My best wishes for a Happy, Healthy New Year to all!
And May 2010 be a good year for all who seek better knowledge of their faiths...
Thursday, December 31, 2009
This is why you can't swim on Shabbat?!?
A relatively green baal teshuva friend of mine told me the other day that he had asked his rabbi if he could swim in the ocean on Shabbat. The answer was, effectively, no.
This made me sad. And confused. And angry.
This made me sad. And confused. And angry.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vayeishev
37:5-11 - Joseph tells his brothers of his dreams that they and their parents will bow down before him... Is it just me, or is Joseph a fool and/or naive to have told others about his dream? Even Jacob recognizes this was a bad move: "and his father rebuked him, and said unto him: 'What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down to thee to the earth?'"
37:12-13 - Another head-scratcher: Immediately after Jacob rebukes Joseph for telling of his dream -- a dream that involves his brothers bowing down to him -- Jacob sends Joseph off to Shechem to "see whether it is well with [his] brethren, and well with the flock; and bring...back word." Why does Jacob do this? It seems stupid under the circumstances...
37:15 - The mysterious "man" appears again, this time asking Joseph what he is searching for, and telling him that his brothers are in Dotan. Who is he? The Kehot interpolated English text says "The angel Gabriel, appearing the guise of a man..." (the bold is the translation of the Hebrew; the plain text, the interpolation), but unlike other times we've see the "man" appear, the Hebrew text says nothing to indicate otherworldliness; it just uses the word ish. Clearly I have to do more reading about this, but it does make me wonder: Why use the word ish (man) if mal'ach (angel) is what is meant? Perhaps that sometimes angels come in recognizable forms while other times they do not? Hmmm...
37:26-30 - I understand that, in the big picture, Joseph "needs" to go to Egypt for the storyline to make sense, but it puzzles me that later we will read how God kills Onan and, presumably, Er (the text is vague on this), for "spilling their seed," while Joseph's brothers get off scot free for selling their brother into slavery. Am I missing something here?
38:7-10 - If I follow the Kehot interpolated version, Judah's son Er "was evil in God's eyes" because he spilled his seed rather than impregnate his wife, Tamar, as having children "would mar her beauty." "He did not regret his act," and therefore God killed hium. Onan meets a similar fate when he spilled his seed rather than impregnate Tamar after Er is killed. From the perspective of a couple thousand years ago, I can possibly understand this, but what are we to make of this today? This is where the prohibition against masturbation comes from, right? Seems a wee bit over the top in my book.
38:15-18 - And then the plot thickens... Tamar, still without child from the line of Judah, disguises herself as a prostitute in order to ensnare Judah. He somehow doesn't realize who she is (!?!?), offers to send her a goat for her services, and at Tamar's request, gives up his ring , cloak and staff as "collateral." Even if I can look past the sexual issues here that seem so foreign to me, what is the point of putting this story in the Torah? (Kehot's "Chasidic Insight" is that Tamar's deception was a selfless act done in order to become "the mother of the Davidic dynasty....for the sake of drawing forth the soul of the Messiah." I guess that's one interpretation!)
38:24-26 - Talk about a double take! Judah, upon learning that Tamar is pregnant, first says she must die ("'Bring her forth, and let her be burnt'"). Upon learning that he is the father (when she produces the ring, cloak and staff), Judah changes his tune in a hurry: "'She is more righteous than I; forasmuch as I gave her not to Shelah my son.' And he knew her again no more." So...because he was personally involved it makes it okay?!? The Kehot Chumash offers a bizzare interpolation and explanation: It understands "And he knew her again no more" to mean that Judah married her and therefore never slept with her in the questionable way he had before. The commentary adds that while "the Torah forbits a person to marry his daughter-in-law," it was okay in this case even though the Torah had not yet been given because "Judah may have felt it was better to transgress a future law, which he was not obligated to keep, than abandon Tamar." There's some Torah logic for you!
39:2-3 - Back to Joseph, who is brought to Egypt and sold to a courtier of Pharoah... These verses explain that "God was with Joseph," who becomes a successful man in the house of Potiphar, who "saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand." Joseph becomes quite important in the house. My question is what's the deal with an Egyptian acknowledging "the LORD"? I thought there were lots of gods and that the Egyptians did not acknowledge that God was "the LORD"?
39:7-8 - Here it is! My favorite verses in the Torah!! Potiphar's wife tries to seduce Joseph, who refuses her advances...but he is tempted! The trop on the word "He refused" is a shalshelet, the rarest cantellation mark in the Torah. I always admired the way this mark was used to indicate Joseph's wavering! (Having just done a little Googling, I found this D'var Torah which, to my surprise, points out that this mark appears three times in Bereishit and once in Vayikra. Four times! I thought it only appeared once! Super cool!)
37:12-13 - Another head-scratcher: Immediately after Jacob rebukes Joseph for telling of his dream -- a dream that involves his brothers bowing down to him -- Jacob sends Joseph off to Shechem to "see whether it is well with [his] brethren, and well with the flock; and bring...back word." Why does Jacob do this? It seems stupid under the circumstances...
37:15 - The mysterious "man" appears again, this time asking Joseph what he is searching for, and telling him that his brothers are in Dotan. Who is he? The Kehot interpolated English text says "The angel Gabriel, appearing the guise of a man..." (the bold is the translation of the Hebrew; the plain text, the interpolation), but unlike other times we've see the "man" appear, the Hebrew text says nothing to indicate otherworldliness; it just uses the word ish. Clearly I have to do more reading about this, but it does make me wonder: Why use the word ish (man) if mal'ach (angel) is what is meant? Perhaps that sometimes angels come in recognizable forms while other times they do not? Hmmm...
37:26-30 - I understand that, in the big picture, Joseph "needs" to go to Egypt for the storyline to make sense, but it puzzles me that later we will read how God kills Onan and, presumably, Er (the text is vague on this), for "spilling their seed," while Joseph's brothers get off scot free for selling their brother into slavery. Am I missing something here?
38:7-10 - If I follow the Kehot interpolated version, Judah's son Er "was evil in God's eyes" because he spilled his seed rather than impregnate his wife, Tamar, as having children "would mar her beauty." "He did not regret his act," and therefore God killed hium. Onan meets a similar fate when he spilled his seed rather than impregnate Tamar after Er is killed. From the perspective of a couple thousand years ago, I can possibly understand this, but what are we to make of this today? This is where the prohibition against masturbation comes from, right? Seems a wee bit over the top in my book.
38:15-18 - And then the plot thickens... Tamar, still without child from the line of Judah, disguises herself as a prostitute in order to ensnare Judah. He somehow doesn't realize who she is (!?!?), offers to send her a goat for her services, and at Tamar's request, gives up his ring , cloak and staff as "collateral." Even if I can look past the sexual issues here that seem so foreign to me, what is the point of putting this story in the Torah? (Kehot's "Chasidic Insight" is that Tamar's deception was a selfless act done in order to become "the mother of the Davidic dynasty....for the sake of drawing forth the soul of the Messiah." I guess that's one interpretation!)
38:24-26 - Talk about a double take! Judah, upon learning that Tamar is pregnant, first says she must die ("'Bring her forth, and let her be burnt'"). Upon learning that he is the father (when she produces the ring, cloak and staff), Judah changes his tune in a hurry: "'She is more righteous than I; forasmuch as I gave her not to Shelah my son.' And he knew her again no more." So...because he was personally involved it makes it okay?!? The Kehot Chumash offers a bizzare interpolation and explanation: It understands "And he knew her again no more" to mean that Judah married her and therefore never slept with her in the questionable way he had before. The commentary adds that while "the Torah forbits a person to marry his daughter-in-law," it was okay in this case even though the Torah had not yet been given because "Judah may have felt it was better to transgress a future law, which he was not obligated to keep, than abandon Tamar." There's some Torah logic for you!
39:2-3 - Back to Joseph, who is brought to Egypt and sold to a courtier of Pharoah... These verses explain that "God was with Joseph," who becomes a successful man in the house of Potiphar, who "saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand." Joseph becomes quite important in the house. My question is what's the deal with an Egyptian acknowledging "the LORD"? I thought there were lots of gods and that the Egyptians did not acknowledge that God was "the LORD"?
39:7-8 - Here it is! My favorite verses in the Torah!! Potiphar's wife tries to seduce Joseph, who refuses her advances...but he is tempted! The trop on the word "He refused" is a shalshelet, the rarest cantellation mark in the Torah. I always admired the way this mark was used to indicate Joseph's wavering! (Having just done a little Googling, I found this D'var Torah which, to my surprise, points out that this mark appears three times in Bereishit and once in Vayikra. Four times! I thought it only appeared once! Super cool!)
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Is anyone else like me out there?
I have found lots of great frum (i.e., religious) and off-the derech (i.e., by former "observant" Jews) blogs out there, and I have even come across some right-wing sites that at the very least are giving me some food for thought. The Reform Shuckle and Mah Rabu, from the Reform angle, are pretty great as well.
But I'm not finding other blogs written by people like me: Liberal, Reform Jews searching for a meaningful, authentic connection with the nitty-gritty of our faith. There are some great cultural sites out there dealing with modern Jewish issues, but they're not quite what I'm looking for.
I'm trying to find personal answers to some big questions:
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
But I'm not finding other blogs written by people like me: Liberal, Reform Jews searching for a meaningful, authentic connection with the nitty-gritty of our faith. There are some great cultural sites out there dealing with modern Jewish issues, but they're not quite what I'm looking for.
I'm trying to find personal answers to some big questions:
- How can a truly liberal person take seriously religion in general and Judaism in particular?
- What is the meaning of Jewish community if I only cherry pick the elements of Judaism that "speak" to me personally? But once I surrender autonomy to some other authority -- God, Chazal, my rebbe -- then how can I stay liberal?
- I cannot believe the Torah was dictated to Moses by God, and I simply can't accept that Oral Torah could be binding for all Jews for all time. But then how do I read and understand these texts? How am I to relate to them?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vayishlach
32:4-7 - Interesting. The English translation here is "And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the field of Edom." The Hebrew, though, is mal'achim, which I would think is better translated as angels. This sets up a curious scene in which Jacob commands these angels to bring a message to Esau. The angels return with their reports of Esau's advance with 400 men. This is a very different encounter than we saw earlier, where angels speak to Abraham here, Jacob is telling the angels what to do, and they obey (although not exactly -- it's not clear whether they delivered Jacob's message as commanded: "Thus saith thy servant Jacob: I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now. And I have oxen, and asses and flocks, and men-servants and maid-servants; and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favour in thy sight"). Is there any other precedent for ordering around angels?!?
32:25-30 - Jacob wrestles with an angel... Or did he? Unlike the previous passage, where Jacob orders the malachim to bring his message to Esau, here the text refers to an ish, i.e., a man. Clearly this is no regular man, because at the conclusion of their encounter, this being gives Jacob the name of yisrael because he has "striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed." You would think it would be the other way around: send anashim to meet Esau, wrestle with a mal'ach to get the name of yisrael. The text is nicely ambiguous here, especially when the amgen/man refuses to give its name, and Jacob calls the place P'niel "'for [he had] seen God face to face, and [his] life [was] preserved." Did he see God "face to face" because the man was an angel, or was the face of God revealed in some other, mysterious way through the act of struggle?
[This is one of those passages into which much could be read and understood, but the text itself says so little it's hard to say. All that happens here according to the Hebrew text is that Jacob wrestles with a "man" who basically blesses him and refuses to tell his name. To me, the notion that Jacob becomes Israel by wrestling with God...this is such a powerful image in contrast with Abraham leading Isaac to the mizbeach because God told him to do so. Here, Jacob is rewarded for struggling against God (stealing the birthright?), as if struggling is a higher form of interaction than obeying or following. I like this image, that the people Israel are who we are because of struggle rather than obeying.]
32:33 - Now I know where the prohibition from eating the sciatic nerve comes from: "Therefore the children of Israel eat not the sinew of the thigh-vein which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day; because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh, even in the sinew of the thigh-vein." That's pretty strong, beautiful stuff. Crap, this is a pretty good reason to observe kashrut when it comes to eating meat! The symbolism is pretty powerful here...and pretty straightforward!
34:2-3 - I know I shouldn't apply modern-day notions of sexuality and sexual propriety to the Torah, but really, the text itself here is a bit, um, weird. In verse 2, Shechem takes, rapes and "humbles" (abuses?) Dinah. In verse 3, we then learn that "he loved the damsel, and spoke comfortingly unto the damsel." So he raped her, but loved her? Or he loved her after he raped her? I'm trying to understand this...
34:24-31 - From a Biblical perspective, I understand why Dinah's brothers would want to kill Shechem, then plunder the Hivite's possessions. Indeed, Jacob's reaction is pretty mild: he's not upset that his sons basically slaughtered all the men of the city and plundered it...he's upset because their behavior will make him "odious unto the inhabitants of the land, even unto the Canaanites and the Perizzites" and, in turn, will make his life less secure in the future. But to Simeon and Levi's question -- "Should one deal with our sister as with a harlot?" -- Jacob never responds. Is this to imply that killing everyone in the city to avenge Dinah's honor was not sufficient reason? Is Jacob trying to bring considerations of politics into the picture?
35:1-4 - After God tells Jacob to go to Bethel, Jacob says to the members of his household: "'Put away the strange gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments..." In response, "they gave unto Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hand, and the rings which were in their ears." Earrings?!? I imagine they were symbols of the strange gods (elohai ha-nechar) they were supposed to get rid of. I was under the impression that Jews weren't supposed to have pierced ears because it was a descration of one's body...but this passage suggests they're a sign/mark of avodah zarah. Which is it?
