Sorry for the long silence. I got caught up in reading Worm, a web serial linked to by the author of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Both good reads, if you have too much time on your hands (does anyone ever actually have that problem?).
This topic is not about international bankers or communist revolutionaries. It is more of a followup on the earlier post questioning the mysterious nature of the pre-Talmudic Jewish community in Bavel, raising further questions in the same vein. It is based on a vort I read from Rav Shimon Schwab regarding a difficulty with the traditional timeline. According to traditional sources, the second Beit haMikdosh was built 70 years after the destruction of the first, in the sixth year of the reign of Daryavosh, stood for 420 years, and was then destroyed by the Romans. The destruction incontrovertibly took place in the year 70 CE, which would place the exile at 420 BCE and the rededication at 350 BCE. However, this is not consistent with external evidence. Unlike archaeological questions relating to the yetziat Mitzraim (the exodus) or the conquest of the land, this is not a challenge from absence. Rather, there is solid evidence that the Babylonians did indeed destroy the first Beit haMikdosh, but in the year 586 BCE, and the sixth year of the reign of Darius the Great was indeed 70 years later, in the year 516 BCE. How are we to account for a missing 166 years? Even for those who doubt the truth of revelation or the veracity of biblical events lost in the mists of antiquity should have a hard time accepting that the Jews, with a large and well educated population living in Persia, would have simply been mistaken on such a scale about relatively recent history. It would be equivalent to all the Catholics in America, including academic historians, believing that the American Revolution took place immediately after the founding of Jamestown and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, despite knowing the correct chronology from Columbus to that point. Even before modern archaeology sharpened the question, there are a number of problems internal to the text, and there was some knowledge of classical records that disagreed. Rav Schwab points to a number of commentators who attempt to explain the irregularity of the dates given, generally with extremely unsatisfying hypotheses. His alternative theory is quite intriguing, whether or not you find it convincing. In the book of Daniel, the eponymous prophet is told in a vision to "shut up the words and seal the book," understood as keeping secret something that could reveal information about the Messianic era. There is also a reference in the Talmud to Book of Genealogies, saying, "Since the day that the Book of Genealogies was hidden, the strength of the Sages has been impaired and the light of their eyes has been dimmed." This is believed to be a commentary on Divrei haYamim (Chronicles), which was traditionally written by Ezra shortly after the second Beit haMikdosh was dedicated. Rav Schwab theorizes that there was a deliberate effort to alter the dates and hide books that would reveal the truth in obedience to Daniel's command. He also notes that around this time (early second Temple period), rabbinic Jews switched to the Greek count of years, even on sacred documents, despite the fact that this left them open to ridicule from rival sects, and maintained the Seleucid dates for nearly a thousand years before switching back. Why would they do such a thing? Well, it would be hard to switch a calendar in current use by over a century without anyone noticing...
The theory is admittedly tenuous, but I haven't thought of a better way to explain the data. What would altering the calendar by 166 years do to hide information about moshiach? Not entirely sure, but maybe I should keep my eyes open when I'm 84 and the seventh millenium starts according to his count. Welcome to the year 5940. Maybe. (If you're into the spooky stuff, the gematria of "the secret of Daniel" is 165. Whether or not you accept that gematrias can be off by one, years certainly can be, as long as the new year dates are different).
Some interesting things from the past weeks: during Hanukah, I saw one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen. Brilliant colors complemented nicely by Jerusalem stone. Also weather related, snow is crazy here. Biggest blizzard in over 150 years. Shut down the city completely for the better part of a week. Things are getting back to normal now, but there is still some way to go. A member of the town council came in Tuesday to thank the bochurim for their help clearing streets and sidewalks; when one guy asked if there was more to do, his response was, "Yeah, but we're going to take a break. Maybe we'll do some more on Friday. We're thinking about it." Ah, Israel. Between Hanukah break and snow shutting down the yeshiva, and the temptations of immoderate internet fiction consumption, my sleep schedule got rather thrown off, but I'm working my way back.
Two weeks ago, I had an exciting Shabbat adventure. I was hired with a couple other guys to do a catering gig in Beitar, but we got on the wrong bus (right number, wrong company), and ended up in Ariel. Luckily, a student at the university there overheard us trying to figure out what to do on the busride up, and she set us up with a place to stay and get meals, and we hung out around the dorm-trailers with her and her friends. Aside from a couple olim, not much English in that part of the country, but it was good to practice Hebrew and see the not-quite-secular side of Israel. Still pretty Orthodox by American standards. Our host for sleeping and lunch was pretty interesting as well; one of the evacuees from Gush Katif, about as Dati Leumi as it gets. Gave us some tasty exotic fruits, fresh from his garden. I was surprised to learn that Dati Leumi nusach is Sfard (chassidic), because the government decided that it was a good compromise between Ashkenazi and Sephardi.
20 December 2013
25 November 2013
Hannukah
This might be rather long. Bear with me. Hannukah is not a straightforward holiday at all, reflecting deeply ambivalent traditional Jewish views toward Greece and its culture.
On the one hand, there is respect. Yavan, the eponymous biblical ancestor of Greece, is seen as the greatest inheritor of the blessing of Yaphet, Noach's son, wherein it is prophesied yapht Elokim l'Yaphet (God will enlarge-materially/enlarge-intellectually/beautify Yaphet). Rav Hirsch takes that further, seeing the Greeks as some sort of partner with the Jews, preparing the way for the second portion of the prophecy, that God/Yaphet/that-which-God-bestows-on-Yaphet will dwell in the tents of Shem. Sorry for the slashes, Hebrew is hard to translate. The wisdom of the Greeks is acknowledged, at least with regard to observable matters; on at least one occasion, the rabbis of the Talmud acknowledge that the Greek view seems superior to their own. Perhaps most astonishingly, Greek is said to be the only language other than Hebrew that can be used to write a kosher sefer Torah.
And yet, there is the other hand. Greece is one of the four empires of oppression, putting the imposition of Greek culture and law on a par with outright slaughter of the entire nation as threatened by Persia in the Purim story, or with the destruction of the Beit HaMikdosh as executed by Babylon and Rome (with distinctions between them that I won't go into now; maybe a future post can compare the rest of the empires). Of the four, Greece is characterized in the vision of Daniel by a four-headed, four-winged leopard signifying its particular ferocity and that it will cover the entire world. Fierce and world-spanning even in comparison to Rome, mind you. In the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, Greece is the copper belly, loins, and thighs of the statue. I haven't been able to find a satisfying explanation of that symbolism, so I won't really address it, but feel free to speak up if you see a way that it fits. Most relevant to Hannukah, in the second verse of bereishit, Greece is identified with choshech, darkness.
How can we reconcile these views? First, I think it is important to note that Hannukah was more a civil war amongst the Jews with Greek involvement than a simple revolution. The Greeks did not interfere with Jewish religious practices until the Hellenized Jews asked them to. So, the struggle and the victory was not really against the Seleucid empire, it was against something wrong with the Jewish people. Surely, though, if Greek culture and wisdom are good things in themselves, they are also good for the Jews, no? Here, I would like to bring in Rav Matis Weinberg, who wrote about the connection between the Hannukah story and the two weekly Torah portions that can be read therein. Rachel and her sons, especially Yoseph, are traditionally associated with the material world, wealth, and aesthetic beauty, just like the Yavan. According to a number of commentators, this is the real reason that the brothers sell Yoseph into slavery. Simple jealousy and hatred are seen as such severe sins that they would disqualify one from founding and leading a tribe in Israel, so there are many attempts to discern other motives. According to this view, the brothers are concerned that Yoseph's concern with such worldly matters would poison the Jewish people, especially if he were put in a position of leadership as Yaakov seemed to plan. However, they were clearly mistaken. The dangers that they see in his future all fall on Yehuda, their chosen alternate, rather than on Yoseph. Promiscuity: compare Yoseph's conduct with eishet Potiphar to Yehuda's with Tamar. Intermarriage: according to the midrash, Asenat is in fact Jewish, Dina's daughter by Shechem who followed Yoseph to Egypt, whereas Yehuda clearly marries a Canaanite. Materialism: Yoseph is noted for his scrupulous honesty handling enormous wealth, whereas Yehuda's wife is only identified as the daughter of his business partner, implying that he married for business concerns. For those who were worried, have no fear, Yehuda will redeem himself next week. The parshiyot therefore serve to avoid over-learning the lessons of the holiday, just as we read Yeshayahu's denunciation of hypocritical fasting and prayer on Yom Kippur and Kohelet's denigration of celebration on Sukkot. However, this is a call for balance and moderation, not negation of the main point. Compare Yoseph to that other Jewish interpreter of dreams who rose to power over a foreign land, Daniel. Here, we see a reversal. The descendants of Yoseph have gone confirmed the brothers' fears about their materialistic, assimilating, community-destroying tendencies, breaking the bulk of the tribes off into the northern kingdom, leading them to idolatry and sin, and completely disappearing in their exile; whereas Daniel, the descendant of Yehuda, has found the balance point that eluded his ancestor in last week's paresha and mirrors Yoseph almost exactly in holding fast to his values despite integrating deeply with Babylonian society, thereby saving the Jewish people.
How does all this help us understand why Greece is darkness and Hannukah is light? Here, I turn to Rav Zadok HaKohen Rabinowitz, a chassidic rabbi from Poland whose writings I have never read and am therefore probably mischaracterizing. Greece is not inherently darkness, contrasted with Jewish light. Rather, Yavan is meant to bring light and beauty to the world, but Greece as an empire was not fulfilling its function. To function correctly, Greek aesthetics, reason, and materialism must be in service to the moral teachings that they are not equipped to provide. Yaphet must dwell in the tents of Shem, ancestor of the Jews. When balance, order, and priorities are lost, the potential for good becomes evil. Darkness is the absence of light, not a light-sucking black cloud. When the Hashmonayim revolted, they were rectifying Greece, not destroying it. The last bit of pure oil that they found was the kernel of what Greece ought to have been all along, before they corrupted the bulk of their light-giving potential and went dark. According to Rav Zadok, it was only in the aftermath of Hannukah that the oral law was able to reach its full flowering, davka (specifically/only) because of Greek influence.
This is too long to push it too much further, but if you are interested and have access, check out Rav Hirsch's analysis of the Menorah in paresha Terumah. He connects it to ruach (spirit), and if we look at Shem, Yaphet, and Ham as corresponding to neshama, ruach, and nefesh respectively, then that dovetails nicely with my reading, and provides a lot of detail about what Yavan's proper role might be. But wait! that Menorah has seven branches, we are dealing with eight (the shamesh davka doesn't count, that's why it's there). Six (not mentioned, but makes seven and eight easier to explain) represents expansion in three dimensional space, right-left-forward-backward-up-down, ie material completion. Seven adds the center point, signifying the spiritual component allowing true completion, as seen in Shabbat among other places. Eight thus represents transcendence, going beyond the bounds of nature, as seen in brit milah, shemini atzeret, and other places. When Yavan is brought into the tent of Shem, when his spiritual gifts and capacities are sanctified such that we can even write a sefer Torah in Greek, there is something of that same covenantal transcendence.
Sorry for the length and disorder, hopefully that made sense anyway. Some of it may be building on or toward something that I thought about but forgot to include or left or for space purposes, but I don't expect to have time to edit properly before Hannukah, so if it doesn't make sense, ask.
Not too much news around here since last post. We had a wonderful wedding Thursday night, on a hill overlooking the scenic and historic town of Yericho. Among the honorees were Rav Matis Weinberg, mentioned above, and the chief rabbi of Sweden. I spent Shabbat with some Rutgers alumni, including an old daf yomi chaver. Did some experimental research into Jerusalem geography on the way back, and the results briefly had me off the derech, but I wasn't too late for D&D. There was a tiyul today to Ir David, but I woke up an hour after they left, so that gave me time to write way too much about Hannukah instead.
Happy Hannukah and Thanksgiving and any other celebrations you may or may not practice! Even if you aren't celebrating at all, happy days stam!
On the one hand, there is respect. Yavan, the eponymous biblical ancestor of Greece, is seen as the greatest inheritor of the blessing of Yaphet, Noach's son, wherein it is prophesied yapht Elokim l'Yaphet (God will enlarge-materially/enlarge-intellectually/beautify Yaphet). Rav Hirsch takes that further, seeing the Greeks as some sort of partner with the Jews, preparing the way for the second portion of the prophecy, that God/Yaphet/that-which-God-bestows-on-Yaphet will dwell in the tents of Shem. Sorry for the slashes, Hebrew is hard to translate. The wisdom of the Greeks is acknowledged, at least with regard to observable matters; on at least one occasion, the rabbis of the Talmud acknowledge that the Greek view seems superior to their own. Perhaps most astonishingly, Greek is said to be the only language other than Hebrew that can be used to write a kosher sefer Torah.
And yet, there is the other hand. Greece is one of the four empires of oppression, putting the imposition of Greek culture and law on a par with outright slaughter of the entire nation as threatened by Persia in the Purim story, or with the destruction of the Beit HaMikdosh as executed by Babylon and Rome (with distinctions between them that I won't go into now; maybe a future post can compare the rest of the empires). Of the four, Greece is characterized in the vision of Daniel by a four-headed, four-winged leopard signifying its particular ferocity and that it will cover the entire world. Fierce and world-spanning even in comparison to Rome, mind you. In the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, Greece is the copper belly, loins, and thighs of the statue. I haven't been able to find a satisfying explanation of that symbolism, so I won't really address it, but feel free to speak up if you see a way that it fits. Most relevant to Hannukah, in the second verse of bereishit, Greece is identified with choshech, darkness.
