learn Torah should have. So we chose a Mikraot Gedolot, a Ramban, a Mishna Berura, Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchata, Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch on Chumash, Nechama Leibowitz and much more. My son asked me what I was choosing and why, and I kept on repeating (somewhat unaware that this was my mantra,) that these are fundamental books that one should have and study. It became apparent that as the list grew in length, my son was getting somewhat nervous, and he challenged me: "Are you saying that ALL THESE are things I have to know?" And at that moment I realised that he was wondering how he was ever going to absorb all of that stuff!

But what is the basic Jewish bookshelf? and what is basic Jewish literacy? and why is it important?

I would say very simply that in every culture there is a corpus of knowledge - intellectual and cultural - that form the bedrock of that civilisation. and that in order to function successfully, let alone to play a central role, to become productive, to lead, to be valued in that society, one must have absorbed that bookshelf. We are talking about facts and ideas that form a foundational set of cultural vocabulary, the very language of that society. And to say something credible or articulate, to be a full member of that society, one must have absorbed that knowledge set.

This is certainly true in western society. and even in the various sub-groups and communities, each group has its own essential knowledge base and culture-set. For academics it will be certain books and papers, for the business community it will be interest rates and stock prices, for the average person it might be what is on TV last night ... i.e. the things that are assumed in your social surroundings.

And now to Judaism. what is literacy for us? For sure, it will differ within our sub-communities. But I have a feeling that if we wish to be "Torah" Jews, Jews who don't simply live life in a robotic set of ordinances and prescriptive directives, then we need to be knowledgeable. If we seek to produce thinking, self-reflective, articulate people who can understand their tradition - Torah Shebichtav and Torah ShebeAl Peh - then there is a certain knowledge base that allows a person to converse within the tradition, to evaluate positions and to find intellectual satisfaction within the world of Jewish ideas. It is from within the traditional bookshelf that we obtain that literacy, and it is only once we speak that language that we can really think Jewishly in the absolute sense of the word.

And it might be precisely this principle that underpins the mitzva of Talmud Torah - daily Torah study. We need to refresh our knowledge base, to encounter new ideas with regularity. We need to be conversant with our Torah texts and concepts in the same manner that we check our emails and favourite web-pages... daily (or multiple times a day.) For these are the experiences that give substance to our experiential reality, to the "now". to the ideas, emotions and impulses in my head.

I was discussing this with my students at Yeshivat Eretz Hatzvi. My students are currently about to leave Yeshiva and to start college. When on campus, where is your head space? Are you totally in the rhythm of the liberal value set of the college campus? Or are your thoughts, behaviour, speech and consciousness dictated by Torah and its values? I am not calling for sidelining college. But what I am raising is what is the "basic" literacy that governs our lives.

as we renew our covenant of Torah this Shavuot, we might want to mull this question, as to the prominence of Jewish substance at the bedrock of our daily reality.

Doing and Teaching. Two very different things.

In a couple of months it is my son's Barmitzva. It's all very exciting for us as the big day approaches.

The other evening I had the privilege and pleasure to show him how to put on a pair of Tefillin. But when I tried to teach him, I got all confused! I simply couldn't remember the precise moves that one uses in order to tie them! I was so unsuccessful in my instructions as to the steps of donning the Tefillin without actually doing it myself that in the ebd, I simply got out my Tefillin and tied them onto my arm, and then my son followed my lead. I have to admit, it was quite bewildering. I have put on Tefillin every day of my life since I was 13. How could I find it hard to explain and instruct another person as to how to tie them? How could it be that I wasn't sure how to wind them when it was somebody elses arm?

But apparently there is a huge difference between doing something yourself, and teaching it to others. I manipulate the straps of my Tefillin so intuitively, that I am not even aware when I pull it back or quite how I wind them! I had to take a step back and actively, consciously think through each micro movement so that I could clearly communicate that knowledge.

I have always found teaching and communication to be a natural skill. I love them, and they come relatively easily to me. I always found it hard to appreciate that some people are really bad at explaining things, and cannot communicate clearly or succinctly.

It is amazing that certain things are so deeply rooted that they defy even our own awareness. We just do them. We are not aware of how we do it. Which things are in that intuitive category? What else is so automatic, so deeply enrooted that I am unaware of even the way I perform that act?

Waltz with Bashir, Gaza, and Israeli Militarism

This week, the Israeli movie “Waltz with Bashir” won a Golden Globe for best foreign film. It is up for an Oscar as well.The movie has been highly acclaimed around the world for its exceptional animation as one of the most creative movies for years. Mazal Tov! So, what is the movie about? It is about a soldier who is trying to piece together his traumatic memories of the Lebanon War. The horrors of war and sense of moral compromise that wars bring are illustrated graphically.

Why am I mentioning this? Because here, yet again – even as we win awards around the world – Israel is portrayed and cast as a military nation, dedicated to violence, addicted to it. Likewise, last summer’s hit movie, “Don’t Mess with the Zohan” (link), despite being a farce and a comedy, highlighted Israelis as military machines (as well as sex-obsessed and crude. The values of the Zohan movie have been discussed in this article.)