35:20-21 - An interesting juxtaposition of verses here. The first, immediately after Racheh has died, relates "And Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave; the same is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day." The next verse immediately says "And Israel journeyed, and spread his tent beyond Migdal-eder." Why the switch here? Is there something about Rachel's death that somehow changes Jacob? On the other hand, the verses that follow revert back to calling him Jacob rather than Israel. What's going on here?
32:25-30 - Jacob wrestles with an angel... Or did he? Unlike the previous passage, where Jacob orders the malachim to bring his message to Esau, here the text refers to an ish, i.e., a man. Clearly this is no regular man, because at the conclusion of their encounter, this being gives Jacob the name of yisrael because he has "striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed." You would think it would be the other way around: send anashim to meet Esau, wrestle with a mal'ach to get the name of yisrael. The text is nicely ambiguous here, especially when the amgen/man refuses to give its name, and Jacob calls the place P'niel "'for [he had] seen God face to face, and [his] life [was] preserved." Did he see God "face to face" because the man was an angel, or was the face of God revealed in some other, mysterious way through the act of struggle?
[This is one of those passages into which much could be read and understood, but the text itself says so little it's hard to say. All that happens here according to the Hebrew text is that Jacob wrestles with a "man" who basically blesses him and refuses to tell his name. To me, the notion that Jacob becomes Israel by wrestling with God...this is such a powerful image in contrast with Abraham leading Isaac to the mizbeach because God told him to do so. Here, Jacob is rewarded for struggling against God (stealing the birthright?), as if struggling is a higher form of interaction than obeying or following. I like this image, that the people Israel are who we are because of struggle rather than obeying.]
32:33 - Now I know where the prohibition from eating the sciatic nerve comes from: "Therefore the children of Israel eat not the sinew of the thigh-vein which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day; because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh, even in the sinew of the thigh-vein." That's pretty strong, beautiful stuff. Crap, this is a pretty good reason to observe kashrut when it comes to eating meat! The symbolism is pretty powerful here...and pretty straightforward!
34:2-3 - I know I shouldn't apply modern-day notions of sexuality and sexual propriety to the Torah, but really, the text itself here is a bit, um, weird. In verse 2, Shechem takes, rapes and "humbles" (abuses?) Dinah. In verse 3, we then learn that "he loved the damsel, and spoke comfortingly unto the damsel." So he raped her, but loved her? Or he loved her after he raped her? I'm trying to understand this...
34:24-31 - From a Biblical perspective, I understand why Dinah's brothers would want to kill Shechem, then plunder the Hivite's possessions. Indeed, Jacob's reaction is pretty mild: he's not upset that his sons basically slaughtered all the men of the city and plundered it...he's upset because their behavior will make him "odious unto the inhabitants of the land, even unto the Canaanites and the Perizzites" and, in turn, will make his life less secure in the future. But to Simeon and Levi's question -- "Should one deal with our sister as with a harlot?" -- Jacob never responds. Is this to imply that killing everyone in the city to avenge Dinah's honor was not sufficient reason? Is Jacob trying to bring considerations of politics into the picture?
35:1-4 - After God tells Jacob to go to Bethel, Jacob says to the members of his household: "'Put away the strange gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments..." In response, "they gave unto Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hand, and the rings which were in their ears." Earrings?!? I imagine they were symbols of the strange gods (elohai ha-nechar) they were supposed to get rid of. I was under the impression that Jews weren't supposed to have pierced ears because it was a descration of one's body...but this passage suggests they're a sign/mark of avodah zarah. Which is it?
35:20-21 - An interesting juxtaposition of verses here. The first, immediately after Racheh has died, relates "And Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave; the same is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day." The next verse immediately says "And Israel journeyed, and spread his tent beyond Migdal-eder." Why the switch here? Is there something about Rachel's death that somehow changes Jacob? On the other hand, the verses that follow revert back to calling him Jacob rather than Israel. What's going on here?
Rabin and Goldstein: One more time...
Because the comments section won't allow extended posts, I'm again forced to migrate comments from Rabin and Goldstein: Part Deux to this post. (The original post to which I commented is Assassination of Rabin, Massacre by Goldstein, and my first post in response was here.)
I must admit to feeling a little gross debating people who defend murder and assassination, but I think it's important to engage their arguments, both to let them know that there are plenty of other Jews out there who disagree with them and to make sure that we liberal, progressive Jews get better at communicating the holes and flaws in their logic. I believe that the vast majority of Jews ahbor and condemn the assassination of Rabin and Goldstein's murderous rampage. And that, at least, gives me hope.
See my responses, indented below...
I must admit to feeling a little gross debating people who defend murder and assassination, but I think it's important to engage their arguments, both to let them know that there are plenty of other Jews out there who disagree with them and to make sure that we liberal, progressive Jews get better at communicating the holes and flaws in their logic. I believe that the vast majority of Jews ahbor and condemn the assassination of Rabin and Goldstein's murderous rampage. And that, at least, gives me hope.
See my responses, indented below...
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vayeitzei
Lots to discuss in the odd, Vayeitzei soap opera...
29:19 - Strong praise from Laban vis-a-vis giving (!) Rachel to Jacob: "'It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man." Nice.
29:23 - I never understood this: Laban gives Leah instead of Rachel to Jacob, who doesn't realize the switcheroo until the morning after he sleeps with her?!?! Was he an idiot? (Clearly he liked to do it with the lights out.) I would be seriously pissed off at Laban if he did this to me.
29:27-28 - Why did it never occur to me how odd, how weird it was that Jacob married two sisters? So Leah and Racher were sisters and sister wives?!? Seriously, though, I thought it was assur to have relations with your wife's sister -- am I wrong about that?
29:30-31 - More bad patriarchal/matriarchal behavior: First, Jacob not only "loved Rachel more than Leah," but "the LORD saw that Leah was hated"...now there's a recipe for family discord! Then, just to "fix" things up really good, God makes Leah pregnant rather than Rachel. No jealousy there. Why does God make things harder rather than easier?
30:1-2 - More jealousy -- and drama -- from Rachel: "And when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and she said unto Jacob: 'Give me children, or else I die.'" Jacob, of course, then passes the buck: "...he said: 'Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?'" Hard to tell who is at fault here, but in any case, no one seems quite accepting of God's will here.
30:14-17 - This story of Reuben and the mandrakes is strange and creepy. According to the Kehot interpolated version (which I'm not vouching for, but it does fill in some of what would otherwise be entirely incomprehensible), Reuben brings the mandrakes -- which can be made into some kind of fertility drug -- to his mother, Leah, even though she clearly doesn't need it. (Why does he do this?) Rachel, who does need the help, asks for them instead of Leah. Leah is pissed off, saying "Is it a small matter that thou hast taken away my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also?" Rachel offers a swap: Leah can sleep with Jacob on that night in exchange for the mandrakes, which Rachel will use in advance of their next night together, in order to conceive. So, in short, Reuben gets involved in the fertility conflict between his two mommies, who wheel and deal over who gets to have sex with Jacob and when. I'm totally serious when I ask: Are these the people we're supposed to emulate as paragons of Jewish virtue?!?!
30:24 - Joseph is born. Remind me, why isn't Joseph thought of as a patriarch?!?
30:28-42 - The account of the deal between Laban and Jacob over what the former should pay the latter for his years of service is a real gem of this portion. Almost half of chapter 30 is devoted to an extended discussion of different kinds of goats and sheep -- their colors, markings, and mating habits -- and who gets what, how and when. On the one hand, I get it; livestock was important back then, so they cared about these kinds of things. On the other hand, it's hard for me to understand the point of this extended discussion at this point. Heck, the akkedah gets less ink than the goats and sheep do. Are we to understand that something more important is going on here? It's curious to me.
31:19-20 - Interesting juxtaposition of language here: Rachel steals (vatignov) Laban's idols...then Jacob outwitted (vayignov) Laban by not telling him he planned to flee. [You really have to read the Hebrew when it comes to certian things!] My question, though, is why Rachel steals her father's idols. What possesses her to do this? The JPS version relates that "Rachel stole the idols [teraphim] that belonged to her father..." The Kehot version adds "hoping in this way to wean him from idolatry," which I suppose makes sense, but there's no other indication in the text that this is why Rachel does this, and her own behavior up to this point hasn't exactly been exemplary.
31:30-37 - So Rachel has her father's idols when she, Leah and Jacob flee. Laban catches up to the next day...when several very curious things happen. First, Laban, among other things, angrily asks for his Gods (elohai) back and Jacob, the good Jewish monotheist that he is, takes Laban's side, saying "With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, he shall not live..." Instead of telling Laban that his Gods mean nothing and go piss off, he threatens to kill whomever took the idols?!? Second, Rachel, rather than admit what she has done, sits on the idols to hide them, lying that she can't get up because of her period?!?! Finally, and perhaps most weirdly, the story ends here -- we never know what happens to the idols, whether Jacob learns about what happened, or what Laban does afterwards. So what is the moral to the story? It's okay to lie -- including to one's spouse -- when it comes to separating other people from their idols?
29:19 - Strong praise from Laban vis-a-vis giving (!) Rachel to Jacob: "'It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man." Nice.
29:23 - I never understood this: Laban gives Leah instead of Rachel to Jacob, who doesn't realize the switcheroo until the morning after he sleeps with her?!?! Was he an idiot? (Clearly he liked to do it with the lights out.) I would be seriously pissed off at Laban if he did this to me.
29:27-28 - Why did it never occur to me how odd, how weird it was that Jacob married two sisters? So Leah and Racher were sisters and sister wives?!? Seriously, though, I thought it was assur to have relations with your wife's sister -- am I wrong about that?
29:30-31 - More bad patriarchal/matriarchal behavior: First, Jacob not only "loved Rachel more than Leah," but "the LORD saw that Leah was hated"...now there's a recipe for family discord! Then, just to "fix" things up really good, God makes Leah pregnant rather than Rachel. No jealousy there. Why does God make things harder rather than easier?
30:1-2 - More jealousy -- and drama -- from Rachel: "And when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and she said unto Jacob: 'Give me children, or else I die.'" Jacob, of course, then passes the buck: "...he said: 'Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?'" Hard to tell who is at fault here, but in any case, no one seems quite accepting of God's will here.
30:14-17 - This story of Reuben and the mandrakes is strange and creepy. According to the Kehot interpolated version (which I'm not vouching for, but it does fill in some of what would otherwise be entirely incomprehensible), Reuben brings the mandrakes -- which can be made into some kind of fertility drug -- to his mother, Leah, even though she clearly doesn't need it. (Why does he do this?) Rachel, who does need the help, asks for them instead of Leah. Leah is pissed off, saying "Is it a small matter that thou hast taken away my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also?" Rachel offers a swap: Leah can sleep with Jacob on that night in exchange for the mandrakes, which Rachel will use in advance of their next night together, in order to conceive. So, in short, Reuben gets involved in the fertility conflict between his two mommies, who wheel and deal over who gets to have sex with Jacob and when. I'm totally serious when I ask: Are these the people we're supposed to emulate as paragons of Jewish virtue?!?!
30:24 - Joseph is born. Remind me, why isn't Joseph thought of as a patriarch?!?
30:28-42 - The account of the deal between Laban and Jacob over what the former should pay the latter for his years of service is a real gem of this portion. Almost half of chapter 30 is devoted to an extended discussion of different kinds of goats and sheep -- their colors, markings, and mating habits -- and who gets what, how and when. On the one hand, I get it; livestock was important back then, so they cared about these kinds of things. On the other hand, it's hard for me to understand the point of this extended discussion at this point. Heck, the akkedah gets less ink than the goats and sheep do. Are we to understand that something more important is going on here? It's curious to me.
31:19-20 - Interesting juxtaposition of language here: Rachel steals (vatignov) Laban's idols...then Jacob outwitted (vayignov) Laban by not telling him he planned to flee. [You really have to read the Hebrew when it comes to certian things!] My question, though, is why Rachel steals her father's idols. What possesses her to do this? The JPS version relates that "Rachel stole the idols [teraphim] that belonged to her father..." The Kehot version adds "hoping in this way to wean him from idolatry," which I suppose makes sense, but there's no other indication in the text that this is why Rachel does this, and her own behavior up to this point hasn't exactly been exemplary.
31:30-37 - So Rachel has her father's idols when she, Leah and Jacob flee. Laban catches up to the next day...when several very curious things happen. First, Laban, among other things, angrily asks for his Gods (elohai) back and Jacob, the good Jewish monotheist that he is, takes Laban's side, saying "With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, he shall not live..." Instead of telling Laban that his Gods mean nothing and go piss off, he threatens to kill whomever took the idols?!? Second, Rachel, rather than admit what she has done, sits on the idols to hide them, lying that she can't get up because of her period?!?! Finally, and perhaps most weirdly, the story ends here -- we never know what happens to the idols, whether Jacob learns about what happened, or what Laban does afterwards. So what is the moral to the story? It's okay to lie -- including to one's spouse -- when it comes to separating other people from their idols?
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Torah Tidbits: Parshat Toldot
26:6-11 - Yet another instance of lying and saying a wife is a sister! Isaac tells the people of Gerar that Rebecca is his sister because "he feared to say: 'My wife'; 'lest the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah, because she is fair to look upon.'" So here we have an instance of God telling Isaac what to do and promising that Isaac will be looked after and taken care of, but, apparently, Isaac doesn't buy it and lies to the Philistines so that they don't kill him and take his wife?!?