How can we reconcile these views? First, I think it is important to note that Hannukah was more a civil war amongst the Jews with Greek involvement than a simple revolution. The Greeks did not interfere with Jewish religious practices until the Hellenized Jews asked them to. So, the struggle and the victory was not really against the Seleucid empire, it was against something wrong with the Jewish people. Surely, though, if Greek culture and wisdom are good things in themselves, they are also good for the Jews, no? Here, I would like to bring in Rav Matis Weinberg, who wrote about the connection between the Hannukah story and the two weekly Torah portions that can be read therein. Rachel and her sons, especially Yoseph, are traditionally associated with the material world, wealth, and aesthetic beauty, just like the Yavan. According to a number of commentators, this is the real reason that the brothers sell Yoseph into slavery. Simple jealousy and hatred are seen as such severe sins that they would disqualify one from founding and leading a tribe in Israel, so there are many attempts to discern other motives. According to this view, the brothers are concerned that Yoseph's concern with such worldly matters would poison the Jewish people, especially if he were put in a position of leadership as Yaakov seemed to plan. However, they were clearly mistaken. The dangers that they see in his future all fall on Yehuda, their chosen alternate, rather than on Yoseph. Promiscuity: compare Yoseph's conduct with eishet Potiphar to Yehuda's with Tamar. Intermarriage: according to the midrash, Asenat is in fact Jewish, Dina's daughter by Shechem who followed Yoseph to Egypt, whereas Yehuda clearly marries a Canaanite. Materialism: Yoseph is noted for his scrupulous honesty handling enormous wealth, whereas Yehuda's wife is only identified as the daughter of his business partner, implying that he married for business concerns. For those who were worried, have no fear, Yehuda will redeem himself next week. The parshiyot therefore serve to avoid over-learning the lessons of the holiday, just as we read Yeshayahu's denunciation of hypocritical fasting and prayer on Yom Kippur and Kohelet's denigration of celebration on Sukkot. However, this is a call for balance and moderation, not negation of the main point. Compare Yoseph to that other Jewish interpreter of dreams who rose to power over a foreign land, Daniel. Here, we see a reversal. The descendants of Yoseph have gone confirmed the brothers' fears about their materialistic, assimilating, community-destroying tendencies, breaking the bulk of the tribes off into the northern kingdom, leading them to idolatry and sin, and completely disappearing in their exile; whereas Daniel, the descendant of Yehuda, has found the balance point that eluded his ancestor in last week's paresha and mirrors Yoseph almost exactly in holding fast to his values despite integrating deeply with Babylonian society, thereby saving the Jewish people.
How does all this help us understand why Greece is darkness and Hannukah is light? Here, I turn to Rav Zadok HaKohen Rabinowitz, a chassidic rabbi from Poland whose writings I have never read and am therefore probably mischaracterizing. Greece is not inherently darkness, contrasted with Jewish light. Rather, Yavan is meant to bring light and beauty to the world, but Greece as an empire was not fulfilling its function. To function correctly, Greek aesthetics, reason, and materialism must be in service to the moral teachings that they are not equipped to provide. Yaphet must dwell in the tents of Shem, ancestor of the Jews. When balance, order, and priorities are lost, the potential for good becomes evil. Darkness is the absence of light, not a light-sucking black cloud. When the Hashmonayim revolted, they were rectifying Greece, not destroying it. The last bit of pure oil that they found was the kernel of what Greece ought to have been all along, before they corrupted the bulk of their light-giving potential and went dark. According to Rav Zadok, it was only in the aftermath of Hannukah that the oral law was able to reach its full flowering, davka (specifically/only) because of Greek influence.
This is too long to push it too much further, but if you are interested and have access, check out Rav Hirsch's analysis of the Menorah in paresha Terumah. He connects it to ruach (spirit), and if we look at Shem, Yaphet, and Ham as corresponding to neshama, ruach, and nefesh respectively, then that dovetails nicely with my reading, and provides a lot of detail about what Yavan's proper role might be. But wait! that Menorah has seven branches, we are dealing with eight (the shamesh davka doesn't count, that's why it's there). Six (not mentioned, but makes seven and eight easier to explain) represents expansion in three dimensional space, right-left-forward-backward-up-down, ie material completion. Seven adds the center point, signifying the spiritual component allowing true completion, as seen in Shabbat among other places. Eight thus represents transcendence, going beyond the bounds of nature, as seen in brit milah, shemini atzeret, and other places. When Yavan is brought into the tent of Shem, when his spiritual gifts and capacities are sanctified such that we can even write a sefer Torah in Greek, there is something of that same covenantal transcendence.
Sorry for the length and disorder, hopefully that made sense anyway. Some of it may be building on or toward something that I thought about but forgot to include or left or for space purposes, but I don't expect to have time to edit properly before Hannukah, so if it doesn't make sense, ask.
Not too much news around here since last post. We had a wonderful wedding Thursday night, on a hill overlooking the scenic and historic town of Yericho. Among the honorees were Rav Matis Weinberg, mentioned above, and the chief rabbi of Sweden. I spent Shabbat with some Rutgers alumni, including an old daf yomi chaver. Did some experimental research into Jerusalem geography on the way back, and the results briefly had me off the derech, but I wasn't too late for D&D. There was a tiyul today to Ir David, but I woke up an hour after they left, so that gave me time to write way too much about Hannukah instead.
Happy Hannukah and Thanksgiving and any other celebrations you may or may not practice! Even if you aren't celebrating at all, happy days stam!
18 November 2013
Bavel
Sorry for the long hiatus. It can be hard to find time to write between study and sleeping and... that's pretty much it, actually. I'll probably get something up about Hanukah soonish. Any topics of particular interest for subsequent posts?
I recently read the Iggeret of Rav Sherira Gaon, one of our earliest sources for the line of transmission of the Torah Shebaal Peh (oral law), and it has left me with a lot of questions, mostly about the Babylonian community prior to the Amoraic period (when the gemara was written).
Here is what I know about it: while there may have been some presence earlier, the bulk of the community formed through a series of exiles in the early 6th century BCE, mostly of the educated populace and political class. In exile, they prospered, and although they were allowed to return after the Persians conquered Babylon in 538 BCE, most did not. As far as I can tell from Rav Sherira Gaon, it seems that the centre of Jewish scholarship may have stayed there, despite the departure of the anshei haknesset hagedola (men of the great assembly). He claims that most of the zugot (pairs, leading scholars of the proto-Mishnaic era) were Babylonians who made aliya to lead the court in Jerusalem. It is possible that there were not great schools in Eretz Yisrael until Hillel and Shammai, last of the zugot, founded their academies. For the next two hundred years or so, the Babylonian centre is clearly secondary, but not entirely quiescent. He describes activity somewhat parallel to the compilation of the mishna and tosefta going on in Bavel, with the baraita collection of Mar Shmuel being of comparable quality to the tosefta (if you need a glossary for that sentence, skip it for now, ask me later). Philo describes it as large and wealthy, but doesn't say much.
So, basically I am frustrated by the paucity of sources. I suppose I would mainly focus on three categories of ignorance. First, we have none of the output of that time, and we don't even know what is missing (except, I suppose, the baraitot of Mar Shmuel and the mishna of Rav Nissim). Presumably, a centre of scholarship of that scale and duration produced a lot of important Torah, and it would be nice to have access to some of it. Second, I would like to know something about the cultural exchange that occurred there with non-Jews. Comparisons of Judaism to Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are pretty much in their infancy, as though the only significant point of contact with the rest of the world was the western one with Greece and Rome. Third, the political situation was quite interesting. Before Hanukah time, Mesopotamia was one of the most important provinces of the Seleucid Empire, the Syro-Greek antagonists in Judea, and right around then it passed into Arsacid hands, a local Persian dynasty that ultimately split the Seleucids with Rome. What degree of contact was there between the Jewish communities in this time of flux and revolution? Were the Jews of Bavel also oppressed by the Greeks? Did they have a role in the end of Seleucid power there?
Anyway, if anyone is interested in a career in archaeology and looking for a period to study, keep it in mind. Also interested in wild, groundless speculation, if there is any on offer.
Yeshiva life goes on. We had a shabbaton down south a couple weeks ago, which was very nice. Lovely hiking, Sephardic food. I found out that hail is surprisingly painful, and its aftermath is surreal on a warm, sunny afternoon in a desert town with piles of ice lying here and there. I also got to play a bunch of chess and go, which was enormous fun.
One of the rabbis' sons was married, so I got to see a Sephardic wedding. The dancing was very confusing. They seemed to be dancing in concentric circles more or less like Ashkenazim, albeit with different rhythm and footwork, but the circles ended up not being closed or concentric or stable in any way, and I kept finding myself on the edge of the dance floor and no longer holding hands with anyone no matter where I started or what I did. So I enjoyed the wine and called it a night.
Thursday, a few of us (mostly D&D crew) went to a medieval festival in the old city. Started off underwhelming, cheesy costumes and not much use of the fantastic medieval scenery, but there were a couple parts that really tugged at my heartstrings. There was a craft fair, and the potter there reminded me of my late teacher, Ursula Kaplowitz. In terms of midot (character traits), I can't think of anyone else outside my family who had a greater impact on me, modelling patience and kindness like a saint with every student, no matter how rambunctious or inattentive. Then there was a station with music and space for dancing, and I had a hard time with that, too, but in a good way. Basically, I have to get married. If they had played a waltz, I might have started crying.
I recently read the Iggeret of Rav Sherira Gaon, one of our earliest sources for the line of transmission of the Torah Shebaal Peh (oral law), and it has left me with a lot of questions, mostly about the Babylonian community prior to the Amoraic period (when the gemara was written).
Here is what I know about it: while there may have been some presence earlier, the bulk of the community formed through a series of exiles in the early 6th century BCE, mostly of the educated populace and political class. In exile, they prospered, and although they were allowed to return after the Persians conquered Babylon in 538 BCE, most did not. As far as I can tell from Rav Sherira Gaon, it seems that the centre of Jewish scholarship may have stayed there, despite the departure of the anshei haknesset hagedola (men of the great assembly). He claims that most of the zugot (pairs, leading scholars of the proto-Mishnaic era) were Babylonians who made aliya to lead the court in Jerusalem. It is possible that there were not great schools in Eretz Yisrael until Hillel and Shammai, last of the zugot, founded their academies. For the next two hundred years or so, the Babylonian centre is clearly secondary, but not entirely quiescent. He describes activity somewhat parallel to the compilation of the mishna and tosefta going on in Bavel, with the baraita collection of Mar Shmuel being of comparable quality to the tosefta (if you need a glossary for that sentence, skip it for now, ask me later). Philo describes it as large and wealthy, but doesn't say much.
So, basically I am frustrated by the paucity of sources. I suppose I would mainly focus on three categories of ignorance. First, we have none of the output of that time, and we don't even know what is missing (except, I suppose, the baraitot of Mar Shmuel and the mishna of Rav Nissim). Presumably, a centre of scholarship of that scale and duration produced a lot of important Torah, and it would be nice to have access to some of it. Second, I would like to know something about the cultural exchange that occurred there with non-Jews. Comparisons of Judaism to Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are pretty much in their infancy, as though the only significant point of contact with the rest of the world was the western one with Greece and Rome. Third, the political situation was quite interesting. Before Hanukah time, Mesopotamia was one of the most important provinces of the Seleucid Empire, the Syro-Greek antagonists in Judea, and right around then it passed into Arsacid hands, a local Persian dynasty that ultimately split the Seleucids with Rome. What degree of contact was there between the Jewish communities in this time of flux and revolution? Were the Jews of Bavel also oppressed by the Greeks? Did they have a role in the end of Seleucid power there?
Anyway, if anyone is interested in a career in archaeology and looking for a period to study, keep it in mind. Also interested in wild, groundless speculation, if there is any on offer.
Yeshiva life goes on. We had a shabbaton down south a couple weeks ago, which was very nice. Lovely hiking, Sephardic food. I found out that hail is surprisingly painful, and its aftermath is surreal on a warm, sunny afternoon in a desert town with piles of ice lying here and there. I also got to play a bunch of chess and go, which was enormous fun.
One of the rabbis' sons was married, so I got to see a Sephardic wedding. The dancing was very confusing. They seemed to be dancing in concentric circles more or less like Ashkenazim, albeit with different rhythm and footwork, but the circles ended up not being closed or concentric or stable in any way, and I kept finding myself on the edge of the dance floor and no longer holding hands with anyone no matter where I started or what I did. So I enjoyed the wine and called it a night.
Thursday, a few of us (mostly D&D crew) went to a medieval festival in the old city. Started off underwhelming, cheesy costumes and not much use of the fantastic medieval scenery, but there were a couple parts that really tugged at my heartstrings. There was a craft fair, and the potter there reminded me of my late teacher, Ursula Kaplowitz. In terms of midot (character traits), I can't think of anyone else outside my family who had a greater impact on me, modelling patience and kindness like a saint with every student, no matter how rambunctious or inattentive. Then there was a station with music and space for dancing, and I had a hard time with that, too, but in a good way. Basically, I have to get married. If they had played a waltz, I might have started crying.
25 October 2013
Old and New
I have spent most of my time on this blog thus far discussing what Judaism means to me now. Perhaps it might provide some useful context to say where I came from. Supposedly, in kindergarten I spent a fair bit of time trying to convince my Orthodox Christian friend that Christianity was wrong and my secular Israeli friend that there was a God, but my memory of that time is rather hazy, so I will focus on what emerged in high school and mostly remained until I started to become religious.
I developed a somewhat elaborate historical theory that I will call the "assimilation pump". Basically, I divided the Jewish world into the Orthodox and everyone else, with a necessary role for each. The Orthodox served to preserve the cultural values, traditions, and possibly genetics that foster rigorous study, intellectualism, and creativity, but at the cost of being constricted to a narrow sphere that consumes all their energies. The non-Orthodox would take those benefits and apply them to secular culture at the cost of removing themselves and their descendants from the continuity of the Jewish people. In times of persecution, this would take the form of a few individuals who explicitly reject Judaism and thus gain access to the broader society. In better times, this would take the form of a brief yet brilliant flourishing, which gradually fades as they go further and further from the culture that enabled it and more and more assimilate out (slowed by a steady trickle of ex-Orthodox), until persecution inevitably kicks in again. At that point, the situation reverts to a more bifurcated state, where those who are insufficiently committed to endure persecution or exile for the sake of Judaism would abandon their vestigial ties, speeding up assimilation, whereas those who are sufficiently committed would be mostly Orthodox and some few that would be driven to join the Orthodox for lack of any other viable community. I am not sure how reconcilable this theory is to a theological view of history. Perhaps when we fail to find the correct balance that allows for synergy between productive enterprise in secular areas and a life of Torah and mitzvot, then God turns to this mechanism to allow the Jews to pursue our task. The progressive Jews do the heavy lifting of having an impact on the rest of the world, and the more cloistered forms of Orthodoxy preserve the means by which that impact is accomplished and supply the next round of progressives when these ones assimilate away. Still, rather than accept such a situation and choose which half of the task most appeals, I think that it is incumbent upon us to continue to strive for the balance, even if it is difficult. Torah im derech eretz.