If this was only in the movies, I wouldn’t mind, but I believe that we are living in a generation where for a great number of people around the world, Israel is perceived as an aggressor, as a personification of the “blessing” to Esau – על חרבך תחיה – and not as a purveyor of morality, truth, wisdom, sensitivity and the like. The word Israel is synonymous with war. See this interesting blog piece by Treppenwitz (link) as he describes a visit to Sky News’ offices in Jerusalem. He pays attention to the art on the walls and what they say about Israel:


On the walls of their Jerusalem office are ten or twelve beautifully framed black & white photographs that are clearly supposed to demonstrate to a guest, the space's occupant's appreciation for the rich, multi-cultural tapestry that is Israel.
There are photos of Christians in and near the ancient Churches of Jerusalem... Muslims (including crying children) near mosques and in pastoral settings, and of course Jews... mostly in prayer:

Jew photo #1- A close-up of a hand holding an open siddur (Hebrew prayer book) with a sub-machine gun in soft focus on a table in the near background, within easy reach.

Jew photo #2- An Israeli soldier wrapped in tallit and tefillin praying in front of an enormous battle tank (not the famous one from sukkot taken during the Yom Kippur war).

Jew photo #3 - An Israeli soldier wearing a helmet and holding an assault rifle next to his face, peering around a corner of a stone building as if trying to line up a difficult shot.

After viewing the first two images of Jewish Israelis, an observer could be forgiven for assuming that the soldiers were praying, not to G-d, but to the tools of war before them. And the third photograph does nothing to dispel the notion of Jewish Israelis as an entirely militaristic society.

Whereas we within Israeli society perceive ourselves as peace loving and gentle, as interested in furthering our society, Israeli technology, poetry and the like, the outside view frequently looks upon Israel as aggressive, militaristic and violent.

2.

Now some will say that the world likes Jews as docile and powerless. They are disturbed to see a Jew in a position of force and domination. If this is true, then possibly this feeling has Christian roots, in that Christianity believed in the destiny of the Jews as a degraded, displaced and shameful people. Christian doctrine sought to subject the Jews to humiliation and disgrace. And indeed, Zionism came to change that. The notion of the fighting Jew is central to Zionism. The idea that we can take care of ourselves is a cardinal principle of the modern State of Israel.

As Dominic Lawson put it last week in The Times: (link)

I was startled by the monument that stands at the entrance to Yad Vashem, Jerusalem’s memorial to the Holocaust. One side of Nathan Rappaport’s diptych is what looks like a caricature of Jews. The hunched, twisted figures, with hooked noses and heavy-lidded eyes, seem devoid of physical energy. The other panel displays a group of heroic young men and women who are heavily muscled, standing tall, weapons at the ready.

It turns out that the first group is meant to depict Jews being marched to their deaths, while the second is the leaders of the Warsaw uprising; the whole monument is constructed of granite imported from Sweden by the Nazis for the construction of what was meant to be one of the Third Reich’s victory towers.

The message is in fact close to the view expressed with brutal clarity by Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion: “That masses of exiled Jews walked to the death trains . . . silently, stupidly . . . is a decisive, embarrassing and painful statement of the disintegration of spiritual-ethical strength. What is their place among us?” Ben-Gurion envisaged that “new Jews”, with the security of their own nation state, would erase what he saw as the shameful memory of a “submissive, lowly camp of strange creatures . . . who know only how to arouse pity”.

In short, Israel decided that it would represent the empowered Jew, the fighting Jew.



3.

But after the fighting in Gaza, after any fighting, I always experience a personal backswing. After listening to and reading the foreign media, I am disturbed by this military personification of Israel. Is that our message to the nations? Is that our legacy?

I recall how Rabbi Jakobovits, a man who I admired, spoke out against excessive militarism in Israeli society. He warned of the ethically corrosive nature of the Israeli-Arab conflict, of the moral compromise that is war. He insisted that we keep in mind even our enemies suffering: “Compassion extends to all who suffer, even our enemies.” He was deeply disturbed that Israel was one of the world’s major arms exporters, trading in death. He spoke of how we were meant to export “Torah from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem,” rather than tools of destruction.

We have just been to war. Let there be no doubt about it, this war has been justified absolutely. We have engaged in a battle against an amoral enemy which doesn’t balk at using women and children, schools and mosques as weapon launching pads, as arms stores. These people have perfected the demonic art of the “Human shield” uncaring as to how many will die as they seek to achieve their hallowed goal of destroying the “Zionist Entity.” As Nassrallah said some years back:

"We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are the most vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death."

He said it! This culture of Hamas and Hizbolla is evil personified. This is the culture of Molech. This is the ideology of suicide bombers and people who let miserable refugees fester in hatred, despair and squalor rather than allowing them rehabilitation, hope, life, a future. In this regard, this war has been a supremely moral war, the sons of light against the sons of darkness, hatred and death.