26:34-35 - Here's an interesting throwaway line: "And when Esau was forty years old, he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. And they were a bitterness of spirit unto Isaac and to Rebekah." Why? Up to that point, we know of nothing Esau has done to deserve this bad reputation -- he traded his birthright, true, but his parents didn't know about it. What's more, we already know (25:28) that Isaac preferred Esau. So which was it, a source of bitterness or the perferred son?
27:5-15 - The entire episode of Rebecca conspiring with Jacob to trick Isaac into blessing him instead of Esau is really an odd story. First, this is a lot of scheming and lying among the patriarchs/matriarchs! Second, why doesn't Rebecca just tell Isaac what to do? If God really wanted things to turn out as they did, why not get involved? Why in this case let Rebecca lie about it? And while I understand that Jacob would go along, because he wanted the birthright he traded for the porridge, then why be so secretive about it? Why not just tell Isaac the deal was done? This just seems like a lot of unsavory behavior...
27:46 - Hillarious! From the JPS translation, "Rebekah said to Isaac, 'I am disgusted with my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries a Hittite woman like these, from among the native women, what good will life be to me?'" She sounds like the first Jewish Mother: "Oy vey, anyone but the Hittite women!" : )
26:34-35 - Here's an interesting throwaway line: "And when Esau was forty years old, he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. And they were a bitterness of spirit unto Isaac and to Rebekah." Why? Up to that point, we know of nothing Esau has done to deserve this bad reputation -- he traded his birthright, true, but his parents didn't know about it. What's more, we already know (25:28) that Isaac preferred Esau. So which was it, a source of bitterness or the perferred son?
27:5-15 - The entire episode of Rebecca conspiring with Jacob to trick Isaac into blessing him instead of Esau is really an odd story. First, this is a lot of scheming and lying among the patriarchs/matriarchs! Second, why doesn't Rebecca just tell Isaac what to do? If God really wanted things to turn out as they did, why not get involved? Why in this case let Rebecca lie about it? And while I understand that Jacob would go along, because he wanted the birthright he traded for the porridge, then why be so secretive about it? Why not just tell Isaac the deal was done? This just seems like a lot of unsavory behavior...
27:46 - Hillarious! From the JPS translation, "Rebekah said to Isaac, 'I am disgusted with my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries a Hittite woman like these, from among the native women, what good will life be to me?'" She sounds like the first Jewish Mother: "Oy vey, anyone but the Hittite women!" : )
Torah Tidbits: Parshat Chayei Sarah
23:4-16 - These verses relate the story of Abraham's purchase of the Cave of Machpelah, for the purpose of burying Sarah. Why was it so very important that Abraham pay for the site? Ephron had offered to give it to Abraham free of charge. I can guess that, by paying for the land, there was an implied contract that would have been more difficult to go back on, but the reasons aren't given in the text.
24:2-9 - Abraham's wish that Isaac not have a Cannanite wife makes sense, but it seems odd that Abraham was so insistent that Isaac not travel there to find that wife: "On no account must you take my son back there!" (JPS translation). Rather than simply send Isaac, he sends a servant with a set of code words and instructions concerning how to find the woman and bring her back...but wouldn't it have been a bit more straightforward -- not to mention gentlemanly -- for Isaac to have gone on his own?
25:1-6 - Yet another odd figure... Abraham took another wife after Sarah and Haggar, one named Keturah?!? Never even heard of her.
24:2-9 - Abraham's wish that Isaac not have a Cannanite wife makes sense, but it seems odd that Abraham was so insistent that Isaac not travel there to find that wife: "On no account must you take my son back there!" (JPS translation). Rather than simply send Isaac, he sends a servant with a set of code words and instructions concerning how to find the woman and bring her back...but wouldn't it have been a bit more straightforward -- not to mention gentlemanly -- for Isaac to have gone on his own?
25:1-6 - Yet another odd figure... Abraham took another wife after Sarah and Haggar, one named Keturah?!? Never even heard of her.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Mitzvah of the Week: #1 - To know/believe there is a God
In light of what I have learned over the past couple weeks about this mitzvah, I felt some serious editing was in order. Rather than publish this as an entirely new post, I decided instead to re-write it, retaining those parts from the original that made sense, adding new ideas where necessary.
The important change, which I discussed in this post, is that rather than relying on the Rambam's Sefer HaMitzvot (see here for Hebrew-only version), I am going to work my way through his Mishneh Torah ("MT"), tackling the mitzvot in the order in which they appear there. There's a lot more commentary and discussion in the MT, so I think in the long run this will make the most sense. (Chabad's English translation of the MT can be found here. Hebrew can be found here and, in a slightly more readable format, here. I am also relying on Rabbi Eliyahu Tougher's translation and commentary published by Moznaim.)
Introduction:
Interesting that what is arguably the most central, important mitzvah is described by the Rambam in two different ways.
In Sefer HaMitzvot, he explains that believing in God - this first positive commandment - means "to believe [להאמין] that there is a Cause and a Reason which is the Maker of all the creations..." He cites Exodus 20:2, in which God says "I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" as well as Deut. 5:6, where Moses quotes God saying these same words. Rambam also refers to Makkot 23a [53-54]:
However, in the MT (Sefer HaMada, Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah, Chap.1), the Rambam says "The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know [לידע] that there is a Primary Being who rought into being all existence..." and that "the knowledge of this concept [וידיעת דבר זה מצות עשה] is a positive commandment..." The basis of this comandment is the same as in Sefer HaMitzvot (i.e., Exodus 20:2), though there is more discussion in this chapter of MT about what this knowledge entails.
Some preliminary thoughts and questions:
The important change, which I discussed in this post, is that rather than relying on the Rambam's Sefer HaMitzvot (see here for Hebrew-only version), I am going to work my way through his Mishneh Torah ("MT"), tackling the mitzvot in the order in which they appear there. There's a lot more commentary and discussion in the MT, so I think in the long run this will make the most sense. (Chabad's English translation of the MT can be found here. Hebrew can be found here and, in a slightly more readable format, here. I am also relying on Rabbi Eliyahu Tougher's translation and commentary published by Moznaim.)
Introduction:
Interesting that what is arguably the most central, important mitzvah is described by the Rambam in two different ways.
In Sefer HaMitzvot, he explains that believing in God - this first positive commandment - means "to believe [להאמין] that there is a Cause and a Reason which is the Maker of all the creations..." He cites Exodus 20:2, in which God says "I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" as well as Deut. 5:6, where Moses quotes God saying these same words. Rambam also refers to Makkot 23a [53-54]:
R. Simlayi lectured: Six hundred and thirteen commands were said to Moses; three hundred and sixty-five of them negatives, corresponding to the number of days in a year counting according to sunrise; and two hundred and forty-eight positives, corresponding to the members of a man's body. Said R. Hamnunah: Where is there an allusion thereto in the Scripture? [Deut. xxxiii. 4]: "The Torah which Moses commanded us." The letters of the word Torah number six hundred and eleven (Tav is 400; Vov, 6; Reish, 200, and Hei, 5), and the two first commandments [i.e., Exodus 20:2], however, of the ten, we ourselves have heard from Heaven.Concludes Rambam, "It is clear, then, that 'I am the Lord your God' is included in the 613 mitzvoth, and it is the commandment to believe, as we have explained."
However, in the MT (Sefer HaMada, Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah, Chap.1), the Rambam says "The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know [לידע] that there is a Primary Being who rought into being all existence..." and that "the knowledge of this concept [וידיעת דבר זה מצות עשה] is a positive commandment..." The basis of this comandment is the same as in Sefer HaMitzvot (i.e., Exodus 20:2), though there is more discussion in this chapter of MT about what this knowledge entails.
Some preliminary thoughts and questions:
Rabin and Golstein: Part Deux
An anonymouns reader posted two comments about my response to my previous posting on Rabin and Goldstein. His comments in their entirety, and my interlineated, responses, are below. (They wouldn't fit into the comments section!)
Anonymous said...
I am a reader of Michael's blog.
Most of what you wrote here is tripe. But I will comment on a few very grievous errors.
Michael stated: "As for Rabin, I might add that by his own admission, he was directly responsible for the murder of all those aboard the Altalena. As related by Moshe Feiglin, Rabin proudly admitted that he was responsible for the Haganah's murder of those aboard the Altalena, because it was carrying weapons for the rival Irgun group."
In any case, the fact remains that Rabin jumped at the opportunity to fire on the surrendering and friendly ship while other soldiers balked at the fratricidal request. It certainly catapulted Rabin's military and political career. Those in the ship who were fired on, who were not murdered.... Enlisted in the army! (Like they had planned to do since the ship set sail). Sometimes facts can be uncomfortable, but that does not make them go away.
Anonymous said...
One more issue.
Israel did not wait until the attack was on its way. It was indeed going to come within days, and it was very much imminent, but it had not yet begun when Israel pre-emptively struck. And I feel they were justified in pre-emptively striking, but let us not call it anything else. "On the way" implies it had already begun. And it had not.
This is simply ludicrous. Did Israel do that in 1967? It will depend on how you characterize the Arab intentions there. For simplicity's sake let's take for granted that the Arabs wanted to wipe out the entire Jewish armed forces, air force, and drive all the remaining Jews into the sea (as Nasser had been promising in his broadcasts/diatribes). In that case, Israel did not even nearly reach the level of proportionality of that which was intended by the enemy side. They captured territory with strategic and security significance, and they destroyed the enemy's air force over night, but where did they massacre all of Egypt and take over entire countries? That was not proportionate, but it was decisive and victorious nonetheless.
December 19, 2009 6:13 PM
Anonymous said...
I am a reader of Michael's blog.
Most of what you wrote here is tripe. But I will comment on a few very grievous errors.
Michael stated: "As for Rabin, I might add that by his own admission, he was directly responsible for the murder of all those aboard the Altalena. As related by Moshe Feiglin, Rabin proudly admitted that he was responsible for the Haganah's murder of those aboard the Altalena, because it was carrying weapons for the rival Irgun group."
He then added a few sentences of editorial and you responded by saying: "You really have a poor, biased grasp of Israeli history if this is what you honestly think."
You react here very emotionally, but without basis in fact. Michael has stated facts about what occurred, and Rabin's behavior gloating about what had occurred. Yes, Rabin was the trigger-man who fired on that ship while its white flag was raised and survivors were trying to swim (for their lives) to shore. And yes he boasted in front of foreign officials about having done so (while probably drunk).
- It isn't surprising to me that some people, obviously yourself included, would simply brush aside the content of my arguments with insult rather than engage them. That's fine. It doesn't make me wrong.
- It's rather ironic for your to accuse me of reacting emotionally to Michael's account of the Altalena affair given the latter's calling Rabin a murderer for carrying out military orders. In any case, his focusing on what Rabin may or may not have said while ignoring the political-military-historical context in which the event occurred, is disingenuous and betrays a lack of concern with history. By the way, I've done some research on Moshe Feiglin. While I'll keep my powder dry for right now, let me just say that until someone can provide me with specific citations to things he has written that I can personally and independently verify, I'm not going to comment on what he may or may not have written, and whether or not what he has written has any scholarly merit.
- Only unserious historians ever assert things like "The historical fact is that…" Unless you were there, you don't know with certainty what happened. If you want to debate whether or not Ben Gurion was justified in believing that Begin intended to establish "an army within an army," that is a debate we can have, though I must say I'm a bit "reluctant" to have that debate with someone who refers to my arguments as, what was your word, "tripe."
- But let's cut to the chase: Even if I were to grant everything you say here (which I do not), it doesn't in any way whatsoever justify Rabin's assassination. Let's recall what Michael originally posted:
So Rabin was a common petty murderer, by his own explicit and proud admission. The only argument against assassinating him, then, is that practically, it did no good. Murdering him only made him a martyr and strengthened his cause. But were it not for this pragmatic consideration...
If you want to talk about evil, twisted logic, this is it.
Rabin's Oslo was directly responsible for Goldstein's having to do what he did. In fact, we could say that Rabin is guilty of the deaths Goldstein caused.
Anonymous said...
One more issue.
Where you wrote what Goldstein "should have done."
I want to highlight the part that says "Just like Israel did in 1967" because that does not fit with what you listed. Particularly "(c) employed force proportionate to the scope of provocation" and "(b) waited until the attack was immanent – not "possible" or "likely" but literally on the way;"
Israel did not wait until the attack was on its way. It was indeed going to come within days, and it was very much imminent, but it had not yet begun when Israel pre-emptively struck. And I feel they were justified in pre-emptively striking, but let us not call it anything else. "On the way" implies it had already begun. And it had not.
- You're right; I was not as clear here as I could have been. The key distinction in security studies is between "necessary," "preemptive," and "preventive" actions. Concerning the first, Daniel Webster wrote that certain "immanent and unambiguous danger[s] to the state’s territory, persons or possessions" inherently demand "a necessity of self-defence…instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation." The key here is the immediacy of the time frame; enemy tanks come over the border, and in a moment, the generals must order troops into battle or the state will be destroyed. "Preemptive" action, to simplify, is when you have credible evidence that an attack is immanent and so you strike first. There is time to deliberate over how to respond, but there is little or no question that an attack is coming. This is what Israel (arguably) did in 1967. "Preventive" action, on the other hand, is when attack is not immanent, but the state, believing that it may come at some unknown point in the future, it is better to attack now than wait. This is what Germany did to start WWI.