That will do for now. Maybe I will talk about other things I used to think at a later date.
I have been struggling with my sleeping habits, leading to a lot of missed shacharit (morning prayers) and even some missed classes, so I am now trying to follow Rambam in countering an extreme with an extreme. Ideally, my sleep schedule is now 10:30-5:30. If you see me online between those hours, 3:30-10:30 Eastern, tell me to go to sleep.
In other news, I just went to my first wedding since being here, with another to come Monday night. Both strangers, but one is an alumnus and the other a rabbi's son, so the whole yeshiva got invitations. I love weddings.
Also, D&D is up and running and going well. Due to theological concerns of a couple players, we are in a godless world, lending the party cleric a certain aura of mystery. I play a human warlock, raised in an island village run according to a mix of anarcho-socialism and Confucianism that I haven't really thought through. Strict father, many siblings, mother taken by slavers early in my childhood, so I ran away at 14 and lived by my wits until discovering my powers at 17. We also have an elvish cleric and his ninja bodyguard, hailing from a mysterious enclave in distant woods, a halfling swashbuckler with a salty past, a dwarvish fighter with a thick Russian accent who just wants to go home and bury his uncle Piotr (hopefully dwarf corpses, being so stonelike, do not decay?), and a human wizard with all the pompous uselessness that only level one wizards can provide. We were all taken by slavers with some sort of connection to the sinister empire that rules most of the world, and in two sessions have almost managed to meet each other and form a proper party. Feels good to play again. Interestingly, all our spellcasters seem based on some archetype from the Orthodox world -- I'm clearly off the derech, our wizard has a certain whiff of the ba'al teshuva about him, and the cleric seems like a sheltered chassid. Perhaps the greater surprise is that the other characters are not.
Shabbat Shalom!
I developed a somewhat elaborate historical theory that I will call the "assimilation pump". Basically, I divided the Jewish world into the Orthodox and everyone else, with a necessary role for each. The Orthodox served to preserve the cultural values, traditions, and possibly genetics that foster rigorous study, intellectualism, and creativity, but at the cost of being constricted to a narrow sphere that consumes all their energies. The non-Orthodox would take those benefits and apply them to secular culture at the cost of removing themselves and their descendants from the continuity of the Jewish people. In times of persecution, this would take the form of a few individuals who explicitly reject Judaism and thus gain access to the broader society. In better times, this would take the form of a brief yet brilliant flourishing, which gradually fades as they go further and further from the culture that enabled it and more and more assimilate out (slowed by a steady trickle of ex-Orthodox), until persecution inevitably kicks in again. At that point, the situation reverts to a more bifurcated state, where those who are insufficiently committed to endure persecution or exile for the sake of Judaism would abandon their vestigial ties, speeding up assimilation, whereas those who are sufficiently committed would be mostly Orthodox and some few that would be driven to join the Orthodox for lack of any other viable community. I am not sure how reconcilable this theory is to a theological view of history. Perhaps when we fail to find the correct balance that allows for synergy between productive enterprise in secular areas and a life of Torah and mitzvot, then God turns to this mechanism to allow the Jews to pursue our task. The progressive Jews do the heavy lifting of having an impact on the rest of the world, and the more cloistered forms of Orthodoxy preserve the means by which that impact is accomplished and supply the next round of progressives when these ones assimilate away. Still, rather than accept such a situation and choose which half of the task most appeals, I think that it is incumbent upon us to continue to strive for the balance, even if it is difficult. Torah im derech eretz.
That will do for now. Maybe I will talk about other things I used to think at a later date.
I have been struggling with my sleeping habits, leading to a lot of missed shacharit (morning prayers) and even some missed classes, so I am now trying to follow Rambam in countering an extreme with an extreme. Ideally, my sleep schedule is now 10:30-5:30. If you see me online between those hours, 3:30-10:30 Eastern, tell me to go to sleep.
In other news, I just went to my first wedding since being here, with another to come Monday night. Both strangers, but one is an alumnus and the other a rabbi's son, so the whole yeshiva got invitations. I love weddings.
Also, D&D is up and running and going well. Due to theological concerns of a couple players, we are in a godless world, lending the party cleric a certain aura of mystery. I play a human warlock, raised in an island village run according to a mix of anarcho-socialism and Confucianism that I haven't really thought through. Strict father, many siblings, mother taken by slavers early in my childhood, so I ran away at 14 and lived by my wits until discovering my powers at 17. We also have an elvish cleric and his ninja bodyguard, hailing from a mysterious enclave in distant woods, a halfling swashbuckler with a salty past, a dwarvish fighter with a thick Russian accent who just wants to go home and bury his uncle Piotr (hopefully dwarf corpses, being so stonelike, do not decay?), and a human wizard with all the pompous uselessness that only level one wizards can provide. We were all taken by slavers with some sort of connection to the sinister empire that rules most of the world, and in two sessions have almost managed to meet each other and form a proper party. Feels good to play again. Interestingly, all our spellcasters seem based on some archetype from the Orthodox world -- I'm clearly off the derech, our wizard has a certain whiff of the ba'al teshuva about him, and the cleric seems like a sheltered chassid. Perhaps the greater surprise is that the other characters are not.
Shabbat Shalom!
11 October 2013
Maran
On Monday, I joined some 800,000 other people in the streets of Jerusalem to pay final respects to Rav Ovadia Yosef. Amazing to see such a crowd, drawing from all kinds of religious Jews, many in tears. Several times, I was literally carried by the mass of people. At one point, I lost my sandal, and could not stop -- let alone turn around -- for almost two blocks, at which point I waited for a lull in the flow and went to retrieve it. I think my favorite part was during one of these crushes when a man next to me, barely able to shift his arms, decides to pour a drink for his rabbi. Anyway, hard to think of anyone more worthy of such an outpouring. Born to in Iraq to a poor grocer, he parlayed a superlative memory, combined with creativity, flexibility, and vision, to become the most respected Sephardi posek (legal decisor) in centuries, and arguably the greatest living scholar of halakha in the world by the end of his life. Astonishingly, he accomplished this by sheer weight of genius despite openly resisting the prevailing zeitgeist of the hareidi world that greater stringency equals greater scholarship and holiness, and often contradicting the established authority of revered past poseks like the Ben Ish Chai. Baruch Dayan Emet (blessed is the true judge).
Much as I respect him, there is much that I am uncomfortable with as well. I do not speak of his controversial, sometimes inflammatory public statements; I don't understand them, but I trust the extensive record of compassion, broad-mindedness, and social responsibility in his legal rulings above sound bites that, however hard to see favorably, are generally taken out of context and easy to misinterpret, and as such I withhold judgment. Instead, I refer to his overall vision for Sephardi renewal. I will digress slightly before explaining.
I recently read Rabbi Dr Haym Soloveitchik's landmark essay, Rupture and Reconstruction, which induced me to consider yet another dialectic that traditional Judaism seeks to balance: mimetic tradition vs textual tradition. This particular tension is very difficult for me to grapple with, as a ba'al teshuva, because I have little access to mimetic tradition, and so must rely very heavily on text and theory. I do know that consideration of popular practice plays a large role in the Talmud and responsa literature. Perhaps greater familiarity will at least let me have a sense of what is ideal, even if I have trouble putting it into personal practice. This is one reason I am inclined to try to marry FFB (frum from birth), to at least have the possibility for a balanced fusion for my children. The question becomes all the more difficult because the balance has shifted in favor of text and theory in almost every sector of Orthodoxy. Almost certainly, we were too far to the other end of the spectrum before that shift; religious education was not very strong except for the elite and there was some degree of sclerosis, and many were driven from traditional practice by these weaknesses. However, it is hard to tell when we overcompensate, how to judge the proper balance. It seems to me that the best hope is a robust pluralism within Orthodoxy that can provide a living experiment, comparing different ways to combine these sources of traditional knowledge and practice. If, on the contrary, every community suddenly elevates textual authority to complete dominance over mimetic learning, traditions are lost, continuity is called into question, and the experiment loses its comparative power. Of course, there are the Conservative Jews, who swung in the other direction, and the Reform, who abandoned both, but neither provides much additional insight into the ideal.
Maran's overarching project through his life was very much a reconstruction of Sephardic Jewry according to this same pattern. True, he sought leniency in the texts rather than chumra after chumra (stringencies), but he emphatically places the Shulchan Aruch over local custom and received tradition in the name of unity and ideological purity. It is a truism that nothing can uproot the Sephardic traditionalism and inherited spirituality. If anything can, I think it might be this project, if his successors have half his brilliance and charisma.
Further reading, if you are interested:
Soloveitchik's essay (long): http://www.lookstein.org/links/orthodoxy.htm
A pair of fascinating articles on this trend in the Dati Leumi (national religious) world: http://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/datlash-hardal-according-to-rav-shagar/
http://tomerpersicoenglish.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/a-point-about-the-fundamental-difference-between-haredi-and-traditional-and-national-religious-judaism/
Life here is good. One week into the new zman, and classes are great. Gemara with Rabbi Hirschfeld, the rosh yeshiva I have praised here several times, is challenging and interesting, learning the laws of objects that are borrowed or entrusted to another's care. Two hours of daily ulpan provide exactly what was missing last zman. New halakha teacher continues the pattern (four now) that halakha rebbeim are among the most dynamic and gregarious people I've met. Looks like a D&D group may be forming tomorrow. I didn't realize that last Shabbat was an out Shabbat, so I ended up joining a couple of guys going to Karlin-Stolin to trawl for a meal. Within moments of entering, we were shepherded to a host, where we ate with about 30 other bochurim from various yeshivot. Very welcoming, the Karliners, but I don't think I could get used to screaming every prayer. Another exciting event: when in Meah Shearim to purchase my gemara for this zman, I happened to run into two friends from Rutgers, including one that I used to learn Daf Yomi with. They have been in Jerusalem the past year, learning, and just happened to be standing on a street corner as I was walking by. Shocking how often these small-world things happen in Jerusalem. One of the things I love about this place.
Shabbat Shalom l'culam!
Much as I respect him, there is much that I am uncomfortable with as well. I do not speak of his controversial, sometimes inflammatory public statements; I don't understand them, but I trust the extensive record of compassion, broad-mindedness, and social responsibility in his legal rulings above sound bites that, however hard to see favorably, are generally taken out of context and easy to misinterpret, and as such I withhold judgment. Instead, I refer to his overall vision for Sephardi renewal. I will digress slightly before explaining.
I recently read Rabbi Dr Haym Soloveitchik's landmark essay, Rupture and Reconstruction, which induced me to consider yet another dialectic that traditional Judaism seeks to balance: mimetic tradition vs textual tradition. This particular tension is very difficult for me to grapple with, as a ba'al teshuva, because I have little access to mimetic tradition, and so must rely very heavily on text and theory. I do know that consideration of popular practice plays a large role in the Talmud and responsa literature. Perhaps greater familiarity will at least let me have a sense of what is ideal, even if I have trouble putting it into personal practice. This is one reason I am inclined to try to marry FFB (frum from birth), to at least have the possibility for a balanced fusion for my children. The question becomes all the more difficult because the balance has shifted in favor of text and theory in almost every sector of Orthodoxy. Almost certainly, we were too far to the other end of the spectrum before that shift; religious education was not very strong except for the elite and there was some degree of sclerosis, and many were driven from traditional practice by these weaknesses. However, it is hard to tell when we overcompensate, how to judge the proper balance. It seems to me that the best hope is a robust pluralism within Orthodoxy that can provide a living experiment, comparing different ways to combine these sources of traditional knowledge and practice. If, on the contrary, every community suddenly elevates textual authority to complete dominance over mimetic learning, traditions are lost, continuity is called into question, and the experiment loses its comparative power. Of course, there are the Conservative Jews, who swung in the other direction, and the Reform, who abandoned both, but neither provides much additional insight into the ideal.
Maran's overarching project through his life was very much a reconstruction of Sephardic Jewry according to this same pattern. True, he sought leniency in the texts rather than chumra after chumra (stringencies), but he emphatically places the Shulchan Aruch over local custom and received tradition in the name of unity and ideological purity. It is a truism that nothing can uproot the Sephardic traditionalism and inherited spirituality. If anything can, I think it might be this project, if his successors have half his brilliance and charisma.
Further reading, if you are interested:
Soloveitchik's essay (long): http://www.lookstein.org/links/orthodoxy.htm
A pair of fascinating articles on this trend in the Dati Leumi (national religious) world: http://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/datlash-hardal-according-to-rav-shagar/
http://tomerpersicoenglish.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/a-point-about-the-fundamental-difference-between-haredi-and-traditional-and-national-religious-judaism/
Life here is good. One week into the new zman, and classes are great. Gemara with Rabbi Hirschfeld, the rosh yeshiva I have praised here several times, is challenging and interesting, learning the laws of objects that are borrowed or entrusted to another's care. Two hours of daily ulpan provide exactly what was missing last zman. New halakha teacher continues the pattern (four now) that halakha rebbeim are among the most dynamic and gregarious people I've met. Looks like a D&D group may be forming tomorrow. I didn't realize that last Shabbat was an out Shabbat, so I ended up joining a couple of guys going to Karlin-Stolin to trawl for a meal. Within moments of entering, we were shepherded to a host, where we ate with about 30 other bochurim from various yeshivot. Very welcoming, the Karliners, but I don't think I could get used to screaming every prayer. Another exciting event: when in Meah Shearim to purchase my gemara for this zman, I happened to run into two friends from Rutgers, including one that I used to learn Daf Yomi with. They have been in Jerusalem the past year, learning, and just happened to be standing on a street corner as I was walking by. Shocking how often these small-world things happen in Jerusalem. One of the things I love about this place.
Shabbat Shalom l'culam!