And yet, at the same time, we have now killed over 1000 people, many of them innocent; so many children. How do we regain our sensitivity to life? Morality needs hard work in times like this. How do we ensure that the bullets of war do not warp and twist our moral direction? How do we refine our ethical compass so that we educate our children to love life and to understand that human life is still ultimately sacred?

I recall the famous Midrash quoted in the name of our patriarch Jacob. As he prepared for battle when his life and the lives of his family were threatened, the Torah tells us:

“Jacob was greatly afraid and was distressed.”

Rashi elaborates:

“Greatly afraid: that he might be killed; Distressed: That he may kill other people.”

In war, we have to protect ourselves, we must know that our first priority is to protect our people. However woe to us if we lose that worry, that concern with the lives of others. We may not delude ourselves that our right to defense is a license to kill. We must retain a sensitivity to the life of our enemy. Furthermore, we must understand that even when we kill justifiably, the act of killing desensitizes us and darkens us. We do not remain unaffected.

My feeling is that in the dialectic between War and Peace, between sensitivity and softness on the one hand, and aggression and violence on the other, in the excruciating dance between the hand reaching for the gun, and alternatively, extending it in Peace, we are in need of a rebalance. Not for the world, not for the media or the UN or international opinion; No! - for ourselves! We need to teach our children to preserve, to love and protect life; Not only our own lives, but the lives of the children in Gaza, as well.

Being Thankful

After taking a summer break, I am back. Thanks to all of you who said they missed the blog. Blogging is quite a burden when you commit yourself to posting multiple times a week. I have decided to go for a monthly post. And if something comes up in the middle, maybe I'll post about that too :-)

This month, I want to talk about being thankful. If a can use a cue from the Parsha, it is this week that we read the verse:

ואכלת ושבעת וברכת את ה' אלוקיך על הארץ הטובה אשר נתן לך

This is the passuk that tells us to say Birkhat Hamazon. But look at the context in Devarim ch.8! - It is all about taking nothing for granted. It is about realising that our good fortune is a blessing and that we shouldn't just live our lives forgetting to reflect upon the goodness that we have - our homes, our livelihood, even our food and clothing. No! We should activate our brains to connect those things to the Source of everything i.e. God.

I have always connected deeply to the notion of blessings. I have always felt taht brachot - made on food, new acquisitions, smell, scenery, lightning, thunder, the sea, the Queen, and what have you - they bring God into our lives in a very tangible way. A blessing is an opportunity to recognise God in the small things and to spiritualise even the most mundane moments.

But actually many of those moments are not mundane. Thunder and lightening are an awe inspiring experience. Experiencing new fruits when you watch them grow, is a real exciting feeling of renewal and the force of nature. Brachot allow us to capture emotions.

For example when the Talmud and Shulchan Aruch tell us that when we see a special friend, we accompany our delight at seeing them with a Birkhat Shehecheyanu. The intense emotion of friendship is channeled and heightened by the recital of the bracha.

I guess I am saying a few things:
1. That brachot help us stop and appreciate life
2. That they allow us to see God in the mundane physical world
3. That they are frequently (esp. Birkhot Hashevach) a way of giving expression to a heightened emotional experience.

And Birkhat Hamazon daily should help us appreciate our lives, our livelihood, our food and our country.

I once read a beautiful "Vort" by one of the Chassidishe Rebbes. (It was in a small book - Way of Man(?)- by Buber.) When Avraham feeds the 3 "men" who visit him - we know they were angels - it writes:
והוא עומד עליהם תחת העץ ויאכלו
And the question is, how can Abraham - a mere human - stand "above" the angels?

The answer is that in eating we stand above the angels. Angels are spiritual an disconnected with physical living. But with a bracha, with kashrut, with netilat yadayim, we can spiritualise the physical act of eating. But it is more than that.

When you think of a bracha, it is a very simple formulation. It essentially is a recognistion, a tribute that the goodness (or bad) of my life is from God. That is powerful.

First we have to see goodness. Then we have to know where it is from. Then we have to say thank you.
and when we say thank you and express appreciation, we become richer people. Berachot force us into this excercise.

My Rabbi (Rav Rimon) once spoke about an exercise that he recommended for families. He had noticed that his kids were arguing and acting a little selfish. He decided that before they each went to bed, they would say something nice that each family member had done to them that day. Very oson they were more appreciative and less accusatory.
(Now of course, when I tried this at home, it totally failed. The first kid refused to acknowledge that any of his siblings had been nice in any way that day! A total failure!)

My point is that when we acknowledge that there is good in our lives, and we appreciate it and express that, then we train our mind to be appreciative. We appreciate rather than accuse. We focus on the good rather than the annoying and bad. We live in a world which pursues more, which convinces us that we don't have enough, that others have more, that we are miserable because we lack so much. Advertising convinces us about all the things taht we "need" - that we don't need. And the feeling that we are needy makes us depressed. But in truth our society has so much. We are so fortunate. When we list our blessings, we begin to realise how much we do have. And then we become happier as we count our blessings and our good fortune for every little luxury and necessity that we benefit from.