- In the first place, words never constitute evidence of immanent attack; only actions do. Second, let's be super clear here about what you're saying: You say that Goldstein "believed" a massacre was in the works, and so acted preemptively to stop it. In order to justify this claim, you'd have to know that (a) Goldstein had credible information that a specific group of individuals was preparing to carry out an attack; and (b) Goldstein had reason to believe that the specific preemptive actions he planned to take would prevent this immanent attack. Neither of these things held true. At best (and highly unlikely), Goldstein killed a random bunch of people in the hopes that this would deter others from attacking. At worst (much more likely), he murdered a bunch of innocent people because he was a sick, angry man. In any case, your logic - "an individual who thinks he knows that an attack is immanent is justified in killing whomever he wants in order to do what he thinks will stop it" – opens the floodgates to pretty much every horror known to man. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want Palestinians to operate using this logic.
This is simply ludicrous. Did Israel do that in 1967? It will depend on how you characterize the Arab intentions there. For simplicity's sake let's take for granted that the Arabs wanted to wipe out the entire Jewish armed forces, air force, and drive all the remaining Jews into the sea (as Nasser had been promising in his broadcasts/diatribes). In that case, Israel did not even nearly reach the level of proportionality of that which was intended by the enemy side. They captured territory with strategic and security significance, and they destroyed the enemy's air force over night, but where did they massacre all of Egypt and take over entire countries? That was not proportionate, but it was decisive and victorious nonetheless.
- Without getting into a longer debate over Israeli decision-making in the lead-up to the 1967 war, and to simplify things a bit, Israel's actions were proportionate because they did what was necessary to prevent the expected attack, and no more. What mattered was not the obviously exaggerated threats coming out of Cairo, Damascus and Amman; what mattered was Israel's assessment of their military capabilities, which certainly didn't match their heated rhetoric. Regardless of what the Israeli government was saying publicly, the archival record makes it quite clear that they didn't for a second fear military defeat. The question that preoccupied them was whether and under what specific conditions launching a preemptive strike would be viewed favorably by the U.S. In the event, they did what was necessary to prevent airstrikes against civilian populations. If I follow your logic, you'd probably say Israel would be justified in dropping the bomb on Tehran because Ahmadinejad has on a couple of occasions verbally threatened to wipe out Israel. That would, of course, be insane. But don't confuse talk with action.
- These are good questions. I'd refer you in the first place to the seminal work on the question, Just and Unjust Wars, by Michael Waltzer. In the most basic sense, because the international system is anarchic (i.e., there is no overarching world government that can legitimately tell states what to do and enforce their demands), there's no one in a position to tell any person or state what to do. On the other hand, the U.N. charter, along with a slew of international conventions and agreements, has pretty much enshrined the notion that civilized nations can and should place limits on their conduct of war. The indiscriminate killing of civilians, for example, is a major no-no. Look at the international reaction to Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Regardless of one's opinions about Saddam's regime, or the relative merits of the ruling clique in Kuwait, I think we can all agree that invading your neighbors is not a legitimate means of conflict resolution. This isn't to say that some situations aren't complicated; the point is that states, in word and deed, uphold certain standards of behavior most of the time, even when doing so might be in their immediate, narrowly-defined self interest. The reason Israel doesn't go around dropping atomic bombs on countries it doesn't like isn't because it's a "better" nation than the U.S.; it's because doing so would, in the big picture, not improve Israeli security. That is, it's not in Israel's interests. Isn't this obvious?
- I absolutely can't "sit here and proclaim to know exactly the extent of the force the Arabs intended to use, how much violence they wished to employ, how many victims they desired to claim." Who said I could? But I say again, by your logic, anyone who gets it into his head that they do know such things is justified in pretty much killing anyone they wish. By your logic, the Palestinians of Hebron would have been justified in striking Kiryat Arba first, in an attempt to preempt Goldstein's attack. Where does it end?
But, as is often the case, the evidence I need is right in front of us: Either I have to believe that Goldstein was some special man who alone was aware of an allegedly immanent attack or, rather, that he was a sick, crazy man who went postal. Why was he the only one to see the obviousness of the impending attack? If the evidence was so clear, so overwhelming, then why did he act alone? If there were others who saw an attack as immanent, why was he the only one to step into the mosque? Were the rest of them cowards? (And please, no conspiracy theories here.)
I submit that what Goldstein did was simple: he murdered 29 innocent people in cold blood.
- No, I'm not going to look at something that happened 60 years ago as a way to justify murder today. And neither should you.
December 19, 2009 6:13 PM
Friday, December 18, 2009
Assumptions, Justifications and the Origins of Evil: The Assassination of Rabin and Goldstein's Massacre
When I first cast my cyberweb out into the blogosphere, one of the blogs I came across was "My Random Diatribes" at http://michaelmakovi.blogspot.com/.
A couple of days ago, he put up a post that caught my attention: Assassination of Rabin, Massacre by Goldstein. I was strongly disturbed by what I read there and commented as such; the author responded, and his response was even more disturbing to me.
Normally I would have posted another comment on his blog, but I felt so strongly about what I wanted to say -- some of which is the product of my own thinking about Arab-Israeli issues over the past 20 years -- that I wanted to give it a home on my blog. I will have a lot more to say about Israel and the Palestinians in the weeks and months to come, but this, well I couldn't not say something to this.
I recommend you read his post in its entirety before reading my interlineated response below.
A couple of days ago, he put up a post that caught my attention: Assassination of Rabin, Massacre by Goldstein. I was strongly disturbed by what I read there and commented as such; the author responded, and his response was even more disturbing to me.
Normally I would have posted another comment on his blog, but I felt so strongly about what I wanted to say -- some of which is the product of my own thinking about Arab-Israeli issues over the past 20 years -- that I wanted to give it a home on my blog. I will have a lot more to say about Israel and the Palestinians in the weeks and months to come, but this, well I couldn't not say something to this.
I recommend you read his post in its entirety before reading my interlineated response below.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
What's really the matter with the Christmas Tree?
I really disliked Christmas Trees.
Surely I'm not the only one, but there's no point in generalizing here -- it's hard enough for me to figure out what's going through my head, so I can't hardly claim to know what other Jews think, or why they think as they do. In retrospect, it's fair to say that Christmas Trees touched on a number of unexamined, sensitive spots for me; sensitive likely because they were unexamined. So when a Christmas Tree -- more specifically, my then-girlfriend/now-wife's Christmas Tree -- first entered my life and then my home, I found myself ill-prepared to handle the latent emotions and underlying prejudices that bubbled up to the surface. Having examined these thoughts and feelings over the past few years, though, I must admit that I've learned a great deal as well as found a lot of new answers to questions that I thought were settled.
For a long time, Christmas Trees represented a lot of wrong things for me: the hegemony of Christianity and Christian culture in the U.S. and the concommitant minority status of Jews; "trojan horses" carrying Christian symbolism and theology into secular spaces -- and, of course, some Jewish homes -- under the guise of celebrating multidenominationalism or cultural tolerance; and, somewhat contradictorily, as an example of the dumbing down of religion whereby something that once meant something specific to some people, comes to mean nothing as a result of its morphing into a symbol of something to all people. In my book, it was more than fine if Christians wanted to have their Christmas Trees, but when they get pushed in my face every year and put up in every Manhattan office building; when I hear about the beleagured Christian masses under assault by the so-called "War Against Christmas" I'm allegedly waging against them; when I get told that Christmas Trees arent' so much about "Christmas" as about the holidays...well, that's all a different story. So one the one hand, clearly the issue wasn't the tree per se; it was what the tree represented vis-a-vis my perception of Jew's position in American society. And as for having a tree; no way was I going to ever have one of those things in my house. Assimilationist Jews who had no knowledge or interest in knowing their culture and religion might have one, but not me. And anyway, wasn't there some relationship between the wood of the tree and the wood of the cross, and wasn't the star on top of the tree the "Little Star of Bethlehem" under which that good Jewish boy named Yeshua was born? You get the point.
There was, though, a pretty major exception in my family. I have an aunt who was and is Jewish, always had a Christmas tree growing up, and continued to do so into adulthood. Funny thing, in spite of all my issues with Christmas Trees, her having one never seemed to bother me too much. I certainly didn't and don't think of her as an "Assimilationist Jew" with no interest in things Jewish; my aunt and uncle went to shul, celebrated the holidays, and, well, let's just say if you didn't know about the Tree Situation, you'd have never guessed. Actually I never saw anything wrong in her practice, which is odd given my own strong feelings about the matter. But looking back now, of course I wouldn't have had a problem with it: my hangups were the result of unexamined assumptions, not reasoned logic; I was the one with an unclear sense of boundary between my Jewishness and American-Christian society, not her. I mean, her tree violated no Jewish laws (at least not in my book), and besides, she was/is my aunt! Silly, I know, but personal connections often trump general prejudices.
And therein lies the rub. To know someone is to have context, and to know one's self is to have self-assuredness. A Christmas Tree represents nothing more or less than what I see when I look at them, and what I see is not some God-given (or socially-determined) fact but rather what I allow myself to see: What remains after I open my eyes and do my best to see what is in front of me without regard to preconceived notions or fears, or ideas long-ago planted in Jewish summer camp...or concerns that, somehow, the scope and content of my Jewish identity is something that is open to judgment and interpretation by others.
I first started to really think about Christmas Trees in the context of my relationship with my then-girfriend, now wife (I'll call her "N"). For N, they were a symbol of much family warmth and togetherness; all good things. So of course she always had one and planned to continue having them around come Christmastime. As we became closer, it became clearer that Trees were going to be a part of our life, and that awakened some of these long-dormant issues I've been talking about here. In particular, as our relationship depeened, the fact that she wasn't Jewish started to loom a little larger, and as that happened, certain little things that wouldn't otherwise be that big of a deal started to feel like they were important.
These little things, I discovered, weren't always obvious ones.
But one of them was the Tree.
In a way it was a fortuitous thing on which to be fixated, because while it helped bring into sharper relief some of the religious issues under the surface, the thing itself -- the Christmas Tree -- was so thoroughly unobtrusive and unobjectionable, and was so definitely going to be a fixture in our life together, that I really had no choice but to "get over it." Looking back at that period of time, when I came to terms with the Tree, I see myself as a sort of addict who, when confronted by friends and family during an Intervention, comes up with every bogus, self-serving explanation in the book to avoid admitting the problem...but in reverse. I knew the tree was a-commin into my life, but as I finally turned to face it, what came out was:
The easy answer is no, of course not: As I was finally able to give voice to these questions, to answer them, and to follow the answers to their logical conclusions, I learned that what was really going on was that a deeply-seeded set of ideas on which I was raised and educated came into conflict with another, ultimately more powerful set of liberal ideas that I was exposed to and came to adopt as an adult...and that the point at which they met was where my inevitable work must be done.
The harder answer, however, one that cannot be answered in a few paragraphs -- and the search for which is a major reason I have started this blog -- is that I don't really know what is at stake when a parochial, religious identity comes up against a self-styled modern, liberal mindset. I don't know what the implications are of all this, of how the answers to new questions -- how turning over the stones of my Jewish identity -- will change things...will change me.
But I do know that I'm grateful that N and her Christmas Tree are in my life. Ironically, they have pushed me to understand my own Judaism in ways I would never have anticipated, "to turn it this way and that," to not take for granted.
Who woudda thunk it?
Fun and/or Disurbing Things to Read:
On Being a Jew at Christmas
Hertzel's Christmas Tree
What Do Jews Do On Christmas?
Toby Belfer Never Had a Christmas Tree (!)
A Lonely Jew on Christmas
Christmas for Jews
Surely I'm not the only one, but there's no point in generalizing here -- it's hard enough for me to figure out what's going through my head, so I can't hardly claim to know what other Jews think, or why they think as they do. In retrospect, it's fair to say that Christmas Trees touched on a number of unexamined, sensitive spots for me; sensitive likely because they were unexamined. So when a Christmas Tree -- more specifically, my then-girlfriend/now-wife's Christmas Tree -- first entered my life and then my home, I found myself ill-prepared to handle the latent emotions and underlying prejudices that bubbled up to the surface. Having examined these thoughts and feelings over the past few years, though, I must admit that I've learned a great deal as well as found a lot of new answers to questions that I thought were settled.
For a long time, Christmas Trees represented a lot of wrong things for me: the hegemony of Christianity and Christian culture in the U.S. and the concommitant minority status of Jews; "trojan horses" carrying Christian symbolism and theology into secular spaces -- and, of course, some Jewish homes -- under the guise of celebrating multidenominationalism or cultural tolerance; and, somewhat contradictorily, as an example of the dumbing down of religion whereby something that once meant something specific to some people, comes to mean nothing as a result of its morphing into a symbol of something to all people. In my book, it was more than fine if Christians wanted to have their Christmas Trees, but when they get pushed in my face every year and put up in every Manhattan office building; when I hear about the beleagured Christian masses under assault by the so-called "War Against Christmas" I'm allegedly waging against them; when I get told that Christmas Trees arent' so much about "Christmas" as about the holidays...well, that's all a different story. So one the one hand, clearly the issue wasn't the tree per se; it was what the tree represented vis-a-vis my perception of Jew's position in American society. And as for having a tree; no way was I going to ever have one of those things in my house. Assimilationist Jews who had no knowledge or interest in knowing their culture and religion might have one, but not me. And anyway, wasn't there some relationship between the wood of the tree and the wood of the cross, and wasn't the star on top of the tree the "Little Star of Bethlehem" under which that good Jewish boy named Yeshua was born? You get the point.