02 October 2013
Pew Report on American Jewry
http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/10/jewish-american-survey-full-report.pdf
I know I posted yesterday, but this report just came out, and these things are so much fun. Hence, a few comments as I read:
Page 9- I had heard that intermarriage rates were stable or declining since the 90's, when they were around half. That does not seem to be the case, with rates near 3/5 since 2000.
Page 11- I would like to see the Conservative and Reform denominational switching numbers broken down by age as well. It certainly changes the picture for Orthodoxy (on page 49, will get to it later). Also curious about the "no-denomination" group that still identifies as religious; Pew's spectrum places them right on the border of non-religious, yet the more observant the upbringing, the more likely to end up there.
Page 13- Jews of no religion confuse me. 16% believe God gave Israel to the Jews? Not that I'm complaining...
Page 24- 1.3 million adults with Jewish mothers aren't being included here at all, identifying neither religiously nor culturally. Also, 900,000 of those adults who are counted do not have a Jewish mother. A count of halakhic Jews might give very different answers to many of these questions.
Page 36- Text and chart contradict. Among religious Jews since 2005, is the intermarriage rate 55% or 45%?
Page 40- Completed fertility has its advantages, but I would like to see TFR (total fertility rate) as well. This only tells about the previous generation, and I am skeptical that there are no generational differences in fertility.
Page 43- Interesting to note that hareidim graduate college at the same rate as Christians and are slightly more likely to be well off than Conservative or non-denominational Jews.
Page 49- Weird stuff going on with orthodoxy. Only 1% of 18-29 year old Jews are Modern Orthodox, compared to 3-4% of older Jews? And even the Hareidi share declines in that age bracket? Despite dramatically lower attrition rates for that age bracket than any other? Also, is there any rhyme or reason to the numbers becoming "not Jewish"? I can't think of any historical background that would explain the massive fluctuations. Aside from that anomaly, it looks to me like the phenomenon of becoming non-religious (low level, constant over time) is separate from the phenomenon of whether to remain Orthodox given the decision to be religious. There, not only do we see more retention, but also those who leave have become much more likely to become non-denominational rather than join the progressives. Very interesting.
Page 52- Modern Orthodox have the least pride in being Jewish of any religious group, but the highest level of identification with the Jewish people. Curious.
Page 57- Lots to say here. Women rate every single aspect as more essential than men do, sometimes by large margins. Holocaust remembrance rates surprisingly high, topping every non-Orthodox list except post-graduate degree holders, where it is well within the margin of error to be beat out ethical living. Modern Orthodox are most committed to most of the things I would put on top (ethical life, intellectual curiosity, Jewish community) and close seconds on others (justice/equality, halakha). Also interesting how much observance corresponds to valuing traditional foods. Did not expect that. Isn't "bagels and lox Judaism" a byword for secular/cultural Judaism? Is there some chance that large numbers thought this referred to kashrut, separately from the halakha category? Also surprised that, with big gains for the non-religious and unaffiliated in the younger generation, some of the essentials that took the biggest hits were working for justice/equality and having a sense of humor, while being part of the community and observing halakha were among the most strongly maintained between old and young.
Page 58- Jews of no religion continue to confuse me. 22% say you cannot be Jewish without believing in God?
Page 59- One of the strongest impacts of increasing education on your definition of the bounds of Jewishness: more permissive about belief in God, less permissive about belief in Jesus. Why? I don't know. Also, hareidim are the least tolerant of criticism of Israel? Really?!
Page 63- 2/5 of adult religious Jews do not know the aleph-beit. Problem.
Page 72- Jews of no religion continue to confuse me. 8% consider religion very important in their lives. Also, interesting that Conservative Jews almost exactly match mainline Protestants. Coincidence? I think not.
Page 80- Attendance at non-Jewish services is almost constant across ages and denominations; even the intermarried don't go more often. However, there is one exception: Conservative Jews are half again as likely to go. Weird.
Page 99- Hareidim don't know or don't care about Obama's performance in numbers way beyond any other group. Do the gedolim not get involved in national politics?
Section on people of Jewish background and Jewish affinity is somewhat interesting, but not many surprises there, and very little granularity to the information. Not going to go into it.
Appendices on methodology- I'll trust Pew on this one.
I know I posted yesterday, but this report just came out, and these things are so much fun. Hence, a few comments as I read:
Page 9- I had heard that intermarriage rates were stable or declining since the 90's, when they were around half. That does not seem to be the case, with rates near 3/5 since 2000.
Page 11- I would like to see the Conservative and Reform denominational switching numbers broken down by age as well. It certainly changes the picture for Orthodoxy (on page 49, will get to it later). Also curious about the "no-denomination" group that still identifies as religious; Pew's spectrum places them right on the border of non-religious, yet the more observant the upbringing, the more likely to end up there.
Page 13- Jews of no religion confuse me. 16% believe God gave Israel to the Jews? Not that I'm complaining...
Page 24- 1.3 million adults with Jewish mothers aren't being included here at all, identifying neither religiously nor culturally. Also, 900,000 of those adults who are counted do not have a Jewish mother. A count of halakhic Jews might give very different answers to many of these questions.
Page 36- Text and chart contradict. Among religious Jews since 2005, is the intermarriage rate 55% or 45%?
Page 40- Completed fertility has its advantages, but I would like to see TFR (total fertility rate) as well. This only tells about the previous generation, and I am skeptical that there are no generational differences in fertility.
Page 43- Interesting to note that hareidim graduate college at the same rate as Christians and are slightly more likely to be well off than Conservative or non-denominational Jews.
Page 49- Weird stuff going on with orthodoxy. Only 1% of 18-29 year old Jews are Modern Orthodox, compared to 3-4% of older Jews? And even the Hareidi share declines in that age bracket? Despite dramatically lower attrition rates for that age bracket than any other? Also, is there any rhyme or reason to the numbers becoming "not Jewish"? I can't think of any historical background that would explain the massive fluctuations. Aside from that anomaly, it looks to me like the phenomenon of becoming non-religious (low level, constant over time) is separate from the phenomenon of whether to remain Orthodox given the decision to be religious. There, not only do we see more retention, but also those who leave have become much more likely to become non-denominational rather than join the progressives. Very interesting.
Page 52- Modern Orthodox have the least pride in being Jewish of any religious group, but the highest level of identification with the Jewish people. Curious.
Page 57- Lots to say here. Women rate every single aspect as more essential than men do, sometimes by large margins. Holocaust remembrance rates surprisingly high, topping every non-Orthodox list except post-graduate degree holders, where it is well within the margin of error to be beat out ethical living. Modern Orthodox are most committed to most of the things I would put on top (ethical life, intellectual curiosity, Jewish community) and close seconds on others (justice/equality, halakha). Also interesting how much observance corresponds to valuing traditional foods. Did not expect that. Isn't "bagels and lox Judaism" a byword for secular/cultural Judaism? Is there some chance that large numbers thought this referred to kashrut, separately from the halakha category? Also surprised that, with big gains for the non-religious and unaffiliated in the younger generation, some of the essentials that took the biggest hits were working for justice/equality and having a sense of humor, while being part of the community and observing halakha were among the most strongly maintained between old and young.
Page 58- Jews of no religion continue to confuse me. 22% say you cannot be Jewish without believing in God?
Page 59- One of the strongest impacts of increasing education on your definition of the bounds of Jewishness: more permissive about belief in God, less permissive about belief in Jesus. Why? I don't know. Also, hareidim are the least tolerant of criticism of Israel? Really?!
Page 63- 2/5 of adult religious Jews do not know the aleph-beit. Problem.
Page 72- Jews of no religion continue to confuse me. 8% consider religion very important in their lives. Also, interesting that Conservative Jews almost exactly match mainline Protestants. Coincidence? I think not.
Page 80- Attendance at non-Jewish services is almost constant across ages and denominations; even the intermarried don't go more often. However, there is one exception: Conservative Jews are half again as likely to go. Weird.
Page 99- Hareidim don't know or don't care about Obama's performance in numbers way beyond any other group. Do the gedolim not get involved in national politics?
Section on people of Jewish background and Jewish affinity is somewhat interesting, but not many surprises there, and very little granularity to the information. Not going to go into it.
Appendices on methodology- I'll trust Pew on this one.
01 October 2013
Affordability of yiddishkeit
Many of you are already familiar with these issues, but to briefly summarize in order of increasing difficulty, kosher food is expensive, housing in Orthodox areas is generally expensive, and day school tuition is expensive. As far as I can tell, this is the biggest issue facing the Modern Orthodox community today. Maybe I am thinking about this because I overpaid for my arba minim (lulav and etrog), maybe it is all the yeshiva engagements, maybe parashat bereshit talking about the transition from gan eden where we were completely supported to the outside world where we must work for a living, not sure, but here are the options I see.
Option 1: Go for actuarial exams or a masters in something finance-y. If my wife has a similarly lucrative career, we might be able to scrape by. Pros: provides most flexibility regarding where to live, supporting community rather than being a burden (assuming the right kind of finance...). Cons: probable long hours leave relatively little time for family, learning.
Option 2: Go somewhere with lower real estate costs (Pittsburgh? Rochester? family ties are nice). Work part time (sofer? potter? tutor?) and leave enough time to home-school properly. If land is cheaper than marginal cost of food, get enough land for a serious garden and some chickens, maybe goats. Pros: I like the idea of homeschooling. I think I would be good at it, it would allow lots of time with family, and outcomes are generally superior to conventional schools. Cons: Need a wife comfortable with living in desperate poverty, little flexibility in where to live, less connected to broader community.
Option 3: Aliya. There are many problems with the education system here, but there are some very good schools that are state funded. Salaries are lower and housing is expensive, but people get by. Also, basically free healthcare. Pros: big mitzvah to live here, Hebrew fluency, love the land and culture. Cons: far from family (so far...) and flights are expensive, more polarized Jewish community.
Option 4: England. Day schools heavily subsidized, but the Anglos here make it sound as though they aren't much better for limudei kodesh (religious studies) than afterschool religious school in the States. As above, free healthcare. Pros: Hirschian Yekkish centrist Orthodoxy is appealing, although I hear the community is in flux and may lose that character. Cons: I have some family there, but not much and they may be moving, flights still expensive.
Option 5: Rabbinate. Tuition breaks make could more than make up for poor salary. Pros: get to learn. Cons: mixed feelings about professionalization of the rabbinate, not sure I would be good at pastoral duties.
Option 6: Smaller family and/or public school. Outrageous! Why would I even suggest such a thing?
Anyway, for those who are facing these issues, how are you planning on managing? Also welcome feedback and criticism from all and sundry.
Yeshiva life goes on. My sleep schedule has gotten progressively worse since the holidays ended, need to fix that before zman restarts. Got to do a little leining for the minute second day Simchat Torah minyan. Hakafot (singing and dancing circuits with sifrei Torah) were long, wild, and intense Wednesday night, got progressively less so with each reiteration, but there was something beautiful and intimate about our exhausted attempts Friday morning, and, with a davener/scroll ratio under 3, we each got to hold the scrolls as much as we pleased. I think I carried for four of the seven hakafot, leading one of them. We had a little echo of Simchat Torah today, with a hachnasat Sefer Torah (celebration of completion of a new Torah scroll). More dancing through the streets with the Torah, more hakafot, good times. Unfortunately, I was feeling under the weather, and unable to get as into it as during chag.
I think there was more I wanted to relate, but it eludes me at the moment, and it probably isn't important.
Shalom.
Option 1: Go for actuarial exams or a masters in something finance-y. If my wife has a similarly lucrative career, we might be able to scrape by. Pros: provides most flexibility regarding where to live, supporting community rather than being a burden (assuming the right kind of finance...). Cons: probable long hours leave relatively little time for family, learning.
Option 2: Go somewhere with lower real estate costs (Pittsburgh? Rochester? family ties are nice). Work part time (sofer? potter? tutor?) and leave enough time to home-school properly. If land is cheaper than marginal cost of food, get enough land for a serious garden and some chickens, maybe goats. Pros: I like the idea of homeschooling. I think I would be good at it, it would allow lots of time with family, and outcomes are generally superior to conventional schools. Cons: Need a wife comfortable with living in desperate poverty, little flexibility in where to live, less connected to broader community.
Option 3: Aliya. There are many problems with the education system here, but there are some very good schools that are state funded. Salaries are lower and housing is expensive, but people get by. Also, basically free healthcare. Pros: big mitzvah to live here, Hebrew fluency, love the land and culture. Cons: far from family (so far...) and flights are expensive, more polarized Jewish community.
Option 4: England. Day schools heavily subsidized, but the Anglos here make it sound as though they aren't much better for limudei kodesh (religious studies) than afterschool religious school in the States. As above, free healthcare. Pros: Hirschian Yekkish centrist Orthodoxy is appealing, although I hear the community is in flux and may lose that character. Cons: I have some family there, but not much and they may be moving, flights still expensive.
Option 5: Rabbinate. Tuition breaks make could more than make up for poor salary. Pros: get to learn. Cons: mixed feelings about professionalization of the rabbinate, not sure I would be good at pastoral duties.
Option 6: Smaller family and/or public school. Outrageous! Why would I even suggest such a thing?
Anyway, for those who are facing these issues, how are you planning on managing? Also welcome feedback and criticism from all and sundry.
Yeshiva life goes on. My sleep schedule has gotten progressively worse since the holidays ended, need to fix that before zman restarts. Got to do a little leining for the minute second day Simchat Torah minyan. Hakafot (singing and dancing circuits with sifrei Torah) were long, wild, and intense Wednesday night, got progressively less so with each reiteration, but there was something beautiful and intimate about our exhausted attempts Friday morning, and, with a davener/scroll ratio under 3, we each got to hold the scrolls as much as we pleased. I think I carried for four of the seven hakafot, leading one of them. We had a little echo of Simchat Torah today, with a hachnasat Sefer Torah (celebration of completion of a new Torah scroll). More dancing through the streets with the Torah, more hakafot, good times. Unfortunately, I was feeling under the weather, and unable to get as into it as during chag.
I think there was more I wanted to relate, but it eludes me at the moment, and it probably isn't important.
Shalom.
23 September 2013
Sukkot and salvation
There is a mushal (parable) my father recounted to me about Jewish priorities. In it, there are three brothers: one a pious scholar, scrupulous in his observance of mitzvot and constantly engaged in study; the next moved to a kibbutz at a young age and became a war hero in the IDF; the third was a socialist, tirelessly crusading for the rights of the poor and oppressed and pursuing a utopian vision. These seem to me to represent the personal, national, and universal aspirations of the Jews, respectively, a set that we also find in the holiday of Sukkot. Sukkot is the culmination and intersection of two triads of holidays: the shalosh regalim (pilgrimage festivals), retelling the narrative of national redemption, and the holidays of Tishrei (seventh month of the calendar), through which we seek personal redemption. The sacrificial service of Sukkot is dominated by the seventy bulls brought up over the course of the week, traditionally corresponding to the seventy nations of the world and connecting to universal redemption. Further on that point, there are prophecies that Sukkot is the holiday on which the nations will gather in the messianic era to bring their offerings to the Beit HaMikdash (Temple). I would argue that Sukkot is the primary holiday of redemption and salvation, at least until Yuval (the jubilee year) is reestablished. So, what can we learn about Jewish attitudes toward these themes from the rites of the festival?
On the one hand, there seems to be a surprising degree of passivity. One of the main lessons of the sukkah is related to the pasuk (verse) from the 127th perek of Tehillim (Psalm 127) "If Hashem does not build a house, its builders toil in vain". We work to protect ourselves from danger and deprivation, and rightly so, but in truth our protection comes from Hashem. In the midbar (wilderness), this grace took the form of an open miracle, with ananei hakavod (clouds of glory) surrounding us, munn (manna) precipitating for our food, and a miraculous well following us around for water. Today, the miracle is hidden, but is it not somewhat miraculous that we have secure houses, and access to plentiful food and clean water? Thus, in remembrance of the miracles of the midbar and recognition that we are just as reliant on God today as then, we remove ourselves from the security that we imagine we have created, and trust in God to make flimsy shchach into a shelter. This message is reinforced by the reading of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), where Shlomo hamelech (King Solomon) teaches that all the works of man are as insubstantial as a breath, soon to pass into nothingness and be forgotten. If we are so impotent and our deeds so worthless, surely redemption is just a matter of being grateful to God for what we have, and having bitachon and emunah (trust and faith) that he will provide in the future, right?
But then there is the other hand, as there always is. The lulav is the only mitzvah with the requirement that it be hadar (beautiful). We are commanded to have festive meals, and there is a strong tradition to have guests. Some other names of the holiday are chag ha'asif (the holiday of gathering) and zman simchateinu (time of our joy). We seem to have a hearty harvest festival, celebrating the very things that Kohelet decries as havel havalim (nothingness, sort of). What does this have to do with salvation, and how can we reconcile these messages?
We make an okimta (qualification) on Kohelet. Shlomo does not, in the end, conclude that sensual pleasure, hard work, personal relationships, and wise erudition are havel havalim in all cases. He only condemns them for their own sake, as purely human endeavors. There is nothing new under the sun, so the only way to bring about true change is to invite involvement from elsewhere. We are capable of being partners with God, and only when we do so do our actions have any point. The contrapositive of our pasuk from Tehillim says, "If the workers do not toil in vain, then Hashem builds the house". One interpretation of the arba minim (four species of the lulav) is that they represent the four letters of the tetragrammaton, and we are commanded to gather them together and raise them up. Thus, through our own agency we can take letters that are meaningless on their own (not strictly true, symbolism of individual letters some other time), and we use them to reveal and elevate Shem HaShem (the name of God) in the world.
Heard an interesting anecdote about the Rosh Yeshiva. One purim, when he was deep in his cups, a very drunk bochur asked why he had founded Shapell's. The answer given: "to make you guys normal". Not sure what to make of it. Anyway, Sukkot in the yeshiva is fun. We had our first rain of the year yesterday, soaking my mattress, which was not ideal, but the rain itself was lovely and quite pleasant. It was rather odd keeping two days in Israel. Even in our foreigner bubble of yeshiva bochurim, enough were gone for the holiday or definitely making aliyah or relying on lenient opinions that we only had six of us. Had to go to a hotel for minyan, which was a little weird, but we made some nice, intimate seudot (meals) and sang zemirot until the sukkah started filling up with people who wanted to sleep. I made sure to have some of each of the five fruits at both meals, in honor of the harvest festival aspect. Shabbat was very eventful. Friday night, my dinner-buddy and I got lost looking for our host's shul in Har Nof (try asking someone in Har Nof for the shul at the top of the stairs...) and ended up being invited to eat with a family of Bobover chassidim. Very friendly bunch. I am fairly certain that some of the dvars they shared must have been at least partly meant in jest (Jewish souls have trouble claiming before the heavenly court that they were tricked by the yetzer hara, because everyone knows that Jews are shrewd businessmen and wouldn't be taken in, but then Sukkot comes and we get outrageously ripped off paying for lulav and etrog, so the court accepts our plea; the mishna says that anger is like idolatry because the righteous tannaim were jealous that sinners could get such merit from teshuva, but they realized that they could just draw equivalences between the lesser sins that they did commit and the greater sins that they did not, and thus get to do equally meritorious teshuva). Saturday, our host took us to another family's for dessert, and that family was hosting seminary girls, so I actually got to have a conversation. It felt a little uncomfortable, and at first I was worried that the yeshiva was succeeding at breaking me of the habit, but then I realized that it was the same discomfort I always feel when making conversation with people that I know I will not have enough interaction with to make friends. Today we had the yeshiva's shimchat beit hashoeva (chol hamoed (intermediate days) celebration remembering the nisuch hamayim (water libation)), with a solid hour, hour-and-a-half of intense dancing, half the time with rabbis' small children on my shoulders. Good times. Have to go out to one of the public ones tomorrow, last day to see what it is like. The yeshiva recommends Belz, Toldos Aharon, and Karlin-Stolin. Any advice?
My goodness, look at all those words. I suppose that'll do for now.
On the one hand, there seems to be a surprising degree of passivity. One of the main lessons of the sukkah is related to the pasuk (verse) from the 127th perek of Tehillim (Psalm 127) "If Hashem does not build a house, its builders toil in vain". We work to protect ourselves from danger and deprivation, and rightly so, but in truth our protection comes from Hashem. In the midbar (wilderness), this grace took the form of an open miracle, with ananei hakavod (clouds of glory) surrounding us, munn (manna) precipitating for our food, and a miraculous well following us around for water. Today, the miracle is hidden, but is it not somewhat miraculous that we have secure houses, and access to plentiful food and clean water? Thus, in remembrance of the miracles of the midbar and recognition that we are just as reliant on God today as then, we remove ourselves from the security that we imagine we have created, and trust in God to make flimsy shchach into a shelter. This message is reinforced by the reading of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), where Shlomo hamelech (King Solomon) teaches that all the works of man are as insubstantial as a breath, soon to pass into nothingness and be forgotten. If we are so impotent and our deeds so worthless, surely redemption is just a matter of being grateful to God for what we have, and having bitachon and emunah (trust and faith) that he will provide in the future, right?
But then there is the other hand, as there always is. The lulav is the only mitzvah with the requirement that it be hadar (beautiful). We are commanded to have festive meals, and there is a strong tradition to have guests. Some other names of the holiday are chag ha'asif (the holiday of gathering) and zman simchateinu (time of our joy). We seem to have a hearty harvest festival, celebrating the very things that Kohelet decries as havel havalim (nothingness, sort of). What does this have to do with salvation, and how can we reconcile these messages?
We make an okimta (qualification) on Kohelet. Shlomo does not, in the end, conclude that sensual pleasure, hard work, personal relationships, and wise erudition are havel havalim in all cases. He only condemns them for their own sake, as purely human endeavors. There is nothing new under the sun, so the only way to bring about true change is to invite involvement from elsewhere. We are capable of being partners with God, and only when we do so do our actions have any point. The contrapositive of our pasuk from Tehillim says, "If the workers do not toil in vain, then Hashem builds the house". One interpretation of the arba minim (four species of the lulav) is that they represent the four letters of the tetragrammaton, and we are commanded to gather them together and raise them up. Thus, through our own agency we can take letters that are meaningless on their own (not strictly true, symbolism of individual letters some other time), and we use them to reveal and elevate Shem HaShem (the name of God) in the world.
Heard an interesting anecdote about the Rosh Yeshiva. One purim, when he was deep in his cups, a very drunk bochur asked why he had founded Shapell's. The answer given: "to make you guys normal". Not sure what to make of it. Anyway, Sukkot in the yeshiva is fun. We had our first rain of the year yesterday, soaking my mattress, which was not ideal, but the rain itself was lovely and quite pleasant. It was rather odd keeping two days in Israel. Even in our foreigner bubble of yeshiva bochurim, enough were gone for the holiday or definitely making aliyah or relying on lenient opinions that we only had six of us. Had to go to a hotel for minyan, which was a little weird, but we made some nice, intimate seudot (meals) and sang zemirot until the sukkah started filling up with people who wanted to sleep. I made sure to have some of each of the five fruits at both meals, in honor of the harvest festival aspect. Shabbat was very eventful. Friday night, my dinner-buddy and I got lost looking for our host's shul in Har Nof (try asking someone in Har Nof for the shul at the top of the stairs...) and ended up being invited to eat with a family of Bobover chassidim. Very friendly bunch. I am fairly certain that some of the dvars they shared must have been at least partly meant in jest (Jewish souls have trouble claiming before the heavenly court that they were tricked by the yetzer hara, because everyone knows that Jews are shrewd businessmen and wouldn't be taken in, but then Sukkot comes and we get outrageously ripped off paying for lulav and etrog, so the court accepts our plea; the mishna says that anger is like idolatry because the righteous tannaim were jealous that sinners could get such merit from teshuva, but they realized that they could just draw equivalences between the lesser sins that they did commit and the greater sins that they did not, and thus get to do equally meritorious teshuva). Saturday, our host took us to another family's for dessert, and that family was hosting seminary girls, so I actually got to have a conversation. It felt a little uncomfortable, and at first I was worried that the yeshiva was succeeding at breaking me of the habit, but then I realized that it was the same discomfort I always feel when making conversation with people that I know I will not have enough interaction with to make friends. Today we had the yeshiva's shimchat beit hashoeva (chol hamoed (intermediate days) celebration remembering the nisuch hamayim (water libation)), with a solid hour, hour-and-a-half of intense dancing, half the time with rabbis' small children on my shoulders. Good times. Have to go out to one of the public ones tomorrow, last day to see what it is like. The yeshiva recommends Belz, Toldos Aharon, and Karlin-Stolin. Any advice?
My goodness, look at all those words. I suppose that'll do for now.
15 September 2013
Why do I believe?
Writing my last post left me thinking over Yom Kippur about how I relate to God, so I thought I would share a little about that.
When I started to become ba'al teshuva, I did not believe in God. I was open to the possibility, and that exploration was part of my motivation, but I was primarily driven by a desire to have a stronger and richer relationship to Jewish culture and history. In order to understand it on its own terms, I made three decisions: approach with an attitude of suspended disbelief, rather than criticism; take on some degree of observance, to understand experientially as well as intellectually; treat it as a living tradition and find teachers rather than relying solely on texts and internet that could easily be misinterpreted. These ended up being decisive. Initially, there was a steep learning curve, and everything felt uncomfortable. After that, I found that, every now and then, if I could really suspend my disbelief and put some kavana into what I was doing, I would have an experience that seemed to transcend the mundane. Could there be a materialistic explanation for these experiences? Yes, but I prefer to take them seriously in the absence of any reason not to.
There is another reason, as well. I have a strong intuition that there is such a thing as moral truth. The experience of learning that I was mistaken about a moral question seems distinct from the experience of changing my opinion. Moral truth makes much more sense, in my opinion, if God exists. Could I have these intuitions and be mistaken, and in fact all morality is subjective? Indeed, and that is what I believed for many years, but again, with no proof either way, I prefer the position that best reconciles my beliefs about the world to my intuitive experience of it. That seems to be the best way to judge postulates that I can see.
Anyone willing to share why you do or do not believe in God?
Yom Kippur was awesome, in the archaic sense of the word. I was worried that my regular fasting might diminish the impact of the day, and I didn't feel like I had used the aseret y'mei teshuva very well in preparation (slept through selichot almost every day, didn't ask mechila from most of my classmates and teachers), but in the end it was incredibly powerful. If it had had much more impact, I may well have passed out during Ne'ila. Pretty much did nothing but daven and sleep all day, except a few games of chess after ma'ariv on Friday. Kind of a surreal experience to sing and dance "l'shana haba birushalayim habnuya" in Jerusalem, but the argument could be made that it isn't mamash Jerusalem without the Mikdash, especially as relates to Yom Kippur. Had a rather weird hour after a quick snack, but before the break fast meal was ready. Does anyone have a customary way to spend that time, other than the cooks?
When I started to become ba'al teshuva, I did not believe in God. I was open to the possibility, and that exploration was part of my motivation, but I was primarily driven by a desire to have a stronger and richer relationship to Jewish culture and history. In order to understand it on its own terms, I made three decisions: approach with an attitude of suspended disbelief, rather than criticism; take on some degree of observance, to understand experientially as well as intellectually; treat it as a living tradition and find teachers rather than relying solely on texts and internet that could easily be misinterpreted. These ended up being decisive. Initially, there was a steep learning curve, and everything felt uncomfortable. After that, I found that, every now and then, if I could really suspend my disbelief and put some kavana into what I was doing, I would have an experience that seemed to transcend the mundane. Could there be a materialistic explanation for these experiences? Yes, but I prefer to take them seriously in the absence of any reason not to.
There is another reason, as well. I have a strong intuition that there is such a thing as moral truth. The experience of learning that I was mistaken about a moral question seems distinct from the experience of changing my opinion. Moral truth makes much more sense, in my opinion, if God exists. Could I have these intuitions and be mistaken, and in fact all morality is subjective? Indeed, and that is what I believed for many years, but again, with no proof either way, I prefer the position that best reconciles my beliefs about the world to my intuitive experience of it. That seems to be the best way to judge postulates that I can see.
Anyone willing to share why you do or do not believe in God?