There was, though, a pretty major exception in my family. I have an aunt who was and is Jewish, always had a Christmas tree growing up, and continued to do so into adulthood. Funny thing, in spite of all my issues with Christmas Trees, her having one never seemed to bother me too much. I certainly didn't and don't think of her as an "Assimilationist Jew" with no interest in things Jewish; my aunt and uncle went to shul, celebrated the holidays, and, well, let's just say if you didn't know about the Tree Situation, you'd have never guessed. Actually I never saw anything wrong in her practice, which is odd given my own strong feelings about the matter. But looking back now, of course I wouldn't have had a problem with it: my hangups were the result of unexamined assumptions, not reasoned logic; I was the one with an unclear sense of boundary between my Jewishness and American-Christian society, not her. I mean, her tree violated no Jewish laws (at least not in my book), and besides, she was/is my aunt! Silly, I know, but personal connections often trump general prejudices.
And therein lies the rub. To know someone is to have context, and to know one's self is to have self-assuredness. A Christmas Tree represents nothing more or less than what I see when I look at them, and what I see is not some God-given (or socially-determined) fact but rather what I allow myself to see: What remains after I open my eyes and do my best to see what is in front of me without regard to preconceived notions or fears, or ideas long-ago planted in Jewish summer camp...or concerns that, somehow, the scope and content of my Jewish identity is something that is open to judgment and interpretation by others.
I first started to really think about Christmas Trees in the context of my relationship with my then-girfriend, now wife (I'll call her "N"). For N, they were a symbol of much family warmth and togetherness; all good things. So of course she always had one and planned to continue having them around come Christmastime. As we became closer, it became clearer that Trees were going to be a part of our life, and that awakened some of these long-dormant issues I've been talking about here. In particular, as our relationship depeened, the fact that she wasn't Jewish started to loom a little larger, and as that happened, certain little things that wouldn't otherwise be that big of a deal started to feel like they were important.
These little things, I discovered, weren't always obvious ones.
But one of them was the Tree.
In a way it was a fortuitous thing on which to be fixated, because while it helped bring into sharper relief some of the religious issues under the surface, the thing itself -- the Christmas Tree -- was so thoroughly unobtrusive and unobjectionable, and was so definitely going to be a fixture in our life together, that I really had no choice but to "get over it." Looking back at that period of time, when I came to terms with the Tree, I see myself as a sort of addict who, when confronted by friends and family during an Intervention, comes up with every bogus, self-serving explanation in the book to avoid admitting the problem...but in reverse. I knew the tree was a-commin into my life, but as I finally turned to face it, what came out was:
- What kind of Jew has a Christmas Tree in his house?!?
- What does it say about my real beliefs and feelings that I would have a Tree in my house? That I would live with someone who wanted a Tree in the house? What's wrong with me?
- If I let a Tree into my house, what else will find its way into my house?
- What will other Jews think of me? Will I be accepted or rejected by my family?
- How will letting this Tree into the house -- how will the decision to let it into my house -- change me as a person in unforseen, negative ways?
The easy answer is no, of course not: As I was finally able to give voice to these questions, to answer them, and to follow the answers to their logical conclusions, I learned that what was really going on was that a deeply-seeded set of ideas on which I was raised and educated came into conflict with another, ultimately more powerful set of liberal ideas that I was exposed to and came to adopt as an adult...and that the point at which they met was where my inevitable work must be done.
The harder answer, however, one that cannot be answered in a few paragraphs -- and the search for which is a major reason I have started this blog -- is that I don't really know what is at stake when a parochial, religious identity comes up against a self-styled modern, liberal mindset. I don't know what the implications are of all this, of how the answers to new questions -- how turning over the stones of my Jewish identity -- will change things...will change me.
But I do know that I'm grateful that N and her Christmas Tree are in my life. Ironically, they have pushed me to understand my own Judaism in ways I would never have anticipated, "to turn it this way and that," to not take for granted.
Who woudda thunk it?
Fun and/or Disurbing Things to Read:
On Being a Jew at Christmas
Hertzel's Christmas Tree
What Do Jews Do On Christmas?
Toby Belfer Never Had a Christmas Tree (!)
A Lonely Jew on Christmas
Christmas for Jews
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
My favorite Hanukkah song...
Light One Candle - Peter, Paul and Mary
Light one candle for the Maccabee children
Give thanks their light didn't die;
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied;
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand;
light one candle for the wisdom to know
When the peacemaker's time is at hand!
chorus:
Don't let the light go out,
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears!
Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe;
Light one candle for those who are suff'ring
The pain that we learned long ago;
Light one candle for all we believe in,
That anger not tear us apart;
And light one candle to bind us together
With peace as the song in our heart!
(chorus)
What is the memory that's valued so highly
That we keep it alive in that flame?
What's the commitment to those who have died?
We cry out "they've not died in vain,"
We have come this far, always believing
That justice will somehow prevail;
This is the burden and This is the promise,
This is why we will not fail!
(chorus)
Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!
Light one candle for the Maccabee children
Give thanks their light didn't die;
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied;
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand;
light one candle for the wisdom to know
When the peacemaker's time is at hand!
chorus:
Don't let the light go out,
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears!
Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe;
Light one candle for those who are suff'ring
The pain that we learned long ago;
Light one candle for all we believe in,
That anger not tear us apart;
And light one candle to bind us together
With peace as the song in our heart!
(chorus)
What is the memory that's valued so highly
That we keep it alive in that flame?
What's the commitment to those who have died?
We cry out "they've not died in vain,"
We have come this far, always believing
That justice will somehow prevail;
This is the burden and This is the promise,
This is why we will not fail!
(chorus)
Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!
Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vayeira
18:17-19 - An interesting passage... God speaks to himself, asking aloud (?) whether or not to tell Abraham about his plans to destroy Soddom and Gomorrah, but he doesn't really explain why he shouldn't. Clearly the point of telling Abraham would be to instill in him a sense of God's wrath. But what would be the point of not telling him?
19:31-38 - More not-nice Biblical sexy time! No sooner is Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt than his daughters (!) scheme to get him drunk then sleep with him, one at a time, for two consecutive nights!?!! I thought that stuff was verboten!
19:31-38 - More not-nice Biblical sexy time! No sooner is Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt than his daughters (!) scheme to get him drunk then sleep with him, one at a time, for two consecutive nights!?!! I thought that stuff was verboten!
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Torah Tidbits: Parshat Lech-Lecha
12:10-20 - What a strange story! Abram and Sarai (pre-Abraham and Sarah) go to Egypt because of famine, and Abram tells his wife to pretend she's his sister...so that the Egyptians don't kill him!?! Then Sarai is taken into the Pharaoh's palace! And then God afflicts the Egyptians with "mighty plagues," which leads Pharoah to tell Abram to take is wife and go!?!? Weird.
15:18 - Is this a strange verse, or am I missing something? Here, God says to Abram "'Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates," but then goes on to add in the next three verses "the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.'" In other words, God seems to be promising not "Greater Israel" to the Jews, but rather the entire Middle East to a number of different, non-Jewish peoples.
16:12 - An angel tells Sarai that "[Ishmael] shall be a wild ass of a man"...!!!
17:10-14 -Slaves must be circumcised too?!? I thought this was only for Jews!
15:18 - Is this a strange verse, or am I missing something? Here, God says to Abram "'Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates," but then goes on to add in the next three verses "the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.'" In other words, God seems to be promising not "Greater Israel" to the Jews, but rather the entire Middle East to a number of different, non-Jewish peoples.
16:12 - An angel tells Sarai that "[Ishmael] shall be a wild ass of a man"...!!!
17:10-14 -Slaves must be circumcised too?!? I thought this was only for Jews!
Monday, December 14, 2009
Food for Thought
This guest post at Hirhurim is really something.
In short, the author is looking at the fine line that separates observance from "observance"; where following the rules concerning a thing (in the case of the poster, wearing his kippa) breaks away from the point of following the rules. That is, the point of wearing a kippa is to instill one with reverence for God, but if one eventually puts it on by rote, then how can the kavanah be sustained? Strict observance might lead to lack of "observing" the underlying point.
The obvious rejoinder would be to focus harder, make a bigger effort to remember that which is supposed to be remembered, etc. I recently bought a two-volume set of the Shulkhan Aruch, which has all kinds of rules concerning actions but also "rules" about what one is supposed to think about or focus on when performing the actions. These suggestions are well taken, but looking at the universe of rules and procedures a diligently observant Jew would have to follow, I just don't see how. It's too much, and too impersonal. If the point is to reflect on God's oneness, or to be thankful about life, or whatever the thing is you're supposed to focus on, then isn't the thought that counts, rather than the action? And what if halacha says do A to remind you of X, but you are reminded of X more by doing B? Then what?
In short, the author is looking at the fine line that separates observance from "observance"; where following the rules concerning a thing (in the case of the poster, wearing his kippa) breaks away from the point of following the rules. That is, the point of wearing a kippa is to instill one with reverence for God, but if one eventually puts it on by rote, then how can the kavanah be sustained? Strict observance might lead to lack of "observing" the underlying point.
The obvious rejoinder would be to focus harder, make a bigger effort to remember that which is supposed to be remembered, etc. I recently bought a two-volume set of the Shulkhan Aruch, which has all kinds of rules concerning actions but also "rules" about what one is supposed to think about or focus on when performing the actions. These suggestions are well taken, but looking at the universe of rules and procedures a diligently observant Jew would have to follow, I just don't see how. It's too much, and too impersonal. If the point is to reflect on God's oneness, or to be thankful about life, or whatever the thing is you're supposed to focus on, then isn't the thought that counts, rather than the action? And what if halacha says do A to remind you of X, but you are reminded of X more by doing B? Then what?
Torah Tidbits: Parshat Noach
7:22-23 - As we all know, God tells Noah to put two of every kind of animal into the Ark, so that they wouldn't perish in the flood. This raises, for me, a question: Why did God choose this particular method -- water -- to destroy the world? In the first place, it meant that, automatically, sea creatures got a pass. Is there something special about them? Something about the antedilluvian technological difficulty in building aquaria with which to save sea creatures? I suppose it was the lowest-tech way to simultaneously (a) wipe out the earth and (b) make it possible for a couple of people to survive. But it still seems unkind for all the animals that weren't saved. Only two of each get saves...except for the fishes? Hmmm.
9:20-27 - Wow, how did I miss this little tawdry story in Sunday School? The first thing that Noah -- the "one who found favor with the LORD" for reasons that are never given, the father of all humanity -- does upon emerging from the Ark after the waters recede? He plants a vineyard, gets drunk, and strips naked. One of his sons, Canaan, sees him and tells his brothers, Shem and Japeth, who, without looking at their drunk, naked father, cover him up. Noah wakes up and curses Canaan -- as if he had a chance to look away -- and blesses Shem and Japeth, who had the advantage of being alerted to their father's condition. Wow. Canaan gets a pretty raw deal here. Shame on Noah.
11:1-9 - The Tower of Babel story... Somehow I remembered there being more to it than these brief 9 verses. And the lesson! I always thought the story was about how the people thought they could become "like God" by building the tower, which, understandably, angered God. But that's just not here in the text, which says that they build the tower to make for themselves "a name, lest [they] be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." Seems pretty reasonable to me -- engage in a civic engineering project to bring the people together. So why does God object? Not because he considers their doing so an affront to his power, but because "If, as one people with one language for all, this is how they have begun to act, then nothing that they map propose to do will be out of their reach." [JPS translation] So...God basically condemns the entire human race to divisions, discord and misunderstandings because, when they shared a language, they decided to build something?!? Sorry, but in my book these are pretty lame reasons for God to act in this way.
11:26-32 - I never realized Abramah and Sarah had different names before having kids. They were Abram and Sarai.
9:20-27 - Wow, how did I miss this little tawdry story in Sunday School? The first thing that Noah -- the "one who found favor with the LORD" for reasons that are never given, the father of all humanity -- does upon emerging from the Ark after the waters recede? He plants a vineyard, gets drunk, and strips naked. One of his sons, Canaan, sees him and tells his brothers, Shem and Japeth, who, without looking at their drunk, naked father, cover him up. Noah wakes up and curses Canaan -- as if he had a chance to look away -- and blesses Shem and Japeth, who had the advantage of being alerted to their father's condition. Wow. Canaan gets a pretty raw deal here. Shame on Noah.
11:1-9 - The Tower of Babel story... Somehow I remembered there being more to it than these brief 9 verses. And the lesson! I always thought the story was about how the people thought they could become "like God" by building the tower, which, understandably, angered God. But that's just not here in the text, which says that they build the tower to make for themselves "a name, lest [they] be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." Seems pretty reasonable to me -- engage in a civic engineering project to bring the people together. So why does God object? Not because he considers their doing so an affront to his power, but because "If, as one people with one language for all, this is how they have begun to act, then nothing that they map propose to do will be out of their reach." [JPS translation] So...God basically condemns the entire human race to divisions, discord and misunderstandings because, when they shared a language, they decided to build something?!? Sorry, but in my book these are pretty lame reasons for God to act in this way.
11:26-32 - I never realized Abramah and Sarah had different names before having kids. They were Abram and Sarai.
Mitzvah of the Week - Intro Post #2
Today, my MOTW project officially begins!
Having given this some thought since posting last week about this, there are a few other things I should probably say here by way of procedure before jumping in.