Yom Kippur was awesome, in the archaic sense of the word. I was worried that my regular fasting might diminish the impact of the day, and I didn't feel like I had used the aseret y'mei teshuva very well in preparation (slept through selichot almost every day, didn't ask mechila from most of my classmates and teachers), but in the end it was incredibly powerful. If it had had much more impact, I may well have passed out during Ne'ila. Pretty much did nothing but daven and sleep all day, except a few games of chess after ma'ariv on Friday. Kind of a surreal experience to sing and dance "l'shana haba birushalayim habnuya" in Jerusalem, but the argument could be made that it isn't mamash Jerusalem without the Mikdash, especially as relates to Yom Kippur. Had a rather weird hour after a quick snack, but before the break fast meal was ready. Does anyone have a customary way to spend that time, other than the cooks?
09 September 2013
Teshuva, me'yirah and me'ahava
Ahava and yirah are the two fundamental ways that we relate to God. Each can lead one to teshuva, but they are not equivalent. In several lectures, the rabbis here have mentioned the teaching that teshuva me'yirah transforms intentional sins into unintentional sins in some spiritual sense, whereas teshuva me'ahava even transforms intentional sins into merits. Initially, this caused me great difficulty. It seems that the Talmud is establishing a clear hierarchy between two things that I had always considered to be opposite sides of a dialectic. If that were the case, I might be forced to reevaluate my general strategy for understanding Jewish hashkafa. There was one obvious way out, which seemed to be the one that the rabbeim here were taking, which is to say that this is not true, proper yirah, but a simple, infantile fear of punishment. Presumably, any higher motivation would then be me'ahava, making it a terribly vague category while resolving the problem of having one superior to the other. I am willing to accept that this surface level reading is in some sense correct, and comes to teach that even poorly motivated teshuva is worthwhile, but it is too facile to be satisfying and I think I can do better. Full disclaimer: I don't have a source that explicitly supports this reading.
Rather than seeing teshuva me'yirah as based on a desire to avoid the consequences of sin and teshuva me-ahava as done for its own sake, I would reverse the two.
Let us take yirah as a more mature emotion of awe -- the way of relating to God that we find when we stand on a mountain and watch the sunrise, or feel the power of a crowd of people acting together, or find beauty and precision in the study of math or physics. God as the distant, eternal, impersonal melekh, such that we are made aware of our own insignificance, yet can still be elevated by that very awareness. What would it mean to do teshuva motivated by this relationship? I would say that it would be a recognition of the moral truth in the universe that God represents. To know that there is right and there is wrong, and you have done wrong, and thus to feel remorse. Your remorse is a demonstration of one of two things: either you were overcome by your yetzer hara, or you were not as cognizant of the immorality of your act at the time as you are now. This brings me to several relevant halakhic points. First, one's true will is considered to be that of the higher parts of the soul, which has legal ramifications (if a man refuses to give his wife a get, the court is authorized to beat the yetzer hara out of him until his true will can act). Second, one who sins in ignorance is not considered to have deliberately sinned. Third, accidental sins can be atoned for through human action, particularly sacrifice. Thus, the sinner can make a legal case before God that his sin ought to be counted as unintentional, and ask that God take the lenient position and give him the chance to rectify it himself. He is asking for justice to be done in a merciful way.
The one who comes to teshuva through ahava, on the other hand, circumvents justice entirely. Ahava is the relation to God as the loving, intimate, personal av that we find in private prayer, or when we see the divine in a close friend or family member, or feel moved by an act of chesed. How do I see this moving one to teshuva? He realizes that sin creates a separation between the self and God, and is pained by that fact. He is moved to approach God, not as a defendant before the judge of the world, but as a child, a friend, or a spouse; admits his fault; apologizes; and asks for help in repairing the relationship.
In both cases, God, in his infinite mercy, grants exactly what is sincerely asked of him. The one seeks to correct his mistake in awe of the truth and majesty of the moral system, and asks for the means to do so within the bounds of justice, and God accepts his case as just. The other seeks to remove a barrier out of longing for connection and relationship, and finds it turned into a bridge. In this reading, neither is so superior as to make the other superfluous. The balance and dialectic of avinu malkeinu is preserved.
Some updates on yeshiva life:
Rosh Hashana was intense. It is easy to forget over a year what a trial of stamina it is. I slept in the beit midrash to ensure that I would wake up on time, and started praying as soon as I woke up as the first people entered. That meant that I was praying roughly 6:00-1:30, with a short kiddush break around 10:00, two days in a row, and then more in the afternoons and evenings. Still, I somehow managed to maintain decent kavanah through most of it, and it was a powerfully moving experience. Lots of good food, too, although the fish heads were rather dodgy. Shabbat the next day, morning services began at eight and ran less than three hours. Practically a day off!
Tzom Gedalia, we had the afternoon off, so I went to go take a nap in the neighborhood park. On my way, I thought, "I have plenty of time, why not get a bit of a walk and go to Gan Sacher for the nap?" Walked a couple blocks in that direction, then thought, "Screw napping, I'm going to take a proper walk; follow the sun into the Judean hills, then chase my shadow home!" Obviously, I was missing the ache in my legs from standing all day on Rosh Hashanah. Should probably have gone back and changed out of my sandals at that point. So it goes. The hills, by the way, are breathtakingly beautiful. Also, I got back into the city just as the the sunlight was starting to change the Jerusalem stone into glowing, rosy-hued blocks of magic. Good times. I haven't traveled as much as I would like, but I have seen enough cities that it is not entirely trivial to say that Jerusalem at sunset is the most lovely. I also happened to walk by Rabinowiz park on my way back. The slide there is my earliest memory of Israel. I was almost surprised to find that it is still really cool and visually interesting twenty years older.
Well, that was long. Still need to work on that. You wouldn't believe how much I didn't say about yirah and ahava!
Shana tova u'metuka!
Shalom,
-Ethan
Rather than seeing teshuva me'yirah as based on a desire to avoid the consequences of sin and teshuva me-ahava as done for its own sake, I would reverse the two.
Let us take yirah as a more mature emotion of awe -- the way of relating to God that we find when we stand on a mountain and watch the sunrise, or feel the power of a crowd of people acting together, or find beauty and precision in the study of math or physics. God as the distant, eternal, impersonal melekh, such that we are made aware of our own insignificance, yet can still be elevated by that very awareness. What would it mean to do teshuva motivated by this relationship? I would say that it would be a recognition of the moral truth in the universe that God represents. To know that there is right and there is wrong, and you have done wrong, and thus to feel remorse. Your remorse is a demonstration of one of two things: either you were overcome by your yetzer hara, or you were not as cognizant of the immorality of your act at the time as you are now. This brings me to several relevant halakhic points. First, one's true will is considered to be that of the higher parts of the soul, which has legal ramifications (if a man refuses to give his wife a get, the court is authorized to beat the yetzer hara out of him until his true will can act). Second, one who sins in ignorance is not considered to have deliberately sinned. Third, accidental sins can be atoned for through human action, particularly sacrifice. Thus, the sinner can make a legal case before God that his sin ought to be counted as unintentional, and ask that God take the lenient position and give him the chance to rectify it himself. He is asking for justice to be done in a merciful way.
The one who comes to teshuva through ahava, on the other hand, circumvents justice entirely. Ahava is the relation to God as the loving, intimate, personal av that we find in private prayer, or when we see the divine in a close friend or family member, or feel moved by an act of chesed. How do I see this moving one to teshuva? He realizes that sin creates a separation between the self and God, and is pained by that fact. He is moved to approach God, not as a defendant before the judge of the world, but as a child, a friend, or a spouse; admits his fault; apologizes; and asks for help in repairing the relationship.
In both cases, God, in his infinite mercy, grants exactly what is sincerely asked of him. The one seeks to correct his mistake in awe of the truth and majesty of the moral system, and asks for the means to do so within the bounds of justice, and God accepts his case as just. The other seeks to remove a barrier out of longing for connection and relationship, and finds it turned into a bridge. In this reading, neither is so superior as to make the other superfluous. The balance and dialectic of avinu malkeinu is preserved.
Some updates on yeshiva life:
Rosh Hashana was intense. It is easy to forget over a year what a trial of stamina it is. I slept in the beit midrash to ensure that I would wake up on time, and started praying as soon as I woke up as the first people entered. That meant that I was praying roughly 6:00-1:30, with a short kiddush break around 10:00, two days in a row, and then more in the afternoons and evenings. Still, I somehow managed to maintain decent kavanah through most of it, and it was a powerfully moving experience. Lots of good food, too, although the fish heads were rather dodgy. Shabbat the next day, morning services began at eight and ran less than three hours. Practically a day off!
Tzom Gedalia, we had the afternoon off, so I went to go take a nap in the neighborhood park. On my way, I thought, "I have plenty of time, why not get a bit of a walk and go to Gan Sacher for the nap?" Walked a couple blocks in that direction, then thought, "Screw napping, I'm going to take a proper walk; follow the sun into the Judean hills, then chase my shadow home!" Obviously, I was missing the ache in my legs from standing all day on Rosh Hashanah. Should probably have gone back and changed out of my sandals at that point. So it goes. The hills, by the way, are breathtakingly beautiful. Also, I got back into the city just as the the sunlight was starting to change the Jerusalem stone into glowing, rosy-hued blocks of magic. Good times. I haven't traveled as much as I would like, but I have seen enough cities that it is not entirely trivial to say that Jerusalem at sunset is the most lovely. I also happened to walk by Rabinowiz park on my way back. The slide there is my earliest memory of Israel. I was almost surprised to find that it is still really cool and visually interesting twenty years older.
Well, that was long. Still need to work on that. You wouldn't believe how much I didn't say about yirah and ahava!
Shana tova u'metuka!
Shalom,
-Ethan
08 September 2013
Repost from Facebook
To all those I have wronged, please forgive me. If I have done some harm and not sought to redress it, please let me know, even if it should be obvious to me, and help me learn what I can do to ameliorate it. If I have made an effort, but not done enough, let me know that, too.
In particular, a few things that I know I am guilty of several times over: For when I spoke over you or assumed that my thoughts were more important than yours, please forgive me. For when I failed to notice when you needed help, or saw and didn't bother, please forgive me. For when I judged you unfavorably before making an effort to understand or find another explanation, please forgive me. For when I spoke poorly of you, or stood by while others did so, please forgive me. For when I was ungrateful for your help or unappreciative of your friendship, please forgive me. For when I have been unclear or misleading, please forgive me.
To those who have wronged me, I bear no grudge and wish you well. For those things I know about, I forgive wholeheartedly and renounce any claim to redress. For those things I am ignorant of, I will do my best to forgive as soon as I find out.
In particular, a few things that I know I am guilty of several times over: For when I spoke over you or assumed that my thoughts were more important than yours, please forgive me. For when I failed to notice when you needed help, or saw and didn't bother, please forgive me. For when I judged you unfavorably before making an effort to understand or find another explanation, please forgive me. For when I spoke poorly of you, or stood by while others did so, please forgive me. For when I was ungrateful for your help or unappreciative of your friendship, please forgive me. For when I have been unclear or misleading, please forgive me.
To those who have wronged me, I bear no grudge and wish you well. For those things I know about, I forgive wholeheartedly and renounce any claim to redress. For those things I am ignorant of, I will do my best to forgive as soon as I find out.
01 September 2013
Teshuva and its relation to the material world
We have been doing a lot of studying on the theme of teshuva, as one might expect at this time of year. We have looked at a huge range of sources, and to try to dump all that information on you at once would be a clear violation of my late resolution. As such, I will try to get out a couple of short posts before Yom Kippur on particular sub-topics.
First, the relation to the material world. As is the case with many facets of Judaism, there is a spectrum of opinion that I prefer to structure either as thesis-antithesis-synthesis, or as a search for the mean between extremes if a true synthesis proves elusive.
On the one hand, we have the Breslover Rebbe being very nearly Gnostic in his description of the material world as an illusion that obscures our view of Torah and Hashem. He brings a mushal from the Besht of a man who has his little finger immediately in front of his eye, and therefore cannot see things of vastly greater scale and import that are right in front of him, although in his retelling Rabbi Nachman replaces the finger with a small coin for obvious symbolic reasons. Naturally, the solution is that we must remove this impediment that blinds us to the truth.
On the other, Rav Kook argues that the first step is a healthy diet, proper sleep, moderate exercise, breaking chemical addictions, etc etc, and that intellectual and spiritual teshuva is ineffective or impossible on its own. The fact that he follows with more mainstream intellectual and spiritual processes does prevent him from constituting a proper antithesis, but we haven't covered anyone who roots teshuva more deeply in the physical. Perhaps the more extreme antinomian early Hassidim, but they are rarely looked to as anything but a cautionary tale.
As I consider further, I realize that what I have framed as a single continuum is in fact the intersection of two broader spectra: the extent to which teshuva is a turn inward vs outward, or alternatively and with a dramatically different meaning, a return to yourself as you are meant to be vs a return to God from whom you have been separated; and the spiritual value of the physical world and involvement therein. Looked at that way, what I saw as diametric poles are in fact only two of four potential extreme positions. Rabbi Nachman comes across very strongly on the side of rejection of the material and on the side of a denial of the ego as you return to God. Rav Kook is at the opposite end of both spectra. Let us examine what the missing corners would look like and see if we can match them to any tradition.
The inward turned anti-materialist -- probably something along the lines of Yisroel Salanter, with a strong focus on character perfection through study and taking small steps to undermine the yetzer hara.
The outward turned materialist -- the Maharal cites a gemara that lists four or five ways to avert harsh judgment: give tzedaka, cry out in supplication, change your name, change your behavior, and according to some opinions change your place of residence. Some of those are outward oriented material behaviors, but I am quite reluctant to place the Maharal as a proponent of deep involvement with such matters, relative to other opinions. Perhaps we would be better off with a more kabbalistic approach, questing for sparks of holiness hidden in the mundane world, although that is usually put in terms of tikkun olam rather than teshuva.
Anyway, this has become rather long despite my intentions. Failure number one as I try to find a topic within Judaism that is narrow and self-contained enough to write about concisely without abandoning content. Thus, rather than trying to find my place in this newly described spectrum, I will leave it at that and move on to yeshiva life tidbits.
Main fact of life the past few days has been exhaustion. I realized that some significant portion of my success to date is attributable to performance enhancing drugs, in that whatever absurd number of cups of tea per day have been more than enough to quickly develop a serious caffeine addiction, which I am determined to quit cold turkey. Thus, my accumulated sleep debt from weeks of five hour nights has not just caught up with me, but chased me into a dark alley and hit me in the face with a shovel. But at least we have slichot now, so that should help me catch up, right? Right?!
First, the relation to the material world. As is the case with many facets of Judaism, there is a spectrum of opinion that I prefer to structure either as thesis-antithesis-synthesis, or as a search for the mean between extremes if a true synthesis proves elusive.
On the one hand, we have the Breslover Rebbe being very nearly Gnostic in his description of the material world as an illusion that obscures our view of Torah and Hashem. He brings a mushal from the Besht of a man who has his little finger immediately in front of his eye, and therefore cannot see things of vastly greater scale and import that are right in front of him, although in his retelling Rabbi Nachman replaces the finger with a small coin for obvious symbolic reasons. Naturally, the solution is that we must remove this impediment that blinds us to the truth.
On the other, Rav Kook argues that the first step is a healthy diet, proper sleep, moderate exercise, breaking chemical addictions, etc etc, and that intellectual and spiritual teshuva is ineffective or impossible on its own. The fact that he follows with more mainstream intellectual and spiritual processes does prevent him from constituting a proper antithesis, but we haven't covered anyone who roots teshuva more deeply in the physical. Perhaps the more extreme antinomian early Hassidim, but they are rarely looked to as anything but a cautionary tale.
As I consider further, I realize that what I have framed as a single continuum is in fact the intersection of two broader spectra: the extent to which teshuva is a turn inward vs outward, or alternatively and with a dramatically different meaning, a return to yourself as you are meant to be vs a return to God from whom you have been separated; and the spiritual value of the physical world and involvement therein. Looked at that way, what I saw as diametric poles are in fact only two of four potential extreme positions. Rabbi Nachman comes across very strongly on the side of rejection of the material and on the side of a denial of the ego as you return to God. Rav Kook is at the opposite end of both spectra. Let us examine what the missing corners would look like and see if we can match them to any tradition.
The inward turned anti-materialist -- probably something along the lines of Yisroel Salanter, with a strong focus on character perfection through study and taking small steps to undermine the yetzer hara.
The outward turned materialist -- the Maharal cites a gemara that lists four or five ways to avert harsh judgment: give tzedaka, cry out in supplication, change your name, change your behavior, and according to some opinions change your place of residence. Some of those are outward oriented material behaviors, but I am quite reluctant to place the Maharal as a proponent of deep involvement with such matters, relative to other opinions. Perhaps we would be better off with a more kabbalistic approach, questing for sparks of holiness hidden in the mundane world, although that is usually put in terms of tikkun olam rather than teshuva.
Anyway, this has become rather long despite my intentions. Failure number one as I try to find a topic within Judaism that is narrow and self-contained enough to write about concisely without abandoning content. Thus, rather than trying to find my place in this newly described spectrum, I will leave it at that and move on to yeshiva life tidbits.
Main fact of life the past few days has been exhaustion. I realized that some significant portion of my success to date is attributable to performance enhancing drugs, in that whatever absurd number of cups of tea per day have been more than enough to quickly develop a serious caffeine addiction, which I am determined to quit cold turkey. Thus, my accumulated sleep debt from weeks of five hour nights has not just caught up with me, but chased me into a dark alley and hit me in the face with a shovel. But at least we have slichot now, so that should help me catch up, right? Right?!
Other than that, our class had its weekly shiur with the rosh yeshiva, and it was awesome. He very subtly and devastatingly critiqued the tzniut police. We were learning the gemara relating to blowing terua, shevarim, and shevarim-terua. Turns out, the former two are both supported by a tannaitic sources, and the latter is brought by the amora who says to do all three. What is an amora doing making a new side in a tannaitic machloket? Well might you ask. Comes Hai Gaon to say, there was actually no machloket. There were different regional minhagim that were universally acknowledged as equally valid ways to fulfill the mitzva, but our amora was concerned that the ignorant might be confused and believe that their way was correct, so he institutionalized the whole range. Comes along our rosh yeshiva and slips in there, "These ignoramuses might end up throwing stones, or putting up posters, and he wanted to avoid that. We don't have many issues like that today, where there is no machloket, just different minhagim that are universally held to be equally valid by those in the know." And that was it. Just enough to be clear if you were listening. Not enough to stir controversy. Brilliant man.
Shalom,
-Ethan
Shalom,
-Ethan
26 August 2013
Quick note
Not too much substance to this post, just some questions. As I noted in my first post, my intention in starting this blog was to keep in touch with my friends and family around the world during my time in Israel. I don't think that my views on various topics are so profound that it is important for me to put out my opinions for public consumption, so a monologue entirely misses the objective. Obviously, you needn't force yourselves to comment if you don't have much to say about a topic, but I would appreciate some feedback. What would make it easier for you to participate in dialogue? Should I write shorter posts on narrower topics? Would another medium be preferable? Should I be asking specific questions instead of making statements and asking for responses generally? Would other topics be more interesting?
So as not to be entirely preachy and boring, I'll throw in some more details about life here.
I have just been reassigned to the third gemara level, starting tomorrow morning. At this rate, I will be at the highest level offered well before chanukah, although I expect that things will slow down.
The bein hazmanim breaks are of extremely variable length. When I came to visit last summer, a zman was just ending, which meant there would be no classes Sunday and only a half day on Monday. By contrast, after this Elul zman, we have off from Yom Kippur until Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan -- about three weeks. Hopefully, that will be a good time to track down the distant family that I would like to meet.
Shabbat is somewhat confusing, emotionally. As far as I can tell, it doesn't seem noticeably more spiritual than a good shabbat at home, but the crash afterward is much worse. I often get moody and withdrawn in the aftermath of shabbat or yom tov, but twice in a row now, around eleven o'clock motzei shabbat, I have had a sense of isolation, particularly from God, that is almost physically painful and too strong to allow concentration on study. I suppose I should use this for teshuva, but I don't really know how. I suppose two does not quite a pattern make, and I didn't notice it so much the first week here.
This week, shabbat was hosted by the rabbi of the highest gemara shiur, a Brisker who had a fun question and answer session where he seemed to enjoy doing his best to shock any liberal sensibilities in the group. Asserting, for instance, that dina d'malkhutah dina does not apply in Israel, and that we should minimize friendship with girls because they interfere with spiritual growth, and implying that all non-gemara classes should be canceled to make time for more gemara. Even he was stymied, however, when one enterprising bochur asked, "What do we talk to our wives about? Sure, I can see fifteen minutes or so, but then what? We can hardly learn gemara with them!"
We just had our first joint event with Midreshet Rachel; unsurprisingly, it was an engagement party. And there was a mechitza across the entire room all night.
Shalom,
-Ethan
So as not to be entirely preachy and boring, I'll throw in some more details about life here.
I have just been reassigned to the third gemara level, starting tomorrow morning. At this rate, I will be at the highest level offered well before chanukah, although I expect that things will slow down.
The bein hazmanim breaks are of extremely variable length. When I came to visit last summer, a zman was just ending, which meant there would be no classes Sunday and only a half day on Monday. By contrast, after this Elul zman, we have off from Yom Kippur until Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan -- about three weeks. Hopefully, that will be a good time to track down the distant family that I would like to meet.
Shabbat is somewhat confusing, emotionally. As far as I can tell, it doesn't seem noticeably more spiritual than a good shabbat at home, but the crash afterward is much worse. I often get moody and withdrawn in the aftermath of shabbat or yom tov, but twice in a row now, around eleven o'clock motzei shabbat, I have had a sense of isolation, particularly from God, that is almost physically painful and too strong to allow concentration on study. I suppose I should use this for teshuva, but I don't really know how. I suppose two does not quite a pattern make, and I didn't notice it so much the first week here.
This week, shabbat was hosted by the rabbi of the highest gemara shiur, a Brisker who had a fun question and answer session where he seemed to enjoy doing his best to shock any liberal sensibilities in the group. Asserting, for instance, that dina d'malkhutah dina does not apply in Israel, and that we should minimize friendship with girls because they interfere with spiritual growth, and implying that all non-gemara classes should be canceled to make time for more gemara. Even he was stymied, however, when one enterprising bochur asked, "What do we talk to our wives about? Sure, I can see fifteen minutes or so, but then what? We can hardly learn gemara with them!"
We just had our first joint event with Midreshet Rachel; unsurprisingly, it was an engagement party. And there was a mechitza across the entire room all night.
Shalom,
-Ethan
23 August 2013
Women in Judaism
As previously mentioned, I will do my best to tackle the titular topic. I'm going to stay away from issues of tum'ah and taharah, because I am almost entirely ignorant with regard to such matters; I apologize to those who find them to be essential to the matter. Hopefully there will still be enough material to respond to.
Men and women are different. Physically, this is uncontroversially true. Emotionally, there is more debate and the extent is not clear, but statistically significant differences have been consistently observed from infancy onward. Intellectually, there is even more controversy. Generally, one of my main hashkafic tools has been to try to learn by analogy from what is clear to what is less so, and so I am comfortable with the idea that there are differences at every level. That is not to say that one is superior to the other; indeed, I strongly reject such a position. However, each has particular strengths and weaknesses that compliment each other and it is thus reasonable to have different roles and expectations for each. I will argue that the traditional roles in Judaism are, when properly implemented, of equal value, power, and dignity.
As a general framework for the relation between the two roles, again I turn to analogy from what is obvious to what is not. The clearest instance of complementary roles that creatively achieve what neither could alone is conception and childbirth. From this we learn that men's roles naturally tend toward potential and women's toward actualization.
How does this play out? Men have a greater role in the halakhic process -- formulating, interpreting, and transmitting the laws that govern every aspect of life. Women, as far as I can tell, are traditionally seen as having a greater role in determining how and to what extent those laws are put into practice. There is a mushal about a righteous couple who had no children and decided to divorce and try their luck with new partners, so that at least one of them could enjoy children. The woman married a wicked man, and the man became righteous. The man married a wicked woman, and he became wicked. Along similar lines, the redemption from Egypt is attributed to the virtue of the women, who thus preserved the people, while the sins that led to the destruction of the first Beit Hamikdash are attributed to the luxury and frivolity of the women. The women's power in determining the spiritual environment of the home is also generally given as the basis for Judaism being passed on matrilineally, which gives them as much responsibility and agency as men in transmission, or rather more so. If men fail at their task, and the halakhic mesorah is lost, while women instill a proper spiritual and moral grounding, then we end up with a bunch of decent people who are not religious Jews. If men succeed, and women fail, we end up with a bunch of people with poor character who ignore this pristine tradition and aren't religious Jews anyway. There are innumerable passages in the rabbinic literature that plainly acknowledge that behind every great man, there is a great woman. The biblical narrative is replete with strong female role models.
On to current events:
Women as rabbis: The rabbinic role is multifaceted. As far as the role as judge is concerned, it is halakhically problematic for women. I think that that can be justified by the reasoning in the previous section; if women were given that formal, public power in the area of potential in addition to their informal, private in the area of actualization, society would become unbalanced. If that were countered by somehow granting men greater control in those areas, we would lose the benefits of complementarity. As far as the roles of pastor and teacher are concerned, women are filling them and have filled them since time immemorial. There are many observant women who are deeply learned and strong supports for their community, and that contribution is incredibly important and valuable. The professionalization of these roles among men is a surprisingly recent development, and while it may have been a necessary response to changing circumstances, I think that there has been a lot of loss as a result. There is great value in preserving what we can of a face-to-face society, where trust and respect are based on personal knowledge, reputation, and relationships rather than degrees and paid positions. Having already made such concessions to the forces of impersonal modernity for men, is it also necessary to do so for women? I don't know the answer. There are definitely reasons to do so, but I worry for what will be lost as a result.
Tzniut and the article in the New Republic: Tzniut is obligatory on both men and women, although the forms that it takes are different. Although it is often talked about in highly sexualized terms, weak men's uncontrollable lusts and all that, my understanding of it is that sexuality is only a small part of it. Rather, it teaches mindfulness of the fact that one's clothing and general demeanor form an expressive language in themselves. Just as we should be careful not to curse or scream or insult verbally, so we should be somewhat genteel in our dress and bearing. We should try to avoid extremes of gaudiness and conspicuous consumption, poor hygiene and maintenance, sexualization and objectification, cultural insensitivity, etc etc. What exactly that entails is socially contingent to a large degree, and things that seem insignificant to an outsider can convey a strong message in one group's "language". Verbally and physically attacking women is inexcusable and contrary to Jewish law, custom, and values. I know of no serious rabbinic opinion that would allow it, even in the Haredi world. True, public condemnation is lacking, but there are a number of possible explanations for that. Perhaps the rabbis worry that the behavior would continue regardless, and their authority would be undermined. Perhaps they don't want to expose internal communal conflict to wider scrutiny. Perhaps they simply do not care what people outside their community think of them, and thus see no reason to make an effort to mitigate the chillul Hashem. Perhaps they feel that making common cause with secular people, or even seeming to, would do harm to their community. I don't know.
Finally, no discussion of women in Judaism would be complete without reference to eshet chayil, the culmination of sefer mishlei read every week at Shabbat dinner:
An accomplished woman, who can find? Her value is far beyond pearls.
Her husband's heart relies on her and he shall lack no fortune.
She does him good and not evil, all the days of her life.
She seeks wool and flax, and works with her hands willingly.
She is like the merchant ships, she brings her bread from afar.
She arises while it is still night, and gives food to her household and a portion to her maidservants.
She plans for a field, and buys it. With the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
She girds her loins in strength, and makes her arms strong.
She knows that her merchandise is good. Her candle does not go out at night.
She sets her hands to the distaff, and holds the spindle in her hands.
She extends her hands to the poor, and reaches out her hand to the needy.
She fears not for her household because of snow, because her whole household is warmly dressed.
She makes covers for herself, her clothing is fine linen and purple.
Her husband is known at the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land.
She makes a cloak and sells it, and she delivers aprons to the merchant.
Strength and honor are her clothing, she smiles at the future.