Having given this some thought since posting last week about this, there are a few other things I should probably say here by way of procedure before jumping in.
- As I mentioned in that post, my main guide will be Rambam's Sefer Hamitzvot (with the Jewfaq.org list as an online backup/companion guide). Rambam's list of the mitzvot divides the 613 into 248 "positive" commandments ("corresponding to the organs of the human body") and 365 "negative" commandments ("corresponding to the days of the solar year"). You can find that list here. Obviously any list has advantages and disadvantages. In this case, it means doing all the positive commandments before the negative ones. It can't be helped. I hope I don't run out of steam!
- Where needed, I will show Tanakh references using the excellent Mechon Mamre site. (While I don't love it's English translation, it does give the Hebrew. I will also be consulting the most recent JPS translation to make sure I'm getting the right meanings.) Talmud references, unfortunately, are a bit trickier. The weakness of my Aramaic is only superceded by my lack of Talmud knowledge. I could provide online references to specific pages, but (a) this doesn't help me too much and (b) it isn't likely to be of help to the kinds of people who might ever read this. So instead I'll provide references to the relevant Babylonian Talmud English-language translation at the Internet Sacred Text Archive.
- Organization of the posts is going to be a little tricky, because there's going to be "before," "during," and "after" components of each mitzvah: "before" is my reading up of what the mitzvah actually requires, existence of alternative readings/interpretations, if any, and what my own thoughts are before juming in; "during" would be my thoughts and comments while the week is going on; and "after," of course, would be the post-game round-up. I think the only way to do this properly, without causing confusion for all 2 people who will ever read this, is to put each mitzvah (or group of mitzvot) into one post, containing the before, during and after analysis. Otherwise there would be too many posts, and too much jumping around. So, check back here in one week's time for the post on positive mitzvah #1, to believe in God.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Hanukkah is...the festival of lights?
I like Hanukkah, but I'm also troubled by it.
What's not to enjoy, right? The aesthetics are fab -- lighting candles, eating yummy fried food, eight nights to celebrate and exchange presents. All is good.
But there are two things about Hanukkah that have always troubled me.
First, the fact that American Jews celebrate it in the ways that we do...doesn't sit well. It's a minor holiday, which barely merits a mention in the Gemarah and doesn't event appear in the Tanakh. It was only late in the game that I came to realize how minor in the broad scope of things Hanukkah really is. Growing up, it felt like a big deal, maybe in the number three position after Pesach and Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur in my book. These were the three Jewish occasions in the year when the family would get together, so they loomed larger. And, of course, we got presents, which didn't hurt either. Christmas, though, always lurked in the background: The commercials, the songs, the talk of retail sales, the proliferation of "holiday" (i.e., Christmas) images and symbols...and let's not forget Rudolph! All these things start to sprout up right after Thanksgiving, so no matter how early Hanukkah falls, Christmas beats it to the popular culture punch. On top of all this were the obligatory nods to Hanukkah by these same promoters of Christmas Culture, ostensibly to even things out, to make it "okay" to push Christmas: The creepy public service announcements ("To all our Jewish friends, Channel 2 wishes you a Happy Hanukkah"), big hanukkiot in office buildings, and bags of chocolate gelt at the supermarket checkout lines. All pure afterthought, IMHO. In the end, we know Hanukkah isn't as big a deal as Christmas, but we can't seem to just let it go and celebrate our own things in our own time. (How else to explain the glee with which Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song was -- and continutes to be -- received by so many American Jews? It speaks at some level to the tacit Christmas envy so many of us seem to have.)
Clearly Hanukkah can't but be affected by the Christmas juggernaut (a fact driven home to me the first time I lived in Israel, during high school, where the total absence of Hanukkah schlock was, in a way, rather jarring). But it makes me feel kind of cheap in a way, when that line between our holiday and their culture start to blur. Why can't Hanukkah be it's own dog? Why can't we be all right with having a minor holiday at the same time that our non-Jewish friends have a major one? Or, alternatively, why not do like the Jews of Britain do and just celebrate Christmas as a kind of secular/national holiday with tree and all? There's a lot to like about the non-religious aspects Christmas, after all. It's the juxtaposition that irks me -- the aggrandizement of our holiday because of the crasser, commercialized aspects of Christmas. (Christmas, of course, is in itself neither a crass nor a commercial holiday. It's quite lovely, actually, and has nothing whatsoever to do with gift-giving. I can get on board with that part of it.) Which leads to...
The second, and more important, thing is that Hanukkah itself, what the holiday is all about, is, well, kind of troubling. Growing up, it was all about the eight-days-of-oil miracle; the Maccabee's short-lived guerilla warfare victory over Antiochus's forces, on the other hand...well I don't quite remember that part being mentioned too much in Sunday School. But seriously: The foreign Seleucid power comes to the Holy Land, defiles the Temple, and is "defeated" a couple of years later by a popular guerrilla campaign. (Some scholars believe, in fact, that the Selecuid's interposed themselves into a Jewish civil confict over the extent of Hellenization among the Temple priests.) So what's the take-home message here? That a small band of guerrilla fighters can take down a larger, conventionally armed occupying power? That religious zealots should be appeased lest they declare open warfare against more assimilationist elements? That it's a bad idea to deny people their religious freedoms because it leads them to violent acts?
Hmmm.
I thought a lot about Hanukkah, actually in December 2001. While everyone was calling for the invasion of Afghanistan, it seemed kind of ironic that our and the Soviets' intervention over there in the 1970s spurred the creation of a force of religiously-motivated guerrilla fighters that, eventually, expelled them from the country. Of course, when the Mujjahidin do it, it's Bad, "against Islam" and needs to be stopped. When we did it, it was a "miracle" worth celebrating for all time.
But I digress.
The point, I suppose, is that the more I look at Hanukkah, the more I'm not really sure what it is we're celebrating. Yes, I know, we're celebrating "miracles," but let's be honest: We're celebrating a military victory. We're thanking God for a can of whoop-ass we opened up 2,000 years ago. We're thanking God for helping us smite our enemies. (What's interesting, though, is that the Hanukkah story doesn't involve any direct divine intervention. One day of oil burns for eight days, but at least as I read the story, God doesn't stick his finger in the pot to make it happen.) All this is fine, but (a) it kind of goes against the grain of holidays being about "peace and light" or what have you; (b) it certianly mitigates the universalism of the holiday (hard to see, for instance, how the Greeks can get on board with us at this time of year); and (c) it kind of irks me that it gets pushed under the carpet. Dreidles, gelt, menorahs, latkes and presents don't exactly say "Boo-yah Jihad."
So in the spirit of the holiday, I'm going to try to think about some new things this year:
What's not to enjoy, right? The aesthetics are fab -- lighting candles, eating yummy fried food, eight nights to celebrate and exchange presents. All is good.
But there are two things about Hanukkah that have always troubled me.
First, the fact that American Jews celebrate it in the ways that we do...doesn't sit well. It's a minor holiday, which barely merits a mention in the Gemarah and doesn't event appear in the Tanakh. It was only late in the game that I came to realize how minor in the broad scope of things Hanukkah really is. Growing up, it felt like a big deal, maybe in the number three position after Pesach and Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur in my book. These were the three Jewish occasions in the year when the family would get together, so they loomed larger. And, of course, we got presents, which didn't hurt either. Christmas, though, always lurked in the background: The commercials, the songs, the talk of retail sales, the proliferation of "holiday" (i.e., Christmas) images and symbols...and let's not forget Rudolph! All these things start to sprout up right after Thanksgiving, so no matter how early Hanukkah falls, Christmas beats it to the popular culture punch. On top of all this were the obligatory nods to Hanukkah by these same promoters of Christmas Culture, ostensibly to even things out, to make it "okay" to push Christmas: The creepy public service announcements ("To all our Jewish friends, Channel 2 wishes you a Happy Hanukkah"), big hanukkiot in office buildings, and bags of chocolate gelt at the supermarket checkout lines. All pure afterthought, IMHO. In the end, we know Hanukkah isn't as big a deal as Christmas, but we can't seem to just let it go and celebrate our own things in our own time. (How else to explain the glee with which Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song was -- and continutes to be -- received by so many American Jews? It speaks at some level to the tacit Christmas envy so many of us seem to have.)
Clearly Hanukkah can't but be affected by the Christmas juggernaut (a fact driven home to me the first time I lived in Israel, during high school, where the total absence of Hanukkah schlock was, in a way, rather jarring). But it makes me feel kind of cheap in a way, when that line between our holiday and their culture start to blur. Why can't Hanukkah be it's own dog? Why can't we be all right with having a minor holiday at the same time that our non-Jewish friends have a major one? Or, alternatively, why not do like the Jews of Britain do and just celebrate Christmas as a kind of secular/national holiday with tree and all? There's a lot to like about the non-religious aspects Christmas, after all. It's the juxtaposition that irks me -- the aggrandizement of our holiday because of the crasser, commercialized aspects of Christmas. (Christmas, of course, is in itself neither a crass nor a commercial holiday. It's quite lovely, actually, and has nothing whatsoever to do with gift-giving. I can get on board with that part of it.) Which leads to...
The second, and more important, thing is that Hanukkah itself, what the holiday is all about, is, well, kind of troubling. Growing up, it was all about the eight-days-of-oil miracle; the Maccabee's short-lived guerilla warfare victory over Antiochus's forces, on the other hand...well I don't quite remember that part being mentioned too much in Sunday School. But seriously: The foreign Seleucid power comes to the Holy Land, defiles the Temple, and is "defeated" a couple of years later by a popular guerrilla campaign. (Some scholars believe, in fact, that the Selecuid's interposed themselves into a Jewish civil confict over the extent of Hellenization among the Temple priests.) So what's the take-home message here? That a small band of guerrilla fighters can take down a larger, conventionally armed occupying power? That religious zealots should be appeased lest they declare open warfare against more assimilationist elements? That it's a bad idea to deny people their religious freedoms because it leads them to violent acts?
Hmmm.
I thought a lot about Hanukkah, actually in December 2001. While everyone was calling for the invasion of Afghanistan, it seemed kind of ironic that our and the Soviets' intervention over there in the 1970s spurred the creation of a force of religiously-motivated guerrilla fighters that, eventually, expelled them from the country. Of course, when the Mujjahidin do it, it's Bad, "against Islam" and needs to be stopped. When we did it, it was a "miracle" worth celebrating for all time.
But I digress.
The point, I suppose, is that the more I look at Hanukkah, the more I'm not really sure what it is we're celebrating. Yes, I know, we're celebrating "miracles," but let's be honest: We're celebrating a military victory. We're thanking God for a can of whoop-ass we opened up 2,000 years ago. We're thanking God for helping us smite our enemies. (What's interesting, though, is that the Hanukkah story doesn't involve any direct divine intervention. One day of oil burns for eight days, but at least as I read the story, God doesn't stick his finger in the pot to make it happen.) All this is fine, but (a) it kind of goes against the grain of holidays being about "peace and light" or what have you; (b) it certianly mitigates the universalism of the holiday (hard to see, for instance, how the Greeks can get on board with us at this time of year); and (c) it kind of irks me that it gets pushed under the carpet. Dreidles, gelt, menorahs, latkes and presents don't exactly say "Boo-yah Jihad."
So in the spirit of the holiday, I'm going to try to think about some new things this year:
- the importance of seeing the dark side of military victories - what one gains today may be lost tomorrow, or may cause the loss of other things tomorrow
- how easy it is to underestimate the power of one's enemies
- occupying powers walk a thin tightrope between doing what they must to maintain control, and oppressing the population to the extent that they threaten that control
- and that it is a miracle that Jews are still around!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Torah Tidbits: Parshat Bereishit
1:29-30 - I always thought God gave all the creatures of the earth to humans from the start, to do with as they wish (subject, of course, to subsequent limitations), but these verses seem to give good ammo to vegetarians: they seem to say, in the Garden of Eden, humans get plants and trees, and the animals get all the green plants, but it doesn't say humans will have any rights vis-a-vis the animals. (I also wonder, what's the difference between plants/trees and "green plants"?)
3:22 - God makes a self-referential, plural statement here. The divine "we" as it were. "And the LORD God said: 'Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil...'" That's pretty weird. Is there any point to this? Is it interpreted any differently than when God makes singular self-referential statements?
4:13-16 - Okay, Cain kils Abel and is punnished by God, banished from the soil to become a "wanderer." But then this interesting thing happens: Cain complains that he may be killed while wandering, and God responds by marking him and promising that if anyone kills him "vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold..." Huh?!? I get the banishment, and I get Cain's complaint, but it seems to me the way God handles the situation is strange. In the first place, anyone who meets anyone might kill or be killed, right? Instead of God responding to Cain's complaint by saying, so it goes my friend, next time don't kill your brother, God in effect gives Cain special protection. Or is this really meant to prolong Cain's suffering?
4:26 - What could it possibly mean to say that, with the birth of Adam and Eve's grandson Enosh, the son of their third son, Seth, "then began men to call upon the name of the LORD"? (JPS translates this as "It was tehn that men began to invoke the LORD by name.") I understand the momentousness of refering to God by name, but (a) what was so important about the birth of Enosh that it would be the moment to announce this and, perhaps more importantly, (b) why does it say this is when people started to call upon the name of God, when clearly in 4:1, some time before, Eve mentions God's name, saying of the birth of Cain "'I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD"?
5:6-32 - The first of many "begot" littanies. Seth begot Enosh, who begot Kenan, who begot Mahalalel, etc. That's all right. But the ages! Seth was 105 when he had his son, and lived to be 807 years old. And let's not forget Methuselah, who had children into his 8th century, dying at the quite ripe old age of 969 years. I think of these verses every time someone says something about taking the Torah literally. Yes, I know there are some pretty snazzy explanations for this, and they do kind of make sense. My point is that it kind of undermines the notion of taking the Torah literally.
6:4 - Who the heck are the "Nephilim?" and what exactly is it they do? JPS translates this verse as
The Chabad's Kehot Chumash has an even weirder, interpelated translation (bold is their translation of the original text; plain text is their "interpretation")
6:8 - How was it, exactly, that Noah "found favor with the LORD"? We're told he is "righteous" and "blameless in his age," but we never learn what, exactly, made him more worthy of saving than any other person in the world. Strange.
3:22 - God makes a self-referential, plural statement here. The divine "we" as it were. "And the LORD God said: 'Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil...'" That's pretty weird. Is there any point to this? Is it interpreted any differently than when God makes singular self-referential statements?
4:13-16 - Okay, Cain kils Abel and is punnished by God, banished from the soil to become a "wanderer." But then this interesting thing happens: Cain complains that he may be killed while wandering, and God responds by marking him and promising that if anyone kills him "vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold..." Huh?!? I get the banishment, and I get Cain's complaint, but it seems to me the way God handles the situation is strange. In the first place, anyone who meets anyone might kill or be killed, right? Instead of God responding to Cain's complaint by saying, so it goes my friend, next time don't kill your brother, God in effect gives Cain special protection. Or is this really meant to prolong Cain's suffering?
4:26 - What could it possibly mean to say that, with the birth of Adam and Eve's grandson Enosh, the son of their third son, Seth, "then began men to call upon the name of the LORD"? (JPS translates this as "It was tehn that men began to invoke the LORD by name.") I understand the momentousness of refering to God by name, but (a) what was so important about the birth of Enosh that it would be the moment to announce this and, perhaps more importantly, (b) why does it say this is when people started to call upon the name of God, when clearly in 4:1, some time before, Eve mentions God's name, saying of the birth of Cain "'I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD"?
5:6-32 - The first of many "begot" littanies. Seth begot Enosh, who begot Kenan, who begot Mahalalel, etc. That's all right. But the ages! Seth was 105 when he had his son, and lived to be 807 years old. And let's not forget Methuselah, who had children into his 8th century, dying at the quite ripe old age of 969 years. I think of these verses every time someone says something about taking the Torah literally. Yes, I know there are some pretty snazzy explanations for this, and they do kind of make sense. My point is that it kind of undermines the notion of taking the Torah literally.
6:4 - Who the heck are the "Nephilim?" and what exactly is it they do? JPS translates this verse as
It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth - when the divine beings cohabited with the daughters of men, who bore them offspring. They were the heroes of old, the men of renownbut my other online source translates it instead
The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.Huh.
The Chabad's Kehot Chumash has an even weirder, interpelated translation (bold is their translation of the original text; plain text is their "interpretation")
The corrupt princes became known as the "fallen ones," for they both "fell" i.e., were wiped out, and caused others to "fall," i.e., wiped out because of their misdeeds. Although they were not giants like the offspring of the fallen angels, they behaved as if they were, doing whatever they pleased. They were on the earth in those early days, i.e., in the days of Enosh and the initial descendants of Cain, and also later, when the sons of the rulers consorted with the daughters of man and they bore them children.So which is it? Are these Nephilim angels? Who slept with whom to conceive of whom?!? Jeez. I don't rememebr this verse from Sunday school!
6:8 - How was it, exactly, that Noah "found favor with the LORD"? We're told he is "righteous" and "blameless in his age," but we never learn what, exactly, made him more worthy of saving than any other person in the world. Strange.
A new feature: Torah Tidbits!
Among the other Jewish-blogging projects in the hopper, I've started doing something else that is long overdue: Reading the parshat hashavua, in both English and Hebrew, on a regular basis. The few times in the past I've gotten into the habit of doing this have always been highly illuminating. In particular, I'm always surprised at how the Torah "changes" for me -- bits and pieces that have sunk into my deeper consciousness, things that I always remember, sometimes turn out to be, well, not exactly as I recalled. Some things come out as brand new to me, while others shock, challenge, trouble or provoke. I'm not really sure why the practice never stuck, but in any case, I'm going to stick it now.
I'm using mostly the JPS translation, but for some strange reason, I've also become somewhat enamored of the Kehot Publication Society's Chumash, at least those volumes that have been published. (The interpolated translation is strange, adding lots of additional text that, in my opinion, might or might not be right, but it includes Rashi's commentary in non-Rashi script, which, for me, is so much easier than reading the Rashi script!) I think I'll be purchasing the ArtScroll Tanach in the near future as well.
My plan, at least to start, is to make sure I've read the parshat hashavua so that I can post on the Sunday/Monday immediately after. By "Torah Tidbits" I'm thinking about something specific: Things I read that seem strange, that raise questions for me, that seem remarkable or out of place. In doing so, I certainly invite readers (if any!) to comment or to suggest other resources for me to check out. I'm hoping that, over the long-run, these "tidbits" will serve as a the entrypoints for further thinking, writing and research.
Like Hadag Nahash says, Ma sheba ba, ma sheba sababa...
I'm using mostly the JPS translation, but for some strange reason, I've also become somewhat enamored of the Kehot Publication Society's Chumash, at least those volumes that have been published. (The interpolated translation is strange, adding lots of additional text that, in my opinion, might or might not be right, but it includes Rashi's commentary in non-Rashi script, which, for me, is so much easier than reading the Rashi script!) I think I'll be purchasing the ArtScroll Tanach in the near future as well.
My plan, at least to start, is to make sure I've read the parshat hashavua so that I can post on the Sunday/Monday immediately after. By "Torah Tidbits" I'm thinking about something specific: Things I read that seem strange, that raise questions for me, that seem remarkable or out of place. In doing so, I certainly invite readers (if any!) to comment or to suggest other resources for me to check out. I'm hoping that, over the long-run, these "tidbits" will serve as a the entrypoints for further thinking, writing and research.
Like Hadag Nahash says, Ma sheba ba, ma sheba sababa...
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
What's the deal with Tzniut obsession!?!
Ever since plugging into the J-blogosphere a few months ago, I've noticed a number of recurring themes. One of which is the issue/problem/matter of modesty or tzniut.
(I'm an Ashkenaz Jew, but for some reason, turning the tav into a sav has always annoyed me. Perhaps it's because from the start I learned Hebrew from Israelis, using the modern Israeli pronunciation. Always said prayers with the tav as well. Maybe it's a cultural thing -- it seems like orthodox communities say it sav. So while the blogs I'm reading spell it tznius, I'm sticking with tzniut. My blog, my rules.)
See, for example, this thoughtful post from a couple of weeks ago over at Honestly Frum.
Sometimes I feel gratitude to the orthodox for maintaining a set of practices and a lifestyle that would otherwise be lost. Other times, like when it comes to tzniut, I don't see any difference between fundamentalist Judaism and fundamentalist Islam. The notion that because women are arousing to men, they -- rather than then men -- have to "do" something about it by covering themselves, making themselves less attractive, etc. makes no sense to me. I can understand from a historical perspective why such attitudes existed centures ago, but the fact that they persist at all into the present day is frightening. There's something simultaneously violent and patronizing about it: Violent because it basically says that women are to blame if they arouse men, and patronizing because it seems to take for granted that men have no self-control. Same thing with the mechitza. I get it: When you're trying to pray, having members of the opposite sex around to look at can be distracting. But isn't it an individual's problem if he or she is distracted? Why do women have to be kept out of view because some men can't control themselves?
When I was in college, early on my Freshman year, I got involved with the Jewish Students Association (JSA). Much of the JSA, it turned out, was made up of East Coasters, Ramazniks and the like. I remember distinctly one of the first times I went to Shabbat services: A big mechitza divided the room...but the Rabbi, an orthodox one, stood squarely in front of the men's side as he gave his d'var. Basically, unless you were sitting in the front row, no one on the women's side could even see him. Afterwards, I expressed my dismay at the situation, only to be told that it would offend a lot of people (including the Rabbi) were he to have done otherwise. Nice, eh? So in spite of the fact that nothing in halacha says a Rabbi can't look at unmarried females while he gives a d'var, and regardless of the point that I myself was offended at the blatant display of 'separate but not equal' tzniut, that's the way it was going to be. Period. I didn't last long in the JSA with attitudes like that.
(I'm an Ashkenaz Jew, but for some reason, turning the tav into a sav has always annoyed me. Perhaps it's because from the start I learned Hebrew from Israelis, using the modern Israeli pronunciation. Always said prayers with the tav as well. Maybe it's a cultural thing -- it seems like orthodox communities say it sav. So while the blogs I'm reading spell it tznius, I'm sticking with tzniut. My blog, my rules.)
See, for example, this thoughtful post from a couple of weeks ago over at Honestly Frum.
Sometimes I feel gratitude to the orthodox for maintaining a set of practices and a lifestyle that would otherwise be lost. Other times, like when it comes to tzniut, I don't see any difference between fundamentalist Judaism and fundamentalist Islam. The notion that because women are arousing to men, they -- rather than then men -- have to "do" something about it by covering themselves, making themselves less attractive, etc. makes no sense to me. I can understand from a historical perspective why such attitudes existed centures ago, but the fact that they persist at all into the present day is frightening. There's something simultaneously violent and patronizing about it: Violent because it basically says that women are to blame if they arouse men, and patronizing because it seems to take for granted that men have no self-control. Same thing with the mechitza. I get it: When you're trying to pray, having members of the opposite sex around to look at can be distracting. But isn't it an individual's problem if he or she is distracted? Why do women have to be kept out of view because some men can't control themselves?
When I was in college, early on my Freshman year, I got involved with the Jewish Students Association (JSA). Much of the JSA, it turned out, was made up of East Coasters, Ramazniks and the like. I remember distinctly one of the first times I went to Shabbat services: A big mechitza divided the room...but the Rabbi, an orthodox one, stood squarely in front of the men's side as he gave his d'var. Basically, unless you were sitting in the front row, no one on the women's side could even see him. Afterwards, I expressed my dismay at the situation, only to be told that it would offend a lot of people (including the Rabbi) were he to have done otherwise. Nice, eh? So in spite of the fact that nothing in halacha says a Rabbi can't look at unmarried females while he gives a d'var, and regardless of the point that I myself was offended at the blatant display of 'separate but not equal' tzniut, that's the way it was going to be. Period. I didn't last long in the JSA with attitudes like that.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Mitzvah of the Week
Ah yes, mitzvot.
One of my plans for this blog -- something I have had in the back (and front) of my mind to do for quite some time -- is to take a long, hard look at the "taryag mitzvot": the 613 commandments that constitute the corpus of a Jew's obligation to God.
(Having recently read some of BZ's posts on this subject over at Mah Rabu -- such as this one -- I'm aware that there are potential "framing" issues attendant to my formulation of the subject, in particular, the notion that there is some agreed-upon, bounded set of mitzvot and that their meaning, modes of implementation, etc. are unchanging and uncontested. At least for right now, my intention is to keep these things in mind as I proceed with my own explorations. I plan to take up BZ's framing arguments more generally in a later post.)
Why?
As a Reform Jew, my relationship to mitzvot has always been problematic.
In the first place, RJs just don't study them. This makes a certain amount of sense: We have enough on our plate keeping up with the mitzvot that are perceived as relevant and worthy of observing, much less those that on their face have little or no relevance to the kinds of lives we lead. So the emphasis on education is to "focus on the positives" -- those things RJs as a whole either do or might possibly do -- rather than "to know the laws." I kind of blame my Jewish educators for this one.
Of course, blaming one's teachers is a pretty sorry reason for not knowing the laws (forget following them or not). Until relatively recently, actually, within the last year, I had never even read a list of the 613. There were some real surprises for me there...but I get ahead of myself.
The problematic aspect of the mitzvot for me has been that "mitzvas" are not "good deeds" -- they're not meant to me things that make one feel good, or things that any decent person should do. They're ostensibly commandments or obligations -- expressions of God's will. Kind of heavy, and no wonder RJs tend not to dwell on them. To understand and appreciate that mitzvot are not just "principles to live by" but actually commandments from God...well, that makes them a different animal entirely. Ah, but then one starts to see what's involved in the observance of mitzvot, and things get murky. Some of them I think are plain wrong. Others may not be "right" or "wrong," but their observance doesn't speak to me in any meaningful way. Yet others make sense, but are so alien to the way I have lived my life, that I can't imagine observing them in any consistent way. And then there are the mitzvot that, when you start to look at them closely, make no sense at all. Well, they make sense, but when I go back to their textual bases -- where does a particular mitzvah "come from" -- they don't seem to be supported by the underlying words.
But, in the end, none of these are reasons not to know.
It's particularly troubling to me that the Reform movement's stand on mitzvot is so at odds with what seems to be the practice of RJs. "A Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism" adopted by the CCAR in Pittsburgh in 1999 reads, in part
So...