She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the lesson of kindness is on her tongue.
She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise and praise her, her husband lauds her.
Many women have done worthily, but you surpass them all.
Charm is deceptive and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears God shall be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.
An accomplished woman, who can find? Her value is far beyond pearls.
Her husband's heart relies on her and he shall lack no fortune.
She does him good and not evil, all the days of her life.
She seeks wool and flax, and works with her hands willingly.
She is like the merchant ships, she brings her bread from afar.
She arises while it is still night, and gives food to her household and a portion to her maidservants.
She plans for a field, and buys it. With the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
She girds her loins in strength, and makes her arms strong.
She knows that her merchandise is good. Her candle does not go out at night.
She sets her hands to the distaff, and holds the spindle in her hands.
She extends her hands to the poor, and reaches out her hand to the needy.
She fears not for her household because of snow, because her whole household is warmly dressed.
She makes covers for herself, her clothing is fine linen and purple.
Her husband is known at the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land.
She makes a cloak and sells it, and she delivers aprons to the merchant.
Strength and honor are her clothing, she smiles at the future.
She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the lesson of kindness is on her tongue.
She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise and praise her, her husband lauds her.
Many women have done worthily, but you surpass them all.
Charm is deceptive and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears God shall be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.
This describes the ideal woman. It sounds like a lot of work, mostly in service to others. Then again, the ideal Jewish man also works hard, mostly in service to others. She is smart, resourceful, learned, eloquent, active, charitable, skillfully engaged in commerce and industry, and deeply appreciated by her family. The traditional women's sphere is not narrow and stifling, nor is it passive and unimportant. We ask women to be equal partners with men, not by doing what men do, but by complementing their contributions. To the extent that there is a sense of inequality or an undervaluation of the role of women, I think much of the blame should go to the excessive emphasis on shul, which falls more into the men's domain, at the expense of understanding Judaism as a comprehensive way of life. This mental restriction of religion to communal prayer services has numerous other perfidious effects.
That basically sums up my understanding and opinions on the subject. Hopefully I have not horribly misrepresented the traditional stance. Of course, it may be lovely in theory, but is it put into practice? Not always, and we always work to improve in many ways. Judaism is a challenging and difficult path. Still, there is a reason that Jewish families are stereo-typically matriarchal. Even where men are given the legal authority, they are strongly encouraged to defer to their wives on a wide range of matters, from Abraham regarding Hagar and Yishmael until the present day.
Shabbat Shalom!
-Ethan
-Ethan
19 August 2013
Commenting problems
I understand that there has been some difficulty commenting. I changed the settings to allow anonymous comments; maybe that will work better for those who had trouble. Do any of my more technically literate friends have further advice for those whose comments were sadly eaten by the digital abyss?
If problems persist, feel free to email me a copy of the comment, and I will post it in your name.
If problems persist, feel free to email me a copy of the comment, and I will post it in your name.
15 August 2013
Arab Israeli conflict
After a close and exciting race, the voting has come down to a
tie, so I give priority to the first vote. Perhaps women in Judaism comes next,
unless another topic gets two votes before that time.
But first, a few notes on life in yeshiva after a full week. First
of all, it is really hard to get used to transitioning straight from birkat
cohanim to tachanun. Tefillin during birkat cohanim is also a little
disorienting at first, but nothing like that sudden demand for total attitude
realignment. Secondly, I may be "flipping out" a little bit. I
decided to fast Mondays and Thursdays so I could skip meals and learn more. I
don't think it is anything to worry about, my sense of self, moral intuition,
and critical thinking don't seem to be in any danger, but I'll keep an eye on
it. Finally, the community feels just a little... incomplete, I suppose; I
attribute this to a confluence of three factors:
-It is extremely transitory. This is an issue in college, where
everyone is in and out in a few years. Kal v'chomer here, where six months
makes you veritably an elder statesman.
-There are no women. Some separation may be good, because men and
women are different, but too much feels a bit off, because the differences are
complementary. Hard to say exactly what the effect is, just a different timbre
or flavor.
-The vast majority of the students are recent ba'alei teshuva.
Again, hard to point out precise changes, but it feels different. I think that
there is a certain self-consciousness to it, maybe unsettled identities or
what-have-you. I don't know to what extent I give off this vibe, but I imagine
that it fades quickly when immersed in a more organic community.
Now, these things are not necessarily bad, but it certainly takes
some getting used to. Other than those few issues, I am having a great time. It
is amazing to be removed from so many distractions and temptations that somehow
manage to keep me from doing valuable things that I enjoy when I am at home. Even
struggling through a mishna with a dictionary is really quite pleasurable.
Davening is way more intense than I am used to. I lead today for the first time
since coming here, at maariv. I was moved up to the next level for gemara, now
learning under Rabbi Elie Silverburg. Much better fit.
Now, onto the main topic.
Full disclaimer, I am somewhat biased towards Israel's interest,
which may have determined my feelings toward Gaza and the various rights of
return involved. That said, I do value the well-fare of the Palestinians, and I
think that in most cases our interests align.
I am against a two state solution. I do not think that it is a
viable path to lasting peace, when both sides are deeply committed to the
entire land. Suppose an agreement were reached. We would then almost certainly
see a flow of weapons and Palestinians from the diaspora into the West Bank.
Given that a significant portion of the populace would not support the
agreement, and still see Israel as occupying the rest of the country, some sort
of violence is likely.
Then there are two possibilities: either the government there will
support the agreement, or it will not. If the PA retains control, and continues
to support peace, then this is basically a similar situation to the current one,
except Israel has greater threats from the West Bank and less freedom or
position to act on them. Israel thus remains stuck in its moral quandary of
involvement, quickly loses its initial windfall of international good will as
the inevitable messiness results, and its security is dramatically worse. One
might say that the Israelis could just ignore being attacked and wait for the
PA to deal with it. I don't think that that is likely. The Palestinians don't
get the full dignity of independence, because their sovereignty is regularly
violated by Israel, and their economic benefits are severely limited. Not
seeing much benefit from the agreement, and still desiring control of the
territory left to the other side, popular support for the agreement is likely to
decline on both sides, creating a vicious cycle that intensifies the problem.
If the PA loses control or repudiates the peace agreement, then the West Bank
becomes Gaza writ large. Then there are two possibilities: either Israel
reoccupies or it does not. If it does, then at great cost it has managed to
undo every potential benefit from peace and be left worse off than before. If
it does not, and treats it as it has treated Gaza since Hamas took over, then
its security position becomes almost entirely untenable. The Palestinians
would, presumably, not fare very well in this scenario either.
Stable peace thus relies on supermajority popular support and a
strong PA, even after a large influx from the camps, who are generally more
radical and would have legitimate grounds to reject an agreement that they had
no representation in (or do we suppose that the refugees would be denied right
of return even to the Palestinian state?). Given popular sentiment in Egypt and
Jordan after years of peace, it seems too optimistic to suppose that even two
generations would suffice to normalize the peace in the public imagination, so
we would need the strength of the PA to continue stably for at least that long.
The probability seems vanishingly small.
Some have argued for foreign guarantees of security as a solution to these problems. I think that this would be disastrous. There is a significant possibility that the guarantors would back out, leaving Israel in the lurch, but even if they did not, a western occupying force would give credence to claims that Israel is a colonial state imposing western power on the autochthonous people, rather than another group of indigenes pressing a just claim to their own land. Thus Israel surrenders its moral claim to existence for transient material support.
Further, even if a two state solution had long term viability, I
would be hesitant, as a Jew, to support the renunciation of the region that
formed the core of biblical Israel and contains many of our holiest sites.
Now, the status quo is also unacceptable. It is unjust and denies
the legitimate demands of the Palestinians. It leaves Israel isolated and in a
state of constant war, with attendant moral and security risks to society as a
whole.
Therefore, I support annexation of the West Bank. I have seen a
number of pundits suggest that the PA threaten to dissolve itself if
negotiations fail this time, as a trump card to put pressure on Israel. I wish
they would; that would give this plan all sorts of legitimacy. Still, it is
unlikely. The leadership is too corrupt to even consider it. Even so, I think
unilateral annexation is better than nothing. This would provide both Jews and Arabs with full access to the entire land and full dignity of equal citizenship. For those who are concerned with the security implications for Israel, consider that of all the Arabs in the Middle
East, those who are least hostile to Israel are
those who live there, or so I have heard. Given a stake in the state, they have less interest in getting rid of it. Without Gaza or refugees, there would be at least a generation for things to settle before an Arab majority becomes a possibility, and even then it is far from certain. Recent trends have shown a steep decline in Palestinian fertility and steady rise in Jewish fertility, even among the secular. Would the name of the state, the flag, the national anthem, and other symbols need to change? I don't think that it is entirely necessary. National symbols are fairly synthetic, and I understand that current non-Jewish residents of Israel largely identify with the current set. My brother spent some time in an immigrant neighborhood in Tel Aviv, and his description of the extent to which they identified with originally Jewish symbols was surprising. The chief rabbinate already has Muslim and Christian counterparts. I think that the army should retain its current policy of accepting Arab volunteers but not drafting them. There are other integration issues that would need to be addressed, but I don't think that any is insurmountable.
This plan does leave Gaza as an independent city state; not much change there, but it may be easier to isolate the problem without a broader conflict. It also does not in itself address the plight of the refugees. They need to be resettled elsewhere, as they should have been long ago. There are many other countries that have claimed to be interested in Arab-Israeli peace and the well-being of the refugees. Let some of them be part of the solution. Reasonable compensation should be on the table, especially if those countries whose Jews were driven out are willing to compensate for the property lost at that time. Reminds me of that story where the Egyptians sued the Jews for the borrowed wealth that was never returned, and were granted their case on condition that they pay backwages for centuries of slavery.
This plan also leads to a chance that the Jewish right of return may not be open forever. It would be hard to justify allowing it for Jews and not for Arabs and still claim full equality and dignity. That is a hard price to accept, but I think that peace is worth it and this is the best chance at peace. As long as immigration is still possible for those who are committed enough to accept a normal naturalization process.
That's where I stand, for now. Questions or comments?
Shalom,
-Ethan
09 August 2013
I am in Israel...
...even if I have barely been outside to see it.
Chodesh tov! I hope you all had a lovely start to Elul. I am now settled, my jet-lag largely past, albeit at the cost of maariv last night. There is a good group of guys here, although I have not been struck by any strong desire to be friends with anyone in particular. However, such feelings have had only modest correlation with actual friendships formed in the past, so I don't make much of it. I was placed into the lowest level, but classes are enjoyable even so. I do need the vocabulary. Still, I have hope of swift advancement.
Chodesh tov! I hope you all had a lovely start to Elul. I am now settled, my jet-lag largely past, albeit at the cost of maariv last night. There is a good group of guys here, although I have not been struck by any strong desire to be friends with anyone in particular. However, such feelings have had only modest correlation with actual friendships formed in the past, so I don't make much of it. I was placed into the lowest level, but classes are enjoyable even so. I do need the vocabulary. Still, I have hope of swift advancement.
My classes:
Gemara with Rabbi Eliezer Kwass, a mild-mannered YU/Har Etzion alumnus. Starting with the third perek in Rosh Hashanah, talking about sanctification of the new moons. As one would expect at this level, it goes slowly. We have barely finished translating the first mishna, with very little discussion of the questions that it raises.
Mishna and Hashkafa with Rabbi Aryeh Goldshmiedt, a sectless Chassid (I had no idea there was such a thing). He so far seems willing to allow me to derail the class, so we may not get to the mishna much. We have been discussing Rav Kook's views on teshuva. Also had a nice debate over the following question: when we say that we are motivated to observe mitzvot because God tells us to, is the relationship more comparable to that between spouses or that between student and teacher?
Hebrew with Rabbi Abraham Fischer. Looks good, as it should be. Language skills definitely feel like my most pressing concern right now.
Halakha with Rabbi Yitzchak Lerner, a gregarious fellow who takes a brass tacks approach to Judaism. One interesting tid-bit: the Mishna Brurah forbids cutting one's nails in order.
Once a week shiur with Rosh HaYeshiva, Rabbi Yitzchak Hirshfeld. Very interesting. Took a Rambam that seemed to flat out contradict a mishna, and almost but didn't quite resolve it through a later rishon. Also on the third perek of Rosh Hashanah.
Anyway, I need to wake up absurdly early for Shacharit, so I am off to bed. For my next post, a vote:
I can expand on any of those topics, if the short version piqued some interest.
I can do something similar to this, see if new topics of greater interest come up in the next few days.
I can write up my family history, to the best of my knowledge.
In honor of the new talks, I can give over my views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I am also open to suggestions.
So, what do the people want to see?
Shabbat Shalom,
-Ethan
05 August 2013
Leaving tomorrow
Good day,
As some of you may know, I am to spend the next year studying at Yeshivat Darchei Noam in Beit HaKerem, Jerusalem, Israel. As such, I am starting this blog with intent to update once or twice a week and thereby remain connected to you, dear reader. As monologue-ing into the digital aether doe not suit that purpose, please leave comments here or email me at ethan.cohen1618@gmail.com, according to your inclination. If you prefer a more traditional medium, I assume that any mail you send to the yeshiva with my name on it will find its way to me. Their address is 5 Beit Hakerem St, Jerusalem 96343 or at P.O.Box 3151, Jerusalem 96343.
I know that was all very bland and utilitarian. Don't give up! Future posts should have more content.
Until I write again,
Shalom,
-Ethan Cohen
As some of you may know, I am to spend the next year studying at Yeshivat Darchei Noam in Beit HaKerem, Jerusalem, Israel. As such, I am starting this blog with intent to update once or twice a week and thereby remain connected to you, dear reader. As monologue-ing into the digital aether doe not suit that purpose, please leave comments here or email me at ethan.cohen1618@gmail.com, according to your inclination. If you prefer a more traditional medium, I assume that any mail you send to the yeshiva with my name on it will find its way to me. Their address is 5 Beit Hakerem St, Jerusalem 96343 or at P.O.Box 3151, Jerusalem 96343.
I know that was all very bland and utilitarian. Don't give up! Future posts should have more content.
Until I write again,
Shalom,
-Ethan Cohen
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