I'm going to undertake a project I've long delayed, with the understanding that I have no idea where it will lead, what I will discover, or what it all means anyway: I'm going to examine and, where applicable, observe all of the 613 mitzvot...one by one. I'll read up as much as I can, including reading Rambam's Sefer Hamitzvot as a kind of companion guide (yes, I know he's not the first and last word on mitzvot, but I'll be reading other sources too). I'll blog about my experiences here, warts and all. To be sure, I'll probably end up grouping some of them together -- I can't imagine devoting weeks and weeks to the incest probibitions, for example. And for obvious reasons I'll have to skip around here and there, particularly with the holiday-related ones. Others may need more than one week -- Shabbat-related mitzvot are kind of big ones and should probably get more time, both in terms of studying them and observing them. You get the idea. Overall, by trying to stick to one a week, it will give me the opportunity to do my best to really observe it -- to focus on a single thing (or set of things) without being distracted.
I fear that I don't know enough to do this right. I fear that if I don't do this, I never will. I hope that I will be challenged, enlightened and wizened by doing it. And, perhaps most of all, I hope that if anyone out there ever bothers to read any of this, that I will hear other people's thoughts, suggestions, etc. If I could find a good RJ chevrusa to do this, I would, but most would find this a little crazy.
Wow. It's out there now. Let's see what happens...
One of my plans for this blog -- something I have had in the back (and front) of my mind to do for quite some time -- is to take a long, hard look at the "taryag mitzvot": the 613 commandments that constitute the corpus of a Jew's obligation to God.
(Having recently read some of BZ's posts on this subject over at Mah Rabu -- such as this one -- I'm aware that there are potential "framing" issues attendant to my formulation of the subject, in particular, the notion that there is some agreed-upon, bounded set of mitzvot and that their meaning, modes of implementation, etc. are unchanging and uncontested. At least for right now, my intention is to keep these things in mind as I proceed with my own explorations. I plan to take up BZ's framing arguments more generally in a later post.)
Why?
As a Reform Jew, my relationship to mitzvot has always been problematic.
In the first place, RJs just don't study them. This makes a certain amount of sense: We have enough on our plate keeping up with the mitzvot that are perceived as relevant and worthy of observing, much less those that on their face have little or no relevance to the kinds of lives we lead. So the emphasis on education is to "focus on the positives" -- those things RJs as a whole either do or might possibly do -- rather than "to know the laws." I kind of blame my Jewish educators for this one.
Of course, blaming one's teachers is a pretty sorry reason for not knowing the laws (forget following them or not). Until relatively recently, actually, within the last year, I had never even read a list of the 613. There were some real surprises for me there...but I get ahead of myself.
The problematic aspect of the mitzvot for me has been that "mitzvas" are not "good deeds" -- they're not meant to me things that make one feel good, or things that any decent person should do. They're ostensibly commandments or obligations -- expressions of God's will. Kind of heavy, and no wonder RJs tend not to dwell on them. To understand and appreciate that mitzvot are not just "principles to live by" but actually commandments from God...well, that makes them a different animal entirely. Ah, but then one starts to see what's involved in the observance of mitzvot, and things get murky. Some of them I think are plain wrong. Others may not be "right" or "wrong," but their observance doesn't speak to me in any meaningful way. Yet others make sense, but are so alien to the way I have lived my life, that I can't imagine observing them in any consistent way. And then there are the mitzvot that, when you start to look at them closely, make no sense at all. Well, they make sense, but when I go back to their textual bases -- where does a particular mitzvah "come from" -- they don't seem to be supported by the underlying words.
But, in the end, none of these are reasons not to know.
It's particularly troubling to me that the Reform movement's stand on mitzvot is so at odds with what seems to be the practice of RJs. "A Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism" adopted by the CCAR in Pittsburgh in 1999 reads, in part
We are committed to the ongoing study of the whole array of [mitzvot] and to the fulfillment of those that address us as individuals and as a community. Some of these [mitzvot], sacred obligations, have long been observed by Reform Jews; others, both ancient and modern, demand renewed attention as the result of the unique context of our own times.Now to be fair, I was "born and bred" as a Reform Jew prior to 1999, but I have to wonder out loud to what extent the commitment referred to here has actually been manifested, in study and action, in the collective behavior of Reform Jews. If it has, I've certainly seen little evidence of it.
So...
I'm going to undertake a project I've long delayed, with the understanding that I have no idea where it will lead, what I will discover, or what it all means anyway: I'm going to examine and, where applicable, observe all of the 613 mitzvot...one by one. I'll read up as much as I can, including reading Rambam's Sefer Hamitzvot as a kind of companion guide (yes, I know he's not the first and last word on mitzvot, but I'll be reading other sources too). I'll blog about my experiences here, warts and all. To be sure, I'll probably end up grouping some of them together -- I can't imagine devoting weeks and weeks to the incest probibitions, for example. And for obvious reasons I'll have to skip around here and there, particularly with the holiday-related ones. Others may need more than one week -- Shabbat-related mitzvot are kind of big ones and should probably get more time, both in terms of studying them and observing them. You get the idea. Overall, by trying to stick to one a week, it will give me the opportunity to do my best to really observe it -- to focus on a single thing (or set of things) without being distracted.
I fear that I don't know enough to do this right. I fear that if I don't do this, I never will. I hope that I will be challenged, enlightened and wizened by doing it. And, perhaps most of all, I hope that if anyone out there ever bothers to read any of this, that I will hear other people's thoughts, suggestions, etc. If I could find a good RJ chevrusa to do this, I would, but most would find this a little crazy.
Wow. It's out there now. Let's see what happens...
Friday, December 4, 2009
Lo Bashamayyim He... But then what?
I just finished reading a fascinating post by XGH over at Modern Orthprax & Heterodox, asking what it means to say that Torah isn't the directly-dictated word of God (i.e., "Torah mi Sinai" or "TMS"). My comment is here.
I know it's naive of me to say/ask, but this question -- what is the meaning and purpose of the mitzvot and of Jewish practices and rituals more generally -- has bugged me for as many years as I can remember thinking about Judaism. In some sense this is surprising: Being a born and bred RJ, this just isn't a question that gets asked too much. Of course the Torah is a human-authored work. Of course God didn't tell us do these things, don't do these things, etc. Of course the main question should be what has meaning to me rather than what does God want me to do.
But where does this leave us?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not going frum; for many reasons I'm perfectly happy to identify myself as a RJ. For reals. And yet...the more I look at certain things, the more unsatisfied I get. It's not something that more observance or becoming a BT would help. There's just too much Jewish stuff I can't agree with or be a part of no matter what explanations are given. The dissatisfaction stems from following the logic: Choice is important to me in terms of what I observe and what I don't observe; but once I start picking and choosing, why this and not that? What if we all pick and choose this and not that? Then what becomes the basis of what we are? If, at the bottom, mitzvot are just socio-cultural artifacts, then it really doesn't matter which I do and which I don't. But then what does it mean to be a Jew?
This is the flip-side of the lo bashamayyim he story, at least as I understand it: God says, in effect, I have given the Torah to human beings, and now I'm out of the interpretation business -- it's up to them. Therefore, while Torah may no longer be in the heavens, it certainly came from the heavens. But I can't believe this in any literal sense. It didn't come from the heavens; it was written by (divinely?) inspired human beings trying to make sense of their place in the world. The problem is that it's not really honest for me to accept lo bashamayyim he when I don't accept min hashamayyim ba, right?
I know it's naive of me to say/ask, but this question -- what is the meaning and purpose of the mitzvot and of Jewish practices and rituals more generally -- has bugged me for as many years as I can remember thinking about Judaism. In some sense this is surprising: Being a born and bred RJ, this just isn't a question that gets asked too much. Of course the Torah is a human-authored work. Of course God didn't tell us do these things, don't do these things, etc. Of course the main question should be what has meaning to me rather than what does God want me to do.
But where does this leave us?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not going frum; for many reasons I'm perfectly happy to identify myself as a RJ. For reals. And yet...the more I look at certain things, the more unsatisfied I get. It's not something that more observance or becoming a BT would help. There's just too much Jewish stuff I can't agree with or be a part of no matter what explanations are given. The dissatisfaction stems from following the logic: Choice is important to me in terms of what I observe and what I don't observe; but once I start picking and choosing, why this and not that? What if we all pick and choose this and not that? Then what becomes the basis of what we are? If, at the bottom, mitzvot are just socio-cultural artifacts, then it really doesn't matter which I do and which I don't. But then what does it mean to be a Jew?
This is the flip-side of the lo bashamayyim he story, at least as I understand it: God says, in effect, I have given the Torah to human beings, and now I'm out of the interpretation business -- it's up to them. Therefore, while Torah may no longer be in the heavens, it certainly came from the heavens. But I can't believe this in any literal sense. It didn't come from the heavens; it was written by (divinely?) inspired human beings trying to make sense of their place in the world. The problem is that it's not really honest for me to accept lo bashamayyim he when I don't accept min hashamayyim ba, right?
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
What's in The Name?
When my wife -- my girlfriend at the time -- and I were involved in the 92nd Street Y's Derekh Torah class, a 30-week class designed for (mostly) interfaith couples to explore Judaism together, one week the Rabbi teaching the class gave us a list of names by which, well, You-Know-Who, is referred to in the Torah, in speech, and elsewhere. The list was long, a lot longer than I would have guessed, and the discussion we had was really spirited. Different names spoke to different people for different reasons. (My favorite was HaMakom.)
Having spent the last several weeks perusing the Jewish blogosphere, though, I'm a bit unsure as to how I should handle "The Name." I don't want to offend, but I don't want to violate my own beliefs either. It seems to me that You-Know-Who is almost always mentioned by certain names but not others. HaShem comes to mind. Frankly, I dislike using the term. I understand some of the reasons why it's used, but it seems silly. Not as silly as using the ridiculous locution G-dash-d, but pretty close. I understand the point point of respecting The Name, in the sense that names and reputation are connected. But in a very fundamental sense, the name is not the thing, and particularly so in the case of You-Know-Who. We may be created in You-Know-Who's image, but as I understand it, HaShem (!) is entirely beyond our ability to comprehend much less describe. So why the fetish with the words? Especially given all the different names that are used in various sources, what's the point?
It seems to me that not using the G-word, A-word, or the Whatever Words One Isn't Supposed to Use is simply a way to distinguish or differentiate one's self from the less religious.
I have a couple of friends who are becoming more religious. One is kind of BT, the other not so much, but still, he's becoming more observant. Both of them recently started saying HaShem all the time in place of the G-word. For some reason I find this highly annoying. God is God is Adonai, is YHVH...what's the difference? In Islam, Allah is Allah. Sure, there are 99 other words used sometimes to refer to Allah, but the word itself -- Allah -- means God. Everywhere you go, it's al-hamdu lillah -- All praise to God! No batting around the bush.
Relatedly, the folks at jewfaq.org say that the prohibition against writing God's name is because it might accidentally get defaced. To wit,
What does any of this have to do with not saying God's name?!?
Having spent the last several weeks perusing the Jewish blogosphere, though, I'm a bit unsure as to how I should handle "The Name." I don't want to offend, but I don't want to violate my own beliefs either. It seems to me that You-Know-Who is almost always mentioned by certain names but not others. HaShem comes to mind. Frankly, I dislike using the term. I understand some of the reasons why it's used, but it seems silly. Not as silly as using the ridiculous locution G-dash-d, but pretty close. I understand the point point of respecting The Name, in the sense that names and reputation are connected. But in a very fundamental sense, the name is not the thing, and particularly so in the case of You-Know-Who. We may be created in You-Know-Who's image, but as I understand it, HaShem (!) is entirely beyond our ability to comprehend much less describe. So why the fetish with the words? Especially given all the different names that are used in various sources, what's the point?
It seems to me that not using the G-word, A-word, or the Whatever Words One Isn't Supposed to Use is simply a way to distinguish or differentiate one's self from the less religious.
I have a couple of friends who are becoming more religious. One is kind of BT, the other not so much, but still, he's becoming more observant. Both of them recently started saying HaShem all the time in place of the G-word. For some reason I find this highly annoying. God is God is Adonai, is YHVH...what's the difference? In Islam, Allah is Allah. Sure, there are 99 other words used sometimes to refer to Allah, but the word itself -- Allah -- means God. Everywhere you go, it's al-hamdu lillah -- All praise to God! No batting around the bush.
Relatedly, the folks at jewfaq.org say that the prohibition against writing God's name is because it might accidentally get defaced. To wit,
The commandment not to erase or deface the name of God comes from Deut. 12:3. In that passage, the people are commanded that when they take over the promised land, they should destroy all things related to the idolatrous religions of that region, and should utterly destroy the names of the local deities. Immediately afterwards, we are commanded not to do the same to our God. From this, the rabbis inferred that we are commanded not to destroy any holy thing, and not to erase or deface a Name of God.This is pure silliness if you ask me. The Torah tells us that things relating to other gods should be destroyed because they are idolatrous, and then the Rabbis turn around and constitute the name of God as an idol -- as a thing that can't be mistreated, mis-said, thrown away or so on. Devarim 12:4-5 -- the following verses -- say "Do not worship the LORD your God in like manner, but look only to the site that the LORD your God will choose amidst all your tribes as His habitaiton, to establish his name there. There you are to go..."
It is worth noting that this prohibition against erasing or defacing Names of God applies only to Names that are written in some kind of permanent form, and recent rabbinical decisions have held that writing on a computer is not a permanent form, thus it is not a violation to type God's Name into a computer and then backspace over it or cut and paste it, or copy and delete files with God's Name in them. However, once you print the document out, it becomes a permanent form. That is why observant Jews avoid writing a Name of God on web sites like this one or in newsgroup messages: because there is a risk that someone else will print it out and deface it.
What does any of this have to do with not saying God's name?!?
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